27. What do you believe?

It seems that question just prompts a creed, really, doesn't it? Here's the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I like the creeds. They're statements of faith that were fought for, and which have been passed down among Christians for hundreds of years. I know with liturgy, people can get into the habit of just saying the words - much like anything in church, I guess, it can be easy to go through the motions and no one really knows what's going on in your heart. But when you stop and read through the creeds, and if you actually believe what they say, they are most enriching and affirming. They remind me of the solid rock on which I stand.

The Nicene creed has a lovely pace, and a wonderful eschatology - reminding us that we're looking for the end of this world and the life of the world to come. Every day I long for Jesus to return and set this crumbling world to rights, to take away mourning and suffering and pain. I rejoice that because I believe, I am already part of God's family and will be part of that new creation forever.

But I didn't always believe all this. Even though I grew up in a Christian home, it took a long time for me to accept this truth for myself and to turn my life around (or let it be turned around!). If you want to know the thinking behind how I got here, check out Two Ways to Live. Or talk to me. I'd love to talk to you about it.

what a week

I went to work this morning and lasted an hour before the headache hit and I had to come home and lie down. I guess if you're going to be sick at home, a cold rainy day is a good one to choose!

I watched a disc of West Wing season 1 and slept under my blanket with my hot water bottle. It's been a pretty huge week and a bit. I think I'm going to give up on trying to write anything extensive about Driscoll and all the things I went to hear him at, but I'll do a summary.

Engage
Guan, Mary and I drove up to the mountains in the late afternoon last Friday. We were the first to arrive at our accommodation, The Blue House, where we got set up and ate shepherd's pie for dinner. Mary elected to stay home and have an early night, and Guan and I went to the convention centre and met up with the others.


Mark Driscoll gave four talks over the weekend, and his bombast and difficult challenges were well-tempered by Don Carson's reasonably straightforward exegetical preaching. They were a good combination - I think too much of one or the other would have been a problem.

I really enjoyed seeing Driscoll give a talk; I've listened to a few podcasts and read some of his writing, but he definitely has a 'watchable quality' (as Annabeth on the West Wing would say). But that's not to say he's all style and no substance. He packs a lot into his talks, and goes off on a lot of 'riffs', and doesn't fail to tie his theology in with living life. In fact, he dispensed with his third talk altogether to answer questions from the crowd, as he had observed that in Sydney there is a lot of good solid theological teaching but people had a hunger for practical application of what they were learning. As the questions were SMSed in, people were free to ask anything they wanted without fear of embarrassment, so there were predictably mostly questions on relationships, sex, family and things like that.

It was the end of this question time that he answered a question about why men should leave home younger than they generally do (ie, mid to late twenties). That's been one of his big themes while he's been speaking in Australia, challenging young men with the 'adultescence' mindset to grow up (sorry, I hate that term, but it fits). His thinking is that no woman is going to want to marry a man whose mom still tucks him into bed with his Star Wars sheets and footy pyjamas (when he speaks in the States, it's Star Wars pyjamas, but I guess he was tailoring the message to the audience), so guys should grow up, get a job, leave home, show they can provide for a family, get married, etc, etc.

He also talked about the responsibility fathers have towards their daughters to protect them, nurture them, encourage them to make good decisions and teach them discernment about men. He said some very good stuff here, but then it just started hammering into me that this was something sorely lacking in my relationship with my own father and how I had made some colossal mistakes and trusted some very dodgy people because I hadn't had a good model in regards to men as I grew up (not saying dad doesn't love me, or that I'm not also culpable in the decision making/wilfulness of the whole thing, but I didn't start off with a very solid foundation). It made me immensely sad, and by the time we got back to the house for lunch, I kind of lost it, cried all over my lovely friends, had to go and lie down and sleep it off for the rest of the afternoon.


But it was nice hanging out with the Beilharzes, the Un families and Elsie. By the end of the weekend, the big talks, the 2000 people and not sleeping very well, I was glad to be home and back in my own bed.

Ministry Intensive
As a National Office team, we went to this together and saw many other AFES staffworkers there. Again, it was the Driscoll and Carson double-act, with Kent and Barbara Hughes as well. Carson repeated one of his talks from Engage, which was a bit of a shame as I'm guessing a good number of people there had been at Engage (and apparently he wasn't supposed to give the same talk twice!).

In his second talk Driscoll was hard hitting and confrontational about what, as an outsider, he saw were the reasons that evangelism was being hampered in Sydney (Gordo gives a pretty thorough rundown if you're interested). I thought it was a brilliant talk, and really something only an outside observer could deliver.

I got cranky after lunch when we were separated into men and women and told which talk to go to, so I skipped Barbara Hughes' talk on Evangelism in the Home. Was too tired to go to Carson's big talk in the evening, and hadn't really perked up much by the next morning. I didn't really get much out of Kent Hughes' talk on Pastoring from the Pulpit but then I guess it wasn't really aimed at me.


