Episode 82 - Brick by Brick

This week I’ve been thinking about Lego. I don’t really know why, but to be fair, why not? I guess maybe because sometimes life feels like making a Lego model. You keep adding more bricks and more bricks but nothing seems to really take shape. Until suddenly towards the end, you can finally begin to see what it is you’ve been working at take shape and it all makes sense. Did you know that there are over 25,000 different types of Lego block? That’s an incredible amount! But then when you consider what you can do with those blocks, it suddenly seems comparatively tiny, because with just those blocks, you can make pretty much anything! If you can imagine it, you can probably make it. And it’s not limited to just models, I have friends who have made useful household items out of Lego, from Jewellery to coffee tables, I even have friends who have used the hands of the little men to hold their USB cables for them when not in use!

All of these possibilities from a choice of 25,000 types of brick seemed incredible, until I looked out of the window. Did you know that there are currently 118 different known elements? With probably a few hiding under the bed or behind the sofa. With just these 118 different building blocks God made the whole world and everything in it. Not just a stationary model that’s good to look at (read play with), but a beautiful dynamic world, ever changing and self-sustaining, with beauty and design beyond our conceiving. A universe that extends beyond our imagination and a world where we literally hold life in our hands. A universe with more stars in the sky than grains of sand on the earth and a world where there are more lifeforms on one person’s skin than there are people on the planet. What an amazing world we live in and what an amazing creator, who made it all, even the building blocks themselves!

My thoughts were to take one last jump though. As I wandered around St Paul’s Cathedral a number of years ago, I admired the intricate stonework and all the different types of building materials used. And I started to think about God’s true Church – not the buildings, but His people. There are, well, I don’t know how many, I haven’t done the maths, but there’s certainly quite a few of us throughout the world. And the amazing thing is that each one of us is truly unique. There’s no two of us the same. And were not haphazardly created – we’re not abstractly unique, but we’re designed and intentionally created – fit for purpose. How amazing is that? So if God can make the whole universe with just 118 different pieces, just imagine what he can do with all of us if we let Him!

Episode 81 - Sanguma

I may have only lived in Papua New Guinea for little over 6 months, but it and it's people are and will always be firmly placed upon my heart. There is much that I openly talk about with anyone who will listen, but there are other things that I am much less willing to talk about these. This is because I am very aware that my meagre 6 months leaves me painfully ill equipped and lacking in knowledge of such subjects. Sanguma is one of these topics. Whilst there are many wonderful beautiful things about Papua New Guinean culture, like anywhere in the world, it also has it's own unique struggles too. Sanguma is one of these troubles and I recently came a cross an article that explains a bit about it far better than I could, so I wanted to share it with you. MAF even get a mention! You can read it here.

The Beautiful PNG

Episode 80 - Lost in Time

I must start this blog with an apology to those who read it every week. Last week, for the first time in over a year, there was no blog. I forgot. I’m sorry. To tell the truth, last Monday came and went before I realised that, well, Monday had come and gone. My illness doesn’t really have a pattern or a routine, and consequently, nor do I really (although I try). Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad, without any apparent rhyme or reason, so I do what I can when I can. For the most part this works very well, but it does mean that I have very little concept of time at the moment, as there doesn’t seem much by which to mark it. Strangely, in a way, this reminded me of my time in Papua New Guinea.

I have always loved the seasons and the way the British countryside changes over the year and then comes right back to where it started. I have considered it a real joy to be back in England to watch the cycle. Whenever anyone asks me what my favourite season is, I find it difficult to answer because I genuinely love them all and the next one always seems to come at just the right time. But for me, it’s always been more than just an adventure, it’s a marker of time. As one season rolls into the next it’s a time that reminds me to look back and what has happened, the good and the bad. A time to take stock and reflect. And a time to thank God, because whatever has happened good, bad or indifferent, there are always great things that God has done if we remember to look for them.

The four seasons

Papua New Guinea only has two seasons; a dry season, and a wet season. Whilst they are very distinct from one another, somehow there doesn’t seem to be the noticeable transition that there are between the seasons in Britain (or perhaps there was just too much going on for me to notice). As a consequence, with so much happening as I looked forward to the future, it was easy not to appreciate all that was and had been happening. Sometimes life is like British seasons; there’s lots of things happening and they’re all very noticeable. Other times life is more like the seasons in Papua New Guinea, things don’t really seem to change and the things that happen go almost unnoticed.

