I have just had a look at the Koorong catalouge. It's nice to see how much mileage they can get out of one concept:

By Stephen Aterburn and Fred Stoeker (and one or two friends)

Every Man's Battle
Every Young Man's Battle
Every Woman's Desire
Every Man. God's Man
Every Man's Battle Guide
Every Young Man's Battle Guide
Preparing Your Son for Every Man's Battle

I am listening to The Wallflowers and trying to decide if I should have breakfast now and blog later or blog now and breakfast later. I think that I have made the decision for me.

Yesterday I got to teach scripture again. It is good fun. My year five class is great. They're all lovely kids. None are antagonistic, most like to put up their hand, and they behave pretty well. They got prizes for getting the memory verse right yesterday. I had a bag full of goodies where they could pick out what they wanted. There were packs of cards, stickers, tennis balls, glow sticks, toy cars, they loved it.

I told the story of Palm Sunday. I didn't have anything planned so I rehashed some stuff I did in my first sermon at St Petes. I have a Jewish kid who doesn't have scripture sit in my class while I teach, but he's not allowed to participate. I have to ignore him when he puts up his hand. I feel bad. He was really eager to tell me where Jerusalem was yesterday. He listens to all the stories, I think I might have to keep making sure I tell the class that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah. I might talk to him next week and tell him I'm ignoring him because I have to, not because I don't like him.

I played handball for the whole of recess today. It was good fun. When the bell went one of the kids from church gave me a hug. My arms shot up in the air as fast as they could go and I quickly told the girl I wasn't allowed to hug her. I felt dodgy. Dodgy because I couldn't hug her and acknowlege her display of affection. Dodgy because I was getting a hug from a year 5 girl in the middle of the playground. We live in dodgy world.

One of the boys in my class saw me and gave me a high five because he liked the toy car. That's the way to do it. I love teaching scripture.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. Helen and I talked together, we slipped in and out of "meeting". We dreamt about getting a new Church building. Yeah baby. I'd love a new building.

I went home at 2:20 and felt extremely liberated leaving so early.

At home I had a sleep for a few hours and then caught up with my small group over the phone.

In the evening we (In order of pickup: Howie, Jo, Jem, Chris, David and Sal) went and saw Camp. On the way to pick up Jem we found a Home Ice Cream van, did some bad calculations and bought a box of 6 ice creams for everyone in the car. They were damn good ice creams. Unfortunately we counted wrong and somehow decided there were only 6 of us going to the movies instead of seven. We decided to pretend we had seven until we knew who wanted ice creams and who didn't. It was ok, Sal, always prepared, had eaten ice cream before she came so we didn't have to perform a loaves and fishes miracle.

The movie was fun. I'm hoping it had its tongue in its cheek because otherwise it had one of the worst scripts I have seen in a while. There were some good bits. There was really bad character development and placement (I don't think that's the right word). People would turn up and say a few lines and disappear off the face if the film. It was like they introduced us to an ensemble cast then forgot about the ensemble. Oh well.

The film was very camp. And there were way too many shots of the good looking guy.

The music was lots of fun. And the singing and dancing made me grin. I had the most fun during those bits.

The night ended with trip to Maccas, because what night out isn't complete without a trip to Maccas?

I had scripture seminars today. They were most goodness. I had to be there very early. My first small group I had a hard core atheist who was quite clear from the outset from the beginning. He was the only talkative person in the group. He even stayed afterwards. I told him about why I found it difficult to believe in a world with no God, and how I could see God's hand in creation. I was saying good things. I think I got the Holy Spirit. We talked for about ten minutes about how much God loved him and about Jesus, and creation. It was fantastic. He kept saying "I've never looked at it that way. I'll think about that" and he looked really happy. I told him to go away and read the book of John thinking about it as a story of God's love for him and he said he would. Wow!

It's conversations like that that you pray for. I'll keep praying for that guy.

The rest of the day was pretty good. Good questions. Except for the year 10s who were just stirring.

We had a prayer ministry thing tonight. I liked that.

MSN scares me when it has about six million little things flashing at me. I feel really pressured. Perhaps that's why I don't like it much, and I always feel the need to blog about it.

Not like ICQ, that was the bomb.

I went and saw The Missing today all by myself. It was a pleasant experience, the flim was pretty mediocre. I went after having lunch with Grandpa and Valentina. That was also very pleasant.

The train home was very full. Van was on it and she was about a metre and a half away but we couldn't have a conversation because there were about 17 people squished in between us. I stopped listening to my mini-disk when I saw her though, just as a ceremonial sign that if we could have had I chat, I would have been listening. When she hopped off we said "Hello".

Belvoir is getting an $8.3 million upgrade. That's good, I like Belvoir.

I haven't felt the need to shove my head in a blender for a while now. That's nice. I hoping to keep it that way.

Yesterday I spent all day sitting around writing and agonising over my sermon. I got it finished at about 1am and decided to pike on my morning run.

I dreamt all night that I was meant to go to Canberra and lead worship for Soul Survivor, but I couldn't because I was meant to be preaching in Sydney, and I didn't think I'd make it back in time. I was feeling a little stressed. It didn't occour to me that I couldn't lead worship, just the timing problems.

I spent all day wearing really bad clothes. I had green tartan shorts, and a maroan, flowery shirt on. The shorts showed my knees and a little too much leg. I was wearing it as a sermon illustration. I wanted people to persectute me for my clothing, and I got that. I was inspired by Ryan's Rough Edges shirt wearing at the pub. I was scared to go to church because I was feeling like such an idiot. It's funny how we are so attached to what we wear. I would like to think that I don't care about what others think about me, but today I was quite aware that that is certainly not the case. It was hard having such terrible clothes on and knowing everyone thought I looked stupid.

Most of the day was pretty normal apart from the clothes. Youth group went well today. I sat in the youth meeting and felt like I was at a youth meeting. That was really nice. Helen spoke good. She inspired us to pray.

I preached and it went good. I always get terrified before I do a new one. I get so much pressure. I feel pressure to do one that's just as good as the last one. And then there's pressure to not worry about what people think. There's pressure to make sure you're not just putting on a show. And there's pressure to make sure it's not boring. There's pressure to preach God's word and not yours. I really wanted to run away and pray for a few hours before church but I didn't have the opportunity.

But it all went fine. People laughed in all the right places, and no one booed me off stage. I pray that God spoke. I played a Michael Franti song and I accidentally gave the impression that I wrote it. Oops, I'm a dirty liar.

We went to Macca's after church and hung out as usual. I had fun. Rach played with my camera.

When I got home Mil and I had a talk about evangelism and God stuff. It's our second since she moved in. I'm sure we'll have many more over the next few months.

Ryan, and My Dinner Last Night

So I have a little bit of catch up to do.

Up above you will notice my new camera. It's very nice. It takes good photos.

I bought it on Thursday. I went to the city, looking in one shop, liked the camera, went into another, found it was cheaper there, and bought it. It cost me $699. I'm sure spending that much money needs a lot more agonizing, but I couldn't be bothered. I figured I'd probably buy it anyway so I decided to cut out the hassle.

After my hefty purchase, I retired to Hyde Park. I lay on the grass in my usual spot, read my book, wrote a postcard, slept and read my Bible. I also rang my small group sitting on the grass with my legs crossed. I felt like a contented hippy with a mobile.

The Testament by John Grisham is what I was reading. I finished it last night. I'm not sure if I have talked about it yet. I thought it was alright. A little simple and easy to digest. The main character became a Christian and at times it read like a book from Koorong. But I enjoyed reading it.

After my park time I took myself to the Maccas on the corner of Park St and Pitt and sat up stairs. I sat at a bench looking out the window. It was fascinating. I love looking out windows in the city. I could see everyone walking around. There was a drunk woman on the street opposite shouting at everyone but I couldn't hear what she was saying. Straight across from me was Fitness First and I could see straight in their window. It looked quite surreal, there were rows and rows of people all running and riding to no-where. They all had their eyes fixed on the same unseen point ahead, I assume it was a television. As I sat there eating McDonald's I became quite repulsed by the idea of going to the gym, I didn't want to participate in that strange ritual.

I wandered down George St, to meet Dad and Jo at Belvoir St. I got distracted by an internet cafe on the way and arrived about 15 minutes after I said I'd be there. We went and saw What the Butler Saw (which David had warned me that I might find inappropriate). It wasn't all that good. We all found it a bit dull, but most people seemed to like it. There only seemed to be three jokes the playwrite could make, and one subject to talk about (the subject started with an S and ended with and X, can you guess?). So I was a little bored. Although I get bored with lots of sex jokes in anything. I would rather people were a bit more inventive some times. But there were some good lines. My favourite line was when the doctor was found by his wife holding a dress and she said something like "Are you thinking of taking up transvestism? I had no idea our marriage was on the brink of fashion."

