Thursday, July 27, 2006

dreaming




Wouldn't it be amazing to live there? Impractical I suppose, and extraordinarily hard to access, not to mention isolated, but it's stunning nonetheless.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Love is a special way of feeling


Love is a special way of feeling...

It is the way we feel when we sit on our mother's lap with her arms around us tight and close.

It is the good way we feel when we talk to someone and they want to listen and don't tell us to go away and be quiet

It is the happy way we feel when we save a bird that has been hurt...
or feed a lost cat...
or calm a frightened colt.

Love is found in unexpected places...
it is there in the quiet moment when we first discover a beautiful thing...
when we watch a bird soar high against a pale blue sky...

when we see a lovely flower that no one else has noticed...

when we find a place that shelters us and is all our very own.

Love starts in little ways...
It may begin the day we first share our thoughts with someone else...

or help someone who needs us...

Or, sometimes, it begins because, even without words, we understand how someone feels.

Love comes quietly...
but you know when it is there, because, suddenly you are not alone any more...
and there is no sadness inside you.

Love is a happy feeling that stays inside your heart for the rest of your life.




(This is the text in 'Love is a special way of feeling' by Joan Walsh Anglund. A kids book...but it resonates nonetheless and the pictures are exquisite)

Thursday, July 20, 2006

wake up from your sleep


The thing I hate most about winter is probably getting out of bed in the morning. Something about hitting the cold air after being wrapped in layer upon layer of blankets. Anyway, it's not pleasant. I wish I was still in bed.

After I managed to ease my protesting little body out of bed, I managed to find these verses. I like how 'the message' says it, so here it is
Ephesians 5
1-2Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper
behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with
him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not
cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but
to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.


God does things so differently to how we do. He sees things differently. He loves differently. (and for that I am very glad). It can often be our natural reaction to be cautious with who we love and how we love, but it's not what should be happening.

Our example...the God we are called to imitate loves in a different dimension altogether. It's extravagant and wild and passionate and completely free.. No strings attatched.

Oh my.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

'Miss Mildura'



This beautiful lady was my Great Grandma. I never got to meet her, and I'm not exactly sure why I'm putting this up, other than that I think it is lovely. She was 18 at the time and was 'Miss Mildura'...so there's a beauty queen in the family line! You've got to love that!

The photo (as you may be able to tell from my great gran's attire) is from the 20's sometime, an era which I think is particularly fascinating.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Saturday, July 15, 2006

imagination...

I've been playing with collages. Helps to get the creative juices flowing without really worrying on the outcome or anything else. This is one of the ones I've done, I'll be putting some more of them up here, when I can be bothered.

I've been getting into thinking about why I bother with things that are, when you think about it practically, pretty useless. But that isn't the point. The point for me is that creativity is a lifestyle...it's something that everyone is born with and that everyone uses in different ways. The sad thing is that some people lose that. People allow themselves to become routine and sterile.

The ingrained need we have to create is beautiful, a reflection of our wild and creative God. It's rather freeing when you allow yourself to do something simply for the pleasure of being able to look at what you've done and see that it is good (sound familiar anyone?).

I love the way that kids create, without fear of getting things wrong, fully expecting to be appreciated. It's kind of cool that we're aksed to have faith like a child as well. And this coming from the aforementiond wild, creative God.

There's beauty in imagination and simple unpolluted love.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

no coincidence!


(picture is me as a little tacker...I still remember the day that it was taken, and I just like the photo)

I pinched 'The Birth Order Book - why you are the way you are' (Kevin Leman) from Bec's room this evening...

Being a youngest child, I was interested to see what that meant in regards to my personality...I had to laugh when the first thing I read was spot on.


First of all I want all you babies of the family to know that I'm onto you.
I know you have just skipped the first eight chapters and started right here. I
understand.



True to Dr. Leman's theory I had done the typical youngest thing (and in the first few sentences). You've got to love it when something hits you like that and you go 'hang on, maybe there's something in this'. Either way, it made me laugh!

Ended up reading or at least skimming in depth the whole book. It's fascinating how people work. A lot of interesting stuff on how our birth order can affect our career and our relationships...

I'm advised (for a highly successful relationship) to marry a first born or only child ;)

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Memories and mess


I found this photo tonight as I was going through my boxes of memories. Being in a creative mood sent me seeking inspiration, and somehow I ended up reading a million old letters, looking at special photos and holding and touching the objects that are pretty well sacred to me.

Doing this, always puts me in a bittersweet mood. It's the memories tied to so many things that I've had to say goodbye to that are a little saddening but at the same times at least double as special for it. Needless to say, this memorial journey though everything also makes a huge mess. A small price to pay.

I was over the moon to find this picture, as it is pretty much my favourite family shot from ever. I love the way that none of us were ready for it, and therefore there is no posing. No fake smiles. No chance that it would ever be put up on the walls and fridges of churches and families that we need support from...(ah the joys of growing up as a missionary kid).

