A year of living tenuously

So 2008 draws to an end, and I can't say I'll be all that sad to leave it behind. I'm not entirely sure why, but 2008 and I have not been especially good friends. A whole mix of circumstances, at work, in my own life, health, etc., have made this year a more or less constant drain and challenge.

And yet I'm reminded of one of the terms that used to be used to describe AD years - "the year of grace". This year, more perhaps than others, has been a year of grace, where, in amongst everything going wrong, I am still able to see much going surprisingly right, and can say that, at the end of it all, I'm still standing, and still breathing, and still able to look ahead clearly to 2009.

I hope 2009 will treat me better, though it may not. But I suspect that, with grace on my side, I can handle it.

When all we have is taken

A general theme on my blog seems to be the need for honesty during times of difficulty or adversity. So it's no wonder, when you consider this in combination with my love of all things C.S. Lewis, that I was overjoyed over the weekened when I read his "A Grief Observed" and found myself reading a better expressed version of many things that I had thought over the past couple of months. Lewis once said that a friendship often begins with the comment, "Really? I thought I was the only one," or words to that effect. I suspect, based on the number of common thoughts that we have both had, that he and I would probably have been good friends.

For those who've never heard of it, "A Grief Observed" is essentially the journal that Lewis kept in the time after his wife died of cancer. It is by far the most honest and moving thing he ever wrote. The writing is amazingly personal, something we wouldn't normally associate with that fairly jolly, very academic and very British writer most famous for writing about fauns carrying umbrellas. It's the most heart-on-sleeve stuff he's written outside of "Till We Have Faces", and all the more for being about him, not a fictional character. And, at points, you feel like despairing along with him. The man who wrote one of the 20th century's most reasoned discussions of pain and faith seems, halfway through this small (but not slight) memoir to be on the verge of losing his faith, or discovering that, while God exists, He isn't very nice at all - a fear, I must admit, that I've had more than a few times this past year.

Of course, he doesn't lose his faith - if he had, we would no doubt have heard - but the resolution he arrives at by the end gives some fairly concrete assurance for those of us who still worried for a moment. And it's the kind of resolution that Job reached, before his fortune was restored, and that Habakkuk found when he was able to declare that "though the fig tree does not bud/and there are no grapes on the vines...Yet I will rejoice in the Lord". And it's only an acceptance that can be arrived at after a night of wrestling with angels and with God - not because God needs our anger to remind Him of what is right, but because dishonest rejoicing means nothing to Him. He'd rather that we told Him what we thought and then fell asleep in His arms than pretended to be fine but died on the inside.

Thankyou, Clive Staples Lewis, for once again reminding us all of what matters most.

From crayons to perfume?

So last night was the Year 12 Formal, the end to a very, very long and largely disorganised week. At my school, the Year 12s don't rampage through the suburb, but they do slowly disappear from class. In other words, this is the way Year 12 ends - not with a bang but a whimper.

But then, last night arrived - and what a bang it was. My more devoted readers may recall a post I wrote last year about the awkwardness of being a young teacher at a High School formal function, and of the etiquette of dancing at such functions. Well, last night was, I'm pleased to announce, much less awkward, perhaps because more teachers in my age group were actaully present, perhaps because the students seemed happy to be sharing the night with us.

Now, at such functions I understand it's customary to expect at least one song by Lulu, or someone of that ilk, or at least a handful of kids on their desks saying, "O captain my captain". Sadly, none of that happened. But I did have some photos taken with students, and a few that were very eager to dance with me. One even came and sat next to me to have a chat at one point. And, in a week when I've not been at all sure how much I want to do this job, that was a nice way to finish. It made me think that, if these are the relationships I've built up in only two years, I'd like to stick around to see what kind of relationships can be built in the years to come.

Kick me when I'm down

The last 48 hours have been a bit of a disaster zone in my life. You know those days when it really just doesn't seem to get any better? Well, I feel like I've had two of those in a row. The hardest thing about it all is that nothing that desperately bad has actually happened, it's just that...well...nothing really good's happened to lift the general feeling of crapness that so much around me is producing right now. I know I'm being affected much more by circumstances than they, in and of themselves, warrant, but knowledge like that isn't especially useful when nothing changes the way I feel - like I can hardly stand up.

So how do you connect with God when that's how you feel? When he, in his infinite power, is doing remarkably little to change things. He's there, you know he's there, and you know that he's good through it all. But that doesn't alter how you feel.

I'd like to remember verses like, "A bruised reed he will not break/And a smoldering wick he will not snuff out" (Isaiah 42:3), and they're true, in spite of everything, yet this fact remains - I may well stay bruised or smoldering for some time yet.

I saw her at the anti-abortion demonstration

Or at least, I think I did. My eyes were wandering across the crowd at Parliament House, looking for familiar faces, when I saw someone that I was quite certain I knew. What a common experience with celebrities - I mean, it's like we know them, isn't it? Particularly when they starred in recent, hugely successful Australian mockumentaries.

No, it wasn't Chris Lilley. And that would be a "he" anyway, you imbeciles. No, it was Bec, Jai'me's "hot Asian" friend - at least, I think it was. And there was a brief surge of pride in me when I saw her, holding a baby - perhaps hers? - for a friend to photograph. Because, while the general public would love to make sweeping statements about what kind of people are "anti-abortion", there may be plenty of people we like and respect who count themselves in that number. We may in fact have enjoyed watching some of them on our TV screens - in a very irreverent, controversial, and, yes, left-wing, show. I may have been one of the only lefties there that day; most of the politicians there certainly seemed to be on the more conservative end, but I couldn't be sure. But does it matter?

Sometimes, there are more important concerns in life than what others will think of us. Unless we can see that, there's a bit of Jai'me in all of us.

When it isn't just a movie

It's been a little while now since animations stopped being "just for kids". Anime did a good job of dispelling that myth, and Richard Linklater and company have done their bit to keep the art-house animation up and running. Over the past few days, I have bizarrely seen two grown-up animations, both, coincidentally, revolving around the Middle East, and both autobiographical. The first was the delightful, quirky and surprisingly moving "Persepolis". In that case, the animated form was logical; it was, after all, adapted from the director's autobiographical graphic novel. The second, however, was the most alarming, and by far the most inventive use of animation in cinema since "Waking Life" came out; for, with Ari Folman's devastatingly brilliant "Waltz With Bashir", it seems that animations can now also be documentaries.

The purpose behind the animation in "Waltz" was a little unclear at first, though the opening sequence with the vicious dogs charging through an Israeli street was quite spectacular, and no doubt very difficult to do otherwise. Given that much of the film concerns hallucinations and dreams, the surrealism of the animated form is quite effective. Nevertheless, this would have to be the first film to use real audio recordings of interviews accompanied by animated images - and the question is, why? A clue is given when Folman talks to his first interviewee, who agrees to be sketched, but not filmed. Perhaps it was at that point that Folman got the idea for this masterpiece - to sketch, not film? But the initial sketches have evolved into some of the most amazing visuals to hit our screens since, well, "Waking Life". There's nothing even slightly sketchy about this film.