My life feels a little bit like that right now. Whilst in some ways every day is different and when I wake up in the morning I don’t know how I’m going to feel that day. But on the other hand, in the bigger picture, nothing seems to have changed for nine months; in fact my circumstances seem to be exactly the same! Then I stop and look and think about what life was really like nine months ago and what has happened in that time and I realise that whilst there has been no big step change to my circumstances, God has been working in so many ways! And so even when life seems to be the same as always, I will try to always find the time to look and see all that God really has been doing, and to thank Him that He never stops.

Episode 78 - Milkshake!

Last week I had the most amazing milkshake I have ever drunk in my life. It was a butter shortbread milkshake. The amazing thing was that it tasted of shortbread. Not like shortbread. Not like how every piece of exotic meat you’ve ever tasted, tasted like chicken, no. Not like shortbread. Of shortbread. It tasted exactly the same as shortbread. It was unmistakably shortbread. Except somehow creamy and smooth and well, liquid. This blew my mind. How was this possible!? The answer to this was of course painfully simple. It was made of shortbread. Lots of it. All crumbled up so that it could take on its new form and mix with the other ingredients. Simple. And delicious.

Just to prove that I'm not making this stuff up...

This of course got me thinking. There are many things in life that I want to be, and that I want to be good at. A good friend. A good son. A good engineer. A good drummer. But there is one thing I want more than anything else – something which actually makes all these other things happen too. I want to be a good person. Actually, I want to be the best person I can be – the best me I can be. Fortunately God wants this too and is always ready to lend a helping hand. He even made a blueprint for me to look to – Jesus – who actually lived a perfect life. And so what I want to be, is to be like Jesus. Or do I? Perhaps I can learn something from the milkshake. Perhaps I should focus a little less of my time on copying Him and a little more time on letting Him into my heart. So from this point forward I will endeavour to be a milkshake – made with only the finest ingredients, after all, you are what you eat!

Episode 77 - Independence!

Just a short one this week to say... Happy Independence day Papua New Guinea!

Saturday marked 42 years of independence! Here is a link to an article about some independence day preparations, I'll add more about the celebrations themselves as they get published...

Episode 76 - Acheivement

This week (after months of working on it) I finally submitted my tax return. This is a huge achievement and something that felt very satisfying. Normally of course this wouldn’t be the case. However with being able to do less your goals become less too. The curious thing is that the sense of achievement remains the same. On one hand, this seems quite logical; whilst the task is smaller the difficulty is greater and so the same amount of work needs to be done – it makes sense. But when you look into this further it has a strange implication; the satisfaction gained from accomplishing something is dependent upon how difficult it is to achieve. Whilst I seem bound by these rules, I don’t understand why. It’s incredibly difficult to balance three balls on your nose, yet relatively simple to help out at a soup kitchen once a week – surely I should gain more satisfaction from the later than the former, and yet in truth, would I? Honestly I don’t know. The only conclusion I can draw is that subconsciously I’ve been looking at achievement all wrong and so from now on I’ll try to stop looking at how hard what I do is to achieve and look at how much what I do achieves instead.

Episode 75 - Sori Not Sorry

The English use their own language in ways that no one else does in ways that it was never intended to be used. We are famed for not saying what we mean and meaning what we do not say. Of all the words that we English misuse one probably stands out above them all – sorry. Whether it’s to make something mean sound nicer (such as; I’m sorry to disagree with you but you’re wrong), as a replacement for “please could you repeat that I didn’t hear you”, or anything in between, I have probably used them all. But there is one particularly way that I use the word that often seems to cause confusion in the recipient of my remark – that is when I use it to show sympathy. When somebody shares sad news with me I will often express my sympathy by saying I am sorry, to which I often receive the response; “why are you sorry, it’s not your fault… is it?” It’s as though to say sorry is not just a show of compassion or sorrow, but also an act of taking responsibility for a wrong you have committed, like feeling sorry is an obligation of wrongdoing and nothing else. But this response would not be elicited in Papua New Guinea.

In Tok Pisin the word “sori” from the English “sorry” means sorrow. It is the word that is used to apologise, but it is also the same word that is used to express that one is sad. To use this expression to convey your compassion for another’s misfortune would not be considered unusual at all. In fact, in a world where it is normal to ask someone how they are and not only want them to answer truthfully but to also be interested in their answer, it is also totally normal not only to express empathy, but to actually share in the feelings of that person. Upon reflection of this I found it strange that compassion and empathy could be a product of culture, one that seemed missing in my own, replaced instead by stoicism and reliance upon self. I even worried that we Brits must seem cold and uncaring to the rest of the world, and even considered that perhaps we were. However then I realised that we were just as capable of compassion and empathy as anyone, we just don’t say it. At least not with words, and certainly not with the words you might expect. Still having been embraced by such open compassion and now knowing how good it feels, I will try to let my own compassion out a little bit more.