So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore?

Not a question I'm asking of you, but the title of a book which I've almost finished, by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman. I got to this book via another one (which is kinda how I find a lot of books - word of eyes, so-to-speak), namely The Shack (which I also liked very much).

This book, like that one, puts talk of God, Jesus, the Spirit, theology, religion and more into a fictional setting but with real implications - at least, there are implications for me and my journey as I seek to find Him in my every day.

I read a paragraph earlier today and immediately thought about sharing it - and even though putting it in here means it won't get much airtime, it's too important to squeeze into a tweet or facebook status. So here it is:

"Just like a butterfly taking wing from its cocoon, Jake. Isn't it sad that we thought we could press people into spiritual change, instead of helping them grow to trust the Father more and find him changing them? You can't press a caterpillar into a butterfly mold and make it fly. It has to be transformed from the inside." (p.133)

Speaks volumes to me. This whole book speaks to how I think of the church. I recognise, and struggle with, my own longing to be told/taught how to be a Christian. Yet how I also understand it can only come from me, when I fully open myself up to His possibilities.

Bootstrap Paradox

In Audrey Niffenegger's novel The Time Traveler's Wife, the protagonist, Henry DeTamble, time travels involuntarily. After he marries, he begins to frequently travel to various times in his wife's childhood, during which he befriends her, which leads to their eventual marriage. Shortly after his wife's younger self first meets him, he dictates to her a list of the dates on which he will reappear; when she eventually meets his present self (who has not yet traveled into the past to meet her), she gives him the same list of dates, which he memorizes so that he can dictate it to her when he travels into the past. Neither character can figure out how or where the list originated.

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_paradox

Oh man!

Keeping my cool - a reminder...

(totally taken from The Happiness Project tip for today)

When I feel myself losing my temper, if I can muster the mindfulness to be self-reflective, I ask myself these questions:


1. Am I at fault? I hate to be criticized or to be in the wrong. Often, I’m angriest when someone is chiding me about something that I am, indeed, guilty of. When I’m about to hit back, I remind myself to accept criticism politely, if grudgingly.


2. Will this solve anything? I often snap when I feel like I’m confronting the same annoyance over and over. Fact is, people often have irritating habits that aren’t going to change. Failure to meet deadlines, failure to return phone calls, untidiness, etc., etc. I try to remember that snapping isn’t going to make any difference, but will only make me feel bad.


3. Am I improving the situation? This is particularly important with my younger daughter. If I lose my temper with her, the problem just escalates to a whole new horrible level. She dissolves into tears and wails, “You talked to me in a mean voice!” It’s far more effective to stay calm. Also, nicer.


4. Should I be helping you? Often, I lose my temper because I’m actually feeling guilty about my own unhelpfulness. My guilt makes me crabby, but it’s really a sign that I should be taking action.


5. Am I uncomfortable? Discomfort shortens my fuse. I’ve become much more careful to dress warmly (even when people make fun of my long underwear and double sweaters), to snack more often, to turn off the light when I’m sleepy, and to take pain medication as soon as I get a headache. The Duke of Wellington advised, “Always make water when you can,” and I follow that precept, too.


6. Can I make a joke of this? Using humor is extraordinarily effective, but I usually can’t find the inner depths to laugh at an annoying situation. A distant goal for which I’m striving.


It’s tempting to dwell on questions like, “Whose fault is it?” or “Why am I upset?” but in the end, these tend to stoke my temper instead of soothe it. I try to remind myself that no behavior is annoying if I don’t find it annoying. A hackneyed observation, but true.

Air Travel with a Parachute Thrown In

This is a short blog about going to Queenstown for the day and a whistle stop visit to Parachute 08... and trying to get it all down on 'paper' before I forget how awesome it was! (and I don't tend to use the word awesome lightly).

You may have heard about Air New Zealand's Grab-a-plane competition (and if not, I've provided a very handy link for you). As the web page says, it was won by Salvo Air - a nicely titled airline-for-a-day put together by our pastor... we filled a plane, it was entered into the competition, and our entry was drawn. Now you have the background. And here's a few highlights...

The flight down was hardly standard. Our pilot had put in several hours of planning time to make it as exciting as possible. We circled Mount Cook! How totally cool is that? He made sure the folks on both sides of the plane had excellent views, and with the special permission he got to descend to 16,000ft, it was mindblowing. We could have reached out of the plane and touched the mountain tops.

