stop and take the time

today i did three hair cuts. i went over to tamara's (a faithful reader of my blog) after school and i cut her hair, and we were both impressed with the results. then annie came over later on and i cut her hair too. then brad wanted his done, so i trimmed it a little bit. i did a good job, if only i charged...

anyway, today i officially had one year's leave (without pay of course) approved. arrgghh. it's exciting but a little scary too. it's all really happening now.

i was inspired by my little brother's blog the other day - not the one on bananas - the one about the children. go read it www.darrenhailes.blogspot.com if you haven't already. it's funny you know, not the blog, but how just by one person being open and honest, others can be spurred on to do great things. today i was happy because i took just a few minutes to talk to two kids in particular who were feeling down. sometimes i get caught up in rushing around school to get this that and everything else done that i don't stop to talk to kids in the corridor. i make myself mad when i do that. it doesn't always take much effort to make a difference in someone else's life.

Goodbye

i am getting good at goodbye's. in the last year, i have said goodbye to my mum, dad, brother, sister, brother in law and nephew without knowing when i will see them again. i have said goodbye in a different way to three of my girlfriends at school who left to start families. tonight i said goodbye to Hamish who has been a massive part of my life for the last almost 5 years, as a boyfriend at times and a best friend always. he's moving back to brisbane, where his family is, for a few reasons. i know, as with all those i've said goodbye to, that it doesn't mean he is out of my life, just that it will be different and i won't see him nearly as much. H bought a cd yesterday and on it was this song. it made me cry.

James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover

Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bear my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow.

Rosco Apologizes!

I was experimenting with this new "hello/picaso" program where you can send pictures directly to Blogs (I am authorised on Fiona's) and I accidently sent the picture of Kerryn and Agnes to Fiona's Blog. Nice pic though taken on Agnes' birthday in September! This maybe my last posting on Fiona's Blog. I might be deleted!

does this work? 

availability update

a few blogs ago i discussed the idea of being available and how if you put enough conditions on it then maybe you aren't really being available. well i have decided that is no longer just a thought, it is truth. and maybe that's what i was doing. i had been investigating taking some time off school next year and after putting forward my ideal, so i could be 'available', it came back to me that that wasn't an option - fair enough. but then it was put to me that either i could take off the whole school year or none at all. woa. i wasn't expecting that. that confused me. but i think i have figured it out in the end. if i want to be available, then i have to be available and not jus tin my way. quoting a friend who was quoting tony campolo - i think - about the survey done of people in a retirement home. the 3 things they wished they had done were to take more risks, whoops, i forget the second one and the third was to have done more things that would have a lasting impact.

The poor are on your doorstep...

Great blog, Fee.

I've just blogged about something similar.

So did Tara Ayer.

It would appear they can be found quite easily, if you know where to look. I remember going out into Box Hill Gardens about 18-months ago with a friend and a loaf of bread. We just wanted to help someone. But we didn't find a single person there! No-one in the alleys around Box Hill central; no-one in the parks and gardens; no-one at the tram stop shelter. Seeking out wisdom from people in the know would clearly have helped us.

I don't think it's really that hard, though. Your area may look different to mine (hopefully!). The lost, for you, might be a stalker at your workplace. The last, in some communities, have been living alone, on your street, for fourty years and never have a relative visit. The least, in other places still, have just risked their lives escaping from a nation, only to be welcomed to your country with shame and scorn.

Consider it an Easter-style game of find the egg when you were a kid. God hasn't hidden the marginalised away from you so that you can't find them for the life of you. They will be close by, for sure, and waiting and wanting to be found.

