THE DIVINE IMAGE
By William Blake

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our Father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

i absolutly love sundays, and today was no different, probably loved it even more then usual. lots of familyness - the broader sense aswell as the more immediate.
i think sally spoke really well tonight. shes more than tops. me and the 2 kids that came for sunday morning group ended up staying in for the whole service this morning which was really good. i sat with sallys kids and had fun. they are marvelous. we even played handball afterwards... (arent i getting sporty?). all the irwins are tops. i love em lots. jess and sal prayed for me tonight, so special. im beginning to slowly come to terms with the whole youth leader thing. always thought it was so "not me" but here i am, being a youth leader.
the church prayed for us too. and helen, tom, kaye and rach after maccas aswell...lots of prayer, cant ever have too much. everything i thought was definate about tomorrow seems to be changing alot, which is kind of freaking me out more, but itll all happen and be fine. i feel good.

i love those "when i was little" memories. fun little things you forget.
we looked through old photographs this afternoon looking for something my aunty asked for. it was pointed out that i still make the same stupid expressions i did when i was 2. i was some strange kid. there are all these photos from when i was about 4 where id taken off with the camera and set up all these shots in the boot of the car. i put my brother in there, my toys, everything and anyone and have made a series of photos. and so many photos of me at macdonalds. almost every pile of photos there is some macdonalds in there. i started early. mmm yum

BLOOD

there was alot of blood in the passion of christ, and i imagine there was alot of blood at the real event. i did look away a number of times, i thought i was going to throw up. i think i want to watch it again, in my living room on my own with my eyes open the whole time. its probably a good thing to watch properly. all my review is at the moment, is it had alot of blood. i didnt feel extra connectedness, i think the blood turned me off. i dont want to watch it again and again until im comfortable with it, i dont think i want to be comfortable with a man being beaten and tortured and hung on a cross for my sake. but it seems to have had a strong affect on other christians, which is really good. i do wonder if the meaning might be lost in the blood and guts a bit for non christians. im not sure if it was made to convert the masses though, its done a good job at getting people talking and thinking so far.

i dont think feminism is a nessavary word and i dont think mona lisa smiles was about feminism...im going to expand on this later, just leaving it here as a mental note for myself.

i wish i was more girl like, then maybe i could just have a cry and feel better. but i just feel whiny and wingy and easily angered and a bit quiet and stupid. im not sure how im suposed to be right now, or how i actually am right now, its all a bit blerh. dont really understand. its all relativly normal i imagine.

good/fun/other positive adjectives things today...

- got my hair cut. the actual hair cut wasnt the special bit, i got a cup of tea and a nice chat. plus it always feels good to have someone play with your hair and feel pampered.

- i went and visited centare and met my new coordinator, and shes going to give me work!

- i went to jacks. i love jacks. i painted a pot plant pot and planted a pot plant in the pot. played pool and chatted. was good.

- i got a valentines day present from howie. a very cool pink frisbee that changes colour in the sun. and he bought me a purple donut grug; yum. and i actually got to spend a decent amount of time with him too.

- ate 2 meals in the foodcourt.

i woke up to go to tafe this morning, but i bumped into my mum in the hall and she told me my dad had called and my grandfather had died this morning. i think ill still go into my next class. i just wanted to stay so i could talk with my brother and call my dad.
i knew it was going to happen, but i didnt realise it was going to be a few hours after i saw him.
i feel like i should blog this so i remember.
when i was speaking to him last night, he was really upset, he said he has "lost his intellectual thoughts". he didnt think he was going to get better mentally. he understood that physically he was going to improve a bit, but mentally he thought he had lost it.
my unlces and auntys and my grandma were called in this morning and they all prayed for him. they all felt like he had been taken home to be with his parents.
im not really upset. i know that he wouldnt have wanted a life without his mind, he was in pain but hes happy now.

ended up spending most of the day fluffing round with brochure and stupid computer and emails...of course with regular distractions of tv and telephones.
went and visited my grandfather tonight before community dinner though. i reckon the whole floor heard my dad and i talking to him. hes so deaf, and refused to wear his hearing aid. its sad though, hes not very well. i reckon when your body is sick and failing its hard to deal with, but your mind, thats far worse.
community dinner was good too. yummy pasta. sillyness. i still cant believe howie and ryan ate the stuff out of the sink. after talking to anmol ive decided that any anonoymous comment ill think is him.
ive had my ls for almost 2months. which means in 4 months ill be allowed to go for my ps. just gotta do 50hours and make sure i can drive.