Yesterday was a work day. Not too much spectacular happened.

I was in a silly mood in the afternoon, making meetings not so useful for everyone else. I played hand ball with my small group. Good fun. One of the kids in small group asked me if God invented sex and was quite surprised when I said that He did.

In the evening Ryan, David, Howie and I watched a dvd and at frozen food from Woolies. I didn't actually watch much of the DVD at all. I slept through almost the whole thing. It was a good sleep though. Why is it that when you fall asleep in front of the TV you always wake up really sweaty?

I went to bed and read my book at the end of the night. I finished at around 3am then went to sleep.

Lots of angry Spaniards marched to show their anger at the terrorism that killed 199 people this week.

I think that's fantastic. If I could go to Spain and join the protests I would. Show the terrorists they suck.

George W Bush makes a speech to Evangelicals about gay marraige.

Sometimes I wonder if there are more important things to be talking about.

Pimples are so rude.

I woke up in determined mood this morning. By the time I had finished my shower I had decided that I would learn the piano, guitar, drums, buy a digital camera, and clean my room. I'm not sure if I'll do any of them.

I just got an e-mail that said:

Dear Sir/Madam,

We were informed that your card is used by another person or stolen. It could happen if you have been shopping on-line, and someone got your "Billing information" including your card number. To avoid and prevent any billing mistakes and to refund your credit card, it is strongly recommended to proceed filling in the secure form on our site and applying for our Zero Liability program. This program is free and it will help us to investigate this accident.

Sincerely yours, Visa Support Assistant, Alwin Desagun.

And then there was a button that I could press that said "Continue", I almost fell for it.

I wrote Matt an email today where I made extravagant use of my job title, I make jokes about my job title often and so does everyone else. I recently changed my job title on my office door to "Da Bomb". I wondered on the way home today why I am so fascinated by my job title. I decided that I think it's absurd someone giving me a job title. I can't believe that anyone would give me a job, responsibility, a title, a salary. It often shocks me. I'm sure that soon someone's going to notice that I'm just a 21-year-old boy and tell me to go home, stop being naughty and leave my job title at the door.

I'm trying to kill time. I'm meant to ring my small group now. But I can't because I don't know where we are running it, and I'm waiting on a phone call. So I'm sitting here trying to work out what to do.

I could go home, but it's peak hour and I'll have to sit in traffic. However it will be peak hour for a while.

I'm listening to John Mayer. He's singing quite well at this stage.

I set up my internet banking to send me sms when I get money put in my bank account. This means that I will look both popular and rich at the same time.

I'm wondering if there is something productive I could be doing, but I don't think so. I could count my post it notes. Or my paper clips.

I asked the office manager for paper clips last year sometime. Post it notes and paper clips. They were the two most useful things I could think of. As of today, I haven't used a single paper clip. Perhaps I should go use one now.

Yes that's what I'll do, I'll paper clip something for Helen, create a bit of office cheer.

I got to play handball with the scripture kids today. Good fun.

Mr French played handball!

Pip just asked me if I have noticed that my new t-shirt has shorter sleeves than all my other t-shirts. I had noticed that. It's annoying all the good t-shirts these days have shorter sleeves than I would like. I think they are meant to show off my deficient biceps, it's the "new thing". They really just show my white upper arm. I think it's a sacrifice I have to make. I'd rather have shirts I like and show off a little too much arm, than go the other way. Sadly I am victim of the fashion.

My head this about this big...

I have noticed that the days that I don't blog about are usually the days that I sit around and do very little.

Today I read commentaries, swept the floor, cleaned a littled of my room and listened to music.

Today's listening was:

Norah Jones - Feels Like Home
Various Artists - Costal Chill 2
Counting Crows - This Desert Life
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
Van Morrison - What's Wrong With this Picture
Bruce Springsteen - The Essential Bruce Springsteen - Disk 1

Tonight I went to small group. We had some dinner and I had to tell "My Story" (I always feel like such a boring person, I don't feel like I've had a boring life, I just feel boring) and we talked about Jesus in the Old Testament. I'm still trying to work out how much to say in the group. I could talk for hours on the issues we discuss. However I don't want to dominate, and I try and work out how important it is that I make my view heard.

I watched the last hour of Breakfast at Tiffany's on Foxtel last night.

I don't know what to say about it, except, it was wonderful.

Most of us are pastors, quietly tending to our flocks and their internal needs, rather than prophets, challenging our people to look outward and commit themselves to creating a more just society.

I believe the role of pastor is incomplete without a prophetic dimension. We ministers sometimes forget that Jesus, our role model, not only cared for hurting individuals, but also shattered the cultural conventions of his day and turned his society upside down. The Bible is clear about the need to "do justice". - Henry G. Brinton

I just read that in a good article at SMH. It's just below the article about the topless protest.

I just went to the Annual Vestry Meeting.

It was ok. I'm glad I went because I think it was the right thing to do. I should try and be more interested in everything though. I felt guilty during the budget bit and I often got distracted during the rest of the meeting. New shoes are such a good thing to think about when in an AVM.

Welcome to Gem and Mil who moved in last night for the next three months.

Yay for a full house.

New Shoes

I bought new shoes, and I told the shop assistant a bit about Jesus too. Funny that.

She asked me what I was doing today, I said I had defrosted a freezer, eaten some lunch and bought some new clothes. She asked why I bought the clothes and I said they were for my sermon on Sunday and she asked what it was about. I told her it was about persecution because we share the gospel. When we tell people about Jesus people think will think we're idiots but we have to do it anyway, because it's important. Or something like that.

When I had picked the shoes I liked she went outback and couldn't find any in my size and bought out every pair of shoes they had in my size. They had two pairs, damn big feet. I picked the pair I liked best and headed to the counter. The lady wished me luck on Sunday. It was very nice of her.

And again the sun is shining, the sky is blue, the leaves are green, the rain is in the ground and God is good.

See the bird with a leaf in her mouth, after the flood all the colours came out - U2

Right now I am not feeling "smug and comfortable", I'm feeling neither and I think that's a good thing.

So where am I at?

My life is so full, brain more so. My head has a million and one blog posts, but most of them aren't coming out.

Let us do the traditional sum up.

Friday

I went to college on Friday. I had about 3 and half hours sleep the night before. I stayed awake making my plans for the weekend, and then had stupid dreams. I dreamt I turned up at Tim's party and it was actually Soul Blokes. I had to do my talk in 20 minutes and I hadn't written it. I also had to be a bouncer and Jamie and I had to stop people doing doughnuts on Tim's front lawn. It was a most stressful dream.

Anyway, I went to college and had my first class of DM241 Youth Ministry Field Education. There were six of us in the class. Or was it seven, not sure. There was a lot of talk about critical reflection, which is terrible. I hate critical reflection with passion and it seems to me that this class is pretty much all critical reflection. Vomit.

But I had fun. It was a good way to learn, small class, nice people, comfy couches.

Graham and I went out for lunch at Maccas and then I dropped him at his church. I almost crashed on the way there when I tried to merge into a Land Cruiser with the number plate "FROSTY". The guy shouted at me on mute through our wound up windows. He shook his fist too. I waved at him and tried to look like it was all my fault and appropriately remorseful. It was all my fault, and I felt like an idiot

I arrived at church and had a sleep on my office floor for about 20 minutes.

Had a meeting then I took my small group bowling. That was good times. I got beaten both games. I had a ripper of a game the first game, with strikes and spares all over the shop, but alas there was a plucky year 8 who was just a little better than me.

I got my butt kicked in the second game, I only beat one kid. How am I meant to be a respected leader of a small group if they all beat me at sport? Shouldn't they be in awe of me? Next small group outing we're going to pub and I'll play the pokies and they can just watch. That way, at least if anyone's going to win it'll be me.

After bowling we went to Maccas where I bought them all Sundays and felt like their favorite Uncle, except they were all rude to me. I'm hoping it's affectionate rude. Like when you are rude to the girl you have a crush on when you're in year 7. Although, I hope none of them have a crush on me.

I think it's time to move on.

I finished writing my talk for the next day at church then drove to Tim's party, and got random breath tested on the way. That is one of the funniest activities to do in a car, ever.

After the breath test I got teased by a bunch of teenagers in a shiny bomb for my car. I think they thought my van was funny. They waved at me to go faster and laughed. I tried hard to avoid them at traffic lights. When I couldn't do that, I desperately avoided eye contact.

Sadly it turned out the teenagers were heading to the same party as I was and I had the embarrassing task of arriving at the party, parking and getting out of the "Van of Fun" alone, and walking past a large group of cool people. They all looked at me and I said "Good evening". Someone remarked to another "Who's that guy?"