Was supposed to go to the New College Lecture series on God and the Artist, but I was so completely drained by Tuesday night I didn't go. As I mentioned a couple of posts back, on Wednesday I resigned from work and hadn't recovered any more energy so didn't go to that night's lecture. And on Thursday I was unexpectedly given a ticket to Bek Caines's PhD graduation ceremony, so I went to that and missed the lectures entirely!


So it's probably no wonder that today I'm out for the count.

Burn your plastic Jesus

So Wednesday night was Burn Your Plastic Jesus at the Entertainment Centre with Mark Driscoll from Seattle's Mars Hill Church. This won't mean much to the non-Christians among you, but take it from me, Driscoll is the hot ticket amongst the uni-age set in terms of speakers you have to go and hear preach. He's been in Australia for almost a month holidaying with his family, who have now returned home to the US to leave Driscoll to work. And he works hard! Seems he's speaking just about every day/night at various places in Sydney, the Central Coast and Brisbane until he goes home next week.

Anyway, back to Wednesday. I hadn't planned to go to this event because I'm going to the Engage conference this weekend and a Ministry Intensive next week that both Driscoll and Don Carson are speaking at, and I didn't know that I needed another dose. But Mark and Lu had a spare ticket and I thought 'why not?'

I'm glad I went!

As Mark and I bussed into town, went to King's Comics and wandered down to Dixon St to meet the other Wild St Church people for dinner, we played Spot the Church Group. They just stand out so much from everyone else! We couldn't really work out why, but you just knew which ones were Christians. By the time we left the food court and the place had filled up, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a non-Christian (and the food court staff seemed a little bemused by it). But it's not surprising, as there were reportedly 10,000 people converging on the Entertainment Centre for this event. I enjoyed the chance to hang out with church people (especially the nutty youth groupers), and at dinner I had a whole plate of dumplings to myself, which was great.
As for the event itself, the staging was slick as a rock concert with the difference being that the house lights stayed up the whole time. The Engage band was full of familiar faces, and they did a great job - there is nothing quite like singing to God with 10,000 people! Though I was surprised at the amount of singing we did; I'm sure the non-Christians in the audience wouldn't have been too comfortable about it, and perhaps this could have been offset by someone from the front saying something like "One of the things we do when we gather together is sing praise to God - we'd love you to join in, but if you don't feel comfortable you don't have to". Anyway that's a minor gripe - from my point of view, the music was excellent. Nathan Tasker played a couple of songs with his band, but I didn't think that added a great deal to the night.
There was the obligatory screening of videoed vox pops, people saying what they thought of Jesus - if they thought of him at all. I was especially saddened by the young mother who was quite defensive about it and said basically her world was her children and family and she'd never thought about Jesus before so why should she bother now? He didn't have anything to do with her.

Then Mark Driscoll came out and spoke for about an hour and a half. As a speaker, he is a friendly, funny man with a relaxed style and an easy-to-listen-to voice. He dissects and critiques culture especially well, and he is not at all ashamed or timid about what he believes. He spent the first chunk of his talk tearing down seven versions of Jesus he thinks people hold up that have nothing much to do with the actual Jesus (though he never referred to the passage from Revelation 19 that had been read beforehand, which I thought was a little odd). In the process he challenged and rebuked us, but also made us laugh a lot. The pitch was a little hard to work out initially, but he had something to say to the committed Christians, the fringe Christians and the non-Christians, and I thought he covered his bases well. He then took questions (via SMS!), and answered them gently but forthrightly. Then in the last section he talked about the real Jesus that we see in the Bible and why we should have relationship with him. If you're interested, you can download the talk for $2 at KCC - it's funny, engaging, challenging and well worth a listen. You can watch the clip below from Sydney Anglicans for a taste:

At the end of the night, he invited people to stand if they had decided to become Christians, or if they wanted prayer for something, and he asked the Christians sitting around them to pray. I had expected something like this to happen, as it's a fairly common end to a big event like this (they used to do 'altar calls' where they'd get people to go up the front, which is even more confronting), but it did take a while for people to start moving. It would have taken a lot of courage for people to stand up in full view of the entire Entertainment Centre, but gradually, as he spoke and kept encouraging people to stand, people started getting up. I don't know how many there were altogether, it wasn't a huge number, but there were a fair few. And then as the musos played quietly, we were asked to pray. I found it incredibly moving, looking around the room at this sea of people sitting, and here and there clumps of people standing together, praying. Gaz said it reminded him of white blood cells grouping together. I was so struck by the face of this one girl standing near us, her eyes closed, tears on her face, and a look of utter conviction.

It's a hard thing if you've made such a life-changing decision to go from a context like that back into the hard, gritty world. I really hope and pray that those people who decided to become Christians on Wednesday keep exploring God's word, that they are supported and loved by the friends who took them along to the event, and that God would continue to grow them in the knowledge and love of him.

And now I have to finish packing to go off to the mountains for Engage. Should be a great weekend!

words

So as I said, the latest Salt Magazine is out. We've gotten heaps of really positive feedback about it, which is always encouraging!

