Author: Peter
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Not Safe, But Good
What is your favourite quote? Yesterday’s sermon briefly mentioned one of my favourite passages from C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. When Lucy hears about Aslan, the great lion who represents Christ, she asks Mr Beaver: “Is he safe?” “Safe?” said Mr Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s…
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How Can I Give You Up? – Hosea 1:1-9, 11:1-11
Hosea is a bookthat defies common sense.God remains faithfulto a faithless people,steadfast toward thosewho have given their heartsto almost everything else. Most systems tell usto improve,to climb higher,to bring something impressive. But the Lord is not like that.We have erred and strayedlike lost sheep.Prone to wander.Still pursued. Hosea is toldto marry betrayal,to build his homeinside…
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Decide What Enough Means
If you had to give one life changing tip what would it be? If I had to offer one life-changing tip, it would be this: decide what “enough” means. Unless we define it for ourselves, the world will keep defining it as more. More money. More possessions. More recognition. More achievement. Donald Trump once said…
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Learning to Sit with Suffering
What’s a skill you consider basic, that most peopledon’t actually know how to do? Sitting with someone who is suffering seems like a basic human skill. It is also one of the hardest. As a young man in my twenties, I regularly visited people in an oncology ward. They were experiencing all kinds of emotions.…
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John Ames
Who is the fictional character you relate to the most? Of all the fictional characters I have encountered, John Ames in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead may be the one I relate to most. Ames is an ageing minister writing to his young son. He is gentle without being sentimental, devout without being coercive, and deeply attentive…
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Presence
Do you think everything happens for a reason? I have written before about Kate Bowler, the Duke University professor whose doctoral research examined the North American church’s obsession with wealth, health and success. Then, while still a young academic, she found herself living inside the questions she had studied. She was diagnosed with Stage 4…
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Warm Minimalism
What’s your home decoration style? Warm minimalism is probably the best description of our home decoration style. I increasingly prefer fewer things, but I do not want to live in a house that feels like a showroom. I like light, space, timber, artwork, books and enough warmth to suggest that people actually live there. Artwork…
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The Ideals We Keep
What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever? I was at university when Jackson Browne released The Pretender. There was a music room where people supposedly went to study, although Jackson Browne’s For Everyman and Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark seemed to be permanently playing. I often went there when I had a…
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Groundhog Day for Readers
If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose? This question seems familiar. On 25 June, the prompt asked which book ending I would change. I wrote the following in response https://theafterworddotblog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3491&action=edit Exactly one month later, I was asked which book ending I would rewrite. Either the prompt writer has a very…
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Rend Your Hearts – Joel 2:12-32
Return to mewith all your heart.Not with torn garments,careful wordsor borrowed sorrow.Rend your hearts. Israel had returned from exilebut had not returned to God.The old sins remained,deep in the soil,deep in the people,the ancient fracture of the gardenrunning through every kingdomwe build for ourselves. And still God lets them stand.Still he toleratesour empires,our violence,our hunger…
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A Dream for the Future
What’s your biggest dream? I suspect most of us want to build something that outlives us. For some, that happens through children. For others, through writing: a story, poem or reflection that may one day offer someone courage, comfort or a new way of seeing. For me, it is people. That is why I do…
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A Promise Kept
What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept? A couple of years ago, I started writing again. I had always loved it, but somewhere in the busyness of life, that love had been crowded out. Writing became something I hoped I might return to one day. At first, I wrote occasionally and…
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Lunch with the Cat in the Hat
If you could have dinner with any fictional character who would it be? If I could have lunch with any fictional character, I would choose the Cat in the Hat. He would arrive without being invited. “You were thinking of me,” he would say, stepping through the door with his striped hat brushing the frame.…
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The Best $45 We Ever Spent
What is the best purchase you have ever made? The best purchase I ever made was our first dog. We were newly married and living in Lismore on the Northern Rivers. One day we looked through the local paper and saw an advertisement for border collie puppies on a farm near Kyogle. We drove out…
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What Kind of Bike?
What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of? It was probably not the funniest misunderstanding I have ever been part of, but it was the most recent. We were having dinner at the college and meeting someone for the first time. The conversation turned to what everyone had done over the weekend. He mentioned…
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AntennaPod
What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it? I recently checked the Digital Wellbeing section in my phone settings. AntennaPod consistently comes out on top, anywhere up to an hour per day. I do not feel bad about it at all. AntennaPod is the app…
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The Memory Stones
What’s a movie or book that inspired you to travel? I read The Memory Stones by Caroline Brothers three or four years ago and was deeply moved by it. The novel tells the story of a young woman who disappears during Argentina’s military dictatorship and of the child taken from her. It is both a…
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Too Busy Enlarging Our Lives to Live Them
If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be? If I could erase one trend from history, it might be the belief that bigger is always better. Bigger houses. Bigger cars. Bigger companies. Bigger cities. Bigger economies. Bigger audiences. Bigger ambitions. We have learned to treat growth as proof of health and…
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The Answering Machine
Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why? When we were newly married, we bought our first answering machine. At the time, it seemed like a marvellous invention. Someone could call while we were out, leave a message, and trust that we would respond later. We could listen, consider what had been said,…
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It’s Just Who I Am
What is the best excuse you have heard lately? “It’s just who I am” may be one of our best excuses because it disguises itself as self-knowledge. We think of ourselves as impatient, avoidant, untidy or blunt, then treat these patterns as permanent personality traits rather than habits that could change. A blunt person can…