When we got to Queenstown, we had a bus waiting to take us into the city centre. The weather was perfect, and quite different to what I'm used to in Auckland. Down there, the sun is scorching (as it is up here), but in the shade it's *cold*, at least in the morning hours. And the air is dry. Lovely. No sneezing LOL. We walked around looking at the Saturday crafts market, and getting a feel for the place, then most of us boarded the bus again (some took scooters) and took the short drive into Arrowtown for lunch. Beautiful old gold-rush town.

Then back to Queenstown where we went on the gondola (for a very reduced price thanks to Air NZ), the breaktaking views and the opportunity to hurtle yourself down part of the hillside on a luge which was enjoyed by most... even if I did take the scenic, or 'granny', track twice heh.

After that we walked down a beach area on Lake Wakatipu for a barbeque courtesy of Air NZ again... Some of the guys had a quick swim in the lake - never did ask if it was absolutely freezing... it certainly looked like it would be! And then we were off back to the airport. And here's another quick sidebar - the airport was kept open for our flight... We were leaving two hours after the airport would normally close on a weekend.

And this isn't a plug for Air NZ - but I really to have to say that the idea of winning a plane for the day was huge in itself, then they went over and above to make the day as special as they could. A 6am start, and back home around 10pm - it was full of amazing experiences and memories to treasure.

The Parachute trip the next day was a last-minute decision. We had thought of going to P08 specifically to see Switchfoot on the Saturday, but of course the free flight down south took its place. But the pull was too strong! We were driving around on Sunday morning listening to LifeFM who were broadcasting live from Mystery Creek, and when my darling suggested a quick tikitour, it was too good to pass up.

That was an amazing and memorable experience too...

My current 'mood' descriptor describes how I feel about the whole weekend.

Blessed indeed.

Rolling with the Changes

There's a blog category called "School, College, Greek" - I'm a little baffled by the Greek reference, but I'll take the other two for a start.

So yes, I'm off back to school. I'd love to know what it was that finally got me accepted into the programme, but I'll never know, and it's not keeping me awake at night. I like to think I dazzled them at the interview... This paragraph sounds kinda blasé in my head, but believe me, it's nothing like that. I guess I should blog more often so that the news is fresh in my own head so I can relate it with all its appropriate alacrity to you, my public (oh please... stop... someone get a tissue so I can wipe my eyes...).

I'm constantly getting emails from around the company asking where my leaving bash is so they can come and wish me a drunken farewell. I'm not really into those under-the-table events (seriously folks), so it's not on my priority list, but it seems to be a required pastime. The thing is I don't know who to invite. Sounds odd I know. I started preparing a list to which I want to send my final farewell email. There are over 200 recipients. I doubt that a tenth of those would actually come have a drink, but wouldn't it be a hoot if they all turned up?

Anyway, still haven't decided where or when or even if. At this stage it's looking like it might be even after I leave as there are only two weeks left and they're both short due to Anniversary weekend and Waitangi Day... tip: Second week in January is a good time to hand in a month's resignation (in New Zealand) cos you get two paid holidays.

And as I don't really have any structure to my blogging experiments, let's now turn to a wonderful time in Holland with my darling and her kidlets. It wasn't a full-on tourist experience, not that I expected it to be. It was more a family time, the girls now at an age where they can meet (and remember) their Oma and Opa, for darling to catch up with some friends, and for me to meet the immediate family also. It was overall totally fab. This isn't a detailed blog about the things we did over there (Darling, if you want to blog about that, please feel free heh).

If there is one thing I bring back with me, it's the quality time spent with the girls in... dare I say it... a family context. What I mean is this - in case anyone isn't following me. Up to the trip, the girls got to know me in little chunks, a few hours here and there. You'll be familiar with some of those times, and the challenges they presented to us all. Being away with them, being constantly 'there' from morniing til night, from breakfast to bedtime, sharing a bed with their Mum to joking around on a train trip, and all of the above being perfectly... normal. All in all, that went very well, to the extent that the youngest would even crawl into bed with us in the morning, and the eldest (the one I had the most difficulty vis-a-vis acceptance) was fairly easy-going about the whole thing.

Two days ago, I picked them all up from the airport. I was holding my breath a wee bit wondering how they'd react to me after three weeks of absence. I had to keep a tight reign on my emotions because quite frankly, I was blown away by their response to me. I don't want to jinx anything - but they were, well, it seemed at least, actually excited to see me. Sure, everyone was tired, and who wouldn't be after 24 hours of travelling. To shorten this a little, last night we all caught up properly with photos and stories of their time away since I'd come home, and it was good. More than good.

I don't doubt for a second that there will be challenging times again - for goodness' sake, there's puberty and adolescence to go through yet (hahahaha)...

