Saying Goodbye to a True-Blue Aussie

So I've wanted to write this blog for a week now, however, I've been in New Zealand for the Make Change Conference.

As a result, I was away from the internet, and all other forms of media for the news that a true-blue Aussie, and brilliant actor, Heath Ledger had died.

I'm not going to wax poetic about the amazing man and actor that he was. He was only a couple of weeks older than me, and so I was actually the perfect age to watch his career develop. I remember rushing home from school to watch his first Television show "Sweat", and the questions I had when his character on that show was found to be gay. I remember going to see 10 Things I Hate About You at the movies, and laughing with my friends at how far that guy had come since Sweat! Heck, I even watched the TV Show "Roar" (though that had more to do with the Rent cast members that were in it than it was for Heath). Heath was a brilliant actor, there's no doubt about that. The thing I loved most about him though was his "I don't give a hoot" attitude about Hollywood. He was just an Aussie lad who happened to make it big in America. He was a first and foremost a loving father. In fact one of my favourite pictures I've ever seen of him is this one:




purely showing a dad who loves his little girl. Not a movie star who's actively seeking out media attention. But that's not what I want to write about.

As the news travelled by wildfire around the conference, there were many different reactions from "Who's that?" to "Who Cares?" To "How dare he". My initial reaction was one of shock and pure compassion for his daughter Matilda. At 2 years old, she will never get to know who her father is. All she'll have to go on will be what her family and friends remember about him and the movies that he's left behind. I think what bothers me most about this is that one day, she may decide she wants to read more about him, and will google his name - not to find stories about the brilliant actor he was, or the way in which he touched the lives of many around him - but she will find rumours and innuendo about how he died, why he died and so forth.

The fact is, right now we don't know how he died. We can guess it was an overdose, but there is no proof of that at this point, aside from the prescription pills found in his apartment. But the lack of evidence so far has lead to rumours and lies constantly being fed through the media and on the internet. Everyone is looking for that breaking story - following his friends and loved ones around. Trying to get the money shots of Matilda and her mother. It has become a circus. They're not allowing these people to mourn in peace, but are chasing them down. This does not honour the memory of a man who loved his daughter more than anything.

I was talking to some girls at the conference about it, when we had just heard he had overdosed. One of them turned to me and said 'You know what I think is the saddest thing, he has everything that the world says we need, but he still felt empty enough to fill his life with drugs. If he only filled his life with Jesus, he'd still be here today"... I got shivers. At the time I remembered what William Booth said in his famous "I'll Fight" speech:

"While there remains yet one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight, I'll fight to the very end"

I was challenged so much - how am I fighting for the light of God to be seen in the dark souls in my life? Heath was no more special or no less special than anyone else on this earth - every day there are people dying who do not know that they are loved and treasured by their Creator, and who takes pleasure in them.

But you know the saddest thing, is how some Christians have reacted to the death of Heath. For example the Westboro Baptist Church released this statement:




Two things on this:
1. Heath was not gay. He was an actor. He was a man who played the role of a man who loved another human being. Brokeback Mountain is a beautiful movie. Heath was brilliant in it. Christians have no right to judge Heath on his choice of movies, or confuse life with art.
2. God does not "hate fags". God loves them. He created them. What God hates is when we, those who say we love Him, judge and mock His creation. I know that I am called in my life to love those that the church often neglects to love. I have many many gay friends. I probably have almost as many gay friends as I have straight friends. I believe that what Jesus wants us as Christians to do is love people as He loves them. It is not our place to judge people. Who are we to be so special? So to the people at Westboro I say this - read your New Testament, and how Jesus loved people. Stop using one or two verses out of context to judge and mock one of God's beloved children. It is not making God proud of you with your convictions, it's making God angry. You are not helping Christianity, you are hindering it. So just stop.

And to you, my friends, I set you a challenge:
1. Pray for Matilda Ledger & Heath's family
2. Think very carefully before you buy into the lies and innuendo
3. Pray that God help you show the light of God to a dark soul or two this week.

So in closing I say this - I pray that Heath Ledger rests in peace. I pray that his family are left to mourn in peace. And I pray that Matilda will grow up to know not the trash that's on the internet, but that her daddy was a brilliant actor and that he loved her much.

The Cross marks the spot!

What an awesome weekend I've had. We've raised money to get two of our young guys to NZ, I've spent time with some of my most precious friends here in Geelong, and Torquay Live was AMAZING last night!

I try not to bore people with the details of my life on this blog (isn't that what Facebook is for?!?!) so I'm going to skip right on to church - Torquay Live and why it was so amazing.