One thing that I find curious, though, is how people deliver criticisms. We had one letter from a supporter who largely praised the magazine, had a couple of quibbles about certain points in some of the articles, but was particularly annoyed by the "stupid use of colour" on one of the pages where the text was over the top of a grey background. I do take her point, if you are in your 80s (as she is) and your eyesight isn't perfect it might not be that easy to read. But:

a) it's not designed for 80 year olds, it's designed for uni students who presumably don't have as much difficulty reading over that kind of design (and personally, in the article she referred to, I had no trouble reading it);
b) how is it helpful to use the word 'stupid'?

I've read (and been on the receiving end) of some really nasty criticism/feedback in the secular world, and of course by comparison this is exceedingly mild. I know that people are generally fairly careless in their giving of feedback, especially when it's done via letter or email or on a forum where they don't actually have to speak to the person face to face. But something in me is disappointed that this Christian, who wasn't backward in telling us what she thought about theological points we had raised, wasn't a little more gracious in her word choice. Not to say that she shouldn't have written the letter, but maybe she should have considered whether the person who made that "stupid use of colour" was actually going to read the letter herself.

I'm not really upset about it, especially as she said some other lovely things about the magazine. I just thought it was a chance to raise (yet again), how important words are, and how careful we need to be with them.

now is the winter of our discontent

I never know how to write about being a single Christian woman without it sounding like a big whinge. And some people I think find it a bit too personal, especially talking about this stuff on something as public as a blog. But I think it's something worth writing about honestly because it's something I and many of my peers struggle with, and there must be some value in expressing that. Surely. (At least it can help the praying types to know what to pray for when they want to pray for me!)

Generally, I am quite happy with the way things are, I'm pretty content. I'm reasonably independent, I'm capable, I have a good job, I live in a lovely place, I have lots of wonderful friends and family and I'm valued for who I am as a person. But it seems that when I acknowledge aloud that I'm content, that's usually when the doubt creeps in and I start to feel most discontent and wonder why it is that I'm in this situation. I start to think about past mistakes and wonder whether I've screwed things up irreparably. I start to feel frustrated about who I am and what I have and all I can think about is what I haven't got and how I'm getting older and what if it gets to a point where it's all 'too late'?

Of course I am well aware of the pitfalls, sadnesses and loneliness within marriages at times, even when they're good ones. And I know parenthood is a tough road. I don't for one minute think that being a wife or mother would instantly fulfil me or make me eternally joyful or stop me being sick or suddenly cure my depression. And yet...

It's not so much the grand passion and romance that I start to dream about, but little things that speak of a deeper commitment and intimacy. Things borne of friendship and comfort and familiarity and wonder. I don't dream of a Broadway romance by any means, but there is something in Eliza Doolittle's simple wish - "Someone's head resting on my knee / warm and tender as he can be / who takes good care of me / oh wouldn't it be luverly?"

It's such a test of my faith, because I have to trust God that he's got a purpose for me that may involve a husband and a family one day...or it may not. And yet when I'm feeling low, I feel like wailing, "But why can't I have those things? What's wrong with me? I'm great with kids, aren't I? I'd be a great wife! Isn't this what I was made for?"

So. Please pray for me. Pray that I would remember that God has forgiven me all my past mistakes (and all my future ones too!). Pray that I would be grateful for what he has generously given me and not constantly wishing for something else, that I would find true contentment in him. Pray that I would trust him and be patient.

just put it down

This morning I was sitting on the back step in the sun, watching the cat prowl around the half-weeded garden. It was one of those really lovely, simple, satisfying moments. My first thought was, "We're so lucky to live here", which I immediately corrected to "We're so blessed". I'm not equating luck with blessings by any means; rather, I am acknowledging that all these good things we have don't just happen to us by chance, or by anything that we have maneuvered, but they are given to us by a loving and generous God.

Then I went inside to have my breakfast, and unwrapped the Sunday paper.

If there was ever a thing that showed up the contrast between the Christian life and what the world has to offer, it is the lifestyle section of the Sun-Herald. Maybe there are only some of us who are susceptible to this, but I find the rare occasions when I flick through the 'S' supplement of the Sun-Herald leave me feeling dissatisfied, feeling bad about myself, and with a strange urge to go shopping.

I ate my porridge and drank my coffee, idly scanning over photos of celebrities and party people, an article defending the use of swearing in everyday conversation, and a profile on Angelina Jolie, the "mighty-hearted actress" who "finds there is no rest for a beautiful, wanted woman". But the thing that finally made me shove the paper away was the box titled, "Don a dog tag to win in the style stakes", which offered solutions for both the 'filthy rich' and 'dirt poor' fashion conscious who think wearing a little metal disc on a chain around their necks will make them the envy of all. The filthy rich option was an Emporio Armani tag for a cool $399 and the dirt poor? Well thank goodness that those people who are having trouble paying the bills and buying enough nutritious food will be able to be cutting edge for only $119 - what a bargain for a silly little bit of metal with some brand's logo stamped on it.

