Measuring a life's worth.

Recently, I put this post up on Facebook: "When you look back on your life, how do you measure its worth?" I got three replies. Here they are, exactly as written:


"Buy the money iv earnt in the last 11 years"
"You don't."
"In living faithfully to the Lord Jesus."


Each of these, obviously, represents a very different worldview. And I intend to respond to each of them in turn with subsequent posts, but firstly; a bit on measuring a life's worth, both historically and from my own head.


The idea is fairly old. The Ancient Egyptians thought that when you died, your soul/heart/actions in life would be weighed up against the feather of Ma'at - that being the Egyptian concept of truth, justice, etc etc, you get it. Apparently, as a random aside, it was an ostrich feather.


The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible (commonly thought to have been written by King Solomon) also goes a bit into this, mentioning that at the end of it all, people really only want to create some sort of legacy for themselves, something that lives on after them. I believe it also mentions that it is next to impossible, and most things you do are meaningless. Just once or twice.


And in this day and age, many people strive to get more out of their lives - they don't want to get to the end and have all their achievements just be a portfolio. People, places, events experienced and shared - this is what people are going towards now. But more than that, I reckon it's one word off that Tears for Fears song.  I reckon everybody wants to change the world. It's just what they want to change it to - or how much they want to change - that really defines them, I suppose. And I'm certainly no exception. And I'll add my two cents at the end of this mini-series of posts. I may add a couple more, if I get some more comments either here or on FB. But that's it for now.

Peace and goodwill?

This Christmas, we had an extra family come to share with us, who had been staying with my cousins. Two daughters and a son. This is where I should probably give you a very quick background on a couple of characters before launching into my story.

My cousin is very, very different to me. Just straight up. He's got a very mathematical manner to him (he does economics :P) and though I've got that too, mine's balanced out by the more "feely" side from my mum. He also likes to be very...independent. I'm being slightly picky with my word choice here as there's every chance he'll read this at some point in the future. Basically, though - yeah, independent. Sticks to his own way of doing things. I'm a bit like that too, but...well, you'll see.

My aunt (my cousin's mum) is where he gets the numbers from. They're quite similar, in a lot of ways. But she's the mum. Which can lead to a bit of friction, as I'll describe momentarily...

OK. Background out. So, essentially, this is what happened; the son of the family that came to stay with us got my cousin a bit riled, so he was already in a bad mood. The other son's attitude got my aunt a bit annoyed as well. A fraction too much friction, and, sparks flew. That's what tends to happen. Shout, shout, storm off. And my cousin going, but, it was all fine? I don't get why we can't just do it this way.. [his way]. He then decided to go out for a golf on the oval (5 minutes walk). He managed to get out without anybody seeing. Trouble was, he was rostered on for lunch (yes, we have a roster while we're here) and so my aunt got more annoyed. WHERE IS HE?! She was not happy. Very not happy. She went to take a walk with her dog to try and calm down a bit. Meanwhile, we'd decided that I'd just swap around with Tim (I was on for dinner) for now, because stuff had to get done. When she got back, she wouldn't have a bar of it. "No! Not on your life! If he's going to do that, he can just not come to the next Christmas or Easter or whatever it is, as far as I'm concerned!" She was then asking what his punishment was going to be. The scene, unfortunately, reminded me somewhat of Argus Filch after finding Harry Potter next to the petrified Mrs Norris. "I want to see some punishment!" It was decided that he would do all the work after lunch. Packing up, washing up, drying up, etc.

So much for grace.

She did eventually calm down, and it's all good now. I think it did end up getting shared around  little. But...yeah.

Let's all say together...like robots...

Something I've noticed, being a bit of a church-goer. Every now and then the preacher or person up the front will ask the congregation to read something out loud together. It happens at a few other occasions as well every now and again. And, inevitably, the result is a monotone. Robot voice ftw. So much for we are all individual, different parts of the one body and such. You can say things together while maintaining your own inflection, you know. It is actually possible.

In other news, I've written my first Christmas song. It starts off as Jingle Bells and spins off into something else. I still need to check to make sure it's not the same as something else I did, because the chords seem similar. But think it's pretty good, liking. Hope everyone else is having a good Christmas too.

My kind of Christmas.

Christmas. A time for snow, or a time for sun, depending on which side of the world you're in. The classic "white" Christmas, or the Aussie summer Christmas. Just wanted to have a bit of a look at two other sorts of Christmas, in a more symbolic kind of sense.

On the one hand, we have consumerism rampant. Oh, so much consumerism. Christmas blasted at you everywhere, shops, streets, TV, radio, cars, friends....the list continues. The "perfect" Christmas is showcased regularly, ala Away In A Manger. 10 points if you can tell me what's not quite right with it. And churches struggle madly against it all, attempting to get Jesus to win over Santa.

