"We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely a set of forgone conclusions. Faith tends to be defeated by the burning presence of God in mystery, and seeks refuge from him, flying to comfortable social forms and safe convictions in which purification is no longer an inner battle but a matter of outward gesture."
- Thomas Merton

This quote sums up how I have been feeling and the issues I am wrestling with at the moment. I used to yearn, and still do, for a sure and certain faith, where I knew where I stood and could put everything in little boxes. Over the last wee while I have been thinking more and more about how uncomfortable it is to question and critique but that the option of not terrifies me even more. And now I am beginning to realise that there is a very small amount of my faith which is certain. And there is a great deal that I struggle with every day.

This weekend there is a big push in the Make Poverty History campaign as the UN World Summit begins. In a world where more than two thirds of people live below the poverty line, and many in abject poverty, what does my faith in Jesus say about that and what will be my response? In the wake of the destruction of New Orleans what will be my response? As New Zealand prepares for the elections how will my faith guide my vote? Now I don't have any easy answers but I do know that I am called to be an incarnation of Jesus, who loves everyone and weeps for those who suffer and who acts in response to suffering. Therefore, though it may be tiring and uncomfortable, I must do my small part to show Jesus in my responses to these important events and issues.

I used to think I could choose how I wanted to live my life but I am realising that I have no choice. I have to do something to make a difference for the poor, the marginalised in the world or my faith in Jesus is nothing more than a hobby or a philospophy. It has to be more than that otherwise I don't know what there is to have faith in in the first place.

I love reading Next magazine. It is my treat each month. I have a bit of a magazine fetish you see. Anyway usually I love it but this month one of the articles really ticked me off. There is an article about Trelise Cooper and the point of it is to publicise the campaign against domestic violence which she is supporting through pyjamas which she has designed and which will be sold through Ezibuy. In the article the writer tries to show what a huge problem domstic violence is in New Zealand byt quoting the satistic that domestic violence costs the country over $1 billion each year. I find this really disgusting. You cannot put a price or cost on people's personal safety in their own home. If even one person was unsafe on their own home because of violence that would still be one too many, despite the fact that it woudln't 'cost' much. Statistics like this allow people to forget about the real people involved.

It also reminds me that the only way to make people take notice of an injustice or problem is to prove that has an economic impact. The same is true for enviromental sustainability and the like. If businesses see it as a way to increase profit and the reputation of their brand they want to be environmentally friendly. But maybe caring for people and the environment is of priceless value adn cannot be measured and maybe there are things which are bigger, more important and outside the economy and maybe the economy should serve people rather than determine the values of our society. So there!

It's a blue dome day. There is nothing like it. As I sit in my classroom typing I have a beautiful view of the sunshine streaming down and only a couple of small clouds seemingly stalled int eh sky. I love days like these. They are like therapy or a happy pill. On days like this spring is just around the corner and if ittakes a little longer to arrive winter doesn't feel that bad anyway.

A friend used to say to me that when she was woken up by her alarm, if the song on the radio was a good one then she would have a good day. In the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime the main character, who is a young boy with Aspergers, uses the colours of the cars he sees on the way to school to determine his mood and behaviour for the day. I am sure I am like that too.

This morning I slept in and loved waking up as the sun came up instead of in darkness and driving to work with the sun warming my face. A sunny day covers over a multitude of reasons why I could feel grumpy. It is not suprising that my spirits and the spritis of others are lifted by the weather since we are part of creation. The sun brings new life at this time of year and those who don't get enough tend to suffer from the winter blues.

Not that rain is always a problem either. It is life giving also and there is nothing like heavy rain on the roof while you are snuggled up in bed or a sudden downpour which drenches you and awakens the child within and reminds you that you are not the master of your environment and your life.

I gues what I am saying is that I love weatherr. It makes me feel alive adn reminds me that I am not the centre of the universe and there is definite reflief in that. If what I am and what I do is not always that important I have the freedom to experiment and make mistakes without the world colapsing around me. I guess it is the freedom of the ant!

