The Afterword

Author: Peter

  • A Curator of Life Stories

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    Peter
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    What is your dream job? If money didn’t exist, I’d love to be a curator of life stories. I’d want to sit with an elderly person who can no longer write their story for themselves, and help them shape it. Not by putting words in their mouth, but by listening closely—reflecting back not only what…

  • What Makes a Good Leader?

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    Peter
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    Leadership isn’t something a person owns. It’s something a community recognises. People decide whether they will follow you, and they keep testing that decision over time. Character matters because leaders lead people and shape communities. Skill and strategy help, but without integrity they don’t last. Here are three tests that sit underneath most leadership assessments.…

  • The Parade of Opinions – Psalm 8

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    Peter
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    David didn’t Google.No TikTok prophets, no expert panels—only a sky that hadn’t learned to sell itself,only darkness doing honest workso the lights could speak. “A time is coming…”St Anthony’s warning drifts through my centurywhen madness becomes normaland the not-mad are called mad. Who am I?What is my place in the world? Before that, another questionlike…

  • Un-Invent the Algorithm

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    Peter
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    If you could un-invent something, what would it be? I don’t want to un-invent social media. I want to un-invent the algorithm. Social media has its benefits, and I’m not pretending otherwise. I’m on it because I love people. I like seeing the ordinary texture of my friends’ days, and the small windows it gives…

  • Remembered Well

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    Peter
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    Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved? I’ve learned that being loved isn’t always a warm feeling. Sometimes it comes as a question. “Are you going to stay on?” When people ask that, they’re not only asking about a contract. They’re saying: we’ve grown used to you. We trust you. We’d…

  • Closing Tabs

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    Peter
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    Where can you reduce clutter in your life? I sometimes think of about clutter as open tabs – the low-grade pressure running in the background, the feeling that life is always slightly unfinished. We’re in the declutter process at the moment. We’re currently living in a five-bedroom house, and in a couple of years we…

  • The Calm at Our Feet

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    Peter
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    The Calm at Our Feet I think my favourite animal is the one that helps me identify what I’m longing for. That’s why it’s dogs. And why, if I’m honest, it’s Nia. She’s a black seal border collie who turned two recently, and she is equal parts joy and steadiness. Give her a basketball and…

  • House Rules for Online Communication

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    Peter
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    In what ways do you communicate online? Online communication, for me, isn’t a toolbox so much as a building: same address, different rooms, different dynamics, different outcomes. Email: This is the study. The good reading lamp. The filing cabinet. It is very adult. Everything said here can be printed, forwarded, rediscovered in 2029, and used…

  • A New Kind of Freedom

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    Peter
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    Think back on your most memorable road trip. Late May 2021, between the two NSW COVID lockdowns, we took a road trip because it was the easiest kind of travel that still felt possible. No airports, no border rules, no sudden cancellations. It wasn’t the trip we would have chosen in a normal year. It…

  • Dried Figs and Yoghurt

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    Peter
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    What snack would you eat right now? I try not to snack. Not because snacking is inherently bad, but because I’m old enough now to know how quickly I put on weight if I pretend my body still runs on the metabolism of my twenties. When you’re younger, you can eat a little here and…

  • Known – Psalm 139

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    Peter
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    This is many people’s favourite psalm—and of course it is:psalms are basically songs,and songs are what we dowhen the facts aren’t enough. As a musician I’m more melody than lyric,because lyrics are hard.So I listen to Psalm 139 like a song,it was born out of anxiety.David was fleeing for his life—and yet he starts with…

  • The Afterword Studio

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    Peter
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    Come up with a crazy business idea. Here’s my crazy business idea: a micro-publishing house that turns ordinary lives into beautiful short books. Not celebrities. Not people with Wikipedia pages. Just the people who are quietly carrying whole worlds around inside them — the nurse, the migrant, the widow, the tradie, the teacher, the neighbour…

  • The Roosters Jersey

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    Peter
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    Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth.What became of it? The item I was most attached to as a boy was a rugby league jersey: the Eastern Suburbs Roosters (now the Sydney Roosters). These days, the Roosters are one of the glamour clubs. They’ve been successful for a long time, and…

  • A Life Mission

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    Peter
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    What is your mission? I have dedicated my life to helping people grow. That has taken different forms in different seasons, but the thread has been remarkably consistent. I did it as a parish minister, walking alongside people as they grew in their knowledge and love of God. I did it as a husband, taking…

  • What Makes A Long Life Good?

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    Peter
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    What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life? I find myself thinking a lot about the idea of living a very long life, because my parents are now living the questions that longevity raises. My mother is 91 and in a nursing home with dementia. It is getting worse each…

  • Being Intentional About Friendship

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    What could you do differently? I’ve spent a lot of my life assuming friendship will take care of itself. Not because I don’t value it, but because in busy seasons it slips into the margins. Friendship becomes something that happens around work, between responsibilities, when there’s anything left. Lately I’ve been thinking about doing it…

  • One Wild and Precious Life

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    If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say? “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver⁠ It’s one of those lines that shows up in many places. It’s an invitation and a reminder: a gentle interruption in the middle of ordinary days. But…

  • This Season

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    Peter
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    Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why? I probably spend more time thinking about the future than the past — and it’s less about personality than values. I’m drawn to long horizons. I often ask: What needs to happen now to build the best possible future in fifty years’…

  • Shared Wonder

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    Peter
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    What is the greatest gift someone could give you? The older I get, the less interested I am in accumulating things. I’m at the stage where I want less stuff, not more—less to store, maintain, and feel responsible for. What I value now is meaning. One year ago I gave my wife a milestone birthday…

  • The Shape of My Learning

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    Peter
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    What colleges have you attended? I am a perennial learner. Not because I am restless or obsessive, but because learning itself animates me. It is the process—attention, discovery, application—rather than the outcome, that draws me forward. I began with pure mathematics at University of Sydney. I was young, immature, and not  ready for what I…