Fri- day

Slept in to about 7am when i got to finish some web stuff, answering texts and comments etc. Was about to walk at 8am, when i found out from the two brothers that the brother I had driven to the hosptal last night (Tim, a former soccer player and coach, who was now skin and bones) had got a CT scan, and they had found a brain tumour, (& possible lung cancer). He needed an operation very soon, & was being moved soon to the Royal Melbourne hospital for it. 

Mike had hardly slept last night and ( on his request) i decided to stay at least another day to help or just BE with them where possible. Got to do a few little jobs with fruit to be composted. 

Very interesting day after that.

A few chances to draw some 3 min portraits (that ended up being of the person's distant relative), to read, and cogitate, discuss good things with a number of friends on the phone, and write and play with ideas... as in the post below.  I spoke/sang the bones of it (& recorded) on the way out of Gisborne the other day. Today while Mike was trying to catch up on sleep I got to do another draft and do one play with it on his piano in another part of the house.

A lot of fun...

We'll see what happens tonight.

........

Wow, what a lovely time together going into town to buy dinner, then talking over dinner with one of the brothers and his two children. Lively and lovely time together. I think we all appreciated it.

After sharing my cringe-worthy poetry & music, Mike is going to start tonight using his prodigious musical and song-writing gifts to serve humanity, I think in the form of describing his situation now, in various real difficulties, rather than waiting till everything is "onky dory". I said I'd have a go at it too. 

We'll share what we come up with tomorrow.

walking about within the house of God!

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walking, playing with these thoughts & words, and on some piano keys (at Black Forest Farm where I stayed today too).

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So here we are within your own precinct,

where you and me stand in the house of God.

The blue ceiling is sometimes not distinct 

for cloudy curtains cov'ring what we've got

make images to minds which love to bring 

sense & meaning to the things around. 

What if you made a house for your offspring 

that had these gumtree pillars from the ground…

to show your mighty goodness and your strength,

to oxigenate air, and give us shade?

Creative goodness has gone to this length,

not only in designs, but what's been made.

Your thoughtfulness towards who's in your mind

(which is the whole creation where we rest),

is tuned into when children learn to  find 

what comes to us when you prompt, and suggest.

You are the God who gave image in ac-

tion, who could access all our inside thoughts

and too imaginings, that scary fact

is wonderful as well, for we'd be caught

within that web of love that thinks of all,

not just our outside actions, but inside.

You are more scary than the biggest fall, 

and you're the one in whom we can confide.

So here I under stand in your precinct,

while walking round within the house of God.

Who ever could have thought that you'd have winked

distinctly, and you were so wonderful.

For you don't mind our bricks and mortar, con-

-crete, metal that we've managed to mine out

from your good ground, and work the stones upon 

it, there's a whole lot more than what we've found.

The motive of the message with its  means:

you've given us the fruit that has its seed

within it, so that we could plant and glean,

enough for all, if not for all our greed.

O God you are the meaning and the message.

I heard that Christ was quite a bit like you, 

could take a tip, and teach us what is blessage.

And thank you for the blessing of this zoo.

The problem ain't the animals within it,

but humans who act lower than their call.

Oh God I'd love to dwell in/on, not bin it.

These are the musings of a little Paul.

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I am learning more ... GIVE air-play to core ... OF what I'm here for…

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Playing with words (below & above) and notes..

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Alright, this is a thing I have to do!

Already I perceive you're leading me.

For this, I need to learn to follow through

from words & concepts, to what you will see..

and smile about! Your child is back on track.

He's off the sideline of just words and thoughts,

and into acting justly2 ("..one thing lacks.."),

with loving mercy, walking humbly. For

that prophet of creative love1 outlined:

this as the good humanity could do,

& what was at the core of what we find

are what's required of humans to be true.

"Creative Love" is how I now spell GOD.

Instead of just one function: Ruler, Judge2,

or Doctor, Nurse, or Teacher, that we've got

to choose from; now I certainly won't budge.

