A Witty Title.

Oops!

2008-03-14T10:32:00.001+11:00

Someone remained logged in to Google on someone else's computer! Hmm... there are all sorts of wicked things I could do with this accidental privilege, but I think I'll just leave it at this, and sign out.

Well, after I say this:

Matt is the most wonderful man in the whole world! And I get to marry him in THREE MONTHS! HURRAH!

(Sorry Matt - you can delete this if you like!)

Deliriously Happy

2007-12-19T16:10:00.000+11:00

Lara says it far better than I ever could.

I will try to write more later, but as I am at work, I content myself, and you must content yourselves, with her words.

Apologies for the delay in adding anything to Lara's post. She having told the entire story of our relationship, there is not much for me to add. Lara is a woman of unsurpassable charm, from the moment I first read her blog I knew that she was someone I respected for her ability to think and communicate.

It wasn't until we got to emailing later that I realised just how caring, considerate and charming an individual she was.

I have been incredibly blessed to know her, and will be so much more blessed on the day she becomes my wife. I look forward eagerly to that day.

Matt.

The Wrong Brothers

2007-12-16T08:37:00.000+11:00

Flight.

I have a theory. It goes something like this. Humans like to define the boundary. We like to understand exactly where the point is that, once crossed, we will be in the wrong. The reason we want to do this is so that we can go as far as possible towards crossing the line without actually crossing it. So we can 'toe the line'. This is to enable us to get as much of the things we want (but know are wrong) as possible, without actually crossing the line and doing the thing that is wrong.

This perhaps needs an example. I'm going to take this from a Christian point of view, but the point can be extended beyond that. The bible tells us do not commit adultery. So, for example, a man and a woman might go on a date, head back to her house together for a nightcap, smooch a bit, and go as far as they possibly can, but as long as they doesn’t actually complete the act, they will say, “No, I never committed adultery.” And they will be telling a technical truth. In their minds, in their desires, they did, but as far as physically going through with it, they are innocent. They have kept the commandment and can pat themselves on the back.

I hope that the majority of my readers can see just how ludicrous this kind of justification is, but it is a justification that has been used throughout history. Jesus himself had to deal with it. I think this is part of the reason why he says 'I tell you the truth, anyone who even looks at a woman lustfully is committing adultery with her in his heart'. Living up to God’s law is not just about obeying the letter of the law, but obeying the spirit - obeying the ideas that are behind them! The command not to commit adultery is (to my mind) one that springs out of a realisation that adultery is a bad thing. It destroys relationships, it shatters families, it hurts people, and it besmirches the great gifts that God has given us.

Once we understand and accept that, the next step is obvious. The command was to not commit adultery, but even taking the first step down that long slippery road will have similar (but less pronounced) effects. So we should not even take that first step. In fact, once we accept this, we do not need to know exactly where that boundary line is. The only reason to define the exact limit of where we can't go is if we are already toeing that line and living in dangerous territory. We instead know that the boundary is somewhere way off in the distance, and we are going to work really hard to never get close enough to it that defining its exact location matters.

Another point worth noting is that the closer we are to the line, the easier it is to look down and notice that we have accidentally put a foot across it.

Now I want to take this point and apply it to something a little more controversial. I think the majority of people will agree with me on what I have said about adultery, but what about taxation? When asked about paying taxes, Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

I think most people will agree with me that the loopholes in our law which allow the people earning the most money of all in the country to pay close to no tax are completely unfair, and such a thing would be close to if not well over toeing the line here, but what about the rest of us? Should we be hunting for every possible deduction, even the ones that are dubiously justifiable? Should we be paying an accountant hundreds of dollars to find ways to massage the way we express our expenses to fit tax law and thus be deductible?

Or should we just take a step back, and gladly give what we are required to be giving?

(I'm not saying that we should not be claiming anything, just that some of the things some accountants will tell us to claim are pushing us closer and closer to toeing and eventually crossing that line.)

Something to think about anyway.

Company and Marriage

2007-11-11T13:31:00.000+11:00

I have been thinking through a few things recently about marriage (no prizes for guessing why). One thing that has particularly struck me has been Company, a musical by Stephen Sondheim. (Some spoilers ahead).

Company tells the story of Robert, a 30-something single guy, and 5 married couples who are his close friends, while exploring the benefits and costs of marriage. I'm not going to expose the entire plot here, but just talk about a few of the songs that really struck me. During the musical, Bobby develops through stages from single and happy that way, to 'ready' for marriage (but only a little), to struggling with whether he wants the good with the bad. There is no explicit conclusion either way (well... perhaps there is... see later), but I did feel that the balance came out greatly in favour of marriage.

I wanted to touch briefly on 3 of the songs from Company, the ones that I found the most thought provoking.

The first is 'Marry me a Little.'

Marry me a little,
Love me just enough.
Cry, but not too often,
Play, but not too rough.
Keep a tender distance
so we'll both be free.
That's the way it ought to be.
I'm ready!

When I first heard this song, I found it incredibly poignant. Sarcastic. Witty. Clever.

It shows just how far from a healthy view of marriage Bobby is. Marriage to him is about getting the little benefits without any of the costs. It's a view that is probably shared by many people these days. Marriage won't be hard work; I can get the small things I want, as much as I want of them and no more. And it won't get hard. If it does I can always walk...

To me, marriage is exactly the opposite of this. Marriage is about a complete commitment: a commitment to marry not a little, not a lot, but completely!

I love the sarcastic irony of this song sung in such a triumphant manner - 'I'm ready!' Talking about the great revelation that he has had, that he now understands marriage, that he knows what he wants and how to get it. I love how this song is used to show with every line just how not ready Robert is.

The second song worth noting is 'Sorry-Grateful.'

Robert asks his friend, Larry, if he's sorry he got married. This is the response.

You're sorry-grateful,
Regretful-happy.
Why look for answers
When none occur?
You always are what you always were,
Which has nothing to do with, all to do with her.

It's quite an interesting song to me, as it basically presents a completely neutral view of marriage. It presents it as good and bad which balance out. It presents a bunch of contrasting ideas: good and bad, and no real indication which is better. Marriage and singleness: they are the same. Singleness is a neutral state, and marriage is an oscillation between greater happiness and greater sadness.

I like this song because it really challenges me to think about this concept. Marriage is more complex, with higher highs and lower lows. It's complicated. I dislike, however, the feeling I get from the song that these cancel out. The song doesn't explicitly say it, but it certainly feels that way. I do not think that a life full of highs and lows is equivalent to a live of neutrality. In fact, I think that the difference could be closer to that of experiencing life verses travelling through life as a spectator.

A short aside... that's not to say that I think all single people are not experiencing their lives to the fullest. I think marriage is just one thing that gives you the highs and lows talked about here. They are part of living life.

The third song I want to talk about is 'Being Alive.'

This song, more than any of the others, seems to capture my thoughts about marriage. The song is a progression and you really need the friends' comments to understand this. So many people seem to sing it out of context and miss the entire point. They cut out the friends lyrics, and some even skip the early verses which destroys the development and obscures the change in the singer.

I think the song really does speak for itself (so go read it!) Bobby makes the decision that the bad times ARE worth it, if he wants the good. He will put up with the struggles married life will bring, because the benefits DO outweigh the costs.

Addendum:

It's interesting how my impressions differ from those of the creator. Sondheim apparently said,

I find the notion that the same lyric can apply in the first act and the second act very suspect. Most of the time the character has moved beyond, particularly if you're telling a story of any weight or density. Company was a show where we could have used reprises, because it's about a fellow who stayed exactly the same, but I didn't want him to be the essential singing character, so I decided not to.

Big Things

2007-07-13T21:39:00.000+10:00

What is a Big thing?

I spoke (quite a while ago now, but just a few posts ago) about Everest's and Kosciusko's, about doing small things as a way of preparation for big things. About the way we all yearn for a big thing.

Recently I was having a discussion with my sister and I came to the conclusion that what I had said was not quite right. Oh don't get me wrong, it was right as far as it went, but it presupposed something that I no longer hold to be true. It presupposed that everyone will have one (or maybe multiple) Everest's, “Big things”. That they need them.

I think its not unusual or uncommon for people to desire one “big thing”, something to set as their goal in life, something of import. I think its something popular culture pushes us towards. All the TV we watch, any book we read, any story we hear, its always about someone exceptional. We all yearn to be them, because they are the default, the standard that any fictional character must live up to in order to be interesting. And invariably, they have a big thing.

Just to give one example I really like of this, we look at Roger, from Rent

I'm Writing One Great Song Before I ...
One Song
Glory
One Song
Before I Go
Glory
One Song To Leave Behind

Find One Song
One Last Refrain
Glory
From The Pretty Boy Front Man
Who Wasted Opportunity

One Song
He Had The World At His Feet
Glory
In The Eyes Of A Young Girl
A Young Girl
Find Glory
Beyond The Cheap Colored Lights

One Song
Before The Sun Sets
Glory - On Another Empty Life
Time Flies - Time Dies
Glory - One Blaze Of Glory
One Blaze Of Glory - Glory

Find
Glory
in a song that rings true
truth like a blazing fire
an eternal flame

Find
One Song
A Song About Love
Glory
From The Soul Of A Young Man
A Young Man

Find
The One Song
Before The Virus Takes Hold
Glory
Like A Sunset
One Song
To Redeem This Empty Life

Time Flies
And Then - No Need To Endure Anymore
Time Dies

Roger has AIDS, and does not know how long he has to live, but he has decided that his Everest is to write a “great song”. But he just cant do it. This song will Redeem his entire life. It will make up for all the bad he has done, it will make him complete. He is stagnating, not moving forward as he invests his everything into finding this song, unable to move forward at all, to improve his life, because he cannot complete his one big thing.

To take an example from “real life” I have had a few friends who were so obsessed with the idea of having a girlfriend, so in love with the concept, that they had put onto that all the other things in their lives. They would feel valued when they had a girlfriend to value them. They would have all the smaller things, all the little improvements in their lives that they needed when they had the big thing. The girlfriend. So many of the small things, the things they were sure the girlfriend would give them, were thing they could have fixed in their own lives themselves. Minor things, but that they had convinced themselves could only come through the girlfriend. And so their lives stagnated. Unable to move forward. Unable to improve. Because they did not have their one big thing. Their Everest.

This desire is unreasonable, because there is no way in the world that we will ever all be exceptional. Beyond that, I think about the exceptional people, and I wonder. Would Einstein have considered his theory of relativity to be exceptional? Would it have been his Everest? Or would he have thought of it is a Kosciusko? I suspect the later.

Maybe the way we should be looking at life is this. Unless we have one now, there are no Everest's. If one shows up, we should climb it when it comes, but if we never have an Everest, does this devalue our life? Does this make us less? Certainly Not. We can improve ourselves, we can conquer our Kosciusko's, and keep moving forward, keep improving, and when the Everest's do come, we will look at them as molehills. They wont be the big things they were when we saw them on the horizon.

In case you were wonding what I looked like...

2007-04-03T22:23:00.000+10:00

Operatic Endeavours

2007-04-01T08:32:00.000+10:00

I have mentioned this to a number of people, but here is the official notification.

I will be planning a group trip to see "phantom of the opera" starring Anthony Warlow in Melbourne.

The plan will be as follows

Date : 22 September
Plan : I will be making a group booking for accommodation on the night of the 22nd, and for tickets to the show. People will be responsible for making their arrangements for travel down and back up.
Who : If you would consider yourself my friend, and I have met you in real life, then you.
What : ... do you need to do if you are interested...