Yet there's another kick in the guts that comes with the animated form of the film, namely that it would be more or less unwatchable if it had used live footage. Indeed, when Folman does switch to real images of the massacre the film concerns, I found myself, though previously glued to the screen, now unable to look. But what is most frightening about this film is that the animation makes it feel, somehow, unreal. When a tank drives down a narrow Lebanese lane-way, crushing the cars that are parked on either side of the street, you think, "That wouldn't happen, would it?" But this film is all about the realities that are too traumatic for us to accept.

When the film finished, my friends and I could not speak. I drove them home in complete silence. My discomfort on leaving the cinema was mostly because the film, though amazing, had still felt like a film. Only it wasn't. It was animated, but every bit of it was real. And that's the problem.

All I have is a voice

A week ago, I went to see the beautiful new film, "The Visitor", by the director of "The Station Agent". I hadn't been overly inspired by the idea of his first film, and never got around to watching it, even though many raved about it. When I saw the preview for "The Visitor", I must admit what went through my mind was something along the lines of, "Not another Sundance film about uptight Westerners being transformed by exotic ethnic types". Well, I couldn't have been more wrong about what was probably one of the most touching and amazing films I have seen in a while.

I won't tell you what happens in it, because I want you to watch it, but (small spoiler alert), what remains with me most from the film is the image of a man sitting at a Subway station playing a jembe with increasing anger, while no-one listens. And, as the lights came up our little Carlton cinema and I heard the "Ahs" and "Oohs" that came from a delighted, if a little surprised, crowd, I thought, "What will be different when we walk outside? Will we do a single thing about what he have just seen?"

Then, on Thursday night, I went with some people from my Bible study to see Unsung, a local folk quartet playing at the Northcote Town Hall as part of the Darebin Music Feast. Now, the music was, generally, quite amazing, and often deeply compelling, but nothing more so than the closing number, a song about refugees with the repeated chorus, "Our hearts are bigger than this. Our hearts are bigger than this." The small woman with an amazingly powerful voice told us to "join in" with singing the chorus, but we weren't game. Perhaps we just couldn't compete, or perhaps she was breaking up something that we were holding onto a little too dearly - the illusion that this was something we were watching, not something we needed to participate in.

And, walking out of the hall, I felt the same sensation that I had felt after watching "The Visitor", and, wandering down High Street towards my car, I realised why the jembe player was so angry, and who he was angry at.

Moreland Graffiti

Someone on my route to work has a thing about sexualised advertising - and don't we all. We either like it (whether we're aware of this or not), or hate it. But few take it upon themselves to fight it, fewer still at a grass roots level.

But there's someone, or perhaps a group of someones, who feel that the road between Pascoe Vale and West Preston should be cleared of all sexist advertising. It first began with a reasonably disgusting David Jones lingerie ad which appeared in a few places on my road home. Eventually, all the ads had to be removed and replaced by pictures of women with more clothes on and in less suggestive poses. Why? Because they were all graffitied over to the point of being unrecogniseable.

So David Jones replaced them. But it wasn't long before those women just had to start shedding layers again. If, the marketing geniuses reasoned, the Moreland public couldn't handle lingerie, perhaps they could handle swimwear? After all, it's the Olympics and all that, Ozzie spirit, Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy, oi oi oi, and so forth.

But the citizens of Moreland said "No." Those ads too were graffitied - most of them, at least, and those left untouched were taken down before the graffiti-vigilantes got to them too.

Today's victims were: a curious ad with a woman wearing a black blouse unbuttoned to reveal her bra, with the caption "Confidence"; and a Bonds undies and singlet ad that was only put up two days ago.

It's refreshing to see that, in a world so immune to such things, someone cares enough to keep sticking it to the man in this way. Only it's a bit of a sad reminder of how little the vast majority of us care.

Why I love teaching

The other day, I was supervising a bunch of Year 9 boys kicking a soccer ball around outside. A few of them found it hilarious (as you do) to keep kicking the ball against the brick wall of one of the school buildings. Eventually, I went over to speak to one of the main culprits and said, "Dom, I don't see these people that you're kicking the ball to." To which Dom replied: "Yeah, they're my friends: Frank, Bobby and Jimmy." I mentioned that, if he wanted to keep kicking the ball to them, he could perhaps go and introduce his friends to his co-ordinator.

When, a few minutes later, Dom again kicked the ball into the wall, I went over to speak to him once more, this time with a more serious tone of voice: "Come on, Dom, I've asked you not to." And Dom's reply: "But sir, it's not my fault that Bobby's shit."

Backwards, coming forward

I've never been much of a go-getter. Not that I'm unambitious, or passive; I just don't like to rush things, and don't particularly enjoy pushing my luck. I read a description of my personality category in the Myers-Briggs study today which said that people of my "type" (only 1 to 4% of the population, by the way) don't act until they've thought carefully about what they are doing; they like time to reflect. Which is great, but doesn't get many things done, particularly when, like me or my television equivalent Ted Mosby, you overthink, to the point of confused inactivity.

It's been an interesting experience, therefore, to start thinking that my writing might be something worth pursuing actively, rather than just sitting back and wanting the Swedish Academy to contact me. I'm all for playing it cool, but it's hardly managed to get me published in the however-many-years that I've been writing.

I don't like taking risks, and hate setting myself up for failure. The trouble, of course, with avoiding failure is that, in doing nothing, you also tend to avoid success.

Find myself a city, find myself a city to live in

It's a dangerous business going travelling. There's a fair chance that, if you even vaguely enjoy it, you'll catch the notorious travel bug - after all, other places are always so much more interesting than home, whatever Dorothy and the Wizard might want us to believe. And yes, sure enough, I caught that bug, along with a few others, while in China for two weeks. The holiday was too short to really do the country justice, often just giving me glimpses of what could be an amazing place to explore more (albeit with improved Mandarin), and also reminding me of other, nearby places (Mongolia, Nepal, South Korea) that I'd also love to see. Ah, if only we could do nothing but travel.

Which, of course, we can't, much as the British girls I met climbing the Wall might like to believe differently. Yet even they recognised that there was a difference between the kinds of places it would be fun to visit and the sorts of places where you could handle living - because, at the end of the day, we can't always travel; we do also need some kind of home.

In many senses, my home has become Melbourne. I've almost been here for seven years, which is the equal record for the longest I've ever lived in the one place. I like it here, and it seems to like me, as much as a place can, and I've got family here. It's important for me to be near family and friends, and, much as I love the idea of travelling, I doubt I could uproot and spend the rest of my life somewhere else.

That said, I am finding myself increasingly attracted to the idea of teaching overseas for a year or two, yet don't want to do so just for the hell of it. Too many people want to live overseas for the wrong motives: because they find their own lives boring and suspect they'll be more interesting elsewhere. My Year 12 Literature class have learnt from Chekhov that an attitude of "life will be better in Moscow" (or any city/country/place) is based on a fundamental inability to be happy where you are: something that will plague you wherever you go.

If I do work overseas, I want it to be for the right motives, not because I am easily bored and want to escape into another culture to feel like my life is somehow now more exciting. Other people's lives are not there to be stolen for our own pleasure. Other people's homes are not there to be invaded to help us feel more alive.

We can learn from going somewhere else. We can benefit from travelling, even living, overseas; and, on the right occasion, others can benefit from us doing so. But we have to remember: everywhere we go, short of Antarctica, is someone's home, and so everywhere we visit, someone has to make do with life there, boring as it may well seem to them. Which means that, when we go overseas, we need to be going there with a view to making life sustainable - either in settling down in another place, or in coming back home having benefited from what we experienced.

