The Promised Land?

Now, although my blogging may not yet have fully demonstrated this fact, I love my new home. Kensington would certainly have to be the most beautiful place I have ever lived. The natural beauty is clear, the houses are charming, the laneways are suitably and rustically cobbled, the shops are convenient, the bookshop is nearby and everything a book-lover could hope for. There is excellent coffee. It is quiet, scenic, and twenty minutes closer to work.

But I regret to inform you all that it isn't perfect. No. In fact, last night there was a terrible traffic jam that made all access points to my home street rather difficult to...access. The major roads were terrible. The backstreets were no better. There was no option but to wait half an hour until I finally managed the extremely short distance from the racecourse to my house. I personally think it was some crime committed in Flemington, because those sorts of things happen over there, but all the same, there it is: traffic, in my beautiful suburb.

I'm speaking, of course, with a goodly portion of my tongue placed in my cheek, but in amongst all of this I am aware acutely of my own desire to find the promised land, the perfect home, on earth. And, of course, it isn't going to happen - nor should it. The consequences are not so good when you seek to find a fully realised heaven on earth. You may find yourself driven further and further away from social problems, seeking an ideal society, avoiding all that does not conform to your concept of perfection. History tells us clearly what happens when we think or act that way.

In the suburb next door, there are rows and rows of housing commission flats. There the social issues loom large. But in the quiet streets of Kensington they are no less present, just less visible. I could hide my eyes from them, focus on all that is perfect about it, or move further away from any hint of such problems. But where would that lead me?

The prerogative God gives us is clear: not to seek heaven on earth, but to fix our eyes on heaven and live out its values and glory now. Which means bringing heaven into the pain and heartache, not avoiding it as a means of making heaven.

So here it goes on record: I will try my best to do the former, and pray that I can avoid the former, and praise God for His grace when I fail persistently at both.

All the secrets of fitness

There's something that happens to a man when he has spent around 20 years, give or take a few, thinking of himself as inherently bad at physical activity, only to find that he can run quite well, quite fast and over quite a long distance. I believe the common expression is that it "goes to his head". Suddenly, he wants everyone to see him running, especially those who ridiculed him at school for his not-very-athletic physique. "Take that," he wants to declare. "Just look at my correct running form. Note my endurance." That sort of thing.

Then he starts working on his speed, partly with a healthy desire to keep improving, partly because, well, he can. So he does so, knowing, somewhere in his head (someone told him) that working on speed increases the possibilities of injuries. "Yes yes," he says to that part of his head. "Yes yes, I know that. But it isn't going to happen."

Perhaps you can guess the rest.

It isn't a bad injury; just a strained muscle or tendon somewhere between my calves and my Achilles Heel. But it stops me from running, and slows me down a little in my everyday life - in subtle ways, in a way that says, continually, "Remember, Matt, that you aren't actually invincible."

It's a good thing to be reminded of, I suppose. I should be thankful for it. But I'm not. I'm grumpy that I can't run.

Then I remember this song that comes onto my regular running playlist somewhere around one of the footbridges that cross over the Maribyrnong River. It's called "Don't Kid Yourself, You Need a Physician", by Anathallo, a band I love very much. I'm particularly chastened when I hear it, running or otherwise, by these slap-in-the-face words that form the chorus:

"All the secrets of fitness

All the fitness He requires

Is to feel your need for Him."

Ouch. Yes, that is true fitness. I had better remember that before I set out to run again.

Reason #75 Why I Love My Job

Where else but in teaching can you experience conversations like this?

Year 7 girl #1 (to me, while she is dancing with friends): What's up? We're gangsterising.

Me (quizzically): Gangsterising?

Year 7 girl #1: Yes, gangsterising.

Year 7 girl #2 (as if by way of explanation): We're singing a song from "Mulan".

Ah yes, that would be THE definition of "gangsterising". I can't think why it wasn't clear in the first place.

The Golden Age

I went through a stage while at Uni when I loved most things that Woody Allen made. I loved the unabashed neurosis of it all, and found myself quoting suitably intellectual or angst-ridden lines well after each viewing. Then I guess it all started to go downhill. I realised that Woody himself was a bit of a pervert, and got sick of films that suggested that no relationship can last and that "the heart has its own reasons" for abandoning one woman for another at regular intervals. Woody and I parted ways a few years ago, and absolutely nothing about "Vicky Christina Barcelona" made me remotely interested in rekindling the relationship.

Then came "Midnight In Paris", a film with so many things independently of Woody to recommend itself that I found it, in the end, irresistible: Owen Wilson; Adrien Brody (playing Salvador Dali); Rachel McAdams; Marion Cotillard; Michael Sheen; Paris; Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dali, Buñuel, Man Ray, T.S. Eliot and Gaughin all featuring as characters; did I mention Marion Cotillard?...I wouldn't be strong enough to pass all this up. And I'm glad I didn't. It was almost certainly enhanced by watching it at the Sun Theatre in Yarraville, one of Melbourne's most iconic theatres in one of its most iconic suburbs. Somehow, walking out of the film into Ballarat St, Yarraville, felt rather like remaining in Paris. It wouldn't have surprised me at all to see Hemingway inviting me into a cab with him.

But what I think I liked most about it was that, while it contained many of the moral issues of a typical Woody Allen film - including a new application of his own reason for leaving Mia Farrow for their adopted daughter - it did not quite linger in the same neurotic space as his films used to. The resolution is still a little idealistic, as if the universe does still somehow conspire to make romantic love always come true, but it was, if possible, a wise, more knowing kind of romanticism that the film's protagonist, Gil, achieves by the film's closing credits.

If there is a message to this film, it is perhaps that there is no such thing as a golden age - that we have always been discontent with our own present, however glorious it might seem to others. I don't know exactly what Woody wants me to make of that message, but I know what I left the cinema wanting to do - to praise God for what I have now, and, just as the apostle Paul taught the church in Philippi to do, to replace anxiety with thankfulness.

To top it all off, it really was just a great film.

Ideas From the Slightly North-West

So a lack of internet access over the past few weeks has conspired to keep me from blogging since I last declared that Wendell Berry was awesome and I was about to move. Now I have moved, and the move, though short in distance (move a little south of Brunswick then go west of Royal Park and you've got me), has been big in impact: a shorter distance to work, a more peaceful state of mind, beautiful surrounds, a new and improved river to run alongside. I can't speak highly enough of Kensington, my new home.

A change like this can draw attention, though, to other changes: to the expectations that I now have of a dwelling place. Some of these are positive, I think, and some neutral. I have matured, in a way. Share house living has served its time in my life, and living in a smaller place with only one other person suits me better, I suspect. But in other ways I am concerned about the changes I perceive: am I starting to crave comfort more than I should? Am I reacting, still, to the burn-out I experienced in Malaysia, and wanting to retreat into a safer space? This may be reasonable while I heal, but it may not be the best option for the future - not if I intend to continue pursuing the path that Jesus sets out for all who follow Him.

The moral of the story? We never stop growing, and we never outgrow grace. We will see what new perspectives, new challenges, new visions this new window of mine shall bring.