Get out of bed

 Get out of bed - Link to podcast

Getting out of bed and doing some exercise can require some complex mental gymnastics.  Believe me, I know!  But it is worth the effort and will make you feel better – body, mind and spirit. 

 

The other day I went for a jog along the Maroochydore River at 6.30 in the morning.  It was a cool and sunny morning and there were lots of people out and about.  People walking their dogs, riding bikes or sitting on benches drinking coffee, groups of women in trendy workout gear walking together and chattering away.  There were people on the water in canoes and plenty of early morning fishermen trying their luck on the sandy banks or out in a tinnie.  I ran for about an hour and saw hundreds of people who had bothered to get out of bed and get active in the great outdoors that morning.  

This is not a startlingly radical insight.  People do this everywhere and exercising and being immersed in nature is universally accepted as a good idea.  Running and fitness in general is good for our bodies, our minds, our emotions and even the deep spiritual aspects of our existence.

When I get up early and go for a run, my whole body, mind and spirit is engaged in the experience.  My first challenge is the mental one.  The mental gymnastics I do to assess whether I will actually get out of bed are sometimes very complex.  I sometimes need to wrestle things through for quite some time.  Bed is warm and comfortable and nothing has started aching yet.  It’s very tempting to just stay there and steal a few more moments.  Sometimes I wrestle so much that I run out of time and end up doing nothing because I just can’t make up my mind.  I need time to asses if I’ve had enough sleep or am just too tired to bother.  If it is cold or rainy or if I have a really busy day ahead and will be tired - I assess.  If I have eaten too much dinner the night before and feel sluggish, I asses again.  Often the only motivation to move at all comes from my bladder and my procrastination can no longer be endured and I get up out of sheer necessity.

Habits are powerful things though and I now know for sure that the benefit of running outweighs the effort involved to actually do it and once I get moving, do a few stretches and make a start, I eventually enjoy it and feel better about myself and the world. 

As I run my body comes alive.  I feel the air and sun on my skin.  I feel my legs and arms working, my lungs breathing and my heart pumping.  I experience the strength and power of my body.  I can feel my fatigue and all my aches and pains.  I also feel my tummy bouncing around and promise myself not to over eat ever again.  I make this resolution every time I run.  My mind starts to kick in again and I have more decisions to make.  Is this sore calf too much to bear? Will I have the energy to run just a short distance or will I go further? 

After a while I start to feel the rhythm and a cadence of my slow plodding pace and I zone into my surroundings. The other people on the running track, the sights, sounds and smells of my environment.  Blue sky, water, trees and the friendly faces of the other people on the path all come into my awareness and I begin to experience gratitude, joy and a sense of God’s presence.  I know this experience is available to me when I run, so I consciously look for the goodness and beauty around me and engage in how it all makes me feel and think. 

I love massive fig trees and can smile to myself when I see a Mum with a toddler, a cute dog or a pelican or a lorikeet.  Life is good. 

One thing that happens a lot on running paths is we say g’day.  People, especially fellow runners, often nod, smile and say hi in a way that doesn’t happen along a normal street or in a shop.  There is a sort of fellowship and shared awareness here.  People are kind of acknowledging the fact that we are comrades in appreciating and being devoted to this sacred practice of seeing creation and embracing life together.  I like to think they are saying things like; “good on you, keep going, isn’t this wonderful; I’m a believer too” 

Before the Bible was ever written, Gods creation spoke truth, beauty and wisdom into the lives of people.  Romans 1:20 reminds us that through creation, Gods invisible qualities and awesome power have always been revealed. 

So next time you are lying in bed wondering if it’s worth the effort to get out and do something energetic, remember it’s gonna be good for you in all sorts of ways.  Ways that make you feel and think better.  Ways that nurture your relationship with God.  You will experience the beauty and wonder of creation and even a sense of worship, if you have a heart for it, you will meet fellow pilgrims along the way and you will encounter the reality of your actual body.  A very whole of life experience. 

