I wrote a poem once that included a line about love letters written on paper somehow being more convincing than their digital counterparts. At the time I was writing emails to a friend far away and every time I hit send, I felt like there was just a little something missing.

For a girl who always wanted to be a writer, I spend a lot of my time playing with words. But they’re always words on a screen. So rarely do I get to see and experience those words in print. I used to wonder with amazement how writers could spend hours with their handwritten manuscripts – concurrently admiring and despising the words crossed out and rearranged in blue, black, red ink. Red ink looks so angry on the page, but it’s so compelling.

Why change that word? Why choose another – what made that word better, stronger, softer? Now in my work, I thrash out words, flinging them into the digital world as if I have an endless supply. It’s so hard to choose your words so selectively – there is no margin to the paper, no running off the end of the page or abruptly changing the size of my scrawl to eek out another syllable or two onto the page.

I don’t want to make digital things. I want to smell paper and ink, newsprint and binding glue. I want to write the kinds of phrases that people are forced to write out onto Post-It notes, unchangeable bar for a new edition. A permanent indelible mark. The kind of work you can write an inscription on the inside cover of, and give to someone you love like you are exchanging a great secret, entrusting some great treasure into the hands of another.

And therefore, just like that – I am a writer after all. Tucked inside a leather journal, fit to bust – all the good words, I’ve been saving them up to pass on as delicious mysteries, as if to say ‘Here it is, my whole heart and every crevice of imagination tucked into a binding I’ve made just for you.’

Well, it’s 17 days til I break my Lenten fast. Before you start quibbling, I’m following the liturgical calendar, not the Orthodox, so I’ll be finishing on Maundy Thursday. That’s 17 days (or more importantly, nights) away.

Usually about this time in the fast, I’m starting to have some clarity about the questions I entered into it with. As I said here, there are a lot of good reasons to consider giving up a habit to reconsider the place it has in your life and the rippling after effects.

It used to be so easy – Eastercamp would beckon and so my 40 days were easily counted out in preparation, busyness, late nights working with friends on all manner of creative projects. Since those days are long over, it’s been funny to watch Lent all of a sudden becoming popular again among the evangelicals as well as the more liturgical traditions. Of course, for some it’s hard to conceive that anyone who isn’t Catholic would partake.

Here’s what I’ve experienced anyway.

1. There was no hardship in giving up. Only once have I desired a glass of wine, as there was a chill in the air and I was eating something hearty. I’ve been to parties, dinners, drinks at the bar and many more occasions managing to stay true to my decision. I’m really glad, because if it had really grieved me to give it up – I would have been disappointed in myself and concerned for the role alcohol was playing in my life.

2. I’ve been pleased to still hang out in the same places and see people behind the bar cater for me well and (mostly) without too much grief. Can’t necessarily be said for those on the other side of the bar, but that’s part of the attraction for me; the colourful characters that you discover.

3. Focusing on not drinking has brought… well, focus to other parts of my life. There was a brief detox period where I felt sluggish for a couple of days, drank a lot of water and green tea, feeling ill like I would throw up at every training session. For the most part though, my focus has increased and my productivity too.

4. But I do miss it. I miss drinking with friends, I miss tasting the creations of my friendly genii behind the bar. I miss the opportunity to be out and about to try whatever takes my fancy. I miss wine-matching. So I’m looking forward to the 5th, when I will break my fast with something delicious and in the company of friends, first at a Maundy Thursday service and then at the bar before we close it down for another Good Friday holiday.

And thus, here comes Easter – that aching, painful, beautiful gap in my heart. I am looking forward to another break, I’m looking forward to a good party and some great food. I’m looking forward to sharing some good stories and partaking in some brilliant creative endeavors in my community.Wouldn’t change a thing. For those of you who follow the journey of Eastercamp, I begin to wonder (through Lent) if the years we spent wondering if this was the last year, were just years we spent procrastinating the fear of ‘not being there’, ‘not being useful’, ‘not playing my role’. Now I think – the first year I asked the question, is the year I should have quit. Thankfully it was, I just got fired first.

The kids are rowdy and excitable this particular Friday night. It’s been a while since I made an appearance at our church community youth programme. Most of these students are between 10 and 15 years old, from a couple of local intermediate schools, friends of friends and a few church community folks as well.

I’m pretty stoked with how this little group is buzzing along – there’s lots of excitement and the leaders are enthusiastic, young and engaged. But I’m not sure they were quite expecting what I pulled outta the bag this youth group night.

