Merridie invited me to this chaplaincy fund raiser dinner. I am not sure why, I don’t have any money and her and Tim are certainly not short of people to talk to. She told me I would make a good chaplain. I guess that is why she invited me. So there I am at table 19. Jennifer Kite (she’s on TV) sitting across from me and Tim Costello going on about his church dates with Kevin. I politely chat with the man next to me. Blah blah blah, “oh so your interested in policy?” Yes he replies I used to set the minimum wage. I think I was supposed to know who he was, but I didn’t. I was slightly overwhelmed but managed to keep conversation happening. They were serving lamb and some kind of beef. They put this extremely meaty plate in front of me. I was a bit nervous to make the “I am a vegetarian” scene but my friend next to me helped me out and made the scene for me. Phew, 9 years with out meat. That plate would not have exactly been easing back in. Anyway it was all a bit flashy but fun all the same. I don’t get to get dressed up so often down here.

Life goes around in circles. I just can’t get it to go straight.

Being broken is a wonderfully profound and beautiful concept until we actually have to come face to face with it and then it just hurts. I am definitely broken. Not in the profound sense, but in the sense of wishing I could be a completed puzzle again rather than all strewn into a thousand little pieces.  

yes, we can’t be happy all the time and recently I have definitely had my share of happiness but as I go to write about Alice Springs and how wonderful it was or the Matisyahu concert and how amazing he was, all I can feel is like a terrible person. David took me to dinner last night and bought some nice wine and reminded me as we were leaving that there is goodness in me – but I confess I can be an inconsiderate and selfish person. I hate those traits in other people but i hate them even more in myself.

God give me more wisdom and more discipline and more sensitivity. Amen.

I started reading “People Like Us” last night. It is written by Waleed Ally who is a pretty well known speaker/author in the Melbourne (maybe Australia). He writes and speaks about a lot of stuff but specifically about how the West and the Muslim world could dialogue better together. I have only read 25 pages but already I have had to look up 3 words including nomenclature, which is a system of words used in a particular science, art or community. So there you have it I am learning English words from a Muslim guy. Sure breaks down the whole notion that they don’t want to learn our language.

Anyway I started reading this book because Urban Seed was contacted by a lady from the City Mosque who wants to run a soup kitchen for homeless people. (We might need to teach her a new nomenclature to describe her vision, but that is OK). Because of my passion for interfaith stuff our admin person passed on her queries to me. I am really excited because we have tentatively started mapping out together some of the resources/training Urban Seed could offer them. I never thought in my wildest dreams that an opportunity like this would present itself. I really hope this was also God’s vision too because then if we work respectfully and mindfully it might actually get off the ground.

I got my marks back today. I am going to blog about them because they are great.

Popular Literature – Distinction

Philosophy, Theories of Human Nature – Distinction

Jewish Society 200BCE- 200CE – HIGH DISTINCTION.

Yay, what a way to finish my degree. I didn’t really like the philosophy subject but I like the mark and I am really happy to have got a HD for the Jewish society subject because I worked real hard on that last assignment and I found it really interesting (it was the Hebrew palaeography one). I am glad the teacher found it interesting too.

I have just spent the last hour or so scrolling through your blogs. I hadn’t been on for awhile so it was nice to catch up. 

I have just finished one of the craziest/busiest weeks of my life and I don’t really feel like typing it all out. It has been difficult, but good. I got to see fruit for some of the work we do. Often we don’t get fruit around here. The tree is beautiful, a resting place with a lot of love but that generally doesn’t mean apples. This week however I got to taste the wonderfulness of someone making a clear break, making a change.  She needed me because I really knew what she was going through, and could sit in that, as we pushed and pushed to find a place for her. My messed up story becomes tangibly useful. I am praying really hard the fruit doesn’t end up compost before it gets its time back in the sun.  Can you all pray for me? I am really tired and this journey is not over yet. And I am crying tears of joy but it is in the midst of pain. Most people don’t get a fairytale. Instead they get what looks like violent video game and there is a way out but it requires fighting the big monster at the end of the level and often the monster is too big. I think I have been hanging around the streets too long, it is warping my perspective. But I love it down here. It makes the gospel look real.

