Weekly Photo Challenge: (in the background)

Another photo challenge and this idea i really like – the thing that is not the thing – or the question of focus – is the thing in the foreground of the picture ‘the thing’ or are we meant to be keeping an eye on what is in the background? is it “both…and?”

So many options and so i had to use three different pics which i feel increase in terms of degree or extent of background focus as you journey through so first up it’s this pic – taken at an epic Brett Anderson pool party where the plant takes centre stage but you are invited into the chilled relaxation vibes happening in the background.

Fast forward a couple of moments at the party and we take a step closer and see that once again we have a plant [or the hint of a plant] in front of us, but we can almost eavesdrop onto the conversation and laughter happening in the background. Same party but a sense of the intimacy and investment of the relationships we are facing.

And lastly there is this picture where we have now come completely face to face with the action and now the plant regains its ‘rightful place’ at the centre of the pic with the wall of water behind acting as a barrier of protection against these humans who will invade its space. Our story has come full circle.

[For the previous Photo Challenge with the theme of Escape, click here] 

pramnesia [which is why we got to pray, just to make it today]

“Just part one ocean in front of me, once, God, and i will never doubt you again!”

that’s how i think sometimes. but a huge part of me knows it unlikely to be true. it wasn’t enuff for the Israelites [a day later they were whining about water so God made  it appear out of a rock, then it was food and God made bread appear six days a week, then it was about the fact that it was bread and so God sent meat and then finally when Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God they get tired and ask for an alternative God to worship…  [it doesn’t end well]]

but it’s a nice thought to have anyways – if God just does this big amazing impossible thing then i will believe-Him believe Him for ever and ever.

tonite, in the room of inspiration, i came up with the term ‘Pramnesia’ which i think a lot of us are inflicted with:

Pram.ne.sia

/pramˈnēZHə/

Noun

A partial or total loss of memory linked to matters relating to answered prayer.

we see or experience God answer prayer [in some small or big way] and then the next time we are faced with an obstacle or a difficult person or a huge loss, we forget completely how faithful God has been to us and either rail against Him, or forget about Him completely while we try sort the thing out in our own strength, or just completely fall to pieces.

now this becomes a ‘thing to hold in tension’ or a ‘the mystery of God piece’ when we add it to the fact that God is not a big one-armed-bandit in the sky – say the prayer, pull the leaver and instant win… sometimes God’s very real answer to prayer is “No!” and other times it might be, “Yes, but not now” and even other times it might be, “Absolutely yes, but completely not in the way you are expecting.”

another part to hold on to is this description of God in Ephesians 3.20: ‘to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,’

actually, the Message sums it up pretty well: ‘God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.’

and therein lies the point: God is able to do IMMEASURABLY MORE than ALL WE CAN HOPE OR IMAGINE.

i say this a lot, but i want to encourage you to start believing that perhaps we need to start hoping or imagining bigger. or at least more consistently.

so if you have been struggling with pramnesia, then my advice is to stop it.

let the answered prayers of the past be the catalysts for the bigger prayers you are going to pray for this day – i’m not talking prosperity doctrine at all but about kingdom doctrine – His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven… or another way to look at it, ‘what this earthly kingdom would look like if God was King here.’

why not try this… for the next week, at the start of each day, pray a simple prayer inviting God to present an opportunity for you to: show Love to someone who is feeling down/speak to someone about something God has done in your life/have a conversation with someone you know by name but whose story you have never heard/highlight a person who you need to forgive or ask forgiveness from… whatever it is doesn’t matter, but pray a prayer inviting God to action in your life… and then be on the look out for the opportunity and take it.

and i’d love it if you returned here and shared some of those answered prayers once they’ve happened…

 

what’s the meta for?

one of my favourite random life statements that i made up years ago and that i unleash unwittingly [well, maybe a little wittingly] on the world every now and then is the one that goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it throw stones in glass houses.”

while it’s true that i made it up, i didn’t really give it a lot of thought until today, but if you give me a moment [and i know you will, see you did just there, don’t give up now or the curiosity will kill you as like a cat would] [is it a double simile if you stick both a “like” and an “as” in? wondered the boy] i will expound to you some of the deep truths of said statement:

# if you have lead a horse to water then the chances of it being inside of a glass house at the same time are pretty small, as what glass house manufacturer would have the time, energy or creativity left to create some kind of inside water feature to add to her [or his] already quite elaborate glass house construction?