For starters, I’m a big believer that when you’re the guest speaker, it’s way easier to go where the kids are, get them to show their colours a little bit and win them over by making sure they’re having fun. I don’t need them to listen to me talk for 30 mins – I want them to be engaged with each other, and with what I’m talking about for ten minutes.

The topic for the night is the one you always get a guest speaker for. It’s not the sex talk, that’s probably still six months away – but I’m talking about the difference between girls and guys, to a motley crew of middle school (intermediate) and junior high kids.

Here’s how it rolled out.

After a few games and snacks; it was “guest speaker” time. I busted the students out; boys on one side of the room, girls on the other. I gave them a couple of big sheets of paper, some pens and asked each group to draw/write/describe their ideal guy & girl. No surprise, the noise and laughter in the room exploded, but not before I gave the leaders some special instructions. Whatever happened, I wanted the groups to be as honest as possible.

About ten minutes later, the activity was done and we pinned those ideals up on the wall. I started out by talking about how everyone’s probably told them they’re at a critical stage of life and that they’re really kinda lucky – because there’s a lot of study going into what’s happening for them. Then I followed through by saying – some of this stuff is helpful for you to know, so you don’t feel caught out by surprise.

I pointed out a few differences between the way each group thought about the opposite sex, but also how they came up with the answers. Here are a few..

1. The girls used dozens and dozens of words to describe their ideal guy & girl; the boys put almost all their energy into drawing rather than words.
2. The boys described lots of activities, the girls lots of qualities.
3. The girls thought the ideal guy had to have tattoos, the boys thought the ideal woman wouldn’t have any tattoos.
4. The boys described the ideal girl as being someone who loved video games, sport, didn’t take too long in the bathroom, wasn’t grumpy and like hanging out with their friends. The girls responded by saying “your ideal girl is just a guy that looks like a girl!”.

Then we talked all the stuff it could mean, as well as some other development facts to reassure them what normal can be. I’m  a big fan of reassuring people when you’re doing any kind of adolescent development talk.

The boys asked a really insightful question: “Why is it when girls are hanging out at school, when a guy walks past them, they all stop talking? And how come girls can be so mean to each other?” I thought that was a great opportunity to talk about the differences between how guys and girls compare themselves to each other. That girls often compare negatively but guys can compare in an affirming way. It was a fascinating conversation.

Then it was time to wrap up the night, with a few more laughs – especially with those boys that had decided Megan Fox was the ideal woman. I was done, and they were off.

It was in the wrap-up afterwards, that I realized a bunch of those young leaders may well have been taken by surprise with the one thing missing. I didn’t mention Jesus, God or God’s creation or sex. I eliminated all the “typical” elements of a Christian youth group Guys & Girls talk. Did you notice it?

Sometimes I think it’s way too easy for us to put a Jesus #hashtag on everything we do in youth group, as if it makes broomball spiritual, or somehow makes what we say to young people more relevant and meaningful. But I suspect, it’s part of what inoculates young people to where and when spirituality might be relevant. So sometimes, I think you can be more meaningful without tagging Jesus in as an after-thought.

What do you think?

This picture tells the story of Irma Ivanova, a Bulgarian woman who was arrested for drug trafficking (a charge she denied) in Ecuador and at the time of this photo, in 2007, had been imprisoned for 3 years without trial or verdict in her case.

When I saw it, immediately I was reminded of visiting a group of soldiers imprisoned in Fiji for their role in the coup – detained without trial for 5 years. That visit is one of the most moving I remember.

As I am moving through the Lent season, I am reflecting more and more on the phrase Andrew Walls penned (as far as I’m aware) The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture, first in his essay of the same name, which also became a chapter in his book. It’s too weighty a title for me to remember off the top of my head, but to be fair – I think the one sentence is enough. It’s become a bit of a motto as a walk a tightrope of tension in my life.

On one hand – I am a trained youthworker and “church practitioner” who is relatively liberal in theology if not in praxis. I’m as likely to be found writing spiritual content for the Bible, leading communion and offering reflections on youthwork, church work and spiritual life as I am to brush my teeth in the morning. Partaking in spiritual culture is engrained in me.

But the other hand is an equally natural state – to be found in the midst of secular culture sitting at the bar, laughing with hospitality friends. I even write a regular column on NZ specialty liquor products, judge cocktail competitions and appear on tasting panels. There was a time when the two worlds simply would not have meshed in my conservative Baptist surroundings.

The tension I experience in cultural expectations gives new light to the experience of Generation Y and younger in our communities. Both the spiritual and secular cultures I’m part of, place various spoken and unspoken expectations on me and I’m left in the middle trying to negotiate the life I want, a life that has both spiritual and secular meaning (in other word, a MESH).

