Payneosophy

How it should be

It’s Saturday afternoon with the wind howling around the house and both of my boys are asleep. I’ve got the armchair facing out the window so I can’t see the bombsite that is my living room (see, I’m learning to think like a Mum) and at my elbow is a little table with rooibos tea in a teacup and the peanut butter jar. Mmmm. This morning we went for Dim Sum with friends giving the afternoon that sense of happily tired and overstuffed feeling. A bit like Christmas Day.

 

To update, the much moaned about essay was finally handed in and forgotten about. Someone asked me recently which essay question I had answered and it had literally gone from my brain. 3 weeks of writing about it and I couldn’t remember! That is until I had an email from my professor with the unit results. One of those ‘ohhh, I don’t want to read this email but I have to’ moments. All good. 80%. It was worth the extra hours. I am quietly punching the air.

 

You won’t read much from me over the next little while because I’m practicing a new art –the ability to listen!! I have too many opinions and not enough mental capacity for actually listening. It’s hard to really hear someone else when simultaneously thinking ones own thoughts! I’m learning too that ‘opinions’ sit awfully close to judgment, even when they seem correct. Did you know that judging a person, even in a positive way, is still making an assumption about them and is therefore sin? Sin with literal repercussions. Phew. Well, you probably did know that already. Seems I have a lot to learn in the listening/judging area so best I zip it and tune in a bit more. Hence the hold on writing.

I’m sure it won’t be forever. I’ll get itchy typing fingers. Until then, enjoy the quiet.

 

PS and given I can't spend my time monologing I'm going to get on with 'Project Photos' so maybe a few will make it onto here as I work my way thru the unkempt digital piles of pics strewn across our hardrive

Anyone?

A million bucks to anyone who can make sense of this and the 27 more pages just like I need to translate for an essay on relative morality. All interpretations welcome. It may as well be Japanese to me after 10 straight hours of writing on this stuff today!

'The main appeal now of Ford's tragedy is, surely, the axiological system it encodes, an aspect of the text's ideology which may be investigated through its use of modality, apt to reveal the special relationship of the speaking subject with the object of utterance. A spectator or a reader can pass judgements on this special relationship on the grounds of modal competence, a complex parameter resulting partly from actual and partly from literary experience... and so on...and so forth...and hencewith...and the like...etcetera...amen'

Last day with JJ

This morning Asher and I waved Jonah (JJ) and Murray goodbye  as they walked off down the road like we have done on a hundred similar occasions. This time was the last time we would do so.  Murray walked JJ to the local vet who, with absolute compassion and understanding, put our loyal friend of 10 years to sleep.

 

It has taken us a year to make the decision implemented today. We’ve had countless emotion filled conversations, debated the negatives of putting JJ down, and tried to think of elaborate ways to make it work. The reality is that a small block, minimal grass space, an 18 month old boy and an aging rottweiler/kelpie dog do not belong in the same sentence.

 

It only made it harder that Asher adores Jonah. How will he understand that his best mate is gone? And for us, what will the silence feel like? Will we regret it?

 

It has been a very sad morning but we know it was a good decision.

 

The vet was impressed to see a dog of JJ’s years still on his feet. JJ’s knees and hips went a while back but he still gets around (or he did). She said that it’s a wonder he can still walk, and that his mobility would decline over the next few months. He would then have been sustained on medication and only to pass away within  2 years. While incapacitated he could have changed temperament and become more risky around children. He would be unpredictable in his pain and old age, unable to assert his authority as head of his pack of one.
 
Jonah, ever man’s best (though slightly overenthusiastic) friend was as always the gentlemen with the vet.  He happily submitted to being prodded and weighed then given a sedative needle. The vet said that JJ was in the top 10%  in terms of behaviour, temperament, manners and obedience that she had seen for his breed. She said she can see he’s had a good life and this is the right time to say goodbye in the right way. That helped.

 

So we are proud of JJ and the life he has been and proud of us for doing the mature thing – for once – for Asher and our family. Maybe this is growing up.

