I’ve just started reading John Piper’s “When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy” and the opening chapter has one of my favourite C.S. Lewis quotes, from a little letter called “Meditation in a toolshed” (the link will take you to a PDF of it. It will be the best 4 pages/10 minutes you spend this week!)

It’s all about “pleasures” and I think it’s fab!

“Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility… But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly they are. But in calling them “bad pleasures” I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean “pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.” It is the stealing of the apples that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is steal a beam from the glory… I have tried since… to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different… Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun… If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labour.”

The wife & I work fairly hard to make sure we are consistent in how we discipline our kids. We want to make sure that pumpkin & Gumnut understand that we are the parents & that while we want them to experience lots of things in life, there are boundaries that we have to enforce for their own good.

I’d like to think my kids, (well at least pumpkin… at 6 weeks maybe gumnut’s too young?) understand and respect that.

But as we drove on the freeway this morning, I saw one small glimpse of the power that our kids now have.

As gumnut slowly faded to sleep in the back & pumpkin fought sleep with all her might, I looked over to see the wife trying desperately to open a small tupperware container.

Trying to be a good husband, I quietly offered to have a crack at it (possibly not the best idea when driving at 110kmph, but I am pretty talented), but she informed me that she could open it just fine. The problem was that if pumpkin heard or saw the contents of the container, we’d be in trouble for the rest of the drive!

How did we become captives to our own kids?

I felt a little like I was six again, making sure mum & dad didn’t catch me in the biscuit tin…

Ten minutes later, pumpkin fell asleep, the wife got her jelly beans, and I got to wonder just how much of the power do I really have?

Who holds the balance?

It’s not that I’m against new years resolutions as such.

Just that, as a Christian, I guess I feel we should always be reassessing and reforming our lives. If one day becomes the focus of change, rather than a constant deep seated desire to improve, then it’s no great wonder that so many people say they fail with theirs…

That said, I do have some resolutions that just happen to be taking place around now.

I will blog more often.

But I’m going to be on the net less often.

Read more, think more, eat less, run more.

Well… we’ll see…

Bub #2 is due this Sunday.

Chances of this child arriving at this time? Slim to none, I’d say…. #1 was induced late & this little tacker doesn’t appear to be going anywhere in a hurry!

I’ll definitely be blogging more regularly when I have some new pictures to put up…

One day my conviction that blogging is healthy for my imagination will overwrite that part of me that says these days “blogging takes time and you don’t have any!” There’s always time.

So, I’ve survived three weddings in 8 days!

Of course, I’ve been spending a fair bit of time thinking about love & how you express what it really means. I thought I’d share and expand on some of what I talked about to Heidi & Ross when I got to officiate at their wedding last week…

What does love look like?

On a wedding day, we all have a clear & powerful idea, exactly what it looks like! Love is a beautiful white dress, and a guy who may not look entirely comfortable in the tux he’s wearing. Love is a slow walk, it’s a long gaze, it’s a bomb-proof smile, and after the words “I will” are uttered in turn, love is a simple kiss, very public, yet at the same time, a truly intimate experience!

But what does love look like only a week later? That wedding day is over, the honeymoon’s in swing & it all has a different flavour. Love is hot sand, a cold drink, a good book and an empty diary! Love is sleeping late, eating big and laughing lots.

But honeymoons don’t last forever, what does love look like three years later? Love changes as we grow older! In three years love could be an cup of tea while she is breastfeeding, it might be a vacuumed house for a tired spouse, or love could simply be a hand that wanders into the grasp of hers as you both try and unwind infront of an episode of “Escape to the Country” or some other equally banal yet comforting programme.

Fifteen years on, love changes again. It’s the phone call, 11pm Friday night asking that you pick them up because they’re now fighting with last week’s BFF. It’s 4 hours the next day travelling to, watching then returning from a sport whose only redeeming feature is that your progeny play it. It’s a thousand small sacrifices made and maybe never acknowledged.

Who really knows on their wedding day what route their love will take?

We know it changes, so it’s only natural that we go looking for paradigms of love, but which ones really deliver?

Well the media sells us a paradigm of love that, like a store bought apple, can appear glossy on the surface, but is often sour and bitter inside. Media driven love says “I am always fire, passion & fulfillment. My cup always runs over, my eyes never cease to glitter and my kiss is always sweet.” But of course, such love always expects what it says it gives. When the fire dims, the cup’s level drops & the glitter fades, this love flees & looks to begin again.

If this is the love we long for as our paradigm at the start of marriage, we’ll soon come to a trial or tribulation & words like “for worse, for poorer, in sickness” will prove hollow, because this love needs better, richer and health to flourish!

What does the Apostle Paul say about love? In our first reading, he said this:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Look at the words & see the paradigm shift from the saccharine sweet siren call of the world. Patience, lack of envy, not self-seeking, not easily angered, no record of wrongs? This is a very different picture of love! It’s a love that looks beyond MY interests & toward THY interests. It’s a love that says “as I pledge my troth to you this day, I commit to looking beyond myself to how I might honour you, because your joy is my joy.”

This is the love that that yearns for fulfillment, but understands that focussing on your own needs as the start and finish of things will always starve the other of their needs. It’s a love that recognises and values the fires of passion, but looks beyond to a deeper, thermal heat that is steady despite the changing seasons.

But how do we learn to love in such a way? Where is our paradigm that shows us how this works? Well we see this kind of love expressed in the the love the God of all the Universe has for us, in all our frailty and confusion. A word from 1 John 4:10:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

At our least loveable, God acted in the most loving way to us. Giving up that which he treasured most, to pay the cost for our willful acts of defiance against him. God’s love for his people is so powerful because it’s not contingent on us looking as pretty as the day he met us, or on our being a great person to live with, an awesome mother or father, or any of these things. God’s love for us is an act which he makes freely with no strings attached, asking only that we put our trust in Christ’s work on the cross for us, and put our trust in him.