went and saw mona lisa smiles last night. then we went for a drink at the shark bar.
...actually we went to the pub before the movie too. oh dear. if we all drank alot at these pubs, id be worried we were alcoholics.
i liked the movie i think. i liked miss watson, and her stuffed-up-ness. i thought it was sad when whats her name didnt go to yale, but i got over it when betty went.
in the car on the way home, one of my friends said (rather cautiously) that when she was going to get married she was going to be the perfect housewife like the girls in the movie were trained to be. she said she would have her own life until she gort married and had kids, but then her place was in the home. i think it would make her happy too. dunno if id survive, but if shell be happy. i was just suprised though, i didnt think 19yearolds would have ambitions to be perfect housewives.

ive spent the morning replying to emails that were urgent a week ago. why do people still give me responsibility? my computer is honestly the biggest pile of crap. it does this great fun thing where the mouse just goes crazy and clicks everywhere and will shut whatever your doing. which is great when your just finishing writing a long email, or a blog post, or an unsaved document. good fun, i love technology.

OH! and i found out about the religion that says you shouldnt vote. its jehovahs witnesses. she said she just puts on a form a verse from the bible and she doesnt get fined or anything. fridays job is to find out the verse.

my blog isnt the same these days. im not sure if its cause i used to be offensive and ive become audience appropriate, but its different.

Last night consisted of a fair bit of sitting in the rain. You get wet and generally cold when you sit in the rain. But good conversation and laughs were had so I guess its all worth it. If I woke up with phnomonia this morning I might say otherwise, but apart from being a little sleepy I'm ok.
although it was a little disconcerting changing from the Sunday night tradition, I survived and enjoyed myself. I think I still spoke to mostly the same people I always speak to at church, but the location was different - we'll just tackle one thing at a time.

jumping, swimming, hot chips and singing. my day with hannah, robert and ryan.

what sort of religion doesnt let you vote??

Some fairly mild conflicts...

I don't know if I like hospitals, they are strange places. I don't think my grandfather likes them much either. He didn't seem particularly well to me, but apparently he's improved lots.

I don't think I know how to accept compliments properly...How do you? I'm not talking about stupid compliments. I just feel silly and want to say something to respond or just change the subject but never know quiet what to say.

I still think everyone should have mobiles

I defiantly find cityrail extremely annoying. Gave me time to read, but made me 45mins late to a meeting.

this evening (yesterday evening now), i spent time with a lady from the 8am service at church. shes very cool. we made a brochure together, well we actually did some work on a brochure. when i volenteered for this job, i remembered making another brochure, which is the only brochure ive ever made in myu brochure making career. this brochure we threw together in a couple of hours and with alot of plagerism, it did the job fine. (apparently its ok to plagerise with these kind of brochures)
but this particular brochure seems to be alot more involved. this lady works in marketing, so she has all these professioanl ideas and stratergies. makes it a little more complicated, but i enjoyed hanging out with her all the same. and maybe the brochure will be good too.
we had tea. acually just i had tea, she had cofee. she got me a cup and saucer and a tea pot and a suagr bowl thingo, and a milk jug...a proper cute little set. we had fun, joking about tea parties and being posh.
i want to have tea with more people i dont know very well. maybe i could start an 8am visiting service. ill just go round visit everyone and they can make me cups of tea. im sure thats serving the community somehow

i keep forgetting blog thoughts ive been having throughout the day, i think i might need to write them down or something.

im getting up at 8:46 tomorrow morning, and i just thought "oh lucky, a sleep in"... oh dear, im concerned for my state of mind

im really loving tafe so far. even with the 10 + assessments we have, its great fun. we get to do such fun activities, and talk about fun stuff with fun people.
i reckon tafe might not be fantastic fun all the time, but for now, ill keep enjoying.

i volenteered for another little thing. ooops. its lots of fun though, and it will only be for 2 weeks. so im still saying no, im not sure when ive said no so far, maybe tomorrow ill put my "no" skills into use.

COMMUNITY

such a catchphrase at the moment. im not sure if its just my vocabulary, but i seem to be saying "community" 50 billion times a day.
community dinner, interactive and enfolding community youth group, community services and welfare, going out into the community, the community in that place, settling into their community, our community, a wider community, community community community.

is there a similie that we can use? just to alternate a bit and give some variety?