Email me. If you don't already have my email address it is the name I post under here, chindogu, and it is at gmail.com

Make the subject of the email "phantom of the opera trip"

Let me know how many I will be booking for, and whether they are students/pensioners/some other form of discount.

There is a closing date on this. I need to book the tickets all at once, so we are sitting together. What I plan to do is this. I will take final numbers on 22 April. At that point I will provide final pricing and other details by return email. From there you will have one week to get the money to me (Ill provide Bank details for EFT). I will also make a post on the blog here with the complete guest list (first names only) so you can see who is coming.

Be warned that I expect the cost to be somewhere between $200-$250 (Tickets are $100, and overnight accommodation in Melbourne is not cheap) I suspect it will be twin share rooms.

And in case you were not aware... we will need to dress up nice.. Sorry...

I have just noticed the date.... I am tempted to delay posting this a day so people will not think this is a prank. But It's not. It may be the day of fools, but this is for real.

Blink

2007-03-04T10:23:00.000+11:00

The following is a work of fiction. The views and opinions expressed in therein are those of the individual speakers and do not represent the views or opinions of Matthew.

Blink, Blink, Blink, Blink. The cursor mocks me. Blink. It denies my ability to produce. Blink. It denies my creativity. Blink. My competence. Blink. Confidence. Blink. Blink. Blink. The silence is deafening. I sit enclosed in a shell of my own making. Separated from the world by a barrier of my own making. Alone, And blind. Empty. Blink. I have nothing, No Idea. No Motivation, and no inputs, nothing breaks through my concentration. Nothing motivates me, inspires me. Blink. For there is nothing. Nothing but me, my laptop, and the Cursor. Blink. Mocking me. Blink. Taunting me. Blink.

I am immersed in a featureless world. The features are mine to create. To mould however I deem fit. Blink. Blink. And yet I do not do so. I can not. Blink.

I give in. I close the laptop. The world crashes back in to place, through the shattered shell of my barriers. Leaving me once again immersed in a cacophony of sounds. Noises. Sensations. No longer faced with just the Blink of the cursor, no longer mocked, but instead immersed in a real world. A complicated world. A plane flies overhead, descending carrying flocks of travellers to their destination. They are fully immersed in the complicated world. They are so used to it, and yet still they imagine, desire something simpler, something more pure.

They, and I, feel the pull of fiction, of words written about worlds which do not contain the complications of this one. Worlds of simplicity where there are no loose ends, where everything is wrapped up into a neat bundle. Worlds that makes sense. We want to live in that world, I want to write about it. A world populated by heroes and villains, a world where there is no grey. But I cannot.

The cursor's mocking is because I know that world is not real. I know that the world I want to write of is a fiction, and I cannot bring myself to perpetuate it. People use it to escape. Like I use my writing. They use it to hide themselves from the grey, the noise, the complication. They use it to be a member of a simple, logical, easy world for a while.

No longer will I aid this escape. No longer will I be the source of their barriers. They need to accept this world. They need to seek no longer an escape that fills them with comfort.

I now know better.

I turn back to the laptop. To the cursor that still attempts to mock me. Blink. Blink. Blink. But I am resolved. The story can continue no more. Blink.

Now is the time for reality.

End.

Passion

2007-02-16T19:44:00.000+11:00

Recently, I have been challenged to think about passion. Not romantic passion, but the passion people have to do certain things. Lets take my dad as an example here. My dad has a passion for science. He retired recently, and now he spends even more time doing scientific stuff than he used to when he was employed as a scientist. He has a passion.

In some ways what I'm talking about is quite similar to an Everest. Growing up, I have always felt that I needed a passion, that I was muddling through life, and one day I would find a passion that would show me where I should be focusing my efforts.

The challenging that I have been thinking through recently is this. Do I need a passion. Is a passion necessary for life, or is it something some people will have and others will not? And if it is not, how do you go about living life without one?

It seems to me that a Passion is not necessary, in fact I can see situations where it could be quite detrimental. A married couple who both have passions that are not exactly in sync are going to end up fighting a lot more than the average.

I know some of you are at this point thinking “Your a Christian, you do have a passion, and that is for seeing gods gospel spread”. True, but not completely... The thing is that while that is a goal for most Christians, I think it is fair to say that it is not a passion, at least not of the kind I am talking about. There are people for whom it is, and generally, they are ministers or missionaries. But God did not plan for us all to be missionaries or ministers.

What am I saying? I think I am saying that while I have a desire to spread the gospel, (and also a desire to support other Christians) I don't think that either of these are something I could describe as a passion. Maybe I'm wrong here? Maybe my passion should be for this?

What am I talking about here? Is passion even the right word, or should I be talking about Obsession? That word has quite negative connotations, but it is probably closer to the concept I am trying to grasp. Now don't get me wrong, I think obsessions are important in this world. I don't think scientific advancement would happen without people who had this obsession (along with the ability to do the work) I just think there is a price to them too, and I wonder if it's a price everyone should be paying?

So, here's what I want to ask. Do you feel that you have a passion(obsession?). A driving force that guides your life. Something you would give up and suffer much for. And if so what? Do you think it is wrong to not have a passion? And for those without one, how do you go through life without one?

My Mountain

2006-12-12T23:12:00.000+11:00

Forgive the mixed metaphores. Not intended to be read with my previous post on mountains.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I have built myself a mountain. It's quite a nice mountain, picturesque. I stand upon the top of it, gazing down upon those who do not have a mountain of their own. How small and insignificant they look. I gaze across the plains, looking at others, those who do have their own mountains, much smaller than mine I say to myself.

I stand on the top of my mountain, and I never leave it. I never notice the cast iron chains I have inadvertently wrought. Since I never try to move off the mountain they are anchored to.

Those without a mountain see only a man chaining himself to the top of a pile of dirt and rocks.

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing.

For myself, my mountain is made up of Pride. Pride in my own intellect. Pride in the self-examining way I live my life. Pride in the person I am.

But from my mountain I can look down on others, assured that they are much smaller than me. Never realising that my mountain is a prison, and I look like a fool.

That's my mountain. What's yours.

Home is where the house is.

2006-12-12T23:11:00.000+11:00

Our lives are like houses. What am I getting at? Well houses constantly fall apart. There will always be something that just needs to be a bit better. The same is true of lives. None of us is perfect. There are areas where all of us could be better than we are.

When we have the money and time, we hire a bathroom guy, to fix up that ratty old bathroom, or a painter to repaint those walls, or a builder for that extension. Sometimes if were feeling particularly game, we do more than one of these at a time.

When we have the energy and motivation and time, we try and fix up our lives. Work really hard at changing that niggling bad habit. Try and improve the way we treat others, even those we don't like. Go and see a shrink about our long running depression.

On top of this planned maintenance, there will be disasters. The hot water system exploding, flooding the house. A small grease fire in the kitchen, a major leak in the roof, or a smashed window.

Likewise in our lives we will have minor and major disasters. The death of a loved one. The loss of a job. An argument with a friend.

But through all this there is one thing that is constant. We are never going to be completely happy with our house. There will always be that one thing that needs to be better. Nevertheless we still try our best to fix the things that are wrong. We will never attain the goals. That does not mean we shouldn't try, since the alternative is a house that continually gets more and more run down. And eventually becomes uninhabitable.

A place where no one can live.

On the flip side, it is important to realise that no matter how badly a house has been damaged, whether by earthquake, flood, fire, or a combination of many small things, the house CAN be rebuilt. It will take time, effort and energy, you may need to go right back to the foundations, but any house can be rebuilt.

Don't be Tim “the tool man” Taylor when it comes to your life. It's more important than that.

Everest

2006-11-21T18:47:00.000+11:00

Fox has raised an interesting point in the comments of my last post.

I postulated that it is important to set “stretch” goals. Goals that perhaps cannot even be achieved, because by setting these we continually inspire ourselves to aim for more and more. We force ourselves to grow. Fox on the other hand was extolling the virtues of setting achievable goals, such that we would be able to encourage and inspire ourselves to keep working towards achievable targets.

In a way I think we're both right.

I was having a conversation with my sister a while back, in which I postulated every person needs an Everest. A giant insurmountable target that they wish to attain, to climb. If I was to go and attempt to climb Everest now, I wouldn't make it 10% of the way. I just don't have the skills or experience necessary to do so. That doesn't mean I can't sit down now and say I want to do it, it just means that if that is what I truly want, I need to first find a Kosciusko. A goal I can work towards which is not so insurmountable. But that in achieving, I will begin to develop the skills I would need for my Everest.

So the analogy I'm trying to draw here is this. Kosciusko is what Fox was pushing for. Or at least what I think we should be pushing for in the vein. The achievable goals. But there more to it than them just being achievable. They need to lead towards the Everest. The eventual (unattainable?) goal. We may need 5 or even 50 different Kosciusko's before we can tackle Everest. We may even never get there. But I think it is important to have the Kosciusko, rather than just a walk in the park. Because walking in the park doesn't challenge us. It doesn't make us grow at all.

And so our Kosciusko's have a meaning of their own, but also a greater meaning defined in terms of our Everest's.

So whatcha think? Am I on to something? To the comments!

Extra bonus section – Practical application. It's all well and good for me to say this, but here's the problem. I don't have an Everest. I try to define my Everest and I don't get anywhere. And without an Everest, Kosciusko's are rather hard to define. I can pick a smallish task that I think will challenge me and help me develop skills, but if I complete 5 different unrelated Kosciusko's then I'm only one step towards any actual Everest.

And it's also so easy to pick a walk in the park, and confuse myself into thinking its a Kosciusko. I think I need an Everest, but I have no Idea how I go about finding one. Thoughts? Take that to the comments too.

Pretend it's a seed!

2006-10-30T19:38:00.000+11:00

"When I grow up I want to be a fireman"
"When I grow up I will be better at X"
"When I grow up, they wont treat me this anymore"

I find myself in a strange situation. Here I am, 26, and yet I still don't think of myself as "grown up" There's still so much about myself that needs to be changed before I will be that "grown up" I have always aspired to be.

In fact it occurs to me that I am NEVER going to reach the point where I will feel I have grown up. Where I have achieved everything I needed to in order to be "an adult". This is because what I think of as an adult is completely unreasonable. It's this unattainable pie in the sky goal. This paragon of virtue and competence. Surely when I'm fully grown up, I won't make stupid flippant comments like that and offend people. I won't have all this difficulty knowing what to say, how to act. I'll be perfect. After all Adults are never wrong, and there so much smarter than us non-adults. There figures with so much more experience than me that what they have to say should be considered sage wisdom.

One day I'll be like that.

But I won't. Sure, older people are better than younger on average in these areas. There will be improvement. But my idea of my destination is unreasonable. Its unachievable. Its just not going to happen. I am an adult, as much as I don't want to claim all the responsibilities that come with it. And adulthood is not the cut and dried be all and end all that it first seems. Even adults need to keep growing.

And I have even more growing ahead than I thought.

Intellectual Idolatry

2006-09-19T13:49:00.000+10:00

Ok, perhaps not the most accurate title.. But its snappy.

We have been doing a sermon series recently at church on Christian attitudes to money. This quite challenged me, but it also challenged me on what I considered to be more important to me than god.

After quite a bit of thought I came up with, my own intellect. Ok, that not quite true, I came up with my own intellect almost instantly, but it took quite a bit of thought for me to realize just how right I was.

What do I mean by this? I mean that I consider myself to be quite smart. So much so in fact, that I find myself believing I should be able to solve any problem. If I can't, then clearly it was because I stuffed up/didn't try hard enough. I rely on my own wits to find these solutions. This means that I do not turn difficult problems over to god. I find it hard to pray at times, since prayer for your own problems is basically an admission that you cannot solve them on your own, and you need Gods help. And hey, I believe I can solve them so why would I pray.

