Damp

At our church cell group tonight Katie had the flu. She, Richard, Sara and myself were taking turns to read the start of Deuteronomy. Katie had a go, but knew where her sore throat's limit lay.

Afterwards Sara drove me home. When we got to my house, we sat in the car talking. Presently I opened the car door and continued talking with my head half way outside the vehicle. Then we said our good byes and I went in.

I was sneezing. I was tired. I had a sore throat coming on. I collapsed onto my bed and just lay there for about ten minutes.

I became aware that, the way I had landed, there was something about the size of a hazelnut lying against my forehead. It was small and hard and I realised that I didn't know what it was. So I sat up, at which point it came unstuck from my forehead, fell, and landed on my fleece's lapel, where it stuck again. I looked down at it. Its response was to turn its head to look back up at me.

It was a snail.

Now just how long had that been there without anybody saying anything?

Myself, And Other Personalities

They tell me I’m an INFP, but I’m still reflecting on how I feel about it, and also how the rest of you might.

In fact, I’ve been hearing about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test for well over a decade now, so when flatmate David announced that he was taking a course in it at his old church, well I realised that it was now or never. Does that make me an S or an N? Hang on, doesn’t asking that very question make my I dominant with my extrovert T as auxiliary? For a course designed to help me understand myself and others, this way surely lies madness...

So here’s how the theory works:

There are 16 different personality types, determined by four opposing dichotomies, namely –

Extroversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)
Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N) (detail vs. big picture)
Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
Judgment (J) vs. Perception (P) (planning vs. flexible)

I have a lot of problems just with those 8 words. I mean some of them, like for example Judgment, just don’t seem to be measuring the tendencies that the word implies. I also didn’t much like being put into one of 16 neat little boxes, just so that I could fit into some intellectuals’ narrow-minded worldview.

But here’s where the outlook tripped me up – central to the MBTI perspective, is the idea that everyone is capable of being every aspect of the chart. What MBTI indicates is simply which one of their 16 types that you choose to be the most.

In other words, the computer’s projection from the 100-odd questions that I had to answer before starting wasn’t conclusive, apart from anything else because I was allowed to flatly disagree with it.

In other other words, I could come up with another system containing, oh I don't know, say 33 different generalisations, and then ask questions to calculate which one of my 33 types you behaved in line with the most often. I don’t say this to belittle the MBTI though, for I found tons in here to help me better understand both myself, and others.

(Not to mention how I’d be proving the computer right by expressing my N tendencies, although I suppose the computer was actually proving me right here…)

My own self-evaluation came up with ISFJ, but it was clear that my real stumbling block here was my own ambiguity. No, wait, my love of diversity.

For some time now I have been attempting to get better at all things. For example, I know that in many areas I’m not very well organised, so I’m always trying to become better organised. This blog might currently be four months behind again (badly organised), but I’m typing the first draft of this post just a few hours following my final Myers-Briggs lesson (well-organised). So which am I???

When I was younger I used to be very extroverted, but I’ve been hurt so many times, by so many people, that against my will I’ve slowly become very introverted. (hence composing this in written form, to share from behind a blog, at 2:20 in the morning) It’s no good telling me that I’ve naturally become introverted – in my mind I still picture my ideal self as an extrovert.

I get tons of energy from being with my friends, but ask me to phone any of them and I find it a major uphill task.

I don’t choose introversion, I just reluctantly find it safer.

I asked my friend Phil at cell group one Thursday about it, as he’s qualified in MBTI. He asked me about each of the four pairs. When we got to the last one – about whether I prefer a day to be planned or spontaneous - I protested that I see the value in both, and don’t want to lose either. At this, Phil looked over at Brett. “He is such a P!”

So I asked him “Why? Why did you just say ‘He is such a P’?”

“Because you always keep your options open.”

Well, that settles the last letter then, but does little for nailing down the preceding three.

Ultimately I determined to stop using the formulaic indicators and just read the 16 different personality descriptions on the net. This had its own problems, because I think they all seemed to affirm me in places. Hand on heart though, the one that seemed to contain the fewest errors did indeed turn out to be INFP – the same as the original questionnaire had projected, despite my bewilderment at how to select between so many of the choices.

The thing about reading these write-ups is that they can work the same way as horoscopes. You find something that suits you down to the ground, pick your jaw up off the floor, and gasp incredulously, “Yes! That’s me!”

Then of course you just want to ignore all the stuff that misses its target. Admittedly though, in reading up on the INFP profiles, most of it does seem to be on the money.

"With their tendency to enjoy serving others, they may value their mate’s satisfaction above their own."

Yes! That’s me!

"INFPs are ‘natural’ parents."

