by tashmcgill | Feb 7, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship
“Welcome to the age of self-management, it’s all on you from here.” It was said with a smile, but in a tone that makes the blood run cold. More truth held in the six words at the end of that sentence than I’d heard for quite some time. I was being given a choice about how to respond.
The infallible truth is, my life is a direct result of my choices and actions. Both poor and good choices construct a set of circumstances that I, and I alone, must take responsibility for. Regardless of how we interact with other individuals and how their choices may impact on us, our choices to respond to those circumstances lands the responsibility firmly in our own hands. Your life isn’t what happens to you, it’s how you respond. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Feb 5, 2013 | Church, Spirituality, Youth Work
Honesty is always the best policy, except for all the occasions on which honesty will cost you almost, if not absolutely everything. This is true in a number of places but mostly true in church. This is surprising, considering the enormous effort we invest in trying to help young people feel confident to “be themselves”.
A week ago, I wrote a couple of very honest blog entries on My Fear Of Failure and Frustration: The Agonizingly Slow Pace of Transformation. I loved the comments, feedback and a dozen or so emails and Facebook messages I received from people sharing their thoughts and stories. One friend said “I just thought, wow, Tash is being really vulnerable.”
That comment both graced me and irked me, as I’ve previously taken pride in my ability to be honest and vulnerable. Yet, on reflection – I remembered another conversation just a couple of weeks ago. In passing, I made a statement that was truthful, but sharp.
Me: “Oh, was that a little too honest? I may have crossed the line.”
Him: “No, it was fine – better it be said and heard, than thought and not spoken.”
Me: “Well, you know me – never one to hold back an opinion if given the opportunity.”
Him: “Maybe a few years ago, but if I was being honest, you haven’t been that honest for a long time.”
When Did I Stop Being Honest?
As soon as I learned how honesty could hurt me and that honesty wasn’t always acceptable. And then I realized that I learned to be dishonest in the Church. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jan 26, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, god ideas
Whether you embrace change, or change is thrust upon you without warning – the process of transformation is long and hard. I have long been a lover of Henri Nouwen’s journal of letters to himself, “The Inner Voice of Love”. If I was to minister to myself; this is what I would remind myself of.
“You need to recognize the difference between change and transformation. You keep expecting that these external circumstances that reflect change around you, will mirror or gauge the change within you. But you don’t change, people can only transform. One thing must become another. You can’t tear out your heart and simply replace it with a new one, much as one relationship cannot be exchanged for another. We must transform. So these external changes you are processing, can transform you internally, if you choose. But you must choose this: it will not simply happen by osmosis. It is too easy to adopt new behaviours and claim newness, when really all you are doing is maintaining a facade. (more…)
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 22, 2012 | Love & Marriage, Spirituality
I write on a regular basis for a Christian column of young writers. Recently I wrote this piece which continues to sit with me as I ruminate on friendship, home, love and marriage these days. Within a Christian culture where women are still largely defined in relationship to their husbands and children, when ideas of ‘godly womanhood’ are overflowing bookstore shelves and womens’ events are all the rage – if the traditional church’s answer to singledom is ‘Trust in the Lord and wait..”, I’m not convinced that the liberal church has a better answer either. In fact, I’m not sure what the Church is really saying at all.
Is It Really Ok To Be Single? – originally published here
These days, it’s rare to find a mainstream media commentator that raises their voice in a way that resonates with the church– but I read an opinion article by Shelley Bridgeman a couple of weeks ago that did just that. The writer asked the questions “Is it really ok to be single?” from the premise that society by and large still discriminates in many ways against those who are unmarried, either by choice or circumstance. (more…)
