Last night we went to our local friendly drain with candles and blankets and sang reverberantly into the darkness and into one another's hearts. Some hearts were tired and hurting, some shy, some joyful and exhuberant. All were lifted by the beautiful noises. And the Heart of our own was there, even though we may not have remembered it completely*.

We went in honour of our new friend and honorary Broken Hillian - Annie - who has been with us for the last week. With her smiling open face and her earnest desire to serve and meet the needs of others she has been a fun companion and contributor, and we all (especially David Rozali!) feel that she fits into our community beautifully.

Annie writes songs like it's a natural part of human life (maybe it is).

Though I am finding it difficult to live up to the sentiment in this one, I do love it and feel inspired...

i wish i was robin hood
fighting the rich for the poor
and doing a bit of good

* incidentally I wish I could remember the fact that the heart of my own is present with me without pause, and get the good of it in all situations... and more importantly GIVE the good of it to others

Last night we went to our local friendly drain with candles and blankets and sang reverberantly into the darkness and into one another's hearts. Some hearts were tired and hurting, some shy, some joyful and exhuberant. All were lifted by the beautiful noises. And the Heart of our own was there, even though we may not have remembered it completely*.

We went in honour of our new friend and honorary Broken Hillian - Annie - who has been with us for the last week. With her smiling open face and her earnest desire to serve and meet the needs of others she has been a fun companion and contributor, and we all (especially David Rozali!) feel that she fits into our community beautifully.

Annie writes songs like it's a natural part of human life (maybe it is).

Though I am finding it difficult to live up to the sentiment in this one, I do love it and feel inspired...

i wish i was robin hood
fighting the rich for the poor
and doing a bit of good

* incidentally I wish I could remember the fact that the heart of my own is present with me without pause, and get the good of it in all situations... and more importantly GIVE the good of it to others

make me happy...

This week I have been playing with oil pastels and they are brightening up my life. I have been making some posters for my classroom. In today's class I asked my Year 11 students to join me, creating some colourful posters of poetic techniques. My theory is that, seeing as they don't keep the notes I photocopy or get them to copy off the board (their work is often still lying on the desk or ground after they have left the classroom), maybe if they spend time creating something beautiful they will remember it that way.

Today we moved all the desks together and they played with pastels. One girl said, "It feels like kindergarten, Miss." She was smiling. Kindergarten was possibly the last time she actually enjoyed school :(

In other news I was writing 'onomatopoeia' on the board and I mispelled it. One boy from my class corrected me.

"Miss, isn't it 'p-o-e-i-a'?"
"Ash, how do you know that?"
"You taught us that song the other day, 'Onomato had a farm, p-o-e-i-a'!"
(He didn't sing it - that would have really made my day!)

Well, needless to say I was pretty stoked.

Here is a photo of the wall after we were finished

make me happy...

This week I have been playing with oil pastels and they are brightening up my life. I have been making some posters for my classroom. In today's class I asked my Year 11 students to join me, creating some colourful posters of poetic techniques. My theory is that, seeing as they don't keep the notes I photocopy or get them to copy off the board (their work is often still lying on the desk or ground after they have left the classroom), maybe if they spend time creating something beautiful they will remember it that way.

Today we moved all the desks together and they played with pastels. One girl said, "It feels like kindergarten, Miss." She was smiling. Kindergarten was possibly the last time she actually enjoyed school :(

In other news I was writing 'onomatopoeia' on the board and I mispelled it. One boy from my class corrected me.

"Miss, isn't it 'p-o-e-i-a'?"
"Ash, how do you know that?"
"You taught us that song the other day, 'Onomato had a farm, p-o-e-i-a'!"
(He didn't sing it - that would have really made my day!)

Well, needless to say I was pretty stoked.

Here is a photo of the wall after we were finished

Is it just that it's Friday? Or does the euphoria come from elsewhere?

I know it can't last, but I just feel really happy. I felt so confident about all my classes today - even the ones that were rowdy and required lots of energy in controlling. School relationships are starting to be a bit happier, in that doing battle in the classroom doesn't have the same sting now that we are all understanding each other a bit better. And yesterday I experienced the joy of teaching my Year 9 English class something, and realising they actually learned it - WAHOOOOO!