Crikey – I can’t abide kids. Never have.

Oh well, for the purposes of this course then, mostly INFP?

The remaining two weeks of the course revolved around interacting with others, and interacting with God. The jokey INFP prayer “Lord, help me to finish everything I start,” is just the sort of reason why I will commit to beginning so few projects these days.

Ultimately, I’m very pleased to have taken this course. It’s prompted me to ask some good questions, some of them quite subtle, and I would honestly admit to having found a renewed respect for others with different attitudes in life.

I guess I should also be grateful to have completed it.

City Of Sails Barbershop Chorus presents An Evening Of Harmony

As the title suggests, a lovely evening of male voice choir music, in Auckland.

In fact that’s not the whole story, for breaking up the chorus were the quartet Chord Of Appeal, and female soloist Lisa Lorell. Given the high calibre of all three acts, it’s a minor shame that the final number didn’t feature them all collaborating together, but no matter. This was my day off, and as such losing myself in the melody was just the serenity that I was looking for. The acoustics of East City Wesleyan – unusually good for a church – helped tons too.

There’s a distinction that I need to make here. I don’t go much on a cappella when the singers’ voices are impersonating musical instruments. That always reminds me of eating a vegetarian alternative – I feel as though I really ought to be enjoying it as much. When human voices are performing as precisely what they are though - voices forming words - well, that authenticity is much more my thing.

The biggest surprise of the night though had to be getting invited to join them. It was the interval, and a guy called Richard approached me and started to enthuse “We can teach anyone to sing!” I was seriously impressed. This meant that many of the performers who I’d just been listening to had been similarly invited and trained... and to what a standard!

As I walked home tonight, I had not just enjoyed an evening of beautiful life-affirming music, but also been empowered to believe that I could achieve the impossible too.

What more can a good show do for you?

Website here.

Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife

There’s a world of difference between a script written because of a contract, and one written because of inspiration.

Whatever you think of The Doctor’s Wife, there’s no mistaking that author Neil Gaiman is taking his lead from other episodes he’s already seen, and presumably enjoyed.

The TARDIS’ soul is stolen and deposited in another’s body, while a being known as ‘the house’ hijacks its carcass. The Doctor discovers what became of some Time Lords who survived the Time War. There’s a big chase down the ship’s corridors, which is only the second time we’ve seen beyond the console room since the show’s revival. (the other being a glimpse of the wardrobe room in The Christmas Invasion)

Building a new TARDIS from the remains of others, the cast finish up in a showdown back on the TARDIS set from two seasons ago. (at which how many of us muttered some variant of “Darn, it’s not the Davison one!!”)

Not to mention further exploration of the Doctor’s original theft of the TARDIS from Gallifrey before the original series began anyway. (though I thought the first Doctor remarked once that he’d built it?)

But here’s the thing - while building upon long-established Doctor Who lore, you just don’t need any of that to watch this.

Despite being the fourth darkly-lit episode in a row, the breezy dialogue ensures that the tone remains mostly quite bright. The exception would be Amy and Rory’s hard-to-justify chase in the second half, which drags as it goes nowhere, both geographically and philosophically.

And finally an enigmatic prediction about the future which just for once actually has a reason for its enigmaticality, namely that the TARDIS doesn’t speak English very well.

"The only water in the forest is the river."

Jackson Lake, Christina de Souza, Adelaide Brooke and Amy Pond might (Trinity)well(s) disagree...

Cowboys & Aliens (film)

I guess I just don’t like westerns.

I mean Cowboys & Aliens has such a lot going for it. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are both strong leads, who play their roles as straight as they can, which proves to be an uphill battle in a film with such a parodic title.

Director Jon Favreau also comes with high credentials after Iron Man, and if nothing else turns-in a movie with a really clear soundtrack. There are plenty of talky scenes here with no music to drown them out, and even if there had been, this dialogue has been captured with clarity.

One line in particular struck a chord with me from preacherman Meacham (Clancy Brown):

"God doesn’t care what you were, just what you are."

Yet I’m afraid that I just didn’t connect with any of these characters. I had no wish to see anyone reunited with their wife, son or anyone else, save for the relief of finally seeing the closing credits finish and get to leave the cinema.

At the end of the day, the one thing this film really needed was a more interested audience-member.

Still, the constant laugh-track from Jon, Steve I think, and others off to my left indicated that at least five of our 6-guy group were having a good time this evening.

Sorry - too many cowboys for me, and I guess just not interesting enough aliens.

(available here)

Doctor Who: The Curse Of The Black Spot

Doctor Who does Pirates Of The Caribbean, and thankfully without anyone calling themselves Captain Jack.

