I'd like to be able to say I'd blogged on Christmas Day...

...now I can.

So many pies...not enough fingers...

I'm loving the whole Christmas thing at the moment. It's just a cool time of year. No one really cares to much - as a guy at work put it, "we're getting to that I-don't-give-a-shit time of year Matt". I thought that was very eloquently put. And work is cool, good place to hang when half the office is on holidays and there aren't any real deadlines because everyone's leaving in two days anyway. There are lots of chocolates and rocky road and celophane scrotums going around. It's great. (In case you were wondering, celophane scrotums are those little coloured noisy bags people hand out to each other, usually with chocolates in them. I had one with two Ferraro Rocheirs the other day (spelt completely wrong) thus the name) No candy canes though - and that's brilliant. I haven't seen a candy cane yet this year...

Ah...so what's going on at the moment? Well, yesterday was a very significant day in the life of Matt. I started Page 1 (1pp, #1, No.1) of my book. The idea's been floating around in my head for about a year, I've been thinking seriously about it for six months, researching, planning, plotting and drafting for three and now it has begun - Dec 21, 2003. So the first scene/chapter is written - six pages and I'm very happy. It's exactly how I wanted it, perhaps better and that's the best way to be really. I'm excited about it actually... (...it's really vibey....pls excuse personal joke...unless of course you get it, then feel free to laugh hysterically...) No, it's not vibey - at least I don't think so. It's an attempt at painting with words, that's how I like to term it. Painting with words. Doh, that sounds vibey...

What else? (I'm filling in a lunch break here by the way...too hot to go outside) We've started putting our kitchen in downstairs and it looks cool - nice bench top. The story is my Grandpa will be moving in in January and so downstairs is being converted into a self contained flat. In the meantime I move upstairs. However, there is a verbal agreement that when the time comes where Grandpa doesn't need the flat anymore (need I elaborate) then I will be able to officially move out of the family home and rent the flat downstairs (complete with kitchen, bathroom, laundry, front door and seperate street entrance). So it's a weird sort of thing - I mean it looks cool and as I said to Dad last night, it's kind of sick and rather disturbing but bugger it, I'm quite looking forward to living down there. It's a shame about what would have to happen between now and then for my dream to realise itself.

Okay - new paragraph; new topic. Saddam Hussein, I think they should execute him. (To put it bluntly) I'm not usually a death penalty supporter, although I'm not strongly opposed to it either. There's two sides of the argument that are fighting their way through my head. The first is that if these people have commited abhorent crimes (such as genocide, serial murder, acts of terrorism/mass murder etc etc) then I don't want to pay to have them sit in a room somewhere with a TV and a soft pillow for the rest of their life. They're taking up space - they knew what they were risking when they committed the crime in the first place, lets make room for those who can be rehabilitated and move these other ones on. The other side of it of course is what gives us the right to remove a person's opportunity for redemption? If they sit in a cell for the next thirty years, perhaps the guilt will eventually get to them and they'll make themselves right with God. I'm sure that's probably the Jesus response, but at the same time there are practicality issues (as there always are - it's a shame that morality and reason so often conflict) and I'm just not entirely sure where I stand on it. Saddam though, I am sure. Kill him.

Dear, dear...that was a bit serious wasn't it? Something else (because I still have time to fill)...

Girls....nope - only got another half an hour of my lunch break. Not enough time... Suffice to say I have lots of great girls-who-are-friends and I love em heaps. But as yet, still waiting for the right one and in the grand scheme of things, I haven't been waiting that long really... New Years Eve always makes me think about things like that...

Okay - happy thought for the day: Life is so good. It's the name of the book I'm reading at the moment and it's written by a 101 year old African-American guy (with the help of a journo) who learnt to read at age 99. He worked solid for over 70 years, right through all the prejudice of 20th Century America, had friends who were publicly lynched for things they didn't do and now (at 101) he's a full time student and he's telling the world how he has learnt to say that life is good. Man, what an absolute champ. I so want to learn everything this guy has to offer. We can be so negative sometimes, and no one wants to hang around negative people. I want to learn to be the positive guy - the happy guy - the optomist - the person who loves life. If this guy can do it then anyone can do it. God is good and I believe life is good, it just depends on how we look at it. I'm making a conscious decision to change my filter and look at the world differently. I'll keep you posted on whether it works but I'm fairly optomistic....get it? Working already.

All right, I might stop typing now because I'm going to need to rest of my lunch break to read over this and get all the mistakes out of it and remove that bit about the anatomical differences of tortoises and turtles (which of course you don't know about because I removed it).

PS...see this is what I do. I don't blog for a week and then I have diarreah (also spelt wrong)

This morning I read a letter from my Mum's Uncle (not quite sure what that makes him in relation to me, but anyway). Long story, but he'd sent her a Christmas type letter, only it said Happy Mythras, not Christmas. Mum wrote back and said that she wasn't quite sure what he was talking and this morning I read his response. It seems he's an aetheist with attitude (mmm...i see a bumper sticker...)

So I read the letter, took it on the bus with me to work and read it again. He said a lot of crazy stuff, including a whole article he had written comparing scripture in school to child sexual abuse. In another article, he took three verses from the Bible, bounced one off the other until he had a statement which slammed Christians and Censorship. Finally there was a short piece on the legend of the Indian god Mythras who was born from a rock on Dec 25 and who did all these things miracles which the Christians stole and added to Jesus story because they were jealous of the Mythras religion.

Arrgh! How do you respond to that?

