Weekly Photo Challenge: (a day in my life)

the theme was a day in the life of me, and to a large extent this is what a regular day looks like: hanging out with my beautiful wife, looking deep and contemplative in many different ways and poses, messing around with technomology, being different in some way, playing some kind of sport, game or improv to the full [sometimes resulting in africa shaped injuries], appreciating bobblehead [or 3D] Hulk, taking time to worship God in nature or other ways, and more posing and deepful contemplation… only thing missing from this day is some food appreciation…

[For the previous Photo Challenge with the theme of ‘Future Tense’ click here]

Weekly Photo Challenge: (Silhouette)

in Americaland the hockey stick is a symbol of a women’s sport whereas in Africa it is the epitome of a fast-paced man’s [and womens] astro field battle of skill, perseverance and chance-taking…

I would call this a half-silhouette as the light comes brightly from the side giving a sense of the depth lurking behind this pose while concealing enough to keep you guessing as to what is really being thought about. [hint: adding bacon bits to a pot of mashed potato]

 

 

This full body shot asks the question, “Is the body blocking out the sun, or is the shadow blocking out the body?” Kind of a chicken/egg question, but with less barnyard metaphorical.

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

this is toyoda

so the new word doing the rounds which pretty much means cool, radical, brilliant, fantastic or an enthusiastic combination of those is the word ‘toyoda’ which is pronounced toe-yoda and not to be confused with the car of the similiar sounding name – so for example i scored two goals in my hockey game on wed night but the second one where i stopped the ball in the circle and lifted it over the keeper’s legs was toyoda – the first was simply being in the right place at the right time…

my beautiful wife finishes her final thesis draft and hands it in today and i know she’s going to be feeling toyoda about that – i got to read through it yesterday and do a bit of proofreadering and can concur…

the weather lately has been a little on the hot side and so nice when you’re near the pool but completely non-toyoda when you’re driving 37 minutes thru to cape town in your car…

so take it, embrace it, throw it into conversations and let’s see this become the new kiff.

you made me so angry, oh wait no you didn’t

i have a hypothesis which is like a zoologist student’s big masters year essay on 4000-8000 lbs river-dwelling creatures that are responsible for more deaths per year than lions… but that’s a different story…

what i want to suggest to you today is that no-body in the world has the ability to make me angry

“but brett, that just isn’t true, i’ve watched you play hockey”

“silence, in-fidelllll i kill you”

thankx achmed, but i’ll take it from here…

and no-one in the whole world has the power to make you angry!

“oh, but brett, they do, have you seen me in traffic during rush hour?”

i loved that movie!!! but no, let me explain – the reason nobody else can make you angry is because only you can make you angry

i’m convinced that anger, like love, is a choice

now people and situations can point me in the direction of becoming angry – person hacks my foot in a hockey game, taxi pulls recklessly in front of me in traffic, i hit my thumb with a saw (i’m not very good with tools) and so on…

but how i respond to said person or situation is a complete choice by me

how do i know this? because i have observed people in the very same situations that ‘make me angry’ and yet they don’t respond in anger – and i have been in similiar situations when on one occasion my response will be anger and on another it won’t be

here is an example – i am alone, i hit my thumb with a hammer (someone pointed out i was hammering things in earlier this note using a saw) and i immediately swear… a lot…

in a different example, i am hammering and my parents and parents-in-law and Bono are in the room (it could happen) and i hit my thumb and i will most likely use a fake swearword like “fudgecakes” or “7de laan” which proves that i can affect the outcome of my anger depending on who is nearby – [if i happened to shout out ‘bloody’ by mistake i would definitely pretend i was doing a metal version of ‘sunday bloody sunday’ so that Bono wouldn’t think less of me]

and it really all boils down to a choice – someone treats me unfairly, i arrive late at the movies and all the tickets are sold out, someone scrapes my car… all those things point me in the direction of anger, but i can choose to walk that road or not

‘a fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control’ – proverbs 29.11

and one of the descriptions of love in 1 cor 13 is that it is ‘not easily angered’

Jesus got angry. Flippin angry. In matthew 21.12/john 2.15 he fashions a whip and drives out the people selling stuff in the temple grounds and overturns tables – it is the righteous anger of seeing something that is godly being perverted by greedy men…

ephesians 4.26 maybe says it best when it says, ‘in your anger, do not sin. do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.’

and so maybe anger isn’t so much the problem as how we let it out – how quickly we let it out – and how long we hold on to it

the beautiful Val and i have a principle in our marriage of never going to bed angry which leads to some awkward waited out silences on some occasions as we get ourselves to a place where we can apologise and speak it out and work through whatever the issue is – hard and awkward and weird sometimes, but a marriage saver or enhancer for sure

i think it is important to get angry – crime should make us angry… so should abuse. murder. rape should make us insanely angry. waste. litter [seriously, smoker, carry that thing to a bin!] racism. sexism. raisins [okay maybe not everyone should be angry at raisins, but i certainly am, little gross squishy puke maggots!] injustice.

those things should all make us angry. but we should be slow to respond. and we should respond with wisdom and grace, and in love.

slow to anger, quick to love.

one of the downsides of anger is it can ruin a moment, an occasion, a day – i remember i used to get pretty angry and road ragey in traffic and just used to spend so much time angry – but i think it was the realisation that my anger never changed the situation, it never made people drive better, or apologise to me for their rude cutting in, or whatever – it was only affecting me. and so i decided to stop it. and largely i did.