In borrowing from a different legend, this appears to be this season’s equivalent of last year's Vampires Of Venice, although that’s not much of a recommendation.

Realising that the TARDIS is dematerialising, the Doctor abandons ship. Ummm...

The Siren can emerge only from still water. Then from any reflective surface. Then she’s emerging from choppy water again. Uhhhhh...

Regarding CPR, Amy utters the always unwise cliché “This isn’t a movie”, before extremely badly having a go anyway and, against all real life probability, actually restoring Rory to both health and consciousness. Hrrrrrrm...

Well, I didn’t much like The Vampires Of Venice either.

Well no hang on, it’s not really fair to say that I didn’t like this. It was okay. Well all right no it wasn't. Given the above points, it just didn’t seem to have much going for it, and what there was was sadly hidden underneath so much gloomy lighting and deafening music. Oh yes, and also behind Lady Gaga.


I mean come on Prime TV - that’s supposed to be an effects shot!

Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut / Day Of The Moon

The Doctor: "Y'know, this isn't nearly as bad as it looks."

A face hidden behind an airtight mask, haunting phone calls, and a mysterious little girl whose identity seems to hold the key.

Well, it’s definitely written by Steven Moffat.

Yet despite pulling out his favourite devices yet again, this so-called two-parter can hardly be described as the same old thing as usual.

Apart from anything else because, apart from catching up on the internet, this is the first official Doctor Who story that I’ve ever watched off of a hard drive!



It’s also the first one I’ve viewed first on New Zealand television, a country with a long history of editing material from the show dating right back to the 1960s. Back then however it was mainly the violence which got cut out. Today it’s... well, the very first shot. The really important one. Yes, Prime TV opened the series without the dedication to Elisabeth Sladen.

Well, maybe the BBC never sent them it.

All the same, the shot that the NZ version did come in on was still literally cutting corners.


All right I’m being picky. I mean you arguably need to superimpose the 'PG' certificate when your station doesn’t bother with any announcement about it before the show. They did have an appropriate station ident though (featuring painters to lead into the opening scene of the Doctor being painted), which is at least consistent with the station's policy of wanting to tell everyone which channel they’re watching. Constantly.

Better not keep that DOG on over the adverts though (right in the middle of the diner scene after the Doctor's straw line) – the sponsors might complain about their adverts getting ruined. (stuff the viewers)



Clearly I should have paid more attention though, as one of the ads was actually inviting me to write in with any complaints that I might have about broadcasting standards...



Ohhh, this is going to be a long one.

But you know what? In this story, for me at any rate, long is good.

Forget the usual plot-structure of the TARDIS landing somewhere and its location driving the characters’ motivations. Here it’s the other way around.

The Doctor realises that he’s about to get killed, and summons Amy, Rory, River and Canton from out of their everyday lives to accompany him. Unusually for Doctor Who, the protagonists here are just that, using the TARDIS as a tool for their own ends, instead of reacting to wherever it takes them.

The ownership that they take of their lives is symbolic of the ownership that Showrunner Steven Moffat seems to be at last taking of the series. Last season looked to all intents and purposes like an impersonation of Russell T Davies’ tenure. With this story Moffat even changes the premise by giving the theme a pre-credits voice-over, making the show’s hook that the Doctor is Amy’s imaginary childhood friend now become real.


Amy (V/O): "When I was a little girl, I had an imaginary friend, and when I grew up, he came back. He's called the Doctor. He comes from somewhere else. He's got a box called the TARDIS that's bigger on the inside and can travel anywhere in time and space. I ran away with him. And we've been running ever since."

(NB. It came as a complete shock when I later watched an episode in England that didn't have this, and realised that I been watching this series entirely off of BBC Worldwide versions)

And Moffat's ideas are just wonderful. Aliens among us who can’t be remembered. (AWESOME design!) The eyepatched woman observing Amy through a window. The dynamic of the companions keeping the Doctor’s future from him. (Matt Smith now owning his dual role)


For all the sheer style that this tale oozes though, the plot itself is largely incomprehensible. Much of this is because there is clearly more to be revealed in future episodes, but what does emerge here is a story which frustratingly appears to not work anyway.

River is apparently reconceived as encountering the Doctor in reverse order, rather than in a random one. Well, that sure subtracts from any reliability to her claims about his future in Silence In The Library / Forest Of The Dead then.

The Silence, far from being an actual silence in The Vampires Of Venice, are now just another race of biped aliens to shoot. (maybe I'm not recalling them clearly...)

To remind herself of her forgotten encounters with the Silence, Amy writes on her face. Silly girl.

