“Weekly Photo Challenge: (Illumination)”

one of my favourite pics ever!

some friends of mine ran a worship camp in the middle of a farm in Namibia and i was part of helping put the thing together – one of the best aspects was being out of cellphone contact and apart from some electricity for instruments it was amazing to be almost completely ‘unplugged’ for the four days of camping [knowing that hot water could be boiled on the fire for coffee helped]

the last nite of every ‘Namrock’ – as it was called – we would shine the projector with the song words at the mountain-side across the river where we were camping and sing off of the mountain. the idea of facing creation while singing to the Creator [as opposed to singing to God while facing a team of people leading worship] was just so incredibly powerful and a stunning representation to me of the word ‘Illumination.’

the campfire would illuminate the people in the camp, while the words would bring illumination to the songs reflecting the prayers and praise of our hearts… and all of this while God had already created the greatest light show on earth in the stars and planets and moon and shooting stars above…

one of those moments where you just wish the world could be stopped so you could fully appreciate it. altho every year it seemed like that is exactly what happened.

[For the previous Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Resolved’ click here]

Weekly Photo Challenge: (Resolved)

i really like this picture of me and the reason i chose it for this particular challenge is the idea of casting a wider shadow.

the past 18 months i spent as part of a non-profit organisation called the Simple Way which in some cases meant a broadening of shadow as i was given the potential to influence [to some extent] an organisation that is world-known and has an extended sphere of influence and audience…

but in other ways my personal influence was limited as i put my weekly ‘Thort for the Week’ emailings largely on hold, for six months stepped away from blogging and for the most part did not have opportunity to speak to gatherings of youth or church peoples as i used to regularly used to.

and now a lot of that is about to change. not that one is necessarily better than the other. but in 2013, as in the photo, i am hoping to cast a longer shadow.

i will be starting up my weekly TFTW emails again and continuing to blog in a way that hopefully engages with people and it sounds like there will be opportunities in Oakland to do one of my favourite things – speak to people about God and Love and ‘life to the full’ness…

how are you hoping to be of positive influence to others this year?

[For the previous Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Surprise’ click here]

a kiss before dying

my cousin Laura died two days ago.

she was 30. recently married. then cancer reared its ugly head. absolute tragedy.

just before she went into hospital i did get to send her an email and let her know that i loved her and was praying for her and her family and hoping for a miracle from God [which sadly never happened, not how i was hoping anyways]

so it was really sad, but there was also a strong sense of love and support of friends and family surrounding her in the months leading up to her death.

last nite i went onto facebook and saw message after message, from a whole variety of unlinked friends of mine across the country, mourning the death of Burry Stander, aged 25, a South African olympian mountain biker who was killed on Thursday while training after being hit by a minibus taxi

i didn’t know Burry, but a lot of my friends clearly did [either personally or just as fans and supporters]

i doubt any of them got to send him an email before he died.

for the most part, we just don’t know when we are going to die. or when those around us are.

FUNERALS

i have a love hate relationship with funerals.

i know they happen because someone died and so they are meant to be times of sadness, but for the most part i have enjoyed the ones i have been to… when they have been celebrations of the person’s life, rather than simply testaments to the fact that someone has died. i especially love the open mic. time when it happens when friends and family are invited to come forward and share a story about the person they love who has passed on.

but i am also always pretty bummed that the one person who really should be hearing the stories is not officially around to hear them. so one of my big dreams in life [and i guess some might think it’s a pretty sick one] is to come back to life once my funeral has started [open casket] and be able to eavesdrop on what people are saying [and let’s be honest to be able to shout “that’s a load of crap” if someone gets up and starts eulogising me who never had much good to say about me when i was alive. [with dreams like that, maybe it’s a good thing i don’t sleep more?]

the point of today’s scribing is this – how much more amazing would it be if we got to tell people just how much we love them and how much they mean to us, while they are still around to appreciate it?

i want to invite you, to challenge you, to do that! just for one person [for now at least and then maybe someone else tomorrow or next week] who you really care for and who maybe you haven’t told recently [or at all] how much you love them.

but i also want you to share with me who you do it to [i want to hear relationship so not the person’s name but simply a label of friend, family member, work colleague, girlfriend… whoever they are to you] and i want you to pass this challenge on to three other people [and i want to know their names] to encourage them to do the same…

so decide on one person in your life who you want to encourage [verbally, by email, by handwritten note, carrier pigeon?] and three people who you want to send this challenge on and in the comments section of this blog write it down like this:

encourage: my cousin
challenge: Ted, Bill, Napoleon

and then go and do it.