This has also spilled over into other aspects of my life however, I find myself treating people differently based on my perception of their intellect. And this is the worst bit, since my perception is focused in on a very narrow aspect of intelligence. The one in which I excel.

So consider this a public apology to anyone I have mistreated as a result of this, and a commitment to work on improving it.

Consider it a challenge to those Christians who have something in their life that they put before god to examine it, and to understand it, and to remove/resolve it.

Consider it a warning. We are not omnipotent. We cannot do everything in our own power. So if we face a situation that is just too complex, too hard, it is encouraging to know that we don't have to. Provided we can be humble enough to ask.

Illusionary Envy

2006-08-01T20:58:00.000+10:00

I know a few of my readers disagree with me on this, but I still think its a fair point. This is a realisation that I had recently, I'm still working through the implications of it. Here's how the logic goes.

We are all envious people.
By this I mean that there are things that every person envy's. That they see others doing well and wish they could do as well. I'm not necessarily talking about a jealous (sinful) envy, but just a broader envy. I look at Steve and his amazing talents with green stuff and I wish I have even a tenth of his skill. I look at Bri's constant cheerfulness, at my friends happy relationships, at many many things that people I know do so well... and I wish I could be like them. Everyone does it.
The things we envy people for are not always the whole story.
“Everybody Lies”. I don't mean this at all in a bad way. But if you are going through a tough time, you don't want to tell the world about it. If you are finding things tough, very few people will know about it. There are extreme cases where this is not the case, but this is the way our society operates. But that's an entire separate post. Suffice to say, people are very uncomfortable letting you see their weaknesses. Consequently, what we see in others is the extreme. The extreme best they can do. Let me take Steve's sculpting as an example. If Steve makes a horrible failure of a sculpture (Which I am sure doesn't happen often these days), then he doesn't show it to us. We don't see the hours he spends in the quiet of his own home reworking things he isn't happy with. What we see is him going away and returning with an amazing masterpiece almost effortlessly. Not only that, he has fun doing it. So we envy him for this talent. We wish we could do what he does so simply and easily. The same is true for many of the other things we envy others for.

So what's the implication of this. Well I had a few thoughts that came out of it for me... but feel free to make your own applications.

I need to be less concerned with how well everyone else does things. Particularly with how confident and sure they seem to be while doing them. I'm not trying to marginalise the great things people do do here, I'm not looking for an excuse to stop developing myself. I just need to focus on me when developing me, not on others. Its a case of being the best I can be, not being better than someone else. That path does lead to jealousy.

I need to be aware that there are probably thing I do that others are envious of. I must admit a bit of curiosity as to what these things are. (If your comfortable, feel free to sound off in the comments or email me about this. I'd like to know ) There's not much I can do about it. But it would probably help to be aware of it at least. And maybe this means I should be presenting my self a little more honestly in these areas.

Relationships

2006-06-19T20:17:00.000+10:00

(I'm betting I have used this title before, but hey)

So here's the deal. I was asked a while back what I was missing in my life, and one of the things I answered was a relationship. The person asking the question then asked me why? Such a simple question, but one I couldn't really answer, and I still don't think I can.

So this is the question I'm putting to you. Why? Why do you want to be in a relationship. For those of you that are, what does it add to your life that you didn't have before, for those of you that are not, what do you expect it to add. Is it just a hormonal irrational response tied up with the need to procreate, is it just a selfish self-serving desire to have someone love you unconditionally. Or is it something more?

I could go on but I wont.. Ill wait till I have a few responses from the audience.

(This may have come across as a dig at those who are in a relationship, that not how its intended, if anything its a dig at Me for not getting it... Help me understand! What should you be wanting from a relationship that isn't unreasonable, or selfish, or wrong...?)

*EDIT* -- As Laurel-li put it, im asking what can this style of relationship give you that a friendship cannot. Just to clarify.

Housekeeping

2006-05-26T21:11:00.000+10:00

Well.. My room is not officially cleaned. Well.. mostly.

However I have discovered something... I am missing a number of books/movies that I am reasonably sure I own. Now I loan things out to anyone who asks, and dont really keep track of things. So I can remember loaning them out, but not specifically who to.

So if you have anything of mine, I ask you to comment in response to this post, so I can make sure I have room for everything on my bookcase.

In particular, the things I am aware I am missing (and im pretty sure this is not a complete list) are.

Dogma (DVD)
Harry Potter 1-3

Thanks!

Matt

Darkness Lights My Path

2006-05-09T18:53:00.000+10:00

Shadow shows life's truth
And ever will remain.
Darknesses to be endured
Unending. Eternal.
So as I gaze into my future
Darkness lights MY PATH.

The shadow clouds my everything
All future joys disperse
My life, my hope, my future dreams
Fade into the mist. The shadows.
I Succumb
DARKNESS lights my path.

Shadows may taint the life I have
Shroud it in mist and shade
But through these shadows light can shine
And darkness faced should not be feared
but instead reforged into light.
Darkness LIGHTS my path.

-- Matthew Aldridge

Happy Endings

2006-04-17T20:11:00.000+10:00

So.. first of all. If your reading this, and you have not read my previous post entitled heroes and responded, then you need to go and do that first. Go ahead... I'll wait.

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You back? Good. Now I'm actually going to get to the point here in a roundabout way, so bear with me.

Depression is a big thing in this world. People don't feel they do enough. People are disappoint in the amount of difference they make in the world. They feel that they could be doing more. They feel that the little they do is not enough.

In my experience, the majority of people think of themselves as failures. Or at least, not the successes they could have been/be.

They look at what they have done/are doing with their lives and they think... If only I could do more. If only I could BE more. If only I was making a REAL difference.

I may be wrong, but I think this is the attitude of many, many people these days. Even if they don't admit it.

Now I'm going to point my finger. I'm going to lay the blame on someone for this. Its our fault. Each and every one of us. But its not quite that simple. See its INDIRECTLY our fault. The mechanise I wish to blame for this is popular culture. The books we read. The movies we watch. Hollywood. And the Hollywood Effect. We have come to see (And now you see, I come back to my original point) heroes (and by that I mean these fictitious hero's not real hero's.. more later) as the kind of people we are aiming to be.

We want to be Luke Skywalker, Triumphing over both his own doubts and fears, and his enemies.
James Bond, who gets the bad guy, all the girls and saves the day. (Not necessarily in that order), or Neo, gaining a complete understanding of the truths of the world, and saving those he loved.

We want a happy ending.

Fictitious Hero's always get happy endings. BOCTAOE (But of course there are obvious exceptions) They have a destiny out there waiting to be fulfilled. They have a place that their life is going and the story will (eventually) take it there.

The real world is not like that. Out here in the real world there are no “real” heroes. No heroes who can obtain happy endings.

Mother Teresa would look back on all she did, and think of all those she failed to save.
Martin Luther would look at the people he was unable to convince, and despair.
Winston Churchill would look at all those that had to die to stop the Third Reich and be convinced there should have been a better way.

We don't get, and cant expect happy endings. What we need to expect, plan for and live with is at best almost happy middles.

Heroes

2006-04-16T17:16:00.000+10:00

So this is just a short post. Its purpose will be explained shortly, but for now, I need you all to answer a question.

When I speak to you of heroes what does it make you think of. Let me be more specific. List the first 5 individuals that come into you mind when I say heroes.

Bear with me, the reason for this will be explained in my next post.

*edit* -- added the below.
Please try to respond before reading other peoples comments if you can.. So as to give me your first reactions, rather than your reactions to other peoples reactions.

*edit2* -- Removed ''s at behest of grammer natzi's 8-)

Minor Housekeeping

2006-04-13T19:39:00.000+10:00

I've (hopefully) added an rss feed, in addition to the atom feed. Link on left.

My Mind, A window

2006-03-09T18:29:00.000+11:00

Imagine this...

We all stand staring at a wall.

Upon that wall is a window, and through that window we gaze out upon all the situations, all the beings, everything that life offers up for our consideration.

In front of us is a control console, sleek and advanced, and upon it an amazing array of buttons, knobs and switches. They are labelled, but not easy to move. It can be done, but moving each one takes a large amount of effort.

Not only that, but some of these controls are dependant upon what is being viewed through the window. When a particular situation, person, or event occurs, these controls become active, overriding the other defaults.

The controls all do the same thing, but in different ways. They effect the way the window is tinted. This tinting seems a minor thing, but it can turn a simple scene into a much more complex one, or a more complex one into a far simpler one.

Now here's the catch, we don't know what effect the controls will have on the windows tint. In fact, we are not even aware of how tinted the window is, since we have never seen the scene behind it without the window. The way the window tints the scene is what we define as the norm.

What do we do with the controls. We can look around and compare them to how others are set. We can randomly adjust them, trying different combinations, we can leave them as they are. We can spend a lifetime playing with them, and still never understand just how they work. We have no baseline. No way to understand the world as it actually is. All we have is how we currently see it.

Sometimes events in the world will be strong enough, that in spite of the filtering effect provided by the windows tint, we still catch some aspect of their true nature.

I guess what I'm trying to express here is a characterisation of emotion. The tint of the window is our emotions, colouring our reaction to events that occur around us. (Not that I am saying this is necessarily wrong).

We can work hard at the controls, trying to get the window tint as clear as possible, but ultimately, we will never know, since we have no baseline for comparison. And would we be any better off?

Assume we succeed, we now see the world exactly as it actually is. We see the truth of the matter. What have we gained. We now live in a world we understand completely, but are unable to understand anyone else's perspective. We shut down the control panel needing it no more, and then wonder why others don't see things the way we do. We forget the control panel even exists.

We feel proud of our success, we have solved the puzzle, suppressed all the controls, all the reactions, wonder, love, anger, hate, the list goes on. Does this enrich our lives? Or does it nullify them? Leaving us automatons, All logic and no emotion.

The alternative is no better, we view the world through our own particular set of settings, our own rose-coloured glasses, our own situation specific tintings. We are over-sensitive to some things, and completely insensitive to others.

We must continue to adjust the settings, to avoid emotionlessness, but we need also be aware of the dangers in doing so, and working to mitigate them.

An Optimist, a Pessimist, a Realist, they are at their most dangerous when unaware of their own nature.

The tinting of our windows can lead to the greatest joy. But also to the greatest crimes. Use the controls wisely.

The Mask

2006-03-09T18:26:00.000+11:00

Compelled it seems to brink of tears
by thankless sacrifice
Of time, Of energy, Of self
The mask begins to crack.

Searching for purposes to life
for goals to be fulfilled
finding nothing of import
The cracks begin to grow

Seeing those I come to know
obtain their hearts desire
while mine remains unfulfilled
The mask it starts to shatter

Emotions locked within my frame
Denied, Ignored, Supressed
come bursting forth without relent
The mask, It lies in pieces

The mask is broken shattered here,
My inner being exposed
But things which strove to break this mask,
Take aim now on my soul.

-- Matthew Aldridge

I wrote this a few months ago, when I was feeling particularly down..

Ok.. so its been a while...

2006-02-14T18:58:00.000+11:00

I'm sorry.

No, Really. I've kinda had a lot going on of late. My life has been kind of full. Well.. not so much full as overflowing. I know there are people I should be calling and spending time with, but its just not happening. I know I should be continuing to post here, but It just seem too much like hard work at the moment.

Expect me to come back soon, and for the meantime... hers a few tidbits for you to look at..