As I've written over the past few weeks, we're doing a kind of "unplugged" approach to Live over the month of January - mostly because so many of our church family are away at the moment. So our band has gone acoustic, we're sitting around tables, and we're watching a DVD and then sitting around and discussing it.

Last night, we watched Loui Giglio's "How Great Is Our God" - the follow up to "Indescribable". Now I thought Indescribable blew my mind, but it had NOTHING on How Great is our God! I can't recommend sitting down and watching these DVD's enough. I will give you a warning though - they're hard to get into. He's very scientific in the lead up to the blow-your-mind point...but bare with him, because it's worth it.

The thing that has blown me away through this though is two single photos.

The first is this:

What is it you ask?! It's a photo taken by the Hubble Telescope - it's the centre of the black hole in the core of the Whirlpool Galaxy - over 31 million light years away. It's one of the largest and most distant Galaxies we can find. At it's core is a black hole, and at the core of that black hole Hubble took a photo of what NASA named "X". I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure I'd call that a cross, not an X!

The second is this:

Now I probably only know of one or two people who would know what this was at a look - Liz at my church and Matt in the UK - my two scientist friends. For those of you like me, who are looking at it and saying "Okay, so I get that it's shaped like a cross, so I get the point of including it but what is it?!" It's Laminin. The most basic description of Laminin (which I needed!!!) is that it is the glue that holds our body together. It's the molecule that holds together our skin, our organs, our muscles - and without it, we would literally fall apart. Our body is made up of millions of these Laminin molecules - which means that essentially, our body is LITERALLY hold together by the cross.

Phill left us with a thought - "One of the biggest things in the universe we've been able to find and photograph points us to the cross. And...one of the smallest things we've been able to find and photograph points us to the cross." Wow!

I am at a loss as to how you can see such beautiful pictures, and not believe that you were created by a loving God. Last night, the Psalm (139:14) that says "For I know that I am Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" took on a whole new meaning.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made - and at the very core of the universe and at the very core of you - Jesus placed a cross to remind you how very loved you are!

The bigger things in life

So over the past few weeks, I've had time to start to look at the bigger issues in life - not the little petty things we worry about but the things that affect who we are and who we are becoming.

One of those for me, is who I allow to speak into my life. As someone who takes what people say to heart, I need to be careful at who I allow to speak into my life. The problem with this is that I'm not very wise at it. I often carry comments people say to me deep within me for many years, when they could have (a) been a throw away line or (b) not even been about me - but directed at me because of where the person giving the comment was at spiritually or emotionally. This is something I continue to work on, but it's something that's kind of been coming to a head for me for a little while now. You see, I have a few people in my life who I really disagree with - theologically and emotionally they are my polar opposite. I love these people, and they are dear friends of mine. But I should not be allowing them to speak into my life. Meaning, I shouldn't be taking what they say on board. They are good Christian people, and I'm sure that what they are saying they think is the right thing - but the Jesus they profess to know, and the idea of church they believe in is just not my experience of Jesus and chruch. And yet sometimes after having a conversation (or debate - because we all know that I can hold my own when it comes to hearing things I disagree with!) I leave feeling condemned and inadequate. I'm sure that was not at all their intention - as I said these are dear friends of mine who have known me for a long time - but I carry their throw away comments and the condemnation and inadequacy for a long time afterwards. Perhaps they feel the same way - who knows?! But what I'm saying, is that I need to learn to be more careful at who's advice and guidance I am really willing to listen to.

The reason I've been thinking about this lately is that I've been trying to find a mentor figure I can see on a regular basis. I've always been surrounded by some of the most amazing people and brilliant pastors/officers/social workers/theologians/youth workers - right from an early age, I can remember discussions of theology, and youth work practice taking place around me. This is because of who my parents are, and the kind of ministry they have had - which in turn has meant that their friends have been great youth work practitioners, Officers, Pastors and social workers. As I got older and moved into the field myself, I was still always surrounded by these people, who took an active interest in my career - if for no other reason than they'd know me my whole life, and they wanted to "check in on me". Even as I gained more experience, for some reason I've always been able to surround myself with older and wiser mentor figures who I would see often due to the various meetings I'd have to attend, and who I would grab a coffee or a meal with afterwards to work through some of the deeper questions I had. These were people who saw me on a regular basis, took an active interest in me, and wanted to impart their passion, their wisdom and their experience onto the next generation. I've never "formalized" that mentoring relationship because I never had to. I knew I would see them either once a month, or every week in some cases.