# if we are talking regular sized horse here, then horses are quite big and doorways are generally doorway-sized and with the house being made of glass and all, you don’t want to mess too much with trying to squeeze an animal of that rotundity through and so we are going to have to add some kind of bigger door/smaller horse clause or understanding for this to work.

# assuming we get said smaller horse [but it can’t be a pony as that would change the saying and so we are probably looking at a Falabella or at most some form of the very aptly named Miniature Horse] into the house and near to the water source, we hit the main problem which is the picking up of and throwing of the stone – again one would have to question the general sanity of the house designer in terms of the scattered rocks montage she has going, but the biggest problem in this whole scenarion is the idea of a hoofed being being able to grasp a rock in any manner that would suggest throwing it would be the following plausible action.

in conclusion, for any rock-grabbing to have been possible at all, the horse would have to have grasped the rock with both front hooves [and be practically standing on its back two or else in a severely uncomfortably semi-crouched back feet spread position] and the likelihood is that the slipperiness of the rocks [due to being in or near water] and the awkwardness of the grab would make the possibility of getting any kind of forward thrust into throwing it virtually impossible.

and so while in extremely engineered circumstances it may be possible to lead a smallish horse to rock-surrounded pools of water within a carefully designed extra-large doored house, it is highly unlikely that there will be any throwing of a single stone, let alone ‘stones’ in said house.

which, all in all, probably gives the designer and creator of that particular house of glassness a huge sigh of much-deserved relief.

get to know your south african musos, part nick groves [pt i]

i am privileged to be friends with a lot of really talented people, especially in the area of music, and was recently inspired to write a series of blogs that showcase some of these people and their talent so that more people can hear what they are producing – this will take the form of a number of interviews with links provided so that you can go and check them out and first up is a guy i like to call nick groves (being his name and all) – i met nick thru my good buddy and tag team partner sean du toit and he has led the worship sessions on a number of camps i have spoken on…

Q:So Nick, i know you used to be in the water industry in somerset west, south africa (i know there’s a water industry in somerset west?) running your own company, but it’s been a little while so tell us where are you these days and what are you involved with?

A:In 2006 me and Beks were just married a few months, and we were invited to join our mutual friend Sean Du Toit in his youthwork “Primal” that was still in its infancy. I’d been working as a sales representative for H2o- marketing water purifiers and coolers since Dec 1999, and so the move from Muizenberg to Somerset West meant a change in work, as the travel would have been too much. Some doors opened and used the profits of the sale of my house to start up my own H2o branch- servicing Paarl and Somerset West. So since then we have been growing this baby business of ours – I suppose now it’s become a naughty teenager- full of challenges and growing pains, its a lot of fun and hard work, but what I love most is seeing it touch and enrich peoples lives.

The flip side to this coin is that I get the time to do my “real job”- writing songs, arranging music, learning more of how the recording programs work etc.

We are currently part of The Bay Community Church in Muizenberg- involved in music, and leading a small home group in Somerset West. This year my wife and I decided to pursue what we love (Beks loves photography) and so we try give our time after work to develop our skills in these areas.

Every now and then I get a chance to contribute to whats happening in New Gens youth work “Urban Liberty”- its always great to see what God is doing in other streams. They are an exciting bunch of people on a mission to make an impact.

Q: I’ve known you for a decent amount of time and generally in the context of music – where do you think your interest of music comes from and how did you get started in playing and singing?

A: I had private classical guitar lessons at primary school level- it only lasted a little over a year, as we could afford it. I then discovered in grade 7 that it was actually cool to play guitar! [even more so around the girls;) ]. But it was only when I was nearing the end of high school that I took it up again, started singing and playing at home groups and youth meetings. That was the start of becoming a worship leader for me.

Q:when you’re not peddling water or music’ing, what other interests does mister groves have? hobbies? pastimes? sport? cooking?

A: Lately i’ve taken up running- I have successfully found the flattest route in heldervue- a 5km that always kills me. Ive also got into gym-ing a bit but my favourite is always either a game of tennis or at best a surf trip – either JBay or Elands Bay. I also enjoy cooking, but I’m not a fanatic about that.

Q:what bands or artists do you enjoy listening to?