I hope many things for all three couples that I have seen married over the last 8 days. I hope that every day they find their spouses more beautiful than the day before, that each week they find a new thing to marvel at, and that the years will whiz by in sea of laughter and joy. But more than all of this, I pray that their relationship will be marked by a sincere commitment to build the other up, to find the deepest joy in the happiness of their spouses, allowing them to look beyond mistakes that might be made, looks that will fade, and times that will be tough.

And I hope they will find the strength to do this by finding the deepest and greatest love in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the one who saves us from our sins, and shows us how to truly love each other.

I thought I’d finish with a question. Always a good way to find out if anyone a)reads my blog & b)if they ever read anything to the end.
What is that little thing, that others might see as inconsequential but you see as the answer to “love is” when thinking of your significant other?

Reading: Dostoyevsky’s “The Gambler” and so far enjoying it quite a bit. I think I’ll finish it a lot faster than I did “The Brothers Karamazov.” I’m also reading Tim Keller’s “Counterfeit Gods” which is enjoyable too. I think he is a very easy to read author, and also a good reader of contemporary culture.

Listening: I’m back on a bit of a “Supertones” kick at the moment. Thoughtful lyrics, and rocking tunes! What is is that makes music for you? I’d back good lyrics as the valuable asset every time, but there is a tipping point where the melody is so bad, that not even the best of lyrics can save a song. I’ll have to see if I can find any great examples.

Preaching: On 1 Timothy 2:1-7. There are 4 “everybody” statements in the passage, focussing on:
1:Our prayers for everybody.
2:God’s interest in everybody.
3: Christ’s ransom for everybody.
4: Paul’s mission to everybody.
Maybe I’ll post some notes on it later.

Preparing: For my cousin’t wedding that I’ll officiate over Saturday-week. Very exciting. Looking forward to the chance to see lots of family, to be a part of such an exciting event, and to preach Christ crucified!

Anticipating: a Powderfinger concert on Saturday evening. First proper concert I’ve been to in years! Sad to see them retire…

Wary about: How I’ll feel preaching on Sunday morning, having gotten home at about 1am… This is why “Mother” is my friend…

Like 4 million other Aussies, I was glued to my screen on Sunday evening as Adam (who, may I brag, I picked as my winner about a month ago) came up trumps against Callum. Most often I like to pretend that I am above this popular stuff. After all, I must be cool enough to watch shows that haven’t even been created yet, right? This series I have been hook-line-sinker.
Last year I couldn’t watch the final. It felt a little too contrived & I get particularly frustrated by the sophmoric ways they try & build tension through endless repetition & the competitors commentating on their own actions, like they are somehow living the moment & watching the moment at the same time, but this year I thought the final was well weighted, different enough to keep me interested & (despite my early prediction) had enough “real” tension for me to ignore the way channel 10 insulted me with their child-like production.

Today though, I thought I heard an interesting question while listening to ABC radio. Richard Glover asked “do you really think the show will change food habits, or is this just the perfect thing for people to watch while eating fast food?”

I have to admit, I’ve eaten large servings of ice cream while watching “The Biggest Loser“, and on more than one occasion, I have eaten dodgy comfort food (though, mum, if you’re reading, you’ll be happy to hear we rarely if ever eat fast food these days) while watching Masterchef. Have I attempted any of these high-falutin’ recipies? No. Has it changed my attitude to food? Yes, I still think it has. It is exciting to see how far things can be taken. It’s great to see people with basic ingredients delivering amazing meals. It’s a nice challenge to make me ask whether I am being more thoughtful with my food? And who knows, maybe one day I will even have a decent crack at a recipe or two.

What do you think? Has Masterchef changed the way you look at food?

(To my American friends, particularly foodies like Megan, if you still read my blog, you can follow the link to Masterchef & watch full episodes online. Not only would it be fun to watch Australian TV, but man, there is some great food in this show!)

OK, so here is my theory.

“Movies” are those things that run for about two hours. Their chief purpose is to make lots of money for the people who make them. At the same time, they hope that they might manage to tell some kind of worthwhile story.

“Cinema” are those pieces of art that run for about two hours. When someone makes a piece of cinematic art, their intention is usually to share a story. At the same time, they are usually hoping that their piece of cinema also makes some money. (Of course, in a modern world where everything has to be economically rationalised, this kind of cinema is becoming rarer. Usually it is only the talented, famous, or established who have the chance to go for “cinematic art” because they are likely to have an “economic guarantee” because of their name. )

Do you have examples of each? What movies do you think manage to achieve being both?

Discuss!

I went & photographed Shannyn & the Gheevatron’s wedding on Saturday (Geeve doesn’t even have an “H” in it, but it “Gheevatron” just looks better). It was my first wedding in a while, I was solo & I really felt the pressure.

I wont post any more pictures, cause I feel like they should look at them first. This is usually my fave of any wedding anyway. All the dresses, suits, cars, bomboniere, flittering people and impressive speeches melt away next to a simple gesture as two people join together and become one. Everything else is a bit foreign on the day. We’ve all seen weddings but (hopefully) this is the first time we’re in one. Yet in all that is so different, what a lovely thing to see two hands together & feel a sense of familiarity that transcends it all!

Well there you go.

My computing Guru Chris has switched me over to “moveable type” and the hope is that this will sort out the issues we’ve been having with comments.

Only one way to find out if it’s true people!