The party was pleasant. I stood out the front and talked to people. I had a look at the inside, and enjoyed the lights. I bopped in time to the music outside every now and again. I can't remember if I am pleased with my party conduct this time. I think it was alright. I didn't embarrass myself too much. Probably felt uncomfortable enough not to do some of my old party antics.

I went home when I thought I should.

I went to bed at midnight, had eight hours wonderful, stress-less sleep.

Saturday

Soul Blokes day. I was stressed, I had big day ahead. I never really felt great about the talk. I drove to work and spent a few hours in my office going over the talk and worrying.

Mitch arrived and I gave the panel a run down on the topic of the talk. I got grilled by one of the panel people, I was just expecting them to nod and say, "That's cool". I wasn't expecting to have to theologically, and sociologically, justify my two minute out line of my talk. This didn't help my stress. I hadn't eaten all day because of stress. Somewhere after 2pm Soul Blokes/Soul Sista started. There weren't many Blokes there, a lot more Sistas.

We played some blokey games that involved bashing each other with pillows, holding hands and getting carpet burns. I ran around with Matt holding his hand and avoiding people who were trying to hit us. It was a weird feeling, running around and holding hands is not an activity I usually engage in and with another guy, I think, I don't know what I think. I felt like I was in some satirical tv show where men hold hands and skip through daisy filled fields, while the canned audience laughs.

I gave one half of my talk then, and felt mild.

Afternoon tea was had.

I gave the second half of my talk. People said good things to me about it. I was just pleased it was done. I'm happy to put that talk in the talk vault and leave it for "The Very Best Talks of Tom: Vol. 38". Sometimes you just come away going "Bler".

We had a panel for the guys where we covered three topics, sex, make-up and gambling.

The evening held singing, trivia and Matt and Chris playing music. I had fun, hung out with nice people. Chris and Matt played good, I was most impressed, and hope that one day I can be as good at making music as them, as long as I don't have to do any work.

The night ended and we packed up. Sometimes packing up can be the funniest part of the night. I'm not sure if it was on Saturday, but it was a pleasant activity. Sal and I had a race to do chair repositioning, I think they should make it a sport at the Olympics. At least at the Christian Olympics.

Following that there was a drive home. It rained on and off. I don't think there was any roadwork on the Mona Vale Road, but I'm not sure. Probably the best drive home one can have traveling that way.

When the drive was over I could go home and sleep. Debrief could happen later.

Sunday

I ran in the morning. I did my run 50 seconds slower than my best time. Shows what happens when you don't run for a week.

I arrived at church early to learn Power Point stuff, but ended up learning nothing*. It was good to be there anyway. Good bonding session with the other Power Point presenters of the church (I wouldn't say I'm a Power Point person actually. I've never run it during a service, but hey, I'm happy to be pigeon holed as someone technical.)

Drama was fun, I had two boys and they were good quality. My office got "Love Bomb-ed" by the Service Team during drama, that was really tops. I felt special.

Lunch was good, seeing as the day before had so little food, I was happy to fill me with stuff.

Meetings then church.

Ministry time was good tonight. There was a call to go up the front and pray for people who you have been praying for to find Christ. It was wonderful to actually come up the front on behalf of someone else. To cry out to God and have it not be all about you, it was a liberating experience. It was great to be able to serve people who you love while they aren't even there.

After church Jo and I headed off to SNOAM but we heard rumor that not much was happening so we picked up Howie and David headed off to Maccas. We got kicked out soon after arriving as it was closing time, so we spent then next forty-five minutes hanging in the carpark like the sic fellas normally do. Then it was off to hang out outside the Big Brother convenience Store. Much laughter all night.

We dropped Jo home, then David, then Howie and I came home and watched the coolest documentary on trucks on the Discovery Channel. Trucks are fantastic, especially big ones.



*That's a lie, I learnt one thing. One thing I'd been wondering about Power Point for a while too!

Right now I'm running a drama group. The great thing is that I can set tasks for my group to do, leave them to it, come back ten miuntes later and see how they are going.

They are sounding good at the moment, lots of silly accents.

I feel like writing something criptic right now that very few people will understand, and I'll be able to look back on in a few years and say "Ahhh, I know what that was about."

But I can't be bothered, so I'll leave it as this.

Things keep going, and they don't stop.

Yesterday was a fat day. Today is fat. Tomorrow is about the same. Monday is good.

I'm feeling a bit bler about today. I have this talk to do, and it's just not feeling very good.

But may the Spirit move, because our faith doesn't rest on man's wisdom, but on God's power.



Can't wait till Monday.

...but alas the titles don't work.

Oh well.

I have now set my blog posts to have titles if I so desire.

"That's Mr Blog Post to you!"

I've now discovered that I can send e-mails from my phone, and so have been trying to find out if I can e-mail blog posts. That, sadly, can only happen if I am a member of Blogger Pro, and to be a member I have to pay money (which is no problem if I'm in rash, spend-my-money-on-useless-things mood), but they also aren't taking any new members at the moment. So I guess all those blogable thoughts that I have while walking along that make me think "If only I could blog from my mobile" will have to stay un-blogable. Or at least remembered till I make it to a computer.

"Quick, think of an illustration"

I have to write my seminar, talk, thingy today. It's about being a bloke (naked chicks and Holdens, grunt!) I'm feeling a little lost. I'm hoping it all comes out. I've been praying for weeks, so I'm hoping it's answer time. Matt wrote a good article for this particular gathering about being a guy. It has been an insipiration for me. I wanted to talk about something blokey, that wasn't sex, but I wasn't really sure what. Matt's article was about identity and belonging (I hope it was) and I thought, "Yeah, now theres a good topic". So I'm speaking about that. Hopefully it'll look like we had planned it this way, and no-one will see that I'm really just stealing ideas.

I have to read my commentaries and eat in the food court today (it's food court day!). I am looking forward to these things. Writing talks is much more fun than writing annual vestry meeting reports.

These posters are now on my office wall. I'm having fun.

Today I hung out with my scripture kids for about 5 minutes after the bell for recess went. They talked to me about books and food. It was very exciting. I made some progress. I'm aiming to spend my recess' playing hand-ball in the playground. That'd be sic fun. I love handball. Maybe I could get myslef some play lunch too.

I just finished writing my report for the Annual Vestry Meeting. It was due on the 23rd of Feburary. I'm so glad I don't have to write many reports for work. I dislike them so much.

Congratualtions to all the famous people in Hollywood for being in Hollywood and being famous.

I just noticed that Hannah has a game called "My First Lotto". Good to be encouraging it young I say.

I had a good day today

If I had to sum up my day in three words: Hooligans, Scientology, Oscars

The peaceful serenity of my morning quiet time (actually I think it was early afternoon) was disturbed today by a bunch of hooligans in my neighbour's tennis court. They were graffiting my neighbour's tennis hut (a brick building next to the tennis court). I heard this as I prayed and thought "Oh dear here's trouble. I should do something about this...No I'm praying, that's more important. Maybe when I finish praying they'll have gone away... No, that's bad, you better do something... What am I going to do? Ask your mother, Mother knows best". So I scampered up stairs and said "Mum, there are people on the neighbour's tennis court graffiting. What do you think I should do?" I was hoping desperately that she didn't say "Go and tell them to go away" lest they get angry at my request and stab me with a flick knife, hidden in their baggy pants. She suggested the police, then decided that was a bad idea and told me to ring TAFE security. That was also decided against because we were just assuming they were TAFE students. Then she got up and said she'd go talk to them. "I better talk to them. You can't. You're just a boy like they are, they won't respect you." I wondered whether I should be offended by that comment, but then decided as long as I was safe from the hooligans with knives and stolen guns, I was happy. I figured they wouldn't shoot Mum. You're not allowed to shoot mothers. Especially when you're a boy-hooligan.

Mum went outside and said: "Excuse me, that's my neighbour's property"

"She doesn't mind" one of them replied, while I hid and watched from the safety of the kitchen.

"Have you asked her?" said my fearless mother

"We're making it look better" and then they grabbed their stuff and climbed the fence.

Mum came back inside and there were congratulations all round. I went into my room and noticed they were still there, but inside the hut. I dobbed on them to Mum again and she went out and said "I think you better go, really". Then they grabbed their stuff again, and she watched as they really did leave this time.

My Mum should join Neighbourhood Watch.

After this excitement I packed my bag and headed to the city with the vague idea that I might either watch a movie, buy some new shoes, or read a book in Hyde Park. The only thing I knew I wanted to do for sure was have a large McOz meal for breakfast, with a Coke.

This I did, and it was good. The chips were cold.

