by tashmcgill | Feb 7, 2006 | Uncategorized

Necessities

Phones with sleek rubber covers to protect them from scratches and bumps. Kinda like Ipod covers.
Emails from dear ones far away.
Good wine.
Good friends.
Things to look forward to like weddings.
Blue skies, sunsets and clear heads.
Space and Time to formulate new ideas.

A Woman & Her Hairdresser
I love that my hairdresser, sytlist, colourist etc are more like friends that you only see once in a while that people that I pay to make me look good. It was great to share in Aimee’s wedding photo joy, as well as Bonz’ great headshots, and to hear everything that’s going on for them. I thought it was kinda funny at first .. but then isn’t that partly why I want to open a pub? To hear people’s stories .. whenever they are ready to tell them?

Career Development
I’m having an epiphany. Sometimes it’s meaningless to preach from trenches, to those on pavement. So maybe an effective and intentional way of being meaningful in my peer community is to actually serve the same way they do .. balancing ‘real’ jobs and the demands/tensions of that life.

by tashmcgill | Feb 6, 2006 | Uncategorized

Under The Shade Of Pinot
What if it’s all connected in the universe? Not just in that ‘God makes good from all things’ kinda connectedness. But in a deeper, more unconventional way.

Like.. how is my meeting with Dave Munro this week connected to his part in setup on eastercamp in 2003? And how is that connected to my vision for eastercamp in the future? And what’s the stepping stone that takes my meeting with the summer harvest debrief team tonight into the planning for Queens Birthday weekend for 06?

Maybe it’s all connected. Maybe waking up next to someone your best friend from 5 years ago used to be in love with has some strange cosmic part to play in the way God is unravelling the plans he has. Because waking up next to that person, puts into context so many other mornings when I’ve woken up with the memory or thought of someone else… and all of a sudden life has perspective again.

Perspective might leave you a little empty to begin with – but then I come again to the connectedness of it all. There must be a reason why it all fits together into a jigsaw puzzle. There must be some hilarity at the end of it all.

by tashmcgill | Feb 6, 2006 | Uncategorized

State Of The Union
Last night went with Ian and Jeremy to lead the service at Te Atatu Union, where Graeme & Lynley (J’s parents) minister. It’s not the first time that we’ve been there – this week we played with just two acoustic gats, vox. We played one of the Nooma series and I read a poem from Darlene Bee’s book.

Last year Mum donated the money to have it published – a collection of her poems. It’s a beautiful little book – and her words are perfect in so many respects. She had such a tangible understanding of what it meant to suffer under God’s grace.

After the service we stayed talking late into the night as per usual – we talked a lot about the dynamics of small and large community.. wondering aloud about the journey we are on at Windsor. Whether or not we have crossed the line from real community into a consumer product. It’s so hard to balance these things and try and seek God for the way forward when my own head is such a muddle of confusion. J has started to joke around about planting a church – and my heart leaps because I think maybe the only way forward is to keep experimenting and shaping the model. Not a model to be sold anywhere else.. just a model that will work for us, for the people we love.

So many ideas that start to flow.. a place where we eat and talk and do life together. A place without youth programmes, just with relationships. A place that takes more work than where we are right now – but a place that gives so much in it’s being, that work becomes a life-giving sacrifice. A place that gives space for people to be who they are and breathe. To ask questions and doubt, to fight and wrestle with all these things.

Under God’s Grace
Grace is such a healing balm – but sometimes I am guilty of misusing it in my life. I am beginning to see – perhaps through Nouwen’s writing – that suffering under grace isn’t about being able to apply grace to the curcumstances of life that we find ourselves in – but rather suffering whilst understanding the truth of Grace. That Grace is still true in the complexities of sorrow.

Falling

Well I’m so tired
Of falling in love
Finding it easier to fall out
You can’t deny it
I feel it inside Cupid’s fire
I can’t hide

So I said that when we went to the lake I ended up feeling a little melancholy – well, it’s staying with me in dribs and dabs.

The reason I am feeling this way is hard to pinpoint, although I have a few ideas. In the midst of trying to decide what I am going to do with my life .. I feel scared that I am losing my focus or sense of purpose in my work.

