A pox on both your houses!

If only it was that dramatic...yep got the chicken pox!

Why I couldn't have got it when a child I don't know...it's not much fun but at least it's not itchy...

And if I could take the advice of Leunig's Mr Curly then sometimes it is good to do nothing but have a rest.

In the meantime, I'll seetle for being very grateful to lovely friends who drop around bearing gifts!

Domestic Crisis

Oh no! I had to dust the cookbook collection. They look so pathetic with the usual kitchen detris replaced by a film of the dust of unuse!

Not a good sign at all...but only one essay to go (before next semester of course!)

When I grow up I wanna be...

... a part time student!

On a grey and overcast winter's day is there anything more delightful than being ensconsed in a library pursuing the unravelling threads of thought through the stacks?

It has been such a delight this holiday to have some time just to think thoughts - not to try and solve problems or plan sermons/lessons or fix something but just to read and think and let my mind idlely stroll.

And the thinking has been enriched by a great (roast) dinner conversation about starting points of faith and mission...what is the difference between approaching mission through christology to ecclesiology and mission to approaching through trinity to mission?? I'm looking forward to the coffee conversations which will undoubtedly ensue.

All this because of the overarching metanarrative of an overdue essay - thank goodness for understanding and brilliant lecturers who enact their belief in learning being transformative and care enough to check out the transformation...thanks Lynlea.

So i can't wait till next holidays ... or until I have Allison's discipline about turning off the tele - though i have done that now :-)

Birth or Death?

but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?
In Journey of the Magi, TS Eliot puts those words in the mouth of the magi on their return from seeing the infant Jesus...

it captures well that sense of not being sure what we are seeing before us - what seems obvious isn't always all there is.

I restored my soul today by taking off my shoes and walking the sands of DY, by sticking my tongue out to taste the salty spray, by wishing (again) i could surf like the semi-angels hovering and plunging in the waves and by remembering again of the oceanic nature of grace.

Just when all seems lost...people hang around after a service to talk revolution!!

the water restorative has helped me see the words shared earlier in the morning for the words of revolution they truly are. In some ways, formed in frustration but a frustration for what might be rather than it's more negative counterpart of frustration which wishes to take us back. So I'm bending close this week to check... could it be possible? might this signal a new beginning? a continuation of the spirit's uneven dance in western sydney? could there be something to belong to that is informal, meal based, honest and not too conservative? could it be just like countless others before (maybe)? ...but could it also just be that we are each uniquely here for such a time as this?

I am challenged to serious praying - for the delicate birthing which will be necessary to detach this new growth from its parent...gestation seems over..we must be born or die.

Spring Fever

Oh no - the sun after this week's Sydney deluge has caused my very neglected garden to think it's spring.

It's thrown up this beautiful first jonquil of the season - and the smell is heavenly...