Well we take it as it comes hey? The best way (I think)...

When it's tough: head down, teeth gritted in tight grin of determined defiance of evil and firm expectation of good. When it's great: arms out, thankful spirit alert with the fire of inspiration, enjoying freedom, flying as strength is stored for dark days ahead.

They say it all comes from the hand of the same God: good times and tough. Is it possible that he also gives us strength to stand up under difficult times and the wisdom to experience the good times well?

Is it just that it's Friday? Or does the euphoria come from elsewhere?

I know it can't last, but I just feel really happy. I felt so confident about all my classes today - even the ones that were rowdy and required lots of energy in controlling. School relationships are starting to be a bit happier, in that doing battle in the classroom doesn't have the same sting now that we are all understanding each other a bit better. And yesterday I experienced the joy of teaching my Year 9 English class something, and realising they actually learned it - WAHOOOOO!

Well we take it as it comes hey? The best way (I think)...

When it's tough: head down, teeth gritted in tight grin of determined defiance of evil and firm expectation of good. When it's great: arms out, thankful spirit alert with the fire of inspiration, enjoying freedom, flying as strength is stored for dark days ahead.

They say it all comes from the hand of the same God: good times and tough. Is it possible that he also gives us strength to stand up under difficult times and the wisdom to experience the good times well?

a couple of weekends ago I graduated from my Diploma of Christian Studies and was lucky enough to be able to give a speech way of encouraging the staff of Cornerstone - and saying thankyou. Here's some of it for posterity...


The Twelve Apostles stand off the south coast of Victoria, pillars of rock in a changing landscape, buffeted by wind and wave. Although we call them 'twelve' Apostles, their number changes. As some collapse and wash away others stand tall, wide and strong - perhaps telling us what the collapsed ones may once have looked like.


I visited this natural wonder as I was trying to think of how to express what the gift of the last two years had been like. And as I stood there that day the wind blew around me and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from or where it was going to - but it came to me that the peninsular of limestone that I was standing on was being shaped into a future 'apostle' -that one day there would be no land bridge to where I was standing and a new pillar would have been formed - and I saw that these Apostles were more a monument to a beautiful moment in time than a fixed part of the landscape.


Over the last two millennia other apostles, visionaries of a good and true kingdom, have stood so, representing their point in time, washed by the wind, born of water, living monuments to God's presence in their world.


It all made me acutely aware of God's immanence - how close he was (and is) in each particle of limestone and in each drop of water and circling me as well as a whole bunch of tourists on the wind and blowing through and around us.


Just the same, as I stood before those crumbling apostles I felt assaulted by doubts and fears. Was I worth my salt as a misho in Australia today? Could I listen to God's Spirit and follow the thread? When would I start to feel like a blessing and not just a mediocre muddle?


And then I remembered Sonja's faith in me and her faithful example, and Dave Etty's sensible advice in sticky situations on team, and one morning on Nerida's front porch, and a refuge at the Richards' (and Pete's visits to team where after he left you felt, as Sophie once said, as though Father Christmas had come like he did in Narnia and no matter how great the evil you are confronting or what the consequences might be you are just bursting to cry out "he's been here he's been here!"), and lectures and work and meals and chores and phone calls without number and visits to team and prayer and emails of encouragement - each instance a sacred moment to remember, a monument to the living God's presence in my world.


And I know that each of the graduates here will be able to find such monuments to God's presence in their lives from their own experiences with staff over the last two, three or more years. And in their studies too, because as I looked at those pillars I thought of Mary McKillop and Charles Finney and Count Zinzendorf and Thomas Aquinas too and on back to the time when the Master himself walked the earth and there were these two young blokes who were followers of John the Baptist. And they were there the day that he saw Jesus and cried out. "Look! there goes God's lamb!" So these disciples followed Jesus.


And he turned around he saw them and asked them, "What do you want?"


"Um... Rabbi... where are you staying?"


"Come and see," Jesus replied.


Well I don’t live in Galilee and it's not the year dot, and I can’t touch or feel or follow Jesus around and go and stay at his place in downtown Capernaum. But over the last two years I sort of have been able to anyway. So thanks to all of you Cornerstone Staff men and women who are giving your lives so that people like me can "Come and see."