One way to make your mark [in the ongoing journey of the andersons]

So yesterday i wrote a post sharing a deeper glimpse into the future life, work and ministry of the andersons over here – we will be joining a non-profit called Relational Tithe with a working platform called Common Change which, in a very big nutshell, gathers resources from a group of people and then uses them to meet advocated needs from people within the group.

It is a very exciting project and both Valerie and myself are super amped for it. Neither of us are huge fans of the whole asking people money in support thing [although i have less of a problem when it comes to spending other peoples’ money on something i really believe in, it’s just the asking that is generally awkward] but this looks like it is the way this thing has to go – we will be committing to an 18 month period and so it will be a closed ask [as opposed to “support us for the next ten or twenty years”] which makes us feel a little more comfortable as well.

I shared yesterday that Common Change is in line for a matching grant which means that if people pledge donations of up to $1000 then Giving of Life will match whatever is donated up to and including that $1000. Currently Common Change is sitting on $225 and so has $775 to go. The deal has just been sweetened for us by Common change committing to using the $1000 extra they get [if reached] towards our plane tickets and this is where you come in.

This is a way that you can make a donation towards a really great project [the money raised will go towards admin and site hosting costs to ensure that 100% of the tithed money from the groups continues to go towards the needs being met] and also contribute towards our flights back here [mid Feb] and the start of our next journey.

So if you are able to donate $5 or $10 or even $50 or $100, every little bit helps a lot and it will take a whole bunch of people donating a small amount to reach the $1000 pretty easily – if you would like to do that then head here and add your bit. If you don’t have money to donate [or even if you do] there is also a space on that page to vote and the top three receive some kind of bonus [if you sign up via Facebook and Twitter you get two extra votes which you can use – voting is free and i don’t think puts you on any spam lists]

thank you for your time and interest and possible donation or vote… every little bit counts…

[if you want to be more personally involved in our journey then drop me an email at brettfish@hotmail.com and let me know how you would like to be involved]

“Weekly Photo Challenge: (Surprise)”

i think Freddy Mercury said it best when he sang, “Can anybody find meeeeeeeee, some bunny to love.”

at first glance this may not seem to fully encompass the theme of ‘Surprise’

but what if i told you that your name was the beautiful Val [tbV] and it was around 2 in the morning and you had gone to sleep after a bit of a rough evening and been woken up to this friendly bunny [let’s be honest – somewhat more Donnie Darko than Easter Bunny] with a bit of a written script for you to read followed by an on the knee proposal? [did i mention it was the second proposal? the uber romantic, mountain-edge picnic and champagne and strawberries with chocolate one having gone less successfully a month or so previously]

Surprise? Yes.
Scary. A little
Successful? You betcha. Who can say no to a bunny?

tbV and i are going on for three and a half years of marriage and i can definitely declare that marriage to the right person is good…

[For the previous Photo Challenge with the theme ‘Delicate’ click here]

Weekly Photo Challenge: (delicate)

nope, i just couldn’t do it.

narrowed my selection down to two and was trying to pick the photo that best represents ‘Delicate’ to me, but really could not choose between these two, so decided i had to share them both. what strikes me about the selection is the two completely different interpretations of the challenge that are presented:

the first one is a picture of our Christmas tree star:

“not a star?” i hear you thinking [as you roll your eyes exasperatively] – i beg to differ. did you not watch the Avengers? He was THE star! Well his alter ego and Ironman at least. So anyways a cardboard cutout where the precision scissor-work and folding are what shine out the theme. Why do i love it so much and why has ‘the Hulk’ earned the coveted spot at the top of our tree? Well, we live in a poor and broken-down community and one day, one of the kids on the block [but not one of the ‘New Kids on the Block’ cos that would have been doubly celebrationary] knocked on the door and when i opened it he handed me cardboard Hulk which he had made for me [to go alongside the 3D Hulk card and bobble-head Hulk that live in our kitchen] earning him immediate star ranking.

the second picture experience was a little more personally and pain-inflictedly delicate for me:

i had wanted dreads for many years and at this point had had two mostly failed attempts to get them done and so i decided to call in the professionals [or so i thought] – went to this African hairdressers and they twisted my hair up really tight and as painfully as they could possible imagine, pinned it that way and told me i had to keep it in for two days [which involved delicate sleeping attempts on my dad’s lazyboy chair as any pressure put on them was excruciating] and then the whole shop pretty much laughing at me two days later when i told them i had [some kind of subtle and weird in-house punked experience i imagine] and when they were taken out they looked more Michael Jackson than dread and only lasted a week or two… so lesson learned… [and the real working dreads i know have, courtesy two really good mates of mine, are growing strong and steady]

[For the previous Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Reflections’ click here]

sad brett and the malicious facebook status update.

brett is sad.

he has just read another facebook status of someone who has clearly had a dispute with a friend of theirs.

instead of going directly to that person, face to face, one on one and with much hope, love and positive anticipation seeking restoration of the friendship, and a righting of the wrong, that person has decided to air their frustration and anger publically for everyone to see.

another cringeworthy facebook status. brett reads it. brett is sad.

brett takes a sideways glance at the mirror and tries to think back on times he might have used his facebook status or twitter tweeting to take a dig at someone, for something they did to him, or perhaps even simply something he perceived was done ‘to him’ [this does not make him any happier]

but for now as an outside third party, who has absolutely no idea what the wrong that was committed was, except that someone now is a ‘bitch’ and the likelihood of that sparking a search for restored relationship feeling not altogether high, brett wrestles internally.

he wonders if there is any hope that if he addresses the issue that it will make any difference at all. what if he was to write a blog about it? surely everyone who read the blog would sit back and realise, ‘Wow, I have been that person. I have taken offence publically at someone instead of personally going to them and seeking relationship and restoration from them. Never again will I go to my Facebook or my Twitter status as the place where I vent at people who have done me wrong. From now on I will go directly to them. I will seek relationship with everything I have. I will look at myself and where I possibly have gotten it wrong and take ownership of that.’

but he’s not sure they will. brett suspects it will be the age old dilemma. the people who will read his blog and click ‘like’ and hit ‘share’ and comment favorably will be the ones who do not rush to Facebook statuses [stati?] and Twitter to air their hurts and disappointments at people. they will be the ones who, when offended, will firstly take a look inwards to see if they themselves are the cause of any of that offence; they will be the ones who approach their friends with love and the invitation to talk it out gently; they will be the very ones who didn’t need to read the blog in the first place.

the choir belts out another verse…

while the diva sits sulking in her dressing room.
outraged by the fact that the specifically requested brand of bottled water was not delivered.
that the green M & M’s outnumbered the brown ones two to one.
that the curtains are ‘that horribly garrish olive green’

so why does brett write that blog, if he knows he is preaching to the choir and that his words are drowned out by the world-is-against-me sobs of the barricaded-in-her-dressing-room songstress?

because brett is forever hopeful.
always holding on to the ‘what if’.
what if… someone were to somehow accidentally stumble across his scribbled out thoughts and see themselves reflected back and somehow hear the distinct melody of a different, better way of doing things?
what if… as a result of reading the this, someone went directly to go and erase the that and decided instead to drop a brief note into their friend’s inbox, an invitation to meet up and see if things can’t be worked out differently?

it is the ‘what if’ that compels brett to think it is worth having a go.
and so he does.