And it seems to me that the experience of drinking a good coffee afterwards takes on a somewhat mystical and even divine dimension.

Go on, get out of bed and smell the roses.

Bless ya,   

 

     

Love always trusts

 

Love always trusts - Link to podcast

The lovely Sue has a saying.  It’s better to be married to a goat than a fox.  She generally trusts me, however she let me choose the frames for my glasses once but has never trusted me to do it again.  

What she means by this is that it’s better to put up with how simple and unsophisticated I am than to have to manage someone who is deceitful and sly.  

The lovely Sue says my most endearing quality is my honesty and simple goodness.  Maybe I am just too lazy and uncomplicated to be scheming and crafty.  

Whatever the qualifications an important element of loving someone is to trust them.  To not feel the need to micromanage them and second guess them.  To allow space in the relationship for time apart and to mix with other people in ways that give freedom and scope for other significant relationships.   

  

The lovely Sue only has one leg and so always comes up with these lame excuses as to why she cannot join me on long trail run or at Parkrun every Saturday.  I go running and do exercise with other people and Sue trusts me to enjoy their company and find friendship without fearing that it will threaten our marriage.  Sue also has sets of friends who love to go for coffee and get their nails painted and visit shopping centers for hours on end and I am so grateful for the balance this brings into our lives.  It’s healthy to have a variety of friends and activities otherwise relationships can become a bit smothering.   

1 Corinthians 7 says Love always trusts and by this we mean that love expects the other to tell the truth and to be honest.  To do what they say they are going to do, to be reliable and to avoid anything that would place the relationship in jeopardy.  

But trust can be broken and people who loved and put their trust in someone are often very hurt and find it hard to fully trust again when they are betrayed.  So how do we trust anyone knowing how susceptible we all are to selfishness and stupidity?  It’s a risk!

 

One thing that has always made sense to me is the emotional bank account.  The idea that we make emotional and trust deposits and withdrawals into each relationship.  For example, If I cook Sue a lovely breakfast, clean up after and have time to sit with her and chat over a proper cup of coffee I have made a deposit in the account right there.   But if I have an argument with her and am disrespectful, that is a withdrawal. I guess an affair or a slap in the face is the equivalent of a 5 million dollar withdrawal and is very hard to rebuild.  However consistent deposits can build up over time and trust can be rebuilt.  To love someone is also to find the appropriate place for grace and forgiveness and to give someone another chance.  One stupid mistake could bankrupt an account unless there are some renegotiations and the debt is cancelled.  

Once again I need to stress there is no place for abuse in any relationship and boundaries are important here.  We do need to stay safe from people who have repeatedly proven to be damaging and untrustworthy.  However we are also stuck with the reality that our loved ones will fail and make mistakes and we can refuse to ever trust them again or find a way to do a spectacularly loving thing and trust someone who does not deserve it.  Love thrives in an environment of trust but shrivels up in a spirit of distrust.  

I told the story of a guy named Hans in one of my earlier podcasts.  A guy from the Salvos Streetlevel mission who stole our ute and our coffee van at various points, but because he was sorry and demonstrated a change of heart we allowed him responsibility to serve again and again in our community.  He did not always get it right, but trusting him has been a huge part of him finding some recovery and believing in himself again.  We were able to keep loving him because we gave him another chance and that love impacted him deeply.    Overall Hans has been a very positive and helpful member of this community over the years.  

The lovely Sue once allowed me to choose my own glasses after some ten years of glasses wearing where she always was with me at the selection of the frames.  Well the one time I did select the frames myself, my daughter posted a photo of the old man from the pixar movie “Up” next to a picture of me and it received widespread attention and humorous comments.  I have never been permitted to choose my own glasses since then.  So the lovely Sue does trust me, but she’s not stupid and monitors the variety of ways that I can be more of a goat than she is comfortable with.  

