Better Way

i’m a living sunset lightning in my bones
push me to the edge but my will is stone
fools will be fools and wise will be wise
but i will look this world straight in the eyes
what good is a man who won’t take a stand
what good is a cynic with no better plan
reality is sharp it cuts at me like a knife
everyone i know is in the fight of their life
take your face out of your hands and clear your eyes
you have a right to your dreams and don’t be denied

i believe in a better way

Today in Hamilton we were debriefing camp. This ususally means a day of conflicting emotions for me. Celebrations, commendations and consolations over the things that didn’t work. Today I left still holding on to secret disappointments, things that didn’t work so well but people didn’t really notice. A list of changes and improvements for next year. An impossible challenge to live up to the expectations that I seem to create for myself. What am I thinking? Yet I know it’s not over yet. The best is still to come. The best will come as I grow this team of creatives – who will push me beyond what I am capable of. The production team that will expand my expectations and understanding of methodology and expression. One more year.

But it has challenges. We continue to grow and so it continues to be necessary to come up with new ways of meeting the growing needs of the camp. We undercharge for the current marketplace but we hold it as a value to make it affordable for the least advantaged. At last today, we’ve finally taken hold of the design, image and promotion – recognising that we can do a better job. So next week, work begins on the newest team – a team of designers, programmers and web builders that will work with me year round on everything from the print media to the programmes to the onscreen media at camp. There is a better way – and I think we are on the way to find it.

The May Fly
I am loving the new vodafone “Make The Most Of Now” campaign. I like the May Fly. I like that it lives only for a breath of a moment. And it lives with consuming energy, with a burning sense of purpose and innate understanding of what Life is all about. Seems like we sometimes stumble around on the edge of the Dream for a long time before we get to that point of understanding and ability. When you make life simple, it’s much easier to “be” who you are, and out of that “being” your “doing” makes a lot more sense.

I’ve been reading the story of the Israelites. I like how Moses reminds them over again of what God said all along. I wonder how much of his storytelling is actually about reminding himself. So as the Israelites reach Canaan, the Lord says “see, here is the land that I have given you, now go and take possession of it”. Of course – they don’t and end up wandering around in the Desert on the very edge of the Dream until the last of that generation is old, weary and dying.

The simplicity and beauty of the May Fly is that it simply sees what is given and takes possession of it. It doesn’t dilly-dally around with common sense or fear, it simply leaps into the centre of the Dream and lives it with such realism that every moment of life, no matter how brief, is cherishable and doable.

So it seems that in this new Dream that is unfolding – this freedom to be and do from the centre of who I am, from the inside out, with people around me who are longing to leap wholeheartedly into the Dream as well – that there has been much given, and so there is much to take. There is so much to explore and I think now that I am overwhelmed with all the Life there is to live in the midst of. I am hoping for a lifetime of deep, long breaths!