My Johari

Ok.. Theres only one tidbit. Cause the 2 personality type quizzes i was going to do aren't working 8-(

Fillibuster

2006-01-11T14:27:00.000+11:00

Well I notice it's been 2 months since my last post. (I noticed and planned to do this before I got the blogspam, honest)

I just wanted to say, I'm still alive, still here. I do plan to continue this blog into the future, but don't think I will be doins so in the immediate future.

Wishing you all a very happy, if somewhat belated Christmas and New Year.

If I was a superhero...

2005-11-11T10:58:00.000+11:00

You scored as Neo, the "One". Neo is the computer hacker-turned-Messiah of the Matrix. He leads a small group of human rebels against the technology that controls them. Neo doubts his ability to lead but doesn't want to disappoint his friends. His goal is for a world where all men know the Truth and are free from the bonds of the Matrix.

Neo, the "One"

92%

The Amazing Spider-Man

71%

Batman, the Dark Knight

71%

Captain Jack Sparrow

54%

Lara Croft

54%

Indiana Jones

50%

The Terminator

46%

El Zorro

46%

William Wallace

42%

Maximus

38%

James Bond, Agent 007

33%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

Other

2005-10-23T15:56:00.000+10:00

This is for discussion of any of the other point raised in the relationships post (see below) that wasnt cover in one of the main topics I bought up.

You fall for who you fall for!

2005-10-23T15:43:00.000+10:00

This post is to discuss the comeents on "you fall for who you fall for" from the recent post on relationships.

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Ll Implied that if you meet someone your interested in then the lists go out the window. I dont agree witht his view. I think that the lists remain important. Just because I fall in love with a non-christian I'm not going to go out with her. to some of you this may seem unlikely. You'll say that I say that now, but I wouldent do it if it actually happened.

Well it did, and I did. And no, Im not giveing you any more information. It was hard. But I am convinced it was the right thing to do. I cant get into a relationship with someone who dosent share my priorities, who dosent have my religion. As much as I would wish otherwise at the time.

My point is this, there are really two lits. the one that can be compromised and the one that cant. The list I have provided and I am talking about is the one that cant. I dont think any point on that list can be compromised (althoughg there may be some situation where it can, but I can't imagine it for any point on that list) Each person will have there own additional list, one which matches the other things they look for in a potential partner, but in the end, these will not stand in the way of you falling for who you fall for. I think this first list should, at least for christians.

As LL Said, what happens if you fall for someone who is going to abuse you, neglect you, etc. there have to be some things you wont compromise on (And on that note, Im quite willing to accept that this list may not be complete.)

Anyway. Discuss below 8-)

Is it serious?

2005-10-23T15:39:00.000+10:00

This post is for discussion of wether it is appropriate for a christian to get into a relationship which isnt serious to ... "See if it could work" As begun in the post entitled relationships below.

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I just have one thing to say here. Are you happier with my point if I turn it round.

Dont start a relationship with someone whom you COULDN'T marry.

Love God, Love your wife.

2005-10-23T15:33:00.000+10:00

This post is for discussion of the topic of wether it is right to say that you should love god more than your wife/partner, as raised in the comments of the post "Relationships"

Personally, I feel, it is. We are told that the church is the bride of christ, which implies to me a relationship which clearly supports the same love a wife should have for her husband, as being the love we should have for christ.

As to wether god should be more important than our relationship with our wife, I think the bible is clear in say that your eternal spiritual relationship is more important than an earthly one, however important that earthly one may be.

Im not trying to marginalise your marriage relationship, im jsut saying its god, wife, family, then everyone else. At least, thats how I see it.

Relationships

2005-10-18T18:50:00.000+10:00

My brother pointed me at this.

It got me thinking. Be warned, it uses quite explictly emotive language. It portrays emotion. In short, its art :P

I found it very powerfull. I felt it provided a good analogy of the way we do treat God. Probarbly more extreme than I've ever heard it portrayed before.

That said, I didn't think it was a very good analogy for the point he was trying to make.

Although, to be fair the author admits that.

His point however is a good one. Single christians do have lists of characteristics that they expect in a partner, and put far too much stock in them. I'm particularly guilty of this, my list has made me incredibly picky in the girls I have been interested in.

All that said, I'm still not sure I agree with his conclusion. I don't think these lists can just be thrown away. I still think they are vital in chosing a partner. But the items on them may need to change.

Were not looking for the perfect women. She dosen't exist. Thats easy to say, but hard to live.

That said, I think some items on the list are immutable.

Perhaps there should be two lists. The list of things she needs, which could be shared between all people and the one of things I want her to have. Im going to make a stab at enumerating the first list.
(I'm gonna write this from the guys perspective, since I'm sure all the women here are capable enough to translate where appropriate :p)

1. The girl must be a christian. The more comitted the better.

Why do I see this as being important? Christianity is the most important thing in my life. My future wife will never be as important to me as my relationship with god/jesus. As such I need her to be someone who can accept taking second place to that. But more than that, I feel that an important part of the boy/girl relationship is focused arround a shared relationship between the two of you and god. And that requires the girl in question to be someone with whom I can share my relationship with god.

Thats open to lots of misinterpretation. Im not saying that this relationship replaces my individual relationship with god, just that I feel it adds a new, family relationship in addition to this.

Notice that theres shades of grey here. I dont say she must be as comitted as me, It would be nice, but thats something that we can throw out with the list. (Heck she could be more comitted than me. That would be great too, but tis not something we can demand in any potential partner.)

2.She must be female.

I'm fairly convinced that god created marriage to be between one man and one woman. Thats how he wants me to enjoy it, so thats how it must be.

3.Someone Willing to put god before me.

I guess to some extent this is an aspect of what it means to be christian. What I'm getting at here is that she needs to be willing to relate to me in a godly way. She needs to be willing to call me out if I'm not doing so to her, or if im not doing so to god. She needs to be a pro-active christian, not a passive one.

4.Someone who communicates in a way I understand, and who understands the way I communicate.

The MOST important aspect of any relationship is the ability to communicate. If you cant understand the other persons point, then you may as well give it up now. This may be something you develop over time in a friendship before you start the relationship, or it may be something you have from the day you meet. But without it, I feel, Your relationship is going to be incredibly trying and stressfull.

Implicit in all the above is that We shouldent be going out with someone were not willing to marry. Dont start what you cant finish.

Food for thought

People react, they dont act

2005-10-14T18:54:00.000+10:00

So I've been thinking. I try to do that from time to time, just to keep in pratice. You never know when you might need that skill.

Heres what I reckon. People are built to react. Situations escelate. Arguments get heated. People disagree. And the more situations I am in like that the more I find that the situation comes down to this. Someone has misunderstood an aspect of someone elses point. Someone has heard what they think the other person is saying, not what they actually are saying. Someone was so busy trying to make their point, thinking about how they would do so, that they heard the other person say what they thought they thought.

Its so common. The bible advises christians to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. Self help books advise us all to repeat back what we think we heard when were angry about what someone has said. And yet noone does. Its a skill that is sooo rare. Its a big effort, we all need to be constantly stopping ourselves from reacting. From responding, From retaliating. And instead working to understand exactly what the other person said.

I think this ties back, to some extent to what I had to say in matthew's theorums about my friends not being deliberatly mean. I have to give the person i'm listening to the benefit of the doubt. This is another one of those lifelong efforts. It's not something your ever going to be perfect at. All I'm trying to say is that we should all be working to be less imperfect.

Food for thought.

Baby-killing Gods

2005-10-14T18:51:00.000+10:00

The book I've been reading expressed an interesting point, which I thought I might share. (Lion of Macedon : David Gemmell)

Here it is.

If you saw a rabid dog about to kill a baby, what would you do?

Obviously stop it.

What if you knew the baby would grow up to be a destroyer, leading armys of slughter across the world, leading to 100 years of war. Perhaps you might let it die (No. Down. Its my podium, Im not finished.. you can disagree in a sec, :P)

But then what if the baby was to father a child who would bring about a lasting age of peace and tranquility to the land, lasting for 1000 years? What would you do then.

I've paraphrased this horribly, but the point is maintained. The point is, this can quickly become a situation where there is no right answer, your actions will lead to consequences, and even knowing them all, the right choice will not be obvious.

(Asside. This is pretty much how I see God during the creation of the world... he can see all the consequences of all the possible ways of making us before he does so. The difference is with his complete forknowledge of all consequences and his perfection, he can actually make these decisions. Ok, thats a pretty horrid analogy, but I hope you get my point.)

So what would you do in the situation above (Ok.. you can make those objections now) Personally, I would save the baby in all three cases. We dont have the complete knowledge or the discernment to make a choice like that, so all we can do is what we see to be right in all situations. And regardless, I don't think I could live with myself very comfortably if I didn't make an attempt to save the baby, regardless of his future.

Another quick one, from the same book, again heavily paraphrased (Sorry David 8-) )

When evil through its actions rises up and needs to be challenged by good, If we do stoop to its levels, If we, for example set out to murder hitler, and succeed, who wins. (Oh no, goodwins law.. I preemptivly lose any argument that springs ouit of this. Ok, substitute bush or howard.)

Well obviously hitler loses out, but in this situation, I believe evil has triumphed over good. We have stooped to the level of committing evil acts ourselves, for 'good' reasons perhaps, but it is still the first step on the road. Its justification of doing evil for the “right reasons”, which is still doing evil at its core. There is no right reason for us to do wrong. We can justify it all we want, but eventually it comes down to this. We're imperfect, can we really trust our judgement on what is right?

We cant decide to suspend the rules and do things we instinctivly know are wrong just because the circumstances change. We need to have a more solid view of right and wrong than that.

Art though art?

2005-10-14T18:50:00.000+10:00

First of all let me say, Im not much of an artist. Many, MANY of my friends are, and are actually quite good at it. As such Im sure at least some of them will disagree with what I have to say here. Feel free. Im not stuck to this opinion, its just something im thinking of atm.

I look apon the state of the arts in this world, I think here particularly of literature and “art” (Painting, Drawing, Sculpting) I think it started with abstract works. Works that were genuinely done with an underlying theme, Something the artist wanted to show without being explicit.

That was the big mistake. Because people are stupid. They wont see the intended meaning, but, they dont want to admit that. They dont want to look stupid. (And to be fair, some of these artworks intended purposes were perhaps not so obvious.)

So what do they do? The look at the artwork and come up with their own interpretation of what it is trying to say. Often vastly differeent from what the creator intended.

This is what abstract art has done, It has moved ownership of deermining the “message” of an artwork from the creator to the viewer. But this move didn't stop there. Nono.. people took this self-provisioned lisence to interpret artwork in their own way, and transferred it into Carte Blanche to do so for all artworks.

The result of this is such artworks as the ½ million dollar black on black painting of (insert your interpretations here) at night.

This attitude leads to creators needing to produce their message far more clearly, clinically, if they want to have it read as they wrote it. And this will destory “ART”, if it wishes to actually have meaning. Such art will become a science, a science of communication. The best way to present a message as you want it to be heard.

The alternative, allowing some emotion to remain in the artwork immediately opens it up to interpretation by the viewer/reader. What your trying to say can be ignored and taken to mean whatever the viewer/reader wants it to be saying.

Whats my point. I dont know, but here's a thought, this attitude of interpreting things for yourself of looking for what you want to hear, projecting what you want the author to be saying onto the artwork (wether subconciously or conciously) bleeds over into areas where it really shoulden't. For examples, christians will use it to make the bible say what they want it to say.

Christian bible reading should be done in term of what we understand the rest of the bible to say, but not in terms of our own prejudices. And that's not at all easy to do. Its so easy to read what we want rather than what is said.