Strangely enough, this captures perfectly all of us.

From the left we have Bec, Dad, Me, Laura, Mum and Em.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Aye!


Life is good. It's just nice to be here.

Last night I sang at a fundraiser for the oaktree foundation...great fun, though my italian song wasn't half as good as it should have been, due to some issues with the mike and never having practised with the flute in it. But that's ok, my second song (Stuff and Nonsense - a Neil Finn number) went really well so I'm all smiling. Bec wrote about the recital/concert as well so I'll leave that one there.

Today was an all round wonderful day. Church in the morning included 'How great thou art' which is always good, but was today especially amazing. Following church we made our way to the Mellow's place for lunch. We grew up with their three boys, and spending time with them now is still just as comfortable and fun as it was when we were all kids in the Solomons, begging to stay for another half an hour.

Phillip, Kevin, Leon, Em and I trundled off after lunch to the movies to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2, which as far as sequels go I enjoyed immensely (take that all you critics!). I think I can overlook a little bad acting (cough) orlando (bloom cough) when all things piratey are involved...and Johnny Depp - brilliant as usual.

Taking the train there also provided some entertainment. The guys (a middle eastern and a dutch guy - both middle aged) bechind us were having a very suss sounding conversation of which we caught the phrases 'after the forgery scam', 'the pipes under the drugs' and 'the president of Afghanistan'. Then the Dutch guy starts talking about tigers and how he works with them and 'they all live in one house with us'....what on earth? The people you meet on trains...

After the movie, back to the Mellow's for dessert and then home.

I'm contemplating being creative now.


the picture is from the very cool exploding dog site.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

pottering along

Today was a pottering sort of day. Nothing much got accomplished, and nothing really needed to. It was nice.

Tea, a couple of Good books and silly little pen drawings (more tea?) gave me something to do.



In the afternoon I helped mum deliver the papers and junkmail... the walk involved was lovely due to a sky full of glorious clouds and a bit of a sunset. I saw Kujo - a dog of the small and very yappy variety, the one armed man that lives at the top of Katherine Place and several kids playing on the road (smart kids...real smart).

I'm here with a smile and a growling stomach.

dinner soon. I hope.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

a few pictures

I thought it was time I put up a couple of pictures from Centre Trip...


This is me with a honey ant...tasty and thankfully not sticky enough to fuel my honey phobia!












one of the many amazing dead trees...this one was at Kata Tjuta on the way to the Valley of the Winds. No, I didn't take the photo wonky, it was on a hill.

















Ok, this is me holding a Kangaroo leg that we butchered off some fresh roadkill. My teacher is very into 'not being wasteful' hence the butchering and consequent eating of roadkill on more than one occasion.















One of the sketches I started and still haven't finished. Half of this one was drawn in the dark...hence the roughness. Oh yes, it's Uluru if you hadn't picked that up already.







Another very quick sketch, this time in charcoal. It was the view from some rocks at our first bush camp.

















Here I am at Yuendumu holding Genie...she was about one and as you can see absolutely beautiful.











This sketch was yet another I did on the run. We hiked up Yuendumu Hill and this was all I managed to get down in the few minutes between chasing after the kids...good fun!






Kings Canyon was amazing. What else can I say?














Here's some of the kids and I at Yuendumu!














There's about a gazillion other photos, but they might have to make it on later. Enjoy!

Monday, July 03, 2006

a kick up the backside

Something that I want to get down before the freshness of it leaves my poor little head is something that struck home while we were in Central Australia (in particular at Yuendumu, the Aboriginal community we stayed in).
It is the way in which our culture tends to turn everything into an egocentric affair. Western ideals are more often than not about the individual. Individual achievement...individual gain...individual faith?

Now don't get me wrong. I believe deeply in having a highly personal relationship with God. God is relational in the deepest sense, and we are invited into a intimate relationship with Him...I love that.
What I'm talking about, and some of what came up on the trip was this westernised individual perspective in relation to Sin and social justice.

Social Justice is a term that gets chucked about a lot. Especially in 'christian' circles, but a lot of what goes on is all talk and no action. I definately am guilty of this, and probably will continue to be. But social justice is something I think that needs to be taken a lot more seriously.
This drive for personal gain, personal happiness and personal conviction which our culture percieves as most important has also by the look of it crept into our faith. This isn't all bad. But having this overly personal view rammed down our throats has crippled a lot of the love that we are called to.

Sin being anything that falls short of what God requires, is not only limited to 'personal sin', but also involves all forms of injustice... as one of the Guys put it...

Since when has homosexuality, abortion and pre-maritial sex become a bigger issue as 'sins' to us in the western church than poverty, world hunger and inequality?


Way to make you think.

I'm not sure what exactly I'm trying to get across, but it's a bit of a kick up the backside to realise that your Christianity and your fight against sin cannot simply be a personal thing.

Anyone else with more ideas...help me out!