We’re experiencing a slow shift in youth work and general church circles from a focus on controlled, disciplined behaviour moderation to long-lasting values development. Another twist on Behave-Belong-Believe ideology, without too much of a leap in imagination. But this doesn’t help the problem of ‘how to live’ for me or a young person, because we have still juxtaposed Gospel in opposition to culture.

I credit the ‘elastic band’ of intentionality with how I have managed to hold the tension between two externally pulling pressures – but it’s not without having to constantly ask the question: “In this moment, am I imprisoned or liberated? Am I holding ransom the freedom I have, or playing it too loose?”

What happens when one (Gospel or Culture) becomes a prisoner of the other? The prisoner is left without verdict. Neither culture or gospel can be accurately judged outside of living it, walking it, doing it. So imprisoning one against the other leaves you in limbo-land. No conclusions drawn.That’s a dangerous place for anyone who isn’t sure of their own mind.

Liberation can only come with a fierce bravery to integrate and walk the line, not shirking one for the other. It requires learning to trust my living morality – the values that I make my choices by each day. So, how do I walk with young people, how do I walk with anyone in a faith community towards that living, changing, flexing value choice?\

Here’s what I genuinely believe – faith is held prisoner by a set of suppositions created by culture. And more traditional, habitual expression of faith hold culture prisoner as some great vast evil. But at the very core, I’m trying to help people become fully human, fully alive and expressing themselves in culture. Culture is no longer the enemy. Counter-cultural is an observational statement that doesn’t hold weight as a faith approach anymore. There are many aspects of culture that the Christian community has removed itself from that we ought to be in the midst of.

So youth work, church work – is about liberating culture, not with superiority or redemption but with participation. Participation alone, is all that’s required.

Ash Wednesday is a strange day, especially in New Zealand today as we remember the anniversary of the Feb 22. quake in Christchurch. I’ve been writing about the Phoenix mythology lately, as well as fire and it’s all imagery that suits the beginning of a Lenten season. Burn something to ashes, taking it away, seeing what arrives in it’s place. It’s important to remember the role ashes play in cleansing of any sort – fire to sterilize, soap made from ashes since soap was first made. So Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent and time to give something up.

I caught up with a good friend this week and we were talking about all manner of things, including the Lent season and what I was thinking about giving up. At one point he called me an epicurean. It’s not really an insult, to my way of thinking – although I couldn’t tell if it was mockery or envy in his voice. In colloquial terms, to be an epicurean is really to be known as a bit of a foodie, which is me to a T. But dig a little deeper and the word really originally meant someone who was passionate about the sensuality of life, all the senses – not just those to do with food and drink.

Getting ready for Lent, I think my friend is right. This season is about restoring balance and enjoying each of the choices I make – what I put in my mouth, what I spend time in, what sensations I experience – the lack of something I enjoy the aroma, taste and texture of, the impatience of waiting, the discipline of self-control, they are all part of the sensations of life. I love and savour each one. Experiencing each of those small pleasures is made more exquisite by their absence for this season. The anticipation of enjoying them again, the space and time I fill with something else in their place. The opportunity to regard all my choices again.

I said on Sunday night that I have a rhythm to my day – it starts usually with heading into the garden to water my herb garden. As I pass by the coriander, basil, parsley, chives and mint – each aroma wafts over me. The smell alone wakes up my taste buds, clears my head. Then I eat breakfast, make coffee. But there’s something about starting my day with awakening those senses… Lent is a little bit like that for me, awakening the senses again by taking something away for a while.

Western philosophy has dampened down some of the sensual elements of our life – but to me life is nothing, spirituality is nothing if it doesn’t embrace touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. We were made to live and enjoy this corporeal life for a reason – sensation is everything. That’s really what it means to be an epicurean – to understand that life is sensual.

I’m giving up alcohol this year – not an easy choice for me and therefore, the one that had to be made. Not because I’m an alcoholic but simply because there is no part of my life that will go untouched by this choice. For my hospitality to be properly expressed usually means feeding people, along with bottles of beer, wine, whisky and more. I gather with my friends at the bar, I love the time I spend with hospitality mates and I write about booze for a living. So work, play and life all gets changed around for 40 days. Wish me luck.

Earlier in the year, Marko asked me to come onboard as a contributor for Slant33. The key idea is to ask a range of pertinent, insightful and thought-provoking questions (one a week) with three different voices offering their answer for discussion and commentary.

