Regarding the Things of God and Men

What exactly does your god tell you when he whispers in your ear? What does he do to manifest feelings in your heart?

The things you will go on to do in his name?

The actions you will take?

From the small things to whether you reply to an email or respond to someone in the street.

To the finger, with gold you will surround.

To the bombs planted in the hearts and minds of those whose god is different.

You will put your god before people.

Then one day when you finally meet your god will you be relieved? To look back on the devastating road that lead you to this place, but be glad that you finally made it.

Will you look back on all the people that haven't and feel pity?

I wonder if you will realize that the reason that they haven't might be because of all the things you said and did in his name?

They meant nothing to you, and therefore your god.

The Fate of the Last Clairvoyant

Madame Delany, the last remaining clairvoyant, was sad when she finally packed up her tent. As she stowed away her crystal ball and unhooked the veils for the very last time she reflected on years of visions and readings. She met all sorts of people in that tent. There were many non-believers who came in for a laugh, some were skeptics - unsure of what to believe - and the remaining others stared into her eyes intently. They trembled when they held out their palms, they clutched and shuddered hopefully. She could feel their energies, she could read their expressions and body language. It was a serious matter speaking words into people's lives. It was a matter she never took lightly and if she saw nothing amidst the faux smoke and glimmer in the crystal, she never charged.

But no one came to see her anymore. Machines had taken over.

Madame Delany sighed as she contemplated the demise of personal contact, the human touch of intimacy, romance, drama and mystique.

People were now informed of their futures via computers for handsome sums not just loose change. It was an age where machines knew more about people than people did about themselves.

Almost every human action was monitored, recorded and meta-analyzed. With the advent of social media, CCTV cameras, satellite tracking systems, and electronic financial blue-printing, machines could trace the whereabouts of everyone, the things they viewed and searched for, the friends they kept, their affiliations and habits - social, financial, and private.

It was an age where technology was fast but time was even faster. People were busy, too busy, lives always being lived in the future tense with no ability to rest in the present moment. People no longer knew each other, just ideas and marketed images, sales-pitch personalities on screens. You saw people's selected images rather than their physical being. This was how they communicated and this was how they networked. There remained very few chance encounters. Face-to-face evolved into screen-to-screen. Existence had become calculated and boring. Advertising slowly replaced inspiration, and wonder had been brushed aside by statistic.

But Madame Delany never wanted any of these things. She despised the city and its commercialism. She hated machine orientated invasions of privacy all for the sake of capital. She lived the life of a true bohemian, in the countryside on the outskirts of the city. There she lived in peace, growing her own vegetables, trading produce with neighbours, never owning a cell phone, computer or television. She had all that she needed, living a simple contented life.

But this way of life was slipping away. Slowly, even the bohemian communities were evolving. House rents increased and became harder to cover. The owners in the city began to evict those that couldn't pay. Everyone started to move further afield where the cost of living was more affordable or stay, working harder and longer. She began to lose many of her friends and the community disintegrated.

Some months later, a drunk and heavily depressed Madame Delany stumbled off a public bus in the middle of the city. Fuelled by a heavy sense of irony she swiped her bank card in a machine that told people's futures. The bank card was the only information they had on her and she hardly ever used it.

The machine quoted her the cost of it's clairvoyance service and it was nearly the entire sum of her account, but she decided to accept.

In a slot at the bottom of the machine a piece of paper emerged which read her new balance which amounted to a few quarters - the cost she usually charged her clients to have their futures read.

Below that was only one additional piece of information, her future;

Directions to the nearest bureau where they issue food stamps.

Immediately the screen dismissed her, changing to welcome the next user in bright colours, an image of a nuclear family jumping for joy in celebration on an intricately cultivated suburban lawn.

"The future is yours" it read.

In response to the person who questioned what I was doing with my life

First of all. Why such critical and condoning tone? Why not such question posed with love or concern? What does it even mean to you? Does my life effect you in some way? Do I cause you pain? You say that I have no stability or foundation. What do you expect from me? I'd build a house if I knew where to put it. I'd make a home if it agreed with my heart. Both are not for lack of resource. I'm not an unwise and foolish penny-less vagrant.

