Tag: dailyprompt
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Remembered Well
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…
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Closing Tabs
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…
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The Calm at Our Feet
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…
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House Rules for Online Communication
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…
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A New Kind of Freedom
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…
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Dried Figs and Yoghurt
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…
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The Roosters Jersey
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…
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A Life Mission
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…
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What Makes A Long Life Good?
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…
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Being Intentional About Friendship
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…
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One Wild and Precious Life
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…
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This Season
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’…
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Shared Wonder
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…
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The Shape of My Learning
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…
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Playtime
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you? When I was younger, play looked like sport. I was six when I first laced up football boots, and from that moment I was hooked. It was physical and technical, but it was also something more: it demanded that you pay attention, read…
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My Biggest Challenge
What are your biggest challenges? New Year’s Day 2026 It’s tempting to name my challenges as problems to solve, but that isn’t quite true. They are frequently awkward, demanding, sometimes painful—and yet they keep asking something of me that feels important. So rather than list what frustrates me, I’ll try to name what I’m learning…
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What Makes Me Feel Nostalgic
What makes you feel nostalgic? Some people live in the past, some live in the present, and some live in the future. I’ve never quite managed the first two. My imagination has always leaned forward, toward what might be, what could still be built, what decisions made today might open up possibilities fifty years from…
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What Relationships Have a Positive Impact on Me?
What relationships have a positive impact on you? When I think about the relationships that have shaped me, what stands out isn’t a single defining person or moment, but the way different people have unlocked different parts of me over time. I didn’t become myself alone. Who I am was built gradually—through conversations, corrections, encouragement,…
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Brolgas
If you started a sports team, what would the colours and mascot be? If I ever started a sports team, it would be something distinctively Australian. The Brolgas. Not the loudest bird, not flashy, but unmistakable—tall, graceful, and somehow ancient. Our colours would be gum-leaf green and rust-red, like the Australian bush after rain: earthy,…
The Afterword 