V

Had to put this in, it's long but cool:

"This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V." Sounds like one of my essays - a lot of words but doesn't make a lot of sense...




Cool movie though, I've been won over by another borderline psychotic visionary, should I be worried??? I serously love these dudes who don't just cop whatever some tyrannous, ignorant authority tells them when they know the truth. Not so sure about their methods of course...

It's like this show I was watching of the gospel of Judas, these people talk with authority, but the things they say are just such amazing misunderstandings (at best). It gets me really firey that they can just say this stuff and it's out there for the world to lap up. What if someone's actually looking for answers about God and all they get is a bunch of confused lies? They should be made to tell the truth!

Or would that sort of government be tyrannical as well?

Bring on God's Kingdom, he'll know how to run things...


P.S. - This guy's voice is AWESOME - you never see his face in the movie, but dang, I'm in love with his voice!! (Hugo Weaving it is, hope that doesn't spoil it for you).

Freedom!!!

"They fought like warrior poets.
They fought like Scotsmen -
And won their freedom".

After a week of grinding my nose against the stone, i too have finally won my freedom... oooo yeah!!!. "2000 words isn't that hard" I hear you say, and there's some truth to that. But an essay is still and essay, and a weeks worth of holiday work is still that (actually, I played golf in the mountains on Monday, but...).

EITHER WAY - I'm still pumping, cos now I've got a week off!! Bring that on!!

It was amusing to receive a resounding "yes!" off the multitude of complete strangers I asked last night whether I look like Ted Danson, rather more encouraging to to have heard the names Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise roll off some other people's tongues (sorry, no, reality you wanted didn't you...), but all I really want to be like is William Wallace. A man of passion, and conviction. Who went through hell, for freedom. He didn't lose the vision.

That's what I want.

And today I've come that one step closer. Now we've both shared the freedom for which we have fought so long, finally. (Actually, he died before Scotland was freed didn't he? Sucks to be him).

For Freedom,
William.

Truth!

Some of you knew this was coming, but my 'truth' question for all of you is going to be something along the lines of a question asked to me last week by Uncle Andy (yes, Jamo). Here goes:

"Of all the irons in the fire, which one's burning the brightest?"

For those of you suggesting you don't know what this means, let me exaplin it for you. Of all your possible, how shall we say, love interests, who's the front-runner at the moment?

And just in case you can't remember if you took part in this little game, let me remind you of who the players are, just to make sure ;) :
We have Dave, Chelsea, Gheever, Shannyn, Jodi, Ricky, Goldy and Anon 1, 2 and 3 (unless you decided to reveal yourselves, in which case the anons won't really count). Plus anyone else who wants to play.

Here we go, it's over to you!

**And Happy Birthday MISZTAL!!!**

Free Tickets!

Who in this world can resist free tickets?!!
No-one who enjoys the 'sanity' title, so for anyone who's interested in a night of good music by a guy who's character is even better than his music (as if that were possible), let me know and I might be able to scam some freebies for us to see Nath Tasker play at a church in Silverwater this Friday night. Nath's music is very special. He's so clear and unashamedly Christian, and his lyrics really cut to the heart to encourage and challenge. It'll be a night of honesty and holiness, I trust, rather than the hedonism that so often accompanies worldly concerts. So if you're free and interested, let me know and I'll see how many tickets I can get. (It'll have to be SOON though, ie. by like tomorrow).


Oh, and there's going to be some other relative unknown (at least next to The Man himself ;)) by the name of Randy Stonehill playing with him... (in fact, Randy is a pretty huge name on the Christian music scene in America, which is a testament to just how good Nath is!). Nath will play before him, in fact.

Sorry, no truth or dare this post, had to get this in first! Keep them coming though...
Chat soon.

Truth or Dare

Let's have a little fun shall we...

Tonight marks my first ever real game of truth or dare, and I figured the fun needn't stop just cos the party's over. So welcome to "Online Truth or Dare!", JT style.

It's a fine line to draw whether the first question should be a nice juicy one at the risk of scaring away those timid phantom blog checkers who try and slip in and out unnoticed and who'll just opt out of the challenge before it even gets started, or whether we should ease people into things nice and gently at the risk of boring the more adventurous of us to tears.

...So to make things easier while still allowing for us to push a few limits, I thought I'd let you ask ME the first question(s), and then I'll follow it up with a question for YOU next blog! Can't say that doesn't sound fair now can you? (Just a reminder though that my question may depend on exactly where you decide to go with yours, so bear that in the back of your sinister little minds).

Ok, I'm in your hands - ask me a question and if I don't want to answer it, I guess I'll take the dare... ;-)

Bring this on!!