Are they monuments, a wife and children? Are they things to erect on my lawn? Everything happens in its own time and I trust that everything works out as it should. So let it be.

You fail to see this journey I'm on. And I'm working it out slowly. I've been studying and I've been discovering, and I'm lost somewhere within the depths of me, the universe makes sense.

I've learned what it is to look through these eyes. I've stepped through the past and come to terms. I've held things in my hand and let them go. I've taken hurts and lies and thrown them into the light.

Because this journey is not about a destination. You see, it is so deep and amazing that we never truly arrive. It's not about milestones or trophies. It's not about accolades or comparisons. It's a personal and shared experience. Blessed are those that sink into it's weight, and feel it's endless bounds. Do you know what love is? Are you in awe of its power? It will collapse your knees!

So what about my years? So what if I'm thirty?

I am a deliberate man and I am deliberate in my actions.

So please don't criticize me when I can honestly say;

I am ready to love.

An Ode to South West Sydney

Walking with long faces
People inside sketching stranger's faces
Dark hooded beady eyes at the station
It's early Sunday morning

Cars circling around the block
Doors and windows bolted shut
Music imprisoned, home alone
Like a Sunday calling

The golden city's skyline can be seen
From a rise in the hill
In-between the trees
A convoluted road to Darling Harbour

Cheerily I stop to ask directions
Old resident asks my name and states his suspicion
I laugh and make my own way walking
It seems that smiles here too, are stolen

Even if it is just sentiment

You have to fight for what you love even though it may seem impossible
When it gets hard
When all you want to do is look away
When you are tempted to settle for something else
Something less

Round and round
Like the earth and sun
Like my mind on this
Like a dance undone

You've got to fight for what you love
When you're driven insane
When you've looked away
And then return to carry on

You'll die for what you love

Bursting Bubbles

DO NOT send me an invite to play some bubble popping game via social media. How does that even happen? You're my 'friend' right? We are supposed to spur each other on towards the greater good. We are supposed to push each other's lives towards meaning and fulfillment. How is this bubble game supposed to help? How is it that we are even friends? I fear that you have made a brutal misjudgement in inviting me to partake in such game with you and cannot help but feel violated in some way by you making an assumption that I would enjoy such... occupation. Did you give me due consideration when you clicked the 'invite' button next to my name? Did you envisage me arriving home from work, undoing the top buttons of my work shirt and heading straight for the laptop lying on the couch, logging onto facebook, checking the notifications, seeing your cordial invitation, and then thinking "Hell yeah! I'm going to pop me some bubbles! Line those colours up and watch me pop them! I'm going to score me some points and then broadcast my achievements to all of my friends!" Damn you for thinking such things! Also, damn you for perhaps not knowing me well enough to have the cheek to invite me and suggest such pointless endeavor.

But, oh no. Hang on. Maybe it's a cry for help. Is that what it is? You're desperate and in need but did not want to state it so plainly in words. This invite to join you on a bubble popping rampage is a cry for help. Why else would you be playing such a stupid game on facebook and racking up points for all the world to see. You're life is terrible. You're in a rut. There are things in life that you cannot face and popping bubbles for points serves as some sort of solace and distraction. Either that or your life is so mundane that popping bubbles has become the sort after highlight of your existance.

It's becoming clear now.

You have invited me to join you in such venture the way a self defeating drug addict shares his poison with a sober and well to do friend. You're asking for empathy. That's why you singled me out. You are asking me - a controlled, purposeful and glorious man - to make the ultimate gesture and lower myself to the same level of destruction so you will not feel alone. You will rope me in to playing this bubble bursting game and then you will proceed to destroy me with high scores that I will find unobtainable. My skills at pathetic unimportant pursuits will be inferior to yours and you will reign proud and victorious. A life of relative meaning.

Screw you.

I've been there you know. I've let my mind and time succumb to other pointless endeavors. I've turned friends into werewolves while other friends have turned friends into vampires. There was a war going on. Did you know? Were you part of it? I've seen friends occupy their lives by feeding fake animals and raising fake crops so they could afford to upgrade fake tractors. I've clicked buttons to see if my car beat another friend's car and all that dictated the result was a computer algorithm. It's a form of cancer, did you know? It's sucking us all dry.