I think the right to define the correct interpretation of an artwork must remain with the creator. Otherwise I may as well just paint a solid black picture, and let my audience see whatever it is they most want to see (with the lights turned off)

Other people have said it far better than me.

2005-09-29T18:26:00.000+10:00

I was going to blog about this. But I really cant say it any better than its already been said.

Argumentitivity

2005-09-21T18:49:00.000+10:00

So I recently was in an argumnet. For those of you who know me, that really should come as no surprise. I'm always in some form of argument. Hardly a day goes by where i'm not in one.

However I started getting rather annoyed at the person I was arguing with. They were taking the weakest parts of my argument, and attacking them as best they could, while ignoring all the strongest parts.

It was annoying. How am I meant to show them I'm right if all there here for is to prove me wrong.

Then I realised. Hey, This is me. I do this when I argue.

First of all I want to appologise to those whose arguments I have treated this way. Yeah It's a great way to win the argument, but that's not what arguments should be about. It's not about winning or losing, but about a joint consideration of two sides of a case to allow both sides to re-evaluate their position.

So if I have been doing this to you, I appologise. This is something I plan to work on in the future, so If you catch me doing it, please feel free to call me out on it. I predict that for the next little wile at least I will still be doing it a lot.

I guess there are times when it's not inappropriate, the non-serious arguments I take so much fun in (Like timewarping grenades, and the normality of strangeness) But when I'm having a serious discussion (read argument), I hope I can control this, and I charge you to help me.

Thanks

Faith II

2005-09-19T18:54:00.000+10:00

Ok.. Its taken a while (well not really, I've just been busy) but I'm back to say some more.

I sat down and looked at your question.. What value does faith have to me, and I found it very difficult to answer. In the same way that asking someone what value does your friendship to X provide for you. Its not something you think of in those terms.

Friendship is focused arround what you feel towards the other person, not what they give you. The same can be said of my faith. My religious faith is about, at its core, a friendship with god. Its not about what I get out of it (although I do get things out of it), It's about a mutual relationship.

But let me try to explain something else.

There is an aspect of the chair analogy that is lacking. Sitting in the chair is a binary decision. Being in a relationship with god, having faith in him is not. There are levels of friendship/relationships.

Lets say that to be willing to take the first step (lets call it sitting in the chair) of a relationship with god requires you to have a certain amount of faith in him. Lets call this ammount 100%. This 100% can be made up of any combination of Blind Faith, Experiencial Faith, and Logical Faith (My terms). I think what your talking about is the balance of these. Some rare people may be able to reach 100% in just one area, but for most of us, it is a combination. (Even including some blind faith) Once you reach this 100%, you have the oportunity to learn more about God, and Experience more of the way he does relate to people in relationship with him.

Im sorry im using a lot of religious conotations, forgive me. Try to get my point rather than getting bogged down in my theology?

At which point you can go ABOVE 100%. And over the course of your relationship this 100% can grow increasingly. As it does grow, you will be in a closer and closer relationship with him. Better understanding him, why he acts the way he does, and why he is worthy of your trust.

Im not sure if im making any sence. Where am I going with this.. What does my Faith mean to me?

It means that there is someone whom I can trust to love me unconditionally. Someone who is so concerned about my wellbeing that he was willing to sacrifice the most precious thing he had to allow me a chance to come to know him, and be saved from my own innate sinfullness.

Someone powerfull enough to make me. Yet personal enough to WANT to be in a closer realtionship with me, the creater of the world, and yet my father and friend.

This may sound like a bunch of religious tripe to you, but this is the basis on which I have built my relationship with god.

Hope that helped some.

Faith

2005-09-01T18:50:00.000+10:00

Its been a while since I posted, And i've currently been in a indepth discussion about faith on another friends blog. Ive writen a number of pages of musings on the subject, which I plan to repost below so you can all laugh at me. Err I mean read them and stuff.

So without further ado, heres a coupple of posts on faith.

=====

Let me start by saying I don't have any answers, But I'm gonna ramble a bit and see if anything useful comes out.

Hmm. I ranted about this a little in the comments of one of my recent posts.

In my mind faith is best described as a spiral. I'm going to speak about this in the context of the kind of faith I'm most comfortable in, that being religion, but faith can apply to anything.. faith that the chair your about to sit on isn't going to collapse under you for example.

To a large extent, faith can be taken as a synonym for trust. But faith is not necessarily blind faith. I can have faith in a chair, that it will be able to hold me up, it can be based on many things. It could be blind. I could just jump into it without examining it, or having tested it before. Or it could be based on reason. I look at the chair, I see how stable it is, I get an engineer friend to conduct a structural analysis of it and tell me the likelihood that it wont collapse under my weight. Nevertheless, no matter how much I look and examine, at some point I need to sit. I need to stop working with the theory and take a risk, trust that based upon what I've learnt from my examinations, this chair will hold me.

Alternately, I could trust the chair because of experience. I may have sat in it so many times before that I hardly think before sitting in it anymore, after all, its been trustworthy before, my faith has been proven by its action (Or in this case inaction, but you know what I mean) In this case we have faith in the chair, but its not so much reasoned.. If you asked me why I'm sure it wont collapse I couldn't give you anything logical to tell you why i though the way I did, other than.. Its proven to me that it wont.

From a religious point of view, I think BOTH of the above apply at the same time. And they both form part of the spiral. The more we learn of god,the more we are willing to trust and rely on him, the more we experience of his trustworthiness, the more we are willing to trust him based on experience.

Sorry, I didn't what to turn this into a leacture... apologies if it comes across that way.

=======

Let me start by saying that I actually haven't tried to put this into words myself before.. This is all something in which I operate mostly on instinct, and your question has given me an opportunity to sit down and think through exactly how my thought processes work.

As such, this is all reasonably new thinking for me.. I'm trying to be honest and clear in what I'm saying.. but I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense, I would almost guarantee you that at least 80% of people of Faith would disagree with at least some of what I'm saying. But hey, Ask me in 6 months and I'm sure ill think i was wrong on at least a little bit of it.
All that said, this is my best attempt to put into words a further answer to your question. As much for my own use as for yours, but hey.

Ok.. Let keep going with this chair. I have a chair which I have sat in so many times, that I am as sure as I can be that it wont collapse. My faith in this chair is largely based in experience, since I have sat in it so many times before. It can get to the point where to someone else, this faith might seem unreasonable. They might point out to me what appears to them to be a structural inconsistency in the chair, but I can, confident in the experiential faith I have in the chair, confidently sit in it in spite of this.

This is the point where I'm gonna drop the chair, cause a good analogy can only go so far. Here's where I'm trying to go with this. As far as religion is concerned, religious faith can appear frequently to be blind faith. And sometimes it is. I must admit I've been challenged by this stream of conversation/conciousness, If someone were to attempt to disprove to me my faith in God, whether experientially or logically, would I give them a fair hearing? Or would I be so tied up in my own faith, that I would reject what they had to say out of hand.

Good faith, solid faith, faith that is worthwhile, is faith that is capable of changing. This faith can be either more firmly proven or disproven, resulting in a change to the way you react or act towards the thing the faith is based on/in. I honestly don't know how I would react if someone did effectivly challenge my faith, I hope that my faith could be this "good faith", that I would be willing to at least consider that I could be wrong. that my faith wouldn't be completely blind.

Sorry that was an aside.. Religious faith frequently appears to be, and sometimes is, blind. I would postulate that this is often because the person looking at this faith externally is looking at it from a completely logical, structured view, and not understanding why someone who faith is largely experientially based can't see what he sees.

Someone might raise a good logical argument, let's be specific... "Why does God allow suffering in the world then". I don't have a logical answer to this. I have theories, but that's not the point here. What I do have is a knowledge and experience of God, If he is allowing this kind of thing to happen then he is doing so for the right reasons. As far as I am concerned, based upon my knowledge and experience of God, he would NEVER needlessly do something like that, so It must be for some greater, higher purpose. I don't know for sure what that purpose is. But I trust that if I TRUELY understood it, I would think it was indeed right.

This is not a completely satisfactory answer, even for me, but It does allow me to accept that while I don't know the reasons, I have faith that they are good ones.

The other point I feel I need to make is this. There is a small gap in the chair analogy. Well not really.. Its a good analogy for faith. But there is one small thing that makes faith in God DIFFERENT, in my understanding at least. Here it is. God Doesn't change. In the course of normal faith, the thing you have faith in can change, such that a faith that was reasonable one day, can become unreasonable the next. If both the back legs of my chair fell off, I wouldn't sit down on it anymore, in spite of my prior experiences. The same does not, to my understanding of him, hold true for God. His back legs cant fall off. Consequently, experiential knowledge is far more valuable when applied to faith in God than when it is applied to other faith.

I feel like I haven't explained most of this very well, but I hope its been of /some/ use.

Osama's Guilt

2005-08-02T18:31:00.000+10:00

Warning. Explicit grammatical abuse and literary license with imagery taken.

Mohamad Omram. He jumps up and declares that the bombings on September eleven weren't the work of Osama. Not exactly the safest thing to say, in a world where Osama is the enemy, The evil, eater of babies, with liberty crushed under one boot heal and freedom under the other. Laughing as he smokes a cigar filled with oil from the millions of oil wells he controls, and bathing in the blood of the righteous.

That's what they need us to believe. Whatever else he is, Osama is a human being. Perhaps a particularly warped one. Its only when we can convince ourselves that were on some kind of crusade against some intrinsically evil force that we can justify the kinds of things Americans have been doing tot their prisoners recently. That many soldiers can even bring themselves to kill.

Whatever else he is, he's a man. And he's entitled to the same things every other man is. By that I mean, the assumption of innocence. Osama has never been convicted of this crime, and even convicted criminals are allowed to appeal. Are allowed the assumption that there is a chance they might not be guilty. And yet, when such a theory is even hinted at Mr. Howard feels free to say, such comments are "extraordinary and irresponsible"

I cant help but feel John's real issue is with the fact that the sheik suggested an alternative culprit, his bestest buddy in the whole wide world, and that's what this is really about.

As far as I'm concerned Osama did it, but until, and even after he's been convicted in a court of law, we must continue to give him the same freedoms we give any suspected/convicted criminal. And that includes the right to defensece.

Otherwise, were the ones with freedom, with liberty being crushed under OUR boot heels.

Re-Hash

2005-08-01T14:44:00.000+10:00

Well.. its been a while since i wrote anything here. What can I say, I havent had anything interesting i was willing to post here to say. But theres one post ive been meaning to write for a while.

A little while back, I posted a question. I was accused in some places of being a troll for posting it.. that I was just trying to foster discontent.

That wasnt my intention, and to anyone who got that impression, I apologise.

I posted the question in the way I did, because I didnt have a firm answer. I wanted people untainted comments so I would get as many varied thoughts as posible. Having read all these thoughts, ill now attempt to formulate my thoughts on these thoughts.

I wasnt happy with any of the answers, so I asked my minister to post there as well, and he has done so. I still wasnt completly happy...

I think it does come down to what many of you said.. basically.. as Laurel-li put it

Given the topic, I can really say only this: the bible does not say, therefore we cannot know but, instead, must trust that God will do what is right in accordance with His will

God is perfect. He Can't make mistakes.
I know this is not really an answer. It feels to me like a giant cop-out.

But its not. We dont understand this fully, but we do have from the bible a picture of God. And while people will argure what that picture shows, the picture I see wouldent needlessly condemn anyone. So all we can do is trust him to be fair. Righteous. Just.

