I have got some really lovely, long emails from some friends overseas in the last week. One from Jem and one from Emily. It is so nice to get emails from those far away and hear about their adventures.

Anyway it made me realise (and I told them this) that this year is probably my year of not much change. For the first time since I left school I have remained in the same job and the same house in the same country with the same partner (and the status of the realtionship hasn’t changed) doing the same degree from one year to another. I still have the same friends too, although I am pleased to say I have made some new ones this year too. I have to say I am very happy this. I think I needed a year where nothing changed much. A year to just be settled. A year where I am actually able to walk with and support those around me who are going through big change rather than going through my own.

Six years of change then one off. It is like my Sabbath year, Praise God for times of rest.

I wouldn’t normally put Monday down as day I like a lot but this week I like it very much.  I have had a very productive day and now I am about have two days off so Monday feels like Friday.  How wonderful. 

 I am enjoying the rain too.  I hope it rains like this tommorrow so I can stay home and snuggle up and watch a video or somthing.  I am very much due for that. 

A rather up and down one really. 

Saturday was lovely.  Started the day with coffee and croissants on the balcony and then went for a run and swim with Gemma and Jo at Coogee.  This has become one of my favourite things to do.  It is so very beautiful there and really energises me.  After some silliness over lunch with the house I did some studies and then went and had a drink with David at the Blue Gum.  It was a relatively intense conversation but I enjoyed it.  Then I spent the night at mums.  She cooked my favourite Laksa and then we played Scrabble and I actually beat her.  I don’t like to consider myself a seriously competitive person but there is something very satsfying about beating one’s incredibly intelligent mother. 

 Sunday however was less pleasant.  On the way to church we were pulled over by the police for having an unregistered car.  I know I have no excuse but it was less than a week and I did have my green and pink slips I just hadn’t had the time to get to the RTA.  Anyway it turned out to be very expensive mistake and we were left feeling a little stressed for the rest of the day.  We also missed church and I was on prayers and my plans to get the beach again did not eventuate so my annoyed mood  was not all that conducive to effective study as you can imagine.

Thankfully however we had one of the best nights at Rough Edges we had, had for a long time.  It was the night of giving and it was what I needed.  We started out by giving out free coffee for the first half hour which turned out to be fun.  Believe it or not doing this can often casue more problems than benefits but it seemed last night it was all good.  No one tried to take advantage of it by ordering 20 coffees they just graciuosly accepted the gift.  Martin ended up making a donation to ensure Rough Edges still got some money.  I think it was important to him to still be generous depsite the morning’s serious money stress.  He is very inspiring.  Then later that night I was invited to play chess with someone I had not met before.  He was a very gentle spirit and really genuine guy.  I am not a very good chess player so while we were playing he kept giving me tips or allowing me to rethink a move.  When I did do something good he always said, “that’s a good move.” This can often be patronising but it was done so gracefully it wasn’t.  He honestly just wanted to see me improve.  It was a very generous act.  Finally as we were closing a guy came in and bought a cordial.  There was another guy seemingly a bit lost hanging around the counter. Neither of us knew him but the guy turns to him and asks if he wants a cordial.  Obviously he did so the guy bought him one.  It only cost 20c but it again it was done so gracefully, it seemed so generous. 

All this had me thinking that we really never are too poor that we can’t give something and I think that we need to be able to give things.  I hear people say and the natural human drive is selfish and I guess there is a lot around to back that up but maybe deep down humans need to be able to serve each other.

I am on to do prayers tommorrow.  I haven’t got much written but I found this while looking for inspiration and I liked it.  It is by Noel Davis whose book is of great inspiration and comfort to me. 

 Dear Job

I look beyond the confines of my knowing
Of blame and punishment and the advice of friends
To your lived story of hope.
What does it take to become fully intimate with the Divine
Rather than knowing by hearsay?
I look at you stripped to your spirit
and I shudder.

