I had some spare time

A sheep riding a moped

2009-04-23T10:38:00.002+12:00

You know how some days, things don't go very well for you? I had one of those days yesterday. And then I came into the studios, and began my daily hunt for weird news stories to talk about on the night show...

And then I found this picture:

Hope it does for you, what it did for me.

Peace out!

DG

He died

2009-01-15T14:45:00.003+13:00

A good friend of mine passed away today. Granted, I've never met him but that's the same as many of you who read this. Reading the news that he has died I remembered a blog post I posted on myspace (good ol' myspace) after watching Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.

“When King Lear dies in Act Five of do you know what William Shakespeare has written? He's written, "He Dies".
That's all, nothing more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words.
The culmination of the most influential work of the dramatic literature is, "He Dies". It takes Shakespeare's genius to come up with, he dies.
And yet every time I read those two words I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria.
And I know its only natural to be sad, but not because of the words he dies, but because of the life we saw prior to the words.
I've lived all five of my acts and I am not asking you to be happy that I must go.
I'm only asking that you turn the page. Continue reading. And let the next story begin.
And if anyone ever asks what became of me you relay my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple, and modest, he died.”

Isn't that amazing wisdom???!?! The focus shouldn't be on someone dying, it should be on the fact they lived! I would even be as bold as to say be happy for their life. I've only really attended one funeral in my life (that I was actually aware of what was going on) and that funeral was for a man I'd never met. I was doing the sound. But the funeral's focus was largely on the lighter side of this old gentleman's life.

Now I know a lot of people don't have a fantastic life, and some even feel the need to end their own lives, but we should look to, and celebrate the good life they did have.

So may you rejoice for life, rather than be sad in death.
May you continue reading when someone else you love dies
And most of all, may you know that someone long ago, came to earth to live a great life for you, died for you, and rose again for you.

God bless guys

There's more to it

2009-01-01T22:19:00.002+13:00

So happy new year everyone!!

Today is January 1, a day marked all over the world as the start of the year - a time where new stuff happens - where we move on from last year and look ahead with anticipation, excitement (and maybe a little fear) at the unknown that is the next 365 days.

BUT I will forever remember this day for something else. Thanks to Edwin Hubble, and wikipedia.

On this day back in 1925, Edwin Hubble (yes the guy who has the space telescope named after him) made an announcement that changed the world.

Up until that day, the view of the cosmos was that the Milky Way galaxy was all there was. Good ol' Edwin was peering through his big telescope and he saw some stars that were way too far away to be part of our galaxy. He looked through his telescope for over two years finding more and more stars, groups of stars, even objects he thought were entire other galaxies.

Now we get to January 1, 1925... the press conference to change the world. "Right, so, you're never going to believe what I've seen. I've seen these stars guys. And they're pretty far away. You know, they're so far away... I'm pretty sure they're different galaxies. Guys... it's not just our galaxy in this universe... I think it's bigger than just us."

Now I wasn't there... but I can imagine after an announcement like that, you could've heard the beads of sweat from Ediwn Hubble's face fall run down his neck. (hearing a pin drop is so cliche).

I'm not going to write an end to this post. I'm not going use this story to tie up a nice little bundle of wisdom. But may you join me in thinking about that story. May you ponder that idea... it's bigger... than... just... us.

Till next time,
Peace out.

What I have to celebrate

2008-12-28T20:41:00.000+13:00

Our church has been following monthly themes this year, December's theme was 'Celebrate'.

After being through the year 2008 together, the chance was given to come forward and share what we had to 'celebrate' about 2008. Not entirely knowing why, I went up, and this is what I said.

My celebration is that God isn't finished with me yet. I've had a rough year. I mean I've put on a brave front and all but in all honestyn this year has been very hard for me.

At the church staff dinner last week, I was asked if I could sum up my 2008 in one word. I never gave an answer that night. The sad fact is that in the first ten seconds of thinking about it the first word i got was LONELY. The words that came to me after that didn't get better. STRESSED... OVERWHELMING... TOO MUCH... DEPRESSING... HARD... all of a sudden, I felt like I needed to walk home.

