Short and sweet.

Keeping it quick, because it's late already. But I thought I needed to do a quick update.

I'll definitely have another post up here soon. Not sure what I'll do first. I've just finished Wild At Heart - which was so, so, so amazing, and I really want to do a post about that. Also just finished Water Walker, a book by Ted Dekker (awesome Christian author, check him out if you haven't heard of him), which was also fantastic. Could probably get a post out of that as well.

I also feel like I should have more than one post of what I attempted to do with that last one. I had an idea for the next one, so I guess that's a place to start. I think I may be basing this somewhat on a bit from one of the Rowan of Rin books, though....anyone ever read those?

In other news, in two weeks time, my album launch will have happened. It's coming so quickly, and it's only going to come quicker - I'm heading off for Perth on Wednesday morning, get back the next Tuesday morning, am on a camp that Wednesday to Friday, then the album launch on Saturday. Pretty hectic, not a lot of time. Think God is doing this as another one of those I've-got-this-just-trust-me things. Which are annoying, but always work out right in the end. Like my 19th birthday, which was much better than my 18th. But anyway.

So yes. That is it so far. But hopefully. There will be more coming soon. Before Wednesday. Or possibly after, given that I will still have internet in Perth.

A Passionate Style of Gifting.

Recently (i.e. last night), me and my Life Group (read: Bible study group, small group, etc.) finished up a series on Spiritual Gifts that the pastors at our church were leading. It was about discovering our own Spiritual Gifts, Personal Style, and Ministry Passion, and using that information to figure out where we fit in the picture of our church; how to use our Gifts, not just knowing what they are.

Spiritual Gifts you've probably heard about at some point, so I won't explain them too much. Things like Faith, Helps, Prayer/Intercession, Leadership, all the way to the impressive-sounding/looking stuff like Miracles, Healing, Tongues, all the way back to things like Administration, or Craftsmanship, which you often don't think of. Had a few on the higher end here, but the three that seemed to come out were Creative Communication, Faith, and Helps.

Personal Style, essentially, is like a simplified personality-type thing. It talks about how you're energised, by people or tasks; and how you're organised, structured or unstructured. Both of them are like a continuum, and you end up somewhere in one of the four quadrants. Though you can be a bit borderline, but that's all cool. Personally, I feel like I flip between Task-Structured and People-Unstructured, but what I ended up with was People-Structured.

Ministry Passion is a bit more diverse. Essentially, it's a specific area that motivates you, that you're passionate about. It could be a group of people; a social issue; a religious issue. It could be youth, or divorce, or perhaps science and faith. I had two that stuck out for me; firstly, helping/motivating/mentoring specific individuals to be the best they can be, particularly in God; and secondly, to encourage awareness/understanding/acceptance/love for people with disabilities/diff-abilities, particularly Autism Spectrum Disorder/Asperger's. They're a bit lengthy, so what I came up with to sum them up is to Motivate Change, and Encourage Understanding. I like the sound of that.

And, yes, the Ministry Passions I have at the end here don't quite line up with my top three Gifts at the beginning. Motivating Change comes more under Shepherding, and Encourage Understanding I would put under Mercy, or something like it. But Shepherding was still fairly high for me (I think the fourth highest on my self-assessment), and Mercy was I think either highest or second highest on my self-assessment. So they're definitely there, just not the top three that I got out.
(If you're wondeirng why they're not in the Top 3, it's because we also take an observer assessment into account. Other people listed Creative Communication, Helps, Faith and Knowledge as my top ones.)

So yeah :) That may very well be old news to you, if you've known me for a couple of years now; you may think that obvious. But I think it's nice to be able to define it a bit, so I can then really use it :)

On Dis/Connection.

For the last little while, largely due to a couple of things happening recently, I've been trying to look into connection, and disconnection. More specifically, why people leaving - as in, moving somewhere else, or perhaps if they were only ever here for a short time - has such an effect on me.

And you try to turn to God for answers. But with me, he's never particularly chatty. He seems to talk to me through events that happen, and in his time, rather than when I'm asking. And not often particularly clearly, or specifically. Which is annoying. But not much I can do about that.

