i see old people…

i came across that proverb this morning and it blew me away.

i remember hanging out with my uncle John Fee [my mom’s british brother] a few years ago when they came to visit us in South Africa and we had met up a bunch of times in life, although i was generally of the seen-and-not-heard age and so we didn’t engage in much meaningful conversation… and then this day he was in the lounge and i popped in to be good mannered and we ended up having a conversation of which some part at least related to intentional communities [we were just about to leave for the Simple Way i imagine] and how they had been going on for longer than just the latest fad book that had come out and inspired me, and proceeded to tell me a little bit about some of the history of intentional community over a much longer period of time than i had presumed.

i remember walking away from the interaction thinking something along the lines of, ‘Man, i have missed out.’ what i pity i never got to really know that man. and since then i have sort of made up for it by befriending pretty much all 80 of his children, children’s children and children’s children’s hamsters [or was it a guinea pig?] on Facebook and keeping them entertained with my very silly Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect videos…

the point being, that i realised, although maybe not in so many words, that when Uncle John dies [and hopefully not anytime soon] a whole library will have burnt to the ground.

MAKE SURE YOU READ THE BOOKS

and how sad will it be if more people have not at the very least paged through and been entertained and taught and inspired by some of the books before that happens.

this feels like something that should be taught to young people at a young age [ask old people their stories!] and feels like it may be something that happened one time with the focus always being on ‘hey, let’s be nice to the poor old people and let them speak to us’ and with a lesser understanding or grasping of the wealth of experience and life and learning that they might have which might inspire and encourage and teach us so much.

i thought a lot of the same things when reading through the autobiography my dad wrote a year or so ago, or every now and then when he whips out another classic unexpected story from his life.

and i am hoping that this all makes me more intentional in terms of taking time to invite people to share their stories with me, in particular, older people who are likely to have more stories… i think we tend to underestimate the power of stories shared.

in terms of the race conversations we have been starting on this blog, i am pretty sure that story-telling is going to play a huge part in heading us in the direction of reconciliation and resitution…

in terms of the Taboo Topics that i try to find stories about on my blog, it is through stories of journeys people have walked that others are encouraged and strengthened and also hopefully inspired to share their own stories with at least someone, if not with us all…

who is the older person in your life with a story you really need to hear? and when are you going to do about it?

Extending the connection.

I have about 300 subscribers to my blog at present and about 300 likes on my blog page on Facebook and am figuring they are not all the same, so if you follow me on here and feel up to it, it would be great if you could take a moment and go and like my Facebook group page which will give other people a better chance of finding it… if you want to go one better and SHARE it on your wall that would be most appreciated: https://www.facebook.com/IrresistiblyFish

I am on The Twitter as i like to call it because let’s be honest there is only one – and you call follow me there @brettfisha if you want to and again if you generally like the stuff here why not give a shout out for @irresistibleFsh [no i] because there is no ‘i’ in Fish, especially when your name becomes to long for The Twitter to handle] which is my official blog The Twitter account. Thank you.

If you want to go one more step ridiculously further, then I have a You Tube account where I make both silly Brad Fish videos like this Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect series over here as well as this Walking through the Gospel of Mark in the Bible series over here but i think the You Tube account, if you are wanting to subscribe to the whole thing, resides over here. For some reason I had to go with Mr Brettfish as my username [perhaps the lead singer of Suede in the UK has a You Tube page]

That’s pretty much it – the only other way I have for you to follow me is a lot more stalkery and I’d quite rather you didn’t. I am at least three years away from ‘rummaging through my trash’ status unless of course I manage to finally stumble upon a comedy video format that someone actually watches, likes and passes on to their 12, 000, 000 friends but my aversion to working with kittens and small children makes this unlikely.

I leave you with this quote – ” ”

Sorry that should read “with these quotation marks” although they are probably called something different in Americaland.

So for passing on sake I will close with a picture of a kitten and a small child.

Thankx for journeying with me, those of you who do. Comment more. Share more. And send more melted chocolate…

I can Learn you a Thing

Sometimes in the present context of the life in which i live, there are moments where i need to just be incredibly silly for a few minutes just to remain sane.

This started me on a journey with my alter ego, Brad Fish, who embarked on a series of Public Awareness video clips with the series titled ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ in which each episode Brad would look at something you might not consider dangerful like Paper or Birthdays, Flying, or my own personal favourite Violins, and he would uncover the hidden dangers lurking behind their mist.

There are something like 22 videos in that series and you can see them here and subscribe to the channel for such a time as when he might make some more.

