Dances with Words

I spent about an hour talking to a JW this morning. It was interesting. He was stressing the point to me that God calls us to follow His commandments. There are quite a few verses in the Bible that say that God loves us when we do what he says. We are saved by grace, but then our decisions and actions are what keeps us in His good books. Wilfuly sinning moves us out of grace.

Something I didn’t know about the JWs is that they do not allow people to attend their church unless they are committed to following the rules. If you do something wrong (wilfully) you are unwelcome. It seems really strange to me, coming from a church that has always espoused (at least in words) that the best church would be one full of the lost, outcast and sinful. The JWs’ attitude does explain why they go door-knocking to tell people what they believe – if they didn’t, they’d never meet non-believers.

Even the idea of wilful sin is interesting to me. I believe we are saved by grace, of course, and this guy didn’t argue with that. But what happens when someone is saved by grace but continues sinning, even if they know it’s wrong? Tough one. I’d like to believe that God keeps forgiving them indefinitely until they eventually become convicted enough to stop whateer it is, but is that just because I think that would be nice? Some parts in the Bible definitely say differently.

Hmm. More study needed I think.

Is it harder than you think? I have been told that a lot. And for a while it’s put me off, but I think I might have a go soon. Not working too hard at the moment anyway – what have I got to lose?

I’ve recently taken my earing out. I had a ring through my tragus, that lump that comes out in front of the hole to your ear. I got it done two years ago, and in all that time there were only about three weeks that it wasn’t sore and swollen. So I thought: hey, it’s obviously not meant to be, and I cut it off.

But I liked having an earing, it kept me just a little bit abnormal. I don’t want to appear too straight. I’ve also taken to wearing my contacts a lot more lately, so combined with the lack of geeky designer glasses, the plain ear is making me feel quite boring. Maybe I need a better haircut.

Some disappointing news this morning: we didn’t get the final job we were hoping to get lodge managing at Hotham, which means we won’t be going up for the season this year. We’re both very dissappointed, but we have also been saying that there’s plenty of things that we want to be able to do around here that we’ll be able to commit to properly now, so it’s not all bad. We will still go up for a short holiday in June I think.

In other, less exciting, news: last night I made meatball soup for our cell group. I used kangaroo mince for the meatballs, and it prompty became known as rooball soup. Mmmm, tasty. Kangaroo is very low in fat and tastes great. Very Good Steak. It is also slightly cheaper than cow steak and will only get cheaper as more people eat it and the market grows.

I finished John Fowles’ “A Maggot”, it ended up being a psuedo-historical story of the birth of Ann Lee, a woman who led the Shaker movement for while in the late 1700s. Although the story had very little to do with the movement or the person, Ann only being born the last, epiloguous, chapter.

I found this book very interesting in style and superb in its evocation of characters and society of the era. However plot itself seemed thin, with much of it involving fantastical stories told by the main characters to an unbelieving lawyer.

Overall: Good, but not one of Fowles’ best. 5/10.

Sometimes Des (not our housemate’s real name) stays out late at night, and it’s funny because if we’re at home Elicia can’t sleep properly until she gets in. She worries in case something has happened to her. I think it’s kind of sweet, it reminds me of my Mum when I was a young guy living at home. Slightly scary to think of Elicia being motherly – even scarier when you realise Des is only a few years younger than ourselves…

I was reading a very interesting book last night about Christian leadership – called ‘Leadership on the OtherSide’ by Eadum I think [ed. it's Easum, Bill] – it talks about how quickly our society is changing, and how the call of leaders in times of extreme flux is different to when things are settled. Decisions must be made quickly and ideas tested and tried on the fly. Sounds dangerous. Sounds exciting. Our church is currently experimenting with alternative church – by having a cafe-style worship (yes, it’s still called worship) on a Monday night. It starts this Monday, so I won’t prejudge it. (Okay I will, but in brackets. Cafe churches were cutting edge in 1975. We should be beyond that now.) Anyway, it might end up being fantastic. Expect a report when I get along. Anyway – I was talking about leadership, and the leadership book.

Sometimes I think I’d like a call. I feel like I’m waiting for one. I’ve been waiting for quite a while now… maybe I should just go and do something anyway. I think I’m at a point where I’m realising that my role as a Christian is fairly mediocre – sure, I do stuff for the church and whatever, but nothing very powerful or huge. It makes me frustrated. To my own detriment, I have always had a habit of dreaming big, acting small. I hate it. And it’s time to change. In my mind there’s two ways to go ahead: either become happy with mediocrity, or actually do something outrageous to extend myself.

We’ll see what happens.

I haven’t heard back from my Italian buddy – ah well, maybe I said something I shouldn’t have – I wouldn’t know!

I’m over halfway through “The Maggot” by John Fowles at the moment – intriguing. It’s been a while since I’ve read any Fowles, after getting more than my fill last year while we were in Hotham. This one is easier to read than some of the others: but the content is odd. It’s basically a mystery set in 17thC England, written to tell the same story from many characters’ points of view but getting deeper into what really happened each time. Each character tells their story in the form of an interview being conducted by a lawyer. Which is interesting and intriguing and I can’t put it down, but when I think of what has actually happened so far it isn’t a lot. Plus there’s wierd sex involved, the main character is a prostitute. And also a Quaker.

So there you go: something not God-related. (Except for the brief Quaker mention) A friend told me today that if you read my blog you assume I am a really Christian person. I chose to take that as a compliment…

We tried to mulch it on the weekend – what a job! The worst thing is that the spikes are curved, like a rose’s, but they face the other way and are much longer. This makes it near impossible to extract a single branch or twig from a pile. They stick together.

I’ve been getting into some programming lately, namely Python, a neat little programming language that’s a considered balance between ease of use and functionality. Plus it is used as Blender’s programming language, so it’s worth learning a bit about.

I’ve got the sourdough looking much better this time, it’s risen a fair bit – still not as much as I would like though. We’ll see how it turns out. The girls won the darts comp last week, and for the first time it made it out of our house. We introduced a red-flighted dart that is worth Double Points every time you throw it. It was good – tended to even things up a bit. A bit too much, really… Anyway I’ve been practising all week and trying to refine a new technique that will hopefully give me an advantage tonight!

I sent an email yesterday to an Italian guy we met on the bus tour in Adelaide. I tried to write it in Italian – I’ve been listening to learning tapes for ages now trying to pick it up. There’s a big difference in writing and listening though, and it made me aware of how much I don’t know. (A lot.) Anyway, I got one back from him this morning – in Italian! I can understand about every 5th word, which is enough to get the general gist that he’s in Sydney at the moment and still enjoying his holiday. Unreal!

The reincarnation of the sourdough will hopefully rise tomorrow – the third day. It really is a reincarnation in a way, it’s using a starter made from the first loaf. So far it smells sour but seems less bubble than the first… not sure if that’s a good sign or not…

Mum brought dessert when they came over the other night, she made a quince trifle that had layers of mascarpone, brioche and slow-baked quince – insanely delicious. Mum has been cooking all sorts of things since Macca’s been in Sydney, I think she’s got to do something to stop herself fretting. I’m not complaining!

Hey, check out what I’ve been doing for the last few days:

It’s a model of a bmw z4, made in Blender 3d. It’s not finished yet, obviously, and it’s taking ages because it’s only a personal project so I fart around a lot when I’m working on it. But hey, that’s what personal projects are for, right? I’m learning a lot. Next thing to do is a simple interior, then I can start working on textures and a scene in which to plonk it.