On the other hand, we have a time of fellowship, of unity, of coming together. Sharing with each other, friends and family, and just having a good time. Promoting kindness, joy, and peace.

And the latter one isn't restricted to Christians. Heck no. That'd just spoil it. Everyone should be free to have a good time on Christmas - to just relax a bit, not worry so much about the cares of the world.

As such, I'm going to take a leaf out of a friend's book and do a song for today. It's called "White Wine In The Sun", by Tim Minchin, and I think, personally, that it represents the latter situation I've described. Just look it up on Youtube or something. Tis good.

Anyway.

Merry Christmas. :)

Choral Carol Coral....Carl?

That was just me being silly with the words. Anyway.

Carols seem to be a very persistent - and repetitive - part of Christmas. Even if you don't watch the ones in the Domain, there will probably be ones at church if you go there, or playing in the shops, or sung in the streets.

Often, these carols have been sung a fair few times. Just once or twice, y'know. It's cool. And you tend to have a million and one remakes of them, that may be more or less worthy of the term "remake", as the case may be. Most of them fairly meh-worthy, ala TWBMJs recent review of Michael Buble's Christmas.

But what's the point of the carols? Most of them seem to be very repetitive musically, and often telling a story of some description. (Though that can be a trend with music in general, it's even more so in this case.) And many people that I know (mostly of my generation) don't have much of a fondness for the carolling.

So why do we still do them, if they're repetitive, and starting to be not-so-loved by this newer generation emerging, more apathetic to the old customs? Must new carols be made, or will carolling just fade away?

Personally, I think both will occur in part. But I think that we'll still be hearing Away In A Manger and I Saw My Mum Kissing Santa Claus right next to each other in a hundred years' time.

Breakin' it down.

There's a bit of a saying: if something's hard, break it down into smaller, manageable pieces. One step at a time sort of thing, doing it bit by bit. Makes sense. Logical. And that kind of thing.

It's like if you go to climb Mt Everest. You can't do it all at once. You go to base camp, then camp 1. Back to base camp, camp 1, camp 2, camp 1, base camp. Etc etc. It's a very long process, that takes a couple of months (I think) to do properly. And if you don't your body doesn't cope.

Though it is always important to keep the big picture in mind as well. Otherwise, though you may do a task well, it may not fit in with the overarching scheme of things. So it's good to be able to both focus in on the details and see the bigger picture.

This can also help a lot if you have no idea how to do something - just breaking it down into its smaller parts. And keep breaking it down, breakin it down - until it's at the simplest level it can be, pretty much. And then, not a problem.

Honesty + Hope(lessness)

I did my green Ps driving test today. It's a Hazard Perception Test - a sort of touchscreen computer thingy that you have to react to at the right times and such.
I didn't pass. But there was really only one that I got wrong. Others I could've done better, but I think would've been alright if I hadn't done this one. It was on turning right, so you just had to tap it when you would turn. At the lights, rainy afternoon. Completely overcast, wipers on full. A truck wanting to turn right from the other direction is partially blocking the view of oncoming traffic, but you can sort of see it before it disappears behind the truck.

I saw one car coming up, so I waited for that one and then touched the screen. A second afterwards, a motorbike whizzed on through. Now, the test does this recognition thing. It asks you whether you touched the screen or not. So I could've just said that I didn't touch the screen. But if I had been caught, I would've been fined and had to wait for a while before I can retake the test. I was honest. Not so much because of that - I more thought of that afterwards - but just because I wanted to be honest. I'm trying to be more so. It's hard. But good.

On another note, completely unrelated apart from the fact that it also happened today. Was looking at a piece - specifically, Prelude No. 6 in B minor by Chopin - with my piano teacher. And we were trying to figure out the emotion of it, as such. And we quickly realised that it was a very frightening piece, in a sense. Extreme melancholia. Because every time you had this little major figure - it was snuffed out. Quick. A quite slow, soft piece. But very mournful. And by the end, it's basically mocking. It's almost comical - in a black humour kind of way - with how much it is dreary and without hope.

Boy, am I glad it's not like that.

Yes! But, no...

OK. This is going to be a long post. Just giving you a heads-up.

Tim Minchin (comedian, songwriter, and pianist extraordinaire, for those of you unfamiliar) recently put up these series of posts via Twitter:

'Yay! The PM wants a return to Christian values! Canaanites, sodomites & sluts watch out... I'm dusting off my stoning stones.' 

'Oh, so the Old Testament is not Christian? Perhaps those books just come together as a pre-christmas 2-1 offer...' 

