You know that youth group has been had when there is both blood & vomit on the floor by the end of the evening (unfortunately, carpet!).
Friday night was an exciting time. We had just had dinner and were playing a silly game whilst some of the kids finished their ice creams, when J tripped over & bumped his head on either a door hinge or a chair leg. I asked him if he was OK & he said yes. Then, as he ran his head through his hair, it came out with a fair bit of blood.
There ended up being an impressive amount of claret on the the floor, in a lovely pattern heading toward the bathroom. The drain in the bathroom was handy, to wash away the small pool of blood that collected there.
In the end, only three stitches were needed. head wounds are always a killer because they bleed like nobodies business! Fortunately Mr & Mrs J have a bunch of kids, so they were very cool about the whole thing. It just happens…
Encounter two happened when we played my new favourite game “Pass of Play.” Basically it involves giving someone a giant dice & asking them to “Pass or Play.” If they pass, then they don’t have to roll the dice & they can just sit & watch. If they play, they have to roll the dice & then eat the food that corresponds with the number they rolled. Some foods are good. Chocolate, Starbursts, etc. Some, not so good. On friday it was the Artichoke heart that got the vomit response, though the pickled ginger also seemed to come close.

Photo by Andy…

Click on the picture for a bigger apology, or go to The Bureau to make an apology (or another announcement) of your own!

So I’m away for the next three days.
I don’t know exactly what to expect? I do know that I have to help give a half-hour presentation. Nothing serious & not too much work, so that should be OK.
It’s just not right. My sister gets to spend the next month in the UK, and more importantly, some time in Scotland, and I get to spend the next three days in Kurrajong. A lovely part of Sydney, but certainly not Scotland…
I should manage to take a photo or two while I’m up there though.

There is a family that lives on a corner block near my church. You can look down into their back yard as you walk by. As I walked by on Sunday afternoon I saw a young girl, under two sitting on a rope-swing by herself and the following conversation took place.
Girl: Hello
Me: Good afternoon.
Girl: Do you want to come and play at my house?
Me: No, but thank you for asking. You look like you have a nice swing there.
Girl: Yeah I am good at swings.
(five seconds later)
Girl: Bye Bye
Me: Bye bye, have a nice afternoon.
Girl: I love you.
It was one of those golden little moments in life. She was a lovely little kid & was just looking for someone who might play an assisting role in her afternoon swinging plans. She wasn’t too concerned that I was a stranger, but was happy for some conversation and company. For one brief second I couldn’t help but be filled with happiness. You can see why Jesus said that the Kingdom belonged to people such as this. Simple, innocent, friendly & completely trusting. Coming from a family who remind her how much they love her, she wanted to share the love around.
It breaks my heart that the moment following this revolved around my fears for a kid like this. Had I actually come down & joined her for a push of a swing, the chances are that an enraged parent would have barged out forthwith. What was I doing in their yard? Why was I hanging around with their young kid.
Far worse than that scenario is the idea that a more nefarious character might have happened upon such a sweet little child. That maybe the parents didn’t come out fast enough & maybe she could have disappeared…
Moments like this surely have to make someone long for heaven. Oh for a day when golden moments aren’t framed by the black clouds of fear. For the day when love can be given with the knowledge that there need not be loss to come in the future.
Maranatha

(Eggs Benedict)
Should we go up to visit my parents over the ANZAC weekend? Well, they are on a nice vineyard in the Hunter, I do enjoy spending time with them, it is a chance to get out of the house and relax… They are all good reasons, but the clincher is when mum says “How about I make you Eggs Benedict for breakfast?”
We weren’t able to stay for the whole weekend, because I was preaching twice on Sunday morning (which went well, thank you for asking… I was preaching on the second half of Acts 17. Apparently, according to a reader at one of the services, Paul spoke at the Asparagus!), but we were able to head up on Thursday evening & stay till Saturday afternoon.
Rain was the name of the game, like most of the coast around Sydney, but with a warm fire going, a couple of scrabble games, and a cheeky red wine or two, the rain just added to the ambience.
Follow that up with a lovely misty morning on the Saturday & you have a recipe for success. The only downside to all the precipitation was that when we attempted to leave, the bridge at the end of road was under a metre of water! We had to drive 15km around to get off on another bridge. Again, all part of the fun.
Well, I have some other thoughts in my noodle that I would love to share, but they might have to wait for another post, which will hopefully only be in a day or so.
Instead, enjoy a couple of pics..

The foggy morning was lovely. There are a million little spiders webs on the vines!

Once the mist lifted, Saturday was magic. Not that that would make this a magic mushroom…

The road “should” continue down to a lovely wooden bridge.

