An Update.

I'm not doing too well with the updating of the blog, am I?

We've started the new year, which means that the old students have all said goodbye and gone (except for those that haven't) and some new ones have arrived. It's an interesting time of year because it involves change. Change can be good, but I'm the sort of person who finds it fairly stressful 99% of the time. Maybe that should be 100%? I'm trying to think of a time when I wasn't stressed out by something changing. When I last changed Parker's nappy that wasn't too stressful. Maybe I'll keep it at 99%.

I was talking to Dave (a fellow staff member) last year and he was telling me about a book he'd read by M Scott Peck (I think it was The Road Less Travelled). One of the things that he got from the book was the realisation that change and problems are an inevitable part of life. There is nothing that you can do to escape them. They are going to come your way. If you view change and problems as causes for stress; bad things that should be avoided, then you will spend a fair amount of your life depressed because you are destined to run headlong into them. Now, if you view change and problems as potential areas for growth and benefit then you can totally take the sting out of them, as well as increase your mental health.

Which of these two perspectives (fear vs. potential) best fits the message of the Christian gospel? Which of the two, for the child of God, is what God promises for us?

I'm becoming more and more convinced that most of the things that deny us joy in life are about internal matters - our perspective - rather than actual external modifications to our lifestyle. If this is true, then our biggest problem in life is the fact that we tend to listen to and believe the voices of others, the world, our experiences, the enemy and ourselves more than we listen to and trust the voice of the Holy Spirit whispering the promises of God to our soul.

In theory, that makes transformation a lot easier than we might fear it to be.

Back in Australia

Ah, back in the Land Down Under - where wind blows and then thunders, or something. I guess that, technically, New Zealand is also the Land Down Under but I don't think anyone has ever written a song about New Zealand. Have they?

Anyway, we're back and gearing up for the start of the new year. Back to watermelons and lots of meeting new people. Happy New Year to everyone out there!

Overseas at Christmas

In a week, we'll be heading off to New Zealand to spend Christmas with Ruth's sister and her family. They've very kindly offered us their air miles so that we can be with them over the holiday season. We're looking forward to that. When we get back in the New Year it will be back to watermelon season. Yay!

It's been a good first year for us in Canowindra. It's strange to think that there will be a new batch of students here in a month or so, and the course and relationships will be starting over again. I understand that it can be tough to spend a year discipling and sharing your life with a group of people, only for you to have to start again from scratch every January but I'm still new to this so haven't yet felt that dread at having to begin from the beginning once more. It would be nice to have longer than a year with the students, as it's only just now that some of the guys are starting to 'get it' and others who could probably benefit from a longer time with us. We do have a few students who are staying on next year as they were looking to do the course over two years.

I was doing a bit of reflecting this morning. I was out listening to the birds singing, and there was a farmer harvesting hay in the field next to me. His machinery was extremely noisy, and it was a harsh ugly noise which contrasted sharply with the sounds of nature. I thought about how God had managed to create a functional and beautiful world and yet when we create we struggle to combine beauty and functionality. The things we make tend to be either one or the other, and yet the expert Maker can blend the two together seamlessly. When it comes to creating, we're just amateurs really.

Still still alive...

Another update because I have to register my disgust at the run of incredibly hot days we've been having recently. The past three days haven't dropped below 40 degrees and I've had enough. We went to the swimming pool this morning, which was nice I suppose but it shouldn't be 41 degrees before MIDDAY.

Good news is that the air conditioning in my study is working in tip top condition.

Still alive...

Yep, we're still alive. Just busy, spending every waking hour trying to keep cool.

Holiday Update

I've been feeling guilty about my lack of updates - so much for "little and often". We're heading off for a week-long holiday on Sunday so I thought I'd get something up before we vanish. We'll have limited internet connection while we're away which, these days, is pretty much the equivalent of doing a Lord Lucan. "I haven't had an e-mail from James in two days! CALL THE POLICE!!!!" Yes mum, I'm looking at you.

Actually, I wonder about the role of guilt in the life of the Christian sometimes. I knew a guy who said that guilt is a '...wasted emotion..." I think that he was trying to say that it served no purpose - it made you feel bad without changing anything. You might feel guilty for robbing a bank, but your pockets are still jingling with everyone else's loose change so why bother with guilt? Guilt as a "wasted emotion" is at least a fairly honest and reasonable assessment of what guilt actually is - at least it is if you have no intention of acting on it. I suppose that anthropologists might think that guilt is an emotional response to the breaking a social norm or participating in something that's considered taboo. In this case, guilt becomes about conformity rather than truth or falsehood.

So where does this leave the Christian? I currently think that guilt in itself is not an inherently Christian emotion. I would probably agree with the anthropologists in this case. As such, the role of guilt in my life is to force me to a state of theological reflection where I consider why I feel guilty and what the Christian response should be. For example, I feel a little bit guilty about poking fun at my mother above and on reflection I think that I shouldn't have done it - sorry mother (but I'm not going to delete it because it serves to illustrate my point). The Christian response to guilt is always action, even if the action is to dismiss false guilt.

What about when we do something that [u]is[/u] socially acceptable but we still feel bad about it? Well, one of two things is going on there, I reckon. Either it's guilt that finds its source in some other cultural context (e.g. there might be many things that are socially acceptable but your family disapprove of - hence the guilt) or it's the Holy Spirit. However, my experience is that the Holy Spirit doesn't make me feel guilty so much as just really uncomfortable. Is there any difference? Maybe not in practice, but I think that one comes from the breaking of an internal moral code and the other comes from the breaking of a relationship. I think that if I were able to clearly distinguish one from the other I'd be doing pretty well in terms of my relationship with the Father.

Where did all that come from? That was more like a vomit than a blog post, but still it stays. I don't feel guilty about leaving it up, you see?

Update

This is just a quick update to let you know that Ruth and I recently acquired New South Wales driving licenses. We can no longer hide behind our UK licenses when it comes to traffic crimes.

It's been a very hectic past few weeks here, but the students have gone on holidays and a mission trip for a couple of weeks so I'm hoping to catch up on lesson preparation and marking. Maybe I'll get a chance to write a decent update for this blog as well.