I'm not sure how to do that yet. But I suspect it's something I'll spend quite a bit of time thinking about.

Back, Babydoll

Not really jet-lagged - the two hour time difference between Melbourne and Beijing time has hardly thrown me at all. But the overnight flight with some reasonably crap, neck-destroying sleep has left me pretty out of it for this, my first day back in the country - and a full day at that, which I'm trying to get through without sleeping. Let's see how I go.

No coherent thoughts on the trip yet, but I can offer photos for the visually inclined among you. Some will feature here over time, but right now you can check them out at www.flickr.com/photos/photosfromthenorth. I've only uploaded the first couple of days so far, but there'll be plenty more to come.

(No) Ideas from the East

It's not as if I've been blogging all that regularly lately anyway, BUT I'm sorry to announce that Ideas From the North will be momentarily suspended, while I travel around China with a fine and upstanding friend of mine. Fine and upstanding as we both are, I feel a tad reserved about blogging in a country that is currently quite famous for its Great Firewall. Not that I would necessarily be likely to write anything all that subversive here, although I must admit that the part of me which takes after my big brother would make me quite tempted to write posts with key-words like "Tibet" or "Falun Dafa", just to be difficult, and who knows where that might lead.

Best to play it safe, I suspect. Besides, to be perfectly honest, I think I'll be too busy having a holiday to bother writing anything here anyway.

But look forward to plenty of ideas from the east (coast of China) when I return; one or two ideas, at the very least.

I'm driving this way to piss you off

Assumptions are wonderful things. Don't we all just love people imputing motives into everything we do, whether they know us or not?

Ever noticed how much we do that when driving? Someone takes too long to turn right, and CLEARLY they're doing it because they're either stupid or willfully annoying - take your pick.

That's why I was very much amused by the bumper sticker that I saw the other day with the line that I've quoted in the title of this post. Because I know the feeling, from both ends. I know how it feels to make assumptions, and how it feels to assume.

And it's been making me think a bit lately about this guy a few years back who had something to say, on a more general note, but that I think applies quite well to this situation. It was something like, "Do to others as you'd like them to do to you."

Perhaps, in this situation, I could dare to add to it, "And don't condemn others for doing what, five minutes ago, you did to someone else." I suspect he'd approve. And I suspect he'd be happy to see his philosophy applied a little more often to our driving habits.

I also suspect I should practise what I preach.

What if she won't be apples?

It's tough being an Aussie male. It's even tougher being an Aussie male with feelings.

Here's a typical interchange between Australian men:

"How's it goin', buddy? Keeping out of trouble?"

"Yeah."

"That's the way."

What's the way? And, while we're on the topic: The way to what? The way to emotional repression? It's almost as if being not okay, not keeping out of trouble, is somehow Not The Way.

Which isn't so surprising. We do, after all, live in the country where "How's it going?" is a greeting, not a question, and where the response is all too often a repeated "How's it going?", a defiance of all laws of grammar, and not an answer at all. Of course, there's always, "Not bad," or "Alright," as alternative answers. But what it you aren't Not Bad? What it you aren't Alright? What then?

I guess then we blog. It's not as if our feelings will ever come up in conversation.

"Chesterton's a swell guy"

Something inspired me recently to re-read some of Chesterton's wonderful Father Brown short stories. I was remembering how Father Brown's "arch nemesis" for the first several stories, the extremely tall French criminal mastermind Flambeau, later becomes his closest friend and partner in - well - solving crime. Something about this attracted me to the stories again, and I've been very pleased to rediscover them.

Here's the wonderful moment when Father Brown confronts Flambeau for the last time (and, of course, there's a spoiler alert):

"'Stand still', [Flambeau] said, in a hacking whisper. 'I don't want to threaten you, but -'

'I do want to threaten you,' said Father Brown, in a voice like a rolling drum. 'I want to threaten you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.'

'You're a rum sort of cloakroom clerk,' said the other.

'I am a priest, Monsieur Flambeau,' said Brown, 'and I am ready to hear your confession.'"

Most people love Father Brown because he is such an unlikely sleuth. Where Holmes has become a cliché - wandering around with his deerstalker hat and magnifying glass - Brown trades on people's trust in him, and their common assumption that he's, at best, a bit of a dill. As a young reader, I was inspired by the concept of a man who no-one suspects and who is thus enabled to see what no-one else sees. I tried my hand at creating a few "unlikely" detectives myself, although, sadly, they were all a little too unlikely, and hence it became quite unlikely that anyone would want to read about them.

Father Brown, on the other hand, is brilliant but misunderstood - by Chesterton's characters, and also by his readers. Often, the point people make about Father Brown is that he seems so innocent (indeed, the first collection was called "The Innocence of Father Brown"). After all, he's a priest, isn't he? Of course he'd be innocent, if not a bit ignorant. How can he solve crime? I mean, that's funny, right? A priest who can solve crimes?

Chesterton, I suspect, would be having a bit of a jovial chuckle at that idea. How can a priest possibly be ignorant of crime, and of sin? What makes Father Brown so wonderful as a detective is his intuitive knowledge of human nature. And what makes me love him, for many other reasons, is that he offers his criminals a chance at redemption. Flambeau is testament to that. Holmes solves the mystery, but quite often doesn't give a stuff if the criminal is brought to justice or let run free to commit more crimes (see "A Case of Identity" if you need proof of this). For Father Brown, however, crimes - all human crimes - run deeper than the mere identification of "whodunnit". In fact, if there were to be a truly theological approach to writing detective fiction, surely the real question should be - who didn't do it?

And Chesterton, just like Father Brown, would be ready with the answer. When asked by The Times, along with other "eminent authors", to comment on the question, "What's Wrong with the World?", Chesterton wrote a suitably short, witty and profound response:

"Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G.K. Chesterton."

You really think you're better than me, don't you?

Superiority complexes are difficult things - for all involved. It's not easy being convinced that you're better than everyone else. Nor is it easy to have others convinced that they are better than you.

I've probably been on both sides in my short lifetime. Today I was on the receiving end twice in the one day, and it wasn't the most enjoyable experience. On both occasions, it was a student who thought they knew more than me, and I found it strangely unsettling, perhaps because, on each occasion, the student managed to pick an area of my job where I don't feel entirely confident: assessment. All it took, really, was a slightly supercilious look and a raised eyebrow, and I found myself getting defensive - inwardly, even if I (hopefully) didn't let it show outwardly.

No doubt more confidence in myself would help. I'd be less inclined to feel threatened by these challenges to my professional knowledge. But today's experiences also reminded me of a slightly arrogant (although very polite) student who was convinced that he knew most things on most topics, and everything when it came to English, who gave a few of his teachers his fair share of supercilious looks and raised eyebrows. If I could see those poor teachers today, I'd let them know how sorry I am. Because, even if there were occasions when I caught them out in making a mistake, that didn't show that I knew more than them. In fact, my eagerness to pull them up on the slightest discrepancy showed how little I knew about teaching, and about life.

Let my students think they know more. I for one should know better than to let them upset me.