(I was only up to page 11 of a 32-page supplement. Thank goodness I didn't feel compelled to read right to the end, or this rant might have been a lot longer!)

I'll be better served going back outside and finishing off my gardening job from yesterday, and thinking more about the many blessings God has given me, which don't involve finding my identity in clothing and accessories. Maybe the newspaper will make a good base for one of my veggie beds...

owlet

owlet, originally uploaded by the procrastinatrix.

I made this while watching Gilmore Girls this afternoon. My very first amigurumi!

He arose

This morning mum and I got up in the darkness and went to Coogee Beach for the annual Easter Sonrise service, which is put on by a bunch of local churches. I had forgotten that we were going to it, so it's just as well I didn't go out late last night! St Martin's is usually part of the Sonrise Service but I guess since Jeremy left, the other churches haven't really kept St Martin's in the loop about things; our service times weren't printed on the back of the sheet and I don't think anyone had actually told the folk at St M's what was going on. Though, to be fair, hardly anyone from St M's usually goes anyway.
Mum and I turned up at the usual time of a bit after 6am, realising after we had gotten up that the service would probably be an hour later because of daylight saving things and the fact that Easter is so early this year. That was alright though, cos we could just sit quietly in the dark and watch the light start to filter in over God's beautiful creation (instead of pelting down Coogee Bay Road, late for the service, like we normally do). We ate hot cross buns and drank coffee and chatted about what Jesus means to us.
I've been struck this year by Jesus' full knowledge of the immense sacrifice he was making. The passage in Luke that talks about him sweating blood as he prayed in Gethsemane that God would give him the strength to go through with it, to trust his Father, to take on the sin of the world, to save us - it's just mind-boggling. There's no way we can actually understand how that would have felt. Then to go from that to calmly and confidently accepting what had to happen. The horror of his beating and crucifixion. The three days cut off from the Father. And then rising, triumphant, powerful, and yet still someone real, someone you could touch, a man of flesh and bones who still wanted to share in breakfast with his friends, even though he had just literally gone through hell for them. The complexity of who Jesus is doesn't detract from the simple fact that he loves us enough to die for us, so that we can share eternity with him. That is just awesome.
And yet we are so earth bound. Although I really like the idea of the Sonrise Service, this year (as with every year) it puzzles me why they run it the way they do - mainly in regards to the music. The very first year they ran this service, they set up the PA and played the Halleujah Chorus as the sun came up, and that was just wonderful - you just stood there, drinking in the sunrise, the music, reflecting on God's glory and feeling like you were one body with all the other people who were there.
Now they have a dinky-sounding keyboard, and they choose songs that aren't that great to sing early in the morning. The song leaders don't smile, engage with people, or actually lead the songs. They kind of perform at you very loudly (and really not that well, though it is hard to do music live with limited resources so I give them credit for getting up there and giving it a go (though the girl singing and playing this morning sounded like she would have been more at home doing cabaret at an RSL club (am I allowed to be that harsh about...buh. I stand by it. It wasn't good music.))). It's like they are embarrassed to be standing up there, as though the opinions of the council workers emptying the bins matter more to them than joyfully worshipping our risen Lord. We sing 'hallelujah', yet most of the people sitting huddled on the steps at Coogee Beach look miserable - and these are the people who are already saved! It's like they are there because they have to be, not because they want to be.Well I sang loudly and with a smile on my face - even when we sang Shine Jesus Shine, which is my most hated of songs - because it is a wonderful thing we celebrate today, and every day. I loved the simple message in the talk that when the Son rose, everything became clear. The location is a great complementary metaphor; you're sitting somewhere like Coogee Beach, outside the infamous Coogee Bay Hotel, with drunken people staggering home from Saturday night parties, and the glorious morning sun is just blasting away all the grimy shadows of the night just passed. When we got in the car and drove home, I put the Hallelujah Chorus on full blast, and that reflected the way we felt much more than the insipid songs we sang on the beach.
So Happy Easter! I hope you are able to celebrate today, that you have the opportunity to reflect on God's greatness, to thank him, and to feel that absolute joy, love and gratitude spread through you.

Good Friday

I feel like a spectator. Like life is moving and swirling and exploding in technicolour glory for everyone else and I'm just watching. Waiting. Hanging back by the door. Tentative and nervous and small, sad and frightened. Where did my bravado go? My bluster, the confidence of youth? How did it leach away, to leave this fearful, tearful person behind? When did I become this melancholy shadow?

But then. I remember that God made me. I remember that he knit me together in my mother's womb. I remember that he knows the number of hairs on my head. I remember that he knows my coming in and my going out. He knows about every tear that falls. And he loves me. He loves me so much sent his Son to take all the sin - the blackness, the stupidity, the hurts, the angry words, the jealous thoughts, the terrible actions, the spite, the venom, the mixed motives, the doubt, the despair, the arrogance, the willful ignoring of God - and all the punishment I deserved for that sin...and to obliterate it. To take the awful punishment on himself so I wouldn't have to go through it. To be cut off from God so that I would never have to be. To make it so that I can be in a secure, loving relationship with the God of wonders.

