Virtually Paul

Bittersweet

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

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

Read the whole article over at Threads

OK…spill

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

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

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

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

Heart Warming

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

Question Marks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evicted, sort of

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

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

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

Even Easter

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

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

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

East again

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

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

Certifiably Graduated

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

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

Unexpected Surprises

I was at an engagement party on Saturday night and ran into a friend from camps/bible college who I hadn’t caught up with in ages. After the party he was heading up to his family’s house in Buxton for the night. I’d spent the week at work full-time, so not being able to bear the idea of a weekend opportunity going to waste, I invited myself along. My sister had given me a lift to the party, so with nothing but my phone, wallet and keys in my pockets… we headed off. It’d been a while between conversations, so we spent a while just playing with different theological ideas we’d been thinking about. It was good. It was especially good when we got the chance to unpick a few of our respective ideas a bit further, where normally we might sit on the fence a bit more for the sake of political correctness.

On Sunday morning, we rolled up at his church so that he could meet his commitment to play keyboard for a small church, with maybe 25 people, all probably over 60. It was whilst I was sitting on a pew by myself, waiting for the service to start, that I met Ada. Ada strolled in the door with the assistance of her walking frame. She’d been in the door less than 20 seconds before she looked straight at me and called out the warmest “Hello there!”. Within a minute, I hadn’t moved and Ada and her walking frame had come to sit next to me. We had a great little conversation as she told me all about where she’d lived throughout her life and the things she’d done. Within 5 minutes we’d worked out that Ada grew up at Moonee Ponds Baptist Church with my grandfather and that my great-grandmother (who I never got to meet) had played the organ in her wedding. Ada was even more surprised and delighted than I was, calling her husband over in excitement.
“Guess who’s grandson this is!”

I felt special.

Life of Paul update

It’s Sunday night and I’d have to say I feel quite good about my preparation, to date, for the two exams I will be sitting in the coming week. The first one is tomorrow afternoon and the second on Wednesday morning, after which I will (touch wood) have completed my Graduate Certificate in Chartered Accounting Foundations. I won’t sidetrack the post with a rant on my less than flattering opinion of the course but you can email me if you’re interested.

Completing the Grad Cert makes life extremely more interesting, given that I’m not enrolled in anything else. That will make the coming semester the first time that I haven’t been studying something, since leaving high school at the end of 2001. I cannot wait. I will be moving up to full time work in the coming weeks, outside of which I will have absolutely no ongoing commitments or expectations being placed upon my time.  It’s going to be good.

I moved back over to the north-west of Melbourne in mid-January, the day before my former housemate got back from his honeymoon. With the exams pending, my parents were gracious enough to allow me to return to the family home, so that I could devote sufficient attention to studying and not be rushed into finding new accommodation.

It’s been nice being back home, even though it involves almost an hour’s drive to get to work.  The work thing will probably take its toll eventually but so far I’ve survived.  It’s been good having a chance to just spend time with my family and hear about things that are going on day-to-day.  I’ve also spent a bit more time at my family’s church in Essendon than I had been whilst living out east.  I really like the familiarity sometimes.  The sermon this morning was excellent too.  Dan preached on interacting with the community and reminded us of how ineffective it is to have separatist habits, where we just stick to being friends with ‘churchy’ people.

It has gotten to the point where I’m almost going to have to choose between two very viable options for the remainder of the year.  I could choose to live in either the east or the north-west of Melbourne, without either being a terrible option.  Finishing the Grad Cert also has me asking bigger questions of career choice and life direction.  I think I’m actually going to find it challenging to just sit still for a little while, without necessarily knowing where I’m “based” or “where I’m headed” but I’m hoping that’s a good thing because it leaves room for lots of pleasant surprises.