As such, it's something I've attempted to think about myself. At first, what I came up with was that it didn't actually effect me at all, and what these people were saying was silly. It wasn't their fault that they were leaving; that was just what was happening, and there wasn't anything that they or I could do about it. As such, why dwell on it? That's what seemed logical.

But it's emotion. It's not logical.

Recently, I got a sliver of insight into this. Our church has been looking around for a Youth Pastor for a little bit now, and recently, there was a bit of a hum about it, to the degree that I knew it would be happening soon. And then it got announced just over a week ago at church - and who was it? Well, it was actually the guy that used to be our worship pastor/leader/co-ordinator (actually, that one sounds too businessy, but whatever). He left about four years ago and went up to Forster, and recently got married up there.

Back when he was still around, he was quite a good friend of mine. He was one of the first guys to help me discover myself as a musician, and to really encourage my creative side. He was one of the first people - from memory, at least - that I actually showed my songs to. And he helped me start to record a couple of them. We never got very far, but it was really good having him there and doing that for me.

And he left, and that was quite hard. And I knew that he needed to leave, but that never really helps that much. There's been a bit of a habit of people leaving from our church. There's a habit of people coming as well, thankfully, otherwise we'd be quite empty.

But when I heard that he was coming back - I was on cloud nine. It was never something that I could have ever expected, and it was just so out of the blue, and I was just - so happy, so joyful, absolutely over the moon. And I suppose that reaction to that news made me realise how much that him leaving had meant to me in the first place; it helped me to realise that this was something that was real, and was there.

I'm still not exactly sure how to define it, or understand it. But this is my best guess at the moment; that I value connection. Because it's not something I'm used to, not something that I'd had a lot of experience with, particularly not a few years back. And so to me, when I connected with someone - properly connected with them, that is, not just someone who's a friend, but someone who really cares - that was something that I really valued, really cared about.

So losing that - having that be cut short, so to speak, is hard. Because, sure, you might be able to stay in touch through email, or phone, or Facebook, or Skype, or whatever. And you might make new connections. But it's not the same, and they're never going to be the same. That's a connection that you've lost, and it seems like forever.

But, sometimes. It doesn't have to be.

:)

On Divergent Storytelling.

When writing a story, traditionally, the story follows a linear fashion. Whether this story is written as a book, a movie, a TV show or series, a comic book, this will still be the case. There are instances where we have multiple stories linking together; a sort of mesh and interweaving of stories; however, the way that these are told is ultimately linear.

The exception to this rule, that you may have thought of (within books, at least) is Pick-A-Path stories. In Pick-A-Path books, the reader will, at regular points (often after only a page or two) be given a choice of specific directions that they can take. After choosing which to take, they are told to turn to a specific page, whereupon they continue that line of the story, it having been effected by their choice of path to take. In this sense, there is a feeling of creating the story as it’s being read; of interaction with the story being told. There is, of course, only a limited number of stories that can be told; however, there are Pick-A-Path stories that are incredibly complex and intricate in the way they weave through and around each other. Often, readers will go back to try and get the ‘best’ ending; many endings seem to end with the main character dying prematurely, and so this encourages retrying.

For those familiar with gaming, this may seem surprisingly familiar; and, indeed, it could even be ventured that Pick-A-Path stories were almost akin to the first Role-Playing Games (RPGs). Apparently, the first of these stories were out near the time that Dungeons & Dragons was first released, one of the first modern RPGs. However, computer/video games didn’t reach this level of storytelling until a bit later on.

But the significance of divergent storytelling, and the impact that it has on the participant - because it is an interaction, and no longer a one-way reading or viewing - is something that is a lot greater than many seem to realise. This is what we shall concern ourselves with in this writing.

The power of story is something that has been known for centuries. For a long time, stories were how things were taught, passed down; a vocal tradition is all that was kept, because writing was so scarce. In some cultures, such as the American Indians, or the Indigenous Australians, this vocal tradition very much continues through to more recent times. Homer may never have written a word himself; he may well have been just another in a long line of storytellers.

The Greeks certainly knew about the power of story; the size of their amphitheatres were colossal. Greek plays were the great works of the time; comedies, tragedies - this was where they were born, in the ancient Greek theatre. Playwrights were important members of society; because the Greeks knew the power of story.

