I’m grieving over here

Well, I’m in a bit of a grieving process at the moment. It seems that quite a few things around me have changed; circumstances are different, people are leaving and close friends have fallen by the wayside. I guess amongst it all I am really beginning to find out what it is that makes me worried, stressed and depressed. I am finding out the things that I fear the most and how little control I have over those things I fear.

I used to be worried about what others thought of me; the way I was perceived by those around me was a huge driving factor of my life. I wanted to appear as though I was perfect, but in doing so learned that being perfect has its downfalls. I’m not trying to say that I am by any stretch of the imagination perfect but it would seem that human nature drives people to find a way of making apparent perfection into something else. I have also experienced how very destructive gossip is…

I am a bit of a clingy person when it comes to relationships with friends. It is a very devastating day when you realize that the friendship you believe you had so strongly was not really like that; a false sense of a relationship. I really dislike that the business of our lives from Sunday to Saturday stops us from remembering what is important in life, or more importantly, who is important in life. So I am grieving the loss of a close friendship that has come about simply from the realization that the intimacy of the relationship was simply fabricated in my own mind. This might take a long time to recover from but I know that with prayer and patience that God will heal even the deepest of wounds. I am also grieving for a new friend lost; someone that I was feeling I could relate to more and more over recent months, but is now leaving for many years.

My life to date has appeared to go from one obsession to the next; constantly looking for that one person who I can relate to on every level of my life. Whenever I believe that I have found that person I end up finding some way that it could never work: different interest, different continents or simply no time in the same proximity. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there could not possibly be one single human in my life that fulfills every partnership that my soul longs for; I have come to the conclusion that Jesus is the only person that could truly do that.

Looking back at my past blogs I see that I have already come to this conclusion many many times…GRRR I am such an imbecile. How many times God? How many times?

Rushing Winds

Rushing winds blow through this temple
Cleanse this heart and make me whole
By Your grace I come to You today

I was lost yet you call my name
Lead me on past the outer gates
To Your heart embraced in You I rest

Rushing winds pick me up today
Send me high, soar through outer space
Like a star shining for Your name

Rushing winds blow through this temple
Cleanse this heart and make me whole
By Your grace I come to You today

I kneel at the cross
My body is broken
The Saviour is there
No word to be spoken

Freedom is mine
Grace freely given
I soar with my Saviour
Redeemed and forgiven

I wrote this a while back, only now I know what it means. I've never cried so much in my life.

What to do...what to do

Dunedin, Alexandra, Queenstown, Invercargill. Four very different places. Four very cool destinations (well, maybe three)

The Youth Choir Tour was freakin awesome, although the shock to the body of going from 27 degrees in Auckland to 13 in Dunedin was not particuarliy welcomed. We did a lot of really good work and I was able to fix a friendship that had been on rocky waters the previous trip...

So I come home to find that my wonderful homegroup, who I love very much, has decided to change the day of our meeting to a Monday night without even talking to me...I have realised in subsequent days that this sounds really quite pompous but I think I have to say it to explain why I feel the way I feel. Monday nights don't work for me, its a night that I have dedicated for 5 years to Worship. not something that I can change. It then changed to a Tuesday night...the only night that I will invariably not be able to go...I love them all so much

So how I am feeling at the moment is rejected. I feel as though my friends are dead to me. I know that the problem lies within and that my ill feeling toward them is only about something I'm not happy about within me. For several years now I have felt as though all the depressing emotions that i feel about myself and life in general we connected with guilt over some habitual sins. I recently released that burden and yet still find myself feeling exactly the same way. Actually it is worse. Before I felt as though I knew why I felt this way, now I don't know at all. I have never really been scared about much, but now I am. I am scared that something inside me doesn't feel right and I don't know what it is.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight" Proverbs 3:6

This is all that keeps me going at the present.

The slow and drawn out end to the holidays

So, most of my friends have gone off to Kai Iwi Lakes. The most modern and hospitible place in the north island (sorry for the sarcasm I was brought up to tent with electricity)

Which leaves me to occupy myself for a few days until i fly to dunedin tomorrow. Yippee. New Zealand Youth Choir tour here I come. 10 days of hard work singing for 8 hours+ a day. Its my life and i'm so looking forward to it.

