Travelling teacher

Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year. I am acutely aware how Christmas is a painful, difficult lonely time of the year for so many. We know Christmas is about being with loved ones, but we find we're reminded more of those we love who aren't with us than those who are. Everything slows down for a couple of weeks, just long enough for those feelings we can normally push below our busyness to surface. Because we tell ourselves everything hurts less after a while. And it does. Until it doesn't. Family holidays like Christmas are great reminders of this fact. Separation always aches. It doesn't matter where in the world you come from, how you've lived, who you've known. It doesn't matter if you've feasted with kings or begged for every meal. Separation is our greatest fear as a human race. Every other fear is driven by an underlying fear of separation. It's why we function as the best, kindest versions of ourselves when we are secure in our ...

Second year at BSSM - what a whirlwind journey! The last few weeks have been incredible and very difficult to describe but I'm going to do my best. From an inside perspective: If I had to choose one word to sum up this journey so far it would be tears. Every class and church day have had tears at some point. Every day. It turns out when you ask God to help you love people better, he helps you love yourself and see his love for you better and that inevitably involves a few tears. Or a lot, actually. Some moments, I know why I'm crying, many moments I don't, but I feel so alive and I trust the process. Or, more specifically, I trust Him. His kindness, His faithfulness, His wisdom. I was trying to describe this year to a friend today who did BSSM2 last year. I said I've been learning to connect my head and my heart without shutting off either, while still being led by my spirit and not my heart without ignoring my heart, being okay with not understanding without ignori...

It was a week ago today. In another world. A colder, more beautiful world. A world living in tomorrow. It was D-day, the morning of. I was at the beach and I knew it was the last time I would be at the beach for a long time. Though any time from the beach is a long time. The water was still, the sun was bright, my heart was full. I didn’t want it to go away. For a split second I wondered if I ought to even let it. It was D-day, and far too late to be wondering such things. Yet everything was perfect in that moment and it hurt to walk away. A lingering pang I just couldn’t quite shake, not in the world of tomorrow, nor in the world of today, nor in the world of yesterday where I was headed all the same. So I kept my wonderings to myself for the most part. Travel is a beautiful, kind, painful gift. Whenever I think about how slim the chances of me landing in the timeline of history where travel is so normal, I feel such gratitude. But with the ability to travel further more easily, ...

This morning I went to the beach for a bit, and was reminded of something I wrote in a writing class during this last year at BSSM. This is a little different from my usual blog posts (if such a thing were to exist!) but here it is. Peace. A strange, simple word. With a plethora of interpretations, twisted and molded to mean whatever its holder wishes, I like the peace Scripture defines. This peace is an inside job, something beyond understanding, beyond reason, beyond circumstance. It is anchored in hope in the One whose reasoning transcends human logic or wisdom. Inspired by trust I can only build through my undeniable evidence of a faithful God, peace has been a theme in my life to an extent I could almost consider uncanny. My favourite place to be is the beach. I love the paradox of peace in my soul brought by violent waves. They crash with such power and force, yet somehow the repetitive motion is lulling. When I was a child, our family would stay near the beach on holi...

This post is a little challenging to write, and I almost didn't. The last couple of days have been to say the least, difficult. A struggle. Painful. My heart has been aching in a way I didn't know it could. So it seemed silly in a way to bring up the emotions and it's taken some time for me to get to a point where I'm even willing to process things in writing.  I hurt for the families and loved ones of those who have been lost in Christchurch, for the violation of what is most precious for the Muslim community, for the relentless trauma the city has been put through. My prayers and aroha are with you, your grief is mine also. You are not alone. But despite the horror, despite the tragedy and the hate, there has been an overwhelming response which has struck so much deeper. Love. Even saying the word is wrecking me all over again. It's like every time I see a kindness, another layer is peeled off the walls of my heart trying to control the feels. And oh, the kin...

Today is my birthday. Well, kind of. Coming from the other side of the ocean where they live a day into the future, my born day was actually yesterday. Which, as my brother pointed out, would have made me a leap baby had I been born here, and this year would be one of the 22 years from my life so far that my birthday did not exist. Kind of a crazy thought I'm still processing, but it's okay - I'm getting fairly used to processing things these days! (A day in the life of a BSSM student). But, gratefully, I was born on the other side of the ocean, so my born day still exists, even if it has taken a little longer to arrive than normal! So enough on that already. Today, I became a cube, for the third time out of what will probably be four times in my life. And not just any cube, but the cube of three. If, like me, you are part of the (very small) minority in this world who find mathematics beautiful, you understand just how special this really is. But if not, the signif...

It's just gone 7pm. Outside the falling rain makes a rhythm almost musical, the sun long since having disappeared for the day. I need milk. Contemplating the 7 minute walk up the road I decide the two minute drive is embarrassingly preferable so I settle here to update my blog. I made lolly cake today. A quadruple batch actually. Next weekend is our international festival of cultures and my role is supplying 100 servings of lolly cake. Yay sugar! It has been quite the process finding equivalent ingredients to replace eskimos and malt biscuits as well as settling for inferior coconut - apparently desiccated  coconut isn't a thing here. My housemates have happily obliged in being experimented on, which has helped me come up with something of some resemblance.  But now I'm just rambling. Update on life here - I've been so busy I've barely noticed I'm missing out on my third summer in a row - thanks guys for all the beach posts! But joking aside, it's been...

The last two weeks of class have had me thinking. A lot. We have a bunch of different classes. We have our main session class, which all of the first year students attend, optional classes we sign up for, optional projects we sign up for, meetings with our RG, a group of about 70, and meetings with our small group (four of us) or core group (20 of us). Then we have homework, sometimes short answer questions, sometimes mini book reports, sometimes self assessments. It is crazy to me, and no coincidence, how even though I am the only person here with my distinct combination of classes and homework experiences, so often the message I'm getting, the 'thing' I'm working on, is consistently addressed throughout. Lately, it's been mindsets. One of the speakers we had last week said something that's stuck with me, "Any area of your life that isn't glistening with hope shows you're believing a lie." Wow. There are a lot of lies I have been believi...

What a year! According to my Google 2018 review I visited 12 countries and 41 cities, travelling the equivalent distance of 1.5 times around the world. Kinda crazy, all things in perspective. It's that time of the year when people reflect on things and with my first day of school for the year tomorrow, I guess a bit of that has rubbed off on me. Many of the best and worst moments of my life have happened in the last year. I have met some incredible people, had some of the greatest victories and the most impressive failures, the deepest feelings, significant moments, craziest adventures, challenging circumstances, I could go on.             So what have I learned from it all? There's a song from one of my favourite bands that says,  "Ashes from the flames  The truth is what remains The truth is what you save From the fire And you fight for what you love  Don't matter if it hurts  You find out what it's worth...