Most annoyingly of all, why doesn’t anyone tell the Doctor about his future death? There is a line about the universe possibly exploding if they do, but in a series where history is routinely mucked about with, this hardly covers it.

For all that, I loved this. I can see the horror style making kids turn it off in their droves, but I was enthralled. Even the Doctor and River’s first / last kiss had a meaning that I’ve never seen done anywhere else. (most TV kisses mean the same old thing as always, and are consequently dull)

As usual though, I thought this script needed objective feedback before being committed to the cameras. As far as I could tell, nobody asks where the future Doctor’s TARDIS is. River has no advice to offer in parting to Amy or Rory about saving the Doctor’s life, although it appears she will never be able to discuss the matter with them further. And I need more than just “It doesn’t work that way” to explain why the future can/can’t be changed. Just what way does it work then?

The plot point of the Silence controlling humanity through post-hypnotic suggestion passed me by (I guess I needed one of them to tell me). I also found the resolution quite sudden, but in fairness I was quietly hoping that with all the other changes to the format, this enthralling story might also last for a further 11 instalments!

That the Silence have been around on Earth throughout all the earlier episodes sat okay with me, because they've been defeated since 1969, and most near-contemporary stories have been set after this. (so I can understand their not being in much of a state to fight off the Cybermen in The Invasion for instance) (alright so date-wise that might have been a bad example)

By the way, just what happened between episodes one and two? A few minutes in, both flatmate Dave and I were convinced that we'd loaded the wrong episode.

The conviction that some questions will be answered later though has my brain working overtime, which I’ve missed so far in the show’s revival. River’s earlier tease about this story in The Big Bang - “And I’m sorry, because that’s when everything changes” – has had a great payoff here. By “everything” she apparently means most of her past with him has been wiped out.

I didn’t like the return of the uncomfortable Doctor/Amy/Rory triangle (no better outcome to root for there), nor the implication that the Doctor and Amy may have slept together, but I don’t think even Moffat wants to actually go there.

My own theory is that the Time Lady kid who regenerates at the end is biologically the Doctor and River’s, from his future and her past, a relationship which thanks to the Doctor's timeline-changing death will not now happen. Perhaps River somehow implanted the embryo in Amy in The Time Of Angels when she claimed to be giving her an injection to stabilise her metabolism on the Byzantium. This would make Amy pregnant with the Doctor and River’s surrogate kid, whose existence is therefore recorded by the TARDIS scanner as both true and untrue due to her two conflicting histories.

I don’t care if that's right or wrong, my point is that a key part of my enjoyment of Doctor Who has always lain in pondering it afterwards. In that respect, and many others, I thoroughly enjoyed these promising two episodes!

Well, I enjoyed what we got to see of them anyway.

SSX Ruapehu

My natural bedtime seems to be 6 o’clock in the morning.

It therefore really messes with my schedule when I have to get up 90 minutes before that at 4:30am.

Today was one of those days. We were trekking out in search of snow!

Breakfast was pizza. Thank you flatmate Cathy, for still making the best pizzas in the world.

5:30am. “Steve?” whispered a silhouetted Sara across the darkened driveway as I locked my front door. Pretty soon we’d joined Katie and Richard to pack into Jean’s 4WD as we all left Auckland behind us in the night. Oh a fun day out in the snow might well traditionally be pictured with whiteness, blue skies and blinding sunlight, but first there had to be a five hour road-trip to get us out of the early-morning darkness.


And I love these journeys. I never truly feel as though I’m in New Zealand until I get out of Auckland. Elevenses at Maccas in Drury, the Waikato River, that funny ‘Hillside’ sign at Hillside... oh, right, it was still night when we passed through there.


Presently we passed the amusingly-named Ohura River, which as a Star Trek fan I’d like to assume also features a wharf for catching pike.

Finally, the green fields began to grow icier. The sides of the road developed long stretches where lines of local people had apparently been defrosting their fridges. And our long-awaited destination appeared on the horizon!


We parked at the bottom sometime between 11-12am, and immediately set about wondering how much of our gear to take up with us. I’d set out wearing about four layers, but since the sun had made her way high above us, I was now down to my trademark t-shirt. Just how much colder might it be up on the side of the majestic Mount Ruapehu? In the end I boarded the shuttlebus with everything.



A bus to Whakapapa ski field plus an early lunch later (a second burger!), and we were all busily donning our hired snow gear.

I’d been in two minds about this - skiing or snowboarding?

I can ski reasonably well, but haven’t actually done so for about 16 years. As I saw all the other visitors slicing around on their skis, the chance to join them once again looked highly tempting.

And yet, snowboarding was something that I had never tried before (unless you count with Herschel on his Playstation), and opportunities to try something new don’t come along all that often.

