Funny weekend. On Saturday, Jo and Clare and I went to Glebe markets. Between us throughout the day we managed to bump into 4 groups of people. Which didn’t do so good for us trying to convince Clare that that is not what happens in Sydney. We went to Bronte for the arvo, where we swum and chilled out and consumed very garlicky garlic bread. When we’d resorted to plan F or something and decided to go we bumped into our flatmates who were having a BBQ. We stayed.

Jo mentioned, “This day just holds so much possibility”. With the amount of people we’d randomly bumped into it was true. And the day did not disappoint. After a little more chilling out, as the sun went down we had our first enoucounter with David. A rather stumbling man looking for a light. We weren’t overly concerned while he was near us, but when he began walking toward the water, we were mildly more worried. We decided to follow him just to observe he was okay. Then he started taking off his clothes to go swimming. We decided just to go and talk with him. Here begun our evening with David. We ended up taking him to the emergency ward, and after a long time of waiting, he’d become a lot more in control and so we took him home. It just fascinates me how much just by spending some time with someone and talking to someone the story of their life and its complexities becomes more apparent and they aren’t just a stumbling character you see at the beach any longer.

I was looking forward to bed last night because I’d missed out a little the night before, and of course, I couldn’t sleep. Grrrr.

I miss Ryan Balah.

I am so very broken.

Church was really good this morning. The talk was on Providence. It was really real. I liked that. And it was mature. I liked that. I don’t often feel like talks are aimed at my age group or above really. I’d prefer to be a bit out of my depth that totally in it.
Afterward, it started to feel like home. People knew who I was. That was nice too.

This could take me awhile
Cause I miss your smile
I guess I knew your time would come
But for now I miss your smile

-Xavier Rudd

I like this. Sometimes it’s just the way it is. And for now, I miss it.

“Do not be anxious about your life, about what you can get to eat or drink. Is not life, itself, immeasurably more important than its nourishment?”

Matthew 6:25

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. How there is this mysterious goodness just in our very breath, in the very existence of our experience.

I’ve started reading A Different Drum. There could be a lot of quotes from that in the next little while.
So good. So inspiring. So articulate.

“We still follow the direction of the prevailing wind and bow before the shibboleths of our society. We go with the crowd. From laziness and fear-fear of loneliness, fear of responsibility, and other nameless dreads-we never truely learn to think for ourselves or dare to be out of step with the stereotypes. But in light of all we understand, this failure to individuate is a failure to grow up and become fully human. For we are called to be individuals. We are called to be unique and different.
…
But all this is only one side of the story…But the reality is that we can never be completely whole in and of ourselves…It is true that we are created to be individually unique. Yet the reality is that we are inevitably social creatures who desperately need each other not merely for sustenance, not merely for company, but for any meaning to our lives whatsoever. …the other part of the human story: that we can never fully get there and that we are, of necessity in our uniqueness, weak and imperfect creatures who need each other.
…These, then, are the paradoxical seeds from which community can grow.”

- M. Scott Peck. The Different Drum

A wise wise man. I think he articulates this very well (there is a whole chapter). I think something I was trying to articulate after coming home from Brisbane was the “individuation” thing. I realised I had my personality. Assimilating those changes is a strange and scary thing. The struggle is the balance of the two sides of the story though. Individuation and interdependence.

Whatever happened to Stephen Shopek and David Lybruere?

“Me and Shopek can sort this out”
-John Mayer

Oh and how they could.

I got the new John Mayer CD today. It said to Listen To It Loud. I’ve been waiting all day to come home and Listen To It Loud. And now I am. And it is very exciting.