 

Hopefully pretty soon we’ll stop feeling so miserable about it.

(Pic of JJ and I sharing my midday God chat - a regular thing while Asher sleeps - sneakily snapped by Muz attempting to catch me napping.)

 

My tax boy

Murray is away for a couple of weeks on a  business trip that includes NZ, Sydney and Adelaide. Here is an exert from his last email I couldn't help but share! Good to know he's not pining too much, and that some things never change....like Muz's love of all things tax...

(Written from the financial planning conference in NZ)

" The Australian Budget has been good for me (with work) - i was fearing a lot worse. We had this guy Ken, a self professed tax nerd, leave the gala dinner early to listen to the budget in the internet cafe, then draft a 2 page summary for people to take home at midnight! Classic.
 
The previous nights dinner was a combination of my favourite things - Japanese food (to die for), NZ wine and tax and financial planning talk!!! "

 

After the essay I collapsed in front of mindless tv entertainment for a week and tried to think in pictures instead of the dreaded words. Couldn't write a sentence.

It was a great relief to have it off my shoulders but not in the way I expected. The process, it turned out, was a real joy. Once I moved beyond thinking of the essay as something I 'just had to get done' to seeing it as a challenging, thought provoking, intense and rewarding process it stopped being the chore I had made it in my mind. In effect I was forced to get to a point of acceptance because it took so ridiculously long. I've discovered that trying to research and write in the pockets of time that small children allow is impossible. My '1 week of reading plus 3 days of writing' game plan stretched to twice that and eventually I was obliged to squirrel away at my big sister's vacant house for a weekend to get it finished. It is so great to know that I can still sit for 8 hours a day - or longer - and write on something that is not my first choice and does not come easy like creative writing. I really needed to go through the fire I think.

So thank you to the Counting Crows who, as with every assignment since year 12 Lit has provided the soundtrack to my brain strain, to Sharon and her house, Ness and her Doritos, Muz and his nights of solitary and to everyone who endured the initial whining!!

On Monday we had our essays returned. I saw the large, red 'D', stuck it in my bag and left thinking 'the next one will be so much better'...bummer. Took me 15 minutes for it to dawn that 'D' means a distinction in this modern era and is not one grade off an F. Relief.

So that's great but it's a low D with a whole lotta red circles and question marks accompanying it. The next one WILL be so much better.

Essay anyone?

'When the bad bleeds, then is the tragedy good'. Critically discuss the role of the revenger as a self-reflexive actor.

Yawn

I hate essays. Despise. Detest. Abhor them. To whom do they belong anyway? What is their purpose, their place? The academic world? Yr 12 history? In my opinion if it can’t be written in an interesting way – prose, poem, play, lyricially, conversationally, directly – then why waste the time. And yes, for anyone who has been around me this last week you will know that I have become very good at wasting time. Along with eating left-over mini-eggs and whinging. So pretty soon I’ll be fat along with the frustrated! Determined to write this bloody thing today to end the mental moaning. Asher will just need to sleep from now (1pm) to tomorrow morning and we are so there. Sorted.

Gilead

Sometimes right there in the middle of a novel is a little piece of prose paradise that cannot be improved upon. It articulates a thought which may have floated somewhere in the grey nothing of your mind better than you could ever say it. Or think it. Here's a little piece of said magic from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson:

'In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable and utterly vast spaces between us.'

Last Friday

Cafes are my balm. In the midst of a particularly awful day I come here to ignore the Lit text I should be reading and instead indulge in whimsical scribbles about nothing of consequence hidden from the mayhem for a few minutes.

Today I feel like I have been dragged behind a ute down a gravel road. I’ve been stressfully late for every event, delayed by interminable freeway roadworks, sent on a document signing goose chase across campus and then verbally bashed at the uni admin office for trying to correct my enrollment for the 5th time.  (Note: the first four were not my fault.)

I tried, I failed, so I came here.

I’ve had a quality latte, a couple of slices of complimentary specialty bread – it came with the great chat with the Barista - and if that wasn’t enough the gal at the deserts counter just popped by with a wink and a slice of pecan pie. It is possible she saw me stealing multiple pieces from her samples tray earlier.