Eventually, the theatre broadened, and started to include musicals as well as plays; the printing press was invented, and books flooded the world - stories came into every person’s own home. Reading became the new fashion; literacy had never been so popular. Then, there was the motion picture - movies, and then television; like the theatre, but with so much more potential for entertaining the masses. Stories were proliferated at a ridiculous rate, and continued to do so, to the point where it seemed that every story under the sun had already been written.

However, another kind of story has also arisen, and the potential of it is perhaps greater than any of those already mentioned. The story of the individual. It’s why there are so many biographies, and auto-biographies, and memoirs of people’s lives; why the church puts so much emphasis on the individual testimony. Because they know the power of a person’s story. It carries the same potential as any other story that you might have heard; but it’s true. And you can relate to it, connect to it, all the more because of it. There’s real honesty there, a true grit to it that you can’t properly put down on a page or act on a stage. You need to have experienced it first.

And many times, people may have questioned why it is that people connect with stories so greatly. Why it is that books are still being sold in their millions, authors are still earning a living, even in this age of the computer. Some argue that we are seeking an escape from our difficult or mundane lives; others say that we are seeking an explanation for its strangeness, or a validation for our struggle. Perhaps we want to learn the lessons of life, without having to live it ourselves. But whatever the reasons are for this connection, the power that story holds over every person can clearly be seen in the world, even today.

Divergent storytelling, however, offers something a bit different. It almost blends the narrative and excitement of the traditional story with the connection from a personal story; it offers interactivity. Customisation. A level of choice; of being able to seemingly create the story as it is being experienced. It is no longer just being read, or heard, or seen; it is being experienced, almost lived. It becomes decidedly more real for the person.

This divergence can be on many different levels. At one end, in can be quite set in stone, like the Pick-A-Path books; the divergence is still there, but the creative feeling is somewhat illusory. At the other end, however, nothing is set in stone; people may choose to react however they decide to, and the story will adjust and change accordingly. Some things, perhaps events, may remain constant; but the way or fashion in which they unfold could vary greatly depending on the decisions made.

While a fully divergent story, on that end of the scale, is (almost by definition) impossible to pre-construct, writers continue to push further in that direction. And it is in gaming, particularly in video and computer games, that we see this exploration occurring. And, perhaps, this is the only place it could occur - the closest we could get to this in a movie, television show or book would be akin to a Pick-A-Path. Theatre does have improvisations,  and there are examples of these being in response to audience suggestion at times; however, this is notably different to one specific person being able to control a whole story.

Perhaps the best way to see how great an impact this divergent storytelling has, is to look at some of the people that it has impacted on; the gamers. One of (arguably) the best examples of this in recent years has been the Mass Effect trilogy. In this game, participants play as Commander Shepard, attempting to bring together and lead a crew on his ship on a mission to save the galaxy from destruction. Actually a series of three games, in each game players are presented with many, many choices, from seemingly small to very important. However, a grand number of these - hundreds, according to many - have repercussions in the following game/s. These choices also effect the character of Shepard himself, through something known as the Paragon/Renegade scale; it’s not so much good/bad, more “leave no man behind” / “get out of my way”. Some players will try to play to one side of the scale, but often you will find people making choices as they would in that given situation.

One of the people who worked on the project told a story about a player he was watching play through one scene in particular. (He was live streaming it on the internet, and many others were watching as well.) This particular gamer had been playing to a Renegade character the whole way through the game, and was now in Mass Effect 3. At one point, however, he is talking to one of the female shipmates (called Tali), that Shepard has known since the first Mass Effect game. As such, there is a significant connection there. The player has the option to make the Renegade choice, and spite/tease Tali, or make the Paragon choice and say something a bit nicer. At this point, the player hesitates. They have made Renegade choices for all the games so far. They write something on the chat feed - “Guys - what should I do? I don’t want to be mean to Tali.”

These people are no longer just reading a story, or watching a show or a movie. They are immersed in an experience; in this unfolding series of events that they themselves have had a hand in creating, in shaping. That’s something that you can’t do with any book, with any movie. That’s the power, the potential that divergent storytelling has.

