The Smell Factor

As I make personal choices about how to live my live by my values I am wary of the slippery slope I’m on. Whilst I aim to live my life in such a way as to empower the marginalised, promote equality and diversity, love others, protect and sustain the world and it’s peoples; the more hard core I get, the more I smell.

No offence to people like Ghandi, Jesus and Mother Theresa; their contribution to the world was monumental, but we all know that the very acts of changing the world for the better are often opposed to personal grooming.

Here’s an example of some thing that are good, but make you smell: Riding your bike instead of your car, avoiding aluminium deodorants, mulching manure, etc. I put together this sliding scale of ‘normal’ to ‘smelling’ people, I’m still pretty close to the ‘normal’ end, but am heading further down:

note: spelling in this may be ‘near-enough-is-good-enough’, also, the order of events may differ from individual experience.

Anyway, I’d rather smell and live in the world I hope for. You know, that is if I can’t have both. I’ll just take more eco-friendly showers. How far are you down the list?

A different kind of Christmas

I think you should all be empowered by this new video, which has become my favourite clip on the cost of materialism. I think it says very simply what we all know about the price of a consumerist society, and what we can simply do to have a better life and community now.

It was posted by Christine Sine on her blog with a lot of other cool tips and resources on how to do Christmas differently. I highly recommend checking it out. Merry Christmas.

Fish and more Fish

Fish are graceful creatures as they float through the waters of a river or the sea. In giant schools they seamlessly manoeuvre through their environment. Beautiful elegant, look at them go!

 

I've never actually tried to juggle fish, though I imagine it is very difficult indeed. My experiences of handling only a few at a time lead me to believe that if I were entrusted with any greater number my exploits would be comically haphazard. Forget about juggling, I can barely get by holding all of the things at once.

Holding them is almost impossible as they casually flop and fall out of my slime covered hands. But the real fun begins when every time try to pick one up an avalanche of fish stream from my arms to the floor. Let's just say that Juggling fish is very difficult, and very very fun. You're probably expecting me to get to a metaphor soon, and here it is: I find balancing lifestyle much like fish juggling. This season has been enjoyable, with many ventures, opportunities and successes. But everything seems to be flying everywhere (like fish) and I have a relatively low pressure life style. So I guess I'm learning the lesson of trust and immersion; throwing myself into things with faith in the guidance and provision of God. I'm enjoying spending time with my family, working at SU, being creative on my blog and working in the garden. Most of all I'm enjoying the opportunity to discover how I want to invest my time and resources, talking about my gifts and the future, and working in the call God has for all to be a part of something amazing. Hopefully I’ll be Juggling fish soon!

 

What to do…

I spent some time on this week’s comic. It’s supposed to be encouraging really. See, it’s about the ingenuity and achievement of people, who do amazing things, but are stumped when it comes to solving problems. We can use our creativity and smarts to solve the worlds issues, we just have to fight the fear and want it. i think that’s where faith comes in, at least for me, and where hope for something better is so important.

Guest Blogger!

Hey, my exciting news is that I was asked to write a post for the SUNO blog about my exploits with Drama Church. I got to do some drawings and talk about my involvement in trying to make faith make sense in my world. You can check it out by clicking HERE! You may recognise the pictures from an older blog post, but there’s some new doodles in there too.

Thanks for reading,

Sincerely,

Theo

Apparate

Verb -

1. (neologism) To appear (magically)

Hazel has developed the ability to make items appear out of thin air. Yesterday she apparated a plastic jug of water, which she promptly flung to the floor. While this super-skill is exciting, it is a little alarming as she tends to apparate potentially dangerous items (Knives, scissors, shavers, etc.).

I know you’re thinking ‘Well you shouldn’t leave stuff lying around’ but seriously, we don’t even know where the jug came from, or how it got within arm reach of Hazel. So far a very wet floor is the only consequence of this skill. Though she did apparate Jess’ lost watch two days ago (it’s been missing for months!), that was pretty good.

Hazel continues to grow, develop and grow, remaining the tallest baby in her acquaintance. She is also beginning to explore the world as thoroughly as possible.

Creativity!

God is creative. Right at the beginning of the Bible, before they describe God as 'good' or 'powerful' or 'loving' or anything they say “God Created”. And what amazing stuff he created! Suns, plants, gravity, electrons, values, experience, consciousness, everything! He loved it so much he did it non-stop for a week. Then he got all excited and got Man to be involved in the creative process.
I reckon we're just like that, creating and building relationships with each other. Some of us create solid things like cars and sandwiches, some of us create abstract things like art or romance. Some of us create solutions to problems and build better futures.
I think that we get starved when we’re deprived of the opportunity to create, just as we’re starved when we’re deprived of relationship. Creating gives us expression and allows us to communicate who we are. Go and create something, you’ll thank me if you do! Comment what you created, that’d be awesome!