(I mean for me myself, not others who

are journeying themselves to truly be

a human being as we were made to

be, at the making of the world we see)

I learned this way of thinking from one who

was picked by the creator as the one

who would be able to lead us all to

"The Father" - that's what he called him. The son 

of Adam, that's the name he'd often claim,

& they saw Adam as the son of God.

Without triumphalistic words he'd pay

more compliments to others3 where he could.

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1. You have already been shown, O mortal, what is good. And what does the creative love who made you require of you? To act justly2 and to love mercy and to walk humbly with this one you may know as your GOD. (after Micah 6:8 & some other English versions)

2. Justice is love enacted to someone you don't know or haven't yet met. (after Reinhold Niebur on this topic)

3. Complimenting others where he could (where it was true and right, noticing the good and emphasising it,  rather than ignoring or overlooking it, or taking it for granted). I can think of 4 situations straight off. Can you think of any? 

1. The Roman Centurion or official's faith

2. The lepper that came back to say "Thank you."

3. Choosing the 5 commands out of the 10, that the Rich ruler HAD kept (not the ones he hadn't kept).

4. Claiming himself to be the Son of Adam (who was also seen as the one who brought sin into the world.

5. . . .oh yes, there are others.  Can you recall any?

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Thursd'y, thirsty to learn…

 

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I washed my clothes in the shower last night, then hung them up on the clothes line. I slept late this morning to let them have a chance to dry. When I  got up they were still wet.

I still needed to decide whether I would stay another day (as Mike had intimated that I would be welcome to do) or take up the offer of some folk on the farm to drop me off at Woodend, 6 or 7km towards Bendigo, where I had walked to yesterday arvo.

Mike often doesn't sleep well, after the habits he developed looking after his quadriplegic wife for over 20 yrs (who needed turning every 20 min), so when i saw him with his eyes shut on the lounge beside the commercial kitchen, I thought to take up his brother Tim's invitation to visit him & have a chat. On receiving a text from Tim, I thought he must already be up, so I visited him & we had a cuppa, & chat.

Wow. What a man. He said "Come in!" But could hardly talk, & said he had just finished his morning spew. He had had a few operations several  months ago, and then a month or so later the right side of his head had become numb, and he had started getting double vision (each eye on its own saw well, but they weren't making a single image in his head). He could still walk around or drive, as long as he kept one eye shut. Today he said he had a doctor's appointment to find the results of recent blood tests. Then we started talking: life, the universe, purpose, and meaning. We found we had very similar understandings of the core of the meaning or purpose of life, but because of different backgrounds and life experiences, the next level out - our understanding of how to live out, or express, that core, was different. 

As this became apparent I noted within me a growing frustration, or anxst. We left on amicable terms. But I knew this was a personal battle I just HAD TO follow through on. I couldn't do a walk like this without meeting many, many, people who would be different to me in different ways, and I could not let any growing friendship be based on something as temporary and ephemeral as that we presently agreed on all the ways and means of living out what we perceived to be our life purposes. Especially when Creative Love invites you to be a walking companion. 

As I walked off to see Mike, I realised I had to deal with this thing in me, not run from it. So I said to him that I'd stay at least for the morning, maybe another night, and went with Mike on a morning fruit run.

We met the same folk as yesterday, and talked about me still hanging around. On the way home Mike shouted me a pulled-chicken roll. I offered to help in any way I could, and Mike asked me to pick a big punnett of fresh blackberries, which I did.

One of the brothers popped his head in again. Would you believe it,  he is about to set up a community for people who were homeless, or at least wanted to relocate to a communal way of life, something our community in Orange has been interested in, and also which Cornerstone (a Mission Order, of which I am a member) has been doing something of for 40 years. An interesting conversation began..

Then Tim was driven back from the doctor's surgery by this man's lady. Apparently, the doctor could not explain his condition from the blood test results, and gave him a letter to hand in at the Footscray Western District Hospital in Melbourne. 

Now he needed a driver to take him there. All the others had work they were in the middle of, and had potential buyers for the property coming to look at it with the agent this afternoon. 

I realized that this might be partly why creative love had me to stay on, and share a car trip with Tim to Melbourne, and, within 15 min, I was behind the wheel of Tim's Peugeot wagon.

