The Journey – Part One

The Challenge: To drive from Melbourne to Perth in my 1988 Rover Vitesse without any sleep or power naps. Challenge Accepted.

Part One

Melbourne - Adelaide

Parting Ways

The theme music from Star Wars filled the room and I awoke after an anxious and restless sleep and began to pack my car. When I’d finished I sat down to relax for a minute in order to bring my thought into line because my decision to both move and drive over to Perth had made me nervous. While I wrestled with thoughts of regret, disappointment and anxiety Annie entered the room, and after Brad and Aaron failed to arise at the arranged time I decided that they needed some encouragement. It wasn’t long before everybody was awake and I was saying my goodbyes as the Rover warmed up and before I knew it I had parted ways with my good friends and had begun the three thousand four hundred-kilometer drive from Melbourne to Perth.

Familiar Faces

Everything had gone according to plan, I hadn’t slept in, I had my snacks that Annie had brought for me the night before, legend, and the only thing I forgot to do before I left was fill up the petrol tank. This wasn’t a big problem because I had enough fuel to get across the city and so I decided to fill up in Sunshine. It took me about forty-five minutes to both cross the city and reach Sunshine. When I arrived I found a BP petrol station and pulled in to refuel. It was at this point that I came into the knowledge of a horrible truth. It happened as I reached across to take my wallet out of my green Kathmandu bag that I realized I’d forgotten my bag, it was still on the couch where I’d left it when Annie came into the room this morning. I could’ve cried as a matter of fact I did cry because it was now six forty-five in the morning and I was faced with the prospect of having to cross the city twice in peak hour. This would set me back at least two hours and I knew it, and it hurt. Anybody who knows me knows that I don’t go anywhere without that bag and therefore I just couldn’t believe it. Regardless of what I could believe I was bag-less and it was with tears running down my face that I turned around and headed home.

While I drove back I called Brad and he confirmed that my bag was in deed on the couch in the lounge room. Shortly after that phone call I arrived at Brad’s house and encountered those all too familiar faces that I’d said goodbye to earlier this morning but nevertheless I collected my bag and headed off again. Traffic was worse then I could’ve ever imagined. The Rover and I crawled through both the eastern freeway and the city, and by the time I reached the BP station in Sunshine I’d lost two hours. So frustrated by both my mistake and the time I’d lost due to it I headed towards Horsham.

Street Signs

I’d nearly arrived at Tailem Bend when I sighted an elderly couple trying to change a flat tire. Now before you ask I did the Christian thing, which is, I kept driving and never looked back. I felt terrible and to tell the truth I still feel terrible and I still wonder whether they actually managed to change that tire or if there still stuck out there. Beside that blatant disregard for the elderly the journey from Melbourne to Adelaide was uneventful.

I arrived in Adelaide at about four thirty in the afternoon and once again I got lost trying to cross through this dreadful city. Honestly, how hard is it to put up some street signs? A brief history for those of you who are new to my life’s story, earlier this year I drove from Perth to Melbourne and I got lost in Adelaide so this is the second time. My day just kept getting worse because not only was I still two hours behind but now I was lost in Adelaide at peak hour. Eventually I managed to ask somebody for help while I was stopped at the lights. I followed his directions and I managed to successfully navigate through Adelaide. If I was sad to say goodbye to Melbourne then I was overjoyed to farewell Adelaide!

TimothyTiger

Beginnings and Endings

I’m amazed that the emotions stirred by the beginnings and endings in life are all relative, for example, the start of World War 2 terrible, the end wonderful, the beginning of a relationship amazing, the end heart breaking. While one person rejoices over the birth of child in the east hospital wing, somebody mourns the loss of a loved one in west hospital wing. I’ve learnt to appreciate both.

My appreciation for the beginnings and endings in life began when towards the end of the final year of my degree a Professor asked me if I’d like to have started my degree with the knowledge that I now possess. At first I thought this was brilliant idea but after some thought I realized that all I’d be doing was trying to prevent the inevitable and that was the end of my degree. Even though part of me wanted to get better grades, I can’t deny the fact that I simply didn’t want my degree to end. I couldn’t bare to think about the years I’d invested into my degree were now coming to an end.

I heard somebody say that wisdom is the ability to foresee consequences, and as I thought more about what the professor had said I came to the conclusion and if I did turn back time not only would I start my degree with more academic knowledge but I’d also understand of how it feels to invest so much into something only to know it will soon end. Although I know my degree will end before I even attend my first lecture I could never really understand at the time how much that would affect me until the final term was coming to a close. However, if I did decide to turn back time then I’m faced with the prospect of not starting my degree at all in order to avoid the pain of it ending.