Since moving to the Surf Coast now, I haven't had that. I'm not around the experienced practitioners, and they're not seeing or hearing about the work I'm doing. This has made my time with my Dad so much richer - because a lot of the things I'd normally wait and ask one of his friends rather than allowing him to impart his knowledge and wisdom - I'm needing to rely on him for. And as his daughter, I know he'll share more with me about things than he would someone he is mentoring - I also know he expects more of me than someone he is mentoring... a pressure I don't have with others. So there is a need for me to find a mentor. But when you are someone like me - who takes what people say to heart and not at face value - there is a need to find a pretty special person to do that, and how do you go about doing that?

For instance the ideal mentor for me is:
* Someone with a richer experience than me in Youth/Social/Welfare/Ministry Work (that's a given - and it could be in one or all of the above)
* Someone with a wider view of theology and spirituality than me (also a given)
* Someone who's not afraid to speak their mind
* Someone who values me when I speak mine - even if it differs from their opinion
* Someone who's willing to challenge me on areas I need to look at - but who does so in a loving way - not out of spite or negativity, but out of a genuine desire to see me become a better person.
* Someone who understands that as a mentor their responsibility is not to tell me what they think - but to share with me their journey - and get me to widen my thoughts and opinions
* Finally - someone who believes in me more than I believe in myself, who wants to see me develop into the best youth worker and person I can be, and who delights in my successes and helps me work through my failures without judgement or a sense of competition.

On top of that, they need to be someone I'm going to see, or who has time to invest regularly, not just once every now and then. But I'm finding that is exceedingly difficult to find someone as people are so busy nowadays!

At the end of the day, I think we all need that don't we? We all need someone we can go to, to bounce ideas off, to sit at their feet and grow and develop as people. And then in turn hopefully we can become the sort of people those younger than us can seek out to mentor. Perhaps you have already found someone, and that's great! Perhaps you're already mentoring, and that's really awesome!

So if any of you have any suggestions of who I might be able to approach, please let me know. If you don't, would you join me in praying that I can find that person? And I will pray that you too will find someone!

A few hopes for 2008

Well it's the New Year... so HAPPY NEW YEAR! What a great time to reflect on the year that was, and hope for the year that will be.

I've personally started the New Year off exactly how I wish to spend it - surrounded by friends, who love me and whom I love. We had a New Years Eve party at South Barwon Salvos (Mum & Dad's corps) which was filled with great conversation, a fun game of indoor cricket, way too much yummy food, and some...um... interesting performances in our Karaoke time. Midnight came and there were hugs and kisses and more conversations. I went home and sent my annual New Years email out, and headed to bed.

New Years Day was productive, and ended in me having dinner with my dear friends Sarah, James, Amelie & Wato. As I headed home last night I stopped for a moment and looked at how much my life has changed over the last 6 months. For example, my friendship with Sarah & James (and their delightful daughter Amelie)... I met them on January 21st 2007. Over the first six months of 2007 we would occasionally chat but it probably wasn't until my birthday that I really got to know Sarah. Now, just six months on, I couldn't imagine my life without her in it! It's nice to be around friends you don't have to try too hard with isn't it? I mean we always seem to have something to talk about, something to laugh about - and some of the best times I've had with them, have been in front of the telly or a coffee, or playing with their gorgeous daughter Amelie (who is my best friend, just ask her!!) It's a similar story for most of my friends I see on a regular basis now - they weren't even in my life this time last year, but now they are so important to me, I couldn't imagine not having them around.

So what are my hopes for 2008? I've made two resolutions.

1. To make more of an effort to strengthen my friendships. That means those that are just new, and those that I've had for many years but have lost contact with in the hustle and bustle of life. I needed to take 6 months to fully immerse myself into the culture of my new church and job, but now I've done that, I need to make more time for friends outside of Torquay too. So I'll be doing that more this year.

and

2. I need to see more Theatre, Musicals, Orchestras & live bands this year. Going to musical theatre (sorry to be a snob but pretty much only professional theatre!) is what I love to do to unwind, and I barely saw any shows last year. So this year, I'm going to make the effort to head down and see more musicals - starting with Guys & Dolls which my friend Troy is in, and then also Wicked when it opens (which I hope will have friends in too!). I also want to get down to Melbourne to see the MSO again. I'm going to check out when their free concerts are on, and go down with friends like I did last year. It's always a beautiful night. I'm also going to actually pay to see them once this year (I've yet to pay to see them!), perhaps when they've got some of their younger performers with them.

What about you?! What are your hopes and dreams for this year? I just know that 2008 is going to be a wonderful year. I can already feel it! :)