Recently in Good Vibes Category

If you're anything like me, as the year winds down you spend the occasional moment looking back over the preceding months and reflect on what's been going on.

I have a lot to reflect on.

I don't think I could have predicted that at this point, one year since I upped stakes and left a reasonably secure job that I'd be able to say I've completed my Masters in less than a year, AND with a Distinction average (with 1.675 marks to spare!)

I didn't imagine that I'd have supported myself by my own efforts and some canny contracting and today paid off a credit card (taking my total cards down to one. Phew - getting out of debt in the GFC. Yay me.)

I didn't imagine for a second that I'd have spent one day a week as a nanny and LOVED it. It felt a little like a necessary evil in those first few weeks when I was terrified I'd end up destitute or when Missy spent that first hour of every day I was there SCREAMING. Happily, it has turned into the highlight of the week for me and will do so long into the New Year. Nannying 2009 culminated in a marriage proposal, and not my first from a member of the younger set.  I'm a huge hit with the under sixes - sigh, if I could just up the average age by about 30 years...

I never thought I'd find so little to blog about in a whole year.  I've been so remiss but I suspect that most of my writing energy was being expended on writing essays - and let's face it, you're likely to be not particularly interested in the kind of stuff I was turning out... maybe 2010 will be better for blogging.  I certainly need to do some design tweaking... this notebook look is so old skool.

I never thought I'd be able to successfully pull apart my Mac and put it back together (and have it work) without major incident.

I never thought I'd be in NZ twice in the year I was a student, nor that I'd be going also to Tasmania for a holiday in January but I did and I am, and I'm so grateful to be able to get to see the family and friends on the other ends of those plane rides.

I never thought at age 41 I'd have to prevail on other people's generosity when my circumstances looked impossible and when I didn't know where the next dollar was coming from.  At the same time I could not be more thankful that I have such close and generous friends who bought me groceries, meat parcels and coffee and who took me out for steak and tequila once in a blue moon.  Or, even better, gave me work so I could buy coffee for other people on occasion.

I never thought I'd be inquiring as to the possibility of further study next year, a research project that will upgrade my degree to Honours.  It's a nagging thought I can't shake... I must be insane, particularly given how excited I am by the thought of surveying Christian churches about their use of digital technologies...

Yep.

Insane.

I never thought that I'd be so happy to go to church on a Sunday nor that to get so happy I'd have to leave one church and take up with another.  This is such a bittersweet change and one that I never expected to occur, I still find it a bit bizarre.  I only know that given the paradigm shifts my faith and feelings have gone through this year and as hard as it is that there are people I see a lot less of now, it's still the right thing to have done.

Above all, I never thought that my life could be so rich with friends, relations, experiences, love and life, both IRL and here online.  To all of you, whether I know you in person or 'virtually'. Thank you for making this year an awesome one!  I hope yours has been as much an adventure for you.

Merry Christmas.

Originally Published at the wiblog (old blog) on June 28th.

You've likely heard that hymn, right?

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus' Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking.

I'm thinking about it today because there has been some growing upheaval in my world and I'm trying to negotiate it all. It isn't that my faith is being tested really, which is why this hymn's appropriate, my solid rock is firm, it's just that, unfortunately the sweetest frame of my church and church leaders has had my trust in it rather badly dented and, quite frankly, it has me quietly withdrawing from much that goes on there, and even occasionally going elsewhere to worship.

Can you imagine the internal conflict that goes with that? It challenges all sorts of beliefs and paradigms I've had be those before coming to Sydney or after, and while I'm not in any way dragging down the church as a whole, or even really the genuine intentions of the leadership, but it has become increasingly challenging for me to have knowledge of what goes on behind closed doors which causes me to lose my trust in that which I hear from the pulpit. (Now, as I'm aware that there are those of you who actually know the congregation of which I speak, I want to categorically state that I'm in no way making accusation of any kind of scandalous impropriety in any of the leaders etc.)

In broad strokes, the area in which I'm finding the most conflict is this. We are an apostolic church with a vision to influence the city we're in (and by extension the world) for Christ. We want for people to see the great change in their personal worlds, to give them the opportunity to meet Christ and find his plan/path/vision for their life and to see their lives radically changed with the peace, love, and hope that comes with faith in God. Sounds good, right?