Darren
In Vancouver, its 4.36 p.m. on Friday October 21. And le vol de Julia arrive et dix-neuf heurs.

the lost the last the least

who are the lost, the last, the least in your life and how do you love them? are there any? do you need to go find some?
there are many people out there who deserve to be loved, who deserve to have people care, yet they don't. there are probably some people in this world who we would say don't derserve it, but they still need people too.
though i don't think i necessarily like putting people in catergories, one person in my life, who we will call 'the stalker' (a self proclaimed nickname - no need to stress over the name, he's truly harmless) is one of these people. so starved of love, acceptance, friendship and even joy? the stalker has a special place in my heart and while i have no real idea of how to help him, or even of what his life entails, i try.
the bible talks about how nothing we ever do for God is in vain. so i pray that as i try to reach out to the stalker, with God's love, that somehow it will make a difference. and that i and the few others who show concern for the stalker will somehow have an impact on his life.

backflippers

backflippers are annoying. i don't mean the gymnastic kind. i mean those who say one thing that gets our hopes up or minds thinking along one idea, then a few days later they do a back flip and what you might have considered happening in the first place (which you had pushed aside because of the backflippers comments) all of sudden becomes reality and you feel like you've been blindsided.
this is how i feel today.
for the last week i trusted some words which i was told, and today i found out those words, which could have had a very big impact on my life, were not to be trusted.
that sucks.
but, i guess you can't let it get you down, you just have to figure out how to get around it.

you just never know...

thanks to my little bro for his additions to my blog. i actually haven't got much news tonight. so i'll just share one of my silly things i like to do. i like it when i am sitting at the traffic lights and i can watch other cars drive by. i like to look at the drivers and see if i think they match their cars. a lot of people do you know, match their cars. some don't. i pulled up at the lights yesterday and looked at the black holden astra sitting next to me. i think astra's are girls cars. i like them a lot, but more a girl's car. anyway in the passenger seat was this big bloke, long hair in a pony tail, a beard. i looked to the driver, also a male, more neat looking. i thought, nope, they don't suit that car. then, to my surprise, i saw that the big hairy bloke was knitting. no joke. i thought to myself, wow, i never would have picked that one.
point of the story, i just wrote the other day about not judging people. seeing if people match their cars is not quite the kind of judging that i am talking about, but the big hairy bloke knitting in the astra goes to prove that you just never know...

You can't handle the truth...

On Fee's previous blog regarding the cellmate's thoughts on honesty, Fred Stoeker has the following to say in Every Man's Battle:

"Brenda (my wife) has had four children, and through the years her weight has slid between four different wardrobe sizes... During transitions between sizes, she often hoped to wear something from the smaller-size wardrobe to church. Squeezing into it, she'd ask me, 'Is this too tight?' ... Often it was a close call, and I would have to choose between modifying the truth or hurting her feelings and discouraging her.

"Was it okay for me to modify the truth to avoid this unpleasantness? It's a small thing, after all, and I love her. If I told the truth, it would hurt her feelings, and I don't like to hurt her feelings.

How about it? What would you do? It's all very well and good to say that you'd tell the truth in circumstances like these, but it's real life examples like this one that make you realise how tough some truth can be to tell. Let's pray for courage say what needs to be said and not be caught out muddying truth.

Can you handle the truth?

Yours in Vancouver,
Darren

Over here... its 10:44 PM, October 17. And its getting tres froid.

the world is just so not black and white

this morning at church i joined in with one of the cells groups - the years 9&10 girls to be precise. we had been together with all the other groups when i presented a few ideas and then we broke up into smaller groups to answer/discuss some excellent questions (which i had made up).

it became quite apparent that these girls had their brains switched ON! we discussed, amongst various other things
- that while sometimes, even though not telling the whole truth is dishonest, it may be the best thing to do and at other times the completely wrong thing to do
- that sometimes, even though breaking someones trust is a bad thing to do, sometimes it is a necessary thing to do
-that you can't have a deep relationship without putting yourself out there first

relationships are tricky things

we are we to judge people??? it is not our place to decide who is right or who is wrong, or who deserves what, or who deserves our friendship, help, support...

it is our place to love ALL people with God's love and to be a light in this grey world

