Hello all.
It was a supremely good time!
Very challenged
Most fantastic time, holiday’ish to be out of the ‘norm’ despite being run flat out for the past six days. I really didn’t have any time to think – which was a GOOD thing because my brain wanted the break.
Extremely tired.
maybe I should go away more often, I like getting 20+ emails and having some ridiculous 170+ blog entries to catch up on (or ditch).
Cheerio.
I’m off now or soon or soonish.
Don’t expect blogs for a few days, at least until Thursday 22nd and that’d be pushing it. I dare say all I’ll want to do is sleep.
Prayer would be great for the kids, the leaders etc…
I’ve been wondering what I will blog. I could give the run down of the day. I could elaborate extensively on a couple of bits of reading that Tim shoved my way last night. I could talk about some discussion we had at young adults last night. I could romanticise the whole, ‘sit and write’ thing and pretend for a little while that I’m not sitting in a once again messy room. I could go through how I’m minorly freaked out about leading on this camp and then throw mental ropes back to some past thing about why I am like I am. I could attempt to explore a verse I’ve come across at least twice tonight. Or I could give you the whole lot. Chronology is a simple technique. Perhaps I’ll just give bits and pieces of whatever eventuates…
Most of the young adults talk I found drew back to what we are doing in terms of being a group. What direction do we want it to take. It was maybe not exactly the intended purpose of the evening but it came up fairly significantly through some meandering discussion that tangented far too much for my comfort but was still positive.
We have a spent a goodly amount of time discussing the Holy Spirit and now about direction that we as a group should be going. Collective desire (generalising) as I see it, is to look at the early church. Go back to Acts etc. Read up. Live it a bit more. Good. Fine. Cool. Talk wove around this a little with a few pushing the idea fairly strongly, several giving examples of how yes in principle it’s good thing, warnings on how it can be taken too far etc. Laura mentioned Jesus. Funny that. We had all but decided to go and spend the next while looking at Acts and me with this uncomfortable feeling that had stuck with me, had a very brief and focused discussion with Jess H – whom I was sitting next to.
Understand that I find it quite difficult to work out exactly how I want to say something and would prefer to get everything I want spoken out there rather than just a few choice morsels (or leftovers) that make it out my mouth with good stuff left behind. One on one’s or small groups I find easier. Jess persisted in making my words known as she does with most everyone, and started possibly not quite expressing exactly what I would’ve liked – which basically called for preventive action which means I opened my mouth, shut it and they made continue.
It had not been brushed over exactly and I’m sure things would’ve been fine spending time looking at the early church and how they did things. I think I was more satisfied that I’d uncovered what’s been bothering me about this kind of thing. The early church to me is a good example, but it is not where we should go to get our model from. They were responding to the life and teachings (if you want to call it that), the person of Jesus and working out with I’m sure much trepidation how to live life as Christians in their world. Individually (Personally) I’d prefer to go back and look at the ‘radical’ way Jesus lived first before the ‘radical’ way they did it. I am as much in doubt about any of this as to finding some kind of ‘way forward’, I’m entirely positive that looking at the early church is a reasonable place to work from. Anyway somehow my “personal” I’ve found the light switch to a past dilema, was taken on board by me voicing my disquiet and we are starting by looking at the gospel of Luke and Jesus in his Ministry before we tackle Acts. Coolness for me because it’s how I’d like to do it. I’m not really sure how it’s going to work, but hey something’s bound to come together. On this, one part of the Bible does not carry more weight to me than others, but I guess I find Jesus just a better starting point…
I just hope that the above doesn’t sound too snobby. I like being right, perhaps it was just common sense, perhaps it was the Holy Spirit, there are some things – those with wider implications that I’d rather not be held responsible for.
…hmm just found this:
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.” – Ephesians 2:19-21
interesting.
cor·ner·stone also corner stone
1. A stone at the corner of a building uniting two intersecting walls; a quoin.
2. Such a stone, often inscribed, laid at a ceremony marking the origin of a building.
Something that Tim gave me to read last night was on Community. I’m guessing it’s pertinent to continue down that line now that I’ve mentioned part of what’s going on in what has become my primary community.
