A long bleep

I’m in a state of self-inflicted headachy bleariness today. Last night I did something a bit odd, which was to go to the Moonlight Cinema in Centennial Park to see The Godfather (Part 1). One of the guys in my connect group emailed around to see if anyone wanted to go, and The Godfather being one of those movies I thought I “should” see, plus knowing people whose opinion is of interest to me who list it amongst their favourites, I thought I’d go. But I went with some fear and trepidation, because all I’d ever heard about this movie involved the head of a horse, and I really, really neither like nor cope very well with violence and gore. And what I also didn’t know when I said yes is that it is 185 minutes long! But despite the fact that I spent most of the evening in a state of uncontrollable trembling (and I wouldn’t be able to tell you whether that was from cold or dread), checking the time on my phone with a shaking hand in the dark every so often to see how much longer I had to endure, hiding behind the picnic rug someone gave me to use as a blanket in parts (it wasn’t so difficult to work out when the horse head was coming), I can see why you’d call this a good film and I did get engrossed in the drama. It also wasn’t quite as violent as I had led myself to believe, and there was an unexpected ‘humanness’ about it. But since just about everybody on the planet has already seen it, I probably need not say more.

I also used to live in Kensington and either run or walk around Centennial Park (a large urban park, which has some areas of bush left in it) almost every day, and thought I was quite familiar with the layout, so I gave one of the guys a lift, parked in a side street, ducked through a gap in the fence and went cross country, only then I couldn’t remember quite where the amphitheatre was, so I asked some people who looked like they might be heading that way (because one can’t expect a guy to ask for directions after all) and we got there. But then afterwards, somewhere between 11 pm and midnight we were wandering about in the dark through the bushland trying to find that gap in the fence (the guy I was giving a lift is about 6’3”, otherwise I wouldn’t have been doing this – I’ve had to talk to the police before about a murder in the night in the park, and after that movie I’d have been in a complete panic on my own), which all felt a bit surreal. So it was a bit late getting home for a school night.

On Wednesday night I went to a “hot topic” night at Sydney Missionary and Bible College with my connect group also. A couple of people in my group are at the college so they had the intel. Sam Chan was speaking on 'Reasons why people don’t believe the gospel'. He had taken large chunks of material from Tim Keller’s Reason for God, but it was an interesting and challenging night. Our slogan for church this year is Reaching those we know, the idea being that we can be good at doing “evangelism” to complete strangers, but often less good at talking to the people we know. That is certainly true for me – I find it easier to walk up to passersby in Martin Place or St Andrew’s Square than have gospel conversations with friends, and often when I take someone to an evangelistic event I can’t help feeling that it’d be easier to stand up the front and give the talk to other people’s friends than have to follow through with the person you brought along. But I’ve “selected” a few people to target this year ...

Then Tuesday night was my guitar class. Prior to this week my repertoire was the Peter Gunn Theme, Wipeout, Smoke on the Water and Wild Thing, which wasn’t quite where I was hoping to go with this. But then this week we got Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and Bob Dylan is getting closer. I’d been talking to the teacher the week before about a Bob Dylan song, so I was pleased when he came out with one. He then asked if anyone was going to the concert. I didn’t know Bob Dylan was coming (and while I like him, I wouldn’t describe myself as one of his biggest fans) so I looked this up when I got home – but goodness it’s expensive! I’m really enjoying the guitar, but now just need to find the time to practice, which is not so compatible with having stuff on too many nights of the week. (My ideal kind of life in general is not so compatible with having stuff on too many nights of the week really.)

So, I’m glad it’s Friday, as always. I’m all in a weary disarray and have had a run of doing stupid things in a state of forgetfulness this week.