John: The gospel for non-linear thinkers.

My guess: "bread" - 2nd
form the top, "Vine" - maybe
the third one? "Light" - really
no idea. 

I never used to like this gospel.

I love the gospel but my early Christian exposure had been in the book of Mark so John had always baffled me with all those crazy ideas about Jesus being things he couldn't possibly be - 'bread', 'light', 'the resurrection', a 'vine'. Come on.


Precisely because that I didn't like one of the gospels but do love the gospel, I chose John as my book to read each morning and seek to understand. And it has been great! I have been praying for God to reveal himself to me more through his word and He has! I think I might write a post on what he's been teaching me and some other Thai women who have been reading together. In short because we know Jesus, we know the creator of all things so we know we have what we need to live, and because we know where Jesus came from and where he is going, when we are united to him this becomes our history and our future, so we are free to use this inbetween time (that we call 'life') to love others. It's a very reassuring gospel.

Wonderfully, at the same time, I have also been writing an essay on art therapy for a psychology course I'm taking. In Art therapy sessions, the art that the client creates is often used to set off metaphorical dialogue (e.g. If you were a line in this drawing you've done, which would you be? Who would the others be).

The link with Jesus' picture-language is that both are forms of metaphorical language. Metaphors are great for engaging with non-linear thought - thought that shoots off in many directions at once, rather than standing one theme and points that follow each other in a clear sequence.

Linear Thought 

Non-Linear thought

Borrowed from alesysabags

It's the kind of thought that underlies creative thinking (sometimes I wish I could just stick to one sequence) and the kind of thought that influences dialogue in many in non-Western (Socratic) cultures. If you want to read more about this, you could check out Carley Dodd's (1982) "Dynamics of Intercultural Communication" or this article by Zahrana (1995) on Arab communication patterns. 

I think this might be the reason John works so well in a Thai context. I've noticed Thai people love to use picture language in their own exchanges. And apparently they engage with John much better than I first did. Some find it quite natural to transfer between the physical properties of bread (which meets our hunger, and makes us full) and abstraction to Jesus' life and work (meeting our need, and making us full and never hungry again). But I really needed to understand it for myself first before I would have dared to invite others to engage with it.

Putting up with stuff

I'm not very good at it!

Nor are many in the developed, progress-oriented city where I live.
Most of the time this discontent keeps the progress going, both personally and as a society. But...

I had a day recently when I was tired, and was rather overwhelmed by that day's decluttering job in the apartment we're cleaning at the moment. It was one of those ugly days when task-focus overcame thankfulness. Enter the (my?) old trap of hyper-criticism. Yuk. Especially when a boiling heart spills out on to others.

As I was thinking of how to apologise to a friend (>.<), I got thinking about a rather old word: 'Forbearance.'

Why? Well, it seemed like the opposite of hyper-criticism. And much more like how God has treated me than nagging correction.

I figured I'd better translate it into the 21st century if I was ever going to understand it. Enter Google.

I'd like to start training my forbearance muscle. Building good habits of not speaking out about every ill, especially when friends are trying to be helpful. It's easier with some than others and sure helps to remember how overwhelmingly thankful I am for them and how patient God is- 1 John 1:9 :)

The Apartment: 15 years cluttered, uninhabited

An update from a project I'm tackling this summer:

For seventeen years, our family has felt helpless and ashamed at the thought of clearing out an old apartment we own. Even articulating this life-obstacle has been difficult. A friend suggested I describe it as: “My family’s apartment, uninhabited for many years, full of family stuff. I was thinking I might like to live in it and could use some help clearing it out.”

But description escaped me recently as I did call on friends for help. I made it sound like it was just a case of not wanting to clean my own place. “But that’s not the case at all,” he remarked. His comment helped me see how it is a rather atypical situation, just one I’d lived with for somany years like ugly wallpaper. I guess I couldn’t fathom a vocabulary for a task that had often felt so enormous and defeated us (my other felt it especially) so often, yet was just a matter of cleaning - so normal. This reflection may sound overly dramatic to some, but actually it is a big deal. Acknowledging the drama is the step I forgot. The apartment sat uncleaned, uninhabited, unused for its intended purpose. We lived with "the apartment we couldn’t clean after my father died" (suddenly, in 1995) for seventeen years, paying strata fees and collecting no rental income.

But this week, some great people – friends - came to help. My mother had felt so helpless for so many years. And today we had friends to help. That, in itself, is astonishing. And, I think, highlights a key difference between my life experience in community and my mum’s migrant isolation.

I erred grossly by not taking a “before” shot. Just picture baskets of miscellaneous "stuff" everywhere.

"Simply to live?"

Why call this blog "Simply to Live?" Two reasons, really.

1. Simply to Live! 
I'm on about life! I love making the most of it, enjoying all the things our bodies can do, beautiful sea views or from moutaintops - all the wonderful things around us. But sometimes these things are hard to see. I'm on about 'living' those bits too. Just 'living' is a privilege. And it's so great to learn that young.

