This one's pretty long so I won't be offended if you don't read all of it.

I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag for the third night in a row. The night before these three I just wrapped the uncovered duvet around me! There's something about putting new sheets and stuff on that I just find too tedious and easy to avoid...

I need my Jade back!

If I haven't told you the story before, here it is. So it was the same situation... My sheets had been removed, but putting the new bedding on was too much of a task so I just left it. J dog knew the sitch and thought I was pathetic as you'd expect. Then one day she was round and I was lying slovenly-like on the couch and I called out to her to ask her to fix my bed. Next minute, Jade walks up past the lounge to my bedroom, a new set of bedding in her hands.

What a saint aye! Yeah she's tops.

Your tops Jade. I know you read this. My stats show readings from Columbia, so you're pretty well caught. Kudos buddy. Now come home!

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So today I was having a fairly melancholic day. I was quiet, listening to my 108 Radiohead songs, working my 3rd 8 1/2hr shift of the week just making the same model, reading Ecclesiastes (a book in the Bible that repeatedly tells me things are meaningless), as well as a book which tells me how broken I am, along with the rest of this world...

It was nice though. I find there's some joy to be had in melancholy. Just being pensive and thinking about things. I like doing that from time to time.

I love how people get a shock that I can listen to such 'depressing' music yet always be so joyful and energetic. No, I'm not always that way, but I am a lot of the time. I guess I'm usually pretty stoked with life.

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The joyful melancholy turned to genuine guttedness when I saw the news at 5 though. 29 men lost to families and communities that need them... I walked home a bit on the brink. It actually felt good that I was feeling that way about something that wouldn't normally have bothered me too much. But man... So so sad. Confusing too. So many people (hundreds of thousands I reckon, maybe even millions) were praying for those men and the rescuers; praying for a miracle. But things only got worse... The camera broke down... The hole took a long time to drill... Their was a second unsurvivable blast... Sometimes you can't help but question God and ask him what he's doing. Of course I don't blame him for what happened. We live in a broken world where tragedy is a part of life. It won't be in heaven which is a relief. But here it's just pain after pain sometimes... Sometimes I find myself questioning God's fairness, but then I'm reminded of Job: everything went wrong for him as the devil made many terrible things happen to him, and when Job asked God why he hadn't rescued his humble servant, God basically said 'Who am I? What have I done? Yeah, that's right. I'm God. Don't forget it.' God's God. Who are we to understand his decisions. We're just humans who can't even add a day to our lives. It's not my place to judge my creator. I just have to trust him, and sometimes accept things that are hard to accept.

This is a more funny post. That's if you find it more funny.

"You know on TV, when they have a fishing show on TV, they catch the fish, but they let it go. They don't wanna eat the fish, but they do wanna make it late for something...

'Where were ya?'

'I got caught!'

'Liar. Let me see your lip.'"

(C) Mitch Hedberg.

R.I.P. Mitch Hedberg.

Well that ruined the joke didn't it. "Hey remember that great joke by Mitch Hedberg?" "Yeah, isn't he dead?"

But maaaannnn. Funny stuff. I just got it off Jordan and put it on my iPod. That's an awkward place to have comedy stored. The only places I normally listen to my iPod are when I'm alone on the bus or at work, and you do not want to be seen laughing by yourself. And then you hear the laughter of the audience so you get sucked into thinking everyone around you's finding it funny too, but they're just finding you funny, which is not a good way to be funny. You don't want to be found funny.

I saw a blind man on my bus earlier this year listening to his iPod. He was cracking up just like I was scared of. And then you could tell he was kind of looking around to see if people were noticing. But he couldn't look or listen. Maybe he was smelling.

Listening to Mitch makes me wish I could just speak in hilarious one liners. People would find talking with me such a risk. One minute we could be having a normal conversation, then they add on another normal bit of the conversation, and then I'd flip it on them! Mitch style. I hope he wasn't different from his stage persona.

Here he is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6xaj2fC1jI&feature=related

Katie Ward how do I make that work?

I'm a coward.

Seriously. Over consumption is a major problem. I'm sorry for making light of it on Thursday. It is funny though how some people get way too carried away with the doom messages, and so the result is that it just puts people off and they choose not to care.