Do something real.

Do something physical.

Get outside.

Burst some real bubbles.

Hunt some real vampires.

Start with your own.


P.S.

If you would like to join team Werewolf click here

First Love

SEVEN YEARS AGO I began an interesting writing project which somewhat chronicled my (religiously restrained) pursuits in love from the age of ten. Clearly it was a work of humour, some chapters were girls names, another chapter entitled 'It wasn't Pinnochio's nose that grew...' which documented adolescent sexual frustrations expressed via boyhood campfire conversations about girls. I continued writing up to the age of seventeen and eventually abandoned the project after deciding that the years that followed were shaping into a long winded tragedy with dwindling amounts of humour. 

Love changes with age. Some relationships seem like vague recollections in dreams or nightmares, some like lives in parallel universes. The past can be stranger than fiction when you look at the journey. Maybe it is a sign of success if you can look back on things that way?

I wanted to write something meaningful for Valentine's day but I thought it would be more important to laugh.

An excerpt from an earlier chapter in my abandoned project. My first love ;

CASSIE

Cassie was my first ever girlfriend.  I was 11 and at Intermediate School.  I had liked her for a while and she liked me also.  She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and her nose was a little bit pointy but that was alright, she was still pretty.  One day in the playground her friend Kelly asked me out on behalf of Cassie and I paused to think about it before replying with ‘yes’.  (I paused because I did not want to seem over eager).  Cassie was waiting across the other side of the playground.  As soon as I said ‘yes', Kelly ran over to Cassie to inform her of my answer.  I watched in the distance as she did this.  They both looked ecstatic and held hands, nodded their heads, and jumped up and down in excitement. 

Having a girlfriend was a new thing for me and I wasn’t sure what it entailed.  I figured we’d hang out, hold hands and stuff, and maybe kiss but french kissing a girl kind of grossed me out. 
In the classroom Cassie asked if I wanted to move my desk into her group.  My teacher Mr Thomson let us sit in whatever desk arrangements we liked.  I agreed but said that I wanted my friends Matthew and Andrew to come with me.  Cassie and Kelly consulted each other about this arrangement and they accepted.
So there we were. Me, Cassie, Kelly, Matthew and Andrew, all sitting in a group.  It was a different group dynamic sitting with girls. We would get in more trouble because the girls would talk when Mr Thomson was talking, and they would draw in our workbooks.  One day Matthew told me that it was pissing him off and Andrew agreed so they moved out. I felt quite abandoned.

I told my parents that I had a girlfriend.  I don’t know why I did this.  Maybe it was because I was proud I had got one.  I did not know it would cause such commotion.  Mum was outraged and said I was far too young to have one, and that it was bad news.  She feared that a girl would just be trouble and she wanted me to break it off.  I, of course was outraged by this and said that it was not fair and it was my life and that it wasn’t that bad.  I was quite angry.  Mum looked at dad for support.  I don’t think dad liked the idea of me having a girlfriend either but he didn’t say much.  He could tell that I was angry with mum for her reaction.  In the end  I heard dad say to Mum, “He’s only 11, don’t worry”.  I then heard Mum say “But this will just be the start, he’s too young…”

Cassie would call me on the telephone.  I learnt that girls like talking.  They like talking a lot. We would talk for up to an hour.  Sometimes Cassie would ring me for no reason, it was just something to do.  She would ring up and say ‘Hi’ and then ask me what I was doing. 

“Watching T.V” I would say. 

“Same” she would reply. 

“Cool” I would say. 

“Cool" she would say.  “What are you watching?” 

“The Simpsons” I replied. 

“Same.  Do you think Clarence from school looks like Milhouse?” 

“Um… yeah kind of.” I said.

She laughed.  “Four eyes (Clarence) is such a geek.”

Basically Cassie would ring me up and we would occupy the phone and talk about nothing.  It was disrupting my homework.  Mum would look at me as if to remind me of this fact when I was on the phone and it made me feel bad.  I would try to get off the phone by telling Cassie that I had to go.  “No you don’t” Cassie would say and she would insist on us talking.  I would give in.  I am pathetic and weak.

I started having to get my homework done early so it was done before Cassie would ring to make mum happy.