Storytelling, in and of itself, is so diverse. There is the book; the play; the musical; the movie; the television show; radio dramas, which I didn’t mention before; and personal stories, testimonies or biographies. And all of these things, in and of themselves, have such great power, and potential.

However, divergent storytelling does something more; it immerses the person inside the story; makes them the creator, not merely a partaker. They are an active participant, and not just a passive reader, listener or watcher. And this world has so many stories to tell.

The universe is made, not of atoms, but of stories. — Muriel Rukeyser

Episode 1 - Another John

So, I have this space of time that I'm trying to use up. I didn't get any suggestions, so I'm thinking of doing some creative writing. Specifically, at the moment, I'm thinking of doing a series of linked short stories. How exactly that's going to work, I'm not sure - whether they'll be like chapters of a book, or like completely different stories but within the same time/place, I don't know. And I don't know if I'll even be able to keep it going. I'm notoriously bad with this.

***

Episode 1 - Another John

Everyone seemed to be called John. He wasn't everyone, but he was still called John. That's logic for you.

John looked around. There wasn't much of interest here; he was on a dirt road going through a fairly open grassy area of the countryside, and he couldn't really see anyone else at all.

John kept walking.

John looked around again. He had travelled a bit further, but there wasn't much that had changed; he thought he could vaguely see something near the horizon in the direction he was travelling, so that was probably something.

John kept walking in the same direction.

John was a bit closer to the something now. Close enough to tell that it was something reasonably sizeable; bigger than just a person, or a person riding on a horse, or indeed a horse riding on a person. He thought it also seemed to be somewhat stable; it wasn't moving towards him. Or if it was, it was doing it incredibly slowly.

John continued to walk in a similar direction.

John could now tell that this something was, in fact, a town of some description. That is, it was some collection of living residences in a fairly contained area. It could have been a city, or maybe just a hamlet; but a town seemed most likely, so that was the word that he stuck with.

John maintained his journeying direction for a while longer.

John, at this point, came upon a sign, which was very nice, considering that he had barely seen anything the last few times he had looked except a town that still seemed to be quite far away. The sign, in fact, confirmed this, reading: "Town - Quite Far Away". As such, he resigned himself to quite a long distance of travelling left before he reached the town.

John decided to check his supplies. He looked in his bag, and found that he only had one bottle of water and two apples left. This might be enough to get him a bit further, but he would need to find more to get him to the town in any decent state. Of course, there wasn't anything particular in the town that he was going to, so it didn't really matter if he looked somewhat dishevelled, but he would appreciate not being starved and thirsty as he stumbled in fatigued through the town doors.

John began to dig for water. Or, rather, he started to scrape at the ground with his hands, before realising that without a shovel or digging tool of some sort, he would dehydrate long before hitting water. Besides which, the digging would probably make the water muddy and undrinkable.

John decided to look around again. He once again saw the sign, but the sign didn't look particularly appetising. There were trees around, but it didn't look like there were any that had fruit on them. And in terms of game, there was nothing bigger than a mouse out there. And they were finicky to catch at the best of times - besides which, he had no way to cook the meat, even if he had procured some.

John ran flat out to the town like there was no tomorrow, because he could totally make it there without even breaking a sweat.

John lay flat on the ground about a hundred metres from the town, collapsed from exhaustion. His throat was so dry, but he didn't have the energy to reach into his pack and get his water out. And even if he did, he had thrown away the pack when he had started running, because he could run faster without it. He had come so close, but now he was going to die in the dirt, and it didn't even matter anymore.

John's eyes closed.

John's eyes opened, but he couldn't see anything. Where was he?

***

As you may or may not have realised, I've gone with almost a text game-like pattern; where you have these regular points at which you choose what it is you do, and the game tells you what happens next. Each new paragraph is an instance of that.

So, where is John now? If I get any good suggestions between now and the next time I write, I'll try and use them - otherwise, you'll have to wait and see. Though, who knows, I might end up using someone different...

Why I'm Not A 'Guy'-ey Guy.

Just in case you weren't aware, I'm not your typical guy. WOW! My goodness!

OK, now that you've gotten over that shock right there.