Sea of Uncertainty

Sometimes it's a challenge to work out where you stand. The last thing I tend to notice with people is what they're wearing (unless you're picking up some tips off dead sexy fashion gurus like Misty), much less whether people have decided to adorn themselves with any facial bling bling. But since experienceing the transition in a couple of friends and fellow bloggers over the w/e, I'm suddenly thrust out over a very deep sea of uncertainty. Piercings - where do you like em, who can pull them off, and how many is too many? These are the questions before us, and the answers may be the life boat that salvages my relational anguish.

Further uncertainty is held out for the new Ice Age movie (Ice Age 2) as far as I'm concerned. Like most things, movies so often are about who you see them with as much as anything else, but not even the company got me really pumped about this movie. And it actually wasn't BAD, it just didn't really get me firing, that's all. Good for a few laughs, but probably aimed at a slightly younger audience I guess. Shrek, Lion King and well, Shrek II, now there are some good animated flicks. Maybe I needed to see it with some kids or something?..

What there's no uncertainty about is how well Youth Group went on Friday. One of the girls brought her boyfriend and we had some really good chats in Bible Study about "Who is Jesus?" and "How do you respond to him?", doing a review of the people Jesus met in John. He was a really nice bloke actually, I just hope he comes again next term so Tim can keep guiding him along.

I'm in 2 minds as to whether to head back out for the Passion screening at church tomo night. Great movie, but long drive if I'm not inviting anyone. See what happens.

Have fun gearing up for Easter. (Easter is only as good as your engagement with it I reckon. I'm trying to take the week to reflect on Jesus' death, and maybe take next week to think about his resurrection. Maybe we could do it together?)

In Him,

Eternal Nostalgia

We got to share our testimonies today in our 1st year group, which is one of the few times I've actually done it in a small group setting (and I've never done it in front of a large crowd). But it was really encouraging hearing how God has worked in people's lives to bring them to know and love the Lord Jesus, in some quite different ways to my situation. One girl used to be part of a group who threw fruit at the Christians, and it was not only their love to her during some hard times that attracted her to God, but she also ended up marrying one of them! That's the coolest story!
Another guy came from what sounded like a harder background, but over a few years his whole family went through a major turn around and his brother was ordained a little while ago! Another guys was converted through a game on a Youth Camp - tell me that's not full-on encouraging if you're in Youth Ministry!! Seriously, that's the effect we can have on people with our Friday nights, people in Youth Ministry are so important (I wish it was my gift in some ways...).

As for my story, it begins with realising the blessing of being born into a Christian family, to my first personal response to Christ as a youngster on holidays in a caravan park hearing my family sit around the table having a conversation about Hell, of all things. I just remember being scared at the prospect of being cut off from God and his love, so I excused myself from the table, went downstairs and asked Jesus to become "my personal Lord and Saviour", which i knew could happen because Jesus died for me. I talked about some of the challenges to my faith and how the challenge now and for the rest of my life will be to stand firm for Christ until he returns.

BUT - it was John Woodhouse who gave me the most refreshing reflection on my own life, as he mentioned in a lecture today that "Ultimate reality is personal". So, no biggie for most people, but for me in Yr 11 & 12 the idea that life was about my relationship with God and my relationship with people turned my whole decision making process around. It was probably the biggest reason why I did Physio, it's why I fight my desires of self-centredness which make me prefer to stay quiet or uninvolved, and it's the model I try to fit both the big and little decisions into when i don't know which way to go. God is personal. He was that way before we were even created. And that's why life is about relationships, it's where both the meaning and the challenges come.

So, despite being the antithesis of what a testimony is about, you've now had just a little insight into me. I'm hoping that moreso it will make you think about what the God of the universe is like...

Cheers,
Josh

P.S. - I just thought the photo was cool, someone took it on her mobile just as my flash went off.

Embracing freakdom

I think Newtown is a good place for Moore College. It's where all the weirdos, freaks, crazies, aliens and extremists congregate to make their statement to the rest of the world. Exactly where we Christians belong, I reckon.
I mean, anyone who actually believes this stuff about God taking on the form of his own creation, of him serving the rebellious people made by him, and God being patient with petty man rather than the other way around like all the Greek gods - we've got to be a bit left field don't we?



"And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth." (Heb 11:13)

(Hopefully for different reasons though...)




Went to the Marly for Mike's 26th on Thurs night, which was a better way to celebrate his birthday than what he got up to on the actual day (Wed). I went for a ride to Centennial Park, and when I was as far away form home as I intended to get I got a flat - that's 2 out of the last 5 rides!! Anyway, Mikey came through for me and picked me up, at the cost of being late for his own b'day dinner. Once again, he's a good man!



Wandered down to broadway last night for a movie, and after lining up for ages behind some gothic lesbians, we finally got our tickets and went in. Afterwards we found a querky but nice little coffee shop on Glebe Point Rd, and had some laughs. Been a good few days really!


And to top it off, my only responsibility on Sun is music in the evening, so maybe I can get a day off today - WOOHOO! Perhaps a bit of beach action on the way home?...