Take a look at my current life situation and you'd probably agree with me on these words. But yet I still thought to say that I can celebrate.

I can celebrate because I won't be like this forever.

There's a photo I've seen of a sculpture of a man with a huge rectangle block for a head. It's like the artise took this chunk of stone and started carving and then for whatever reason stopped. Maybe he gave up, maybe he stopped caring about it and started on something else. Right now, and for most of this year... I've felt like that unfinished sculpture... with a block for a head.

Yet I celebrate because I know my God is not like that. I have had some work done on me this year... and I know I will have more done on me in the year to come. The huge block I have on my head now will not be there one day.

And that's what I have to celebrate.

-End rant-

Another reason why Mac rules

2008-11-10T10:19:00.003+13:00

Okay yes it's out!!! If you didn't know already I love my Mac. And here's just another reason why...

It's called FlyGesture. And it's an automator program.

So what you do is hold down your hotkey (mine is control-Z) and then this little box pops up with these dots. You wave your mouse over the dots in the right order and depending on what gesture you make, the computer does things all by itself. You can open websites, type text, close all the windows on your browser, switch to the next song on iTunes, even shut the whole computer down. And just like everything else on a Mac, it's all so easy.

Oh, and did I mention it's FREE?!?!?! Get it. I love it.

OK, Mac-rant over.

Your unique gift

2008-11-03T13:47:00.000+13:00

A lot of people think I’m crazy because I’m an intern.

For those of you who don’t know, I intern for Life FM, probably the best Christian radio station on the planet. I love it. I have to get up early, I get made fun of, publicly humiliated, and given all the really boring jobs, I devote six hours a day, four days a week (and then some extra hours) to working there... and I don’t get paid for it. I’ve even been known to take time off my paying jobs (of which I have three) to work MORE for this radio station, going to events and such.

Like I said, people think I’m nuts. So let me take this opportunity to explain why I do this.

A little over a year ago, I was at the NZ National Vineyard Conference (of course I was there, our church was running it!!). The NZ leader of the Vineyard, Lloyd Rankin, delivered a message which hit me in the heart.

He divided tasks into four catergories:

- Things you can’t do
- Things you can do
- Things you can do well
- Things that you’re uniquely gifted for

For example, I cannot swim. And I’m ok with that. I can play guitar (but only just, and there are people who do that far better than I do), I can use a computer pretty well (it’s why I take that responsibility at church) but I’m uniquely gifted at communicating and talking.

Think about that for yourself a little bit. Most people end up getting paid to do what they do well. If they didn’t do it well, then someone else who does that thing well would have that job. Very few people get to do what God has given them unique gifting to do. Now I don’t mean to brag that I’m uniquely gifted to be on radio, but I feel it’s God’s plan for me. Uniquely for me.

So I’m gonna continue to push this intern thing as much as I can because I would love to get paid to do what I’m uniquely gifted for.

PS. I’m obviously not uniquely gifted for blogging. Apologies ☺

A million miles an hour

2008-10-28T16:25:00.000+13:00

Don’t you hate it when your mind just races at 1 million miles an hour??

Life sometimes does that to you though. When it throws all this stuff at you all at once and you end up not being able to catch it all so it ends up scattered around your feet cos here’s the thing: If you try to catch it all, you’ll miss it all. I struggle with that a lot. Like always trying to catch stuff while I’m still holding other things and then I end up dropping both.

Another way of putting it is there’s a REASON why guys don’t multitask. It’s not because the CAN’T, it’s because they know they SHOULDN’T.

Go figure.

What's with the title DG?

2008-10-27T15:37:00.000+13:00

Right well I got a blog! -insert applause here-

I thought I would explain to you why I gave it the title I had some spare time. You see, whenever D Sheed or Sam suggested I should get a blog, I always said 'no, I don't have the time for one'.

The fact is folks, I have five jobs. So I find that 'time' is a fabulous excuse for me not to do things. In recent times, this has included spending time with God.

But this weekend, I've found myself right now with not a lot to do. For some reason, I was given the urge to start a blog simply because I had some spare time.

So may the title of this blog encourage me to take some time out for God, and maybe share some of my God thoughts with you lot.