by tashmcgill | Jan 25, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Spirituality
I took this photo using a self-timer, my camera propped on the rooftop of the car. I had taken the car for a little sightseeing, headed east into the mountains and desert outside of San Diego, in October 2007. I was intoxicated with life, at the end of an almost year long journey into rediscovering myself. And by that what I really mean is, I’d finally shed nearly 50kgs of extra weight I’d been slowly accumulating. And now, when I look at that photograph, I feel like a failure.
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by tashmcgill | Nov 7, 2012 | Culture & Ideas, Love & Marriage
I’m currently in one of my favorite writing spaces; facing south west as the Pacific Surfliner cruises out of Los Angeles and towards San Diego.
The airport today was a flurry of businessmen rushing off the plane, followed by exhausted parents of small people giddy with dreams of stars on Hollywood Blvd and the theme parks of Anaheim. The NZ Maori rugby team were in transit to London. And I, a tapestry of weaving emotions felt like I was both leaving and coming home.
What is home, anyway? I’ve been defining and redefining home my entire life. I’ve found home in places, events, moments in time, music, bars. But home is people too, so maybe the old adage is true, home really is where the heart is and the heart can only be found with people. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Oct 19, 2012 | Culture & Ideas, Love & Marriage, Spirituality
This weekend, I’m going to be participating in a conversation about same-sex marriage, the various views on the subject and our response as a Christian faith community, as well as the implications. This is a subject I’ve been waiting on for years – because it’s a magnificent opportunity to redefine marriage at every level.
I first wrote about the definition of marriage as spiritual vs legal before it was even conceivable that the New Zealand government would move towards this legislation in the next 30 years. It was circa 1996 and reeling from the speedy marriage and divorce of some friends, I questioned the legal and civil process by which the dissolution of the marriage took place, in comparison to the associated impact on children, community and relationships.
The same-sex marriage debate raises those thoughts for me again, because I believe in order to have a reasonable discussion, you need to approach the debate with the right questions. So, I’ll quote from a piece I wrote for Christianity Today (bearing in mind that the last paragraph was edited externally) but here’s the quick summary.
- Marriage of any kind, is not the domain of the Church alone. Cultures throughout history have formed marriage rituals for the formalization of societal arrangements by which to raise children and manage property.
- Why should ministers of religion be charged with carrying out civil tasks?
- Can it be possible for the Church to decline to marry those with opposing beliefs around human sexuality, but not refuse those who decline any spiritual belief at all?
- Entering into the state of Marriage (legal) does not presume entry into any spiritual state of marriage, a holy union or otherwise. In it’s essence, the marriage licenses we sign are contracts, made with promises but they are not promises of spiritual intent and union.
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by tashmcgill | Oct 18, 2012 | Culture & Ideas
“…Thus, our humanity became defined by the collection of transactions in which we traded peace, war, love and chaos.
We hoped for triumph, we landed in despair. Then we began again.”
We are in the wild days. Not the wilderness, or a desert or a walkabout gone on too long. No, these are the wild days and the wild nights – it’s we who have become the untamed, the unleashed, the unhindered, the uninhibited. We have loosed our bonds or had them loosened so we have redefined ourselves without boundaries and cast ourselves out into the endless wondering of possibility, the freedoms of being unconstrained.
We have hoped to be brave enough to say “nothing is forbidden” but we are bound in by fear, regardless. We are in the wild days but our hearts are wrestling for constraint.
Wild/wīld/
Adjective: (of an animal or plant) Living or growing in the natural environment; not domesticated or cultivated.
Adverb: In an uncontrolled manner: “the bad guys shot wild”.
Noun: A natural state or uncultivated or uninhabited region.
Synonyms: adjective. savage – mad – feral noun. wilderness – waste
We live in boundaries, in a series of social norms that provide a sort of governance. Beyond these norms, when they are stripped away and discarded, no longer functional or necessary – we fear and risk losing ourselves. We try to replace boundaries, to redefine and reestablish them in hope of finding our secure footing again.
But often the last time we were on the loose without these boundaries was adolescence. In adolescence we treated boundaries with disdain but discovered ourselves by them. Too harsh and we rejected them, too soft and we bowled them over emerging somehow into our first adulthood. So now, we seek out our new rules, our new fences by the same methodology we employed then. Sensationalism, expression, exploration and extremism. We live on high alert, our senses ready and receptive. Still, now is not the time to re-imagine our awakening into adulthood. Once landed there, despite an absence of the boundaries we knew – it’s time to redefine ourselves into adulthood.