I spent Friday with a whole bunch of great people – all a bit older than me. All married, with kids. With jobs and careers that they are totally sold out to and committed to. I had this moment of epiphany where I realised I was unmarried (which makes me feel incomplete as much as I wish it didn’t), unfocused (too many jobs & things on my plate) and unemployed.

So what to do? I just don’t know.

by tashmcgill | Feb 4, 2006 | Uncategorized

Welcome Home

I’m thinking and wrestling with a few things — most of which i have posted here in the past couple of months. I came back to work this week to find out that I am losing my office at the church – fair enough I guess .. I’m currently a 20hr per week volunteer .. and they have a new intern starting. It’s pretty stressful to have to think about shifting all my ministries supplies in a few days time and to who knows where.

I’ve ended up thinking – after some conversations with Eye and a few other equally marvellous folk – that perhaps the best idea is to launch back into the workforce properly after eastercamp is done. There are no rules that say a ministry-based life has to be working for a church or parachurch organisation and I feel that there is a certain amount of credibility or confidence that may be better found in the marketplace again.

After all – no matter which way I go about it – the sums just don’t add up – I still end up fragmented and all over the show – spread out way too thin and not being able to fully enjoy it all.

Some thoughts.

I may well be job hunting for a real job and then trimming down my work at Windsor to some more specific tasks. That may be the best way to go about seeing the path ahead.

It’s basically all about trying to find my way home.

The Lake At Tomorata
Yesterday we went up to the lake – Andy & Kirsten, Jesse & Liam, and we were joined by Alan and Heather, Tony and Heidi, Nige and Cath .. it was a great day but in the middle of it all I did start to all of a sudden feel a little melancholy …

Song Of The Moment : Welcome Home
Dave Dobbyn

so welcome home, i bid you welcome, I bid you welcome
welcome home from the bottom of our hearts
welcome home, see i made a space for you now
welcome home from the bottom of our hearts
from the bottom of our hearts

by tashmcgill | Feb 4, 2006 | Uncategorized

Back At Last
I don’t really want to be back – in that the past couple of weeks have been a delightful time – busy but truly delightful.

I’ve been working hard at eastercamp stuff, having family coffee in the mornings with Eye, Kirst and Andy + Jesse and Liam, then going down to parachute for setup and the actual festival. Spent lots of time with Jo, Cairin and Eye – came home and have spent the last few days trying to recover – except the tiredness only really hit me yesterday!

by tashmcgill | Jan 13, 2006 | Uncategorized

De-Lurking Week
Hat-tip to Mindy at The Mommy Blog for reminding me about De-Lurking Week. It’s the one time of year that we bloggers get to ask ever so nicely, for you readers out there to announce yourselves, just once. Go on, get friendly and I promise not to ask again until next year.

Warning: This Blog Is About To Overpost
But I keep having thoughts that I think I need to record somewhere and interact with.. this I wrote in an email conversation that started with Nooma and keeps spinning me off in all sorts of other directions.. I’ll be back in another half hour when I’ve thought of something else.

Excellence hardly ever stands alone – it comes from well-thought out
foundations, well excecuted decisions and actions, and within environments
of well-connected, energised, focused people. You can’t make an excellent
movie with only good technique – the terrible scripting and acting will
show your film to be a facade – and similarly our own lives ..

I’ve been thinking about this in terms of my own personal life and
development – it’s false to do one thing excellently, if nothing else
matches, because then that’s not really genuine excellence – it’s jsut
fluking by on appearances. Which I guess points us back to origins,
foundations, key values etc. It’s no good to have a tidy house for guests
if you live like a slob the rest of the time. No use throwing a great
party if you’re only ever hospitable on your own terms, but you don’t
throw open the doors of your house anytime someone turns up.

Guess it’s the same at work, at church, with friends – Much easy to do all
that ground work with a project and produce excellence than with a person,
huh? Still – a challenge worth pursuing. An excellent life is something
worth living for.

Light
don’t want to think about
the darkness within
don’t need any more than my
present heavy sins
just hold on to me
and let us celebrate

i give a little light to you
you bring a little back to me