The Afterword

Tag: life

  • When I Should Have Said No

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    Peter
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    Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently? When I was in theological college, I worked on weekends as a student minister in a church. My senior minister was very conservative, authoritarian, and very forceful in his opinions. At the time, we were building a…

  • Letting the Day Wear Off

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    Peter
    in

    How do you unwind after a demanding day? First, I come home and take the dog to the local forest for a while. It is not really a forest. It is a park. But people call it The Forest, which makes it sound much more impressive. I throw the ball for her to catch. Not…

  • How I Use Social Media

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    Peter
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    How do you use social media? How do you use social media? I use social media mostly to keep up with people. Facebook helps me know what friends are doing, where they have been, what their family is up to, and what seems to be filling their lives at the moment. I like that. I…

  • One Sunday Morning

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    Peter
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    Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you I met him in Tanzania when I was there with an international team working with the Lutheran church on a project for training preachers. On Sundays we were sent out to different churches around the region, which meant each of us needed…

  • The Places That Leave Me Cold

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    Peter
    in

    What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why? I love visiting new places. Often they are not the places other people expect. I have travelled on every continent, including Antarctica, and some of the places that have most moved me were not the polished or well-known ones. They were places with…

  • Respect

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    Peter
    in

    Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you. About fifteen years ago, my siblings and I persuaded my parents to write down the story of their lives. Not memoirs. Not for publication. Just the memories and family truths that would otherwise disappear with them. They were reluctant, but they did it. What…

  • More Than a Meal

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    Peter
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    What is your favourite restaurant? I have never been able to answer questions about a favourite restaurant in the singular, as though one place could do all the work required of it. Restaurants are not interchangeable. There are restaurants for celebration, for conversation, for family, for beauty, for comfort, and for memory. To ask for…

  • In Ten Years’ Time

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    Peter
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    Where do you see yourself in 10 years? In ten years’ time I will be long retired. People will no longer be coming to my office each day looking for feedback, advice, or a decision. I will have joined the long line of those who have gone before me: remembered by some, unknown to those…

  • Five Things That Bring Me Happiness

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    Peter
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    What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness? What brings me happiness is not usually anything dramatic. More often, it is the ordinary things I return to again and again, the parts of life that make me feel most alive. Nature is one of them. I love bushland. Bushwalking is a great source of…

  • What High School Really Taught Me

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    Peter
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    Describe something you learned in high school. When I think about what I learned at high school, I do not first think of subjects or classrooms. I think of people. I think of friendship, and of the strange way those early bonds can work themselves into your life so deeply that you do not fully…

  • Learning to End the Day

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    Peter
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    Describe one positive change you have made in your life The most important changes are not always the ones that announce themselves. Some arrive quietly and only later do you realise how much good they have done. Learning to go to bed earlier was like that for me. It does not sound like much, but…

  • The Exercise That Fits

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    Peter
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    What’s the most fun way to exercise? I’m surrounded by young adults, so I get to see some of the ways younger generations make exercise fun. One student heads into the city for a dance class at the Sydney Dance Company. That sounds like fun. Others are into bouldering, joining niche gyms built around that…

  • Making a Text Live

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    Peter
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    If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why? About ten years ago we did a dramatised reading of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. I invited a university lecturer who had written his PhD on Milton’s Paradise Lost to come as a literary expert, and a friend who was a…

  • What I Was Called to Do All Along

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    Peter
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    What job would you do for free? Some work pays the bills. Other work tells the truth about your life. I have been thinking for a while about what I would do for free. The answer, I think, is the work I was called to do all along. For all my adult life, in one…

  • Why Swimming Is My Olympic Sport

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    Peter
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    What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most? Swimming is the Olympic sport I most enjoy watching. Part of that is cultural. As an Australian, I have grown up in a country where water is woven into ordinary life. We are surrounded by beaches, pools and waterways. Hundreds of thousands of people volunteer as…

  • Telling the Truth Well

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    Peter
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    How would you improve your community? One way to improve our community is to help people tell the truth more gently and more clearly. That may sound like a small thing, but it matters a great deal. In any close community, people will talk. They will notice tensions, mistakes, weaknesses and struggles. Some information does…

  • The First Hour of the Day

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    Peter
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    What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like? A good morning does not need to be spectacular; it simply needs to begin with what gives life order, attention, and energy. My day starts early, usually a couple of hours before sunrise. I begin by feeding the animals. We…

  • The Comedy of Everyday Life

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    Peter
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    What makes you laugh? What makes me laugh is usually not a joke. It is more often the comedy of everyday life. A friend once remarked that young people are beautiful, and I think that is true. There is something wonderful about that stage of life. Teenagers and young adults are playfully establishing themselves in…

  • What I Wanted at Five

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    Peter
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    When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up? When I was five, I do not remember wanting to be anything in particular. No fireman, no astronaut, no train driver. What I do remember is wanting to be out of school. I can still remember walking to school with a…

  • Going Deeper by Saying No

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    Peter
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    How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals? Probably not often enough. My mother’s summation of my life is that I take on too much. I have come to think she is right. I have spent much of my life assuming that I can fit one more thing in,…