2nd youth leaders meeting, and 1st homegroup tonight.
niether were terrible.
leaders meetings tend to be a little funny. still good, useful but just interesting.
homegroup was good too though. i didnt really want to go, still dont know if i really want to, but they are fun people and the bible is good, i think ill get used to the idea of a homegroup. ive got to get used to doing the normal thing one day.
it was very brainstraining though. im much happier thinking less about the original context of what was written and more just about what it means for todays context. but i guess the both should go hand in hand in a nice balance. im sure the latter would be enriched by the former.

kara and i were very romantic on valentines day. we got a bottle of wine, and a pizza.
the romance didnt last too long though, other people dropped into my house and then we went out.
it was a very strange night. good to hang out with the old group. gavins a funny funny man. he has funny friends too. we went to manly after the party and danced like different animals. brilliant really.
the party was full of good quality inappropraiteness, but it made me lauigh alot. im not sure if i should laugh or not, but i think ill just not think about it.

pie fight was brilliant!
we had a good show up of about 11. good fun.
we all stank alot afterwards.
i dont have any cream up my nose anymore which is good. stinky stinky.
my yards not too bad anymore either.

i cant wait till the next one!

first day of tafe today, that was very exciting.
i didnt really get to feeling nervous about it much. too darn early in the morning. i woke up at 6:45, thats disgusting. im not a pleasent person in the mornings.
but i caught the bus to tafe.
had to run around a bit and find where i was suposed to be as i had lost my timetable i got at enrolment which had all my room numbers on it...im jo, going to tafe doesnt change that.
i found my class, and still in a daze, sat down in an overcrowed room.
sat there for quite some time before i noticed someone across the room waving and trying to wisper my name as loudy and disretly as possible.
yay, it was tash! i worked with tash for about 3 years back in the go-lo days. shes a legend. i had no idea she was in my course, nice suprise even at that early hour.
i had someone to be silly with all day.
met some other fun people too.
we had fun classes aswell, lots of activities and fun stuff.
apart from the computer class. oh dear. 2 hours of using a floppy disk and creating files. ahh. apparently if we pass a little test we dont have to go to that class. i think even i could pass it. hope so, i was bored.

oh look i finally logged in!

stupid bloody blogger.

went to jacks island cafe this afternoon and it was goooood.
i really enjoyed myself. the young people were nice, the cookie dough was yum, the afternoon was fun.

went to mona and it was gooood.

instead of a bikini contest, tonight there was an air guitar contest! very funny. just arrived at the end. got to see my friend who was in it though, he made it to the finals. i never knew he had such giftings.
lots and lots of people were there. the famous scott, i would link to the part of my archives where i spoke abotu him but i cant be bothered to find it. and joe, and lots of school people and pub people, and reagan and his friends. good music tonight too. i was impressed. i didnt spend a cent either.
only bad bit was the journey there and home. i have never repeated the phrase "can we go a little slower please" so many times. haleys new boyfriend was driving us. haley wouldnt say anything. but we were going almost double the speed limit at some times. mona vale road isnt the safest at normal speeds. ah dear. he was getting really annoyed with me by the end but i didnt particuarily care. when i got out of the car, i gave him one last lecture cause it was just him and haley after that. a car accident didnt sound appealing.
some people can be silly. guys in cars with girls they are trying to impress tends to add to the sillyness.

i think that was one of the most intense and draining meetings i have ever been too. these particular meetings alwasy seem to be a little that way.
we did get to making some decisions this time. and i behaved, i said no to most things, apart from this one little thing.

eating ice cream in manly has got to be one of my favourite things to do. except when they run out of cookie dough at cold rock, or when cold rock is shut.
sarahs good company too. we sat and watched the road (cause there were already people sitting in the shelter thing on the side that faced the beach). we talked about relationships and being a christian...well sorta...maybe the difference between our relationships...sorta, doesnt really matter, we talked.
these two sided shelter things we were sitting in, had glass between them, so if you turned around you could see the back of the peoples heads who were sitting on the other side. when the other people had left, a man sat there. he kept knocking on the glass and asking us to come sit with him. when girls get intimidated by situations such as these, they tend to be really rude. i really try not to do so. i waved back and sort of politley shook my head. though he did walk round eventually. sarah freaked out a little. he seemed harmless though. he was just letting us know that we could come round to his side cause he had a radio and stan zemanik was on and it was really funny, and if we got in any trouble he was near by to help us out.
i dont like being scared, so i just try not to do it in most situations, especially to do with people, scary parks or roads or streets - thats different. i still believe that my society is reasonably safe. especially our area. i hate was fear does to people. i dont feel as if i have to be home before dark or that i shouldnt walk around on my own or not talk to people i see, i dont want to feel like i miss out on half the world cause i was too scared to walk outside my gate to see it, or answer to it when it talked to me. lots of bad stuff does happen im sure, but being rude and scared isnt really going to make it go away i dont think.

good on sal, she updated!