ALIAS

how i LOVE alias. you need to watch it. having obtained some illegal copies of series 4 (ask annie about her customs experience in vietnam sometime), tonight i finished watching the current series that is on t.v. - OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! this show is my all time favourite t.v. show. just to give you a bit of background knowledge - some of my friends were really into it, they convinced me to start watching it - they had the first 3 series on dvd. so i started and within 10 weeks i watched all 66 episodes (that's at 42 mins each). i was hooked. series 4 just started on t.v. not that long ago - start watching now if you are in aussieland - and as i got my hands on the dvds, i finished it tonight. it's so great.

on another note. our year 12's finished school today. i will miss some of them. there are some great kids in that year level.

lastly, i thought i should write something more profound. but i am having trouble thinking of anything as it's 2.20am and i have been up since 5am yesterday and i am in shock from watching the last episode and am trying to figure out how to see season 5 tomorrow (has it even all been filmed yet?). anyway here's my thought, don't waste life waiting for things to happen, sometimes you just have to take a risk and go and make them happen.

my career? my ambition???

i was chatting with my school principal today - about quite a few things - but at one point he mentioned to me something about my career and ambitions. he seemed to be leading to the fact that i would assume some 'higher responsbility' positions in the near future...and that started me thinking...
my ambition as a teacher is simply to help kids. i don't want to be an administrator, i just want to see kids acheive their best and have real relationships with them while helping them do that. yesterday we went to eastern zone athletics (the one before the states titles) and we took about 1oo kids who were competing. i spent most of the day talking with kids (and staff too) and cheering for them whether they won (which i might add a lot of them did) or not. that's what i want to do. that's what i love. i don't care about climbing the ranks to make it to an admin job. i know some people need to do those jobs and that's great, but i hope that as they do it, they remember that it is also a very worthy ambition to be great classroom teacher.

availability

if you say, i'm available to someone, but then say, from then to then, and i expect that it will look like this, are you really available? or not?
decisions are hard to make sometimes. so many factors involved - or are there? usually it comes down to one or two things, really, that are the key influences in making a decision. but we do like to involve this that and everything in the decision making process. sometimes we aren't strong enough to do what is best, or what is right, or even what we'd like. i'd like to think that i can make the decision that is the best one for me and for those involved in my life. if only it were easy to make the decision and then follow through. sometimes it's harder to make the decision than it is to follow through and sometimes it's harder to follow through than it is to make the decision.
is this making your head hurt? i think it's making mine hurt...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAZZA!!!!

happy birthday to my little brother darren. hope you have a great day.
i must admit though, it's a bit confusing, should i call him when it's his birthday here, or when it's his birthday there??? hopefully the right answer is when it is his birthday there, coz it's now too late to call him on his australian birthday.

tonight i hung out with michelle. we looked at some old photos from when we went to italy and greece two years ago, then we ate thai food and watched dirty dancing. what a classic movie.

that's all for my blog today. it's late and i am ready for sleep!!! just wanted to say happy birthday daz.

simone

simone came to our cell group tonight. simone is a sober alcoholic - for almost 5 years - who has been coming to our church for almost 2 years now. every year our church does gift wrapping at forest hill and simone started coming to our church because she met ruth at gift wrapping when ruth wrapped a present for her. simone shared with us very honestly about her experience of being an alcoholic for 12 years. there was a lot to learn from the things she had to say. we all understood a bit more of what alcoholics go through. she talked about THIQ - which pretty much all alcoholics have - it's a bit in the brain that means they are allergic to alcohol, which means when they start drinking they literally can't stop. in melbourne city and suburbs there are about 30 AA meetings everyday. anyway, i just really apreciated her coming to speak to us tonight and wanted to share that with you. i am glad that God has given us all a hope and a future. i also thought about the fact that God can speak through anyone. last week at church i heard world class speakers and i learnt lots, and tonight i heard a sober alcoholic share openly and honestly and i learnt from her too. all God needs is someone willing.