They're all noble goals, to be sure, and I believe them to be good and great and possible but I'm getting increasingly wary of following a massive vision handed down by a leader and the posse of people gathered up behind him. I'm cautious about only hearing the voice of Christ through one man's vision, I'm questioning the ethos behind the vision becoming more important than the people who are passionate about bringing it about and who've given time, energy, money and in some cases their lives, to the service of God through that vision only to be discarded when the vision became about the next generation.

We're undergoing change, we're a huge ship being steered into a new course, a new younger, hipper, course and in that process a whole bunch of sterling individuals have found themselves surplus to requirement. The means for effecting this change has been, to put it baldly, pitifully managed. It seems to me that I'm seeing a culture develop where people are disposable and when I'm hearing things to cover those injustices, that sound like "it's not comfortable, but I believe that "Ps _____" hears from God so we'll go with it" I get all KINDS of itchy. Yes, I'm sure he hears from God, but I do too. So do you, but to put one's head up above the parapet to voice any contrary thought or idea is to have the leadership lose faith in you and to fall out of favour and to find yourself leaving the in-crowd for the fringe.

I love the leaders here, I have been loved by the leaders here but I fear that love to be conditional upon my wholehearted support of where we're going and how we get there and I cannot give it.

And this breaks my heart.

You may or may not know I blog in more than one place, in the past I double posted the content from here over at the wibsite (my original blog). Recently I decided to keep the two a bit more separate, saving the wibsite blog for occasional faith related posts, linking between the two to keep everyone up to date but trying to simplify life a little...

In any case, with that disclaimer in mind, I'm linking back to there with this post so you can read it if your'e interested.

http://deeleea.wibsite.com/2009/03/18/hi-im-dee-and-im-a/

I know, I still haven't blogged about work, you know, my OLD work, formerly known as 'proper job'.  Truth is, the further I get away from it the less it matters. 

I'll simply say that I had wanted, very specifically, to leave well because there are any number of former employees of the church who have reason to be anti 'church as a workplace' (or maybe just anti 'our church') and who left, burning their bridges behind them and now feel unable/unwilling to even attend services there. On the other hand there are those who managed to disentangle themselves from the staff without actually burning those bridges and who, while aware of the church's faults, remain in fellowship (ergh, Christianese, sorry) there.

I'm happy to count myself in the latter.  It was a battle hard won as my last week at work was impossibly difficult and made me particularly glad I had written my leaving speech well in advance.  My emotional state when it was delivered was such the speech around the tears meant that were parts of it I wasn't sure I still believed. However, I do believe it was possible to leave well because of a conscious choice I made years ago to separate my service to God from the business of other people's service. 

People come and go in the name of God in any church and quite frankly, they bring with them all manner of f*cked-upness. All the while, God loves and accepts their service same as He did mine with all my f*ckedup-ness. At the end of the day, us God-botherers are called to represent Christ in the world so that others may see Him in us and may choose to follow Him too.  The thing is,  we bugger it up all the time and some of us even end up giving Christ a bad name.  So, in work, as in life, it's my hope that in some small way I give Him a good name by living a life of integrity walking the walk that goes with the talk... so leaving the staff well was about more than not burning my bridges, it was also about doing 'what Jesus would do' (and no, I don't wear the bracelets or have a WWJD tattoo, no, really...).  Realistically, there are a bunch of people on staff in every church in the world who probably give Christ a bad name to each of their colleagues at different times, they're human after all, I've no illusions that our church is any different.

Anyway, here I am, a month later, and the book is closed. I've finished up all the little jobs I'd left to deal with when I came home from NZ and while I still have the work-supplied Mac, I'm happy that it will be handed back in the next few weeks when I take delivery of one of the older machines that's just about to go off its lease.  Now here I am content to be a regular tutor for the students (my favourite role last year), voluntary staff photographer and committed attender.  Which, really, is just perfect for a year which will be dominated by study and assignments. 

I think the conclusion that I've come to is that I'm called to follow Christ and while I've heard all manner of preaching over the years concerning ones call to one church, one leader, I'm not so 'sheepish' as to buy it all hook line and sinker.  I'll go where I believe I'm meant to be, and for now, whether or not it remains true in the future, I'll stay where I am, believing that for a time I was paid staff which benefitted both me and my church but for 2009 I'm moving forward into whatever new thing God and/or Life has in store.

I couldn't be more excited.