One of the things I hate about my job is this the amount of time I spend in the car. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, I had a 9am meeting in Wodonga, a 1030am meeting in Yackandandah, a 1230pm in Benalla and a 4 o’clock in Melbourne. However, one of the things that I love about my job is that I get to drive from Wodonga to Melbourne through the high country. My phone camera sucks arse, but these might give you an idea of the type of country I get to drive through. It’s actually quite breathtaking.

I really shouldn’t complain about being a rural worker among a whole lot of city workers. On the one hand, my managers sometimes forget that I can’t just arrange a meeting with my volunteers, since they may live as far as 500km away from each other (and will be 1100km from each other come February 2009), and so it may take me four days to do what my metropolitan colleagues can do in one. On the other, I have mates who work in WA’s Pilbara who have told me how they can’t get to meetings in the rain as they find it difficult to land the plane.

I do miss having nights at home though. I miss not being around all the time if AJ or Megan need me, and expense-paid meals and accommodation lost its appeal a little while ago. I wish my car didn’t use up so much fuel and I could get some work or study done while travelling for hours at a time. But getting around the place is a great experience, and my volunteers and police are the best. And a relative few people can say that they’ve driven as many kilometres as National Highway One is long in only seven months of work.

Click on the link above marked “paul at work” if you’d like to know what I do, and get involved yourself (sorry, Victorians only).

This post is a reminder of the big to-do’s coming up for me…

1. Graduate Research Conference presentation on Friday 13 June. I haven’t done the report yet but will get it done today (I hope - I’m writing this post at Tullamarine airport for a flight to Adelaide for my sister’s birthday and a visit to hear a PhD presentation on abuse in the Uniting Church - interesting stuff - for a nerd like me).
2. Finish first chapter by 13 June (almost all done, but every time I get into it I realise I have so much more reading to do, and end up putting it on hold to read more - have decided to stop reading and start writing and see what gaps come up)
3. Presentation on online religious advertising for CMRC
4. Presentation on emerging church bloggers in Australia for CMRC
5. Presentation on meanings, methods and ethics in blog research for CMRC (found out I’m on this panel this morning)
6. Presentation for AoIR doctoral colloquium (found out I got in yesterday)
7. Presentation on rhetorics and realities in web 2.0 - men, women, literacy and religious authority for AoIR
8. Presentation on religious podcasting for AoIR (had a response from a religious podcaster the other week, and I’m looking forward to talkign with him about his experiences and achievements)
9. Complete organising the data I’ve collected
10. Complete collecting all the data (even though I don’t think I need all of it)
11. Complete all the interviews (has been a while since I’ve contacted bloggers to arrange interviews)

Is anyone willing to do me a favour and eat and sleep for me? Will save me having to do it.

At the beginning of 1994, at the tender age of 22, I had worked for a year in a Uniting Church in the Adelaide Hills, doing the usual youth worker things like youth groups, bible studies, yada yada yada. Before then I had only ever earned money stacking shelves at K-Mart, tutoring high school students in Maths and Italian, and translating the odd letter or two for smoking dosh, so this looked like a real like career-type job.

So when I moved to Melbourne I decided that ministry was the route to take. I scored another youthie-type gig in the city’s northwest for a while, and worked my way towards becoming a student of the reverendist arts. By 1995 I was a candidate. During all that time I knew I would not be made of money, that I would never expect to be completely comfortable financially, that I would have something new to learn about being without money from time to time. So when the Synod offered to raise my student stipend by way of a loan, I accepted without thinking too hard. After all, money is money and I should take it when I can get it.

Little did I know (well, little did I choose not to ignore) the bill that I would receive at the end of 1997. Can’t remember exactly what it was, but knew it would take a short lifetime to pay it off.

And Friday, I did. 10.5 years paying back the church.

Ah the sweet freedom.

I know what that feeling is. When you see someone and an imaginary spear has gone through your ribcage and you suddenly can’t breathe or move. When even a flashing memory of them completely robs you of your ability to concentrate, and all you want to do is lose yourself in the images of them that start flooding the space behind your eyes. I feel those feelings.

Last Friday I picked Megan up from school. Sometimes I dare never ask the question, as it often results in an answer that starts with a long preparatory inhalation and ends at bedtime. But last Friday I plucked myself to say to her, “So, Megan, how was your day?”

Somewhere in the middle of her story was a minuet of a moment when she recalled how her new teacher had posited that in his day children who were naughty were spanked and how he thought that it wasn’t such a bad thing, that it toughens kids up and sets them on a straighter path than the one today’s children are following. I asked her how she felt about it and she giggled and said, in a plumbed-up English accent, “I was mortally offended. I think I should write a letter to the department!” We suspended all conversation for a few minutes to giggle like eight-year old girls and cackle like 37-year old men.

Then she got serious and said, “You know dad I didn’t think of it at the time but now I think what he said wasn’t right. You know, I don’t think anybody should hit anyone else, no matter how bad they are. I think I’m going to tell him that on Monday.” I became stoned in silence, while the phrases flooded my head: My daughter said that. My daughter. My little girl. Only eight years old and already taking the world by its horns.

Later that evening AJ and I sat on the couch so he could teach me how to say different colours in sign language, a project his day-care teachers have made a learning priority for the month. It took me a little while but I managed to get the hang of about eight colours, and we made a game of it where I would write the colours on his arms and face while singing the words to a made-up tune. Brown, white and black would tickle him and he’d giggle, getting ever more excited as he sang along.

While watching his eyes and mouth get brighter as he laughed and sang I was positive that the walls would start crumbling as the light from his smile would cause an eruption, and the only way I could deal with the immensity of it was to scream out “Yay!”, which only made him laugh harder. Megan, who arose from the depths of her Harry Potter decided to join in, and we sang and laughed until we fell off the couch onto the floor, rolling around. I felt like my ribs were losing their strength and my heart and lungs would burst, causing an awful mess on the carpet.

All the plans I’ve made in my life, all the goals I’ve set for myself, all the achievements I’ve made, have not allowed me to understand why I’ve been given these moments, or why these jewels should want to show themselves in my presence. In these instances I feel completely undeserved, robbed of any value, in comparison to the size of the joy that has swallowed me whole. And there is nothing, not words, not tears, no gratitude that can even measure the feeling, let alone respond to it. Only the desire to keep on feeling.