Not really what I wanted, but then lifes not about getting what yo want, but instead about getting the truth.

Matt

Titles

2005-07-13T19:36:00.000+10:00

My job title has been changed

from

Junior Software Engineer

to

Software Engineer.

Yay!

Terror

2005-07-13T19:16:00.000+10:00

Sorry that this is so dark. You were warned.

So I sit here, with my imaginative mind, contemplating the future. As technology improves, I cant see us being able to stop terrorists in the future. Far from it. I cant even see the world being able to maintain it non-negotiation with terrorists.

Let go into a hyperthetical. Your .. (I was gonna say your George Bush, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone) the president of the U.S.A. You receive a communication from a terrorist, who informs you that they have infected the water supply of Washington DC with nanites, which when activated, will kill the person infected.

So approximately 6 million people are infected, and the terrorists promise to kill 1/3 of the infected people every hour until you free their leader from his prison cell.

This infection includes most of the government of the country as well as yourself. The terrorists demonstrate a willingness to go through with their threat after the first hour.

What do you do?

(That was rhetorical, I'm sure there is some insane solution involving EMP-ing the city, or something similar, but this is only one of many possibilities I can come up with for the future of terrorism)
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

So what does this mean for us? Where is the world going to be when we reach this stage?

I don't know. But I'm scared.

Spoonerisms

2005-07-13T19:06:00.000+10:00

Laurel-li linked an interesting article about spoons. When I read it, it just made sense to me. It rung true. But I wanted to take it further. I wanted to apply it to my own life.

I too have a spoon problem. Its not chronic, most day I go through with plenty of spoons to spare, but when I'm particularly run down, particularly busy at work, particularly haven't been sleeping enough, I run out.

I've talked a little about this (in other terms) previously on this blog. Basically at times, I just don't have the energy to do all the things I'm committed to. (Thats a bad way of putting it, but I think you get what I mean)

I'm not trying to say I'm sick, or to downplay the impact of this article. Far from it. I would say that I have at least 3 times as many spoons as the people this article is talking about. But when I'm extravagant in using them, when I abuse this privilege, I start to run out too.

I think this article might just have something to say to everyone. Beyond what it says about how we treat/view others.

Rehash

2005-07-02T12:41:00.000+10:00

I just watched National Treasure, and the following struck me, where ben paraphrases part of the declairation of independance.

Ben: "But when a long train of buses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and provide new guards for their future security."

Riley: "Beautiful... huh. I have no idea what you said."

Ben: "It means if there's something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action."

Why did this strike me? Because it reminded me of the point I was trying to make in one of my laws. If we can act, we have a responsibility to do so, regardless of who is at fault. (Matthews theorums - 2)

Fair judgment

2005-06-30T05:25:00.000+10:00

Let me start by saying that this post doesn't have answers, but questions.

I've been challenged recently by a friend as to what happens to babies too young to understand Christianity of the day of judgment. I don't have an answer.

He also challenged me about those so disabled as to be unable to gain coherence for long enough to understand, and about those who were so isolated as to nether have the opportunity to learn.

Now what I would like to do is to throw this out there for those of you brave enough to do so. Post your understanding of the answers to the above in the comments. More-so, post it BEFORE you read everyone else's.

Feel free to ignore these instructions, but Id like to get as many different thoughts/views, untainted by each other. Once you've done that, please feel free to read others and discuss...

Perfection Personified

2005-06-30T05:20:00.000+10:00

These days the majority of movies, heck all of them bar a small collection, present perfect people. Well.. not perfect. Clearly I'm exaggerating here to prove a point. But the people presented are /more/ prefect than real people. By that I mean that, at least by the end of the movie, they are usually

better looking
Have less real problems
Have less (for want of a better term) defects.

And this is true not just in movies, but in adds, books(not so badly, but then the image they present is usually less complete) , and TV series. The majority of the fictional people that we see

Now this has two effects that I can immediately think of. I provides us an incredibly difficult standard to which we are expected to live up. Its an unattainable goal, but that doesn't stop us from wanting to attain it.

The second, and the one I want to talk about really, is that it provides is with a similarly unattainable level of expectation from the opposite sex. When I am looking for a partner, subconsciously, a part of my brain will be judging potential candidates by an incredibly unfair standard.

Similarly when I'm looking at my friends, and how they handle situations, I cant expect the standard ability to deal with things as seen in many movies. The "Able to solve any problem in 30 minutes (or 1 hour, or 2, depending on what kind of medium were talking about)" ability which seems prevalent in these shows is just unfair to expect from real-world people.

When we get to heaven, the people well be dealing with will be even better than those we see in the movies. Until then, I think I need to make surI'mim cutting them even more slack, since I'm going to have to accept that I have at least in part some unfair attitudes here. And, as is so often the case, Hollywoodod is to blame.

Christianity.

2005-06-18T15:19:00.000+10:00

I was reading this, and it got me thinking. This is how a non-Christian views attempts to evangelism him.

Admittedly, this is a topic I've given a lot of though to in the past. But here's what I found interesting in the above.

Asking someone to be accepting of something like gay rights is a passive thing. If they accept it, and indeed want to live their life taking what you have told them to be true, all it requires is non-action. You can go further but that's not a requirement in accepting what they say. Just let gays be gays.

Christianity on the other hand, is an incredibly active thing to accept. If I accept that there is a god who has acted in this world to save me if I let him, then I cant just passively sit back and let god be god. At least not how I understand Christianity. Taking on board what I've been told by whoever it is that evangalised me requires an active change in my life. It requires me to accept that I need to do more, to put in effort. In fact it requires a change to the entire way you view the world and live your life.

To some extent I think this is why people consider Christian evangelism so aggressive. Yes some of it is the way it is delivered... Some Christians don't seem to know how to take no for an answer. But even delivered perfectly, Christianity is a very aggressive message. And if taken seriously it demands change.

To that end, I would say that Christian evangelism is far more effective from the context of a relationship, a friendship. Something where you have earned the right to tell someone they need to put in effort to change their life. God can use anything, but we need to show SOME tact.

Relationships, An addendum

2005-06-18T15:07:00.000+10:00

I've been widey reading peoples blogs, live journals, and the like this morning, and I came across this.

Its a completely different angle on it, but I think it fits in interestingly with what I was saying about circles of friendship. Were talking about when you have someone in a stable place in the circle, and your reaching out to make the effort at individual times (rather than trying to bring them in to a closer distance) If you do that reaching out far more than they do, if the effort is always yours, then as wiredaces put it... Your the bitch. (Scuse the language, but I think the point I'm trying to make is worth working beyond it)

Now- don't get me wrong...You may be OK with your bitchdom. I have had a couple of relationships where I was perfectly content to be an obvious lower priority- just because the person in question was special to me in some way.

And that's also a valid point... Sometimes you will be willing to put yourself out for the privilege of just having a relationship. But I don't think its healthy. This is the kind of thing that generally stems out of an infatuation. You may be getting a relationship you think you need, but it will be a draining one. Maybe you can support that drain... It depends on the percentages, and to a large extent on your other relationships and how healthy they are.

Generally I would suppose that this is the kind of relationship you would only want to get into either on a temporary basis... ie to support someone through a crisis, or in the understanding that you were doing it at your detriment, for their benefit. Preferably with the intent to fix it in the long term.

Food for thought.

Update

2005-06-18T14:55:00.000+10:00

Its come to my attention that I havent posted anything on here for more than 2 weeks. Ill try to correct that in a sec, but first just a quick personal update.

Im finally getting over the insane flu that was given to me by my friend (Thanks. You know who you are!)

Im also preparing for a short trip to New Zealand, next week. This year is my grand mothers 90th birthday, as well as My dads 60th, My sisters 30th, and my 25th. Were all heading over to New Zealand to celebrate the 90th.

Currently, I havent been to my regular church in 2 weeks, and from the looks of things, after tomorrow, im going to miss two more. Im really not avoiding you guys, 1 was due to sickness, and one to visiting a friends church. After tomorrow, the next week I will be in New Zealand, and it looks like the week after I will be in Canberra.

Anyways.. I shall now return you to something thoughtprovoking... I hope.

Concentric Circles

2005-06-03T19:01:00.000+10:00

Karen post recently on just how hard it is to keep up with all your friends. This is something I've been experiencing a lot recently myself. It's inspired this post, although I don't know how related to what she was saying it really was.

I remember a theorem that I was once told about "circles" of friends. I can't remember the number of circles, or what they involved, but the idea of a set of concentric circles with me in the middle and my friends scattered about by proximity of relationship is one that sticks with me...

But I'm going to go one step further. I'm going to take this illustration, and add to it, all my priorities. The closer something is to me in the middle, the more time you spend with it. That goes two ways, first because you put more effort into doing it (like say spending time with god would be something I'm putting a lot of effort into. The more I do so, the effort I apply is either to move it closer to the centre of my imaginary diagram, or to reach out to the point where it is. Either to improve my commitment to it, or to make an effort to go out of the way to do it "this once".

The closer it is to the centre, the shorter the distance from me, and that's the second way. Its less effort to spend time doing something your in a habit of doing. People who I meat up with on a regular basis, church, where I'm committed to attending regularly, bible study, quiet times (Ok, yeah, that one needs a lot more effort... to move it in).

If we wanted to take this analogy far too far, we could say things which are touching me in the inner circle are things I do instinctively. You could even add attitudes and the like to this. But I think I'm dragging this too far away from what I'm trying to say, so lets get back to the core of this.

You need to have your priorities. Some things are more important than your friends. God for one. Your own health. The things you are committed to, (the important ones anyway). If your friends are so annoyed at you for not prioritising them over something that is more important to you, its their problem, not yours. Certainly, re-evaluate whether that thing should be more important than them, but if it is, and should, then its up to them to accept what you can give them, or to not.

You can only give your friends what you have to give.

I've reached this point and I have no idea where I want to go from here, So I think this is where I will leave it.

Physical Love

2005-06-03T18:52:00.000+10:00

Inspired by Haoran's comments

Warning This may be a bit inflammatory, and I'm willing to accept I might be being a bit too extreme... nethertheless...

The biggest problem is that the majority of people in this world (And I
include Christians in that) see relationships as existing for the
primary purpose of the physical relationship.

You see Christians who get married quickly so that they wont feel
tempted by the physical side of the relationship. Or who live together
while there going out. Christians who desperately hunt for a
relationship because of some physical drive of their body.

don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anyone who does these things is doing them for these reasons... Just that some are.

To my mind, and to my understanding of the bible, that's not what
relationships are meant to be about. Heck, what's the biggest way that
marriage is used in the bible... Its an analogy, for our relationship
with Christ. So there's 2 ways to take that, and I think the one that
says marriage is not primarily a physical relationship is the correct
one.

As someone (I think it was you actually) put it recently.. The first not
good thing in creation was.. Man being alone. Relationships are about a
mental pairing... The physical side of things (While I'm sure its a lot
of fun, but hey what would I know) Its just a fringe benefit by comparison.

The world, and even a lot of Christians don't understand this... And
that's, to my mind the core issue here.

When sex is the most important part of the relationship, it get taken
out of its right place, in a married relationship, and becomes an entity
in its own right. The world has turned it around. Sex has been moved from a small aspect of marriage, to a situation where marriage is a long term extension of sex.

$0.02

Guilty? Fair?

2005-05-28T12:24:00.000+10:00

So they found her guilty. Its the big topic of conversation. Ive already rambeled about it a bit (in the comments).

But I just wanted to make a post of my own about this. My impressions... I dont watch the news, or read the papers very much at all, so all the impressions I have on this are second hand , from others reading the papers twisted view, and then giving me their impressions.