A testimony to Shona’s patience that she still looks happy having driven 15kms to get around to the this side of the bridge…

It will never be green like this photo in Australia.
But over the last week it has certainly had all the rain. To be honest, I had forgotten that it could rain like this in OZ. Deep, driving, constant rain. I think it’s been going for about a week.
Days like today are fairly good for doing work. It’s just the right kind of weather to camp out in front of your computer & bang out a bunch of Bible studies for youth group & spiff up your sermon for Sunday.
That said, it would be an even better day to be snuggled up in bed, a good book (for me the picture in my head will always be Lord of the Rings… a product of my childhood) some chocolate (again, my formative years declare that they must be “chocolate bullets”, preferably the now defunct pascalls brand) with a Teddy bear (and now the option of my wife!) by your side.
Well, unfortunately, my day is more of the work & less of the vegging. Still, there’s always a spare moment to remember lush green walks & rainy days with my niece’s bear in bonny Scotland.

I don’t know what you’re talking about dude, it hasn’t been that long!
Oh, what, ten days? OK, so maybe longer than I said I would leave without calling, but hardly the kind of timeframe that ruins a friendship or anything, right?
Right?
If it’s any consolation, I have been fairly busy.
Hey, don’t laugh!
Yeah, I know, I thought holiday time would mean that life is cruisy too, but it never seems to work that way.
Well, I guess it’s like that because I wanted to make sure that I am on top of things for next term. That means putting together Bible study series….
Hey, as a digression, how do you pluralise a word like series? Serieses? series’ serii? None of them ever sound right.
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yeah, between Bible study stuff for youth group, writing a couple of sermons… Did I mention that I got sick? Nothing serious, just a cough & a cold, but it was enough to take that sparkling edge off me. Anyway, add all the other minutiae that make up the average week, and things just disappeared.
Like I said though, it wasn’t all bad. Do you remember Tom & Ruth? They’re from the halcyon days at Dural Anglican. Anyway… hey, do I use the word “anyway” too often? anyway, Tom & Ruth offered us free tickets to come with them & see the Swans play at Telstra stadium! Yeah, I know, sweet, but it gets better. We were only 4 rows from the grass, right in the middle of the field. Dude, seriously, Barry Hall broke his wrist about 3 meters from where I sat. Unfortunately I had already put the camera away by then…
Yeah, I took the big camera.
Look, tell you what, let me go to bed now and I’ll promise to get back to you real soon, and just to sweeten the deal, I’ll pop in a couple of the pics from my night out. Deal?
Deal!

Look, I know it is obligatory, but it really catches the mood of AFL. As a sport, they continually seem to be tipping their hats to the 30s & 40s… gotta love the streamer-wall anyway…

I’m not going to pretend like I know any of their names. I can appreciate the sport, but you know I am a rugby guy. Anyway (there I go again!) you have to appreciate the athleticism, plus you get an idea in this pic of how truly close we were!

For some odd reason, a lot of my photos are of the Eagles taking marks. Quite odd, considering how much they got beaten by!

That’s better. We got to see a lot of this that night, which is perfect for your first night of live AFL! I’ll have to thank Tom & Ruth properly later!

On Saturday I went to Matt & Lisa’s place for lunch.
Good times.
It’s nice to catch up with one of your oldest mates & just kind of chill.
It’s even better when the two of you are married & you can bring along your wives (and not too bad when his lovely sister-in-law and husband are there too)
And it’s truly good times when they have two gorgeous boys for you to hang out.
Young kids are just like free entertainment. Who needs foxtel when you can watch the wild hijinx of “T” and “W”. Will “W” be able to fit a whole piece of cake in his mouth at once? How psyched up can we get “T” as he heads lots of sugary stuff, then how likely is it that we will be able to beat Matt at Wii tennis, if “T”, a four year old, is his partner?
Here’s a couple of pics from the day. (Oh, and much thanks needs to go to Lisa for all her fantastic hosting skills. We were serious when we said the lasagna tasted awesome!)

“T” is rockin’ it out old-skool style.

I’ve never seen such a whole-body effort when it comes to eating lunch.

They must be used to cameras… “W” is trying to push “T” out of the way. Who wants to share a closeup?

This was one of the early attempts of “W” to use his hand to eat cake, before he resorted to simply diving his face into it. Very cute!

(He was happy to splash in a puddle, at my feet, while I waited for a tour-boat in Venice.)
Do you ever ponder those chance meetings in your life? Surely we all play this game. I suspect most people just accept this idea & get bored of it by the time they are 8 or 9, but I am still fascinated by it.
As I looked at the picture of this bird, I found myself struck with a little sadness, thinking that the chances are it is now dead.
Following this little avian life could have made a lovely short film. After all, he lived in Venice. He bathed in Piazza San Marco, and possibly roosted in the eaves of a building centuries old. He watched countless tourists walk by. He’s probably been snapped by a fair few of them too. He could be the black dot that looks too much like a dust mark in someone’s otherwise flawless photo. But here he is centre stage.
Is that the joy and the sadness of a photo? Here I have this point of contact. He might be dead, and at best he is still 10,000 miles away, yet at this desk in Australia’s central coast, his image is still evoking emotion. It makes me happy to look at him, and who knows, maybe he’ll make 50 other people on flickr happy too.
If only God had a “where are they now” button installed in the air, a foot above every character on earth. I could press the button & find out just what happened. Is the bird still alive? Did he find love? Was he actually a she?
What mystery do you want to know the answer to?