So hot (or cold) right now

Thanks to Dave for his recent post on technological disposability - although I suppose the post itself is now "so Monday", and who really cares about that stuff anymore?

I'm not exactly what Scott Westerfeld would call an "early adopter". I'm probably even behind the eightball compared to most "laggards" (read "So Yesterday" if you have no idea what I'm talking about - so two years ago, but still a good read). No, I'm quite slow to do most things technological, even though my colleagues consider me the "blogging guru" (simply because...I blog).

That said, I was pretty prescient, I believe, in my announcement of the arrival of winter a couple of weeks ago. So prescient that it was really quite cold for the week immediately after I announced that it was winter. So prescient that I'm a bit scared of announcing anything else online in case it also comes true.

That's my excuse for not blogging for a while. And I'm sticking to it.

Songs from the North of Melbourne

Today I decided that it was winter. We've got the heater on at my house, I've just put a flannelette sheet on my bed, and I've whipped out my vinyl of "Spirit of Eden" by Talk Talk.

Now, in Melbourne it doesn't matter what actual season it technically is. Right now, being still only April, it would officially be autumn. But that's not the point. In Melbourne, winter is a feeling, an attitude, and a way of life. Nowhere in Australia does winter like Melbourne. You could even say that Melbourne is a city that can only be truly appreciated in winter, especially when you're in the north, and the only thing resembling a beach for you is the north shore of Coburg Lake.

And, when you've got Mark Hollis to keep you company for the winter, you'll almost wish that winter could begin in April. There's something comforting about winter after an oppressively hot summer. It somehow refreshes you. Everything feels a bit more cosy. And perhaps it's the way that the crackle of vinyl resembles a fireplace, but there's something very wintry, and simultaneously warm, about listening to a record. You don't want to think of fireplaces in summer. But in winter, there's scarcely a more pleasant thought.

The opening, slow-fading-in sound of the cor anglais in "The Rainbow" is the perfect beginning to a wintry night in. Everything is peaceful, dreamy and incredibly soothing from that moment on, perhaps the most peaceful, dreamy and soothing moment being the sound of the choir singing in the background of "I Believe In You". Nothing moves quickly on this album, nor should it, because it's an album that's there to lull you to sleep, or to keep you warm and comfortable while you take refuge from the heat of the summer just ended, and from the cold outside.

Have I sold you? I hope so. Go and buy "Spirit of Eden", light a fireplace, put the record on (yes, it should be a record, although the actual fireplace could be enough) and enjoy the winter. You won't regret it.

That's what I'm planning on doing - just, sadly, without the fireplace.

Silver lining

It's very easy at the end of a long day to let a difficult, challenging or upsetting conclusion taint how the rest of the day is seen. When you don't have a lot of energy left, minor problems become substantial, and substantial problems - well you can only imagine what happens to them.

But problems - large or small - have a tendency towards obscuring everything good and exciting about a day, which is hardly good for a balanced perspective.

Today ended badly. Let's just say that. But there was still much in there to be happy and thankful about. And the day isn't over yet anyway. There's still time to let things improve - in my mind, if nowhere else. Because the problems that emerged today are hardly worth ruining a perfectly good day.

It's not rocket science, as they say, but easy enough to forget. I'm going to try to remember it today.

A man's got to have a hobby

The other day one of my students asked me "what I do" for fun, and I had to pause to think, and then just evaded the question (quite smoothly, I think) - perhaps because I couldn't think of anything, perhaps because the only things I could think of would seem strange and nerdish to a teenage boy. Or perhaps I just don't have a life; I'm not sure.

But the question made me think of a sketch from the truly odd British comedy series "Big Train" in which some men are talking to Mother Teresa, who has her diary out and is trying to find a time when she is free to make an appointment with them. Finding that she is booked up for the next several months, she says, "But I do like the idea of paint-balling."

Like in all "Big Train" sketches, the punch-line is submerged somewhere within long, awkward silences, but it's clear enough there - as if Mother Teresa would ever go paint-balling. Haha.

And why is the idea so absurd? Because Mother Teresa had more important things to do.

I'm not really one for paint-balling, but I wonder if anything in my life is so important that I don't have time for a hobby.

Or maybe I'm just too busy blogging to do anything else.

What to do, what a to-do

I could spend much of a lifetime just reading the books that I have borrowed from other people and the books that I have bought and never read. If I then tried to read all the books that I intended to read, there'd be at least another lifetime taken up with nothing other than that.

I could also spend a lifetime helping all the people that I care about, responding to all the causes that I see around me. Only, I wouldn't also have time to buy groceries, or pay the bills, or go to the doctor, or buy petrol, or...just sit.

And I could spend my life reading the Bible and meditating on God's Word. Only, I wouldn't have time to live it out, and to help others, and to buy groceries, pay the bills, go to the doctor, buy petrol, just sit, or...read all the books that I've borrowed from other people, all the books that I have bought and never read, and all the books that I intend to read. Not to mention...just sitting.

Or I could travel. I could see all the countries in the world that I want to see, learn about all the cultures that interest me. Or I could get on top of all my marking, lesson preparation, paperwork, professional development, professional knowledge...and so on. But there'd be no time for...anything else.

Life, in short, is too short. There's just not enough time for everything.

Just as well that here, now, this life, isn't everything.

Self-awareness

A comment from a work friend recently:

"You know how we're always complaining about how annoying everyone else is? Well, I've started to realise how annoying I am to other people."

My reply: "No, we're charming, lovely people. We don't annoy anyone."

I was joking, of course.

Hmm.

Son, I loved you at your darkest

Recently, I have become a bit of an exponent of a style of music that I like to call "Chremo" - Christian emo.

Why, you may wonder? Certainly, for some the two terms have no relation to each other. How far that is from the truth. I'll explain in a moment.

It was a very interesting first term to this year - a very challenging, and, at times, deflating one. And my holidays, while pretty restful, didn't leave me feeling much better. So this term has begun with me feeling a little fragile - although that's not a terribly manly word to use - and feeling a bit afraid of getting as substantially deflated as I found myself by the end of last term.

This morning, on the road to work, I listened to a CD I hadn't pulled out in a few months - As Cities Burn's 2007 release, "Come Now Sleep" - and I was reminded, as if I needed reminding, of why we need more Chremo. Or at least, why the world is a better place for the Chremo that we have.

Typically, Pentacostal Christianity is so obsessed with a constant sense of victory that, like my aunt once very perceptively said, they "don't do melancholy". And evangelical Christianity, if we're going to talk in generalities, does not often do melancholy either. Although there's not the same determination to be in all things not just victorious but joyful, there's not a lot of room for doubt either. Evangelicals don't tend to put out a lot of music, and, when they do, it's focused mostly on proclaiming the gospel, which doesn't exactly allow you to express a sense of detachment from God.

Enter Chremo, which, like its secular siblings and cousins emo, screamo and emo-core, is filled with doubt, disillusionment, uncertainty and, above all else, melancholy, and yet it looks to God, and addresses all of life's questions to God.

All this can be seen perfectly in "Contact", the wonderful opening track to "Come Now Sleep", which asks, "God, does grace reach to this side of madness? Because I know this can't be the great peace we all seek."

