Movember 2008 Day 24

Day 24...It's been 24 days of growing my Mo, and my Mo looks about the same length as the rest of the guys a few days in :P.

Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

The Illusion of 'I Can't Deal With This'

At one stage or another you've said it, "I can't deal with this." You've probably said it at the time of a break-up, or a financial crisis, a family crisis, or maybe that work colleague's insensitive statement was the straw that broke the camels back? For me it pops up when I'm stretched past my limit, and then some. I feel nothing but overwhelmed.

So what about it? Well, it's a lie! As human beings we have a seriously warped view of reality, and we habitually describe reality inaccurately. We get into situations where we see absolutely no way out, through or around, and cry, "I can't deal with this." The lie is an assumption, an assumption built only on the small view we have of ourselves.

So what's the truth? Truth is an iffy philosophical topic, so instead I want us to consider what works. First of all, what won't work: "We can deal with it." You probably just pulled a face that looks like O.o, and that's because your still thinking about the truth. "We can deal with it," won't work because let's face it, you don't really know if you can deal with it. It won't matter how much you tell yourself it, you'll never truly get it at your deepest level. You'll spend your time trying to prove it and even if you did, you'd still doubt.

So what does work? ... Consider for yourself what does work, and give it a serious think before you view my answer. To view my answer, click the Show Answer link below.

My Answer: Show Answer"I haven't dealt with it yet."

Movember 2008 Day 14

Day 14...Woah, it's been 3 days and my Mo has sorta stopped. What gives I wonder? Mmm. Let's hope it grows some more so I look more like a man and less like a boy! High res photo today, click it for the larger zoom in.


Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Exclusivity

We love exclusivity.

Read that again, and notice I didn't say, "We love exclusively." I said, "We love exclusivity." We love to have explicit and specific explanations for why things happen and how things occur. We love to have _the_ answer.

Whether it be choosing a career or proving science vs religion, we must know which it is. In many cases proving which it is becomes proving that we are right, and soon we have division between the people. One side convinced they must be right, the other just as convinced.

Exclusivity fits a lot of circumstances like discussing the existence of God. But we overuse it and it is at the point where exclusivity has poisoned many topics where it doesn't need to exist and in reality is holding our understanding back.

Movember 2008 Day 11

Day 11...You'll notice there was no Day 10, it's much harder than I realised trying to photograph and blog everyday! So if you only see updates every second day, don't dismay, I'm still here.

Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Movember 2008 Day 9

Day 9...My moooo grooooooooows. It's now annoying my wife now, kisses are few.

Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Movember 2008 Day 8

Umm...I forgot to do a Day 8 entry yesterday...Sorry!

Movember 2008 Day 7

Day 7...Today I photograph in the morning instead of in the evening and I think I'll try and keep it up with doing it in the morning. It's a nice way of starting the day.

Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Movember 2008 Day 6

Umm...I forgot to do a Day 6 entry yesterday...Sorry!

Movember 2008 Day 5

Day 5...Today is here, and I know if you look at the photos I've been putting up proof of a Mo is difficult to see due to my lack of mo-genes, so today you get to see zoomed in proof that I am actually growing a mo! Click the photo below to see the proof!



Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Movember 2008 Day 4

Day 4...Today happened. Mo continued to gro allllll the way through...but hard to tell. Tomorrow the high-res close ups will come out and you'll see there's actually a mo there!!!

Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Movember 2008 Day 3

Day 3 has come and gone, and I've still sporting that very light shadow on my top lip...Hmm...I'm hoping I grow more than last year.

Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Movember 2008 Day 2

Day 2 is here, and I've got a light shadow on my top lip...Woot. Off to an okay start =).

Check out my MoSpace and sponsor me/donate:
au.movember.com/mospace/1358431

Why am I growing a mo? Read here.

Selfishness, Or Rather Not-Selfishness

Tonight at Northside our senior minister's sermon was titled Against The Tide: Selfishness. The talk was really not what I was expecting, Graham took an entirely about-turn approach to discussing selfishness that while some might consider non-confrontational I believe was very insightful. Language plays a huge part in our world. We often use it to describe the world and don't realise the power language has in creating the world. For this reason when empowering someone it is typically more effective to identify what there is to be done, rather than what shouldn't be done. This is what Graham did tonight, he discussed selfishness by discussing what is missing when we are being selfish.

The qualities we discussed all came from Collosians 3:12-14 and includes compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiveness and of course love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. And I really get that if I am being selfish, I can't be all or any of those things. I can attempt to fake it, but where will that get me?

Graham said one thing tonight that stood out to me and challenged me. He said, and this is probably heavily paraphrased, we shouldn't just go out and try and be all these things, but instead spend time with Jesus and through getting to know him learn and discover these qualities. Don't interpret this as a it's-not-your-responsibility, or that it happens "magically". It happens with intent, but unless we spend time with Jesus how do we truly learn those things? How do we truly experience and can then follow our Lord's example. Without getting to know Jesus and learning from him the best we can do is imitate the idea of the qualities - we will miss the entire depth and breadth that comes with being compassionate, kind, and having humilty and so on (see above list).

The rabbit that visited us for the weekend

This weekend we saw a pet rabbit walking around our front yard. So we caught it. It was pretty tame and we figure someone out there must be missing this lovable little animal. He's a poofy guy/gal. Donna called the RSPCA, but apparantly they only look after injured or sick animals to which I responded with "well we can injure him." She wasn't impressed. So we're stuck with the rabbit until Monday when we can call a Vet or the Council or until we get a call from the flyers we put up.

We're keeping him in a cardboard box for the moment, with some newspaper in the bottom, a bowl of water and rabbit food. Hopefully he/she'll be okay. Here are some photos of the cutey.

UPDATE: The owner who lives not far from us saw our flyer and has picked up the rabbit, who turns out to be a she. The owner was very nice and could identify the rabbit pretty well, so hopefully it is the true owner. It was nice to have the cute visitor for the night. Bye bye.

Movember 2008 Day 1

Movember has started, today I start clean shaven, ready to embark on an adventure taken by only the bravest...To grow the Mo.

Check out my MoSpace: au.movember.com/mospace/1358431
and sponsor me/donate: www.movember.com/au/donate/donate-details.php?rego=1358431

By the end of Movember, hopefully I'll look something like this:

For those not aware of Movember, I am growing my Mo to raise money for Men's Health, to fight prostate cancer and depression. Every year around 18,700 Australian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer (7,000 more than the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer) and more than 2,900 die of the disease, and it is the most common cancer in men. Please donate, and please donate generously. In your lifetime you'll know people who have cancer and chances are some of them will have prostate cancer.