Once I'd finished, I visited Dirt Cheap CDs and had to convince myself that I really didn't need another Michael Franti cd this week. Once I'd done this it was about 4:30. I headed for Hyde Park figuring that home was a long, crowded, seatless, train trip away, so I thought I'd kill the time till peak hour finished in the park, reading. But I never made it to the park. I found a bookmark thing on the ground inviting me to see a free Scientology exhibition at the Church of Scientology in Castlereagh St. I visited and was shown into a room with a short display of pictures and plastic plaques on the wall, explaining all about Scientology.

I wandered for a bit and was soon joined by a women who must have noticed me looking quite perplexed trying to work out one of their charts to spiritual enlightenment. She offered to explain all the stuff to me. I've forgotten her name. She was nice. She took me around, and answered my questions. She found out that I was a theology student, I'm not sure what she thought of that.

When she'd finished taking me through the exhibition she gave me some reading material, and introduced me to a trainee Scientologist who is planning on setting up a Scientology base in Tasmainia. She offered to answer anymore questions I had. Her first question was something like "How did you find it?" I think I must have said something non-committal like "It was interesting", because her next question was, "What are your reservations?" I told her it seemed like a bit of a selfish religion. Everything that one did, was for one's gain. You learnt so that things go better in life, you obey the moral code for your own survival, you help people because it makes you feel good. She told me that it wasn't selfish, but it was for your benefit. Or something like that. I failed to grasp how it wasn't selfish.

I asked her what the eternal significance of all the learning and helping was. I said, because I believe that whatever we gain in this life, our money, jobs, careers, knowledge, all that stuff, will be of no significance when we die. She said that I had to make up my own mind about what happened when we died. I asked her what she thought happened. She refused to tell me, and that I should buy L. Ron Hubbard's book Dianetics. I didn't really want to do this, I was looking for a straight answer. They (my old guide joined the conversation again, as did another lady) told me I wouldn't get one, because I had to decide for myself what was true. And that then, what was true for me, was true for me. What was true for them, was true for them.

It was at this point that we hit the crux of the argument, and why it was going to be impossible for us to agree. I told them that I didn't see how it could work, for me to believe that what's true for me is my truth. I didn't think that subjective truth worked if one believed in absolute truth. I suggested that if I believe in absolute truth and that the Bible is the word of God, and they didn't, they couldn't both be right. Either there was absolute truth or their wasn't. Either my beliefs that cover the whole of humanity are right, or they are wrong. They can't be just right for me, and not right for anyone else or they would be wrong for me, and my truth couldn't be true for anyone. 2+2 cannot equal both 4 and 6 at the same time. Absolute truth, and subjective, personal truth are, in essence, mutually exclusive. But they wouldn't accept that. Their absolute truth was that what's true for the individual is true only for them and each person decided their own truth.

One of the other women took me around the exhibition again, and we continued to talk. It was a good conversation. I did a bit more explaining of where I'm coming from. She explained a bit more. We kept coming back to the problem of truth. In the end we decided that they were never going to answer the question to my satisfaction and that we would have to end the conversation, disagreeing.

I must say, that as negative as I'm sounding, they were all very nice people. I was impressed with their desire to see good things done in the world. I was inspired by their selflessness. It seems to me that I met selfless people in a selfish religion*.

The women that talked to me at the end asked me if I was from Hillsong. I laughed and said "No". She said she wanted to come and visit my church. I told her where it was and gave her the address and my work number. I got invited go to L. Ron Hubbard's Birthday Party. They asked me to do their personality test, but I declined because I didn't have time. I'd spent about an hour and a half there. I had a nice time, and the woman told me she had enjoyed our conversation. I hope that was true. I was trying hard to be a nice, respectful person. I left saying lots of Thank-yous to the many people who had talked to me over the course of the afternoon.

On the way home I sent out many sms-s inviting people to my Oscar party tonight (I'm never sure who to invite to things, I'm never sure how wide to spread my invite net. I guess that's the problem with never minding who turns up to my events, I always want everyone there.)

I got home, checked the blogs, got myself a packet of chips and a Coke, and sat down to watch the Oscars. Only two people had replied to my sms, and they were both to say they weren't coming. I thought it was a little funny that no-one turned up to my party and I started composing blog posts in my head about it. Mum and Hannah arrived home and Hannah joined me for a while finding Billy Crystal hilarious. So I wasn't alone for my party, just no-one I had invited turned up.

And then lo and behold, I got and sms from Sal saying she would be there soon. I started composing my reply when there was a knock at the door and there she was. Suddenly I had a party happening, a massive two people (not including my mother and Hannah who didn't really join in). I started eating my dinner and we watched some awards. Soon Jemma also arrived. And then Chris and Howie. Amazing. What a party. And the Oscars were fun (although they didn't need to show us the Libra ad so often).

After the delayed telecast was over, we had a special Oscar party photo on my new phone, and everyone went home. And although it wasn't nearly as blog worthy, it was a grand evening, almost glamorous, without the glamour.

I also did the washing up and debriefed my afternoon with the Scientologists some more.

*The whole other question that goes with this for myself is, "Is Christianity a selfish religion, if our end goal is to go to heaven?" While the answer is, I believe, "No" because that shouldn't be the end goal, perhaps the better question is, "If I believe that Christianity is not a selfish religion, would I still be a Christian if there was no eternal life?"

It's funny, there used to be a post just before this with a photo of a man who looked quite on the geeky side. I stuck it on my blog for about 1 minute, then I felt bad and deleted the post. I was paying out Ryan, Chris and David, and the guy in the picture. I didn't think it was a very nice thing to do (mainly to the guy in the photo, I'm hoping Chris, David and Ryan had a laugh). And I thought it looked especially bad since I had a just done and extra spiritual Bible quote below it.

Sadly the post still arrived on my blog, even after I had deleted and republished. My sin was in the open, I am forced to live in the light. My bad.

"Eh, that's nice"

Today as I drove home I was doing my drive home prayer, and I felt inspired to read that old favourite in Romans 8. So when I got to the top of the drive I turned on the car light, pulled out my Bible, and read it. And it was damn good. God is damn good. There is nothing that can go right or wrong in my life that can separate me from God's love, and I think that's fantastic.

God loves me. Brilliant!

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:28-39



Usually when people stick verses on blogs, or read them out because they have been particularly inspiring, I hear them and I think "Eh, that's nice" and that's about all. But this is my blog so I can stick on what I want.

So I went on a houseparty.

It was good. All about the Body of Christ stuff. As Rachel commented, I am also now a bit sick of body parts. Every thing was about the way the Church is like the body and we all fill different roles. I was challenged to be a better member of the body, rejoice in the community more. I had a good time. I met lots of good people. And I got to know people better. I sat with a bunch of old women for lunch on Saturday. I was the only male at the table for a while. It was great. How good are old women. Two of them started having an argument. It was a bit uncomfortable but it seemed like only the sort of argument that only people who love each other a lot can have. One of them told me off for the messiness of the youth but apart from that they were all very nice to me. Treated me like a grandson. Nice to have a 6 grandmothers for a lunchtime.

I hung out with the young people a bit. They were good quality. They are good quality. I'm happy being a youth minister with such fantastic youth. Last night they wanted to stay up late and flirt and make lots of noise. We allowed this, but I had to be on patrol and stop the guys going into the girls cabins. I also had to call a few of them down off the roof after I disappeared for a while to do my teeth or something. One of them told me I was like a teacher on school camp spying on them to make sure they didn't do anything wrong. That was a shame. I never want to be like a teacher. But sometimes you have to be a little responsible.

I had a long discussion with one of the boys about the ethics and theology of not allowing people of different genders in the same sleeping quarters. I think I have to think about that some more, because I'm sure it's going to be a discussion that is often had in my career. The discussion moved onto a good discussion of Christianity and homosexuality. At 12:01am I sent them all to bed.

The food wasn't too bad, but I would have liked more of it.

The traveling was fun. My passengers were a good lot, and out Hungry Jacks stop on the way up was most enjoyable.

I'm sure there are other things to say but I can't think of them.

I really feel like Tim Tams.

I'm meant to be doing something or other at the moment. Instead I'm blogging.

We had a good day at the Christian group at school today. We did the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. The kids responded well. It seemed to rock them a bit, the idea of unlimited forgiveness. It's always good when you teach the Bible and you see it challenging people. You see them try and get their brains around some concept and you think "Yeah, this stuff really is radical". Tops.

I'm going away on a Church houseparty this weekend. Should be fun I think. I'm not mentally prepared but, that don't matter, I'll get there.

There probably won't be internet there. How sad.

. . . .
Pretend Fan Mail

Dear Tom,

I think your blog is the best. I hope you write a book one day. You have inspired me to be all I can be.

