I had the pleasure of being taken out to lunch today.

Nice… Dining at a Dee Why Cafe is one of the Northern Beaches greatest pleasures!!! Waterfront views – stunning food. Mmmmmm.

I went with 3 significant members of the women’s department. This may not be unusual given that I am a girl woman and all. Still, as I have mentioned before I’m not especially girly… not given to interests in fashion or shopping, reasonably domestic but not an interior decorating style guru etc.

So, I’m sitting at the table with 3 girly girls, one of them a former model… one of them the head of our women’s department and the other a young girl who is all giggles and smiles and prettiness and all of them sold out to women’s ministry… a ministry I steer clear of for the sheer estrogen factor. And they’re taking me out for lunch. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are all awesome chicks! Fabulous in fact, it’s just that I just felt a little out of place!!!

There was common ground… Family, travelling, work and our joint project, the women’s dept e-zine which is how I ended up there, I did the tech stuff for it and they were saying “Cheers love!”

To be happily honest it was a great lunch. You know, kind of relationship building…

Yeah.

Still, I doubt I’ll be at the next Women’s Ministry event.

There’s just not enough technology or crime drama.

I am posting once I got home from work rather than waiting until I am ensconced in my bed and fading as it gets later…

Brisbane Discoveries

1. Paddington – a suburb with very funky shops well worth spending a day to browse. We hit the antiques end of the main drag and didn’t get out of it….
2. Belgian Hot Chocolate with Chili – As prepared at “Hot Chocolate, Cool Coffee” in Paddington (see above). To die for… really. Went back 3 times … note to self… closed on Mondays.
3. Queensland Black House Ants – Project one for Bliss… KILL…THEM…ALL. Had to shake them out of my toothbrush before attending to my teeth at bedtime… eeeewwww
4. Heat – Queensland is Hot… Daaaaamn Hot…
5. The Welsh Lady – Mmmmm… ’nuff said.

Bliss’ Place in the World.

It was brilliant to see Bliss and to hang out in her new home. It’s a gorgeous wee house and just perfect for her! There are bits and pieces that need doing to it… not the least of which is blocking all the entry ways into the house for the ant colony… But it has all she needs and the fun part is going to be turning it into HER house. I am glad to have been to see it, to see what she is doing, to just plain hang out and to go to church with her.

Part of the reason Bliss moved was to support her friends Mack ‘n Shaz as they plant a church in the western suburbs. What a mission… not one I am cut out for, to be sure… I may have issues with my church sometimes, and more often than I would like lately, but at least there are enough people around to share the load… 47 people in a congregation are a few less than I could get used to… Still, if they keep adding 7 a week as they did last week it won’t be long before it’s big enough to find air conditioned premises…

Running Away

The reason I left town so quickly was to put some distance between my life and me and see if I could get some perspective. I’m not sure I did… My life was still here when I got back. I am really fidgety at the moment. So many of my relationships have changed as people have moved around me and I wonder at times if I too am needing a change. It was Tez who said to me “I am sick of expecting different results from doing the same thing repeatedly”. It’s a good quote and a fair one I think. He was talking about touching God at church and there are elements of that which affect me though I suspect though that my tenuous relationship with God is more to do with me than church. I don’t seem to find him there at the moment which makes attendance a bit of a chore. Still, He wasn’t at church in Brisbane either. It would have been nice if he was, and he was for other people but not for me.

Truth is if he did show up I’m not sure I’d want to see him anyway… Hmm, not true, I would, but would hate for him to see me. Not in the state I’m in. And before you all go adding comments about grace and how he doesn’t see me like I do, please refrain.

My life is a constant tension between yearning for intimacy with Him and fighting against it, yearning for intimacy in an human relationship and freaking when it’s offered.

Sigh. Oh well… tomorrow’s another day. At least work is challenging and terribly interesting at the moment… It’s keeping my head above water until I go to NZ.

I found out today that someone I once knew died last month. It’s hard to know how to write about it, we haven’t been in close contact over the years, he and his family in remote jungle country flying planes for a mission organisation and me in Sydney.

His wife was my friend’s sister and together we fellowshipped under the leadership of their Dad. I feel for them, they’ve lost a brother to suicide and now this. These little kids have lost their dad, their life will change dramatically as they return to NZ, a whole new life in the city, and not one they planned. How do you teach little kids to cope with that sort of change? How do you cope with it yourself? How do you answer the questions that beg of God? The whys? The weren’t you lookings? And the it isn’t fairs!

I guess the Singular life has it’s compensations, the immunisation from that particular pain. But please spare thoughts and prayers for Cherie, Marcus and Larissa. They will need them long after the shock has gone and the rest of us resume our normal lives.

Wrecked, will post tomorrow…