Another more recent example that has made me appreciate both the beginnings and endings in life was the fact that earlier this year my family and I moved cities and left my girlfriend of whom I had been dating for over three years behind. I arrived in my new city and I hadn’t been there long before we discovered that we really like each other, so I decided to return only to have her leave me seven months on. And so the question returns, would I turn back time to before I left my new city with the knowledge that she would leave me seven months later, or do I go a step further and turn back time to November 2002 and not date her at all? Of course not. I’m finally beginning to understand the famous saying that says its better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all. Even if she hadn’t broken up with me and we got married and lived happily for forty years she would pass away eventually. Just like there is nothing I can do to stop the sun from the rising in the morning and setting in the afternoon, there was nothing I could do to save my relationship and as much I as enjoy the saying ‘It’s not over till I say it’s over’ I could deny that it’s ended as much as I can deny that the sun will set today, to put it simply, everything that has a beginning has an end. Regardless of the fact that sometimes events and relationships don’t end the way you want them to they end nevertheless, and the more you invest into something the harder it is when it ends but if you allow this pain to stop you from investing into new relationships then you’ll waste your life. I guess all you can do is live for the moment because if I’d let fear of it ending stop me from dating her I’d have missed out on the best four years of my life.

Therefore since I can’t change or deny this fact, all I can do is live between these two inevitable boundaries of human life. Just like everything that has a beginning has an end, everything that ends creates space for something new to begin. I’m never out of options, I’m never short of opportunities, and I pray that I may have the strength to deal with the things that have ended, and the eyes to see the things that are just beginning.

Timothy Tiger Bailey

Ignorant Christianity

I had a really interesting experience yesterday afternoon. It took place at a bookstore called Koorong. Koorong is a Christian bookstore and if you've ever been inside you'll notice that the atmosphere is one of contemplation and reflection, in other words its quiet. We'd only been in the store for five minutes when my friend Aaron showed me a DVD titled 'The Hidden Dangers in Harry Potter'. He did this as a joke because he knew I liked Harry Potter and he also knew that not all Christians shared my opinion. We returned to our shopping for only a minute before a man in his mid twenties started to rebuke me for reading, enjoying, and considering Harry Potter acceptable. What I heard was another typical premeditated Christian response to Harry Potter. Nothing changes, if it's not Harry Potter, it's the Matrix or the Da Vinci Code, it's all the same, it's merely ignorant and scared Christians who use the bible to justify their beliefs and satisfy their fear by concluding that these things are evil and of the devil.

Throughout his compilation of crap, which I must say included comments like, the joy people receive from both watching porn and masturbating is fundamentally the same as the joy young kids receive when they read Harry Potter, he did however reveal that he was happy to hear my opinion and discuss what he'd had said. It was at this point that an old man who was sitting near by reading a book said, 'Mate I don't think you are'. The gentlemen was right, the young man was not interested in having a conversation, on the contrary he was acting like the Jehovah witnesses who arrive on your doorstep, in that, he had a premeditated response to every question. The young man was not discussing Harry Potter for his own personal growth but rather to convert me to his beliefs. Therefore anything I said would have been disregarded until I was depleted on responses.

As I left Koorong that afternoon I felt a sense of frustration and anger because if we as Christians continue to confront these issues in that way to not-yet-Christians, it won't be long before people begin to treat Christians the way they do Jehovah witnesses, and that is, to shut the door in their face before they even have a chance to speak. In doing this Christians are removed and unable to partake in spiritual conversations. There can be no greater tragedy in the 21st century then for Christians and the Church to be removed from the spiritual conversations that take place everyday. Another comment he made which may prove to be useful at this point is the fact that J.K. Rowling has been quoted to say that she dislikes Christianity. I can't help but put myself in her shoes and wonder how I would respond if a Christian spoke to me the way I was spoken to in Koorong that day. If I'm to be honest with myself I think I'd hate Christians too. The end result is that J.K. Rowling the women who influences millions of young people throughout the world through her books, has shut the door to Christianity.

It's important at this point to stress the fact that I'm in no way suggesting that Christians adopt a mindset that accepts everything and challenges nothing; rather I'm suggesting that Christians discuss these topics with people from the standpoint that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. In order to do this we must have strength/faith to allow others to challenge our core beliefs.

The common response I've witnessed among Christians is to avoid this much honesty and openness for fear of losing or damaging their faith. When this happens Christians become scared, and when fear sets in they retreat into their Bibles and thereby into biblical theology. In other words, they start to search the Bible for passages that enable then to create a bullet proof doctrine, a safe house. It's out of fear that we use the Word of God to create irrelevant and pointless doctrines, and these doctrines are created to protect our core beliefs. The problem with this approach is that when not-yet-Christians come and enter into spiritual conversations with us all their attempts to enter into our core beliefs merely bounce of the walls of the fortress we've created. When this happens they begin to consider Christians irrelevant and unhelpful to their spiritual journey. More then not doctrines are created out of fear not love, they are created to keep people out not let people in. The moment doctrines create premeditated responses and prevent others from challenges our core beliefs they become a hindrance to the gospel.

I'll admit I'm terrified of breaking down the fortress and allowing not-yet-Christians to challenge my core beliefs but in the end my faith is in a person not a passage. It's in Jesus Christ and my personal relationship with the Father, through the Son. It's in the participation that I experience everyday as I live within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. This relationship can't be bound within doctrines because it's like any other relationship in that it grows and matures. It's this relationship that shapes my core beliefs and when I begin to realize this I'm able to allow people to enter into my core beliefs, and in so doing, my relationship with the Father. It's through this that they will witness the beauty of the relationship shared between the Father, Son and Spirit, a beauty in which all creation is already included, and is participating.