Most people know that I'm not by any means a macho sort of guy. Or even a really manly guy. But honestly, I wouldn't even consider myself a 'guy'-ey guy. I wouldn't call myself a girly guy, now, but I'm very much not like what I would call a guy.

Most guys very much like most, if not all, of these things. And by very much like, I mean almost swear by.

Beer.
Fast cars.
Sport (especially football).
Bulking up/gym/having big muscles.
Meat.

Now, true, you do get guys that aren't particularly into these things. This age has very much seen the rise of the geek/nerd as a commonplace and more accepted person in society. However, I doubt that they would be as against these things as I am.

Beer - I associate the smell of beer with vomit. Yeah. I have never had beer, and I don't ever want to have beer. Not even going near the stuff.
Fast cars - I hate cars in general. Fast cars? They scare me! And not in a good way, OK?!
Sport (especially football) - I have no interest in watching sport, at all. It's slightly worse than watching paint dry, because then you can at least do something else and not be distracted by people yelling at the wall of paint for some reason. As for playing it - there are about two sports I like doing at some level. Pretty much the rest of them, I'll enjoy playing them with friends, but that's because I'm playing with friends. Not because I enjoy the sport.
Bulking up/gym/having big muscles - Err, no thanks. I like being skinny, and flexible, and fast. I do like running, but that's a little bit different. That's just to keep fit and healthy. And because I like it.
Meat - I'm almost a vegetarian. And if I went vegetarian, I wouldn't get those stupid meat substitutes, that are supposed to taste, or look, or smell like meat. Part of the reason I'm near vego is because I don't like the taste! I am somewhat fond of ham/bacon, though. And don't get me wrong, when meat is done well, and properly, it can be very nice. But most of the time, it's not. And veggies taste better. :P

I also don't like pubs, don't like paintballing (before my latest experience, that is), don't like shooters (games, that is), don't like guns, don't like really spicy things, often don't like hanging out in a big group, and don't like talking about just surface-level stuff. And have no interest in showing off my legs, arms or chest for the girls. Or the guys.

Call me weird. I already know it. ;)

Production and Distraction.

I tend to spend a lot of time watching things. I watch a lot of movies on my laptop (DVDs that we own, as an aside), download a lot of TV shows from iTunes or catch up with them on the respective channel's websites, and spend a fair bit of time playing video games. I can easily have a whole day disappear on any of those.

And it's good to have that sort of stuff sometimes, particularly if you need a bit of a pick-me-up - a good old Disney movie can be just the ticket. But at the same time, it can very easily distract you from the mountain of other things that you could be doing, and being actually somewhat productive with.

So, my church does Lent each year. 40 days leading up to Easter. (They don't count weekends, for some reason. Jewish thing, just how it works.) And the idea is, you have something that you give up for that time, and you use that time you give up to focus back on God, ideally.

And God was giving me a bit of a prod about giving up this stuff for Lent. Which I honestly hadn't really given much thought to. But now, I have much time on my hands. I still have many things to do with said time, but I'm actually doing things with it now. Which is cool!

As one of those things, I think I'm going to try and do another posting series up on here. If people have any ideas about one I could do - whether it be another A to Z, or thematic to something, or whatever, suggest as such in the comments below. And hopefully, I'll get that going in the next few days or so :)

Quick aside: for those interested, I've started doing livestream shows/gigs every so often on a website called StageIt. Insofar, I've done two shows, the first with no-one there, the second with two people. And two people I didn't know! Which was cool. But I'm hoping to build up a few more there, which would be nice. And there is the potential to get actual monies from that, which is cool as well. So if you're interested in that, head over to www.stageit.com and search for Brendan James Raymond. For people that see this in time, I'm actually doing a show at 11am today (the 6/3), AEST. In two hoursish. Yep.

And, pretty much straight after, I'm watching one of my inspirations, and someone who's really helped define my music do a livestream show - Brendan James :D Yes, I may have found him by typing my name into Google.

Undertones.

There's an interesting phenomenon (if that's the right word) that you experience sometimes. It's when you're sad, but still enjoying yourself.

Now, to some people, this may be seen as impossible. Personally, I think it depends on the type of sadness. But most of the time, I think that you can be sad, and yet still actually enjoy something - not just pretend to enjoy something, and putting that mask on.

