I am not a details person. I like the big picture, the overall view and I get bored very easiliy. I am also quite a pragmatist. If I know I don't have enough time to do something the way I intended at the beginning I get over it pretty quickly. Hence it would seem strange to put me incharge of the school magazine!

However I am beginning to embrace this lack of attention to detail. It makes me very flexible and if things don't go as planned I don't stress too much. But what I am relaising is that people's expectations stress me out. It might be fine for me not to care about the details too much but if someone else does and I am responsible for the thing they care about I don't want to disappoint them and most of all I don't want them to have a low opinion of me.

So I guess I am an attention to peoples opinions person adn since, unlike the details of inanimate tasks, I have know control over what people think of me, this can be highly stressful. So I may sing the praises of my big picture attitude but I am still at the mercy of other people. I guess that's the way it goes. We can't protect ourselves from ourselves and the things we like about ourselves always have a potentially darker side.

I played hockey last night. I have joined a summer hockey team and I am loving it. I played at school and it is so much fun to get out there and run around. Unfortunately I had a bit of a collision with another player last night. No permanent damage but a rather impressive bruise on my leg and a bit of a headache.

I was moaning about it this morning and my husband said that you have to expect to get hurt when you play sport. I explained to him that I was fully aware of that and was not complaining about getting hurt but that what was the point if you couldn't have a little (or a big) whinge? There is something wonderful about minor injuries. It shows me I am getting out there and doing things, body on the line and all that stuff. It could be sign that I am getting clumsy but I like the first idea better. I might not be the toughest girl on the block but it is nice to feel like that sometimes.

I am very proud of myself today. Not only did I go for a walk this morning, I have a letter published in the Herald today. Usually I just get really annoyed about things but do nothing. This time I did something almost before I thought about it.

I am a Media teacher and have been really suprised by Filpside, a teen news programme being cancelled. I use the programme in my class and the students were really upset to hear it had been cancelled. I guess it was one of those situations when they realised that just being commercially successful is not enough. Someone with a big desk and not much vision decided it was a threat and so got rid of it. It is another example of teenagers being fobbed off and losing a voice.

But I did something. It probably will not make any difference but at least they know that people are annoyed and can't pretend that no-one cares. I hope I will be able to be more of an activist in the future. I've always thought Sue Bradford was pretty inspiring!

Making decisions is so hard. Very few of them are black and white. I have been struggling with a decision for the last week or so. It involves time, family, money, travel and energy and I still don't really know what to do. I could make the decsion based on being cautious, but then I feel that I am living a small life, ruled by fear of what might happen. However I could also be using wisdom in being cautious and wary.

I could make the decision based on warm fuzzies and day dreams about what might happen but I have been around long enough to know that things never happen just the way we would love them to. So which ever way I look at it I am taking a risk, either to do too little and be too scared or to create an unrealistic dream of what the results of this decision might mean.

And after all that wrestling around, the decision doesn't even seem that big anymore. Hmmmm. Perspective is so hard to get when making descisions for yourself. It is much easier to give advice to someone else!

Yesterday I had a bit of a reality check. My Dad had a "bit of a turn" which truned out not to be too serious but could have been. I t made me think about the fact that I am at the age where my relationship with my parents is starting to turn. Most of my childhood I took the existence and immortality of my parents as a given. Now I am at the age where our relationship is more equal. I am independent from them in most ways and and we are sharing adulthood together. But when I think about my Mum's relationship with my Poppa, as he has grown older he has become more dependent on his children.

I guess it is a natural part of growing up but it again highlights for me the fact that you don't know how wonderful something is until you can see you will lose it. The security and stability of my childhood is something I cannot take for granted. I have had the privilege of being able to depend on my parents and I hope they will be able to depend on me when they need to.

Last night I saw a fabulous film. In My Father's Den is based on the novel of the same name by Maurice Gee. It is beautifully shot as well as gripping and thought provoking. Often it has been said that New zeland film is "cinema of unease", that often film makers focus on the dark underbelly of apprently 'normal' and nice New Zealand. Films such as Rain and the Piano fit into this category.

After the film last night I started wondering why so many NZ films look at the dark side of life, the hidden underbelly, people's fatal flaws which wreak havoc on those around us and the stumbling and futile attempts to fix things which just makes things go more horribly wrong. Why would directors and writers focus on these themes in a country which has been relatively peaceful, has such beautiful scenery and does not seem to be characterised by the strange or the weird?

Part of it I think, is a disbelief that things can be as good as they seem. New zeland is defintely picturesque but it also has the power to make you feel miniscule, to get you lost in the bush, caught in a storm or drowned in a raging river. Also there is something about small town rural life, everyone knowing everyone else and few opportunities for those at the margins of the community which lend a sense of unease and twistedness. At first I thought Nz film maybe focussed on this aspect because happiness and beauty doesn't really make great film, however I then started to think about whether my life and the lives of those around me has a dark underbelly?

It absolutely does. There are various degress of brokeness and deception and hurt between families and friends. There are secrets and lies, some which everyone chooses to believe until something happens to make us face ourselves. I think Jesus does the same thing. He doesn't let us get away with secrets and lies and the whole reason for a relationship with him is because of the dark underbelly we all have. The wonderful thing about faith in Christ is it doesn't always have to get worse as we fumble around in the dark, holding onto our wounds. Instead there can be healing and freedom, not in some cheesy way but instead in a way which allows us to face reality and face those around us as totally human and whole.

So NZ cinema is doing us a favour. It is making us realise that we are all twisted. Unfortunately we all hide this from each other when it is the fact about humanity which could actually bring us the freedom we seek.

Again I continue to be a slack blogger without even having comments on the blog. I will get around to it at some point. I had a rather profound experience at church last night. The sermon was about Zachias up the tree and the rich young ruler; generally about two rich people with different attitudes to Christ and money. As the sermon began I felt really angry. It seems as if in Church we all just talk to ourselves. I knew everyone in my Church would be to some extent sympathetic towards the idea of simplicity and giving up our possiessions even though it is a very hard and as someone put it, "an unreasonable" request. So then I thought who is supposed to be hearing this, who needs to hear this?

I swallowed my sense of frustration and tried to listen adn hear myself becasue often when I get a sense of what I think is righteous anger it turns out to be an issues I need to deal with myself. And it was. Am I really prepared to give up all I have, really? Not just in some metaphorical, Hillsongs surrendering my emotions or soul or something?

Once I had thought about that I still came back to the fact that chuuches talk to themselves. WE go to a certain chruch because we have things in common with the people there, they hold similar theological views so therefore we just tell oursleves what we already think over and over again. Jesus prayed for unity inthe church but if there is no diversity in our chirhc communities there is no struggle for unity. We are just avoiding communicating with those who disagree with us by sticking to our own kind. I don't know what the solution is but it makes me frustrated that radical and revolutionary teaching is always heard by the people who already believe in the revolution.