Listen to your own story with compassion
And risk becoming intimate with its truth unfolding
All its beauty and its shame exposed
As you are awakened to yourself
For the heart of aloneness
There is the adventure and terror of your life transforming.

Yes love’s hand of freedom is fierce
Beyond our most entrenched resistance.
Love brings us to our knees
Broken and spent
Defenceless before God of Love
Who never gives up on us.

Yay footboot is working again.  It only went down for like two days but I felt so lost without it.  Who would have thought that no blogs or email could have such a profound effect.  It is pretty sad really. 

Today I woke up and there was a rose on my pillow.  My husband is such a romantic.  It made me feel all warm inside. 

Tonight we are heading down to Wiseman’s Ferry to spend the night and tommorrow there.  It is not very far away but it will be nice to be out of the city, surrounded by trees and river and have some quality time with Martin.  I think I would be lying if I said it has been a very smooth 2 years but I still think that being married to Martin is the privelege of life and I am very grateful.   

Last weekend I went to the “Liberating the Captives” conference.  I have been thinking about some of the stuff that was talked about there a lot this week.  I think I have been feeling quite ambivalent about leaving Australia lately,  I am very happy and comfortable here and I won’t deny I am very keen to have some children but it reminded me that it is the thing that I most want and feel quite called to.  The main speaker was quite involved with some organisations in Peru.  I got his contact details as I would very much like to see what other people are doing in Peru.  Hopefully there will be time when I am there in June. 

Dave Andrews, as always, left me with some stuff to think about.  I will try to reframe from raving about it too much but he told us a version of the serenity prayer which has been going around my head since.  It goes like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I can not change, Courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.

Today Ryan and Helen and I went down to Coogee Beach for a morning swim. After Ryan decided that he did not want to do laps but rather run Helen and I decided to try out the woman’s only pool. I loved it. It was like a great giant rock pool. I can not even begin to describe how much nicer it is to look up when breathing and see rocks and ocean and then look down and see some fishes rather than just the bottom of Victoria pool. I also really liked how friendly the other women were. I often find beach culture to be quite cold whereas these ladies were very friendly.

After the swim I went back to Helen’s for a hot shower. Our hot water tank had been out since Thursday so it had been awhile. It was difficult but I could almost do it again for the joy of feeling the hot water run down after a few days without it. It was joyous. Ours has now been replaced so I am very grateful.

Helen then came over for some study. I am finding my studies so boring at the moment. It is making me quite angry. I think that boring lecturors are so disrespectful to their students. And it annoys me how irrelavant what I am doing is to what I want to do. It is very draining. Attending the Liberating the Captives Conference helped a little to reinspire me but today pulle dme vback into boredom. Anyway at least it was somewhat productive.

Finally in the evening Tom brought around his little brother. I really like him. So confident and friendly. He said I was funny – that happens to me very rarely so I was very excited. i wanted to hug him. We had BBQ dinner and played on David’s Wii. I thought it was lots of fun even if I couldn’t totally work it out.

Yay for such fun days that are totally unplanned and unexpected.

I know that Ryan and Tom have already mentioned that we watched Boytown last night but just in case you didn’t believe them I thought I would confirm that it was crap.  Apart from 3 or 4  pretty funny jokes at the beginning and an Irish guy who I think is pretty cool the rest was appaling.  The script had no direction and most of the jokes have been done before. I think that joke where someone is talking to a man who is sitting at a desk and then the person talking walks out and a girl puts her head up from under the desk would have to be one of the most offensive jokes around.  It really annoys me.  I wish they would just stop.  I also don’t like gender stereotypes,  I wish they would just stop too.

I have to say watching movies a Simmons Street is totally cool, I am still not over the massive screen projected on the wall but 9 out of 10 times the movies we hire are not very good.  I don’t know if that is because 9 movies out of 10 that are made these day are crap or if it is because we are just not very good at choosing.  I think I will have to stick with TV series.