Bless ya,

Bryce

          

Monthly Mayhem

 Monthly Mayhem - Link to podcast

Maintaining good friendships is a challenge.  But our friends John and Liz have been in our lives for over 20 years and the way we keep it interesting is “Monthly Mayhem” 

 

One of the most important things in life to me is friendship.  I have lots of friends on facebook and lots of people I have been close to over the years and it’s nice to catch up after a long time away, but often the people we make a connection with drift away out of our lives because our lives simply take us in different directions. 

However, there is one couple the lovely Sue and I have been friends with who we met when our daughters were together in kindergarten over 20 years ago.  John and Liz are not connected in any way to the Salvos and our daughters are no longer close friends, but we have been able to sustain a fabulous friendship for all these years. 

At one point around 2012 we realised we wanted to be more intentional about keeping in touch and so we cooked up a way to help the friendship stay alive and interesting.  We ended up calling it “Monthly Mayhem”.  The idea is that every month one of the four of us has to plan a creative event without telling the other three what it is.   It can’t cost more than $20 per person and all we reveal is where to meet and what to wear.  That can range from formal clothes in the evening to walking gear in the morning and beach gear in the afternoon.     This formula has worked well and even while we lived in Sydney, whenever we visited Brisbane or they visited Sydney we made sure a “Mayhem” was planned and we got together. 

So here are a few examples of the Mayhems we have enjoyed together over the years.  One time we went to Liz’s home suburb of Scarborough and drove around while she pointed out places that were part of her childhood, then we had fish and chips.  Sounds corny but we saw her school and childhood home and got an insight into her early years as she reminisced.  It was really nice. 

Another time we had an Indian cooking class at our home and we dressed John and Liz with scarfs and Indian jewelry at the front door.  They had no idea what was happening and walked into our dining room and met our Indian chef, all set up with cookers ready to teach us how to make parathas and authentic butter chicken curry. 

One time recently we did a walk at the Burleigh Heads National Park along a beautiful coastal path with sections of lush rainforest and eventually arrived at Tallebudgera Creek where our daughter had prepared a picnic.  She then went into hiding and so we arrived and this sensational grazing table feast with things like cheeses, fruit, breads and cold drinks was on a rug just there waiting for us. 

We had a fun Teppanyaki night, had coffee and cards in their scoobie van on a mountain top after watching their son play Rugby one afternoon.  We went to Bowral to see the Tulips, the Planetarium and also to a vintage car show at Old Petrie Town. 

We go to markets to buy our veggies have coffee and meals together and to this day enjoy a fun and genuine friendship that spans two decades and has a richness to it because we have kept in touch regularly.  Our families sometimes join us and we all love each other’s kids deeply, as we have watched them grow up and shared in their lives over many years.  We invite John and Liz to things like birthday parties and they even came to the lovely Sue’s retirement as a Salvo officer the other week. 

They are a part of all our significant events and we have been a part of theirs.  We want them in our lives and make plans.  We have nothing in common in terms of work, mutual friends or even religious affiliations, but we have been witness to the good times and the struggles of each other’s lives for so long that we know each other well and look forward to being together.

John is more rude and disrespectful to me than anyone else in my life and our relationship is often rough wrestling, banter and joking around, but Liz is lovely and makes up for it.  Luckily, I don’t think John listens to the podcast so he won’t know what soppy and endearing things I have said about him and his family.   He’s a bit of a stirrer and would take the mickey out of me for expressing such sentimental guff if he ever found out, so if he does, our next Mayham will probably be a zombie killing frenzy on the X box to get the balance back. 

 

Bless ya.   

Love always protects

 

Love always protects - Link to podcast

Love always protects and so when the lovely Sue finds out that you are having a go at me, she has a raft of strategies to protect me unless of course you have just cause, then she will join in the party and enjoy it as much as the next person. 