Why I think that's true is because of focus. It's all down to where your focus is. For example, if I'm playing a game with some friends, and that's what I'm focussing on, I'm enjoying myself. And that's a true enjoyment. However, if I'm instead focussing on something that makes me sad - say, for example, someone that recently passed away - but I'm trying to cover that up, then that isn't true. That's where the mask comes in.

And yes, it's very easy to slip from one to the other. Your attention can slip for a moment, and you're gone. But in that moment, you also have that choice - that choice to be authentic, or to put that mask on. And sometimes that will depend on who you're with as to the choice you make; but it's always your choice, even if it's become almost automatic.

We can often have these undertones working away, these undercurrents of sadness, and pain, and loss. And they might not show a lot of the time; we might even forget them, more often than not. But they're always there, constantly, and they're very easy to slip back into if we don't have enough distractions, diversions and focus.

How do we change that? That's a darn good question. Let me know if you figure it out.

Figuring out this year.

Well, God knows how to make a point.

I knew as soon as I started down the path of deciding to do Impart that this year was going to be different; going to be new, and going to be challenging. I knew that God was going to be taking that opportunity to do things. To lead me places.

But I didn't expect what he's done.

I thought that he was going to give me clarity in terms of ministry. Instead, he's stirred up my fears and said, "Hey, we need to work on these." I thought that something might even be happening in terms of a relationship. "Not now. You need to focus back on me."

And, no, those weren't the exact words I heard. I'm dramaticising a little, taking a bit of artistic license. I don't really 'hear' God that often. Certainly not audibly.

Now, in some ways, this is downright annoying. Because I don't particularly want to be having panic and trauma attacks in front of people. I don't particularly want to be all by myself, proper. It's been a good - well, six years or so since then.

But I know what God's trying to do. He's taking me back to the ground level. Working from the bottom up, at my foundations. If I let my fears control me and shape me - then I'm powerless as a person. I'm so restricted and tied. If I can't be comfortable by myself, if I can't rely on God to be there when I'm alone - then I'm not going to be able to build on that trust and comfort when I'm actually in a relationship.

This year, it's back to basics. Well - perhaps more the essentials, rather than the basics. What I need to get sorted first. Before anything else.

New things! Exciting things!

So! This year's kind of gotten ahead of me, and many things have happened, some that I've sorta kinda mentioned here, and others not so much. So I thought that I'd take this time to talk about them!

Firstly, I'm doing Impart! For those in the Church of Christ loop, it's like Navigate's big brother. For those not, it's like an intensive part-time one year bible college course, done as a very small community (i.e. 10 people). Which is pretty cool. I've already done my first intensive block, which I mentioned in one of my previous posts. But I've met some awesome people with this, and it's generally quite awesome :D

Secondly, I've come into some new-fangled music stuff through Christmas, and birthday, and other stuff like that. So I now have Ableton Live 9 Standard; a Macbook Pro (one of the new ones); and Ableton Push. For those who don't know Ableton (most of you), it's a sort of music software that is used for music creation, changing, editing, transforming, production, etc. Really good for electronic stuff, and made specifically to be used for live performance. Push, then, is a MIDI controller that interacts with Ableton, and is essentially a grid of buttons that you can use kinda like a keyboard, but set out quite differently. And with a lot more variety of uses. And my laptop means that I can do a whole lot more, like recording, making new videos, doing livestreaming (check out my channel at http://www.stageit.com/brendanjamesraymond), which is pretty cool.
And I got an accordion. Just cause. Realised after I got it that I don't really have anywhere I can practice (it's really, *really* loud, so I can't practice at home), so I'm not sure what's going to happen with that. And I don't really have anyone to teach me either. Some of it's fairly simple - I mean, one side is a piano - but the bass is proving pretty tricky, and the mechanics of it can be a little finicky as well.

Those are the main ones. But then I'm still doing some casual work at Boomerang, I've got Youth Group happening at church that I'm helping out with, Life Group, church, and choir as well. So I'm keeping myself fairly occupied. I've got a few other projects I'm working on as well - one in particular that's going to be coming up quite soon - but you'll hear about those as they come around ;)