It's the same with Christianity a lot of the time. People on street corners, and "hardcore" evangelists go preaching in peoples' faces, and more often than not it just puts people off! And then because of them and how most people shut themselves off from listening to people talking to them about religion, the Christians who are genuine about sharing their faith find it hard to do so with their friends because they get scared they'll offend them, and so the good news hardly ever gets told! And I really do believe it's good news - have you got anything better to offer me than an eternal relationship with the God who created me and loves me more than anything?

Didn't think so.

Maybe my talking about it in my blog where you can read it safely at home will make you start thinking about it if you haven't already. I hope so!

I'm sorry I'm such a wuss about sharing my faith face to face. It's such a hard balance, trying to model my faith by my actions, and venturing beyond that to talk about it with people. I pretty much never do the latter. Why? Well, as I mentioned, I don't want to be one of those in-your-face people who don't seem to know the first thing about you. For them it seems it's just a game. Perhaps they think they'll be rewarded because they talked about God heaps in public? I don't want to be like that. But the main reason is... I'm scared. My faith is something I could get rejected over! If I were to start talking about it with people, I might lose my prized place as 'the funny guy', 'the cool guy' (ok, I didn't have that place)... or even just being a normal friend. I might lose credibility because of it.

But maybe it's something I need to lose credibility over? Maybe you need to hear abut it?

Scratch that. YOU NEED TO HEAR ABOUT IT. It's the only thing you need to hear about. What else really matters? Your job? Your iPhone? Your OE? Your girlfriend? Your mum? Where will they all be in 100 years? Where will you be? Gone. Gone where?

I'm a bit of a hog with my faith really. It's completely unfair how selfish I am, giving you just the surface-deep me when inside and in my church and with my Christian friends we're singing praise to Jesus and we have the most fulfilling relationships with each other and with God. We're actually talking to the guy who created us, and he's talking back. The dude who made all the stars and this great planet and matter (and maybe even anti-matter!) and molecules. The one who angels are afraid to look at - and consider that we're afraid just to look at them! Yeah I know him, and I'm getting to know him better everyday. He's with me when life's good. He's with me when it's bad too. Even when it's just average.

If I had nothing. No food. No friends. No family. No nothin'. Even then, I'd still have him, and that'd be more than enough.

But I'm too scared to tell you.

I'm sorry for being pathetic. Maybe you're glad I am? The devil probably is (yes, he exists too.) Maybe you're gutted and wish I'd told you? Maybe you don't care and stopped reading as soon as you saw this one was a more serious post. Well I'm sorry for that too!

If you want to know, just ask. Maybe that'd be scary? It'd be scary for me! I don't have a lot of answers. I have the basics though.

Please. Get convinced about what you think about God and faith and life and death. Open yourself up to Him. Tell Him you want to know Him if he's there. If he's not, well you opened yourself up to nothing, but now you're convinced so what was the harm? Nothing! But do it. Eternity's a flipping long time to waste.

To do list job #1

I enjoy writing To Do lists quite a lot. And lists in general. They make me feel organised. An efficient human, on top of everything. Of course I never complete the list. Just like the goals I spend a couple of days fantasising about and writing at the start of each year. I hardly achieve any of them. But maaaaaan it's fun to write them. The Christmas/Birthday Wishlist is always an exciting one. Looking forward to that boyyyyyyyyy am I!

So lately I've been thinking a tad about food and how I tend to over-consume it. I eat far more than I need to. I'm pretty sure most of us do. You know, the 'hmm what should I do?' eating. I do that a lot. But remembering back to my architecture degree... ah back in the day that was... I remember hearing in a lecture on sustainability that the western world consumes more than the earth is capable of producing, and that it's only because of the third world and their massive under-eating that our ship hasn't yet sunk! But apparently India and China (like a third of the world's population or something ridiculous like that) are developing and so they're consuming more and have developed a taste for meat which they didn't used to have and meat is one of the biggest planet wasters in terms of food because animals eat heeeeaps of stuff to produce that meat which we eat so if those two countries develop fully then we'll all be wasteful meat eaters and the earth will be like 'woah! I can't feed you all!' and then we'll run out and booooooom! Freaked out? I am! As I was typing that sentence I started typing faster and faster trying to keep up with all the thoughts like aliens attacking and meteors hitting as a result of MY overeating. AND YOURS! The ****'s going to hit the fan kids. What's ****? Heat? Flip. Global warming too!