 

 

 

There are many ways we humans protect each other.   Some parents connect their toddlers to harnesses to stop them running on the road.  They arrange for them to be immunized and teach them to avoid dangerous things like spiders, fire and poo.  As adults we take out insurance, we have risk management systems in our work places and install things like hand rails and safety switches in our homes.

 

It seems to me there are a number of salvo administration workers who care about me and when they see a looming potential disaster such as a timely form that needs to be filled out or any number of complex financial transaction procedures that need to be adhered to, they often spring into action and protect me from harm.  I know this could be seen as just their job, but I am deeply grateful for these people as it feels a lot like love to me. 

 

One person in particular that springs to mind is Jenny Williams.  Jenny works in the finance department at Divisional Headquarters and has been a part of my officership for over a decade.  Jenny sees my heart and good intentions and will always try her best to avert the natural consequences of my absentmindedness and administrative dyslexia. 

 

Now Jenny is not the most demonstratively affectionate person you could ever meet, not many accountant types ever are really, but Jenny’s devotion to me over the years has broken down even this cold calculating heart and she now hugs me warmly whenever we meet.  Jenny is delightful. 

 

In today’s love theme from first Corinthians 13 we read that love always protects.

 

Nobody gets thrown under the bus in a loving relationship and protecting each goes to a whole new level.  We tend to deeply understand the people we love and are aware of each other’s weaknesses and can predict the scenarios that may result in harm.

 

The lovely Sue protects me in a way that is really quite unique.  She has been involved in Salvation Army leadership for many years and often people have had to discuss me and she tells me that sometimes I have a been a cause of some degree of frustration.   Go figure!  Her strategy has always been to roll her eyes and say things like…yeah he’s a bit of a dummy isn’t he.. and she would smile sweetly and people would feel sorry for her and decided not to deal with me as my sins deserved and cut me some slack.   So Sue protects me by being so lovely that nobody wants to hurt me for fear it might in some way hurt her.  Brilliant. 

 

Of course if the criticism is justified, she will not hesitate to allow the learnings I need to absorb to hit me between the eyes.  In this instance she takes on more of a nurse roll and helps clean up the blood. 

 

However this is one example, early in our Salvo leadership journey, someone really did attack me and accuse me of all sorts of incompetence and even called me an arrogant goose.  Well, I will never forget the ferocious slamming this guy got from the lovely Sue that day and I stood back in awe as she destroyed this poor fellow and she gave him the full force of her wrath.  I even felt sorry for the guy. 

 

So if you ever plan on having a go at me, just be warned if the lovely Sue finds out about it, she will at first charm you into a more compassionate response and if that doesn’t work, well just to protect you, I recommend you take out some fairly comprehensive insurance that includes multiple visits to a counselling service. 

 

 

Bless ya,

Samson Post

 Samson Post - Link to podcast

A few months ago I watched a guy remove a tree stump by using a Samson Post.  I’d never seen this before and I thought it was ingenious.  I learn best when someone shows me what to do then gives me a go.  I’m not too flash with books and lectures. 

 

When I left school back in 1982, I did not get the sort of marks to enter university or go forward with any sort of academic career.  I didn’t do well and unfortunately left school believing I was a bit of a dummy.  I had not received much validation from my efforts and mostly I was embarrassed and saddened by report cards and teacher interviews. 

But I was a strong young pup and loved gardening and when my Uncle Ian asked me to mow his lawns and said he would pay me, I agreed and started working with him every Saturday morning.  I ended up helping him with the whole garden and we built retaining walls and even pulled down this enormous thick vine that had grown over his old shed.  It was tough work. 

I will never forget the time Uncle Ian announced at a family dinner that he thought I was the best worker he had ever seen and that I was as strong as an OX.  I was beaming.  This started for me love of gardening and all things practical.  I worked as a landscape gardener for a year after I left school and then got a 4 year plumbing apprenticeship with the Master Plumbers Association of Victoria.

