Virtually Paul

Stuff Christians Like

This is potentially the funniest Christian blog I’ve ever come across:

Stuff Christians Like

One

This week is a milestone is the life of Paul. It’s officially one year since I moved across the city to the eastern suburbs.

In that time, I’ve swapped 23+ years in a familiar church community, for a fresh start at Yarra Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship. I’ve moved house four times. I’ve worked on audits at a stack of companies and associations. I’ve led on a kids camp. I’ve occasionally helped to lead a youth group. I’ve been a groomsman in a wedding. I’ve been to Soul Survivor. I have purchased and watched almost seven seasons of Stargate: SG-1 on DVD. I’ve spent some weekends in Traralgon and Buxton. Last week, I went to a wedding and a “Narnia” themed 21st birthday party on the same night.

I remember really struggling when I first made the move. I remember feeling stranded and alone. I remember worrying about whether people were accepting me and not feeling as though I had a place. If people took an interest in getting to know me, it wouldn’t take very long for some painful stuff that I was still sorting through to bubble up in one way or another. Looking back on it now, I’m realising that I didn’t enjoy the re-establishing process as much as I could have. I think I probably did that to myself. I had a few too many narrow expectations of what I was looking for. I failed to realise the opportunity I had to embrace my new community context, even when I was hurting.

These days, I feel like I have my feet planted much more firmly on the ground. It didn’t happen in the way I expected though. None of my narrow expectations have been met. Instead, I’ve found myself in community with a really diverse bunch of people, who all have their own stories, their own expectations, their own painful memories, their own hope and their own faith. I want to share in those things with them.

I thought I was looking for my place in the world. I think I’d rather just be a part of things where I am and see what comes of it. It’s a liberating conclusion. There are a number of people to whom I feel deeply grateful - people who walked alongside me for the past year while I was figuring this stuff out - who saw me at my worst and at times, wore the brunt of it. You know who you are. Thank you, sincerely, for being there and for your graciousness.

Bittersweet

This quote encapsulates some things that have been weighing on my mind recently about people my age. This kind of thing really worries me and I’ve been wondering how I can be an influence to the contrary.

“A person who is full tramples on honeycomb, but to a hungry person, any bitter thing is sweet.” Too many times young adults run around so starved for any kind of relationship that they choose any warm body to fill the void. They’ll take a “bitter” relationship just to have a relationship, rather than resting in the contentment God provides.

Read the whole article over at Threads

OK…spill

My housemate has stumbled across an idea that could change the world.  It could certainly change my sister’s world because she spills things everywhere a couple of times a day.
I just managed to kick over a half-filled cup of tea on the coffee table.  Not fun.  Time to put the laptop down on the couch and get ready to deal with the aftermath.  I’m not happy.

Tim hears what’s going on and appears from the kitchen, grabbing some towels on the way and he’s in there helping to get the cleanup effort started.  Within three minutes, order was restored to the world of the loungeroom.

Tim’s rationale, which I liked enough to blog about, was that everybody finds it really depressing when they have to clean up something that they’ve just spilled themselves.  However, when you’re not the clown who did the spilling, it actually isn’t that hard to sort it out quickly because you’re not beating yourself up about being a klutz at the same time as solving the problem.

So, the moral of the story is, next time someone spills something, help them to clean it up and then explain the theory to them and invite them to pay it forward. I hope I’m nice enough to be helpful (and that I actually remember) when the shoe eventually ends up on the other foot.

Heart Warming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-j9B-eqJpo

Question Marks

I have question marks everywhere at the moment and I’m not entirely sure what to do with them. The only resolution I’ve been able to come to, is that the question marks have been there all along. It’s so easy to construct a sense of safety from things that you tell yourself will never change. Yet here I am, living on the opposite side of the city to everything that’s familiar to me, working in a field that I never thought I’d work in. It’s hard sometimes. I miss the familiarity of a lifestyle where predetermined actions produced predictable results. I miss being part of a wider social network where I have a deep history of interconnectedness with the others around me. Unquestionably, I have a few runs on the board over here but it’s not the same.