From,

Devoted Fan

West Virginia

My list of things to do today:

Write Bible Study on Prayer
Plan lunch time group
Plan house party session with youth
Plan talk for youth meeting
Call my small group
Call some leaders
Prepare for talk on next weekend
Take Hannah to respite
Go to Food Court
Write report for Annual Vestry Meeting
Write article for Bulletin

Of those I did seven of them. I think that's pretty good.

The Passion

I have a bit of work to do today but I want to write about The Passion of the Christ before I do that.

It was an interesting movie. I spent the whole film thinking "This is marvelous" and "This is terrible". It was a great and horrid film. I want to see it again. Rarely does a film make me want to cry, but this one did.

It seems to me that the critics are mainly saying that it's extremely violent, beautifully shot, a bit un-inventive. I can see where they are coming from. For people who don't know the Jesus story, it's probably intriguing but doesn't really give you a good insight into Jesus. Garth at Dark Horizons said that "we see what happened to Jesus, we understand very little about why."

I think it would have been nice to see more of what got Jesus to the cross, and less of Him there, but this isn't meant to be a nice story. The relentless violence left me hanging out for the flashbacks. I wanted to see Jesus not bloodied and beaten up. But in the end I didn't mind. The lack of backstory was no issue for me. It's a story I've been interacting with all my life. I know the backstory, I know who Jesus is, and I know what got Him to the cross. And knowing that, and being a follower of Jesus, and one who loves Him so dearly, it was so agonising to see Him go through so much. Seeing Jesus' punishment, so often through the eyes of Mary, made the pain all the more immediate. There was a point right at the beginning when Jesus was before the Sanhedrin and one of His accusers hit Jesus in the face. "You can't do that to Jesus!" I wanted to jump up on the screen and smack that guy in the mouth. I can understand Peter cutting the soldier's ear off. You can't hurt Jesus, He's Jesus. Soon though, I realised what the rest film was going to be about. Just lots of Jesus going through horrible pain, and it wasn't going to let up, and Jesus wasn't getting out of it. And so I braced myself for the rest of the brutal film. By about half way through I was desensitizing to the violence. There was just so much, I switched that part of my brain off.

I thought Pilate was great. I've always liked Pilate, he's always been such an interesting person. So torn, so close to doing the right thing, so close to using his power for good, so close to saving Jesus. But in the end he was swayed by other people and their pressures on him. I've always identified with him because he's so real, he seems so like me. I'd love to think when it came down to it, I'd do the right thing, I'd stand up for Jesus, I wouldn't condemn an innocent man, but I'm scared I'd wimp out.

There was one point with Pilate where Jesus was standing there covered in blood and looking as pitiful as any man could be, and Pilate said to Jesus: "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" And Jesus turned to him and looked him in the eye and said "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above." And I wanted to jump up and shout "Yeah Baby!" Because there, for a glimpse, we saw Jesus for who He was. He wasn't a broken man, a weak, beaten up, insignificant human. He was a King. The Son of God, one who commands angels, and created the world. There was glory underneath and you knew Jesus could do whatever he wanted to. And so He chose to die.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I just gave my mum a phone message that I got two days ago. I told her it was about a party that's on tonight. She said that she already got that message from someone else, and the party was on last night.

Late and wrong. Perhaps I'm not the world's best answering service.

I also just tried to book some $29 plane tickets on the internet and Jetstar's website isn't working. Virgin Blue is but I can't be bothered booking one if I don't book the other. I was going to fly somewhere on Virgin Blue, and then home on Jetstar. Oh well. No one day holiday for me.

I had a scripture class today. I had planned to come it and get kids in trouble who mucked up. Today I was going to be mean Tom, establish some control. But today, since it was raining, the teacher decided to stay in the class room. I didn't feel very comfortable being "mean Tom" in front of the teacher. It's like disciplining a child in front of their parents. That's not very easy. So I wasn't very "mean" today. I told a few kids off, but I was pretty nice to them. When I left the teacher got the class to stay. I think she was going to get then busted for their behaviour in my class. Bummer.

I sat in the library for 2 hours today (with a 1 hour lunch break) planning "The Donny Jaffa Show". And then I ran out of ideas. I did manage to fill 25 minutes of stage time, for 5 nights, that's 2 hours and 5 minutes. I reckon that's pretty impressive. It may be a crappy piece of entertainment, but I'm looking forward to it.

Now all I have to do is make it all happen. I envisage stress.

My shoolace broke yesterday. Now I have a new one in. That should delay the purchase of new shoos for another 3 months or so.

In other news, today I plan "The Donny Jaffa Show" (working title), lots of silliness, should be fun.

Sometimes you sit here in life and you say "I have absolutly no idea".

I have no idea how I'm meant to be. I have no idea who God is. Well, not all that much. I have no idea what He's meant to be doing in my life. How much? How little? I have no idea how to behave. I have no idea what to ask for. Have I gone too far? How much further? When do I get there?

I e-mailed an invitation to watch The Passion of the Christ with me on Wednesday night to George W Bush. I got an e-mail back which said: "Thank you for e-mailing President Bush. Your ideas and comments are very important to him."

Isn't that nice?

Today has been very quiet. David and I ate some bakery stuff in Westfield. He also installed lots of new software on my computer. I went to dinner at my cousins house and said very little. I didn't ask any questions, and I answered a few. Funny how quiet I am around my extended family.

Tomorrow I might fiddle with the new software.

Ryan (and Janet I think) got me a t-shirt for Christmas. I got it today. I think it's great. I've been dying for a new t-shirt for a while. Now I have one.

Next month I'll search for more.

There's a Norah song in which I thought the one of the lines was "The blues come and go, but a few stars still hang on to the sky" and I thought it was good. But that's not the words, so that's a little disappointing.

I feel like I have a lot to write. A lot of catching up to do. Right now I really feel like eating something (I'd love a Tim Tam) but I've already done my teeth, and I can't be bothered doing them again.

Well here goes. I'll try and be quick. My weekend on speed.

Friday

We had youth group at night. It was good fun. 23 kids in years 6-8 playing with food. They had a food fight during dinner, very fun to watch. I love seeing them have fun. Throwing food, doing memorable stuff, tipping Sprite down some other kid's back. Fantastic. I made them all clean it up too. Perhaps they weren't as impressed with that, but alas, it must be done.

Kaye organised a game where people had to lie on the ground and another person stood on a chair above them and tried to pour a cup of golden syrup into their mouth. It was very funny to watch, people throwing up, and getting their eyes stuck shut. One of the girls didn't want to play the second round so I had to take her spot. I had to lie down and get the syrup. My partner wasn't a bad shot, which meant that I had a mouth full of golden syrup. That made it difficult to breath, and hard to swallow. I also managed to get sufficiently covered in Syrup. The kid on the chair next to me didn't see the need to try and get the syrup in his partners mouth and poured his cup all over my legs. Lovely.

After cleaning up and having a shower in the church centre (scary experience, no lock, no light, neglected shower, and a terrible fear of creepy crawlies) I went over to Mil's to sit around and talk with Mil, Ryan, David and Howie. Stella joined us for a bit too. Very pleasant end to an evening.

Saturday

Yesterday I got a new phone. It takes pictures. Who needs a phone that takes crappy little pictures? Not me, but I got it because it costs the same, and I thought it would be fun. Really though, it's a bit of a waste.

I went to a drama workshop and heard things about characterisation. It was a good one. Delle taught it and see did good. I'm a fan of Delle.

The evening consisted of trip to Anmol's party. That was good fun. I like Anmol, and his parents are great. So nice. The party had old school people there who I had very little conversation with. I tried to meet some new people from Anmol's tafe but I didn't manage to crack the circle for long. Only long enough to learn names and suburbs.

We were the last to leave.

Today

Today has been like any other Sunday.

We did kindness projects in youth group today. That went really well. The kids had fun. We washed a blue Commodore, and some Scottish people's windows. They were very friendly. Everyone wanted to give us money, but our young ones were very good and refusing.

As a result of kindness projects I got excited about telling the community about Jesus.

After Church many young people went to Dee Why to hang out. I got to hang out with some people I don't usually get to hang with. The evening ended with Jo, Helen, Kaye, Rachel and I. I made a few bad comments. I think perhaps I didn't come out sounding too good, but much laughter was had. We sat one a blog of concrete by the ocean. It was very nice. It rained for about an hour, and we all got wet. But it was worth doing. I enjoyed myself.

I came home and put on trackies. How wonderful are trackies?

Quote of the Night

Mil to Me: "Gees, and I thought my love life was disfunctional"

I've arrived at work kinda early today and I'm not sure what to do. I've been slowly cleaning up my office. Now that I have a new computer and a bigger screen, I need to find good things to do with the room. I managed to pull some pieces of plastic off the wall, and plenty of paint with them. I would also like to throw out some furniture, but they won't fit in my bin. Oh well, it's a work in progress. I may even put something on the wall one day.