My mother brought home some juggling balls and decided that we should all learn to juggle...hilarity ensued...we are not the most coordinated of families but I've managed to get three working together somewhat haphazardly but at least they are working.

I have got myself into a somewhat unusual sleeping habit. Out of bed at 12.30pm and then back into bed a 3am. Thats what parachute will do to you i guess. I must try and change back to something regular before I need to be singing at 9am, not very easy when you are tired.

Parachute ‘06

Well, Parachute is over and I have to say it was unquestionably fantastic. There are many highlights to a music festival but for some peculiar reason the ‘music’ was not necessarily ‘the’ highlight that you would normally expect…Yet again, the power of astonishing people had to be the most valuable part of the weekend.

I am someone who would define himself as being typically a natural recluse. I’m the kind of guy who seems to instinctively shrink into himself, a natural born loner. However, through some divinely inspired machination of God’s will, over the weekend I was constantly finding myself in the presence of radically cool people.

Although at a festival of something around twenty-five thousand one would expect to find a sample of all kinds of cool new people, I was amazed that these radically cool people, that I couldn’t seem to ever lose, were all people that I already knew. Even when I was able to ‘get away’ from one of them, no sooner had I parted ways than I felt a hand on my shoulder or a bottle land on my head, or some arms link around my stomach and squeeze me tightly. There was someone to jump around and dance with at mumsdollar and reuben morgan, someone to discuss theological stuff with around the tent, someone to sit back and groove to some jazz with and someone to just simply watch, listen and make me smile. There was a little bit of everything that I needed.

Finally having some time to sit in that alone space I found myself curiously not so alone. I am always looking for where God is directing me and I have found that wherever I find him has tended to be where he wants me. I found him today, not in any one person or anything or any place, but in everyone… James, Chris, Casey, Jono, Jacob, Rosanna, Rachel, Alex, Alana, Darren, Jared, Mark, Strahan, Emma, Graham, Catherine, Jo, Tash, Cairin, Greg, Carmel, Leah, and Claire…just to name a few

They reminded me that God is with me always and forever. How can I ever be alone, if God resides in my heart?

My top Parachute Bands for 2006:
Delirious are amazing. And Reuben Morgan rocks my world.

Re: Messy Desk

Following today, my desk is also a lot cleaner.

Today...

I kneel at the cross
My body is broken
The Saviour is there
No word to be spoken

Freedom is mine
Grace freely given
I soar with my Saviour
Redeemed and forgiven.

Messy Desk

I’ve recently been trying to process some of the thoughts that have been piling on the small desk that makes up my mind. It is just like my messy desk, with its cluttered drawers and piles of paper and books meters high. I used to know where everything was in my desk, but there is just too much for me to handle on my own.

I have forgotten what most of it is all about but the thoughts on the top of my desk are all well known to me...thoughts that haunt my dreams, fuel my desires and plague me with guilt.

The problem with these thoughts is that they are blocking the valuable ideas buried beneath them. Ideas the God has inspired in me to help others come to know him better, ideas that will help me know him better. If only there was some way to put those thoughts into a box, and lock them away…

Your statutes are wonderful;
therefore I obey them.
The unfolding of your words gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple.
longing for your commands.
Turn to me and have mercy on me,
as you always do to those who love your name.
Direct my footsteps according to your word;
let no sin rule over me.
Redeem me from the oppression of men,
that I may obey your precepts.
Make your face shine upon your servant
and teach me your decrees.
Streams of tears flow from my eyes,
for your law is not obeyed.

Psalms 119: 129-136

5 months later and oh so much the wiser...pfffff

I certainly have found re-reading over earlier blogs of the first year of my university life quite an interesting revelation into who I am and what I have become over the year. For the simple reasoning of self-discovery I have decided that it is important for me to continue recording my thoughts as I develop in my relationship with others and with God.

I assume by now that even the most avid visitor to my little journal will now have been detered by 5 months of silence, but I guess that means I am a little closer to where I started and can allow people to discover it in time.

