Author: Peter
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Cities as Conversations
What cities do you want to visit? I’m not really someone who carries a list of destinations in my head. Places don’t usually attract to me on their own. They arrive through people—through stories, relationships, and small associations that linger. Montreal comes to mind first, though I’ve never been there. My wife travelled there by…
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In Season and Out – 2 Timothy 4
Preach the Word of GodStand in the square like a town crier,with no message of your own.Not what you think is there,not what people want to hear,but what the Word already says. Charles Simeon knew this.Locked pews.Locked doors.Chairs dragged into aisles.Preaching outsideto people who wished he wouldn’t.Thirty years of resistanceand a sentence carved into wood:Let…
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What I Hope Is Said
Tell us one thing you hope people say about you. When you live and work in a university college, there is always something happening. Life is shared closely. Everything is slightly magnified. People don’t just pass through one another’s days — they live inside them. Because of that, a lot of our work involves helping…
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False Starts
Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc. I was four. Which, in hindsight, explains a lot. There had been no preschool. No gradual introduction to groups or routines or puzzles on low tables. My entire social world consisted of Robert, who lived three doors down. Robert was…
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Finding My Voice
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech? It’s been a funny journey for me. I’m quiet and reflective by nature, not the sort of person who stands up in public and speaks eloquently with minimal preparation. But somewhere along the way, I discovered that being quiet doesn’t mean having nothing to say.…
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The Most Human Thing I Do
What are your favourite physical activities or exercises? My favourite physical activity is simply walking. I know that sounds very vanilla, but that’s me. I’m not a rock climber. I’m not a gym person. I don’t crave the adrenaline of extreme sports. I just like walking. For more than fifty years I played competitive football.…
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The Komodo Dragon
What is something others do that sparks your admiration? I’ve spent enough years teaching performing artists to know that they move through the world differently. They don’t just perform something—they become it. And that has always sparked my admiration. Music was my first window into this. I’ve watched musicians touch the human soul with a…
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From Bedrock to Bluey
What’s your favourite cartoon? Cartoons have changed a lot since I was a kid. Back then, my favourites lived in a prehistoric suburb called Bedrock. The Flintstones felt clever to me in ways I couldn’t have named at the time — the stone-age gadgets, the dinosaur appliances, the playful send-ups of adult life. But cartoons…
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Doing Less of “More”
What could you do less of? My mother has always said that I do too much. She may be right. If the blog prompt asks what I could do less of, the honest answer is this: I could do less of “more.” There’s something in me—an impulse, a reflex—that thinks I can always add one…
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Stand Firm – 1 Peter 5:6–14
Stand firm.The words rise like an ancient tree in the mind—the kind that has seen centuries come and go,its roots sunk deep into the earth,holding fast while storms tear across the ridgeand whole generations pass like mist.It remains steadywhere everything else shifts. To stand firm is firstto rest under God’s mighty hand.Humility isn’t instinctive,especially when…
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The Hidden Wins of 2025
What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year? It’s been a tough year in places. My parents are going downhill fast, and my mother is now permanently in a nursing home. It’s stressful for them and stressful for us, yet I’m grateful that the whole family has shown up in…
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The City Is Never Empty
Do you ever see wild animals? One of the quiet joys of living in Australia is discovering how thin the line really is between suburbia and the wild. We talk as if the bush is “out there,” somewhere beyond the edges of our cities, but the truth is that the wild never left. It waits…
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Kanangra Walls
Do you have a favourite place you have visited? Where is it? Some places stay with you long after you leave them. For me, one of those places is Kanangra Walls. It sits in the Kanangra-Boyd National Park, only 200 kilometres west of Sydney, but it always feels quieter and more spacious than its distance…
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Five Things I’m Good At
Share five things you’re good at. Some people’s strengths are loud. Mine have always been quieter—subtle things that don’t announce themselves, but settle into the background of a room, or a team, or a community. They’re not the kind of skills that appear on a résumé, but they’re the ones that shape the way I…
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The Quiet Thread I Would Change
What is one thing you would change about yourself? Someone once told me that when I get up to preach, it’s like watching someone flick a switch. One moment I’m my usual quiet self, and the next I’m fully present—clear, confident, grounded. Here’s the funny thing: that version of me on the platform is the…
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The Ritual of Being a Morning Person
Are you more of a night or morning person? I am definitely a morning person now. It wasn’t always that way. There was a time when I pushed myself late into the night, convinced that productivity came after midnight and that mornings were an inconvenience to be conquered. I would stay up long past what…
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Honouring The Land That Feeds Us
What are your feelings about eating meat? I’ve eaten meat all my life.Not because I made a decision about it —simply because it was there,on the plate, part of the rhythm of childhood. Food was uncomplicated then.It appeared. I ate it.No ethical considerations. No questions.Just the comfort of routine and a full stomach. At some…
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A Leadership Podcast – 1 Peter 5:1-5
When you look across history,you see the pattern—good leaders steady the ground beneath us.Workplaces flourish under good bosses,families grow under gentle parents,whole nations rise when wise handsguide the wheel. And the opposite is also true:harsh, domineering, or careless leadersscatter harm in every direction. The church knows this too.We bear scars from shepherdswho forgot the flock,who…
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Two Items, Two Stories
What are your two favourite things to wear? If you asked me for my two favourite things to wear, the answer doesn’t come from my current wardrobe. It comes instead from two garments that hold stories — one formal and academic, the other casual and sun-faded — each stitched with memory. 1. The Graduation Gown…
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Independence as Headspace
What technology would you be better off without, why? When we talk about technology we could live without, many people think of screens or apps. But the technology I would be better off without is much more familiar. A car. I didn’t always think this way. Like most people, I inherited the assumption that a…
The Afterword 