You have been and continue to be living monuments to God's presence in our world.

a couple of weekends ago I graduated from my Diploma of Christian Studies and was lucky enough to be able to give a speech way of encouraging the staff of Cornerstone - and saying thankyou. Here's some of it for posterity...


The Twelve Apostles stand off the south coast of Victoria, pillars of rock in a changing landscape, buffeted by wind and wave. Although we call them 'twelve' Apostles, their number changes. As some collapse and wash away others stand tall, wide and strong - perhaps telling us what the collapsed ones may once have looked like.


I visited this natural wonder as I was trying to think of how to express what the gift of the last two years had been like. And as I stood there that day the wind blew around me and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from or where it was going to - but it came to me that the peninsular of limestone that I was standing on was being shaped into a future 'apostle' -that one day there would be no land bridge to where I was standing and a new pillar would have been formed - and I saw that these Apostles were more a monument to a beautiful moment in time than a fixed part of the landscape.


Over the last two millennia other apostles, visionaries of a good and true kingdom, have stood so, representing their point in time, washed by the wind, born of water, living monuments to God's presence in their world.


It all made me acutely aware of God's immanence - how close he was (and is) in each particle of limestone and in each drop of water and circling me as well as a whole bunch of tourists on the wind and blowing through and around us.


Just the same, as I stood before those crumbling apostles I felt assaulted by doubts and fears. Was I worth my salt as a misho in Australia today? Could I listen to God's Spirit and follow the thread? When would I start to feel like a blessing and not just a mediocre muddle?


And then I remembered Sonja's faith in me and her faithful example, and Dave Etty's sensible advice in sticky situations on team, and one morning on Nerida's front porch, and a refuge at the Richards' (and Pete's visits to team where after he left you felt, as Sophie once said, as though Father Christmas had come like he did in Narnia and no matter how great the evil you are confronting or what the consequences might be you are just bursting to cry out "he's been here he's been here!"), and lectures and work and meals and chores and phone calls without number and visits to team and prayer and emails of encouragement - each instance a sacred moment to remember, a monument to the living God's presence in my world.


And I know that each of the graduates here will be able to find such monuments to God's presence in their lives from their own experiences with staff over the last two, three or more years. And in their studies too, because as I looked at those pillars I thought of Mary McKillop and Charles Finney and Count Zinzendorf and Thomas Aquinas too and on back to the time when the Master himself walked the earth and there were these two young blokes who were followers of John the Baptist. And they were there the day that he saw Jesus and cried out. "Look! there goes God's lamb!" So these disciples followed Jesus.


And he turned around he saw them and asked them, "What do you want?"


"Um... Rabbi... where are you staying?"


"Come and see," Jesus replied.


Well I don’t live in Galilee and it's not the year dot, and I can’t touch or feel or follow Jesus around and go and stay at his place in downtown Capernaum. But over the last two years I sort of have been able to anyway. So thanks to all of you Cornerstone Staff men and women who are giving your lives so that people like me can "Come and see."


You have been and continue to be living monuments to God's presence in our world.

My Year Eleven class we nice to me today. Do you want to know why?


...

because I know David Rozali.

Can you believe it?

My Year Eleven's don't even know David Rozali - to them he's just that cool guy with the awesome dreads in the coffee shop opposite Torpy's or something. But anyway - they were really friendly in class today and I milked it for all it was worth in the desperate attempt to teach them something about repetition and emotive language!

I am pleased. Hopefully they will buy coffee from Davo and some of his cheery style of optimism and goodness will rub off on them and they might even start to wonder whether their own lives could be that happy, peacefull and GOOD?

And then maybe they'll want to do something about it...

My Year Eleven class we nice to me today. Do you want to know why?


...

because I know David Rozali.

Can you believe it?

My Year Eleven's don't even know David Rozali - to them he's just that cool guy with the awesome dreads in the coffee shop opposite Torpy's or something. But anyway - they were really friendly in class today and I milked it for all it was worth in the desperate attempt to teach them something about repetition and emotive language!

I am pleased. Hopefully they will buy coffee from Davo and some of his cheery style of optimism and goodness will rub off on them and they might even start to wonder whether their own lives could be that happy, peacefull and GOOD?

And then maybe they'll want to do something about it...