From now onwards, the primary purpose of this journal is not for you, the reader, but more intently for me, the writer. As I have already stated, this will be my physical outlet of thought so that I can more readily process ideas and come to more substantial outcomes. However I certainly do hope that others may find something in it that may inspire them to think about and idea or ideal that is relevant to them. I know there are many more wise and intelligent thinkers out there who may also be able to contribute to my thought processes and I welcome you to do so.

I have too many lives

I know so many of my friends at university that complain about the boring life they lead going to university, then to work, then to sleep and so on. I've often wondered why people do stick to a limited number of people and places and I think it is begining to dawn on me why.

In a way which is by no intentions arrogant, I know lots of people. Theres the people at the music department where I study, and in the Youth Choir, University singers, my maths buddies, home group, worship team, youth band, college mates, those overseas, my church mates, the people I teach/tutor, the children of my parents friends, old school friends, even older school friends. The problem that I have is that I know nearly all of these people on a similar level.

This has made me the most dry and boring 18 year old prune who can't have a d&m about his own personal life because he cannot develop a friendship that is close enough to share it with them. Even when people have said that they are there for me I can't believe why they should be. I can't spend time with one person without feeling as though I am neglecting someonelse. But in my attempt to stop neglecting someone, I myself am left feeling neglected because I don't put enough time into someone for them to care.

Hmm well that was some interesting self analysis. Sorry to bore you with raw emotion. I am attempting to put in onto paper (so to speak) so that I can figure out what the heck is going on with me. This may not be the best medium but maybe you can suggest something that will either help me or greatly entertain me.

I've got myself into this hole of self-depression about a life that by all reason should be fantastic, exciting and fulfilling and yet does not feel so. I feel as though I am following Gods direction for my life and yet that is not fulfilling...Lol how apt, Broken by Seether has just started playing on my ipod...

"Im broken, Im lonesome, I dont feel right...."

The problem I have is finding who can help me, from all those I know and love. Who I should put more time into...

Which natural phenomenon amazes you the most?

When I was a kid and watched Captain Planet I always wanted the power of wind - maybe it was because the girl with the wind power was a particularly hot Russian chick but I think it has more to do with the nature of the wind. The wind is kickass powerful. In the midst of it there is chaos and in its absence, there is serenity.

Which brings me to my story. I was sitting at a table looking at a piece of music that I am performing. It is a piece called Nebbie by Ottorino Respighi. I asked myself a question, "What do I see?" I then began to list all the things that I saw when I looked at the page. It had the name of the piece written at the top, many notes, lots of bars of linecrescendodos, forte markings, Italian lyrics, the composers name etc the list was comprehensive.

I had recently read a biography on the life of Ottorino Resphighi and in that it explained some other things about the piece that I did not first see with my eyes. It was then that I saw more in the piece; torment, pain, tension. What I was seeing was a new realisation about what music is the reflection of its composer, its creator. Without the composer the piece would not exist, I would not be thinking about it and I would know nothing about Ottorino Resphighi.

This brings me back to the wind. I walked down Symonds Street with the wind blowing ferociously and I asked myself a question; "What do I see?"
When you look at the natural phenomenon that amazes you the most, what do you see?

d-camp

Another camp over I and yet again got a huge amount out of it.

The youth band were so awesome. Its really cool to see a group of people that you have worked with worshiping God with all there heart and their music. Very encouraging.

On a more personal note an very significant revelation came to me while I was away. During the saturday night meeting we were led through an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Word. Not that this was anything new to me but because I was creating some atmospheric music with the keys I didn't really get an opportunity to join in the experience.

Earlier on in the afternoon everyone who I was with suddenly disappeared and so I took the opportunity to do some meditation. Over the past year and a bit I have been really struggling to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit work in me. For most of my life it has been a source of encouragement and support when I have needed it. All through my childhood years, Jesus was my best friend who was always by my side.

While Jesus is still my best friend, the overwhelming sense of him being close by my side has gone. Ever since I first felt the absence of the holy spirit, I have believed that there was something blocking me from God, some sin in my life that has held me back. While meditating in my cabin I yet again felt that sense of aloneness and separation from Jesus. Through much pain and many tears I begged God for the answer to why he has left me.

