The Afterword

Tag: life

  • A Life Worth Listening To

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    Peter
    in

    I’ve always been fascinated by people—what makes them tick, what they carry, and how their stories unfold. My first job after university was in IT, automating a production line. Because computers were expensive and labour was cheap, system development had to wait until after 4 p.m. So I started late and stayed late, spending my…

  • The Writing Compendium

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    Peter
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    I’m not someone who accumulates much. In fact, I’ve come to want less, not more. Rather than shape my life around possessions, I’d rather shape my life to need less. And yet, the belongings I do hold onto tend to carry meaning. They’re not just useful—they’re threads in a larger story. One that comes to…

  • You Know the Beauty of Cold; I’m Still Learning

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    Peter
    in

    COLD:I grew up in the silence of winter.The still kind of cold,the kind that creaks the trees at nightand lays a hush over the world so thickyou can almost hear the snow settle.It taught me how to listen.How to endure.How to know the differencebetween solitude and loneliness. HEAT:I was raised where the sun seeps into…

  • Let’s Talk About Tension

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    Peter
    in

    When I hear the phrase “work-life balance,” I get uneasy. It conjures images of perfect equilibrium—neatly arranged schedules, harmonious transitions, nothing out of place. But that has never felt real to me. My experience is far closer to a game of Whac-A-Mole: get one thing under control and another pops up. Harmony, if it comes…

  • A Different Road

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    Peter
    in

    When I think about sacrifice, it rarely feels like I’ve given something up. I chose this path—this calling—and it has been full of meaning, challenge, and joy. But sacrifice has a way of surfacing not just in what we surrender personally, but in what those close to us carry because of our choices. If there’s…

  • The Ring I Never Take Off

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    Peter
    in

    The oldest thing I’m wearing today is my wedding ring. It’s been nearly 39 years since I first slipped it on—a simple gold band with a bevelled edge, unchanged by time, though life has changed around it many times over. New homes, different cities, changing routines. We’ve faced health scares, taken long-awaited holidays, chased goals…

  • Not Later, But Now

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    Peter
    in

    For a while now, I’ve carried a quiet intention:to spend more time in nature — not just walking through it, but working with it.To be part of something restorative, to give back to the land in small, steady ways. I’ve told myself that this kind of thing belongs to the “next season” of life.When things…

  • You Saw Me

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    Peter
    in

    I was fifteen when I decided it was time—time to take my learning seriously. Not in the way school usually defined it, but in my own way. I had already learned that I didn’t thrive in traditional classrooms. I’m a visual learner. Spoken words dissolve into fog; lectures become a blur. I don’t absorb information…

  • Freedom, Desire, and the Mirage of Power

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    Peter
    in

    There’s a kind of freedom that’s easy to sell.It looks like confidence.It sounds like influence.It promises strength, wealth, admiration, and endless choice.But it’s a mirage. False liberators know how to speak to pain.They speak to young men:You’ve been ignored. You’re not wanted. You’re powerless.Take what you deserve. Be feared, not overlooked. Be served.It sounds like…

  • You Trust the Next Chapter

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    Peter
    in

    After 45 years across multiple careers — as a parish minister, university lecturer, and now principal of a university residential college — I find myself in the change-over zone of a relay race. I’ve spent my working life helping people grow and develop, and that won’t stop anytime soon. But the way I contribute will…

  • A Job for One Day, A Longing for More

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    Peter
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    There’s something meaningful about watching an animal return to the wild. After weeks or months of care—feeding, tending injuries, creating safe spaces—it comes down to a simple moment: a gate opens, and the animal walks or hops or flies back into the world. I’d like to be there for that. For a day. Maybe more.…

  • Who We Are When We Choose

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    Peter
    in

    I always vote in elections.Even if it weren’t compulsory, which it is in Australia,I would still show up.Not because I think my single vote will tip the scales,but because voting is part of the story I want to tellabout who we are and who we might yet become. I don’t vote to protect my own…

  • Something to Do, Someone to Love, Something to Look Forward To

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    Peter
    in

    Purpose is the why behind what we do—our deeper motivation. Direction is the how—the path we take to express that purpose in action. Without purpose, our steps may be aimless. Without direction, even purposeful intent can wander. Together, they form a compass and a road. For me, direction in life flows from a conviction that…

  • The Slow Productivity of the Morning

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    Peter
    in ,

    There is a kind of productivity that moves fast —urgent, noisy, tangled in a web of demands.And then there is another kind:the slow, deep work of becoming.I find it most clearly in the morning. The house is still.The animals are fed.The world has not yet begun to press its needs against me.In those early hours,…

  • What I Can’t Stop Writing About

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    Peter
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    So here we are: blogging about my blog. A reflection on the reflections. I know—it’s a bit meta. But I think there’s something fitting about pausing to ask, What am I really talking about, underneath all this talking? Because the truth is, I like to write. And in all these stories and afterthoughts, there are…

  • Who will you be? How will you live?

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    Peter
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    What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a question I’ve heard all my life — first directed at me, then at the next generation. It usually expects a job title, something neat and impressive. But what if the better question is: Who will you be? How will you live? That question…

  • The Weight of Staying Silent

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    Peter
    in

    I’ve built much of my life on being reliable. Loyal. Dutiful. Self-sacrificing. These are strengths I’ve cultivated with care—virtues I’ve leaned on to be the kind of person others can count on. I take my responsibilities seriously. I honour commitments. I do what’s asked of me. And I like the respect that comes with that.…

  • On What Makes Me Nervous

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    Peter
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    It’s not fear that shaped me, not really, not in the way some people mean it. I was never afraid of change, not even as a kid, though I didn’t chase it either. I’ve stayed where things mattered. By the time I’m done, I’ll have worked in four places over forty years, and that sounds…

  • Unwinding

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    Peter
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    I’m not sure I do this very well.Even the question—how do you unwind?—makes me pause. It doesn’t trigger a confident answer, but a kind of internal audit. I don’t have a ritual for it, not really. Not in the conventional sense. Unwinding, for me, is functional. It isn’t about indulgence; it’s about rhythm. I’ve learned…

  • A Kind of Home

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    Peter
    in

    Sometimes the people we need most are the ones we’ve never met before. There’s something oddly tender about the first conversation you have with a stranger—especially when it happens in a room full of strangers, where no one yet knows how the story will go. That first confession, “I’ve never done this before,” offered by…