Over the years, even as a Salvo officer I love to get stuck into a practical things like gardening projects and renovations and having a trade background means I can turn my hand to most things that need fixing or building.  I have been involved in constructing quite a few community gardens and I have pulled out dozens of trees and bushes to clear land and make way for a new thing. 

A few months ago I went to the Catholic retreat centre near Woodford. I go when I get a bit feral and the Lovely Sue thinks I need some time to get my head straight and have some time of reflection and solitude.   I’ve been attending these retreats consistently for over 20 years now.  She must think I need this a lot!  

Anyway, on the Saturday morning of my retreat, I drove out to the Glasshouse Mountains Conservation Parkrun.  I love these 5k parkruns and try to do one every Saturday no matter where I am.  When I returned to the retreat centre one of the Catholic Brothers had his ute parked at 90 degrees across the driveway up to the center and I couldn’t pass.  I stopped my car and got out to see what he was doing.  He had a chain attached to the tow bar on the back of his ute and this chain went over a piece of strong steel tubing in the shape of a T.  The chain then continued on and was wrapped around the bottom area of a solid looking tree stump.  He had dug a bit around the stump and was obviously trying to remove it.  I asked him what he was up to and he explained to me that he was removing the tree stump using a Samson post.  I’d never seen or heard of this before and was intrigued. 

I watched as he set it up and drove the ute forward a metre or so and low and behold, the tree stump popped out of the ground instantly.  I was super impressed and came to understand and appreciate how the Sampson post acts as a fulcrum and uses the sideways energy of the chain from the ute against the solid upright section of the Samson post to pull the stump upwards with a lever action, instead of just pulling the stump sideways.  So simple yet so effective.  I was genuinely excited and will be sure to make a Samson post for the next time I need to remove a decent sized tree stump.

I’m the sort of person who learns best by being shown and watching someone who knows what they are doing. Leave me alone with books and soon I fall asleep or am distracted and bored.  I have found that some of the stuff the smart people have written in books is not always practical in the trenches anyway.  I reckon there are lots of people like me who learn best from an apprentice style of education.  Let me rub shoulders with someone who is really good at something, get him or her to show me what to do and then give me a go - and coach me as I do it. 

Jesus taught people this way too, chatting and explaining things as he did normal life with his friends.  Talking about everyday things like seeds and sheep and telling stories and parables.  Jesus was a tradie like me and I reckon we would have been mates.

Bless ya,

   

Schadenfreude

 

Schadenfreude - Link to podcast

Schadenfreude is a German word used to describe the pleasure derived from another person’s mishap or misfortune.  It’s how I feel about cats; both the feline variety and the Geelong football club variety.

 

I’m not a cat person.  I once had a little kitten when I was a child and it scratched me and my arm swelled up and it made my eyes water.  So not only am I allergic to cats, but I find them to be sly and selfish sort of creatures.   I therefore never hold them or enjoy having them around.

 

The other night I was at a friend’s place for dinner and their cat was walking behind the TV and managed to fall head first down the gap between the TV cabinet and the wall and was stuck there with its back legs wedged between the cabinet and the wall.  So there was this tail and hind legs flapping about madly and instinctively I jumped up out of my chair to get a better view and said can we just leave it there for a while…. I was joking of course, well mostly.

 

I laugh heartily at the fail compilations we get on YouTube where people do things like fall spectacularly off a bike or slip on some ice or when a girl in a bikini poses all glamorous at a beach and gets smashed over by a massive wave.  The movie Home Alone is all about us laughing to the point of being unable to breath at the excruciating suffering of the baddies at the hands of a small vindictive child. 

 

There is a word for this behavior.

 

Schadenfreude (Shar den froy der) which is a German word to describe the pleasure derived from another person’s mishap or misfortune.

 

When we become aware of the suffering or humiliation of someone and feel secretly happy about it, somehow gaining pleasure about them getting their comeuppance, it is a fairly sure thing that we do not love and care about this person.  It can be quite narcissistic and when we stop and think about it, down right cruel.