Then during the dinner I had a conversation with Heather which led into a discussion of different stages on the walk with Christ. She talked about the childhood stage where you simply accept everything to the adolescent stage when you begin to question those things that you knew to be true. She also talked about a stage that some people go through when the spirit leaves them completely. I was quite excited to find that Jesus is simply expecting me to trust in him. I don't need to feel the spirit within me all the time. If we ask to be filled by the spirit then we will be, regardless of whether we feel it or not. We need to do more than ask for God to fill us with the spirit, we need to be expectant that when we ask, we will be.

Even now that I know where Jesus is for me, I still do not know how long he expects me to wait for him. All I know is that he has a plan for me, even if it is ten years before I know what that is, I will be wait, trusting in Him alone.

My best friend

I've been trying to think of the best way for me to express myself on this blog and it has only just dawned on me that probbably the most insightful look on where I am in life and in my walk with God is through my music. So here is a song that I wrote to my best friend:

Broken I come here before you
Lay my life down at your feet
Weary of life and its burdens
Jesus, you're all that I need

So I lift my hands to you Lord
Open my heart to your ways
I stand in awe of your love and power
Fill me, Lord God, with your grace

Empty I stand at Your cross Lord
Left you up there far too long
My heart Lord you alone conquered
My best friend, my saviour, risen one

So I lift my hands to you Lord
Open my heart to your ways
I stand in awe of your love and power
Fill me, Lord God, with your grace

Em Em/D C

Em G D D/F#

G D/F# Em Em/D

C D G

C D G

Em Em/D C

D D/F# G Em

C D G

Introducing for the one and only time, Miss Penny Hinkler

This was a recent post sent to me by a good mate of mine expressing some encouraging points about a certain commentor that may have caused offense on my blog. I do warn you that if you do comment on his blog you may also get caught up in the imbecile alert panel (IAP) But this post is here as a warning to all, ignoring is the best solution. I also would like to warn that some of the posts on the site are highly highly offensive and not a place to go in a public place if you get what i mean...

And the greatest imbecile of the year award goes to…

Not many things in this world get me really angry.

Much less in the blogosphere. I don't think I've found a site that's made me angry. Sure, I've found heaps of stuff that bores me to breaking, and a fair bit of pathetic subject matter. That's everywhere.

Today was the first time I got angry over a blog.

And because I wanna do the right thing for my friends, and not just sit back and watch people who don't even know them, mock their looks, blogs and lives, taking action seemed like a good idea. Also, if I kept at it, someone may make a movie about me one day.

If you haven't been introduced to her already, may I warmly introduce to you Miss Penny Hinkler, and her site, aimed to seek out blog imbeciles and post her mind about them. Now, ok - we see stuff like this all the time on the net.

But check out this.

Yeah she's targeted two people I love ever so muchly (who might I add have taken it very well).

I laughed when I read her site for the first time. She has a point with a lot of blogs she talks about. She knows what's bad writing.

What I don't understand, is the fact that she can notice bad bloging so easily in others blogs, but totally miss it in her own.

Surely, Hinkler in her blogging superiority would have realised by now how mundane it is to read blog disses over and over again. No wonder it's only her and her strange friends contributing and enjoying this peculiar fetish.

Now, no doubt I will receive a backlash for writing this - but this isn't revenge. I think I'll call it... righteous retribution. This is a plead to Hinkler and co to stop doing this. I mean, I'll even ask nicely:

Please?

Music of the moment

Today has been a freaking fantastic day. From its beginnings in my Calculus lecture through rehearsals with Fundamentals to finding a tenor for my chamber choir; it has proven to be one of the best days I have had in Auckland. If that weren’t good enough, while I was round at Jono’s I got to experience some of the most awesome music I have ever heard. The Big Phat Band. Oh my goodness. This is the most tight band music, insane, crazy, wicked. Words do not even come close. And the vocal… you just have to hear it. The director of the group is a musician by the name of George Goodwin. An absolute legend in his own right he has some of the top jazz musicians in the world in this band. The dvd-audio we watched showed them recording live and it was flawless. Absolutely stunning.