I also have a bit of a wacky life now after a few big atypical decisions. So wacky that sometimes my friends find that hard to follow. I get to do so many exciting (often unusual) things, I recently deemed my life blog-worthy. Who knows, maybe starting my own blog might also help me to slow down and reflect on all my 'living.' As I am learning, too much of a good thing isn't always good!

2. Simply to Live
I think it's totally liberating to discover what you actually need to live - then you don't need to worry that you won't have enough {whatever} to afford it. I love my God who never fails to provide for me as beautifully as He has clothed the lilies of the field. I've also had to get rid of lots of 'stuff' recently. There's nothing quite like standing among once-treasure-now-trash to make you realise how much life isn't about that. Simple joys :)

(But I do 25-words-or-less competitions because if that's how God is going to grant me a European holiday, who am I to stand in his way?!)

Holidays

How do you holiday?

Apparently it's an Art. With a capital 'A'.

The art of balancing fun time, down time, time with the various people you can't see when you're not on holidays. I did some thinking about 'true re-creation' last summer and managed to find a nice balance (after several false starts!) The key: getting the needed rest from work and engaging in true re-creation, that which would refresh and re-energise. Travel, as I've discovered of late, is optional.

So far this summer has been filled with - Christmas!

Spending time with a cherished family from whom I borrow my Christmas traditions. So much love :) 

Christmas shopping with a dear old friend. Laughing over 'bad photos' is the best!

The Choir singing at our Christmas Eve midnight service.

Hearing from a favourite steadfast preacher.

It was lovely having mum and my Aunty (who lives down the road) stay for Christmas and join in on the festivities. Mum especially enjoyed the 2012 ET-esque 'glowstick' for our annual rendition of 'Silent Night'. 

 

It's also been fun being a tourist in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, where I'm living for the summer. A change is as good as a holiday, they say. Why not take a change as a holiday? 

Smooth Moves - said no one ever!

So I moved house lately. When I told a neighbour in the lift, he shared a common thought:

"Oh moving's the worst"

Yea, it was pretty manic. It felt that way especially whenever I chanced upon the thought in my mind in the lead up. But boy was I thankful for good help from a friend (a self-titled 'underdog') who guessed (accurately) that I didn't have much idea what I was doing, let alone manpower. So he, very kindly, turned up with my brother, a ute and shared a few tips. Boy, was I thankful.

Did you know you can ask your local supermarket for their used boxes? This was his tip and a revelation to me. And meant I didn't have to spend anything on packing boxes and could keep going back when I needed more. Sure, I ended up with a bit of a reputation at the local Woolies, but what's that for convenience?

(thankful also for my former life as a box packer) 

Now I'm living with a Chinese-Egyptian family I met through their take-away shop. When I was working on campus, their chicken naan was the cheapest option when I forgot to bring food from home. I was quite the regular - now I live with them. Well, I guess some might call that usual... :p

Hi there :)

My name's Amanda and I'm starting this blog because something crazy happened to me this year that changed my life - and my lifestyle. I want to let you know about it so we can take this new life journey together if you like :)

Let me tell you about it. It starts with this greeting card.

I loved getting this card. I'm sure the person who gave it to me didn't even realise how or why I'd love it. At first, I liked it because I thought it looked like me, see:

But then one day, I ended up looking like this!

And it was around that day that the card became truer of me.

When they saw that photo, I think some of my Facebook friends thought I was having radiotherapy for Cancer or something. But that's not true, it was just impacted wisdom teeth. Four of them. Ouch.

But just like surviving cancer or something like that can change the way you look at the world and the way you make the most of life, so did receiving what I needed to have that operation :)

I've been working a (wonderful but) low-income job (that I love) the last two years. In deciding to do that, I knew it would leave me little money to spare. It wasn't the most popular decision in my family-of-origin so going to them for help was a little (!) less-than-tempting. Two days before that photo was taken, I became totally overwhelmed by the cost of the operation, overwhelmed by work at the time, overwhelmed by health and difficult relationships, basically overwhelmed by life. That's unusual for me - I can be pretty annoyingly-Pollyanna sometimes!

But then someone gave me $1000. A couple who only knew half the story. Just after I'd prayed to God asking for help in all those things. And that's when the war paint went on. War. On. Fear.


Telling a friend how overwhelmed I was feeling helped me to see that I was being consumed by fear of all those things. And what specifically I was afraid of. Fear that was telling me things like "you won't be able to get your work done/your savings WILL run out/nobody will be able to pick you up from the hospital after the anaesthetic...and then won't you be doomed." And it was controlling me and stopping me from trying new things, holding me back in life.

But none of those things happened, did they?

Repeat: Someone gave me $1000. To pay for the operation. Umm..? Thank you?

Two days later I was eating jellies and icecream and my teeth had come out. Not even a post-operative ache.

Picking me up after the operation...

That day, life for me stopped being dominated by fear. That makes life a lot cooler, hey?

Well, fear of those things at least. Let's see what happens next.