Hearing that line this morning made me think of the name of ASB's first album, "Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest." And that name, this morning, felt like an answer to the question that "Contact" asks. Yes, grace does reach everywhere, whatever point on the spectrum between joy and misery, victory and madness. Wherever you lie, grace reaches out, because, as we will find one day, God loved us at our darkest.

That's something I think I'll hold onto this term.

A Do-Something Day

So the Easter holidays are now over - the much-needed break after an extremely busy term.

Given that the term was only eight weeks long, it's a little hard to believe just how exhausted I was at the end of it. Certainly, shorter terms are more intense, in that everything is simply compacted. The very same issues with starting and finishing the term remain, with little in the middle - much like a flight that is all ascent and descent, with almost no leveling out.

That said, I know that I overworked myself chronically last term, something that I really shouldn't be proud of. There's nothing glorious or worthwhile in running yourself into the ground, no matter how noble your job. If it prevents you from functioning at the end of it all, it was hardly worth it. Certainly, it's not sustainable.

But, much as I have needed the last two weeks off, I have also had a lot to do in preparation for the new term, and in response to the term now ended. While rest was completely necessary, so was breaking the back of that awful backlog of marking, paper-work etc., not to mention all the preparation that is fairly important if you plan on doing the job properly.

It's very difficult to find the balance between rest and work. On days like today - days, that is, of insane activity - it's tempting to let a few things slide. But I know that I'll only suffer the consequences of that later in the term. I also know that starting the term tomorrow with a large amount of work still unfinished is only going to keep me from ever having a chance of being up-to-date with my work for the rest of the term.

Nevertheless, today was also a wonderful day of rest, the first half, from 8:30am to 3pm, spent with my church community - and what a lovely rest it was.

So maybe today I found a balance between the two. Let's hope I can find that balance more consistently this term.

Theirs is to win, if it kills them

What do Chekhov and the Flaming Lips have in common?

Well, nothing really. But the two were brought together very nicely on Sunday night in the last performance of the Hayloft Project's "Chekhov Re-cut" adaptation of the early Chekhov play, "Platonov". As the play began to arrive at its emotional and dramatic climax towards the end of Act 2, the beautiful strains of "Race for the Prize" began to rise in the background - initially one of the Hayloft Project's more unusual artistic choices, along with the whole set being covered in a few inches of water, and another musical moment, The Cure's "Friday I'm In Love". At least the latter song served the fairly immediate purpose of irony, something developed in particular when it was heard later in the play, being hummed by one of its more tragic characters. But the Flaming Lips? Was it the interplay of chirpy and macabre that they were aiming for? Certainly anything Wayne Coyne touches turns to off-beat gold, which may have been part of the attraction. And yet, on the surface, these curiosities - water; indie classics forming the "soundtrack"; characters engaging in "dance-offs" - could be nothing more than that; novelties included to "spice up" a genius for a generation who can't be bothered to let genius speak for itself.

But the Hayloft Project aren't in to novelties, or gimmicks. "Chekhov Re-cut" was genius itself, something that, dare I say it, Anton himself might have enjoyed, if he were likely to let himself enjoy anything besides laughing at human absurdity. Certainly there was an abundance of human absurdity, and an abundance of near-Hamletian tragedy. And there were laughs. And the laughs came, more often than not, from Chekhov himself, not from the modern revisioning of him.

The Flaming Lips, in recent years, have become quite a curiously optimistic band. On their "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" EP of a few years back, Wayne began the last track with a piece of spoken word in which he, in typically pseudo-scientific mode, declared that, "if our ability to feel love is nothing more than a cosmic mistake, I'd like to think that this means the universe is on our side."

Is it? Chekhov imagined a world where the universe was more or less left to its own devices, and the result was not pretty. Most of the time it was lethargic and dull. People sat and stared at ticking clocks and longed for Moscow, or dreaded that first felling of the cherry trees in the orchard. And "Platonov", created by a younger but not really happier Chekhov, is certainly more overtly tragic than any of his later works, which, at least in the case of "Three Sisters" end, with more of a whimper than anything that could be called a bang. But the bangs were aplenty in "Platonov" - false starts, and then that final shot that brought everything to an end, and a beginning, though what kind of beginning we can't say.

At best, for Chekhov the universe has remained neutral. At worst, it's against us. And yet, there's still an ability to feel love, or an ability to love, or make love. And an ability to fight for something, whatever it is - and you feel, at times, like they'll fight for anything, because it's better than fighting for nothing.

After all, they are "just humans, with", in some cases, "wives and children" - or brothers, or sisters, or lovers, and they want to win, but I'm not sure they know what the prize is. It's a pretty watery game of chess they're playing, and it's hard to say where or how it ends. For Platonov, it ends with a bang, but what about everyone else?

And, as is so often the point in Chekhov - What about us?

When "Uncle Vanya" first achieved success, the interval arrived and the audience sat in stunned silence, no idea how to react to something that could kick them so effectively in their existential guts. No-one does it like Chekhov. No-one.

Would Chekhov and Wayne Coyne have agreed about anything? I'm not at all sure. But they created a lovely, meaningful and thought-provoking juxtaposition for me that Sunday evening. The truth, I suspect, probably lies somewhere in between them both.

Are you on my side?

There's apparently some kind of social dictum that says you should never talk about religion or politics. I suspect my family were all away on the day of school when that was taught. Religion and politics are all we ever talk about. And it's often what I talk to my friends about as well.

But a handful of conversations lately with friends who share my religious views but not my politics have made me think a bit more than usual about the connection between the two. Or, more to the point, I've been wondering if there's any connection at all.

My last post (written almost a month ago - sorry about that...) touched slightly on the idea of objective truth - namely, the fact that many are offended by mainstream religions because they claim to know "the truth". In fact, the founder of Christianity, the big man himself, took it as far as to claim to be the truth. Now, in a postmodern, multi-cultural pluralist society, that may seem a tad insensitive. More on that later.

But here's the thing: subtly, we make the same claim about our political views. We argue that America should have gone to war with Iraq, or alternately argue that they shouldn't. We say that Kevin Rudd's recent apology to the indigenous people of Australia was right or, on the other hand, that it was wrong. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Now, put that kind of commitment to ideological truth along with a commitment to religious truth, and what you often get is something that sounds like: "If you're a good Christian, you have to be anti-Iraq", or, "If you're a good Christian, you have to buy Fair Trade coffee", or, "If you're a good Christian, you have to support American foreign policy". Christians on either side of politics are devastated to find their faith being aligned with political agendas that they don't agree with. I'd always felt insulted by the assumption that Christians are automatically right-wing, but a right-wing friend of mine spoke to me just last weekend about feeling that most inner-city churches in Melbourne are strongly biased towards the left to compensate for the perception that, being Christian, they must be right-wing. He himself said that the last four or so years have been a "difficult time to be a right-wing Christian". And, while I'd never felt sympathy for the right before, I had to admit that I could see his point. When all your fellow believers are saying, "We're not like them" - well, how would it feel to be...Them?

Which makes me ask the question again: how interconnected can religion and politics ever be? And I began to see a distinction, while talking with my friend. It's only a work in progress, and not very well-developed at that, but here it is, for what it's worth. Politics looks to reshape the world according to views and values about how the world should look. Sound a little like religion? Well, here's the difference. Politics looks to human and worldly systems to make that change. Religion looks beyond this world.