Perhaps the final stages of growing up, is redefining yourself into adulthood the second time around. It might be your quarter-life, mid-life crisis, your divorce, a faith crisis, the death of a loved one, an addiction or just boredom that launches your redefining moment. But never have you been more ‘be-coming’ than in that moment of coming home to yourself, in the last rendition.
We are fearful of the wild. The wildness within us, the wildness around us, the wildness of others. Our boundaries, social or otherwise, are our great defensive blockade against the wild. As husbands and wives, we harness each other up to prevent the wild from breaking loose. We employ rules like, “don’t a say a word, if it won’t be nice”, because in the unloosing of our tongue – the wildness might escape.
But I am not afraid of the wild. I long for the wild.
late in the night
i wake, dreaming
saying to myself over and again
‘don’t try to tame the wild one’
then i dream on waking
asking myself which fence to build
which gun to load and thus
hear the lion roar, feel the tiger’s claw
no one ever tamed the wild one.
Don’t build fences, dig deep wells. That is my philosophy of love, loyalty and passion. The concept is self-explanatory – don’t make rules to keep, control or constrain people just create places of deep refreshment that draw people back to the centre.
Here’s why I’m not afraid of the wild within. My well is deep. The tiger in me is well-satisfied. I am at home. Be at home with yourself and the wild within. Don’t build fences, don’t rely on the boundaries. Learn to live from deep within the well. Learn to live in the wild, with the wild, out of the wild.
by tashmcgill | Jul 20, 2012 | Culture & Ideas, Spirituality
SO excited to announce that I will be speaking at SPARC in Sydney, 3-4th August. In just two weeks, an amazing crew of international Christians who work in media and media arts will gather in Darlinghurst for inspiration, thought-provoking conversations and what promises to be an amazing.
I’m extremely pleased to be part of this line up alongside fellow Kiwi Mark Pierson, who’s creative work with worship, installations, art and humanitarian agency World Vision is inspiring but I simply cannot wait to spend time with Ralph Winter. I first heard Ralph speak about the power of darkness in story and it’s parallel and importance to the Gospel at NYWC. I was hanging on every word. In his day job, Ralph is a movie producer of blockbuster hits like XMen, Fantastic Four and many others. It’s going to be an incredible two days. Check out the incredible lineup and conference schedule here.
In addition to speaking at the conference, I have a ticket to give away to anyone who would like to go, who’s a Christian working in the media in NZ and part of SALT. (Thanks to SALT for their support and all they do!) All I ask is that you come prepared to write down or video blog your thoughts, ideas and impressions, in order to share the experience with other Salties and Kiwis who can’t be there. You just need to email me to confirm your interest, then book your flights.
Let’s hang out!
by tashmcgill | May 1, 2012 | Culture & Ideas, Prose & Poetry
I wrote a poem once that included a line about love letters written on paper somehow being more convincing than their digital counterparts. At the time I was writing emails to a friend far away and every time I hit send, I felt like there was just a little something missing.
For a girl who always wanted to be a writer, it’s no surprise I spend a lot of my time playing with words. But they’re always words on a screen. So rarely do I get to see and experience those words in print. I used to wonder with amazement how writers could spend hours with their handwritten manuscripts – concurrently admiring and despising the words crossed out and rearranged in blue, black, red ink. Red ink looks so angry on the page, but it’s so compelling.
Dissecting the anatomy of every sentence – why change that word? Why choose another? What made that word better, stronger, softer?
Now in my work, I thrash out words, flinging them into the digital world as if I have an endless supply. It’s so hard to choose your words so selectively – there is no margin to the paper, no running off the end of the page or abruptly changing the size of my scrawl to eek out another syllable or two onto the page.
I don’t want to make digital things always. I want to smell paper and ink, newsprint and binding glue. I want to write the kinds of phrases that people are compelled to write out onto Post-It notes, stuck to monitors. *A permanent indelible mark.
The kind of work you can write as an inscription on the inside cover of a book or one day worthy of printing inside hardbound covers. To write the kind of work you give to someone you love like you are exchanging a great secret, entrusting some great treasure into the hands of another.
And therefore, just like that – I am a writer after all. Tucked inside a leather journal, fit to bust – all the good words, I’ve been saving them up to pass on as delicious mysteries, as if to say ‘Here it is, my whole heart and every crevice of imagination tucked into a binding I’ve made just for you.’