 

But when we truly love someone and care about them, we are upset when they fail or are hurting and take no pleasure in their suffering and troubles.  I know for me there are people in my life who are doing it tough at the moment and the last thing on my mind is a sense of superiority or smugness that they are struggling.  I genuinely feel for them and long for the suffering to be eased or to resolve well.

 

Today’s love theme is from verse 6 of first Corinthians 13 -  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.   The truth is that good people experience hardship and make mistakes and my friends and family who are flawed human beings just like me are just as valid recipients of love grace and a second chance as anyone. 

 

True friends are safe people to share failure and disappointment with, as they embrace and support us in our failures and struggles; they genuinely speak words of encouragement into our lives and remind us of our many successes.  They spur us on to try again and not give up.

 

As I reflect, I have a bad attitude towards cats, both the sly, hay fever inducing feline creatures slinking around the house and the players and supporters of the Geelong footy club, and my pleasure at their misfortune is nothing to be proud of and I am working towards improving this attitude, but it’s a very slow and challenging journey, and I’m only moderately committed to the task. 

 

Pray for me. 

 

Bless ya,

 

 

Coffee

 

Coffee - Link to podcast

Sharing coffee or a meal with people seems to produce the environment for good conversation.  So coffee is very important to me.  It even made it on my medical chart in a recent visit to hospital!  

  

 

If I have had a cup of coffee twice a day since I was 20 that is over 27 thousand coffees.  Now I do drink other stuff like water, ginger beer and milk, but coffee is probably my main drink of choice. I’m actually a bit of a coffee snob and I estimate around 20% of the coffees I drink are not actually that good.  But I drink them anyway and I’m not sure why? 

Is it the health benefits? Apparently coffee is packed with antioxidants and vitamins such as riboflavin, magnesium, and potassium, it can help to lessen depression, promote a healthy heart, and reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and is really quite good for your liver. 

I also like the smell and the feel of a warm drink on a cold morning.  There is something comforting about having a cup of coffee.

Then there is the social benefits.  I drink coffee every morning with the lovely Sue and we chat about our day.  It’s a bit of a routine and helps us feel connected and calm.   I get a coffee at work and chat with colleagues about the day or how they are going.  I meet up with friends at a trendy café and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and the idea that I part of the cool set and am somehow offsetting my natural goofyness by simply buying a drink at the right place. 

I was recently in hospital with my pacemaker playing up a bit and the nurses asked me to answer questions for their chart on the wall of my room and one question was “what is important to you” and I said “coffee” so they wrote it down.

So why is coffee such a big deal?  Habit?  Culturally acceptable way to make a time for a catch up?   I never make a time to catch up with a friend or colleague and meet in a park or a library without some sort of beverage.  Does it represent some sort of deep need we have?

Well when a terrible storm devastated a suburb of Brisbane called The Gap, the salvos organized coffee vans to arrive in neighborhoods and give out free coffees.  People hugged and cried and shared over these coffees and it was a brilliant way to bring people together for support at this time.  Ever since then I have always had a coffee van as part of my work with the salvos.  At the government housing estate in Villawood we set it up once a week on the road and would meet up with everyone from the neighborhood as a result.

There’s something about sharing a drink or food that creates community better than anything else.  It is a safe and generous space and often people pay for each other or share a piece of cake and if feels like family. 

Mike Frost wrote a book called ‘Surprise The World’ a book about how to authentically engage as people of faith in this world and a part of this was to eat or drink three times a week with someone quite intentionally.  To invite people into that space where conversation often happens at a much deeper level. 

I really like that idea.  In fact someone once had a go at me saying “All you ever seem to be doing is drinking coffee with people and playing ping pong”  I’ll take that as a compliment as my work as a Salvo is all about embracing people and enjoying them authentically and regularly. 