Bob Dylan, a man that everyone connects with whatever viewpoint that they wish he espoused, once asked "when will I learn that there'll be no peace, that the wars won't cease, until He returns?" The fact that Dylan was, at the time, getting a lot of crap for his quite public conversion to Christianity means that I'm fairly confident in guessing who the He of the song is. And essentially he's pointing out the flaw in all Christian political ideals - that really, as good as things can get here, some things won't change this side of eternity.

If you don't believe in Jesus, then this will all seem irrelevant to you. Why put your faith in the possible second coming of a guy who, we believe, lived 2000 years ago and then died as a criminal? Why wait for his return before making the world a better place?

I don't believe that we should just be sitting passively and waiting, and Jesus criticised those who planned on doing just that. But politics still fundamentally tries to fix the world by human means, while Christianity at least posits the claim that human means will never fix everything, because we as humans need to be fixed.

Christians, if we're to be at all effective in helping a broken world, are going to need to focus on what we have in common. Politics may divide us, and that doesn't mean that we can't believe in politics - but we must not base our faith on politics. After all, Jesus never actively opposed any system of government, even though many of his followers hoped he would. Jesus talked of a kingdom that was not of this world, and that, I suspect, is the kingdom we as Christians should be voting for.

Intentional Fallacies (An open letter about Pancake Tuesday)

Blogging is a strange hobby. I've never really understood it, and am not sure how I wound up doing it. I have always been baffled by people's willingness to share their inmost thoughts to complete strangers, and wonder why, given this, I am willing to do so myself. The only reason that occurs to me is that I never imagine anyone actually reading what I write. I'm completely free of any concerns about how my readers feel about my writing, because I don't believe that I have any readers. (This is not, strictly speaking, true, and I do apologise to both my readers - I do believe you exist, I just forget about you from time to time.)

So this week has been an interesting one for me, because a post that I expected to attract as little attention as most posts I write (perhaps even less - I mean, it was about Lent, for crying out loud), actually attracted a few comments (including one which was mysteriously deleted by its author before I got to read it - how fascinating). And all this has, I suppose, reminded me that what I'm writing here is being read, and processed and, in some cases, responded to.

Which is interesting, given the content of what I write about. Let me explain. I'm usually pretty reticent in talking about my faith to people, mostly because the majority of people seem to interpret talking about faith (just talking) to be the same as evangelism - which, of course, it isn't. If I happened to mention in conversation with a friend that I went to see The Police on Australia Day and loved it, they would be a little uptight if they assumed that I was trying to persuade them to like The Police too. So why is it different if I start talking about going to church on the weekend and how much I enjoyed that? No difference, surely, and yet many will perceive a difference. I know I expect people to see it differently - hence why I spoke to colleagues about The Police concert, but am hesitant in listing church as one of my weekend activities.

But blogging, it seems, is different for me. Because I don't imagine terribly many people read what I write here, I have always felt quite free to talk very openly about my faith. And yet, interestingly, I don't think I've ever written a single post with the intention of evangelising to my readers. So again, there seems to be a difference in talking openly about your faith, and trying to convince others of its truth.

Which brings us to Pancake Tuesday, an event that was held at my school outside the canteen at recess - as a fundraiser for a mid-year Drama trip to New York. To the best of my knowledge, nothing was said about what Pancake Tuesday represented. The occasion was not designed to evangelise to people. I doubt many of those involved had any Christian zeal at all influencing their actions. And yet some considered this to be offensive, or "opportunistic". Certainly, my school has a large Muslim population. It would probably have an equally large Catholic and Christian Orthodox population. And then, like most schools in Australia, the highest population would probably be atheist, agnostic, or indifferent. Was it insensitive, given the nature of the school demographic, given the fact that the school is a public one, to acknowledge Pancake Tuesday in this way? I don't personally think so, and yet others disagree, and I can see their perspective - to a point. Where I diverge is mostly on this question of whether simply eating pancakes on an obscure but still religiously significant day of the year is somehow an act of opportunism or religious zealotry. Had the gospel been shared with all students who consumed pancakes, then yes, I could see their point. That wouldn't have been appropriate in a public school. But simply serving, and eating, pancakes? I'm not sure I see the problem.

And I can't help wondering why it seems to be Christians who are, in our culture, most commonly forced into silence. The University of Melbourne, for example, refuses to teach Christian theology because, when it was established, it was supposed to be "secular". There's nothing wrong with this. We do indeed need secular institutions. And yet other faiths are taught openly and tolerantly within Melbourne Uni classrooms - so, in that case, "secular" seems to have become "non-Christian". Why?

In its less liberal forms, Christianity makes some claims to objective truth that I can imagine would be offensive to people of other faiths. But it isn't alone in doing so. Islam is no different, nor is Judaism. I am weary of ever presenting my faith in a way that compels others to believe it too - and yet a core belief of Christianity is its truth, and the need to believe in it, which means that there may well be a time and place for evangelism - and yet I know that many would disagree with me on that. Certainly, if Christians are to share their faith in a more intentional way, it has to be accompanied by sensitivity, tolerance and tact - and respect. But sometimes, when you believe something is deeply, significantly true, you need to talk about it like that; and yet I know that few in Western culture would see evangelism as ever being appropriate.

Certainly, Tuesday recess at a public school is not a time for evangelism. Government schools, because they are for everyone, are by necessity secular. But talking about your faith, and having others show it respect, is not the same as evangelism. "Pancake Tuesday" was by no means an official school celebration, simply a quiet and informal fundraiser. I'm not even sure that the pancake servers said a single word about Christian faith that recess. But, if they had, we would need to be sure that their intention was to convince or convert before we labeled it "evangelism". They could, for instance, have simply said that Pancake Tuesday is the first day of Lent, the lead-up to Easter. All students enjoy the Easter holidays, so why is it somehow more "heinous" to mention another day related to Easter? It hardly seems different to a Muslim student mentioning to teachers or classmates that they were fasting for religious reasons - quite a common occurrence at my school.

Mentioning is not the same as pushing an agenda, and, if we want Australia to be a truly tolerant society, we surely have to see the difference. Tolerance that in effect silences all dialogue between and about religions is not tolerance at all.

No God, Only Religion (The First Sunday of Lent...)

And so this is Easter.

Well, Lent - the first Sunday thereof, as you'll know if you're Anglican, or Catholic. If you're neither, I'm not sure if you're missing out or not. You certainly won't experience the purple robes, and you won't be told that you should be giving something up for the next forty days - although, in reality, you should have already started, since Lent began last Wednesday, after Pancake/Shrove Tuesday (celebrated at my, notably secular, school).

Normally, I like to prepare myself for Easter, although little really can prepare you for it. For me, Easter has always been about grace, something that there's little we can do to prepare for, or make ourselves worthy of. So how do you prepare? Most Protestant denominations make little deal out of the lead-up to Easter. I remember churches sometimes celebrating Palm Sunday when I was a child. I also remember celebrating Passover with family and friends twice when I was about ten and eleven. The rest of the time, the lead-up to Easter has traditionally involved counting down the days until holidays begin. I'm sure it should mean more. I always WANT it to mean more, but the thought of what Easter really means, and how little I deserve it all, tends to be one of the more difficult parts of my faith to address. I believe in it, my life depends on it, and yet...it's so much easier to thank God for parking spaces, good days at school and nice times spent with friends than it is to thank Him for dying for our sins.