But it was after the ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ video on Punctuation was used in at least five different schools in South Africa’s English Departments that our Brad thought he might be on to something and so he started dreaming of a new series that was more educational in nature and so ‘I can Learn you a Thing’ was invented [although at the time of it going to press, Brad forgot the brilliant name he came up with and so episode one is tagged with ‘I’m going to Learn you a Thing’ – seems all of us have something to learn]. This first episode is an aid to Maths teachers worldwide who are wanting to explain the basic concepts of Addition to their students and don’t be surprised if the South African Education Department doesn’t officially endorse them as compulsory learning for grade 11 students in years to come [they might just be THAT bad]

Click here for episode one of the series that in the future will be known as ‘I can Learn you a Thing.’

 

Daily Prompt: Far From Normal

Latest challenge on WordPress: Many of us think of our lives as boringly normal, while others live the high life. Take a step back, and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.

# i like to drink Top Deck chocolate from the bag – second best option is breaking chunks into smaller pieces and microwaving, but a far higher and i honestly believe tastier method is to leave the slab on the dashboard of your car in the sun or on a window sill til it melts and then make a hole in one end and drink to your heart’s content – INCREDIBLE!

# i like to bend the english language to my will as i posted about here. i spell some words differently on purpose like ‘thankx’ and ‘thort’ and use a minimum of capitalisation and promote some nouns into adjectives which i promote to verbs which i promote to nouns and so on. i think i came up with the saying ‘vibing a vibe.’

# as a hobby i occasionally put together short video clips for a made up you tube show titled ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ – while the majority of people who watch them seem to think they’re pretty funny, they have not come close to going viral yet and sit more hesitantly at a spot i would assume they call ‘virus’ rather. my favourite one at the moment is probably the latest one i did on sax and violins but i guess other people didn’t think so as much cos at the time of going to press it has only had around 218 views.

# i have a yellow and white stuffed dolphin called ‘No_bob’ [i was going to call him ‘Bob’ but he doesn’t] – in many places around South Africa he is more famous than me – i used to feature quite prominently on the local Christian speaking circuit for youth groups and on two occasions i was introduced and about ten people clapped and as i started speaking i introduced No_bob and when i took him out of my pocket a good third of the room [few hundred people] started cheering. people try to convince me that No_bob used to be blue but he wasn’t. people will probably swear he was but i have pictures from the time when i won him on the pier a Brighton. a Cape Town Christian punk band called Serving Suggestion performed ‘the No_bob song’ and it became one of their most popular songs…

# i hate raisins with a passion – no i mean REALLY, not just like you pretend not to like them but you will eat them only by themselves, or only in things. i mean i started the ‘i hate raisins’ group on facebook, i once went with a friend to a park at night and burnt a bag of them just to do the world a favour. i have recorded two songs so far titled ‘the Squishy Fruit Conspiracy’ and ‘Sultanas’ which was a parody of the old Snow ‘Informer’ song…

# the word is traffic circle. if you enter at one point and leave before doing a full 360 degrees then what you have taken part in is called a traffic semi-circle or a half-moon or something. if you are going to insist on calling it a ‘traffic circle’ then like me you must go THE WHOLE WAY ROUND and usually not just once cos you have to make sure… three or four times is fun with first timers while the record with a full combi and trailer at the big Free State circle is i think 13 times with petrol attendants standing cheering at the side of the road and overall it is the 53 we did in Stellenbosch after cell group one nite. like a record playing, right round round round.

honourable mentions must go to biting people [which i used to do the first time i met people as a sign of affection, but the older it gets the creepier it gets so i’ve largely stopped] and cycling the 109km Argus cycle tour in either pink tights or fish net stockings [best way to keep yourself cycling when going up Suikerbossie – no ways i’m getting off in front of those crowds wearing pink tights!]

just a regular normal guy, really.

a response to a nonny miss? part v: a glimpse into the why

so there was this email, and by now i think we’re all up to speed with that – this was part of it:

Brett-boy, you need to rethink how you spend your energy.
And here I’m speaking in particular about the humor side of your energy. To take an example: Brett, let’s be honest: your youtube videos suck. Big time. And I don’t even see the purpose in it. Will you really stand before the Jesus one day and when He asks you “So how did you spend your valuable time?” answer “Well, there are these youtube videos I made.”
Humor is good. But it must be part of the bigger mission.
You do many good things. Focus on that. You have limited time. You have limited energy. You have a (God-graciously-given) large audience. Use it well.

so there was kind of an almost question in there of ‘why do i make silly you tube videos?’ [and if you are completely unaware as to which you tube videos we are discussing here it is the mildly popular ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ series of Brad Fish warning clips and i would recommend starting with the remade Paper one, or else Punctuation or the latest, and in my opinion funniest, on Violins.