Dream Theatre. Then I think I have found a band that tops Muse in my charts. The album is so well thought out. 70-something continuous minutes of pure epicness… And a final track that last 24 minutes and never gets boring. The chordal work is just so mind boggling that when something completely normal is used (like a perfect cadence used all over the place) it sounds really out of place.

On such a high. Will most definitely sleep very little.

Week of the movie

This week really has been the week of the movie. I really don’t think that I have ever had a week where I have watched so many movies, videos or other.

I have to say that the civic theatre is far funkier than I remember it being at Mamma Mia and it has to be the coolest place ever to watch a movie. It is International Film Festival Week in Auckland at the moment and for some reason I was dragged to a James Dean classic Rebel without a cause from the 1960’s. Thoroughly wicked movie, its most explicit scenes included a passionate, though tongue-less…I don’t think I will even deem to call it a kiss – they just kinda pushed their lips together… and special effects included a car driving off a cliff after a chicken run exploding on the rocks. Mighty stuff.

The Fantastic Four. I think I am almost getting a little sick of Marvel comics turned into movies. Some very cool effects – Mr. Fantastic freaked me out a little with his hand going under the door (remind anyone of shutting a door on their hands?) – and it really helped to explain The Incredibles a bit. Unfortunately, these Marvel comics follow such a similar plot with the same kind of ending (anyone else notice a parallel with Spiderman?) that they have become way to predictable. You think they could really come up with something a little more original. Like War of the Worlds…Hmm what can I say, thought aliens were wicked but what kind of ending is “oh yeah they died of the common cold” – so not convinced. But I guess that was H.G. Wells’ fault.

For some reason the maiming of people with axes and knifes seems so much more brutal than the use of a sword or a pistol. The opening scenes in Gangs of New York left sickness in my stomach that set the scene for a pretty good movie on the whole. Although I have to say I was quite disappointed that the ‘spoiling’ of DiCaprio’s face included a small black scar on his otherwise blemish-less cheek. The story of the early beginnings of New York was certainly interesting – quite a nice insight into western society in a day where democracy was preached and yet police had so little power to actually uphold it.

Far too many movies, not really enough work. Oh well. I guess that is the life of a music student.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Well I’ve just finished reading the latest Harry Potter book and have come to some interesting revelations.

There is some kind of magic in the magic of Harry Potter that is so tangible it feels almost real. The incessant desire to find out what happens next, what Malfoy is up to? Is Snape really trustworthy? What piece of the puzzle have I not quite figured out yet? In fact I think it is in the genius of J. K Rowling that has me so compelled.

I am a person who is intrigued by the mystery of Harry Potter. One of those people who like to figure out what is going on in a plot before they are actually told what happens. I think there is some failure in the writing, in that we cannot figure out what is going on before we are told, we can only guess. This is indeed the reason that compels us to keep going. It is J. K Rowling’s genius that to solve the mystery, we must read the entire book, indeed all of them. Each book gives us only a small piece of the puzzles plot and one without the others would make very little sense (except maybe the first) Indeed it is the most drawn out 7-book plot that I have ever read. There is more to J.K Rowling that simply good writing; I feel she is also a very shrewd businesswoman.

The only thing that I can say is that I am irritated by the time I have spent thinking about a book that has done more to annoy me that it is has to entertain me.

just a simple random question

is there anyone who visits this blog (which is a stupid parameter) who goes to Auckland Uni and is doing Maths 150 - i think im going to be all alone... oh well, if there is id love to know about it =)

The Unfortunate Truth of being an adult...

I have finally experienced the horrid side of independence...stuff costs. My mum finally convinced me the other day that after two years of avoiding the dentist I should probably go and see him. To my utter delight he said something about "really heathly teeth"- Woohoo, no stupid fillings for me. But then to my horror, he asked for 100 bucks just to tell me my teeth were heathly - what a rip off. It then dawned on me that mum did not have the slightest intention of paying and I was loaded with a fat bill that I dont really want. I know since then that I am actually got off very light - several people I know have to have lots of dental work and I should be happy with a hundred dollar bill. Still, it seems criminal to charge someone just to look at their teeth and say there was no problem. I think everyone should be dentists - theres a lot of money to be made...