Have you noticed the modern trend to write short sentences? I'm sure I've mentioned it before. It's still interesting though. I read 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy a while back and he loves the short sentence. Full stop. Technique. No commas. Some of his sentences. Don't even ma. Ke sense. . Did anyone else like it when Kirk's kepboard's space bar ('space bar' makes me think of some cool candy bar) wasn't working and he had.to.type.like.this? I did. But I didn't click 'like'. Too pretentious. He must've had some foor stuck in it. Some foor stuck in the kepboard.

Jordan Bond.

Hopefully that little interlude distracted you from the reason you were panicking and weeing your pants: earth is doommmmmed! BECAUSE OF YOU. The other night at Home Group Dan said he needed help with his pride. We helped him. Boy howdy did we!

"LUST!"

"Jesus died on the cross. And it was YOUR fault!"

Flip we're terrible mockers. It was funny though. Everyone chipped in. Helpful people we are.

------------------

Let's get spiritual.

So I found this verse the other day as I was thinking how I over-consume.

Proverbs 30:8-9.

"Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

and say, 'Who is the Lord?'

Or I may become poor and steal,

and so dishonour the name of my Lord."

So jogs! What a great piece of Scripture!

YUS! Just popped a satisfying pimple.

Yeah that Scripture's awesome! Agur wrote it. Don't give me too much, or not enough. Just enough's all I need.

And a lot of God. I need heaps and heaps of him. Oodles.

Have a wonderful evening people

It may be your last DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAA!

But seriously? Had you considered that? We're not invincible you know...

Get that into ya!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgOyTNtsWyY&feature=player_embedded

I just watched this off my friend's blog. I posted it on my Facebook, then watched it again and had to stifle back that tearful joy I get from watching things like this.

This is another that I watched a couple of years ago and actually had a few tears in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRHxHapwirw

I don't cry a lot, but when I see things like this, where people do such extreme things to celebrate and bring joy to people who normally wouldn't experience it, I go a bit guppy. So much kindness and love!

I find these things so inspiring. They make me want to go out of my way to bring joy to other peoples' lives too! Imagine a world where people were constantly doing things like this! Heaven perhaps? Keen for heaven then. On earth. This is God's reality, not hyperreality. It's better than a nice car or a trip to some exotic place or a good job or a one night stand. It's love.

Guppy aye.

Thinkful thoughts

So I finished my degree last Friday.

Cool eh? I think so. 3 years of architecture finito. Makes me feel a bit old I suppose, considering Sophie's only just starting 7th form next year and so many of my friends are only just starting uni. I suppose I should feel equipped too, but I don't! Design me a house Elliot. Honestly, I don't think I could yet... I guess that's why there's still two years of masters to do, and then 3 years of getting registered. When to do it. Ay, there's the rub (can Shakespeare get more out of context?).

GAP

year. Pretty keen! But what to dooo? Bible college? Could be cool. Quench that passion that's been welling up inside me lately, then get back to architecture. Can it be quenched or will it take over? Pastor Elliot? Haha not at this age buddy. Get wise first.

Maybe work and then travel? Could do... Don't really have the travel bug at this stage though. Spain killed it off for a while. Maybe a combo of work, Bible college aaaaaand travel?

So many options! And of course just going back to architecture straight away? Not half hearted though. So not at this stage.

Today I saw a guy I respect a lot and tend to think of as quite manly and solid go completely gaga over his baby daughter. It was so great to see. Such unadulterated love for her. Such joy. I definitely want to be a dad like that. Too proud and in love to care if I should be embarrassed or not.

Last night me and my closest mates sat and lay on a water tank in the countryside, just chatting and singing worship songs for an hour. The stars were so bright. Shooting stars too! Look up look up look up look up into the sky love! We see that moon shining so high up above us! And such good company. Pure, honest conversation. Then just singing together. You can't top it. I wish everyone could start experiencing relationships like these. These are the ones we were created for, not the shallow pretentious ones that I so often see. Unselfish relationships are so important.