So I have this photocopied six pages or so of a chapter from what I’ve worked out to be an M. Scott Peck book. A psychologist – Tim – go figure!
A footnote mentions the common process of community as what we discussed some time last year with Rowan. Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.
We are technically a very ‘baby’ community. Perhaps it’s a good thing to acknowledge the ‘cornerstone’ first in our beginnings. Our young adults group is made up of about 25 thereabouts and the majority are fairly new to the church. We have ‘bonded’ in some way or means very quickly. I respect and love everyone in the group and I am entirely astounded that it seems to work so well despite a vast range of personalities. In some way it seems too good to be true, but I think God has bought me from where I’ve needed to see something ‘that good’ to understand it is possible beyond the very tempoary domain that Year in the Son gave me. I have not yet had the privaliage of hearing others stories about what they’ve come through or from. That will come.
My favourite memory of the last community experience I had (YITS) and probably will remain a favourite for the rest of my life would have been the evening up at Marysville where I found a full, terrifying and wonderful experience of true community. Oddly enough Peck describes a similar situation,
“When its death has been completed, open and empty, the group enters community. In this final stage a soft quietness descends. It is a kind of peace. The room is bathed in peace. Then, quietly, a member begins to talk about herself. She is being very vulnerable. She is speaking of the deepest part of herself. The group hangs on each word. No one realised she was capable of such eloquence.
When she is finished there is a hush. It goes on a long time. But it does not seem long. There is no uneasiness in this silence. Slowly out of the silence, another member begins to talk. He too is speaking very deeply, very personally, about himself. He is not trying to respond to her. It’s not about she but he who is the subject. Yet the other members of the group do not sense he has ignored her. What they feel is that it is as if he is laying himself down next to her on an altar…
…If it is so channeled, life in community may touch upon something perhaps even deeper than joy. There are a few who repeatedly seek out brief experiences of community as if such episodes were some sort of ‘fix’. This is not to be decried. We all need ‘fixes’ of joy in our lives. But what repeatedly draws me into community is something more. When I am with a group of human beings commited to hanging in there through both the agony and the joy of community, I have a dim sense that I am participating in a phenomenon for which there is only one word. I almost hesitate to use it. The word is “glory”.”
I do hope and pray that despite our apparent closeness as a group and how it ‘works so well’ will deepen. We have a long way to go yet. There is no point continuing if we cannot grow together.
I am encouraged when like last night I was requested something pretty simple from James. “When you get back, let us know how it goes with the kiddies”. Nice to know people around you have some kind of interest in your life.
Tomorrow evening I am driving up to the ESA campsite to lead on a junior camp for a week. This can explain my absence on the blogging side of things. I’m not sure quite what posessed me to agree to going along. Probably because Paul, ‘needed more female leaders’ and I think he’s a pretty cool person and worth helping out.
What I face now is that, I haven’t lead anything kids related (except one short hour with Terry’s Tucker Kids) for at least two years. I am not the most comfortable doing so. I feel majorly awkward about it. I don’t find it the easiest thing to get down, be silly and I guess ‘be a kid’.
It’s funny, when I think about it. The day we flew back to Australia was probably the day I stopped ‘playing’ in any particular sense of the word. Yes I was fifteen and I sure hope I grew up a bit before then, but I still enjoyed certain aspects of things I would probably not feel all to comfortable in doing now.
It’s not so much ‘being a kid’ that I’ll have to revert to – please no haha. Or you’ll have a bossy loud-mouthed little girl who always strives to get her own way. More the fact that I’ll have the opportunity and almost the requirement (if I am to be at all involved) to let go and have a bit of fun.
I am full of theories, and thoughts and ideas, I like to laugh, I can on the odd occasion be funny even, but fun, letting lose, being enthusiastic etc. when I’m really being truthful is something I find very difficult.
So there you go. Next week will be a challenge.
…and to explain the blog title? Well you might just have to hope Analise blogs on that. Because I’m through.
