Puddeling Along...

Remember that time when you were a kid, and the rain would come and make puddles in the street and (because you were a kid and didn't care about the consequences) you'd look for any opportunity just to go and jump in them and splash around? Think of some words to describe that time in life: carefree, exuberant, spontaneous, uninhibited... all the things that stop us jumping in puddles as adults right?

This last week I have been feeling less and less like the proverbial jump in the puddles because I've been stressing about how this year would work out. How many contacts would we get? Would we be faithful stewards with them? Would we be able to get small groups going? Would we have enough leaders.... the questions kept on coming - and being the (only slightly!!!) control personality type that I am - not having the answers was doing my head in.

Yesterday the clouds literally rolled in over Sydney, and UTS. The skies opened and the rain bucketed down. Yesterday was supposed to be one of the most stressful days in the semester for me as we set up small groups and had the first 'Forum' time (small group leader training which is one of my new projects this year). It ended up being a great day. Long story short - I am a silly child of God who always forgets the lesson that He has things in hand: God is just patient enough with us to allow us to make those mistakes again and again and try and learn from them.

It was with a sense of great relief that I caught the train home last night. I was... exuberant. Carefree, joyful and all the rest - all this in spite of the knowledge that I was probably going to get soaked walking back to my car. Getting off the train I rolled up my jeans and took off my shoes to minimise the damage that inevitably comes from sludging through the rain that collects on the streets of Gordon. Halfway to my car I peeked out from under my umbrella and looked around. There were puddles everywhere.

So I jumped in them. I did. I splashed around in the water and just had fun with it.

Yesterday afternoon, like a stark raving lunatic, a 27 yr old played in the puddles. And it was awesome. Try it next time for yourself - go on, I dare you...

And so it begins...

I'm biding my time. I should be going to bed to get some good rest for the next few days to come - but I'm a little too wound up. You see, tomorrow morning is the start of 'O' day at UTS - and what I personally mark as the beginning of the crazy season which goes on until Easter. Don't get me wrong, I think that it's going to be good, but 'O' Day has traditionally been a marker for me of the new Credo year and so I feel an air of anticipation.

I've been up thinking about what kind of year would I like it to be? From the outset, let me say that I know some things are going to be hard - with more responsibility always comes more opportunities to stuff things up. I'm a realist so I know that it's going to happen (just a matter of minimising the damage really) - but take out the realism of things falling short of expectations and I still have hopes and dreams for the Credoites.

In particular, some recent dialogues on Justins blog (sorry, still don't know the tech way to make links you'll just have to find it yourselves) have made me think specifically about what I hope the students learn from this year. I want them to get their teeth into the meatiness of scripture (as opposed to the fluffiness of other 'spiritual' trends). I want them to grapple and wrestle with their relationships with God - to be confronted, taken out of their comfort zones and, by the glorious graciousness of His Holy Spirit, to come out on the other side as one refined by fire (actually I want the same thing for myself too, but it feels less confronting to keep it abstract and into the lives of others doesn't it?).

I want them to experience laughter and joy - and I want to have enough energy to be sharing as much of it with them as possible. But here's a thought - how many times have I said "I want" in the last couple of sentences - what about what God will want? Ultimately what I want most is for my will to conform to His - and for the wisdom that, as a staff team, we know best how to serve those that God will entrust to us this year.

And speaking of the staff team - here we are. This is of course not our official photo - I just had to include it because it captures a bit of what I'm feeling at the moment: everyone else seems ready but I'm left with the "huh? what's going on?" expression.


Left to right, standing to sitting we are Kat, Dave, Paul, Mike, myself, Bec and May - please pray for us?

#3 - Invest in good furniture

Clearly recovering from the shock of having no clothes - this one seems to be all about me making sure my skirt is sitting appropriately... Lisa (girl next to me) is the next door neighbour who taught me that card board boxes could range from being a race car to a doll house on any given day.


And that couch that we're on? Those who've been to my place should recognise it. Some 30 years later and it's still going strong - which is why the lesson is to invest in good furniture cos it can last a long long time.

Ok - no more childhood photo's, I've moved on. Justin's blog has gotten me fired up about some things so there's an abrupt change in blog 'tone' coming up next post...

#2 - Have appropriate attire when dealing with animals

This one could have been disastrous. The dogs head was as big as my body - not always the best combination for a baby. Lucky for me it was apparently love at first sight. As soon as he saw me i was his - and he'd growl if anyone he didn't know came within a 5 ft radius. I just saw him as my very own pony and he graciously let me ride him as such til i was almost 2...


...and at the very leats put some bottoms on your child if they're sitting in the grass - surely that's got to get uncomfortable?

Lessons From Childhood: # 1 - Don't dress your child like an elf

Left to right: mum, me (the chubby baby!) and my half brother and sister (my sister could soon be having a picture like this of her own cos she's 8 months pregnant). Now, I would like to think that I know my mother pretty well, and trust me, that look on her face says that she is definitely unhappy about something. It's the look she reserves for when she's either really hurt or really angry so I wonder what had been going on when that photo was taken.

It's kind of ironic when you contrast her face to the kids - and the seemingly ideal surroundings of our backyard picnic. Maybe she's just unhappy because she's realised that she's dressed her only daughter up as an elf - and I'm pretty sure it was well past Halloween. Lesson to parents everywhere - learn from the mistakes of the 70's and stop dressing your babies like fictitious characters...

I take it back - I love technology

So here is one of the reasons why this last week has been so difficult with my computer...
Last Monday night I hit the town with Craig for a spot of night photography. After spending so much time taking photos from other places, I realised that I wanted to have something of my home town - that and it was a good excuse to play and try and see what other things my camera can come up with. This is actually one of my favourite shots from the night - I just like the contrast of the sharpness of the building compared with the blurry figure... but a couple of others will be on flickr soon too.

If nothing else - this week (with the threat of losing all my photos) has served as a great excuse to go meandering through the passages of time, and memories that are evoked from images. Isn't it amazing how something so small can throw you back to another time - another world - so vividly? Not to be too dramatic, but I really did almost pass out when the tech guys told me they thought everything was gone: the threat of having nothing to look back on was awful so I'm so thankful that staying up til the wee hours of the morning has paid off!

So to that end, I'm going to celebrate some memories and share some childhood photos over the next week or so.

Til then...

as soon as you read this...

...back up your hard-drive and any thing else that is technologically based. Now. Just go - stop reading and do it...

i have not backed up in a little while and so you can imagine that last week sucked as my computer crashed on me and i lost about 1200 photos, my 'i tunes' folders and can no longer access my 'macmail' and 'safari' (i'm using someone elses computer at the moment). Tonight i need to wipe my hard drive and start from scracth. This is not supposed to happen to macs surely? (admittedly it is my fault - but really, how was i supposed to know that you're meant to have more than 1gig on your start up drive!?)

sometimes technology sucks.