oh how annoying. i just wrote this big long post about saving the world and cutting tomatos and it disapeared!

worked back up the pub tonight. kara and i sung silly songs.
im glad i quit. i dont mind going back every so often and doing a few shifts. i needed the money. howies not here to tell me off so im feeling the need to justify my actions all the same.
all ive eaten all day is 3 muffins, i only just realised that then. i spent most of the day asleep so that helped.
last night was mostly fun. missed the live music at nels, but still got to have a cocktail. yum.
had a bit of a dance.
its funny when we go out, i have no idea who half the people we are hanging out with are most of the time. just friends of friends and people that join along the way. good spontanious community.

ive had such a fantastic day. its amazing how much actually can happen in a day if you get out of bed before 11.
i went to church and played in the creche with 13 under 5 year olds. what fun! i sung, coloured in, played with a toy trucks, built train tracks, read stories.
i went upstairs after that to visit the soul survivour office, i hadnt done that before. liz and i had a chat with jeff, and then headed to glenrose for some coke and donuts. that was very cool for many different reasons.
i went home for a fantastic nap, and i did my fantasic washing.
my mum came home and we waffled away about ww1 and russian history, as we do. that was fun. i think that one day, in my nexty life perhaps, id like to go study history at uni. especially russian history. i want to go to russia to...
back to my fantastic day...
then it was time for fantastic youth group. all the yr6-8 girls and us 4 girl leaders, went off for a fantastic pool party. they swum, i watched incase anyone drowned. they made a giant ice cream sundae and ate it and made a fantastic mess. i took some funny photos. they are nice and crazy girls. we had lots of fun.
lauren gave me a lift home and i did the washing up and made muffins to my mothers christian music...now it must have been a fantastic day if i listen to her music by choice. i need some christian cds i think.
i think now ill go to manly.

i think ive done my sporting activity for the year all in one day.
i played soccer this arvo with chris w, and then frisbee tonight at scary park.
soccer was good. we pretended we were playing world cup, or something like that. i just cheered and made up pretend names cause im a bit ignorant when it comes to sport and its stars. but it was fun all the same. good to catch up with chris too. i havent seen him in over a year, the day i left for romania was the last time i saw him...amazing. i got to catch him up on all these things he had missed. and i got to hear his fun overseas stories.
and frisbee was fun too. scary park wasnt that scary. the frisbee light thing is very cool. im impressed. i reckon its my favourite sport to participate in. i dont get stressed, or injured, and its not too difficult and just plain fun. we talked about manhood and a bit of womanhood. said "bye howie, see you in 10 days", and now im home ready for some sleep.

in the last 2 days, i have been to hornsby 4 times, and only caught 3 trains and 3 buses, when i could have caught 8 trains and 8 buses.

heres a community service announcment for you all...

thankyou very much to all who drive and have driven me to and from hornsby.
especially tom who drives to belrose late at night after hes been there already at least once that day.

i had such a fun night babysitting.
i miss those kids so much. good value
james still makes me laugh. a million and one excuses why he couldnt get to sleep.
sally dropped me home and i got to hear about her wild days. shes awesome.
they are one of those families that could adopt me anyday.

not working at the pub and still being friends with them all is good stuff.
i can go up and cook myself lunch and have a chat with everyone, good stuff. works well when your broke and hungry

i did have a good weekend away (though it wasnt really away, a whole 30min drive to a suburb down the road but hey).
i went away feeling a little muddled and not feeling like a weekend of youth leaders training and prep, but it was good. i feel like the worlds a little more manageable now. we didnt do that much "training" specifically, but we did spend time together and got our heads around what it was we were exactly doing being youth leaders. good community fun. good prayerful preperation too.
its really very pretty at helens grampas house. good setting.
tom and i seemed to be the only people who were still sucombing to mcdonalds charm. 2 macdonalds visits were programmed into the weekend, but dinner friday night got moved to subway due to popular demand, and tom and i were the only takers in breakfast befroe church this morning. ah well, they dont know what they are missing.
church this morning was great fun too. i love the morning service, love it. we have 3 kids doing service projects with kaye and i and they are the bomb. i got very exciting when we were brainstorming all the ways we wanted to serve our church, the community and the world. one of the kids even told me i was getting to excited. but its a very exciting thing. service projects are going to be good fun. im really looking forward to it. small groups are still a little scary. im looking forward to them too, a new challenge.
im also going to say "no" this year alot. good skill to learn and this year is definatly the year to learn it.
i wagged church tonight though. i felt good just sitting doing nothing
and billy elliot is on tv. i love that movie, love it love it love it.