There is immense peace in that. There is confidence to move forward. There is comfort and joy and boundless gratitude. There is motivation to be more than a melancholy shadow, but to know that even when I do feel that way, he still loves me. To paraphrase the old hymn, the things of earth do look strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Hallelujah.

staying put

Sometimes staying put is so hard. When everything gets a little tricky or frustrating or hard, my first impulse is always to cut and run. Just go. Just get on a plane and leave. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I don't have the money to just get on a plane and leave, although the temptation of whacking a $2000 plane ticket on my credit card grows quite strong sometimes.

Staying put requires a lot more strength than running away. Attempting to deal with my problems, attempting to work through the blockages, attempting to grow despite of lack of nourishment - it all takes a lot of energy and a lot of perseverance. Sometimes I don't have either and that's when the tears start, the sleepless nights, the complete mental exhaustion, the inability to do anything but put one foot in front of the other.

And the swirl of busyness, the pressures of work, and the weight of obligation continue to pile up.

How on earth could you get through a life like that without God? I've heard it said many times that Christians use their faith as a crutch, but as I've replied many times "of course we do!" Well I do, anyway. How is it a defeat to admit that I need help? How is it a defeat to run into the arms of a loving God who knows and understands what I'm going through? How is it a defeat to admit that life often sucks and the only thing that makes it worth living is knowing that one day I'll be with God and all of this will fall away?

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40: 28-31

she can think for herself

There are moments when I remember I'm actually an adult and have opinions and fully formed thoughts of my own, and it never fails to surprise me, because inside I still feel like I'm about 17 (or 23, depends on the day).

We went to Freda's for dinner tonight and there was a couple there who go to the church I grew up in (I don't remember them). We idly chit chatted as we served up the delicious roast dinner, and then suddenly, and without any warning, we got into this really intense conversation about things we're told to do in the Bible, whether we should take into consideration the culture and customs of the time in which it was written or take all the instruction in it literally (the chap who started the discussion was for the latter), and basically how the whole world is going to hell in a handcart.

I piped up and said that I thought the world had always been as bad as it is now, we just didn't know about the extent of its depravity before because we didn't have the questionable luxury of mass communication. When I read the Old Testament I'm almost shocked at the brutality and carnality of the sin that's depicted there, and yet it's not that different from things that you read about in the paper every day. Basically it comes down to the fact that people are and have always been sinful, and that only Jesus' atoning sacrifice can make up for that (that bit wasn't in dispute). I pointed out that if we were talking about whether or not women should have their heads covered in church (this was the particular bit of instruction the guy was struggling with, I have no idea why): any woman could wear a hat and say she was respecting God and showing the world that she was 'different', but if she hadn't sorted out where she stood with God and wasn't living a godly life then she would be a hypocrite and her hat wouldn't save her in the end.

Having a mature exchange of ideas about theology with someone I've never met before? Me?! Gosh. I feel all growed up.

Mac vs PC vs Christ-follower vs Chrisitan

Saw these brilliant Mac vs PC ad parodies today (via Mark, via Em). Here's the first one - check out the others too. Very clever.

the faithful writer

I forgot to mention in the last post something else that happened - the lovely Karen Beilharz asked me to be on a panel about Christians and Fiction Writing at the upcoming Faithful Writer conference. I feel quite humbled at being asked to be on this panel, especially considering it was one that I really wanted to hear (eep - I'd better make sure I have something worthwhile to say!). I'm really looking forward to the conference.

You should come!

learning...and remembering the good things

Well we actually had a decent conversation over dinner tonight. I think we're learning to be civil...obviously these things just take time and I was lucky in March to be with a group that gelled so well.

So it was good that dinner was pleasant, as I've had kind of a shocker of a day.

It started last night with me spiralling downwards into 'what am I doing this for?' mood, then a 'why did I ever think I could write?', then 'no one will want to read it anyway', then 'maybe I should just give it all up and become a gardener' (prompted by watching Rod Dark gardening yesterday - he looked so...content). Jen chatted to me on MSN for a while and was very encouraging and told me I was hard of hearing because she was continually telling me that my writing was good, I just refused to accept it.

Then today I got an email from work about my pay and hours that, although completely reasonable, just upset me no end. Those feelings of frustration about work, feeling like I'm working as hard as I can to fix up the problems I caused yet getting nowhere, and feeling like I can't make myself understood especially in terms of the importance of my writing, all heaped on top of the writer's block/inadequacy thing from yesterday. So it was altogether not pretty. I burst into tears and couldn't stop crying - so I'm glad it happened here and not in the office like it did last time the topic of my pay came up.

I decided to give it up as a loss and go for a drive. I had lunch at Leura and looked in the shops, bought some more musk sticks (necessary writing food) then drove to Hilda's Lookout (above the CMS conference site - it has the most amazing view of the Megalong Valley) and sat there for a while, praying, thinking, crying, eating (of course), and talking to mum on the phone for half an hour. She helped me to calm down and be reasonable about it, and to see that this too would pass.

