The Chronicles Of…

Last night Passion rolled into Sydney after touring to 16 other cities across the globe, and about 8000 of us wandered up to the EntCent to see what it was all about.

I was impressed.

It had elements of ‘church’, in that we sang together, prayed together (in little groups of three), and heard the Bible taught, but then there were elements of a concert also (David Crowder and his band were phenomenal). This blend was really good (I’m pretty sure it’s intentional), and I don’t think either aspect took away from the other.

Louie Giglio is a powerful communicator (although again, some ‘cringe moments’ for me, but that’s just cultural), and he certainly inspired us Christians while he was busy preaching the gospel to everyone else. He spoke for just the right amount of time, and although he got emotional, it didn’t feel like he was trying to manipulate anyone. He just really cared. They took up an offering, but gave a clear explanation of where the money was going to, and the fact that they’d brought this amazing event (with over 40 personnel) across the world and didn’t charge any admission was a real positive in my mind.

There were moments when I cringed (yes Chris Tomlin, I’m talking to you), but it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing where I went away with a bad taste in my mouth. Instead, I went away feeling positive about certain things I’d had negative attitudes towards in the past, and excited for what God can do in the lives of people across the world. There seemed to be real unity in the room between all the different denominations and streams represented, and everyone seemed very positive. I’m sure some people can find things to whinge about and criticise, but to be honest I think they’d be stretching…

Not impressed…

…earlier in the week, I got out of bed and went outside to find that someone had crashed into my car’s front end. Not enough to write the thing off, but enough to make me wish that they had.

I’m finding it really hard to think ‘forgiving’ thoughts towards the (unknown) driver who did it, and then left without leaving a note (beyond the single green P plate that was left behind at the scene). I have to admit that I feel similarly annoyed at the people who violated my first (and beloved) car ‘Brown’ (a 1982 Corolla), while he was left alone overnight on the side of the Princes Highway at Waterfall a few years ago.

Why am I so ‘protective’ towards my posessions? Shouldn’t I just accept my losses and enjoy the fact that I’m being humbled again, while remembering the things in life that really matter?

Because I find that hard to do. I want to hold a grudge, and be angry.

I watch Deadwood and think that the characters aren’t brutal enough with the people who cross them. I watch The Sopranos and think that Tony is really quite justified in his anger. I’m finding myself tempted to watch Fox news (that’s not actually true, I would only watch Fox news if Chuck Norris was the full time anchor, and someone paid for my cable tv subscription).

I think I’m in all kinds of trouble.

To all the people of the world, I may not have the guts to tell you to your face so I thought I would shout it out here because I know at least I may reach one or two people and maybe they in turn can tell one or two people and if the cycle continues then sooner or later the whole world will know this little social etiquette that I thought everyone followed but in recent times this has been proven to be wrong.

Here it is…

When being the designated drinks provider for a gathering BE SURE to include at least one bottle of Coke.

Simple.

If there is more than one drinks provider then you may get away with trying to bring your fancy bottle of whatever, but be warned that if there is not at least enough coke to allow one glass per capita then I will talk about you behind your back with others who may or may not agree with me.

Lately I have begun to accept the Zero variety of Coke, but really, socially it is safest to go with the original.

We’re a 2 car family and for a while now we have realised that we can become a 1 car family easily, especially considering I drive Demo cars from work all the time now, to and from work and on weekends.

Laziness/lack of time is the only reason we haven’t advertised the second car for sale yet. But the thing is the second car, the 1994 (I think) Mitsubushi Lancer is the better car, not too many klm’s, good on fuel and runs well but is just too small for us now. And we want to upgrade the 1995 Ford Falcon to a more suitable car for our needs.

So now we have to find and buy a new car. This is both fun and annoying, fun cause we get a new toy, and the bigger the price of the toy the more fun they seem at first, but also the bigger the price the more worry associated with the purchase. Annoying cause we don’t currently have a car loan, or any other loan, so we’ll need to take one out to get it!

We’ve finally decided that we have to bite the bullet and are therefore officially looking and no longer just dreaming of doing it one day. But it is kind of a slow process too, I’ll get the best deal through work so basically we are waiting until someone trades in something we want.

There’s one or two cars in the pipeline, but the frustrating thing will be if we decide to buy one and then later on trade a car which is better and cheaper! Usually when I buy anything I make a conscious effort to not look at the price of the same item anywhere else for a good 6 months to a year, or just ever again, that way I don’t feel bad if I could have got it at half the price somewhere else!

So my long weekend so far…

I worked yesterday, working saturdays aren’t all that bad as all your really expected to do is hang out until someone walks on to the yard and then go help them buy a car. So that, although a little boring at times really wasn’t a bad way to start the weekend. I don’t normally work saturdays, but am so I can have a long weekend next weekend to go to Sydney, but when I do I don’t mind it cause I figure there’s really not much that happens on a saturday morning, at the most you plan to have lunch with people and normally I’m finished by 1pm so even that is fine.

Anyway, after work and last night I didn’t do much, which was ok, but there were a few things I wanted to do but couldn’t cause of rain and the like. I still want to mow the lawn, I’ve become a little lawn proud and am trying to grow it where it currently doesn’t.

So this morning I went to a Christening for a work colleague, it was at a Uniting church, for people who don’t normally go to church, wasn’t sure what to expect, thought it would be a little weird and involve parents making promises that they wouldn’t normally make or even talk about. And it was, and they did.

We gave a Colin Buchanan CD, it felt weird giving a present and also I for some reason felt like I should have been giving something with pewter on it or something that looked like it had been sitting in a Christian bookshop since the 80’s and had the word christening on it somewhere.

But in the end Nat dropped it on the present table and walked away which was the easiest way to deal with all this weirdness, maybe we should have done more, but I’m sure the subject will come up at work soon.

Dubbo now has an oporto, I say that it’s about time!!

I tasted it the other day, and it was good!!

Can anyone explain why my blog of Evie has turned up on an Australian political blog site?

I found it by googling Evie’s name… very odd. i didn’t know that Evie had such an influence on Australia’s politics…

Link here: http://theaustralianindex.com/politics/?s=search&categoryID=7&searchterms=%22evie%22

Just scroll down the page.

And… And… look at this:http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/the-chronicles-of/posts/tag/dicker/