they call me Fish

2013 was a fun year for me on the blog – decided to stop my Weekly Mash blog so i could be more focused on this one which is titled ‘Irresistibly Fish’ and there have been a decent bunch of new subscribers in 2013 [welcome!] as well as those who regularly pop in to take in some of what i write and share over here.

so brief intro to me if you are new – my name is Brett Fish [nickname] Anderson and i am married to the beautiful Val [tbV] and am from the country [#cough Americaland #cough] of South Africa where i have spent most of my life, except for the last 3 years where i have been in Americaland…

working as a resident of the simple way in Philly in 2011 and 2012 and after a visit home [to the still country of South Africa] moving to Oakland to work with the same boss but different non-profit known as Common Change which is great and you should totally find a group of friends who want to join you in a collaborative giving experiment and adventure and sign up, join a group and start helping meet needs of people you know.

then just recently i started working as the youth leadery type person at Re: Generation church near Lake Merritt and so am a little bit of the bivocational at the moment, but have LOVED the opportunity to be preaching again [once a month] and just connecting with some rad people who love Jesus [and enough of whom love cool games like Settlers of Catan, Bang, Puerto Rico and Dixit]

i am passionately in love with God and try to be a follower of Jesus and so a lot of this blog tends to be encouraging or challenging other people in their faith or else hoping to introduce people to Him. the bible tab on my blog has links to where i have been slowly walking through the psalms in blog posts [currently up to 64] and also meandering through the gospel of Mark in video posts [just finished chapter 12] and also recently started a series where i have been sharing and commenting on some of my favourite verses.

i also own the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin named No_bob [i was going to call him ‘bob’ but he doesn’t!] and hate raiSINs with a different absolute passion and do not find it surprising at all that the word SIN is hidden in the word raiSIN – in fact i have written and recorded two songs about my dislike of all things squishy fruit and it is high time i did a third.

otherwise i have a deep appreciation for humour and so whether it is sharing the brilliance of other people or else just being completely silly myself and aiming for laughs as my alter ego, Brad Fish, with his Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect [DTYCLE] series or trying out some Jack Handeyesque deep thoughts as Brett Andy that is bound to be part of my posting in 2014 and one of my quests is to write [on occasion] some funnier blog posts…

so if you are continuing to journey with me in 2014 i am hoping that we will see some more incredible stories in the Taboo Topics series [which has seen a whole lot of other people sharing some intensely deep and personal stories about areas we don’t often hear much about such as Singleness, Infertility, Losing a child or being a parent of one when it’s not all that easy and so much more], I hope to continue to try and speak life into Relationships and i have an exciting series in mind capturing advice and stories from people who have been married for differing numbers of years as well as inviting some of my single friends to share their insights in a particular area.

i am very much looking forward to going home for a visit in just about a week and also for the chance to do some fun-making on the improvised comedy stage with my old team of TheatreSporters, i am hoping to figure out a better eating/exercise plan when i get back so i can be more fit for field hockey which i have loved being part of [go Eagles!], i hope to do more slacklining with my friend Todd and the  gang at Lake Merritt and to have some more amazingly fun evenings of games with friends we have made and also with the friendly folks at the games store on Wed nights.

and maybe, just maybe, i will finally get around to self-publishing the book i finished writing two years ago, titled ‘I kissed hating [the church] goodbye’ cos that would be very nice.

oh and the FISH stands for Faithful In Serving Him if you didn’t know, which is an Irresistible proposition to aim at in life… loving God, loving people and looking out for those who are considered by many to be ‘the least of these’… 

lastly i do hope to find a way to engage more in the comments section with those who do read my blog so not sure if that means i must get more controversial or hilariously funny or some kind of differently creative, but hopefully a feature of 2014 will be more of you coming and saying “hi” in the comments, or that you think that i’m the biggest jerk you know or you would like the United Nations to raise a statue in my honour on Mars or something like that – just come and play, people…

and have a most excellent 2014 – let’s suck the marrow out of this life thing together!