It's funny (the odd funny, not like HAHA! That's FUNNY!), when I was doing my uni work I felt so busy and like I had no time to myself, but since I've finished it's been non-stop. I've been out socialising or working at the cafe everyday, hardly at home at all, and I feel I've hardly had a chance to stop and breathe. Life can become cluttered when you don't have a rhythm to adhere to. All the beats topple over one another and you can lose your place. Tomorrow I'm resetting the metronome. I'll just chill with a book and my thoughts and God. We'll have a good catch up. Sorry, not inviting you.

My new friends

Thanks Borders for your 4 for $30 sale on CDs. You've now made it near impossible to ever get through, let alone get to know my music collections, on top of the 2,500 songs I got off Katie last week...

I am second

Just had Fuel (my youth group). Was saweet. Dan ran it and he played a few 'I Am Second' clips including this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOeruTrdF1Q

They are so cool. I've been getting so focused on what God's leading me to do, and on the seriousness of life, but these reminded what it is to simply love and be loved by God. Such a peace!

I can't wait to date him next week when holidays start!

Uncoiling toiling

So I have my 'Far Too Easily Distracted Essay Writer's hat on again... Fortunately the internet has been refusing to let me back on for the last few hours. Sometimes I wonder if that's God saying in a very nasal voice and with head tilted back in a superior position, "Noooooooo, do some more work. Not letting you..." If he is, I'm appreciative, as much of a pain as it is. I really do suck at toiling, but lately I've come to see how important toiling is. I'm not talking the fun fishing toiling where it's a satisfying battle. I'm talking about the daily toiling of doing work, even when it's incredibly dull. Proverbs 21:17a says "He who loves pleasure will become poor." I don't think that's saying you should hate fun and pleasure - clearly we are made to enjoy it. I think it's saying if pleasure and fun are what you're all about; if you live for nothing more than to have fun, then you're not going to get very far. In such a pleasure driven society it's easy to do. Society tells us that if we aren't having the best time ever in our jobs; if we lose that passion in our relationship; if we're not living lives as exciting as the ones we see on TV, we should move on, because a live full of fun and pleasure will come with that exciting new job, with that sexy person on the side and by doing whatever we want is a good life and will make us happy. The reality is, yes. They will give us pleasure. We will feel fulfilled. The excitement will make us happy and life will be good.

But it won't last. It never does. I heard recently about the 'Eat, Pray, Love' novel. Clearly it was a hit. It told people everything they wanted to hear: that if you chase those dreams of an exciting, pleasure-filled life, you'll find real happiness and life will be great. The main lady of the story (forgive me if I get this wrong, I haven't read it myself) ditches her husband and family to travel and make her life exciting and fulfilling. On her travels she indulges in a variety of different experiences, and eventually she meets a foreign hottie and falls in love with him. The story ends and everyone loves it: a fantastic life full of rich experiences and excitement is possible! The author releases the sequel: she finds the foreign hottie isn't all she thought he would be, and that her new live has really equated to nothing. She returns home to try and recapture her old life, which at the time she thought was boring, but now sees it as stable and lasting. She is made to deal with the consequences. This is my talk on hyperreality by the way. The dreams and falsities she was chasing: the hyperreality we all at some point desire and strive for. It's modern religion. We've come to expect more than what the world really offers us. It's better than the real thing! It's not the real thing though. It won't last, just like it didn't for that lady, and just like it didn't or won't for you.

I want to toil more; to live a life that recognises there are consequences to how we do things. I don't want to seek pleasure for the purpose of finding meaning. Yes, I enjoy pleasure, but I won't become about those things. I'll never find my meaning in them. That can only be found in a relationship with Jesus - he'll last. Forever. How will pleasure and fun last when life turns to crud? As for me, my pleasure is found in Christ alone. He won't fail me.

Deep aye! Haha. It's pretty much all from Mark Sayers' book 'The Trouble With Paris.' Thoughts if you have them...