So I suppose I can see the merit in Lent. It makes us prepare. It makes us stop and think about God's sacrifice, even if only in the amazing inadequacy of our own sacrifices. Going forty days without chocolate isn't going to earn us salvation. But Jesus giving everything up for us just might. Perhaps, in humbling ourselves in this small way, we can come to understand that little bit more what sacrifice means. And we'll certainly be reminded of how weak we are. If we can only just make it through a Lent without chocolate, or coffee, or buying CDs, then it can remind us, I suppose, of how dependent we are upon God's grace.

But Lent, in and of itself, can be particularly meaningless. The sacrifice becomes an end in itself. We feel that, in giving something up, we are ourselves triumphing over our own bodies, our own fleshly weakness - which was exactly the attitude that Easter should serve to overcome. If forty days of deprivation can earn salvation, why exactly did Jesus need to die? Is His death and resurrection only effective when accompanied by our piety, albeit only forty days of piety?

I'm surrounded, at work, by religious people - people who come from Catholic and Orthodox traditions. I have complete respect for these traditions - something that occasionally separates me from my fellow evangelicals - and believe that they are an expression of a desire for God that evangelicals should be working with, not against. But I do know that, in both traditions, ritual so often takes the place of relationship. Any faith tradition that becomes more about religion than about God obscures the real issue. I know people who will observe Lent, but possibly won't talk to God at all during the working week - and I know that this isn't okay.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to give anything up for Lent. The few things I'm considering are mostly things I've gone without for the last week or so anyway, so officially starting a few days later won't hurt. I've never observed Lent before, and am not sure why I feel any differently about it this year. Perhaps it's all the "religious" people around me who are challenging me to think about it. Certainly the talk at my church this morning (somewhere in between low and high church on the Anglican spectrum) has challenged me. But mostly, I think I just want to prepare properly for Easter this year. I want to be focused on what Easter really means. Religious tradition, where it helps you focus on the truth, can only be a good thing. Religion that distracts from the truth has become completely self-serving and is of no use to a relational God.

So, no decisions today. Just a reflection, and a prayer, that this Lent, I might prepare properly. Let's see how it goes.

Oh the glory

Well, it might be a little early to be declaring the Gig of the Year award, but I'm pretty confident the show I saw last night at the Form Theatre will be a strong contender. Yes, it was the wonderful Mr Stevens, taking time out of his forthcoming "Delaware" effort (no, not really) to tour Australia for the first time. And what a privilege it was to have him here. No, sadly I don't have any photos, but I'm sure you can find them with little difficulty - and it was quite a visual spectacle, with Sufjan and his brigade of mountain men and women dressed in something that appeared to be Park Ranger attire, Sufjan himself sporting some sort of lumberjack-chic winter hat (only Sufjan could carry that off). And what a band too - two trumpets, a sax, trombone and French horn, along with guitars, banjo (of course), piano, sometimes even a xylophone - all coming together to create that inimitable Sufjan sound that's somewhere between "Appalachian Spring" and Will Oldham doing gospel classics, but also not like anything you could really describe.

The highlight was, almost without question, the newish song "Majesty, Snowbird", which we all hope is from a forthcoming album. Please, Sufjan, please. Replete with glorious, multi-coloured bird wings, Sufjan and brigadiers proceeded to perform one magnificent, 10 minute piece of musical and visual art, a performance that was perhaps only just bettered by the encore: first, a sound-and-image suite about the Brooklyn roadway, complete with a hula-hoop dancer (and Sufjan having an impressive go at a bit of hoop-dancing himself), then, of course, "Chicago", because they couldn't have done a show without "Chicago". Maybe, just maybe, the encore topped "Majesty, Snowbird", but I'm still not sure the latter could be bettered.

There are a lot of videos of it on YouTube, none of which are all that good, but have a look anyway. It might give you some idea of just how wonderful it was. If you like Sufjan, and I'm not sure how anyone could NOT like the man. But I've been wrong before. And some people just don't have taste.

They write books about this sort of thing

So here's where, first of all, I have to admit that I'm writing a book. So - I'm writing a book.

Good. Now that's out of the way, I can get down to business.

The trouble with said book is that, much to my surprise, it's getting to be quite long. Anyone who has had the patience to endure my sometimes very long posts on this blog may not be surprised, but I'd always assumed brevity was the soul of my wit. Now, maybe this book just isn't very witty. But it's certainly very long, and isn't finished. At the moment, on A4 paper, in size 11 font, 1 1/2 spacing, it's coming in at 222 pages. My estimate is that there's probably another 20 or so pages to go. So, if put into a normal book format, it would come in at around 400 pages, give or take. Which is fine, except that I'm wondering if my humble tale of going to school and University and falling in and out, and in, and out, of love is worthy of so many pages.

I take great encouragement from the literary genius of Say Hi To Your Mom, who say that "they write books about this sort of thing" (this sort of thing being relationships in which couples play computer games and eat Thai food; not far from what my book is about, just without the computer games and the Thai). What I need to know is this: are the kinds of books they are talking about more than 400 pages in length? If so, I'm on the right track. Otherwise, my book, if I ever finish it, may need a bit of trimming.

Which it probably will need anyway. I'm just not looking forward to the lengthy process of proof-reading. I rarely read 400 page books. I'm hoping mine's good enough to maintain my interest for the that long.

Who knows. Maybe, after a bit of quality control and trimming, I'll be about to cut it down to a really high quality limerick. Let's hope.

I've seen the future, and it's amazing

A jaunt to the outer East of Melbourne to catch up with a friend yesterday led me, on the way home, to Blackburn, not a place that I'm especially fond of, but the home of Koorong Books and Music - a shop, for those of you not in the know, that sells a range of Christian books, music, and merchandise of varying quality. It's pretty rare for me to find anything there that I feel especially inspired to buy, particularly in the music department, and yet it's perhaps equally rare for me to find good Christian music outside of Koorong. So, every few months, I like to go there when I am in the area and see what is available.

I was just beginning to despair on the state of Christian music - it's a bit of a routine of mine at Koorong, but a feeling that I think was this time most inspired by a CD that professed to be for fans of "Switchfoot, The Fray and Ryan Adams"; now, how can a band possibly sound like all those artists, without being simultaneously wonderful and utterly MOR? - when I came across a gem from the almost infallible Seattle indie-CCM label, Tooth and Nail, an unheard-of 2007 release, "Love Is For the Rich", by a band called Surrogate. The little sticker on the cover told me that this band, unlike my earlier discovery, was for fans of Sun Kil Moon, the Red House Painters and Pinback. Now, it's rare enough for not one but two Mark Kozalek projects to be mentioned with reference to a Christian CD, and Pinback have won me over whenever I've heard them, so I was instantly sold; as was the CD, by the time I took it to the counter.