Part of that is just the reality of relocating, making new connections. I’m cool with that. Things will start to feel a bit more consistent with time. I have consolidated some good friendships here, so this isn’t an exercise in comparing the old to the new.

The difference is that a long time ago, I had an unwavering, somewhat innocent ability to trust that everything was OK and to not be threatened by looming question marks because I thought I had a bunch of full-stops around me - things that were definite and resolute, holding me in place.

I’m starting to entertain the idea that full-stops are the things we use to make ourselves feel safe from the question marks. It’s not until one of our non-negotiable assumptions is disrupted by circumstance that we start to wonder if we really do have all of the answers that we need. I think some people probably spend their whole lives defending their full-stops because this feels much, much safer than being confronted by things that they can neither reconcile nor control. I think this is what it means to be religious.

Of course, it’s extremely trendy to be relativistic and not commit verbally to believing anything. I think that’s probably a cop-out though because on the surface you’re making sure that no one ever has a chance to tell you that you’re wrong… but you’re still being just as defensive about the question marks as the people who try to fight them by being dogmatic. I don’t think anyone is prepared to give up all of their full-stops. I don’t think I am. I’m not sure where this leaves me.

This post is way too introspective but I hope you like the picture - I made it myself.

Evicted, sort of

I really can’t catch a break with housing at the moment.  I moved in to a new bachelor pad not all that long ago which really is a fantastic house.  The rent is extremely good for the result.  One of my housemates has lived there for over 5 years, so it’s fully furnished and set up.  We’ve also proved to be the cleanest bunch of bachelors I have ever shared with.   Having only moved in a month ago, it all turned rather sour yesterday.

As soon as I walked in the door after work last night, my housemate told me that he’d received a call from the agents to inform him that the landlords have had some changes in their circumstances and have decided to move in to the property.  We now have 67 days to vacate.  I’m spewing that I didn’t ask for a 12 month lease when I had the chance.  It’s one thing for my housemate who has lived there for years to get the eventual wind-up as that’s the nature of the game.  It’s another thing entirely to allow someone to move in (ie. me) for the sake of pocketing a couple of months rent before they take up residence again.  I’m not happy but there’s not an awful lot that I can do about it.  At this stage the three of us will probably just look around for somewhere else to rent as a trio, so it won’t be immeasurably disruptive, just extremely inconvenient.

If anyone has any suggested solutions, by all means let me know!

Even Easter

I think it’s been a while between posts. I’m currently sitting with the Gush admin team in a loungeroom somewhere near Sale. I’m spending the Easter weekend catching up with the guys in Gippsland. It seemed to be an appropriate time to do it, given that this is even east-er than Ringwood. Tee hee.

We spent this afternoon doing a bit of sightseeing around country Victoria, including stops at Tyers Lookout (pictured), the takeaway shop in Rawson and the Thompson Dam.

Apparently I have to get back to the ‘admin team meeting’ now.

East again

I’ve found a house!  I move into a new share house on Monday, not all that far away from the one I used to share with Geoff.

It has all happened reasonably quickly so it feels a bit surreal.  It’s a nice place though and I get the sense I’m really going to enjoy the coming months.  I’ll be living extremely close to work, I’ll have my own space, and for the first time since high school I’m not studying anything this semester.  Not to mention that EastLink opens sooner or later, which will make it nice and easy to visit the family home from my new bachelor pad.

Certifiably Graduated

I got my summer semester results today.  I now have a Graduate Certificate in Chartered Accounting Foundations in spite of Deakin University.  That means I’m now qualified to start the Chartered Accountants Progam at some point in the future.

I have an extremely low opinion of the delivery of the Grad Cert course (so if you’re considering doing it… look into it thoroughly first and see if you think you can stomach what’s on offer).  However, I got through with a distinction average.  Yay for that.