Soul Survivor this year kicked off for team with an activity about our ‘theme’ (Everything). We collectively (and consequently, individually) shared the ways/places/times we see God and we wrote these on several hundred light globes that were strung up across the main auditorium.

Last night we had a discussion around community and our community and building community with the Missio crew and Dave Andrews. We were reminded that God is good and merciful and just and these characteristics can be found in all kinds of places certainly not just in the typical Christian ideas’ where these things show up. God is all around us and in many things we maybe don’t’ want him to be.

I have recently read an exceptional book: ‘Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art’ by Madeline Le’Engle.

“If our lives are truly “hid with Christ in God,” the astounding thing is that this hiddenness is revealed in all that we do and say and write. What we are is going to be visible in our art, no matter how secular (on the surface) the subject may be.”
― Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

So here I am, in my rental in the North of Melbourne.
I have a kid, I work a bit – for myself and struggle with the tension of this and being a parent and giving my own life space. I am married to a teacher, he’s great, I’m super proud of him and we moved and changed a lot about our life so he could work in a disadvantaged school, doing the stuff he’s meant to be doing. And I often feel stuck at home not being terribly hmm… influential? Out doing ‘kingdom stuff’ (dumbest phrase if I ever heard one, but it’s late and my brain is a tad fried).
I want a house (eventually when we can afford one) and I want to travel even though sometimes I feel guilty about these ‘wants’ when clearly we already have so much.

And here is Jesus too.

Lets not aim for lights on hills, but to be leven in dough so mixed up you can’t tell the difference (pinched that one right from Mr. Andrews) There’s some Christianese for you to mull over when contemplating being in this world but not of it. eg. You are not a freaking alien with three eyes and your holiness cape come to rescue the world. You are human and are already here.

Christianity Church Life

Being present is something I struggle with. My inner world is like the Narnia to my England. I spend a lot of time in my head. This is part of my personality yes, but it is not always particularly healthy. With my relationships with others and in becoming a parent – being present is vital. All hail to my abstract reality because here is my wandering attention to the physical one. Last night I read this article: ‘Daily Rhythm at Home and it’s Lifelong Relevance‘.  I am encouraged to continue to pursue being present.

Rather than highlighting where I am not being present (hola, look at my life). Where I am already being present?

In breastfeeding Claire. I literally cannot do anything else. No that’s not quite true. I can play on my phone, there’s a whole external inner reality in the internet. But many times I cannot play on my phone and I certainly can no longer watch anything while I feed her or she doesn’t feed. I found this one of the hardest things in having a baby. I like to be busy and to get things done even if it is relevant to collating ideas etc. but I had to stop. I don’t always do this terribly well, but it is an enforced stop where I can – if I’m in a reasonable place use it to be present to what is going on. My life is richer for it.

Behind the camera. Oddly I am more present when I have a camera lens to my face – when I’m shooting a wedding. Perhaps it is the necessity to be finely tuned in to what is going on, to be attentive to the moments so as not to miss them. It teaches me to be observant and to be there in the moment.

I will keep looking out for places I am most present so as to continue to cultivate this stillness. There is joy hiding.

Baby Enneagram One Life Personality Photography

A brief shout out to a few friends of mine who are blogging the moments of life.

See Sammy Blog

Measured Words

In terms my own moments… the terribly odd March heatwave has crushed my motivation to do very much at all. It is an effort to keep the house clean and my spawning of sorting (a month or so back before I got busy with work) has left a trail of destruction that is messing with my perceived comfort levels. The study is a bomb. The baby is also so terribly not into sleeping its not funny, with a record of waking four times between 10 and 1am (what!? how is this even possible!). Lent continues… without me playing along terribly well (did you just read the few sentences above… they are quite clearly complaint) however it is making me much more aware of when I do ‘waste words’. Lent, this year, if I have not said before is about not complaining simply for the sake of it. Terribly enlightening (and perhaps a little depressing) to recognise how much of my conversation is really rather negative.

I have this ‘old’ song on record – accordingly. It is beautiful truth.

O Holy God of Truth
O loving God of mercy
Compassionate God of life
Forgiveness to me give

In my wanton talk
In my lying oath
In my foolish deeds
My empty speech

As Thou wast before
At my life’s beginning
Be Thou so again
At my journey’s end

Soul Survivor for the year fast approaches. I have been shooting some more weddings which makes me super happy and getting more photography enquiries which is exciting and I am going to to discuss what work could look like back at Blick (design studio) for a day or two a week later today… or not at all (beyond freelancing for them) – which is a scary prospect for the bank account but could be liberating. Our ‘diet’ continues, it’s not too hard and seeing some results is nice – fitting back into old clothes is even nicer.

There are more moments to come.

Blogging Christianity Design Life Photography

In order to return to my normal weight… today both Geoff and I started the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet. Its not too different to our usual fare except for one MAJOR thing: carbs. We eat a lot of pasta. It’s so damn easy, it’s so tasty. This is a higher protein, low carb diet. We aren’t specifically doing the exercise thing (yet) one thing at a time. It also limits snacking and soft-drink/juices.

Naturally I am hungry for snacks I don’t usually eat.

I currently weigh (approx, due to the fluxuating nature of your weight when breastfeeding) around 68kg. I would like by mid year to have lost 10kg, this is lower than my pre-pregnancy weight but I could’ve afforded to lose a few back then.

Tonight’s dinner smell delicious. Roast Lemon Thyme Chicken with red onion and pumpkin and steamed greens. Salad Rolls for lunch and Museli for Breakfast with a few bits of fruit for snacking on.

The other benefit of this small experiment is that we will cook a greater variety of food. I am a tad overwhelmed by the basics in some sense but practically it should be quite easy to follow. I need to sit down and sort a few things out so our grocery bill wont be astronomical – because theoretically that should improve too.

Day 1. 68kg. Muesli, Salad Roll, Fruit, Chicken.

Bookclub tonight. Oh dear, I do hope my pastry chef sister doesn’t bring something too good to pass up or there goes one of my 2 indulgences for the week.

Coffee and tea are allowed. This is rather important, I would probably not be trying this otherwise.

Cooking Experiments Life

With Geoff as a teacher and now me as a mum/working from home, we finally have a long summer holiday that overlaps. Claire is grunting away in her cot where I hope she will make it to 11am. Geoff is on his ipad playing some kind of game and drinking an enormous coffee. I am in the study, moseying about on the computer with my empty cup beside me after an excellent sleep-in where I was out about as cold as you can get. I love lazy mornings.

Later this month we are going away for four days for our first ‘family holiday’. I let myself be controlled by my spend thrift, tight ass brain and it nearly didn’t happen. We need to make these memories.

Some of my fondest memories are of family holidays, some of them are bitter and akin to gale force winds while camping with wombats shoving their faces and bums at you through a tent, all out wars over board games and endless maths homework in the retro’est of shacks with the worst weather while being sick. But most of them are of togetherness, fun, family, seeing new places and trying new things. Of climbing the Pinnacle in the Grampians. Of hiking up the top of a mountain in the Flinders ranges – just me and dad, of lying on the beach in Mallacoota scouring the paper to see if I’d made it in for a study score over 40, of canasta and 500, of tenting with Laura while the rest of the family were in a caravan, of lazy afternoons reading on the beach, icecream in Sorrento, walking the back-beach in Rye, damper and campfires and marshmallows and bagpipes in the middle of nowhere, of walks by myself in early morning up lonely hills, roadtrips with time passing games, and card game after board game after card game.

My family did holidays real good. I’d like to do the same.

 

Holidays Life