i think if you are able to stop and take a step back and view the situation and see how getting ridiculously angry will affect the situation and you, it will make it a lot easier not to get angry, or to get angry but with a controlled response – you know what, you’re a ponce, but i’m not going to let you destroy my moment, occasion, day by getting all angry about it – i will deal with the situation, and with you if necessary, but i’m going to keep my cool and respond rather than react, and continue to enjoy my day

so say it with me, ‘i made me angry’ – now stoppit, me!

i scored last nite (before lanning starcraft with carl marx)

well i guess officially you could say it was late afternoon or early evening, definitely not nite per say

but yes, in a complete thrashing of western province cricket club (‘hockey team’ i should add otherwise it might look like an unfair match-up, oh wait it clearly was) 8 goals to 2, i scored the last (and i like to think, defining) goal of the match.

and it was great.

i think it was the first goal my mom has seen me score. the beautiful val was there too but she missed the actual moment of me scoring altho saw the buildup and the ball going in and people congratulating me and so she believes it was me… ha ha.. but my mom and dad come and watch a lot of my matches and historically i have been a half and so whenever i’ve ‘scored’ it’s been a bad thing, but recently i have been playing left wing a lot and scored a bunch of goals during summer league (the not so serious league) and so it was great to have a pretty decent goal in season with my mom – and dad and lovely wife who is beautiful – watching

later we lanned starcraft (not me and my mom though, that would be regan, garth, claude, flippy and carl marx – well not THE carl marx but we had to tell the security guard of the complex the name of the person we were visiting and i couldn’t remember but Carl marx seemed to work – turns out his name is charl so not too off the mark – in fact i had to leave to go fetch something at home and when we came back we signed in to visit charl marx)

true story.

it’s a vybe

so those of you who know me know that i use the word ‘vibe’ a lot

noun: look at that vibe

verb: let’s vibe tonite

adjective : the service was vibing last nite

adverb: we played hockey vibedly

pronoun: the sandwich is vibe the table… okay, well not yet, but any day now…

i dig the word – it’s a vibe

anyways it is also the name of our junior youth group (grade 4 to 7) at the vineyard church in stellenbosch – we started near the beginning of the year with about 6 kids and run it every two weeks from 5-6.30 and last nite we had 14 kids and did a mini olympics (toothpick javelin, paper plate discus, straw tossing the caber – i know i know not an olympic event….yet! and so on) and it was out best nite yet – complete vibe

Vybe obviously standing for Vineyard Youth and then BE as in ‘be there’

anyways vibe moment of the evening was a game of balance the polystyrene cup on the other polystyrene cup (imagine the steroid usage for that one if it ever takes off) where three reps from two teams had to one at a time spin round ten times with a broom on their chin facing upwards (to get dizzy) and then run to the back chair get a cup, run to the middle chair, get a cup and run to the close chair and balance the one upside down on the other one and then pass on to the next person

all went well until little rachel spun round her ten times and then ran and instantly ran a 45 degree left line right into emma coming back to place her cups on the chair and took her and the chair out in one seemingly-choreographed motion – it was incredible and just a pty that we don’t have that on film – priceless

and a complete vibous vibe of vibanity!

the shiny colour and disease that is red

i have a friend called Roy (or Conrad Roy)

he is one of the new students who was in our church enGAGE this year and is now part of our leadership team for next year

i really like Roy, for a number of reasons:

he says ‘awesome’ a lot. now i don’t like it when people say ‘awesome’ a lot because i personally have reserved the word ‘awesome’ for God cos it seems a travesty when you say ‘God is awesome’ and then ‘that ice-cream is aswesome’ or ‘that hockey goal you scored last night, brett, was awesome’- it’s like you’re comparing God with an ice-cream – so for me i reserve the word ‘awesome’ for God. Roy uses it ALL the time and so it should really annoy me, but it doesn’t. because he is generally just so excited about life and everything in life that i think ‘awesome’ is his way of getting it out. and so his using the word ‘awesome’ is an expression of his zest for life and i LOVE his zest for life.

not only does Roy operate on a ‘glass half full’ way of thinking about his own life, but he will see his glass as full and overflowing and will look across and see your glass (which is smashed and lying on the floor) as half full and then offer you his. Roy has come and helped out my VOB hockey team a few times and is an amazing athlete (possible pole vault contender for next Olympicals) and i am not as good although have probly been playing the hockey of my life this last year and Roy has just been such a huge encouragement on and off the field and really helped me with my self-belief which in turn has helped me play better. in fact he set up my first of two goals i scored this season and was super stoked for me when i samessed him last nite about my second goal.

he is super animated when telling stories, especially bible stories which he starts acting out even without realising i think and is really fun to watch – again just his passion for the moment.

and he is super deep – still young and still a bit loud and can be distractive at times, BUT when he goes into the zone and starts speaking about deep stuff he has been thinking about in terms of life or God or church or sports for summer camp (which he is running – so amped to hang with him!) then he really is a deep thinker and you can see the quality of his realness.

so that’s why i like Roy (or rooi) – red spirited and highly contagious – and a definite leader in the future. And very privileged right now to get to call him my friend…