Tag: love
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Listening to Fear
How do you handle fear and self-doubt? I have faced plenty of self-doubt over the years, mainly in the form of imposter syndrome. When I started my doctorate, I had a nagging sense that I would be found out. I felt as though they had let me in by mistake. Not a clerical error, but…
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To Be Honest
What is a word or phrase that annoys you? There comes a time in every conversation when someone takes a deep breath, lowers their voice slightly, looks you in the eye, and says the three words that should make every sensible person reach for cover. “To be honest…” At which point I always want to…
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It’s a Gift to Exist
What is a simple pleasure in life that brings you joy? I have not always understood this, but walking is one of the great simple pleasures of life. Not walking for fitness, though that matters. Not walking to get somewhere, though that helps. Just walking. I often follow the same route. The dog beside me.…
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A Single Day
What’s a book that completely surprised you? Years ago, a writing teacher recommended Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons. It had won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, so I knew it came well regarded. Even so, I read it mostly out of respect for my teacher. Then I loved it. I wrote a few days ago…
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The Wealth of Less
What are the biggest benefits of minimalist living? My father started each day with a cup of tea. The cup was huge. Not quite a mixing bowl, but close. On it were the words: I’m not greedy, but I want enough. I never knew the story behind that cup, but I understood the joke. It…
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This Is How I Mean It
What are your favourite emojis? In years to come, what tales I’ll tell future generations — or anyone who will pause long enough to listen. Because all young people should know what shaped their world, and which small yellow faces were involved. “Call that communicating?” I’ll say. “You should have seen us before emojis.” They’ll…
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The Conversation I Keep Returning To
What topics do you like to discuss? This blog began as a way of paying attention. After church on Sunday, I often found myself still thinking about the sermon while the rest of life moved on: lunch, emails, conversations, Monday’s work. Writing gave me a way to sit with the message a little longer. It…
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On Risk and Honesty
When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out? The last time I took a risk was a couple of days ago, when I wrote in my blog about a time I should have said no. Writing about it felt risky. Not dramatically risky. But still, it was a risk…
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When I Should Have Said No
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…
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The Places That Leave Me Cold
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…
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Respect
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…
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In Ten Years’ Time
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…
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Five Things That Bring Me Happiness
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…
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What High School Really Taught Me
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…
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Learning to End the Day
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…
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Making a Text Live
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…
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Telling the Truth Well
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…
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What I Wanted at Five
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…
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Going Deeper by Saying No
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,…
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A Kind of Flow
What activities do you lose yourself in? I lose myself in writing, walking, and sport, and each of them impacts me in a different way. Writing often gets hold of me. It can be an idea, a life story, a poem, a short story. Something catches, and once it does I can lose all track…
The Afterword 