One part of me is already drafting it in my head. My rebuttal. The other side of me is saying - there's no way you could win an argument with this guy. It's not going to accomplish anything. But, even as I write this I'm thinking that I have an obligation to state my own case. He's given us his, he's said what he believes and it's made me think - even if only to defend what I beleive (which I think strengthens what I believe...defending it). So, even when I write back I'm not going to be able to "change his mind" by "proving him wrong", but I may cause him to think simply by him having to come up with a defence and maybe that's a good thing...

However, I think the key is how I frame my argument and that is, in a non-aggressive way. The crux of Christianity is love and that's something he completely missed in his writing. If somehow I could impart some of that through what I write then maybe that's the way to reach someone.

God help me....literally.

I just had a rather startling thought: if you were standing on the north pole - like right on the very spot, no matter where you step there's only one direction you could go: south.

Mmm....makes you think about the futility of life doesn't it...

I think I should post something a little more substantial today because if you cast your eye down the page a little bit you may notice I've been doing these little two line jobs for about a week and that's not good - after all, I have a reputation to keep up. I think I may still hold the record for the longest single post ever. That's not a reputation I want to tarnish.

And after all, the last few days have been fairly action packed. I drove down to Berry on Saturday and back on Sunday. I spent the time in between in a little house in the middle of the bush where all you can hear are the birds and the sound of the micro-organisms between your toes. That was good fun and the drive was just as good. I love the open road. (By the way, there's a huge business opportunity for someone to open a second servo in Kiama because the first one took me about half a frustrated hour to find...don't miss out - this could be your lucky break!)

On Monday night I met up with an old school mate and we sat at Jo's work - not just because it's Jo's work but also because it happens to be a pub. That was good. We talked about people we hadn't seen for ages and personality tests. I discovered I have one of the most rare kinds of personalities - only 2% of the population is like me (me and Martin Luther King Jnr and Mother Teresa I might add) so that made me feel cool. It's odd - I'm common enough to be classified but rare enough to be a minority. I like that kind of balance.

And then last night I had a big fight with someone which wasn't so good. I love this person heaps but it was definately the biggest argument we've had - lots of voices raised and such. It was the first time I've really seen how winning an argument doesn't have the sense of satisfaction that you think it will. But we've cleared it up now and all is good - in hindsight it was a discussion that needed to be had, but I could have said things a little differently I think. There was that whole "I just said something I so shouldn't have said" thing, even though it was true. Just not overly sensitive of me.

Today I got an email from a Contiki person with this big photo of the whole group in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was the first time I've been nostalgic about the whole thing. It was such a great time and today I'm getting that "I want to be back there" thing happening, with those classic people, doing stupid things that you'd never do at home, not thinking about normal life and every day just being this whole new event, every day topping the last. Those five weeks were definately the greatest five weeks of my entire life and today I miss em.

Dammit.

So there you go - I feel like I've made a significant post now and that's good. And don't forget about the north pole thing... could change your life...

mmm...feel like posting but brain is empty....

I should post something about my weekend in the bush, but I can't be bothered right now. Later...

Twas good though...

a new day...

I've learnt something and I want to write it down so I never forget it. I've posted once before about how do we "hand things over to God" and we were talking about it again at smallgroup last night. Then, suddenly, no sooner had I left I found myself in the deep stuff again and I knew that, with this particular thing, I had to hand it over...I just didn't know how.

So, sitting on my bed after midnight with the lights out and music on I prayed about it. For a sensible person, asking God would have been one of the first things they would have done with a problem like that, but not me. I hadn't even thought about it until last night. I was under this illusion that God was telling me to hand something over and it was up to me to figure out how to do it. Stupid.

I believe God answered me. And not only did he do that, but he challenged my thinking. Up until that point I'd thought that handing something over (an issue, a problem, a decision, a person) was a once off thing you did - you handed it over and then that was it. I now think otherwise. I think the process of surrender and giving something to God is just that, a process - an ongoing decision we have to make. What I have to be able to say is the same thing that Jesus said in the garden, "not my will, but yours be done". So first of all, I need to get myself to that place and I do that by allowing God to show me all the ways that he has looked after me up until this point. I let him point out how I wanted something once and didn't understand why God didn't provide it, only to look back months later and thank him that he didn't. With that comes the confirmation that he does know best. From that place I can trust and then Prov 3:5-6 begins to become relevant. By allowing myself to be led, by him, to that place of fully trusting in his judgement over mine, I am able to say "God, I want what you want in this situation - whatever that is."

But here's the thing, and this is where I'd come unstuck so many times before - it's an ongoing process. Because saying those words doesn't take the issue away, it doesn't stop me thinking about it or stop me worrying about it. It doesn't give me an instant miraculous peace that allows me to be free from the issue/problem/decision/person. My human nature doesn't like to be without control, which is what surrender is, and so I constantly try to pull that thing back. I want it to be my problem again and so I think about it and worry about it and that's when I need to pull myself straight back through that process again - God, I want what you want in this. If I can't say that, then that's when I know I've taken it back and I'm no longer trusting in God with it.

I'm writing this while I'm going through it. I'm in that loop at the moment, but I can honestly say I've seen God do amazing things in my life before and I know that he knows better than I do. I know it.

I am the king of archiving. No one archives like I archive. If they had award ceremonies, like the 52nd Annual Archiving Awards, I'd be the back to back, hands down, no competition winner....and I'm not boasting. All three jobs I've worked at since I left school I have been given the task of archiving and man do I do it well. I'm sure it's a special God-given gift, just have to figure out how it's gonna save the world...

I've discovered that at work I drink water for entertainment. I know, some people listen to music, others read books and watch movies - I drink tap water. I fill up my bottle when I get into work and I drink like... an animal that drinks a lot. I'm sure it's doing great things for my internal organs, and my Mum is very impressed. It does mean that I now know the Men's Room rather well but hey, that's probably not such a bad thing...