It was hard work having a girlfriend.  They were quite needy and demanding.  Sometimes I wondered why I bothered but at the same time Cassie gave me a buzz.  I couldn’t describe it, it was like a flutter of the heart or adrenaline or something, the feeling that there was someone special in your life that shared a special part of you that no one else could.  This is what led me to sew ‘Ken Cassie Ken Cassie Ken Cassie’ all over the pencil case I was making in my clothing and textiles class at school.  It seemed like the in thing to do.  My friend Elliot had a girlfriend Joanna.  They had been together about the same time as me and Cassie.  On their respective pencil cases they wrote ‘Elliot and Joanna 4 eva’.  I showed Cassie my pencil case.  I think she was quite flattered.  I scored brownie points.  We held hands on the way back from class that day.

There were a lot of phone calls, drawing in each others exercise books, and some hand holding but me and Cassie had still not kissed.  I think Elliot and Joanna were in the same boat.  One overcast lunch time Kelly, Cassie’s friend decided that we should go over to the far side of the field where it was secluded and play dare.  Kelly dragged me and Cassie and also Elliot and Joanna.  I started to get that buzz – my heart began to flutter.  When we got there Kelly said that Cassie and I needed to kiss and so did Elliot and Joanna.  We all looked hesitant and embarrassed by being put on the spot like that.  There was a period of silence but then Kelly said “come on, who’s going to kiss first?”.  This made it a competition and I sensed shame for the couple that lost.  I looked at Elliot and Joanna who were sheepishly looking each other in the eyes, to me it was a sign that they were both developing traction in the whole procedure.  This made me look at Cassie.  I felt nervous and uncomfortable and so did Elliot.  We looked at each other and then at our girlfriends and as Elliot leant in to kiss Joanna, so I did to Cassie.  One quick peck on the lips.  It was over in a flash.

The love that Cassie and I shared began to grow old in the days that ensued.  Perhaps it was my fear of the big sloppy.  I watched older boys do it to their girlfriends at the bus stop.  I admired them.  I was just chicken.  One day in the playground Kelly came up to me and stated “You’re dumped.  From Cassie” and then ran away.  Our love had ended pretty much exactly the way it began - via personal message service informing me of my plight. This was my first experience of heart ache. I was dumped for another boy, Michael, who looked like a monkey.

Turn it off

 I like the idea of temples up on mountains, separated from the man made jungle of townships and cities. A quiet reticent place to be alone with one's thoughts but demanding your time and effort to get there.


Do you have a temple on a hill? Do you have your own little place of solitude where you can get away from everything and spend time with your own thoughts? The world is crammed full of noise and nonsense. So much that it seems to infiltrate every part of our daily life. Have you noticed?

Everyday we are being manipulated and engineered. Billboards on buildings and buses tell us that we are not beautiful enough and that more fun is being had elsewhere. We are told what fashion is. Popstars - in all their wisdom, morality and profundity - provide us anthems for living. We get caught up in meaningless drivel. There are images everywhere. Open your eyes next time you head to work or school. We are being lied to, sold to. Do we ask to have all of these images and noises put in front of our faces and blasted into our ears?

No.

But that is the way the world operates. This is what it has become.

I like to think of the world before the days of print. Imagine what that would have been like. Signs would have been painted by hand and it would have taken a lot of work and man hours to create anything elaborate. I don't think there would be many signs or murals advertising medical holidays to get boob jobs. Think of the fashion and cosmetic industry without any edited photos and images. No endorsements or pin up models. I'd like to see the supermarket shelves full of products without lavish packaging trying to warrant the extra expense.

I listened to a Ravi Zacharias podcast a while ago and in it the statement was made: "Art used to imitate life but now life imitates art."

He was talking about how things have changed in the digital age, how we live in a world of images. How true that statement is.

We are so inundated with digital media in all its forms and suggestions that it detracts from meaningful personal thought. For better or worse it saturates our lives and it influences our thinking. Our imagination suffers. Our wonder suffers. I get so angry sometimes. It's a blatant form of abuse! It's on our way to work, it's at our workplace, it's in our home on the television and internet. We're having cheap shots taken at us everywhere. We're being preached to by soulless corporate entities because they want our pocketbooks.

