Tag: writing
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Five Kinds of Fun
List five things you do for fun. Body fun: I’m an active person. Sport is fun for me, especially football — not just the contest, but the camaraderie of being part of a cohesive team. The best moments are when everything just clicks and you start playing attractive football without forcing it. Mind fun: I…
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Friday Night Makeover
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be? You look beautiful when you let us brush you. Some households do Friday night footy. We do Friday night brush the dog (I know — we live on the edge). Our dog has a beautiful coat — dark on top, but with…
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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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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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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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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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I Don’t Fit the Box Anymore
How have your political views changed over time? When I was younger, my politics were simple. Not because I lacked conviction, but because I hadn’t yet needed to question it. My family leaned conservative, so I did too. It felt like the default setting. But growing up rearranged the furniture. Somewhere along the way I…
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The Threshold Room
You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? There is a room in the house that isn’t quite a room.Too small to be a bedroom, too lived-in to be storage,too full of sunlight to be forgotten.It sits on the edge of the family room,like a hinge in the house—a…
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The Car That Carried More Than Us
What is your all time favourite automobile? I’ve never been a car person. I don’t follow models or specifications, and I don’t care about engines for their own sake. Cars, to me, have always been practical: a way to get where you need to go. But my father loved cars and he developed a passion…
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How I Am Creative
How are you creative? Some people are creative because they can hear music. It forms in their mind and flows almost unimpeded onto the page, then to the keyboard. Some people are creative because they can see. Images assemble themselves in the mind’s eye and find their way to canvas, screen, or stone. Others are…
The Afterword 