And, I started hearing his story. Wow. Like an Arabian knight's tale. I hope I get to record it, and put it up here. (I just told my daughter who rang that it was horrific. Tim overheard me say this and softly interjected... " The biggest blessing of my life!")

We arrived at about 3:30 pm and we've just bought the second 2hr parking ticket for the car. And I've done a line drawing of Tim (or one of his cousins).

Little serendipities abound, and now, about 6:30pm, Tim has gone in to see a doctor!

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We'll see what happens. It sure is fun walking with creative love.

I'm back near my starting point for this walk, but very at peace. With much to learn, more than I knew.

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Wednesday night out

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Mike  asked me along to an evening in town where they have some singing, or live music, or a speaker, or some event and a meal;  At The full moon Saloon, a nice little pub. He often sells fresh berries, and sometimes plays piano there. Like fantastically. It was  really interesting, and I got to sit near two people who were good friends, but not an item,  Brendan and Kayleigh. Both who appreciated Mike a lot, and he must have told them a bit about me because they were very welcoming and wanted to talk with me.

I drew a few pictures, and we talked about some deep and shallow things.

We listened to someone trying new options for government other than the 3 party approach to politic-ing.

And then Brendan and Kayleigh rose to the invitation to join me writing a poem about the night, in iambic pentameter, with an A,B,A,B rhyming structure.

It was a lot of fun. Here 'tis:

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Wednesday night out

By Brendan Shackleton, Kayleigh Grice, & Paul Waller.

It's cold tonight at the Full Moon Saloon,

we sit here at the table, feel the cheer;

which could be right, or am I just a loon?

We've each of us partaken in a beer.

"I've met a man who walks the land" today.

We heard a man who stands for  truth & life,

& Kayleigh heard what Michael had to say

about expenditure, & too, his wife.

And Brendan spoke of learning to think clear

himself about life purposes & 

stuff

& how to live above, beyond, his fear.

He's for the poetry, but slips the fluff.

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Interview 1.1 with Mike

I talked last night with Mike as we drove into town to get dinner. 

(What he told me before we got to the shops was like a horror story, and i said so. Then he said "but it gets better" as he got out of the car... but that was what occured with his wife...) 

this is the next day...

A.

B.

C.

https://youtu.be/V6Tbhl2aC8o (combined)

This is the shed where Mike sells fresh berries, and where i met these three collies..

Curiously when i first met them yesterday the two white dogs came bounding up to me, wagging their tails as though we were old friends, while the darker coloured (mother of the closest  white dog) stood twenty metres away barking ferociously... ( we once had a collie like her (named Lina), and we decided that she barked and got snarley because she was scared of who or what she didn't know)

here was something of a parable there for me and my encounters with the new, or other  ...

SLOW DOWN... People & God, in partnership, AT WORK

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Oh God, it looks like I have stumbled in -

in folowing the thread you've lain before -

this farm, these folk here, have a long time been

the focus of your love. Folk you adore.

I feel like you have introduced me to

some people whom you love a lot, a place 

where you have planted seeds of grace renewed.

You've let me have a peek, and see a face

or two, & hear some stories of the ways

your hesed1 grows throughout this world of yours.

Reminds me of another time and place:

three thousand years ago, on other shores,

another culture, and society, 

gave "birth" to old Elijah, and he chose

to take all of these opportunities

to work along with what love will disclose.

But even so, at times he felt alone,

I guess that might be why Elisha was

brought on the scene, to share as friends have shown

"we're  made to care and be cared for", b'coz

the human fam'ly (even friendship) is

a model of the bigger world's design.

Not based on just technologies of bliss,

but taking on the pain, with love, is fine.

It gives the way to handle suffering.

It makes a path impossible without

it and I see that you must dance and sing.

Who taught the angels what delight's about?

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1. Hesed: the old Hebrew term for the Loyal love disclosed through the biblical Hebrew bible's narrative, and celebrated in the psalms, and seen by those who followed him, as being embodied in Jesus himself, in the first Century AD. Thence the writting of the Christian psalm (in Greek) celebrating love/ the light of the whole life of Christ's love (1Cor13)

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