My Exploration » Life

2011: The Beginning

Chara Meredith — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 06:00:40 +0000

It’s already nearly half-way through February. Does that shock you? A lot has happened in my year so far, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for the fact that it is truly well underway. This is essentially my first week back at work for the year after being away for 2 weeks (I did work 3 weeks in January, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it counts). The two weeks were a fairly intensive sprint of family time, and family time and more family time. I have a lot of family, so it takes quite a bit of time and energy to really spend quality time with everyone, or as many people as possible. It was really refreshing though, not in a physical sense because I am certainly tired, but in a re-centering sense. I feel as if I have been able to reconnect with family and re-centre the value of family in my life – which is quite invigorating.

While the family time away had the most impact, there are a couple of other things that I’ve been doing that have helped as well. Nearing the end of 2010, I decided that I wanted to make a few changes in my life, or tick off a few of the things that I keep saying I want to do and yet haven’t done. The first was to apply to put in two pieces of art into an art competition – I didn’t really care whether I would win or not, it is more that I have wanted to do something of this kind for a while. The other big decision I made was to enroll back into Uni. Which I have done – into a graduate course in applied statistics. I have wanted to move out of the IT field for a while. My interest in it becomes less and less as the years move on, so this is one step towards moving out of the field. I’m pretty excited.

I also have a number of other plans for the year which I hope will work out, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Filed under: Life Tagged: 2011, Art, Life, Plans, University

Affirm, Enthuse, Support

Chara Meredith — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 22:00:01 +0000

There is no real reason why we shouldn’t support others in their endeavours with great gusto. I can’t really think of any reason, but for a long long time I have been fairly indifferent to other peoples plans for their future. I haven’t felt that I could be involved. I have felt that to ask too deeply about one’s hopes and dreams for the future was to pry, was more of a social gaff than a friendly enquiry. In some cases that is true, and sometimes it is not. I am coming to realise how important it is to really share with others your own dreams, and to questions others about theirs – openly and without censure. Yeats, summed it up sweetly in his poem ‘He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven’:

I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Not only do we need to tread carefully when someone is sharing their deep desires – the true desires of the heart, but I believe we also must take part in nurturing those desires as well. Affirming that those desires are worthwhile. The progression of fulfilment of desires is a journey that I believe we should be travelling with our close friends. Over time, ensuring that your friend is still aware that you remember this desire, and that this desire is important to them, through gentle enquires and, to put heavy emotional words to it, grieving at the failures, and joyously celebrating at the successes with them! It is through such support that we can all journey towards the goals we have in mind…

Filed under: Life Tagged: 2010, Desires, Goals, Life, Life's Journey, Plans, Poem, Thoughts

2010 Blogs to Watch

Chara Meredith — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:33:42 +0000

Just a short list of 3 blogs that I’ll be watching this year:

Zen Habits (Life Skills)
The Sartorialist (Fashion & Photography)
Ma.tt (WP)

They are in no particular order.

Filed under: Internet/IT Tagged: 2010, Blogs, Life, Photography, WordPress

Hope

Chara Meredith — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:04:31 +0000

I’ve been thinking on hope for some time. Especially since Pastor Rod was diagnosed with cancer some months ago. While the illness has not been the best (is it ever?) – it has been a true blessing and ultimately a witness to see Rod’s hope. It surpassed the hope one might have in things that don’t last – like health, family, money etc.

Rod, and his wife Liz, recently decided to resign from the current church in light of his illness and the continuing growth of the church. It is with this (and his illness) in mind, that (I feel) he has begun a sermon series on HOPE. It’s been a good look into the history of Biblical hope, not just the hope given to Christians through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but throughout the Old Testament of the Bible as well.

Faith, Hope and Love – and the greatest of these is love. -1 Corinthians 13

The first week we looked at God’s promises to Abraham AKA Abram (Genesis 12). That he would give him a land, descendants and would bless him; and yesterday we looked at the hope of Joseph in Genesis 42-46 focusing on chapter 45, where Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. Though he had been sold to slave traders by his brothers, falsely accused and thrown into prison – and away from his family and home for some 20 years – he still had hope. Would you? Would I? Hope isn’t found in our current circumstances, in the life we have here, the things we own or even the friends or family we have. None of that lasts – hope of the eternal kind can only come from something or someone beyond the laws of our current world – in someone that surpasses time and decay – in God.

Posted in Life Tagged: Cancer, Hope, Illness, Life