Hand on heart, I was about 55% in favour of going skiing.

In the end though the decision was taken for me. Everyone else was picking snowboarding. Well, put it like that, and skiing on my own sounded like no fun at all. Snowy activities are supposed to be about the social life.

Finally, with seasoned snowboarder Richard leading the way and coaching us, we rode the chairlift up to the learner slope and proceeded to achieve what all bold, fearless adventurers do at some point in their careers.

We made loads of literally painful mistakes in public. (By "at some point in their careers" I meant the start.)




Good job I was wearing all those cushioning clothes that I’d brought with me.


For me, learning to snowboard shares several similarities with learning to ski:

1. Sitting on my butt while Swiss-accented ski instructors lead lines of perfectly proficient 4-year-olds past.

2. The frustration of not being able to move-off in the direction I want, and having to unstrap the darn thing to walk there carrying it.

3. Picking up too much speed and worrying that the snowboard may suddenly stop while every part of my body above my shin continues relentlessly forwards.

4. Recognising that exact speed which lies midway between too fast and way too fast, so that I can deliberately fall over to moderate my bruising.

I think seasoned surfergirl Sara summed it up simplest: “When you fall off a surfboard, you only fall into water.”


Realising that I was now perspiring buckets inside the tent I was wearing, I decided to sit down for a while before continuing. It was a shrewd move - I was dissolving in there. Time to take the layers off again?

Also, as you can see, I'd been lugging my 35mm camera about in my backpack, because I was afraid of leaving it at the top of the run where it might get pinched. Now I was reasoning that by carrying it everywhere with me, it was in far greater danger of getting damaged.

By the end of the day though, as is the way with learning curves, skidding down a slope at speed was starting to become easier. Such a shame that I can’t say the same for turning, slowing or halting. But hey - when it came to acceleration, there was just no stopping me. Ever.

I’d also figured out that I was more of a goofy than a regular.

I’m always happy taking photos, so I even found the chairlift-ride back down to be gorgeous.




After changing, stopping off at the Gas & Gobble in Te Kuiti for supper (such a great day for eating!), Team Cession climbed back into Jean’s car for the rest of the long drive back home. Along the way FM radio stations swirled in and out of reception. Songs garnered singing, and occasional wishes for a ukulele. The falling temperature had me putting my layers back on all over again.

As we approached the darkness of Auckland once more, according to all the available evidence, here the sun had never actually risen today. The daylight which we had been so enjoying had, apparently, been purely a regional thing.

The day had been maybe 20 hours long, of which we had spent perhaps three hours actually on the slopes. But that’s not what it was about. Sports of any sort are usually much more about simply having fun with friends, and today had been just gorgeous, metaphorically and literally.

Admittedly though, tomorrow my body might disagree...

John 1:1-5, 9, 12-14 / 8:12 (NIV)

The second of two readings that I performed as voice-overs at cession church here in Auckland tonight.

Click here to hear.

Reading #1 here.

Rest of the service here.

Psalm 22:1-8 (NIV)

The first of two readings that I performed as voice-overs at cession church here in Auckland tonight, for week two of our series entitled Break Of Day.

Click here to hear.

Reading #2 here.

Rest of the service here.

The Stream 2011

Have spent the last three days attending The Stream - an annual teaching conference for the Wesleyan church of New Zealand, held at East City Wesleyan Church.

Umpteen seminars were led by visiting American Dr. Joel Green and Scot Dr. David McEwan. (the latter of whom I also heard speak at ECW’s service this morning) These sessions were also attended by an ever-changing congregation of Wesleyans’n’others from around New Zealand, including one of my many cell groups.

One discipline I’ve been trying to apply during sermons lately is that of taking notes. Melissa appeared to be scribbling down an entire book during each session. Over the course of the three days I seem to have just jotted maybe a dozen notes.

Here are a few of them:

"Terms like infallibility and inerrancy of scripture don’t do much for Wesleyans."

"Our beliefs about the Bible are most on parade through right actions [orthopraxis] and right hearts [orthokardia]."

[the plot of the Bible]"Creation – exodus – new exodus (in Christ) – new creation."

"The aim of scripture is to guide us in the way to Heaven."

"Is rationality a sign of humanity?"

"Is the goal a ‘Christian commonwealth’?"


The remark which hit home with me the deepest though came on Saturday night during the youth drive. When asked about Hell, David spoke of how God doesn’t compel anyone to love him, and allows them to turn away from him if they so choose.

It’s not quite the same way of expressing it as talking about people having to ‘pay’ for their sins, but I would say that it's more about the underlying choice of turning toward or away from God.