I jumped at the opportunity as I really trust Marko’s insight as a thinker and leader to help facilitate the process and range of both questions and perspectives, but also because I love the idea of a column that offers so much engagement and depth in one sitting. Even as a contributor – waiting to see what people are going to say, how it differs from your own, what it adds.. it’s really a fun and stretching process. Here’s my first contribution answering the question, “in what practical ways do you find solitude and rest?”

I’d love you to have a read and offer your thoughts and comments on the site – I promise your voice will enrich the conversation!

Here’s an excerpt:

Expectations need to be managed. The people pleaser in me rushes to the surface when an unrealistic deadline or expectation is placed on me. (Trust me, I never create unrealistic expectations for myself , right?) We have to learn to practically address what robs us of rest and healthy functioning. In the first year of my internship, I was asked to do 6-10 hours but did nearly 20 hours every week to meet the unspoken expectations. Setting a healthy pace for myself also results in a healthy pace for my ministry, my volunteers, and my students.

Then, I need to make the most of the rest breaks. I find my creativity is at a high in the morning as much as I like to reflect on the day before as sleep brings perspective and insight. First I like to clear the decks, making lists of all the compartments, any practical solutions or actions I need to take to problem solve or move a project forward. Once my head is clear, then taking a walk. Either leaving the phone behind or turning it off helps. Energizing my creativity benefits my whole day.

This woman is like an army in front of me
Like a great tiger out of hibernation
Everything about her uniform is strong
She is oiled like snakeskin

I forget, you have forgotten her before the hiberation
and that great dark winter but she watched
hovering from the north west east south borders of you

and you hidden in the corner, did not know me
before the winter, cracking brittle icicle heart
that underneath she, is entirely fierce

you over there could not know, you there have pushed it from your mind

that i am always summer. always like an unshakeable,
immovable living oak tree, a cedar, fragrant I am drenched
in some internal sunshine, I am always summer merely beneath snow

my blazing flesh becoming sacred, holiness of ash and ice
i have a secret, layers of secrets over hidden things and the most
furthest hidden thing in my heart beating like a drum

i do not need to feel happy to be happy
happiness is in me like spring, summer and snow
now that I have remembered

how to roar from within to always be warm
the dancing hunt of the tiger, the flight of the dove
do not forget me again (I will not forget myself)

I do not need to be happy as some people need happiness
or melancholy as fuel, not to be happy or sad
the deepest melancholy is joy to me in summer, spring or snow

I fear nothing, I am not burdened by desire – I am freer
than one who tries to satisfy the burn, the burn instead delights me
i do not need to feel happy to be happy

I am fierce, like summer.
Fearless with this army standing with me.

I have a Just-In-Case box. Everytime I move house, I unpack it until eventually I need to repack it to move again. Sometimes, I’ve been known to take items from the box with me on travels to foreign lands, beach walks and up windy hills before dawn. It’s the box of things I keep Just-In-Case I need to remember, to reconnect or to rekindle something in me or between myself and old friends. Adding something to the box is never easy – it’s almost always bittersweet. To keep a memory sometimes means to have lost a present reality. Like when my aunty died, or my grandfather, or my first dog.

Once the box is unpacked, you’d never realize how connected the items are to one another or what they mean but it’s how I stay connected to my memories, without feeling trapped in the past. You see, a thing doesn’t have emotions. Doesn’t have demands, a voice, a touch or a laugh that’s too easy to remember, too hard to forget. So things are a useful way for me to keep memories without being forever stuck in the history of what I’ve felt and experienced.

For a while now, I’ve been wondering whether or not the Just-In-Case box needs a clear-out, but when reviewing it’s contents scattered around my room, my office and my house I thought… No. It’s not time yet. I’m still learning, remembering and I’m still hoping to reconnect with some of the lives represented in the Just-In-Case box. But the lessons are poignant, speaking loudly to me from all the corners.

I don’t like shutting doors or stepping into a future without ‘what-ifs’. I’m such a futurist that I can’t help but always imagine a future of possibility – where the dead are only gone for a moment, everyone gets reunited in the end and endings are only transitions to new beginnings. I’m an eternal optimist. But if my Just-In-Case box helps me to hold onto hope, then it’s not really being stuck in the past is it? More like waiting on a future installment. Sometimes people are like chapters.

Just in case, I have a picture of my immediate family – sisters, Mum, my uncle and his second wife from when I was about 15. I hated posing for that photo but someone had made Dana laugh – so it’s a real moment. My sister’s hair is long and gorgeously red, Carmel is still so young and Mum looks happy. I want to remember that, just in case.