whoops

i've just got a funny(?) story to share tonight. the other week we were watching who wants to be a millionaire and one of the questions that came up was what is the third book of the bible? anyway the guy didn't know and decided to phone a friend. eddie asked him what does your friend do and the guy replied 'he's an anglican minister'. eveyrone laughed. the phone rang and the friend answered. eddie gave him a hint saying if he didn't know the answer to this question he'd probably lose his job. anyway, time started and the guy read the question and the possible answer to his friend. once he finished the friend didn't answer and just said can you repeat the question. theguy repeated the question and the answers and by the time he did that, time was up and the anglican minister never answered the question what is the third book of the bible. funny??? i'm not sure.

anyway, moral of today's story - and i promise that story is true - whatever you believe, just make sure that it really is what you believe and you are true to it. don't be a fake. fakes suck.

being different

in the first week of the holidays i went to a few sessions of a conference at a local church (no, not acc, this was before that). here's a statement that was made 'being different is not as important as making a difference'. i liked it. there is a lot of talk sometimes about how a christian should be different from someone who isn't. well what does that mean??? in my thoughts? actions? ideas? clothes? car i drive? food i eat? toothpaste i use? ok, so i am getting a little silly. but the thing i was thinking about is how the only real thing that makes me different from someone who is not a christian is that i acknowledge the love of God in my life and i am trying - though only slowly making any sort of progress - to be a person who shows God's love. i have some great friends who don't share my faith and they, in numerous ways, are no different to me. making a difference is much more important and that is what i need to focus on. now, don't get me wrong, a christian should be striving towards living a lifestyle that would please God, and that should be different to those who aren't trying to do the same thing. but do we sometimes get caught up in trying to be different than actually making a difference???
(feel free to comment or ask questions - i am really just blurting out what is running around in my head, probably seems very mish mash, but i just wrote my train of thought) goodnight.

the salvation army

had a good meeting at church tonight. we had quite an open forum time with many people speaking about what they had learnt over the last week at acc and what it would mean for them.

one thing i have been thinking about is that way that the salvation army uses miltary terms. this had never been an issue for me before. here in australia we have a 97% approval rate. now, we are also of course VERY widely know as the salvos. however, the idea was presented to me - and others of course - is that of whether we are an army (fighting in a spiritual battle) and if so do we really act like an army OR if we are an army metaphorically speaking, then are we able to, need to change our name? i haven't thought enough or delved into the matters or arguments either way to know exactly where i stand on the issue. i do believe we there are spiritual forces at war in the world - good versus evil - and the army i belong to fights with love and grace not guns and bombs and i also believe that there are many armies out there that have committed so much evil that the word army would conjour up a lot of bad feelings and hurt when they hear the word army, no matter what kind of army it is. but, not to fear, because in the meantime while i make up my mind on this issue, which might actually take a while, i will just keep on living and loving as God would want me to and i think, for me, that is more important that the rest. hmmmm.

good day

a quick update on my day. got up. had breakfast. watched brad jump on aaron, who was still in bed, and watched the bed break - pretty funny. did some school work. went to visit nana who is in hospital. she had a fall on thursday, but seems to be doing ok. the fracture in her pelvis is not as bad as initially thought and should be able to mend itself if she has bed rest and lots of drugs. annie came with me so that was nice.
we came back home. found out that when dad was on his way up to vancouver acc his laptop and notes got stolen and so he lost his sermons for acc. doh. and then later discovered his wallet got stolen too. not a good start. in about 25 mins he will preach his new revised sermon (hope that goes well dad). then went and visited beth at work. came home again. then went down to the park where the boys were playing this great game ??? of throwing the vortex at each other but they weren't allowed to move. if they did they had to buy a round of slurpees for all the others. brad lost. adam a close second. it was pretty funny.
we then went into the city for dinner and met up with a few of the new zealanders. had dinner at crown then went into lygon street for the best ice cream in the world.
came home and played poker.
that's my day.
it had a weird vibe, probably because for the first day in a while that none of us had anything to do! it was great. i do have lots of things i need to sit down and think about and work out though. that will have to happen soon so i don't just let these great things float out of my mind as quickly as they were all put in.