This week at church I was really challenged by the sermon. It was about community and the way the work is often bandied around but that real community is often difficult to find. One of the ideas we were encouraged to consider was to operate from week to week using the principles of BELS.
Bless - try to be a blessing to others, in specific ways and not just for people in your church.
Eat - try to share food with people at least 3 times a week. This could include a coffee, not just a three course meal.
Learn - be open to learning something new each week.
Send - each week at church consciously send each other into the week as a light and hope to others.

I found these ideas really encouraging, especially since in my present state of mind it easy to become addicted to naval gazing. I am realising that I am quite an action atations person, at least at this time in my life. I want to see things happen and change and I don't want to just talk about it. The tricky thing is wandering where on earth the energy for all this hope will come from.

So God close the gap between what I hope for and what I feel I can do. Move me towards hope and reality and away from dispair and apathy.

I am back at work and feeling so much better. Work still seems like too much for one little person but I feel better about that. The feelings of anxiety, like butterflies playing rugby in my tummy, have almost disappeared.

One of the amazing things I have found over the last wee while and in the past is that prayer has this unexplainable effect on my anxiety levels. After praying, for no rational reason the physical feelings of anxiety seem to fade. This doesn't always happen but recently it has been more frequent. Often I am praying as a last resort because my own will power and thinking skills seems unable to calm my sense of panic. I do believe that the anxiety I have been experiencing has a subconscious explanation which I am not fully able to understand.

I have never thought of myself as very prayerful and I have always thought that the supposed power of prayer was a nice idea but hadn't personally felt any physical effects. But these last few weeks the impact has been very tangible and real and seems to have nothing to do with how I pray such as the words I use or even my sense of "being spiritual" at the time. I do think it is an example of a miracle for me and more importantly, a sign of God's grace on earth.

So despite not having a superhuman transformation over the holidays so that my job is more managable, it doesn't matter as much now because the sense of anxiety is diminished and I have my sanity back, however incomplete and fragile...

I've just come back from a wonderful 10 days in Melbourne. Being a tourist is a wonderful thing, flying in over a city and having no idea what you are looking at but being so excited about exploring it. We stayed with my sister in law and their 3 kids. Every morning we were woken up by a 2 year old and a 4 year old. There is nothing like it. One of the wonderful things in life. Kids get up each day and they are so excited about the day and all the possibility it holds. They are such an excellent example for hardened adults.

The whole time we were in Melbourne I felt totally disorientated. It took me a while to work out why but then realised. In Auckland we navigate by volcanic cones and the sky tower. So wherever you are you always know what direction you are facing. In Melbourne there are no obvious land marks, especially in the CBD. I have always thought I had an excellent sense of direction but no sooner had my eyes left the map then I would be completely lost again. We even caught a tram in the completely wrong direction!

We loved the city though; the Victoria Markets with the amazing deli and passion fruit in July no less! We loved the trams and trains. It is so obvious that Auckland needs to sort out its public transport after a visit to a large city like Melbourne. The shopping was pretty cool too.

So overall I loved Melbourne and we even talked about what it would be like to live there. We agreed that it would be fantastic for a time if you lived in the city but that the burbs are the burbs wherever you are in the world. We also realised that having family there makes all the difference and that we would only be prepared to move overseas if there were at least a couple of people who already knew us. So that when it all seemed too big and strange there was someone who could understand who you were without translation.

But I think we have the travel bug and we plan to make the most of all the opportunities in our own fair city before heading overseas again to sample someone elses.

I am off to Melbourne for a holiday tomorrow. I am so excited. I think it is just what the doctor ordered. I haven't travelled overseas since I was 15. The fact that we are going has reinvigorated my faith in the fact that life is full of posibilities. I want to see the museum and art galleries, go to the markets and just remind myself that there are so many opportunities in life and i want to make the most of it. And hopefully when I return I will be ready to make some changes so that my life can reflect those possibilities.