I suppose I’d better do a ‘credit the goldfish’ post. I flushed a rather dead, less orange than before Einstein (one of my fish) the other night.
I had two fish both of which I’m rather impressed they’ve lasted so long, almost two years! I rarely feed them now and forget to clean the tank (or remember but just can’t be bothered).
To be really honest, I’ve been kind of hoping they’d die so I can reclaim some desk space – the tank I have is pretty big.
Archimedes the white fish lives on. Am I really that cruel?
I made some rash promise back in the last post to investigate ‘change’. Now I have to backtrack and regurgiate some thoughts from Sunday and guess what, it’s Tuesday! My memory is not that good.
Anyway as I’m a dilligent brain on a body, I take notes during the sermon (to be really truthful it’s only because I can’t concentrate very well any other way). The problem was this week I don’t think I added any extra Bec thoughts to the steady stream of Rob’s – I just thought them. How typical. So I might just have to rethink them. It’s 11:30 already, so we’ll just have to see how it pans out.
Change.
Definitely not a foreign topic. Love it, hate it. Know it back to front. Aside from the ‘patience’ dilema, change has probably been the biggest pain in the butt to date. I hope I’ve made some kind of peace with the thing because I am certainly of the opinion that it can only be good for us, as well as right and even Godly (in the correct context).
I do not particularly wish to restate my whole life history (critical incidents part 2 might give some insight and this past post on change) but change plays a pretty violent part in most mk’s lives and at least has some kind of role in everyone elses.
It did not surprise me too much on Sunday when the data projector threw up ‘Safety and Uncertainty’ and Rob commenced his spiel, considering that’s a little of what the church is going through at the moment.
I suppose what I really want to talk about here is not change but risk – which is what often needs to come when change is involved.
As many of you might know, I’m not perhaps the biggest of risk takers particularly when it comes to things that might have some kind of painful aftereffect. I could psycho-analyse it back to various childhood incidents, but for the sake of not boring either of us I wont – nor would it be useful and would probably sound like a big fat collection of excuses.
Not to entirely box myself as a self-coddled individual – I’ve probably come in leaps and bounds since I started realising you do have to act in order to provoke, grow and move with change. I’ve taken more risks than I would’ve liked the past few years.
Familiarity is a word that I guess associates itself quite well with both change and risk. I think the difference is that we probably have less control over change and far more over risk. There is a definite proactivity about risk.
The proactive nature of it all is quite a call when you look at it from the God angle. Risk involves exercising some kind of courage – which means there has to be fear there (however deeply buried) or it would not be courageous and hence there’s got to be trust. Be it hopefully in God.
I am entirely thinking outloud but if we let risk play a part in our lives as Christians, surely this is a way of living as God wants us to, an act of worship even.
Dependance upon God is a way of acknowledging his utimate control.
Despite the thoroughly cliched nature of Psalm 23 – I happen to like it excessively and as it sits on the bottom of my cupboard door I can read it (Message version) from my bed. I like it as much for what it says about God as for the typical reassurance means.
The non-risk taking part of me still often gets over-ruled by the ‘I like a challenge’ part of me. Yes, I’m a walking contradiction.
So the challenge I think God’s been trying to get through to me lately is to allow a bit more of the risk element in. Challenge lets me stretch myself a bit, but still probably resides somewhat in control. Then again perhaps it’s all the same thing?
Whatever the case,
Saftey doesn’t get you very far.
I don’t think we were made to live particularly ‘safe’ lives.
I don’t think we can call ourselves Christians and be passive, cling to ‘the promises of God’ and ‘never do anything’ people.
I don’t think we can be too settled, or too complacent.
Our home is with God yes, we do need to sometimes, “Be still and know”, but it’s going to be a lot harder to know God when things never alter, when we never find the need for Him. A beautiful balance of revelling in what we know of God and a decent kick up the but to actually live like we know who God is with the life we’ve been given.
Psalm 84 speaks fairly decently about trust. Go and read it.
It’s been late night ramble and I’m not even sure if it came to any particular point. So I’m curious to hear from you if you have more thoughts on this.