What?

How are you feeling just now?

François is spelt like this "François".

I've always wondered that.

Robert, Tinku and I saw Timeline tonight. It wasn't fantastic. We arrived to an empty cinema and the ads were playing. As we sat there we discussed the options that we had having a cinema to ourselves. I managed to suggest "We could take all our clothes off" quite loudly just as the screen went quiet and a group of guys walked in.

I was driving home today and I saw a pink Magna, and I exclaimed "Oh my goodness, it's a pink Magna!"

I just remembered that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen wasn't a very good film.

Today I worked from 8am to 6:45pm. I was trying to have a relaxing first Wednesday on the job. But alas it just turned into a long one. I did though spend three of those hours procrastinating so I guess I deserve the long day. And it wasn't that bad. I had a nice day. I had lots of conversations with different people, some of those conversations weren't even meetings, and I got to eat some butter chicken for lunch, and I got to listen to my cds, and I got to count lots of money, I love counting money. So it wasn't a bad day at all. Just long.

"Why, am I always the laaaast to leave?"

Tonight I went to a small groups meeting hang out thing. And I tried to leave early, at least earlier than a few people, but I ended up being the second last person to leave. What's with that? I always seem to leave events last, I leave church last, I leave meetings last, I often leave Soul Survivor things last, I leave parties last, I leave Maccas last.

At least I get to have more conversations.

I just got a hair cut.

Another one of life's most fear inducing experiences over and done with. Only a lifetime left of them to go.

I've got a number of prank calls on my mobile from a private number over the past week or so. I pick up my phone and say "Hello" and there's nothing there. Beep Beep Beep. I did it on Loftus Station the other day. There was a girl sitting next to me on the seat. I'm sure she thought it was very funny, me saying "Hello" to nothing. Oh well.

Yesterday (and today because it still is today, really)

I took today off. I slept in till 11. I had a slow start then ate some lunch with David. When we parted I went shopping for boxers and socks. How satisfying is that. I got three pairs of boxers. One silver pair, a stripy blue pair, and Superman pair. I'm so excited. You feel good wearing cool boxers. My map of Sydney ones were the best, but the elastic is gone in them now.

I met Anmol later on and had cheesecake with him. It was his birthday and I said "Happy Birthday". Happy Birthday Anmol. We chatted for awhile. It was good.

Tonight was spent with Tim. We had some dinner in Gordon, then went to the movies in Chatswood. Watched Shattered Glass that was a good film. It inspired me to be a person of integrity and to make right decisions, not popular ones.

I think I would like to buy a new t-shirt or two.

Sunday

Sunday was not very unusal. But quite hot.

I realised that we are in a spiritual warzone, and I got excited about kicking Satan's ass. That the first thing that got me interested in this gig.

Saturday

I got up at 8:46am very excited about the day's coming Pie Fight. The joy that would be had throwing cream and foil trays at each other. I picked my clothes carefully (my Hawaiian shirt and old SMP shorts), packed the car, then picked David up then headed of to pick ourselves a fight.

We were the first to arrive at Jo's but were quickly followed by Lauren, Kaye, Helen and one of Jo's friends who's name I think I remember but I don't want to write it because it might be wrong. James was also there. We prepared our pies. We put huge amounts of Dairy Whip in our pie bases and foil trays. One can of Dairy Whip did about two and a half pies.

Two more of Jo's friends arrived (I think perhaps they were called Claire and Brendan) followed by Keith. And so we had our inaugural 11. Jo and I tried to get some order going so that we could do this pie fight properly. We all grabbed a pie and met in the middle between two tables laden with cream pies. Jo attempted to organise us into two lines back to back so that we could take three paces then turn and throw. But Keith got a bit over excited and jumped the gun throwing his strawberry cheesecake at close range into the side of Helen's head, causing the only injury of the pie fight (trust Keith), and beginning the first ever Pie Fight. From that point it was on. I threw my first pie and it hit Jo's friend squarely in the arm causing a satisfying splat. And after that I have no real memory except there was about 30 frenzied seconds of cream, tins, screams and laughter going everywhere. Someone put a pie on my head, and I got cheesecake on my face which was a pleasant surprise when I licked my lips.

It quickly calmed down, and when the cream cleared, we were all covered in it. It was great. There was a small amount of sporadic firing as people picked up old pies of the ground, and cream off their faces and threw them about. But two minutes after it had started, the fighting had ended. It was a cream massacre. Fantastic. We all hosed the major cream off ourselves but I was unable to wipe the smile off my face for about and hour.

I had a shower at Jo's then some of us headed to Macca's for the post-fight meal. We went to visit Beck and Sal in the bakery who quickly informed us all that we stunk of off-cream. It was true.

The rest of the day involved a trip to Riverstone with David to fix my Aunties computer (it was very hot, Riverstone was) and lots of oven cooked frozen food for dinner with a dvd. What a lovely day.

It's been very hard for me to talk about what I need to talk about. Namely the past four days. But now I'm going to try.

Friday

This day was a good one. I can't remember if I was tired. Probably was. I went for a run with Ryan we ran around Asquith and Mt Colah. Managed to avoid hills almost the whole run. What a great way to run.

Kaye and I went to the high school for the our first proper lunch time group. Five kids turned up. We played with pegs, talked about ourselves, and ran out of time. It was good fun, I like those kids.

Small group was had too. The first proper small group. I had eight year 7 and 8 guys, they were lots of fun. We laughed a lot and they joked about farts, circumcision and genitals. They were very talkative but it was good.

I met David afterwards and we went to Westfield to look at the big, LED board in Greater Union. It told us our options for evening entertainment. We had around an hour to kill so we headed to Coles to buy our supplies for the pie fight.

The Coles Checkout Chick was suspicious of us buying so much Dairy Whip. We assured her it was for a pie fight, she thought we were crazy and apologised for having dirty thoughts. I told her the pie fight would be fun. She berated us for spending $40 on a pie fight when us two strapping 20-year-old men (I forgot my age) should be spending the money on our Valentines. I told her we'd let her know how the pie fight went.

Lesley joined us later and we all headed into Cinema four to watch Stuck on You. What a great film. Very funny film. I loved it. I giggled often. It's good to laugh in the cinema. I reckon it's the best film I've seen this year, followed closely by Big Fish, that was magical. The Farrelly Brothers seem to like making films with people with disabilities in them. Good stuff. Maybe they'll put Hannah in a film.

I went home after that I would say. And I probably went to bed.

I just got an advertising letter from Youthworks hand signed by Al Stewart, the CEO of Youthworks. You can tell I'm in the big time now.

Mr Waites said police had confiscated bricks and bottles used to attack officers - SMH

Will the police give them back when the violence is over?

Well, I'm back. Perhaps not for long. The rapture could happen any moment now, or Telstra could stuff up our cable again.

But I had a marvelous day today. I think I'll save writing about today till tomorrow when I have more time. I'm aiming for bed by 10:30pm.

Yesterday was good too. Save that for tomorrow also.

Um...

I exist, ain't that the truth.

So here I am at David's work because Telstra have still killed the internet.

We just ordered some stuff to fatten up my already fat computer. Now it's going to have 360GB of hard drive space. I may get lost in it all. (David would like to point out that that's over a third of a terabyte.) Pow!

I'm having a day off today. It's my first one since, um, 26th Jan. And that wasn't all that relaxing. So I'm not sure when my last relaxing day off was. But today is one. Today is off. Ahh. I made all my phone calls last night in a flurry of stress.

I also had "bonding time" with Dad last night. I was trying to figure out what to do with my night and realised that Dad was going to be at home all alone. So I asked him if he wanted to hang out with me. We got pizza and watched Bad Eggs. Was a silly film. But I enjoyed hanging out with Dad. My eyes grew heavy and my head ached, and I went to bed looking forward to not waking up. I did wake up early though and panicked because my alarm hadn't gone off. No worry though, I'm having a day off.

Today has had a food court visit and now this internet time. It's good to be connected to the world even when the evil telecommunications company tries to stop you.

All the freaky the people make the beauty of the world - Michael Franti

I thought I might blog. I don’t have internet at the moment so I’ll have to back date it. No matter. I’ve stuck the date and time at the top of this lovely word document so I don’t deceive anyone.

I’m so dependant on the internet. I have e-mails to send, but they're not going anywhere. And I have blogs to read, but where are they? My computer seems useless without the internet. I guess I could make a Powerpoint presentation. But there is no need for that at this stage of life.