A:Like most, I would say there is a variety depending on what Im doing, but i’d prob rank my current favourites 1-5 as follows:

1. Future of Forestry
2. DubFx
3. Vusi Mahlasela
4. Mumford & Sons
5. Radiohead

Q:In recent times you’ve been writing songs and offering them to people to listen to, what is your plan at the moment in terms of the music scene, or i guess what is your dream scenario?

A:Musicians these days live in a privileged time where you can upload a song and in an instant you can touch numbers of people. I remember when I did my first 3 track album- I sold 100 copies and I was over the moon. But nowdays people don’t have to pay to listen to you, and it doesn’t cost much to run your own home studio – so its an ideal win-win situation: Artists get to create and release their work at little cost, and can reach many people for free. Thanks facebook 🙂

I suppose the dream of any creative person is for their craft to be seen or heard- the purpose of creating for me is about sharing. My dream is to share a moment or an experience. My greatest goal in terms of writing songs is to be able to get people to feel the message of a song, instead of hearing it.

At the moment my only plan is to keep creating music that people can have for free, and see the group of people it reaches grow. Life at the moment limits me in this area – but we are looking to soon be selling our business, and who knows what life would look like after that? The dream for me is not just music though, I want to be a part of a group of creative group who’s craft affects people in a positive way – it’s amazing how a song or any other work of art has an ability to lift people. I just love seeing the creative do that.

to read the rest of this interview simply click here

it’s not stalking unless you’re planning to kill someone

so i was at the beach yesterday which i really don’t do enough and was actually in the water (ditto) which was amazingly warm (or maybe amazingly warm for cape town beach water – i am not really a swimmer type person usually because i find the water too cold but here i had to be in to watch the kids and it was surprisingly not that bad) and i started to watch people

i love watching people – not in a hunt-them-down-later-and-leave-disturbing-messages-made-out-of-letters-cut-out-of-magazines-and-the-newspaper kind of way – but just seeing how people (who don’t know they’re being watched) behave or look or speak

and it was great. firstly there were these three young and little girls who were having an absolute blast in the waves near us and just seemed absolutely content and happy and vibing with each other and laughing a lot.

then there was a very young and little dude who was trying to catch a wave on his surfboard and just wasn’t able to stand and as he went past me i said to him “so close dude” and he responded “yeah and so far” and i gave him a bit of a Robin-Williams-in-Dead-Poets-Society-and-Good-Morning-Vietnam-type pep speech about how he could make it and how he shouldn’t give up and so on and he went off and the very next wave… he tried to stand up… and didn’t… but i think he didn’t stand up a LOT better than before I’d given him the talk…

watching him a little bit more and first picked up his mom in a full wet suite surfing near him and helping take him out over the waves to get to a good spot to try again, and then his dad also full wet suit, also surfing and i thort, “wow, that is so super uber cool” cos you know what they say, ‘the family who surfs together… um… something something together’ or something like that, but it was great to see this family, obviously loving each other and loving hanging out together doing stuff

then there were these two guys walking along the beach together, obviously friends. the one guy had no neck whatsoever, you know, one of those head-almost-directly-on-the-shoulders type guys, and as i noticed that i looked across at his friend and noticed that he had almost too much neck, and so it was quite an interesting combination of neck and no-neck walking down the beach together – how about sharing some with your friend, neck!

and then there was thug body boarder. now i know you can’t call someone ‘thug’ not in a bad way but i really don’t mean it in a bad way. if this guy was in a british football movie he would be in the credits as ‘football hooligan #4’ or something like that – just looked like a bit of a bruiser, big oke, well built, huge tattoo down his forearm and kinda thuggish… which is relevant, cos if i just said a big guy on a body board then it loses momentum. cos i watched him catch a wave and ride it for a long while and he had the biggest most contentable smile on his face, the kind of smile that only an 8 year old can have when he eyes ice-cream or the parents of a toddler when he finally poos in the pottie you know. It was incredible – this dude was absolutely enjoying himself to the extreme

and obviously a bunch of other people but those stood out. and of course the ten kids we had brought to the beach from kayamandi (the K) who were having an absolutable blast. brilliant just watching these kids come to life and just completely thrive in the water.

i love watching people. guessing who they are and what they’re about. watching interaction between people who really care about each other (and there are a lot of those on the beach – maybe those who don’t care enough stay away from the beach a lot more) and just seeing the absolute power of love in action.