When I left Villawood Salvos I was presented with a certificate from one of the residents.  It was hand written on a colorful kids award poster and it said.  Merit Certificate.  Presented to Bryce Davies for generally being here and helping Villawood Residents.  I was at Villawood for two years and I drank coffee from the van sitting by the side of the road, I drank coffee in people’s homes and at the hub where we gathered and I took people to maccas or the local café and drank coffee there too.  The antioxidants were helpful I guess, but the real benefit was in the conversations and the trust that ensued. 

 

Bless ya.

Bringing out the Dirty Laundry

 

Bringing out the Dirty Laundry - Link to podcast

People make mistakes and let us down.  But if we are wanting to have any sort of decent relationship, we need to find a way to leave these mistakes in the past.  My friend Lauren told me to run Narrow Neck Plateau, as it was a pleasant track with a few undulating hills. 

 

Some of you may know that I am a keen trail runner and often run with my friend Lauren Martin.  Back in 2015 Lauren suggested I do a run with a few mates along a trail called Narrow Neck Plateau in the Blue Mountains.  Her comments to me were that it was a great run with a few undulating hills but basically it was a plateau running along the top of a ridge. 

So off I go on my lovely afternoon run along a pleasant grassy plateau.  Well the plateau was a series of murderous cliffs and deep ravines on a rugged stony path.  Now I am a fairly solid build, some would even describe me a chubby, and so hills are generally not something I seek out.  I have to haul about 40 more kilos up each steep incline than Lauren has to and she has little understanding of the suffering this causes me.  So after 17 kilometers of living hell, I managed to get cramp and had to walk for a large section of the track, causing me and my buddies to be a lot later finishing than we intended.  I have never forgotten this and now whenever Lauren gives a description to the Helensburgh trail running crew about the terrain we are about to run, I bring it up and advise all my co-runners not to believe a word she says.

This is all a lot of fun, but if holding on to past hurts like this is used as ammunition in our close and important relationships it can be very damaging.  I have seen couples fighting over trivial household issues and then someone brings up something from 20 years ago and it has turned from a chat about chocolate ice cream to a tension not unlike a criminal case in the high court of Australia! Of course there is no place for abuse or violence in any relationship, but there are often past failures that are sincerely apologised for and need to be left in the past.    

The lovely Sue has a veritable nuclear arsenal of material to use against me, as, like any human married to another one, I have at times been stupid, selfish, cruel and insensitive.  I am sometimes surprised at how little she has activated the codes to the nuclear football that could unleash the justifiable barrage of disappointment, resentment and frustration that she has endured.

But love does not keep a record of wrongs, and the lovely Sue usually works the problem at hand rather than bringing out the dirty laundry every time we have a disagreement.  This way I am able to engage honestly and truthfully without fear of the big guns coming out to silence my point of view and we can communicate. 

I’m not sure she has completely forgotten all the mistakes I have made in the past and she will be cautious if I head down a known track that has been hurtful to her, however she does not use this against me.  Forgiveness does not mean the mistake was OK or to be tolerated, but it does mean giving up the right to get even.  Love cannot blossom when past hurts are left unresolved and festering in the background, only to raise their ugly heads when someone doesn’t get their own way.

Sue and I have done a lot of work to talk though issues and come to terms with each other’s frailties and weaknesses and have a high level of acceptance of the now recognised and familiar traits that make up our flawed humanity. Luckily, there is no score card and we try our best to just love each other just as we are.

Although I do sometimes wonder what schemes are brewing behind those beautiful eyes…  and if I do happen to drive over the speed limit, she has a way of dealing with me that has very little to do with safety, and everything to do with my past speeding fines and the hundreds of dollars we have kindly donated to the Australian government.  She does seem to have this information carefully documented in her computer like mind and a surprising ability to recall specific details when I give her the “don’t keep nagging me and overreacting” look and she feels the need to clearly and firmly remind me of the facts.  

Bless ya,