And almost without fail, before the trial had even started, everyone was complaining. complaining about how their justice system wasnt fair. Complaing about the fact that she wasnt being tried over here. Complaining about the death penalty.

Knowing none of the facts, our entire country was up in arms in defence of the unfair treatment of someone who hadent even been tried yet (Exageration used here, I admit it)

I have something to say to them, although I didnt often say it. It was too inflametory. The trial is to determine wether she is guilty or innocent. You cant really claim something is wrong before its even happened.

So now the trial has happened. The verdict has been handed down. Shes guilty.

I cant immagine a set of circumstance, short of an admission of guilt or an innocent verdict, in which we wouldn't have had this public outcry. Everyone was convinced that the trial was corrupt, unfair. Consequently the fact that she has been found guilt is obviously a result of that.

How many of the people decrying the indonesian legal system were actually in that courtroom. How many of them have ANY view of the trial other than the one provided by the media (Who lets face it, want you to be outraged, they sell more papers that way)

This post must come across like I think shes guilty. I dont. I dont think shes innocent either. I dont have enough information to know either way.

And untill I do Ill avoid making sweeping generalisations about how horribly unfair this trial was.

I suggest you do the same.

Incidentally, here is an amazing article, which I found quite insightfull, on this.

Door-Me's

2005-05-23T18:40:00.000+10:00

Stu's recent post as well as some of the things I have been commenting on recently have got me thinking about how much my outlook on life turns me into a Door-Mat.

Warning this post I predict will sound incredibly self-congratulatory...

My low self confidence, combined with my willingness to attempt to look for the best motives in the way people act, makes me incredibly unconcerned about myself. I'm so busy focusing on being fair to others, and on how much better than me they are, that ill go out of my way for them quite a bit.

I used to be much worse at this. But its not that I have improved. Working in Sydney, I simply have far less time to spend doing things for others.. That combined with coming close to burning out recently, with all the work stress plus various other things has really pulled me back from the edge a bit.. and made me aware of the issue.

Its possible to be too concerned for others. Too willing to put yourself out because you assume the best of them. Too used.

But what do you do when you are being used. Abused? Taken advantage of. Well I personally fall back on my principles of life. I assume the best. I assume the other person isn't really using me.. It just seems that way.

I might be right some of the time... and its not fair to others to assume there treating me like a Doormat if they aren't deliberately doing so. At least that's how my mind works.

What's the answer here. I don't have one.

Thoughts?

Matthews Theorums

2005-05-21T21:43:00.000+10:00

Heres something I wrote quite a while ago, with intent to blog it somewhere..

Ill reporduce it here as is.

So recently Ive been thinking about some laws --- rules by which to live my life.

Ive spent quit a bit of time pondering these, So Ive decided to put them out there, and let others read them, so they can see just how far off the mark... or close to it... I am. This kinda turned into a leacture on how the world and personal interaction works... so apologies.. And let me know what you agree/disagree with...

So here they are.. Let me know what you think.

Matthews Life theorums v1.0

1) Everyone else is a person too. Whether it be your local minister, your politician, etc.
- Corollory1 -- This applies to me as well.

Whats this one all about? Its about unreasonable expectations.. We expect our ministers, our politicians to be larger than life. To be shining, perfect examples. To never make mistakes. Is this fair? There humans too. There entiled to make mistakes. There entitled to be imperfect. The principle represented here is one of tolerance. Acceptance of mistakes. Willingness to look beyond the things we always see peoples faults, and to see the areas in which they do well.

It so easy, (and we train ourselves to do this) to judge others by the standard of our own capabilities. But thats not fair. Everyone has different gifts. I can fix a computer (sometimes) in 5 minutes flat, but ask me to paint a masterpiece and if i worked my life on it.. I MIGHT get there.

The next logical step on this chain, is to realise that the only fair standart to judge someone elses actions by, is their own personality. Their own dificulties, and their own abilities. And theres only 1 person qualified to do that. Themselves. Perhaps we can identify when someone is working hard to move beyond what they are capable of currently. And this is what should be praised. But when people are failing at things they are not gifted at... in areas where their abilites are lacking, our rfesponse should be support and understanding, not unreasonable expectations.

As per the corollory -- you are also entitled to imperfection too. You have your weak spots and your strong ones. Work to keep your standards high in the strong ones and improve the weak.

2) In a situation that I am unhappy with, It dosen't really matter who is at fault -- It dosent matter how much the other person is in the wrong. The only thing I have control over is MY actions and attitudes. So if the situation needs change in your opinion, then you need to change YOURSELF.

The other guy may be in the wrong, He may be acting like a selfish intractable person. You cant make them stop doing that. All you can change is you. So if your not happy with the situation you are in, do something about it. Because if you dont, theres no reason why the situation should change.

The princaple here is one of responsibility. Only I am responsable for me. There is always something I CAN do, to resolve situations I hate, and this is where I sbould be looking first. Its not what can so and so do to make my life easier... its what can I do to make my life easier. Its about taking responsibility for the situations your in and actually fixing things, rather than blameing others and sinking into an apathay where the world exists to serve you, and any situation is someone elses fault.

Obviously this one is not always the best solution... but it should be by far the most common and first considered.

3) Most of my friends are reasonably nice people. If they say or do something that puts them in a light different to that, then it is likely there is a reason that they are saying or doing that. That reason may not be obvious, but will generally make their actions make more sence.
- Corollory1 If theres 2 ways to interprit something, one of them very negitive, and one of them not, then usually the later is the one that was intended.

Another way to think of this is - as a friend of mine put it -- Respond - dont react. This is about not getting so annoyed with someone because they said something I didnt like, its about instead trying to give them the beneift of the doubt. And trying to understand why they are reacting in the way they are. A carefull measured query as to why rather than an explosive accusatory response or a sullen silence.

The principle here is one of working at relationships. Everyone is different, everyone sees the world differently, rather than expecting everyone else to communicate at your level, try to listen at their level. If they dont make sence, think about where they are coming from. Think about what they mean by that, rather than interpreting it in light of your own understanding, and not understanding them. This is almost a subconcious skill, one you dont even realise you are using, but one you should be useing ALL the time.

And the corollory simply points out, once again, that most of the time, people arent trying to make you want to throttle them. People are generally much nicer than people think. Communication causes MANY problems.

So yeah. Feedback welcome.

Relationships

2005-05-20T13:53:00.000+10:00

Haoran recently talked about relationships, and how to support someone who feels a complete lack of sucess in that area. I have recently been thinking on related issues actually. And in doing so, I came to a revelation about myself. I have reached the point where I’m so caught up in, so obsessed about, having a girlfriend, that I shift all of my relationship needs that aren’t being fulfilled onto that missing relationship.

What do I mean by that? Never having had a serious relationship, I imagine what one would be like. I imagine what needs of mine it would fulfill, and when I find a need that I am lacking (Something as simple as in-depth conversation and sharing with a close friend) I can see how this imaginary girlfriend could fulfill that need. So I stop looking for it in any other context.

Instead I put all the onus onto finding that special girl who will "Solve all my problems"

In my (incredibly limited) experience, many (Most?) of the things that we seem to rely on a girlfriend to provide could just as easily be provided by a close male friend. Conversation, time spent together encouraging each other, a solution to loneliness, none of these requires a girlfriend to solve

Yet we (Or at least I, cause I’m really talking about myself here, but I’m assuming its universal to some extent) aren’t willing to accept them in that context... we need to find this girl who will solve all our problems in one neat package. And when we cant find her, things are so much worse, cause were not just missing a significant other… were missing all the other things we have packaged up as part of that relationship.

Maybe I’m completely off the mark, but this seems to be how I’m seeing relationships at the moment.

A lot of what I look for in a relationship can probarbly be provided through friendships, and dare I say it, through a closer walk with jesus. Something else to think about.

Arrogance

2005-05-17T18:31:00.000+10:00

I have a problem. I have quite low self-confidence. This makes me incredibly arrogant. I'm guessing that does not make sense to a lot of you, so let me try to explain what I mean.

In spite of my low self-confidence, there are some things I do so well that I cant really deny I'm good at them. For example, during my uni days, I was “that good” at computer programming. Since, as far as my mind is concerned, I fail horribly at everything else, By comparison, my skills in these areas are amazing. Consequently, I become very arrogant about my abilities in these areas, complacent, and inevitably set myself up for a fall.

I never worked hard at computers while I was at uni, and I still got through the course. But now trying to use the skills I was meant to be developing at uni, in my job, I feel inadequate and unconfident. Somewhere along the way it became harder, beyond my abilities, and my arrogance prevented me from noticing or doing anything about it.

What's my point here? Low Self-Confidence and arrogance are linked. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if this is the way many people with low self confidence react. They find an area in which they feel they do do well, and focus their self-image on it.

Where did all this come from? I was reading Mere Christianity (C. S. Lewis) (Book 2, Chapter 8 – The Great Sin) It speaks of how pride(arrogance) is a competitive sin. Its not about being good, its about being better than someone else. I've always prided myself on the fact that I don't care how I measure up against others. I just be me, and that is enough. This is so easy for me, because I do have such low self-confidence, that I even don't care what I think of me. This has become for me such an area of pride, that I began to look down on others for not being able to do it.

“The real black, diabolical pride, comes when you look down on others so much that you do not care what they think of you. Of Course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reasons; namely, because we care so incomparably more what god thinks. But the Proud man has a different reason for not caring. He says 'Why should I care for the applause of that rabble as if their opinions were of value, am I the sort of man to blush with pleasure at a compliment like some chit of a girl at her first dance? No, I am an integrated, adult personality. All I have done has been done to satisfy my own Ideals—or my artistic conscience—or the traditions of my family—or, in a word, because I'm Than Kind of Chap. If the mob like it, let them. They're nothing to me.'

So which of the two am I? I don't know. I hope. I desperately hope, that my reasons are not a disdain for others as expressed in the later option, but an understanding that gods will matters so much more. But If I'm being honest (Which I'm trying to do on this blog) I have to say that I think its a combination of the two.

Guess that's another thing I'll have to work on.

Now-ra

2005-05-16T19:45:00.000+10:00

This weekend, I went down the coast to Nowra, for a St Michaels Night Church weekend away. Sandy, the new minister at St Michaels spoke on evangalism, particularly on the 4 principles of Pray, Love, Share, Invite.

The entire weekend was great, getting to know a bunch of people from my new church, having some good conversations, some fun, and then their was the bible talks (which were great, sandy has an incredible gift for preaching, and we should be very thankfull to god for it)

I'm going to attempt to sumarise some of the things he said which really struck me here, feel free to chip in with comments, questions, discussion etc.

Intro.

The diocesan mission talks about numbers 10% in bible based churchs. This concept makes a lot of people uncomfortable (myself included at the start of this weekend.) But the bible does talk about numbers.. its just the way it handels these numbers. (Referenced to the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin) These numbers are important because they are made up of individuals, ones. The diosen mission is not about 10%, its about the howevermany thousand who make up that 10% individuals.

Pray.

Pray for phyiscal and spiritual wellbeing of non-christian friends.

Make a habit of it, structure it, It will never be easy.

Love

Sandy raised a question at the start of this talk, through a story. Think about this when you attempt to invite someone to a christian event... the last time you talked to this person, was it to similarly invite them to such an event?

The BarBQ first principle, which basically states that you should be inviting them to other non-evengalistic things before we try to evangalise them. Sandys point here was rather similar to the point I was trying to make in this post earlier. Evangalism is far more effective when done from a relationship. This talk helped me to clarify a few of the things I wasnt so sure on previously.