there are actually a couple of reasons why i have continued to make the DTYCLE videos, altho it may have started with a lot less:

i think firstly, i want to make people laugh. i know – guilty as charged. i just think for a lot of people life is often quite tough and challenging and that a good [or even a medium] laugh is something that can help lift peoples spirits. listening to my buddy Mark laugh himself silly while watching the violins one with me just the other day was proof enough for me that the whole series has been worthwhile.

secondly, as with a lot of stuff i do, it is intentionally about building an audience. i feel like i have a message of life to the fullness that everyone in the world could do with hearing – it is the message of how living a Jesus-following life will revolutionise your life and the lives of people around you. i believe that with all my heart and desperately want others to experience the same. and so i tend to find myself doing some things that are not overtly spiritual in feel or look that might attract people towards the direction of where i will be sharing some more about that. if you enjoy a DTYCLE video then at some point you may say to yourself, ‘let’s see what else this dude has going on’ and might end up at a blog or a podcast or thought or on my facebook page. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church, says this – ‘I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.’ [1 Corinthians 9.21b-23] i am completely not ashamed of the ‘devious intentions’ aspect of my humour posts – if it wasn’t the best life imaginable, then maybe i’d need to think a little longer and harder about it, but i’m convinced.

so making people laugh and introducing them indirectly to the kingdom. those are probably the primary two reasons. but some more emerged as the series progressed.

family. this is not one i planned, but was a happy accident that happened along the way. my mom is from England and so although she has a brother there who had four kids [i hope i’m not forgetting anyone – David, Julie, Mark and Andrew, right?] they live so far away that we have never been in huge contact. it’s not that we don’t like them – it’s just that we never got a chance to really know them. enter DTYCLE… and for some reason my cousin David somehow got to watch one and enjoyed it and the rest is history – we have connected in far greater ways than DTYCLE and i have also gotten to connect with some of his kids through the same medium and so we have shared laughs and grown that into greater discussions and resource sharings [David is a muso and gives away his songs for free] and better opportunity to virtually get to know each other better – for that reason alone DTYCLE has been completely worth it.

education. this was definitely not planned and probably more a sense of ‘what not to do’ than the other way around, but i am aware of at least three schools [and one whole english department within one school] that used my DTYCLE Punctuation video in their English classes in an educational manner of some type. [weirdos!]

sanity. this was more a discovered one then a planned one, but towards the end of our time at The Simple Way i found that sometimes it was just good for me to do something ridiculously silly [as the DTYCLE videos are] just simply for my sanity. they provided me with an avenue to be alone for a few minutes [a completed video takes less than 20 minutes to make – three takes tops cos then i get bored] and just go a little bit lady gaga. and that was good.

 

so those are some of the main reasons that come to mind.

i guess i should end off with a word about the spiritual/secular divide cos i guess this plays into that. there has been a tendency in the church at times to divide life into those two areas – so attending a prayer meeting or singing worship is seen as ‘spiritual’ whereas having a braai with some mates or watching a movie or recording a you tube video will be seen as ‘secular’. i don’t think that’s good theology at all. Jesus calls us to follow Him with our whole lives, and when we really ‘get’ that we realise that actually everything is spiritual – a lot of christians seem to miss that one and so there can be a disconnect between calling yourself a christian and the way that you spend your time or the things you choose to post/support on facebook or the kinds of music you listen to or the way you spend your money and so on… but when we truly understand what following Jesus means in terms of denying yourself, taking up your cross daily and following Him [luke 9.23] then we realise that everything we do becomes a part of our Christ-following life.

the key is inviting God to be a part of everything you do which will mean being motivated by Love and Grace and promoting life-to-the-fullness and so i encourage you to look at different areas of your own life and see if they line up with this.

new Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect video… possibly best yet?

if you have never watched or heard of a Brad Fish ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ video then where have you been?

Brad Fish is an alternative persona of Brett Fish [heeeeeey!?!] who runs a You Tube show in which he gives wise wisdom [is there any other kind?] in terms of friendly warning to prepare people from things they might have thought of as being innocent and dangerless but which in fact turn out to be pretty dangerous-potentialistic… you can view some of the old videos here and also here but this is the latest in the series and Brad Fish might have outdone himself…

So watch as Brad Fish warns the public about the dangers of vilens… [excuse the spelling, it are not his strong point of his]

 

dangerous raiSINs you can least most expect…

after a bit of an extended break Brad Fish is back and this time he is struggling a bit to even get started on the topic of why raiSINs are a dangerous thing you can least expect as can be witnessed here – DTYCLE: raiSINs part I

but after a short break and a trip to his psychotherapanalyst and much breathing into a brown paper bag he decided to give it a second go – DTYCLE: raiSINs part II

the result is a lot of silly fun – hope you enjoy and if you do please spread the love [and hatred of raiSINs] and don’t find yourself being unraisinable and keeping this to yourself…