Oh, I'm going to stop there. I'm quite frankly very emotional about the whole thing. It's f*ckin' fab

The blog category hardly fits anymore, but I don't care - there isn't a category that reads "life changing experiences and other tales"... so I'll stick with it.

That's all for now folks... my brain hurts!

Work/Life Balance

That's a phrase that's been banded about quite a bit of late, at least here at my place of employment. I think it's an interesting use of words, perhaps implying that work is not part of your life, and can therefore be divorced or separated off by the use of a simple slash or stroke (aside: such an ungainly name for a punctuation mark don't you think? Also called an oblique, diagonal, whack, separatrix, virgule, scratch comma, slant, or forward slash...). In some situations, it should of course be referred to as a work/money balance, seeing as there are quite a number of professions where the money has absolutely no bearing on the quality or quantity of work actually performed... such as teaching. See? I do get there eventually...

You may know by now that my blog titles are generally ethereal, somewhat tentatively linked ideas as opposed to an introduction to what the blog may be about. I'll not disappoint on this occasion either.

I had my interview at University of Auckland yesterday. I won't go on about it. Suffice to say I did OK at the maths test (with the possible exception of the fractions and simplify exercises), think I did fab at the written assessment, and handled myself with worldly aplomb during the group interview (LOL). I was pretty nervous to start with, but the other interviewees exhibited such obvious tremours that I was somehow put at ease. Ah, there is something to be said for having 25 years' experience in the workplace... seriously.

So, I wait to hear if I've been accepted into the programme, and whether they will recommend to the Uni that I be accepted as a student. *This* is because my UK certs don't automatically qualify me for entrance (the irony here is that if I was applying to be a student here from the UK, they *would* be enough...), so I've put in a 'special' application which appears to take into account more lifetime/career experience rather than hard and fast qualifications.

In the afternoon, I was due to have a performance review meeting with my manager in order to go through projects and outcomes to date, plus a look at the next 6 months. Having already decided to hand in my notice in the New Year (regardless of Uni application) I decided to pop out the honesty card and gave her the low-down. She was actually very accepting, and after about 15 minutes of discussing my future plans, we literally just chatted for the remainder of the meeting time.

It turned out to be an emotionally tasking day, but a totally rewarding one.

In two days I fly to Holland for two weeks. I am really looking forward to not only getting away, but also meeting my darling's family, and putting the past few months of worry and uncertainty firmly behind me so I can start the year afresh.

I remember writing sometime ago that 2007 would be an interesting year. It certainly has turned out to be just that, and 2008 looks to be even more exciting!

Happy Christmas all. My very best wishes to you and yours.
xxx

The Price of Health

There is no healthcare category. I guess there can't be a category for everything, but if I can pick a mood that isn't on a list then... oh, but that's not what I was going to write about.

Yesterday I discovered funded healthcare.

Since I arrived in New Zealand, I've worked for a large corporate that subsides the Southern Cross Regular healthcare plan. I used to pay extra for Supercare (can't remember what that included - try the website), then I 'downgraded' to Hospital and Specialist care. I think I pay an extra $400 or maybe more per year for that. Under that plan I pay to see a doctor ($58 for the privilege in Remuera) and prescriptions ($15 per item). If I needed to see a specialist, such as for my allergies, that's about $125 per visit, but I can claim all of that back from Southern Cross. And of course, under the hospital part of the plan, I can go get myself sliced and diced (for medical reasons rather than for pleasure) up to a grand total of $60k... I'm thinking that would be fairly major... Then on top of that, I pay $11 per fortnight (which is of course almost $300 per year) to belong to another healthcare thing through work, which will refund me 60% of my prescriptions. That $11 also means I'm a member of a holiday home club thing, but I've never used it.

So, as I said, last night I discovered Procare. There was a new Medical Centre built near my home. I was only registered with the doc in Remuera cos my ex was registered there and I needed to see a doc, obviously, many years ago. I think the last time I went to see her was about four years ago...

Oh yes - Procare. This is a government funded organisation. Go check it out if you don't know about it. Short version? Oh ok then...

I paid $30 to see the doctor. I enrolled, which means that the centre can get funding for little ol' me, and in three months' time, a visit to the doctor will cost me $15. I got five items on prescription. At $3 per item. It's amazing.

And because I won't be getting private healthcare next year, and because I won't have a lot of money to burn, knowing I can see a doctor and get drugs if I need them for a relatively minimal cost is a whole weight off my mind.

That's all... quick and simple. I've a lot to learn.