Not everyone can be a big evangalist, like billy grayham or chapo. Not everyone can get up and just talk like that to people who they dont have a relationship with. And these people are not as effective as everyone believes in converting non-believers. We did a show of hand as to what was the most important thing in us becoming a christian, and for 80% it was through a christian friend/relationship. This is typical of most christians.

Yes there is something to be said for doorknocking, for walk up evangalism, for leathlets, and the like. But the majority of evangalism happened on an individual level with a christian friend. We dont need to be a gifted preacher, or a talented author. If we are... great! But if not, we still have a responsibility to do our share, amongst our friends. Not people we befriended in order to evangalise, but people who are our friends, and thus we care about enough that we want to evangalise them.

Jesus was frequent criticised for having sinners as friends. (Luke 19)

Share.

Sandy started again with a story, which I shall attempt to re-tell here.

George was a christian. He lived a good, godly life, prayed regularly, read his bible. But he didnt believe in thrusting the bible down people throats. He tried to evangalise by living his life as godly as he could, but never even told his workmates or non christian friends that he was a christian. One day, many years into his life, a long time friend of his, Mike came up to him all excited, saying “Ive just learnt something amazing.. Ive become a christian, and I was really hopeing I could talk with you about christianity.

George was happy for Mike, “That great news, I'm a christian too!”

Mikes face fell. “Why did you neve tell me? Ive put off thinking about it for so long, because you live such a moral life, and you wernt a christian, so I didnt think I needed to worry about it.

The rest of this talk was giving us examples, pointers, and hints as to how we can evangalise, through both Life (The way we live, the example we are) and Lip (The things we say)

As it has been put.. Dont worry the first 60 years are the hardest. Its never going to get easy, but we need to push ourselves to work at it anyway.

Invite.

Whats the best advertisement for something? If you see an add telling you to go to something, about how wounderfull it is, For myself the immediate reaction is scepticism. There trying to promote the product, so you cant trust them. But if a close friend recomends it to me, I'm far more comfortable. My friends arent trying to manipulate me, to trick me into going to or doing things. Word of mouth is the best advertiser.

Obviously this short summary cant replace an entire weekend of teaching, but hopefully this has given you some idea of what we learnt and been helpful for you.

Brief Randomness

2005-05-09T18:59:00.000+10:00

I dont normally go for these things... but this one was soooo me

You are 'programming in QBASIC'. This programming
language (of which the acronym stands for
'Quick Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code'), which is so primitive that
it cannot easily be used for any purpose
involving the Internet nor even sound, was
current more than a decade ago.

You are independent, in a good way. When something
which you need cannot be found, you make it
yourself. In writing and in talking with
people, you value clarity and precision; your
friends may not realize how important that is.
When necessary, you are prepared to be a
mediator in conflicts between your friends.
You are very rational, and you think of things
in terms of logic and common sense.
Unfortunately, your emotionally unstable
friends may be put off by your devotion to
logic; they may even accuse you of pedantry and
insensitivity. Your problem is that
programming in QBASIC has been obsolete for a
long time.

What obsolete skill are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Depression

2005-05-05T19:55:00.000+10:00

My Brother sent me an interesting article . And by interesting I mean incredibly scary.

Let me start off by saying I'm being unfair. The guy who wrote this did try to encase his message in an inoffensive way. He did try to seem reasonable. But his claims are quite offensive, at least to my mind, to those actually suffering from a medical illness.

I have a number of friends with Depression, chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and the like. Medical conditions that even a number of doctors refuse to believe are real. Imagine what it feels like to have a doctor tell you your imagining the whole situation. Imagine being told that your perfectly healthy, that nothing is wrong with you when you have trouble waking up before noon no matter what you did the night before. Even if there right (And I don't believe they are) Even if there is an aspect of truth in what they say, I find the article linked, and the attitudes of many people to sufferers of these kinds of sickness scary. Yes some people will use a medical diagnosis as an excuse for their behavior. Does that mean I can excuse any actions I make under the umbrella of "I was tired" or "I had the flu?". Its not about an excuse. Its about an explanation. And if you take away the explanation then the only option left is that it must be all their fault.

Its the exact reverse of what this article proclaims. Its liberating to have an excuse for all your actions. Consequently its debilitating to have that excuse denied to you. If someone genuinely is sick.. you don't do something like that to them.

By contrast I'm sure that there are cases where people believe they are sick, but really aren't. There are times when his point is a valid one. But its certianly not fair to make it as a blanked statement.

What's my point? I don't know. But reading that article made me want to vent something. Show some compassion and concern! Unless you are infallible and KNOW the truth of a matter at least consider that the other side might be right, and think about the effects of what you say if they are.

Am I being hypocritical here? Not giving his position a fair go? Probarbly. I'm trying not to. I have given a lot of thought to BOTH sides in this debate. But everyone has some bias. All we can do is try to control it.

Addition - May 8 - 9:00 am

My brother has posted his thoughs on this too. Far more eloquently than me :p

Faith?

2005-05-05T19:51:00.000+10:00

Lara has an interesting post about faith in gods soverignty. My essay.. err thoughts are in the comments section, so i wont reprint them here.

Mission

2005-05-04T18:47:00.000+10:00

Karen writes an interesting article on Mission.

I must say I quite agree with her comments. (Note: this post is mostly about related but different stuff to what actually in karens post)

I have never been a big fan of off the cuff mission. I think evangelism is most effective when it is done from within a well established friendship. More than that, friendships should not be established for the purpose of evangelism. Evangelism should come out of a concern and love for our friends. Were not on this world to make Christians by underhanded means. Were not here to trick people into repenting. We can show those we care for love and concern, we can try to convince them through our actions, and through discussion that COMES FROM a relationship we share with them.

What I find abhorrent

1) Those that try to force religion down total strangers throats unwarranted and unwanted. This is one thing that gives Christians such a bad name

2) People making non-Christian friends for the purposes of evangelising them. This feels so counterintuitive to me. So if there not interested in Christianity at the moment we stop being their friend, thus proving to them that in fact we didn't really care for them, and were only being their friend to convert them, and thus making us into the hypocrites we try so hard to avoid being.

Yeah, so what's my point. Its this, have non Christian friends for the sake of being their friend. Don't make friends just to evangalise someone.

I'm quite willing to admit that I may be biased in this.. I'm not good at face to face mission, and unlike Karen I haven't tried it very much... So maybe I'm being unfair. There are people out there who would love to be converted by some random stranger talking to them about Christianity. But think about your Christian friends... How many of them do you know who would express their conversion in that way?

I guess perhaps both ways of doing things are equally valid.. but in your face and down your throat evangalism needs to be conducted with a great deal of tact and care to my mind.

Oh look at that, I've diversed a long way from what Karen was saying. Still, I think this is a valid point. If you don't, let me know why below.

Elope Or Wed

2005-04-29T18:59:00.000+10:00

Well I've been contemplating recently the concept of weddings. Whether eloping can ever be a viable option. Before I start commenting on this, let me say, this has been inspired by a post on Haoran's Blog.

I'm sure if I tried I could think of some example, consisting of a bizarre sequence of events which would lead me to take eloping as a better option, but that's not the point here. The point is this generally (and by that I mean almost always to the extent that if your an exception I'd be shocked) I don't believe elopeing is ever right.

My reasoning works as follows. The important bits of a wedding, the critical bits, the bits that matter are....

1) It is honoring to god, of god, in gods sight, and through god that you are to wed

2) It is a commitment to your partner for better, for worse, for life.

3) It is a public declaration of your mutual commitment and desire to wed.

Anything else is tradition. There is a place for traditions, but to my mind what is far more important is that the wedding represents you. If you don't want to have it in a church building, have it outside. God is everywhere, and all of the above criteria can be satisfied without being in a church. If you want to have a small wedding, do so. There's no requirement for you to invite the entire universe. Just dont try to keep it a secret.. it is a declairation after all.

To my mind (at this point, an aside. I'm not in a relationship. I've never been in a relationship that went anywhere near getting married, so I really have no idea what I'm talking about).. That all said.. To my mind, Any excuse for elopeing can be nullified by stripping away all the expectations people have of weddings, and getting back to the bare bones. Provided you complete the stuff above whatever other changes you need to make to the wedding ceremony, go for it. Its your ceremony. And when you make these changes hopefully you can be resolving whatever the issue was that was driving you towards elopement.

So yeah, that all reads like im dictating the truth to you, but its just intended to express my position.. tell me im wrong... and tell me why.

CDG

Note: Eddited to fix a dead link.

Me

2005-04-21T20:10:00.000+10:00

So, Who am I. Never a simple question to answer. Hopefully if your here, you either know me irl, or i said something either insightfull, entertainnig or offensive on your blog and your wondering who I am.

My name is Matthew Aldridge. Im an Australian, 25(almost), and living within close driving distance of Sydney. I comute to sydney every day, where I work with computers.

I am a committed christian. I have been a firm believer in christ since I was old enough to understand christianity. I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent. I enjoy solving problems, and I am a reasonably logical thinker.

My hobies include Magic : The Gathering, Role Playing (Mostly D&D 3.5), Reading, Board Games, Computer Games.

To be honest, Im a bit of a geek. Or a nerd (Depending on which you believe is which. I'm the one who leaves his parents basement every so often to meet up with others)

So why am I telling you so much about myself? I feel that particularly over the internet, there is a considerable scope for misunderstanding. And the more you know about where someone is coming from, the less likely you are to do this. If you know what kind of background someone is coming from, its far easier to see what they are trying to say.

A begining

2005-04-21T19:49:00.000+10:00

So. I finally did it. I finlly decided to jump on the "blog" bandwagon, to post my thoughts, feelings, and experiences up on the internet for the wider world to see.

What am I thinking? Ive seen so many people get burnt through blogs. Ive seen them cause no end of stress and hardship. So what. I see the benefit of them to.

But first, a few warnings. This blog is NOT for the faint hearted. I am making a commitment to myself here and now, which I can only hope I will have the integrity to keep. Short of a legal threat, I will not remove any post I make to this blog. I will not edit them for content (I may fix particularly bad spelling mistakes). Once there posted, thats how they will stay. I will leave this blog as a record of what I said at that time, no matter how much I may change my mind and disagree with what I previously said.

Consequently, you may find what I have to say shocking. You may find it offensive. You may disagree. Tough. It stays. If you cant handle that, then I suggest you dont read what I post here.

That sounds very harsh. What do I mean by the above? I mean that whatever I post, I expect you to read it in light of me. Of my character. I like to think im a person who dosent set out to be rude, to say offensive things, to hurt people. If something I have written reads that way, then I would hope the most likely interpretation would be some combination of me not writing what I am trying to say, and you not reading what I am trying to say. The internet is an incredible source of misunderstanding, misinterpretation and confusion. Please. Please. PLEASE. If something I write offends you, do the following.

Think about something else for a few minutes and the read it again.
Try not to be offended, and try to work out what I MEANT by the statement... even if it is not what the statement appears to say.
Send me an email, or a private message, or have a private conversation with me about the comment. Get me to explain what I meant by the comment.

If you just disagree with what I have to say, then by all means, debunk me. Argue with me, irl or in the comments. I love a good argument. If you think im wrong, tell me why.

If I agree with you, and I think something I have said should be retracted, I will make a comment to that effect in the comments. But I will leave the origional comment as is.

My aim throughout this blog is to be as honest as is feasible. Obviously im not going to broadcast my entire life to the entire internet. But I hope what I have to say here can be entretaining, thought provoking, and most of all usefull.