Today was my first scripture lesson with the year fives. I was a bit scared. I thought they might tear me to pieces and I might be too timid to tell them to stop. I turned up and got a badge. It said my name was Mr French. I got introduced to the class as Mr French, and I decided to maintain the Mr French persona, because every other teacher there, scripture teachers included, is Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms. I didn’t think I should undermine their “coolness” by calling myself “Tom”.

The kids were good to me. I told a few to sit down, and a few to stop talking, and things like that. I think I was firm enough, but they were nice to me. We played a game they liked where they decided if a statement I made about Jesus was true or false. The game took longer than planned and the bell went while we were playing. But they said they wanted to stay after the bell. That was cool.

I went to college after that. I left school, hopped in my van and sped off. Always wanted to do that. Shame I’m in neither primary nor high school.

There were puppets at college which were fun while I did them. I did a short play about the lost coin with an old woman puppet. I was told it was good but the jokes were all a bit old for a kids show. Probably true, how many kids think jokes about supermodels and anorexia are funny? But I was playing to an older audience.

I had a sleep this afternoon. Energised me to make all my phone calls.

It’s raining.

I like rain.

Two Questions...

Why do the cowboys across the street, who drive utes that they call "rum tonners" need to put their big, orange flashing, council worker lights on when driving up their driveway?

Why does Hillsong need to put out a Christian business directory?

The second one concerns me more than the first one. I think it's silly to use one business over another because of the faith of the owner (except perhaps if you're looking for a "worshipping community"). I mean, at the very least, or perhaps at the most, using non-Christians means there's more evangelism opportunities ("Excuse me would you like to fix my car? Do you reckon you could find out what that rattle is? Have you met Jesus as your Lord and saviour?") I would say you should use the best people for the job. Having a faith in Jesus may not mean you'll be any better at your occupation. Christians can hide themselves from the rest of the world too much.

I bought another new cd today. Oops. But it was Norah Jones' new one, Feels Like Home, and we all know how I feel about Norah. It's going alright at the moment. Track 10's sounding pretty good.

As I was walking into Borders to purchase Ms Jones, I noticed the "Full Time Positions Available" sign which made me think of Lesley. So I pulled out my phone to see if she wanted to hang out with me tonight. Unfortunately she's busy so I might see if I can find something else to do tonight. My Mum just came in and told me that we're just having salad for dinner. And as grateful as I am for my juicy greens, reds and oranges, going out is sounding more appealing. Maybe I'll take myself on an adventure, go start a fight and rescue a beauty. Probably not though.

Within college today we learnt about drawing stories. It was a pretty easy day. This intensive isn't taxing my brain too much. I'm not much good at drawing though, and I found it difficult to not to tune out. But having pencils and blank paper in front of me helped the time pass quickly. I ended up writing nonsense on a piece paper in little writing, like I used to do in art in year 10 because I was no good at art. It was like a blog in pencil, on paper, written really small, and not worth sticking on the internet (not that this is).

I slept on the train and sweated. I tried to avoid the shiny sweat marks left on the seat by the person before me.

We had our first Sunday youth group this afternoon. Sang in youth group for the first time too. It was a good meeting. Good turn out. I'm looking forward to seeing where we take it.

I think that's all I have to say. I'm very tried. All this youth ministry starting has tried me out. I would look forward to college, but I think that'll just be a struggle to stay awake.

"Ba baa, do ab baa"

Really enjoying Meteora at the moment. Grinding gutairs, noisy rap, angsty lyrics, screaming vocals, turn it up loud, lots of fun. Makes me feel like a teenager.

"All I want to do is become more like me and less like you" - Linkin Park

This book that I am reading, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, is an interesting book. It's about "discovering the secret of a man's soul". I'm reading it because I'm doing a talk next month called "Being a Godly Guy" and I thought I should do a little bit of research, because alas, I'm not sure I'm a godly guy. How does masculinity and godliness work itself out together?

So here I am reading this book, and it's encouraging me to be a real man. I started reading the book thinking "This book is fourth on the bestseller list at Koorong, I plan on not liking this". By the time I was at the second chapter it had sucked me in. It told me men were strong, and men were dangerous, and I'm thinking "Yeah, cool". I'm all up for being dangerous and strong.

Which would you rather be said of you: "Harry, yeah I know him. He's a real sweet guy." Or "Yes, I know about Harry. He's a dangerous man...in a really good way".

I read that and thought "I'd rather be nice". But then I substituted "dangerous" for "kicks ass", and that sounded a bit better: "Yes, I know about Tom. He kicks ass...In a really good way"..

I'm all up for being an ass kicker, in a good way. And that's not ass kicking as in "cool", but ass kicking as in "sorts out messes, puts bad things right, fights injustice, is a superhero". Yeah, I wouldn't mind being that.

Eldredge told me that: ...in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.

Is that me? Sure, I reckon. I never have a desire to go out and pick fights, but there is a desire to fight, fight something. I like making up battle analogies in my head, I like pretending life's a war, and I'm a master tactition. Spiritual warfare appeals because when else, as a Christian, do you get to fight? I hate making confrontation, but sometimes I'm itching for it. It's exciting when you find yourself in a conflict situation, and seeing what will happen, how will you go? What will you do? Can you kick ass? And when you have a righteous fight to fight, when it's time to stand up to evil, then I'm buzzing.

It's a little strange. I'm a pacifist. I believe in turning the other cheek. I hate war, but I love guns, and I love fighter planes. Why do I still get excited when I open my cupboard and find my stash of plastic guns? I'm like a little boy.

Violence scares me, but I'd rather avoid it because avoidance is right, not because I'm scared.

Adventures are great. I love exploring, I love finding someplace new, going somewhere challenging. Why do I like going hiking (not that I do it enough)? Because it's an adventure. Sure it looks good, the trees are pretty, and the air is clean, but the fun is in the adventure. Short bushwalks bore me. Where's the challenge?

Why do I want hobbit feet? It's an adventure. Why do I like road trips? Adventure. Same reason I like walking from the City to Hornsby, or the other way. And fire escapes, winding corridors, getting stuck in an elevator or busted by the cops? Adventure.

And a beauty to rescue? Well yeah. That's a mighty fine idea. "Get into my car and ride". Find Miss Beautiful, we fall in love, she becomes Mrs French, and we head off into the sunset and change the world. I guess I don't really feel like rescuing anyone. Although, I don't mind rescuing if it needs to be done. I don't think I'd be anyone's rescue, anyone's salvation. But I'm happy to rock someone's world, and I'd love for them to rock mine.

Now these traits may not be exclusive to men, they may not even be primarily in men. But that don't matter. They are in me, and so I'm going to subjectively pronounce the book right. The pop-Christian psychology book has won me over.

Except now he's talking about wounds. He's saying that all men are deeply wounded and that's why they aren't real men. We men all have gaping wound which must be healed if we are to be proper specimens of masculinity.

None of this wound stuff is clicking with me. I can't find my wound. I'm searching. I'm looking in my past. He said it's inflicted by my father. I'm looking, my father's done pretty good I reckon. I'm not a "real man" like the book says, but I don't think I'm wounded. As a result of our wound we have a false self which we present, so that no one will wound us again. Now I have at times been false. I'm still often tempted to present a false me. This is true. But I can't see a wound that's come from. I present false-Tom because I don't like the real-Tom. The real Tom isn't good, the real Tom is weak. Who wants to be seen as a sinful weakling? I don't think that's a result of a wound, I think that's a result of being like everyone else.

There are readers who even now have no-idea what their wound is, or even what false self arose from it. Ah, how convenient that blindness is. Blissful ignorance.

So now I'm wondering if the book actually is right. Perhaps I don't have a desire "for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue". Perhaps I have no masculinity to discover. The book's wrong, there is no wound, no real man.

Or maybe the book is right, and one day soon I will discover the hurts of my father, and he's not really the wonderful man I think he is (doubt that). I do remember once he was un-happy with me for not doing well at school. But I probably didn't, and anyway, I have no wound from that. I don't think I have "high achiever complex" or even a "low achiever one".

I think what I'll do is this: I'll finish the book. I'll fight the battles that I need to, I'll go on as many adventures as I can, and I'll keep my eye out for beauties, especially ones who need rescuing. And if I find my wound, I'll do what needs to be done to fix it. I'll get on with life.

And while I do all this, I'll do what I can to be more and more like Christ. And when I die, and get there, when I am transformed to be like Him, then I'll be a real man. And I can spend an eternity with God as His rescued beauty.

I've spent most of the day sitting around trying to make a Bible study get written. It's now done. I've been quite slow. I think because because I was trying to make it a relaxing process. But really, it just drew the process out. I did however do the most stressful bit, actually writing the questions, down by the water in Brooklyn as the sun set. That was very nice. I was down there with my family and Tinku, and we ate fish and chips. It was very good.