Several listens yesterday and today have confirmed the wisdom of my purchase. There are more than enough quality indie reference points with an album like this - aside from the very accurate descriptions on the cover sticker, there are definite hints of early Death Cab For Cutie, Say Hi To Your Mom, and even a few moments of a Northern Californian Phoenix (if you can imagine what that sounds like). The lyrics are far from preachy; in fact, they are quite enigmatic. Rather, this CD reminds me, if I needed any reminding, of what makes Tooth and Nail the prince among Christian music labels; they produce quality alternative music that simply talks about the world from a Christian viewpoint. Tooth and Nail bands rarely aim to convert all their listeners. However, being Christians, they want to be honest about how they see life. So Christianity comes through in the way they talk about the world. A wonderful example of this is the wry and catchy "Death Penalty", which talks nonchalantly about the singer's less-than-perfect past but looks forward to a wonderful future in Heaven. There's also the less optimistic but equally godly anthem about climate change, "Stay Out of the Sun", which is a simple but compelling listen, and definitely the best environmentalist indie-pop song of 2007.

What my favourite Tooth and Nail bands understand is that you don't have to be singing "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs to be creating meaningful, Christian art. They get the Christian perspective out there, in a way that people may actually be able to listen to without feeling completely alienated.

They often also aim to make wonderful music, which I figure has to be important, although not everyone would agree with me. Thankyou Surrogate, for not disappointing. I suspect you'll stay stuck in my CD player for a few more days yet.

Search for a super-mouse

I came home yesterday afternoon to find a mouse peering at me through the glass of the back door. He (or perhaps she) was outside, in our enclosed garden, and I would love to know how he/she got there, although I had no intention of asking. When I walked closer to him, my foot no doubt at his eye level, he ran away; I'm not sure where to. Hopefully from whence he came. He was very fat - perhaps a rat, rather than a mouse? I've gone out into the garden to hang out washing since then and haven't seen him. I have nothing against him as such, but I don't want to see him again. I hope he's gone away.

Reading blog updated

I would like to make a New Year's resolution to update my reading blog more regularly, but I'm quite confident I still won't. There's too much to say about books that half the time I just don't know where to start. Besides, being an English teacher, when I read I like to do it for fun, not in order to then go and write something about it.

However, I have come up with an idea that will, hopefully, give me an incentive to be more regular in my Northside Reading posts. I've always loved compiling lists, so I've decided to put together a list, in no particular order (and I'm not even sure of an overall number), of my favourite books. Let's see how long it lasts. At least it's something I can plug away at slowly. It can often be easier to talk about the books you know and love well, than to find something new to say about a book you've just read.

So, if you're interested, you can check out the first post in this grand scheme, on Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms by following this link, or clicking on "Northside Reading" in the blogroll.

So this is the new year, or, Do I feel any different?

U2 once wrote that "nothing changes on New Year's Day". It seems true enough. But they also wrote "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me", which might discredit them a bit. Nevertheless, Bono has a point. Yes, the earth begins a new cycle around the sun. We buy new calenders. We make jokes like, "Good morning, haven't seen you since last year!" to our family members (at least, my family does; we're kind of lame). And we also make New Year's resolutions which last five minutes. But does all this amount to any particularly significant CHANGE? If not, then why do we bother staying up until midnight? All so that we can clink champagne glasses and maybe cop a "Happy New Year" snog? Hardly seems worth it, does it?

And yet, each year, I like to reflect on the year that has been, and at some point I like to think ahead to what I expect the newly born year to be like. I don't make resolutions, because I figure they don't really work; besides, why wait until New Year's Day to start dieting, or exercising, or quit smoking or shooting smack? Why put off what you probably should start doing (or stop doing) immediately? Do new resolutions work better when they come with some nice, neat sense of turning over a new leaf, as the earth starts that new orbit and we change our calenders? I doubt it. Some of my new year resolutions have worked, but others haven't. Any significant change in our lives will always be hard, whether it's made on 1 January or 27 August. In this sense, it's true that "nothing changes on New Year's Day".

That said, I do have to admit that I'm approaching 2008 with a sense of freshness - perhaps from the nice, extended break with family that I have just returned from; perhaps because, as a teacher, a new year IS significant, bringing with it new classes, new students, sometimes new subjects to teach. In my case, this change in the academic year is certainly a key aspect of 2008 for me. I was able, with very few tears (if any) to hand over some rather difficult classes at the end of last year, and now I look forward to the new classes that I am taking up this year. They won't all be easy, I'm sure, but sometimes a change in itself is a nice thing. I'm also looking forward to my second year of teaching, as I can't help feeling that I'll start the new year off much more effectively than I did in 2007. I'm more confident as a teacher, and hope that this will mean that, whatever challenges come my way in 2008, I will be better equipped to handle them. I also will have the joy this year of teaching Year 12 Literature - a subject I've always hoped I would get the chance to teach - and am confident that this class will give me a level of personal fulfillment that was perhaps lacking in some of the classes that I taught last year.

I am also entering my second year in my new suburb, and am starting the year at the same church. So, where last year brought a few too many changes with it, this year seems to be starting off with a pleasant amount of familiarity. I know where I stand better this year; less is uncertain, less is different. So, in some ways, it's nice enough that a few things are staying the same this New Year.

Some things never change, but other things in our lives are changing constantly. Someone or other said that the only constant in life is change. I'm not sure who it was, and I don't know if I agree with them. It might have been Homer Simpson, for all I know (although that's unlikely). But there's some truth in it, just as there's some truth in that U2 song. Who really knows how it all works. I certainly don't. But I hope this year's a good one.

The Year in Review Part 2: A Year of Listening Dangerously

I'm not the world's most up-to-date music listener. I love music, and listen to it quite constantly, and yet my listening habits are very much dictated by mood, and often mood has a lot to with familiarity. You have old favourites, like old friends. I love making new musical discoveries, but they are not always recent releases. I take a while to discover the music of a particular year, and usually the year's over by the time I have come to love the music it produced.

Towards the end of this year, I've had the fortune of inheriting my brother's old iPod, along with all the music that he had on it. So, wanting to actually know what the music of 2007 was like (I knew a few albums and songs, but not many) I searched through the albums from this year, and have come to love many of them very quickly. Only, I think it takes a bit longer to digest albums than it does to appreciate songs. Songs tend to be more immediate. Admittedly, you do listen to some of the albums of 2007 and, immediate as some of the songs are, you know that they are much stronger as albums. Stand-outs are few, but the overall impression is quite amazing.

Nevertheless, I feel that, to do justice to the music of 2007, I'm going to have to rate songs, not albums. I wanted to go with albums, but I'm just not sure that I know them well enough overall. Some albums - Low's "Drums and Guns", for example - I'm sure will grow on me with each listen, but right now are not so immediate on the whole. Other albums, like the new Jose Gonzales, have grabbed me with the handful of tracks I know well, but I have yet to hear them in their entirety. I'm sure Jose's effort would be in any list of top albums if I knew it all, but it's not really fair to put it in my list just yet.

So, enough of the preamble. Here, in some sort of an order, starting at number 10, is my list of the top 10 songs of 2007.

10. Amplifier Machine - Poor People In Church
9. Radiohead - All I Need
8. Low - Always Fade
7. The Field - Over the Ice
6. Jose Gonzales - Heartbeats
5. The Chariot - And Shot Each Other
4. As Cities Burn - Contact
3. Apparat - Not a Number
2. Jesu - Conqueror
1. Blonde Redhead - 23

And here, albeit a day late, ends the year for Ideas From the North.