So I ask the question; Where do we escape? Where is your place of refuge? I really think we need to balance the ledger.

Switch it off.

That's the beautiful thing about nature. Mountains. Lakes. Rivers. It's all natural. Get amongst the quiet.

When was the last time you got away and made a technological disconnect? When there were no digital distractions, seductions and influences? Is it something you can even contemplate doing? Sometimes you can't even appreciate your circumstances until you remove yourself from them.

Switch it off.

Get a sweat up and climb a mountain. Get amongst nature. Elevate your heart rate. Lose your breath. Feel your mortality for what it is. Listen to the truth. Maybe when you switch it all off you'll actually feel something switch on.

Your soul.

"Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have rearranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs."

- Banksy

What is your life mission?

  

What is your life mission? If you could put it in a sentence what would you write? Have you even given it a good amount of thought? Do you believe that there is a purpose in life and that you have a meaningful and pivotal role to play?

It's not an easy question to answer because it beckons your views and beliefs about existence. Why are we here? What are we doing? Where are we going? What is important, sacred, and what do we hold dear?

For most people it is likely a question that gives rise to so many more questions but how insane would it be to not ponder and ask questions about one's own life?

Such questions have come up a lot on my travels. When asked what a person's aims and goals in life are a large proportion will answer with something like "to live life with no regrets" or, "to be the best that I can be."

They seem content with such answers and don't give it much thought beyond that. But such statements have no foundation. They are like voices thrown into the wind, fading and taken in any direction. What is 'the best that one can be'? And how does one go about achieving that? I'm also uneasy with the saying 'live life with no regrets.' Isn't it more accurate to say : Make mistakes but learn how to live with the scars?

Surely we can do better.

It seems not much is sacred in this day and age. Technology has given proliferation to information, opinion and choice and post modernism has promoted an unbridled pursuit of pleasure. We are in the habit of living for the 'now' and giving in to the immediate but where will it take us?

What is your life mission? Is it to live the good life? Is it to pursue pleasure in all its forms and fulfill your every desire in the trust that that will bring personal fulfillment and happiness? Would it create a more harmonious world, to give in to each flutter of the heart? Is this what it means to be true to oneself?

I seek pleasure in my life but I believe that there are pure pleasures and illicit pleasures. Pleasure always has a cost. You either pay for it before or you pay for it after. Pure pleasures are often at the cost of patience, diligence, trust, and perseverance. You pay for them in advance. Illicit pleasures are those that cause harm or have impact on yourself or someone else somewhere down the line. Without guidance or a moral code or truth, pleasure is a problem.

Where do you think pleasure comes from? Is it merely a reaction of chemicals confined to the body or does it transcend into the mysteries of the soul?

As a great and wealthy king once wrote with his kingdom at the height of it's glory;

"I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
    I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
    and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
    and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
    nothing was gained under the sun."*

There has to be a foundation. There has to be something solid that dictates what is truly beautiful, pure and meaningful and what is not. There must be truth.

With post modernism and relativism I feel that we are drowning in a sea of triviality. There is no longer a black and white. Truth has become a relative term and has therefore become undefinable. There are no longer boundaries and therefore there is no longer substance. We are each kings of our little kingdoms toiling under the sun.

What is your life mission?

I fear that the world today doesn't ask the question. We are walking blind, chasing sensual pleasures in a hope to find meaning but we are getting more and more lost. An endless chasing of the wind.

What is your life mission? What does your heart and soul really long for?

It's not an easy question to answer but what are we if we don't give it serious thought.

*quotation is from the book of Ecclesiastes 2: 4-16.

Gandhi was asked to describe in twenty-five words or less
what his life mission was...
.  

He said, "I could do it in three: Renounce and enjoy."  

You renounce all worldly attachment to everything
and enjoy what God gives you.  

You give away what you have inside yourself, your love.  

You're not concerned with whether it worked or didn't work,
whether it was right or wrong,
whether you won or lost.  

You just constantly flow through your life  

without getting attached to the results.  

The irony is that the less attached you are,
the more you get.  

The more you keep circulating,  

the more keeps coming back to you.
It's a flowing system.

  


^{Matt 22: 36-39}
 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."