'Or... 'Christian values' means nothing, cos Christians choose which bits of the bible to ignore. Thus they are not God's, but OUR values.' 

'the 10 commandments aren't Christian?' 

'RT @rhysmorgan Jesus said "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law... I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." ' 

'Twitter dictates I follow up flippant comments with less flippant clarification. Then peeps don't like my "preaching". Ah well. All fun.' 

'So, I shall preach more. David Cameron appealing for Christian values is noxious because: (several tweets to come. Forgive me.)' 

'1. They don't exist. Religious folk (generally) have modern values which they reverse engineer to suit the bits of the bible that match.' 

'2. It implies that all other value systems & religions generate less good moral values. This is demonstrably untrue and basically racist.' 

'3. A supernatural source of morality implies that we would all rape, murder & steal were it not for a punishing God. This idea upsets me.' 

'4. It fails to recognise that morality is an ongoing discussion. Human values change & improve with time & are nuanced, not simplistic.' 

'5. If you believe a probably fictional 2000-yr-dead bronze-aged preacher was magic & morally perfect you shouldn't be running a country.' 

'I could go on and on (!), but I'll leave y'all alone for now. My boy has a trouser full of his own faeces. Love, peace, all that.' 

'Oh, one more thing. I gather that I'm not taking into account all Cameron said. I hate stuff taken out of context so I apologise for that...' 

'... But any appeal to Christian values in modern politics is incredibly stupid, in my opinion.'

My first reaction to this was Yes! But no... I tend to get that a lot, when hearing atheists - or just non-Christians - talk about Christians. They'll get some things right (often, more than some Christians will admit), but it can often seem like the Christians they know are living in yesterday's age. I should probably point out here; not trying to shame Mr Minchin at all here. A lot of Christians do live in yesterday's age. As always, there's a reason for the cliche. But we'd appreciate not being all heaped into the one basket.

I could do a blow-by-blow run through and critique of the above statements. But that won't achieve anything. I've found that debates and such very rarely do. Because people - on both sides - are more than often convinced that they're right, and won't yield an inch.

What I will do, however, is just put up a couple of quick points about us Christians and what we believe, that isn't so much the cliche.

1. Non-Christians can be just as moral as Christians. I know some that are more so. Saying that they "can't be moral" just because they don't believe in God is just silly. 

2. The words of the Bible are not the be all and end all. God is. The Bible is God's Word, yes. And should be respected as such. But here are some words from it: “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?” Luke Chapter 12, verse 57. There are some things that go deeper than just the words of the Bible; the values represented in it. Those of love, and compassion, among others. They've been unfortunately absent from many people's experience of Christianity, many a time. But these values are why we don't have slavery, why women are now treated as equals, and why many are so divided on the point of homosexuals, among many others. 

3. We're all different. I know that there are a fair few Christians out there - probably many that I know - that would disagree vehemently with some of the points I've made. So please, before you say "All Christians are..." think a moment.

This isn't an argument, and I hope you don't see it that way. This is just an attempt to bridge the gap a bit between what we are, and what people think we are.

"Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth."

Little Language Habits + Christmas.

I've picked up a few bits of language from various people here and there. Some of them are more sayings, some more ways of saying things. For example, I've picked up "I'm OK with this. *grin*" from one friend. Slipping a bit of German in and "Annoyink" from another. And from another, speaking in a weird roundabout way the entire, along with menergy. :P Don't use it that much, don't worry.

But I find it interesting how I'll adopt some of these habits into my own speech - and not just when I'm with them (though it's certainly more frequent on that occasion). It does seem quite strange, but there you go.


On another note, Christmas is nearly here. A week and a day, my goodness... and still so much Christmas shopping to do. With the absence of money that I have. :P

People often mention that Christmas seems to "sneak up" on them. I think part of the reason for that may be because the shops get us into holiday mode so early. They start doing it in November, for goodness sake. Funnily enough, I saw a bus with tinsel and a Christmas hatted driver the other week. You do wonder how extensive these decorations and things are going to get...

Waiting, waiting...

I've always been a fairly patient person. I'll tend to wait until someone else has finished a conversation before trying to speak. Even if my parents are trying to hurry out the door. :P But that doesn't mean that I find it particularly fun. I'm just a bit better at occupying my mind in the meantime, I guess.

But one thing that is annoying is when you've been waiting for something for a fair while. A couple of months. And you've kind of let yourself forget about it a bit, so you don't get too worked up. But then you check the day, and it's tomorrow. You get all excited. Tomorrow comes. You get a little email. It's from them. You open it up...and it says "Thank you for your patience. Due to unforseen circumstances it's going to take a little longer. We know we said it would happen today, but oh well." :P Tis annoyink.

And so now, the waiting game once more. Thumb twiddling, anyone?