I listened to the Messiah as I drove back to Katoomba, bought a lightweight movie on sale at Kmart to watch in case I couldn't get the negative thoughts out of my head, and some wine for dinner. Then as I headed back to the house, the following verses popped into my head (also, it's my favourite Bible passage):

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4-7

I thought - what's the point of whingeing and complaining and crying and wailing about all these things? I'm being looked after. God has given me many great gifts and I am to use them in his service, for his glory. I need to trust him. I need to give my worries to him. So I did.

I wrote all this down in my journal, then took Catherine's advice and did some editing just to feel like I was going forwards and not muddling around in the mire of lack-of-creativity (even though I told her it couldn't be done and wouldn't help). And what do you know, I ended up writing an important conversation between Daniel and his sister that pushes the story along rather a lot and actually achieved something useful today!

I am so blessed to have people around me who put up with my temperament and encourage me instead of saying I'm not worth the effort and giving up on me. I'm so blessed to have a God who loves me even though I keep forgetting to thank him for it. And I'm especially blessed to have the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guarding my heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

with great power comes great...Spiderman quotes

Since I've come back from Varuna, I've only done any concentrated writing twice. So I've gone from writing every day to writing less than once a week! It makes me appreciate the time I had at Varuna all the more, but also realise I need to work out some sort of timetable for writing, kind of like when I'd make up study timetables at uni...only this time I need to stick to it! (When I was at Varuna, my reading time just rocketed off the chart too - I was reading a book every day or two, and from all sorts of genres, which was so wonderful. Since I've been home, I've started one or two half heartedly, and only finished reading things for work. Most disheartening.)

I always hated the idea of slating in creative time, thinking it ought to just flow naturally when it was ready. But I have to accept the fact that in my life at the moment, 'spare' time all too easily slips away and I end up crawling into bed at night, realising I haven't always done the things I wanted to do every day, like reading my Bible and praying (more than just the prayers that flit through my head when I'm lying awake in the dark), and spending time writing and reading (oh...and finishing quilting my quilt!).

I do look on this post-Varuna time as a bit of a gestational period as well, so I'm not too upset about not writing (just think I need to get it back on track before ere long). The writing at Varuna brought up a lot of new stuff in the book that needs time to develop in my mind. However, I do think it would benefit from me carving time out of the week to go somewhere quiet and just concentrate on it.

The other thing I've been thinking about is how my worldview as a Christian does or doesn't come through in my work. I think there is a definite moral framework obvious in my writing, and although there may not be overtly Christian themes in it, I seem to show the consequences of living a more worldly life and the lack of fulfilment in striving for purely worldly goals. I'm certainly not a happily-ever-after kind of writer, and I think a lot of my stuff is characterised more by the bittersweet than the happy ending. Characters might get what they want, but it's not always what they need, and it usually doesn't turn out that well. I don't think that's necessarily cynical, I think that's just how life goes. Nothing ends up neat and tidy, and even amongst the highs and peaks of life, there is a lot of mess and complication that is ongoing. I don't want to perpetuate the lie of the chick lit romantic comedy (although I don't think that's exactly where my writing is pitched...but it's hard, when you write primarily about relationships, to work out how to describe it without sounding a bit chick litty).

But is that enough? Do I need to be more overt? I haven't read that much contemporary Christian fiction and any that I have read has not sat well with me. But then there are wonderful Christian writers like CS Lewis and John White who wrote fiction - admittedly it was fantasy, so there was possibly more scope for setting up polarities of good and evil and using allegory (whether intentionally or not). I must say though, that since writing the original first chunk of the book a few years ago, I am becoming more and more aware of what I'm putting out there and what it says - not just within the world of the book, but what it says about me as the book's author. I have stressed time and again that although there's a lot of me in it, the book is not autobiographical. But I can't shy away from the fact that it represents a large part of me.



The article that sparked off this post is It's Never 'Just a Movie' from the Boundless website.

a castle in the epiphanies

i'm optimistic that i'll be well enough tomorrow to go to work. i'm going to try my best, anyway. i only did four relatively small things this weekend and each felt monumental.

what i did on the weekend by rebecca, aged 30 and 3/4

• i joined a gym
  ok, so joining a gym when you're sick doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do. but i've been thinking about the need to get a bit more active for a long time, and they waived the (considerable) joining fee for the australia day long weekend. so i did it. emma also goes to this gym and she's the most motivated person i know, so hopefully once i am well enough to go regularly i will start to get fit. hurrah!



• i went to hannah and eddie's wedding
  it was at st andrew's cathedral in the city and it was beautiful. hannah walked down the aisle to 'i can only imagine' by MercyMe, which is a song that makes me cry every time i hear it on its own (though i know it in an amy grant version). so to see her looking just beautiful, walking beside her father who was just bursting with pride, to that song, nearly undid me completely. i'm just glad it's not out of place to cry at weddings. tim bowden's sermon was excellent too. but i didn't stick around for the afternoon tea as i needed to go home and lie down.