Just in case, I have a polaroid photograph of two old friends & I tucked into my mirror. It was right before everything changed and I could feel it coming like a train. I need to remember that I am brave and strong to have survived that.

Just in case, I keep a bottle of red wine I bought to share with a friend who never turned up. It’s a really nice drop, but I keep it just in case they knock on my door.

Just in case, I have a Frenz loyalty card from the time a friend had such a big confession to make it took 7 beers and 6 hours to drag it out of him and put our friendship back together. We drank, sitting mostly in silence until the words and beer were flowing and we had to nap in the car before we could drive. I keep it in a drawer just in case I need it again one day.

Just in case, I have a photograph of Stevie G, who died way before his time but knew how to make us all laugh with his laughter. I don’t want to forget the ones that we’ve lost.

Just in case, I have the favourite mug of the one who used to visit late into the night, drinking tea. You never know when tea might be required.

Just in case, I still have ticket stubs and tshirt from the DMB show I went to alone. I bought you a shirt, I wished you were there. I don’t want to forget what it meant to me.

Just in case, I still have the sheet music to the hymn that we sang at your funeral, the words that I scratched out to read aloud and the boarding pass from that awful flight back home.

Just in case, I have the first pair of Levis I ever owned with worn through knees and the Tiffani LP that matched them so well. Childhood was good.

Just in case, I always have a lighter, a box of matches and whisky in the house. That is the beginning of hospitality.

Just in case, I have cassette recordings of my first radio shows, the first interview Steriogram ever did and some of my best talkback work. I don’t even have a cassette player, but they exist.

Just in case, I wear nine rubies on my finger in a circle of gold to remember the values that shape my life. So as not to forget what I am worth.

Just in case, I keep a copy of the Baptist Hymnbook and every lyric, poem or scribble onto page I ever made.

Just in case, I keep American dollars in the piggybank and a San Diego guidebook on the shelf for whenever I get there next.

Just in case, I keep the books of a friend long since returned overseas in case she wants them back one day.

Just in case, I have a pretty dress I’ll never throw away because it was such a great party.

Just in case.

By faith alone. Five years into a wild ride of running my own business, being my own boss…essentially putting all my worth and energy and effort on the line to be who I am.

By faith alone. Five years have flashed by like a blur in a myriad of hardships, lessons and successes. Yay!

Once upon a time, there was a girl who started a business. She had an office off the main road, behind a building, down an alleyway, up some stairs and straight on the left. She would work late into the night, sometimes stopping for dinner or meeting a friend for a drink.

She always bought her coffee from the same place just in the block she called home, she believed in local economy. And so, one night whilst thinking about a work project and meeting friends for a catch up drink, she found herself downstairs from the office and just on the corner, sitting in the corner bar of the block she called home.

Although a whisky drinker from way back, her palette was mostly developed around wine – but with a fondness for the refreshing sting of Stone’s Ginger Wine, she ordered the Whisky Mac and a love affair was born.

It was born in first impressions, then in suggestion and appreciation of her palette – it’s developing preferences always given room to fly. It began with the slightest remembrance of her name and then a smile. Not a slick, keep’em happy kind of smile, but a genuine, good to see you again kinda smile.

Hospitality is the most important gift of all the gifts. It’s the one that builds communities and shelters people from the storm. That smile has been my shelter from the storm on plenty of nights. A friendly drink became a regular watering hole for all our friends. A pre-gig pizza and drink, a post-gig cocktail meltdown and mostly, for me… a late night place to hang my hat once or twice before bed. A place to never feel lonely, despite being alone on the other side of the bar.

It’s a place where I have experienced and been blessed enough to experience the height of hospitality, the beauty of friendship birthed in creative respect and mostly, I have been loved and connected, by the grace of a welcoming face and listening ear.

There are plenty of people who pride themselves on all sorts of things, that will never tend to my heart or my head or my soul, the way that he does. I go to the bar because I like the people but mostly – I like to drink well. My tastebuds have learned new songs to sing, which has made me a better writer and musician. I’ve learned so much about people from watching them and listening to them. I have become friends with someone who inspires me. It’s a gift. I’m so grateful to believe in someone and their creative ability. I’m so overjoyed to delight in their passion for the craft.

I have been buoyed in the middle of cold, long nights with foolishness and punk rock songs, with crisp beer and sarcastic gin & tonics.

I have finished my first book, much much sooner than the book I thought would be the first one… I have been inspired. I am ever grateful.

I wish I had the gift of hospitality the way that he does.