I had the privilege of attending a 3 day interfaith conference this week. It is kind of hard to explain but the Centre for Dialogue at La Trobe University is running a leadership program for young Muslims and as part of that they put on a 3 day conference entitled ”Prospects for Peace in the Middle East” (right up my alley). They got a whole pile of people together from the 3 Abrahamic faith backgrounds to discuss the issues. It was really nice for me to be in a room where the dominant religious group was not my own. A lot of the women were wearing hijab and they all looked so beautiful. My dreads looked more crazy than there hijabs by far. They asked me lots of questions about how to make dreads.

We looked in detail at the Israeli Palestine conflict and Lebanon and Iran and Iraq. (Iran benefitted from America’s war in Iraq as much as America benefitted from WWII). It was a really fascinating 3 days. The lecturers and facilitators were really clever, articulate,  passionate and caring people. I felt smart just listening to them. I guess on a less positive note the issues in the Middle East are so complex especially relating to Israel and at the present time things are as bad there as they have ever been. (It amazes me we are talking about an area with a land mass a quarter of the size of Victoria). However I hold out a lot of hope for the area. There are people on both sides committed to the process of peace and dialogue. I feel honoured to have got to do my own dialoguing about the issues here in Aus with people much more affected by the issues than me. However it was certainly raised, it is one thing to discuss it here in Australia, it is a whole other thing to have to live it.

I guess it is about time I blogged about finishing my degree. Just in case you hadn’t guessed, it feels frickin’ amazing. It is probably up there as one of my greatest achievements. Quitting drugs was probably a bit harder than getting a degree so maybe that is my biggest achievement but getting a degree, humility aside, I am pretty proud of myself. The delaying gratification factor of study is the hardest bit. I mean watching a movie, hanging out with friends, lying in the sun and other fun stuff is always more desirable than studying. Even exercise can be more appealing than study. Although that all said I am glad for the stuff I have learnt and I really feel like I make more sense now than I used to. My last assignment was on Hebrew palaeography. It was fascinating. A couple of years ago I didn’t even know what Hebrew palaeography was, let alone be excited about it. Someone called me a closet nerd when I told them I was excited about researching the development of Ancient Hebrew Scripts.

So here I stand now, closet nerd with nothing to study for atleast another 6 months. I am not exactly sure what I am going to do with my life. I won’t have much money. The government is going to stop paying me to study. It would be great to pick up more hours at the Big Issue but I think they have enough office staff during the week. It might be back to waiting tables. Arts degrees are interesting but they don’t get you much in the way of work. I was thinking about doing some tutoring but it might be hard to balance that with Urban Seed. The good thing about study was you could work late into the evening. Yes the moral of this story is I will need the diploma of education. Unless of course I can find a job in  Hebrew palaeography (I have a new dream). Maybe in Israel but not here and it is probably best not to rely on something so obscure.

I ran a gathering today. I used a Leunig prayer for a reflection. It was really nice, special almost. Even after all these years I still get something out of his words. Not to mention they are really accessible. Most people get it. Getting joy from Leunig reminds me of our community question – what is old but you are still enjoying it?

I gave myself a night off last night and watched Twilight. I really didn’t hate it. Maybe it is my love of vampires but it was alright and the scenery was really spectacular. I had to read Twilight (the book) for my popular literature class and that was a really awful experience. The writing was so lifeless and repetitive and Bella was so incredibly desperate and clumsy. Edward had all the power and when they had to be separated for like 5mins her whole life fell apart and she didn’t know how she would survive. It was really pathetic stuff. What makes it worse is it has been praised by the conservatives in America as good for teenage girls to read because Bella and Edward don’t have sex. I am like seriously, would you really want your daughter to be so consumed by a man she loses any desires to have any goals of her own in life? I think I would rather she had sex. But in the movie all that stuff isn’t quite so obvious. It was perfectly fine meaningless activity, which I needed after a heavy week.

2 weeks, a fair bit of research and 3500 words to go and then I have finished. It looks like a mountain peak at the bottom of Mt Everest and it sure feel like that. Anyway a girls got to eat and so I had dinner with John French tonight. It was really nice to see him and the food was good. We had Korean and chatted about life and he filled me in on some of the Guatamala/wedding plans. I felt a little bit connected by having the chat.

I wish I could say something really profound now because my blogging will probably be put on hold a bit for study. It would be great if this post that will sit on footboot for awhile contained something illuminating and insightful but it doesn’t seem like it is going to happen. So goodnight lovely people.