• i went to mum's and did my washing
  this is fairly prosaic, but it meant having lunch at the green mango cafe on clovelly road and just hanging out with my mum. which was nice.



• i baked a cake
  mama grace's chocolate cake. 'nuff said.

i can't believe i'm 30 and 3/4. anyway, i digress...

what this post was originally going to be about, before i wandered so far away from the point, was that despite all the unwellness and boredom and depression, this last week has given me some great insights and a rejuvenation of my prayer life. we've been working on the next issue of Salt magazine at work (well i've been doing my bit at home), and it's going to be on the topic of prayer. so reading through various articles and books has made me realise how little i actually do pray, and has prompted me to do something about it. and i find the more i talk to God, the more i want to talk to him, about everything. and most of all, i've been so incredibly humbled and felt so grateful that i can call the creator of the universe 'Father' and that he listens to me when i talk to him.

i just think that's wonderful.

more sex

i've been going through a stack of 'zed' magazines that mark brought into work. i didn't even know this magazine ever existed - it was published by matthias media in the late 90s, aimed at late high-school, early uni aged people. hopefully i'm not breaking any laws by sharing with you an excerpt from one of john dickson's article on sex that illustrates better what i was trying to write about a couple of posts ago.

['Sexperts'] seem to be the great promoters and freedom-fighters for sex, but when you scratch beneath the beautifully glossy surface, it's just the opposite. The promoters turn out to be demoters; their fight doesn't bring freedom, it sets a trap, which many of us fall into.
...
If they thought you wanted to hear, "Be celibate!", that's exactly what [women's magazines]'d be saying. Although they go on and on about sex, they don't value sex at all, except as a way of selling magazines.

The same is true of the movies and the Mardi Gras. On the surface they look like they're fighting for sexual freedom, but scratch beneath the gloss and it turns out they're really promoting sexual selfishness, triviality and unfaithfulness.

Let me explain. My first car was an orange Datsun 1200. It got me from A to B, but it really was a rust bucket. It only cost me a thousand bucks, so I didn't treat it too well and had no problem lending it out to any of my mates. I figured that if they crashed it, it was no big deal. Suppose though, I owned the latest Porsche. I can assure you, there is no way I'd be letting any of my mates anywhere near it, let alone in the driver's seat. A valuable car like that needs respect and the utmost care.

It seems to me that the sexperts of our society have sucked us into a Datsun view of sex. Lend it out. It's not that special. Don't worry about rules and guidelines.

But in God's eyes, sex is more like a Porsche. It is valuable. It demands care. It is something precious to us, not just the machinery we use to get around and enjoy ourselves. God is not against sex, he's very much for it...Remember, the Creator is creative...he invented sex - fantastic, enjoyable, intimate and exciting. And because sex is so valuable, God has given some very smart guidelines and rules for its enjoyjment and to keep us from getting hurt. The sexperts usually say these guidelines are restrictive and boring, but that might just be because they have been fooled into thinking that the Porsche is a Datsun.

zed magazine, issue #7, 1997, p5-6

i like this analogy. but no matter how good the analogy i have a feeling there are certain people (such as my psychologist) who will never concede the point. they just think you're being 'quaint' at best.

singular

i should be getting ready for work, but wanted to post this while i'm thinking about it. before i do, i want to say what this is not. it's not a rant, it's not a whinge, it's not a 'poor-me' treatise...it's just some honest reflections. and a bit rambly too. and maybe over-sharing.

it's about being single. well, it's about more than that...

the caveat in my particular case, as most of you will know, is that i am a Christan and have decided to pursue a particular type of relationship, but that i have not always been that way.

when i was going to a (non-Christian) psychologist last year, this made discussing relationships a tricky area as to her way of thinking i should be able to just go out and hook up with almost any guy ("you're young, you're attractive, you're interesting and fun - what's the problem?"). she suggested in passing that a lot of my emotional problems could probably be solved by having a lot of sex - and not necessarily within the boundaries of a loving relationship. sure, if you're looking at sex as just an endorphin-releasing physical act then fine. but if you're trying to view sex in terms of what God made it for (apart from the functional purpose of procreation, it's meant to be an expression of love and oneness between two people who love each other, and who are joined and are committed to each other in marriage, forsaking all others) then it's not that easy. i think the thing that made it all the more difficult for the psychologist to accept was the fact that i have been sexually active in the past, so as far as she could see there was no difference in me going out and getting laid now - and i have encountered that attitude in others (even from Christian men, would you believe).

it's a struggle to throw off the old self and i wonder whether temptation in this area would be as big a problem for me if i had never 'gone there' in the first place...i guess we'll never know.

this makes the idea of pursuing a godly relationship with anyone kind of difficult. i want to be totally honest with people and have never felt the need to hide anything about my past, figuring that i wouldn't want to be involved with anyone who judged me because of that. but how much and how soon do you divulge all of that in the interests of honesty? i know that revealing this stuff negatively affected my relationship with a Christian guy (who after thinking i ought to be pure as the driven snow then decided i was fair game to treat however he wanted), but then that might have said more about his maturity levels than the situation itself.