Awwww

Honestly it makes me think that none of us have any idea what a small kindness can mean in a strangers day. That pecan pie has renewed my spirit. To give credit where it is due the sugar has done its bit too. But it is the warmed heart, not the coffee buzz and sugar rush, which has picked me up. I ought to be doing more of the same for people around me. Really spend way too much time focused on myself.

Camp waterslide

 

 

 

Never fear....he recovered just fine and was back with his first love 30 seconds later...

 

(minus his pants ;-)

Synopsis

I never thought I’d say the words but here I sit, simultaneously pepped on coffee and lack of sleep. Yes, I have succumbed after weeks of busy to – dare I print the words – several cups of instant brown muck to get me through the day. So far so good. I feel like I’m flying! It’s brilliant.

If I were able to judge objectively I would probably agree that the weekdays have become a tad hectic but the schedule is not without thought and I am never objective. I like to think that Asher and I do things we love, at a pace we love, and that makes for a pretty great Monday to Friday. Going to bed on time however IS going to become a priority because the coffee effect can only last so long.

This year is all about purpose and learning. If it doesn’t contribute to a higher purpose it doesn’t stay in the diary. So, where to start?

Uni. It’s great. I am THAT mature age geek who gets to class on time and stresses if I haven’t done the readings. I find class discussion fascinating and do homework to find out more…not because I have to. Awful, awful, mature age people I know, but I can’t help myself. I love it.

I’m surrounded by Prada toting, I-pod blaring upbeat 21 year olds (it’s post grad Literature), who bring laptops to class, and have the generosity to make comments like ‘wow, you’re 30, I would never have guessed it!’ Lies – but nice. It’s a good crowd. Perhaps the Y-Gen won’t destroy the Empire quite as I’d predicted. Some of them are pretty switched on ;-)

Fitting around uni is the normal run of pilates, playgroup, play-dates, cups of tea with Grandma, and all the bits that mums have the freedom to indulge in. We’re lucky, I now. I ought not too gloat.

What really occupies my head-space though, is what God is doing in Perth. If you can’t feel the spirit moving, you’re in the wrong place. Things are really happening here! There is so much prophecy coming to Perth from sources here and all over the world talking about a God on the move. Such a time to be living in Perth.

We see it at church. We love church. Yes it’s miles away but it’s a family, and wouldn’t you travel a bit to see your fam? Church camp over the long-weekend was a chaotic mix of kids, chat, great worship, great teaching, hours and hours more chat. You get the gist. Every day together feels like a day spent with an imperfect, messy, honest, absolutely generous family. We rarely miss, a new thing for us.

50km away the homeless church meet together in the city, another kind of family. We join them for prayer, bible study and church mid-week and Sunday evenings and are reminded at every encounter how fragile we all are. Not them, us. All of us. It is a huge privilege to be invited to share their pain and their highs. Plenty of both. Definitely come if you have a heart for the broken…or a heart that is broken. It will change you. You will change others.

I think that God is priming people one at a time. Moving his sons and daughters into position, healing them so they can stand whole in his church. Seeing that happen in prayer ministry is about the best thing I get to do. If God asked me to drop everything, just for that, I would (not Asher of course, he would be somewhat unimpressed).

The Prayer Ministry Team are going hard this year learning, training, practicing and it’s all a lot of time and effort but we feel the buoyancy of God in our sails. Some of the stuff we’ve been learning is so horrendous that I could not believe it happens in our immediate world. But it does, and we have to face it so that we can stand with sufferers and not deny their pain. If our churches look like happily functioning people who have the odd downtime then the church is not real. We see the other side of the Sunday morning smile at prayer ministry, but God sorts us out!

So anyway, blah blah blah, right?! Maybe I’ll get around to writing something of wider appeal to muse over one of these days. Something that is actually interesting. If I do you’ll know I’m procrastinating an assignment or the like – heck I’ll be on here constantly!