How is it that there can be so much talk about one boob on TV?

On Thursday night David, Anmol and I went to see Big Fish. That was a great movie. Magical perhaps. I'm sure it was very deep too. Made my heart warm. And it made me want to be romantic when I'm 70.

Tonight I went with David to see The Last Samurai. (Spoilers ahead)That was not as good, but it had better action. I liked all the sword fighting. I was appalled when the emperor asked Tom about the main Samurai man "Tell me how he died" and Tom replied "I'll tell you how he lived." Heh heh. We love American's. (Spoilers finished)

We also had our second youth group activity tonight. All the year 6-8 boys went over to Ben's house where we ate pizza and watched a dvd. It was a nice night. Nothing special, but relationships are starting to form and the kids are being reasonably nice to each other so that's good.

Before that, at lunch time, Kaye and I went to the school for the first lunch time group of the year. It didn't go according to plan and we spent the whole lunch time sitting in a corridor waiting for a room to be un-locked for us, but it never was. No matter we talked to kids, and it was really nice. I got to see people I don't normally see, and show my shoes to a bunch of year 8 girls who recognised me from scripture seminars. Twas fun.

After the movie tonight I came home with my head buzzing with ideas for the big film project this year. I'm not sure if they will evolve, but it's good to be buzzing.

Well the birthday cd count is standing at eight:

Coastal Chill 2 - Various Artists
The 1967 New York Sessions - Van Morrison
Music from the Front Porch - Michael Franti and Spearhead
Stay Human - Michael Franti and Spearhead
Meteora - Linkin Park
What's Wrong With This Picture - Van Morrison
True Love Waits (Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead) - Christopher O'Riley "Radiohead songs re-imagined for solo piano"
This Desert Life - Counting Crows

This is all so exciting.

The sun may be setting here, but it's always rising somewhere else

"Don't fear your family, because you chose them a long time before your birth." - Michael Franti

Yesterday was a good day. I thought I should blog about it last night, but now I think about it I can't remember what happened.

Oh yes I have recall.

I got up at my usual college time of 5:30. Or at least that was the time I aimed for. I was in the shower by 5:50 so that's not too bad. While in the shower I had a sudden terrible thought that perhaps I was teaching my first scripture class. This thought tormented me to the point where after checking anything I thought I had at home which might tell me the day I started scripture, I decided I would have to drive to work and have a look at the letter that I had left there.

So I got in the car and left my home at 6:20, too damn early to be driving to work. On arrival there I discovered that I wasn't teaching till next week so I hopped back in the car, drove to Hornsby station can got on my usual train to college.

College was a bit better. We did drama again, but I liked this session more. The teacher had some good ideas, and got us doing a bit of improv. Always my favourite.

I had the thought that if there was any sporting team I would like to join it would be theatre sports. I wonder if they have any of them out there.

After class I tried to sort out my life. I had the brilliant idea that I could get a lift to church from Zoe, the friendly first year, who passes by on her way home. And then a lift home, and never have to see Hornsby in between, thus saving an hour and getting lots of work done.

That didn't happen so I ended getting a lift to Gordon and trained it to Hornsby, then drove to church arriving in time for meeting of those doing drama stuff this year. This was followed by a massively female abundant (Matt was the only other guy there) creative meeting to plan project work for this year at church (Are women just more likely to be creative than men? Or is it just "un-masculine" to be creative?). It was a good meeting. Got my brain buzzing. Now I'm on the look out for thoughts and ideas that could perhaps evolve into a film. Should be fun.

After the meeting and dropping Louise, Matt, Jill and Sal home, I met some (Jo, David, Howie and Ryan) at Scary Park to play some night frisbee. It is good to play frisbee. It seems to make conversation easier. Not any better, but there's something to do when no-ones talking. I really like the green light of the frisbee.

Dinner was had at midnight, at Magic Kebab, then it was back to land of my work to drop Jo home. For my third time that day, it wasn't a bad trip at all. David and Howie kept me company.

And that was my day. I'm not sure if it really should be recorded. It's probably of little importance in the big scheme of things. But the internet is so good that everyman and his canine friend can publish. And so I will add another day to the history of me, that will be forever on record to be poured over by historians in days to come and all my crazy stalker fans.

"All's well that ends well"

Today I asked David if he had a desire to "Rescue the Beauty" (it's one of the three desires that all men have according to the book I'm reading). He said "Yes, but it never ends well".

Helen has linked to David as "Davis". I like that.

I would like to do a big post. Or a big few posts.

The things I would like to write about are:

The first night of youth group
The weekend
Community dinner
My book about manhood
Today (Well yesterday technically)

Maybe that's tomorrow's job. Tomorrow (which is today technically) is my day off. Praise the Lord.

If I had a wife that was put in gaol for being a suspected supporter of terrorism, I'd still love her. I'd stand by her too. And if she was a terrorist, I'd condemn her actions, but I'd stick around till she got out of gaol, or one of us died.

I think that would be a nice day when my wife got out of gaol. We could have a cup of tea together on the front verandah while the sun set, the birds chirped and the neighborhood kids played with hula-hoops in the streets.

(Dudley counting his birthday presents)
Dudley Dursley: How many are they?
Uncle Vernon: 36, counted them myself.
Dudley Dursley: 36! But last year-Last year I had 37!
Uncle Vernon: Yes,Yes, but some of them are quite bigger than lasts years.
Dudley Dursley: I don't care how big they are! - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Today I got lots of presents. Good ones too. I got a cheque for $8,113. That never disappoints a man. I got Coke too, Tim Tams and a bag. And some cards. Very nice.

Mum and Dad gave me a red, foam, surfboard. I wasn't quite sure how to react. They bought it in consultation with Ryan, to whom I had confessed a fleeting desire to learn to surf while up in Coolangatta. I didn't really hold that thought for much longer than about 30 minutes, and it was in that 30 minutes that I think I must have told it to Ryan. So there I was holding my surfboard, trying to decide whether to be polite and pretend to like it, or be honest, and tell them that it wasn't really what I wanted. I mean it's not a big deal not getting what you want. I could have got nothing and I wouldn't have cared. So getting something you don't want shouldn't be a problem. Except that it felt a bit rude to say "Thanks" smile and then put it away in my room and try and avoid all Ryan's questions about when we will learn to surf until one day I confess that I don't really want to. I thought it would be better to own up then and there.

So I did that, rude and selfish little boy that I am. And we all had a good laugh. I still felt a bit guilty for not liking it, but I guess that's better than being a liar. I do like that they put effort in to thinking of things for me. And innovative presents are always good. And that's what my present was. When they say it's the thought that counts, I think that can be true here. Truly, no shmultz intended.

I thought I might take this opportunity to blog from college. I'm back, which is a little strange. I feel like I'm in one of those dreams where you have to go back to school even though you've left. It's a little disconcerting. At least I know that I chose to be here, no one is forcing me.

I'm doing the Children's Ministry Skills Intensive. That's pretty crazy. I keep having to do things which I don't want to. Yesterday was "Music, Games and Craft" all three of which had a practical component and all three of which freaked me out completely. I don't want to be singing songs, and doing craft. I had to make a little pom-pom/pipe cleaner lead-pencil man. When she said "Craft" all my most terrible childhood memories of failed creative projects came back to me. Paddle-pop stick creations, and paper mache people, all just turning into a horrid mess. One of my most traumatic memories of primary school is when in Year 6 they brought in a special helper for me to cut out a paper circle, they didn't feel that was within my skill level.

So here I am, learning to teach children stuff. Ohmigoodness! I love children, but I'm happy to leave them in Sunday School till they are too cool to put actions to their music.

Today we did drama, which I was a little happier with, but still, it scares me. I can't wait till next year. That Children's intensive should be better. I hear they spent all morning debating covenantial theology. No practical what-so-ever. How nice does that sound?

Happy Brithday Tom

Good on me I've managed to live 21 years without dying, not even of a drug overdose, or a gangland murder. This calls for a celebration.

I'm home and life's going very fast.

I would love to give me to the full catch up, but I'm getting up in the morning at 5 to go running, so damn early. Then it's off to college for a new year, even though I left. But I'm back. Back to get more letters, or at least get some letters. I may never get my letters.

The weekend was really good. Leader's weekend in Avalon, with a fantastic view. It's nice spending time with leaders. Often when I think of the people who I lead, and I get really proud. Like a proud father in a little way perhaps. It's really nice. I know they are all about around a year younger than me, so I'm not quite the right age to be their father. But hey, they're great people and I love em all. Even the new ones.

God's done good things in the youth ministry. And will do more.

He's done good things in general.

Tom Clancy on the other hand...

Red Rabbit is pretty poor and I'm normally a Tom fan.