and so i find myself still single at 30. i feel a dissatisfaction with the whole idea of casual dating, and the more i think about it the more i understand that it isn't the way relationships should go, where you are loosely committed with no or few strings attached, and where sexual gratification is the main goal. and yet when you start to read Christian books, blogs, etc about relationships it all seems so earnest, so serious, so grave and so far away from my world. i know our society puts too high a premium on the rush of emotion, the idea of chemistry and the superficial elements of attraction but it seems like a lot of the time the only alternative is some austere, detached and cerebral interaction that may or may not result in a deeper relationship.

there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but for someone who is highly emotional, extremely physical and operates on a more intuitive level, i don't quite know how to conduct myself other than to just...not. which is also unsatisfactory.

i'm generally quite happy being single. but sometimes i long for that intimate companionship and to embark on another phase of life, starting a family with someone, for example. as i mentioned before, sometimes the temptation of a purely physical encounter with someone is so strong i have to be really careful.

and yet i don't want to go out with the primary objective of Meeting Someone. for all that i would love to get married and have children, i don't like the idea of hunting for a man. it just seems so...desperate and distasteful. i've been advised by some people to change churches because there are more (any!) eligible men at other churches. while this might be true, i detest the idea of going to church with the objective of finding a husband. i've been advised to take up dancing lessons, because it's a great way to meet people, despite the fact that i find it really hard to do things like that on my own and would most likely scuttle away at the end of the night rather than trying to talk to people. i don't think it's laziness or fear that leads me to want a more...organic way of beginning a relationship, for want of a better word (organic in the sense that it evolves naturally, without being contrived or forced).

the thing is i don't believe my happiness, or indeed God's plan for my life, revolves around whether or not i get married. i am constantly striving to learn contentment in every situation, including in this area. so if you pray for me, pray that i would be content and that i would trust God, in this and in everything.

okay i've rambled enough and come to absolutely no conclusions. on with the day. well done if you made it to the end!!!

emotional bronchitis at Christmastime

as someone who suffers from depression and has been a pretty severe asthmatic in the past (though apparently not anymore, thank God!), James Fong's words in the latest issue of the Sydney Anglican newspaper Southern Cross resonated with me.

Depression is like emotional bronchitis. You just find it difficult to breathe. Antidepressants function as a bit of a Ventolin to help you breathe more easily, but you still have to do the hard work.

it's a tricky time of year. we're all so tired, we're all so frazzled. it can be hard to get into the 'Christmas spirit', whatever that is. you help run multiple church services and carols services and feel cynical and jaded. you sing along to joyful songs and feel no joy whatsoever. all you can think about is how you wish it was holidays and you could just hide for a while.

but Fong has more words for those of us who are finding it hard to breathe, and this is the key.

The big turning point for me was acknowledging that God is bigger than my greatest darkness. I realised that even if things were really black, if I was incapacitated from serving in ministry, or even if I lost my mind, none of that could separate me from God's love.

...

Thankfulness is the last thing on the mind of a depressive, but it's the very first thing we need to do to reverse the effects...often you just need to stop for a minute and work out what you can be thankful to God for, just bit by bit.

so what am i thankful for?

• that Jesus was born into this world to save it


• that God loves me even when i am ungrateful and cynical and wishing i could just give up


• that i have godly, loving and encouraging people around me like mum, jen, mark and barbara, to help me persevere


• that God has given me the gift of music, that i can sing and play and express my faith and my feelings in that way


• that mulan, a little girl from church who sings and plays piano, wants to be like me when she grows up (how cute is that?!)


• that i have been given so much, that i am so wealthy compared to most of the world, that i have the freedom to come and go as i please, to eat and wear and buy what i want, to go to church, to go to work


• that i can have Christmas celebrations in my own home, the way i want, with my mother and brother


• that in small ways i am an encouragement and a Christian witness to others, even though i feel isolated and invisible most of the time

and that's just the tip of the iceberg, really. it's easy to get discouraged, but there is a lot to be thankful for when you stop and think about it, even for just a moment.

We build walls of pride around ourselves, and in the end I've found that my brokenness is a great gift: it's an opportunity to allow God's grace to seep through.

~James Fong, Southern Cross dec/jan, p19

running on empty

my fuel light has come on. it's just there, glowing persistently at me, and i know if i keep going much longer without stopping i'm going to just grind to a complete halt.

i'm getting little top-ups day by day, in singing fantastic music, in being moved to tears by the talks, in being encouraged by my Christian brothers and sisters, in sharing what i believe in the plainest terms with friend who's an avowed atheist and not being afraid, and in eating chocolate in my room by myself at night.

but i need my bed. i need my sleep. i need to have a long, hot shower and slough off the week. i need some big hugs and some big belly laughs. homeward bound - tomorrow afternoon!

in the meantime, here are some pics of the last few days.

sharon and harrison

howard and harrison

richard chin

the crowd of students in the ballroom

sally, julie and alex - the singers

the view over canberra
me and miss jackie