Theres no place like...

Well hello there

I am now sitting at the computer back in Australia with a massive smile on my face. This will be my final entry for 'The Wanderings of a hobo'. I was going to title it 'heading home', but when I think about it, I have felt right at home wherever I have been.

Whether that be stuffing my face in Malaysia, dreaming about rockets flying through my window in Afghanistan, teaching Frisbee and hiking around in Nepal, going into schools, being roasted alive and being educated about 'White Tax' in India, going home in the FRONT of a (divvi van!) policeman's car in Dubai, listening to the same song everyday and getting money out of the Groves ATM in the Middle East, playing "Extreme High" and "CrickeTennis" in Canada, Working and not successfully completing any hikes at Holden, Sleeping in Seattle, Being in awe in Alaska, hanging out in Springfield and finally cruising in Cali-forn-ia...

Every single person I have met, every meal, every gift, every friendship, every encouraging word, every good conversation, every home, every family, every hike, every joke, every update you have cringed through, every game, every opportunity, every kind gesture, thankyou.

Thank you all so much, I cannot say it enough!

One more thing I can't say enough, come to Australia. If you don't I might have to do something crazy like pretend I'm getting married to get you all over here. Who am I kidding, nobody would fall for that!

Once more, thankyou all so very much
May God reward you, for your kindness

Love,
Andrew

PS: Would you laugh at a guy you'd never seen before wearing this?
PPS: I was wearing socks with my crocs at the time

Spiritual Update 005

Books that Bite Back.

I love reading, and recently I've gotten on the end of some real winners. Please promise me you will read at least one of these before you die!

Here's a basic rundown for each

"The trouble with Paris" was the first of these and confronts the myths sold to us by the culture we live in that fame is the pinnacle of life and that we will be happy if we consume a bunch of things, people and experiences. Reading this book was much like discovering that having white skin is actually beautiful, like I did in India. Very, very revealing.

One part that has stuck with me has been 'choice anxiety' a term used to describe worrying if we have made the best, coolest and most fun choice. This happens when we are constantly looking for something or someone better, too afraid to commit. Past generations didn't have to deal with these issues but today we are bombarded with messages to upgrade everything we have. Happiness is just around the corner for those who upgrade!

Counter to that is my recent experiences in Alaska and now Springfield. I haven't really done anything 'spectacular' in either of these places. Most of my time was spent just hanging out with people and enjoying their company, and I have, I really have.

I know buffet's usually make me happy but I was just sitting down for lunch at Missouri State and was nearly exploding with joy thinking about so many blessings God has given me. Most of them were simple things available to everyone, like having deep friendships and a places to call 'home' no matter where I have been.

One quote from the book was.

"We should not make any major decisions in life without walking around a graveyard, for death is the ultimate lens with which to view our life projects".


The next book is called "Stuff Christians Like". The more time you have spent in church, the better this book gets. It is probably the funniest book I have ever read, but as well as that, it subtly points out some of the stupidity in my own life. Go and buy a copy, I already have 4!

The last book is called "The Irresistible Revolution" which just smashed me in every way imaginable. It is a wake up call to radical action and a return to what God says is important. I've been forced to look at my own life and consider how to go about acting on the massive challenges required to live out the gospel I am preaching. The following quote is a ripper and probably sums up the tone of the book nicely.

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything else except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God. You will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian Scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament. -Soren Kierkgaard-

There also issues a challenge to engage with the poor, the broken the lonely and lost of this world rather than donating to them without ever really getting to know who "they" are. Here is a prayer from one of "them"

Dear God,

Please make all the poor people rich.
And all the rich people poor.
Then bring us all back to medium so we will take better care of each other.
Amen.

Ten-year-old boy, Philadelphia


Two more quotes I've come across elsewhere and really liked.

Past the beggar and the suffering walk he who asks, 'Why, oh God, do you not do something for these people?' To which God replied, 'I did do something, I made you.' --Old Sufi Saying

"I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a necktie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he’s not careful."
--Yann Martel, Life of Pi --

Stop stealing my credit

It's hard to say whether I have grown in this area (dependence on God) over the last month or so but I have spent some time memorizing Bible verses that have to do with peoples recognition that God is in control and everything we have comes not from our own awesomeness but from God.

I used to get weirded out when some of my friends would say 'Praise God' after receiving a compliment for something good they had done. I thought, 'God didn't do it, surely you deserve the credit'. I even remember telling Kev I wasn't comfortable with 'praising God' for my accomplishments and achieving good things. I didn't think it fair, that God gets praise for all the good things and then I have to take credit for all the bad ones. I'm still not sure where I sit with all that, but lately I've noticed a tiny shift in my own thinking.

Recently I've had people say "Gee you've taken some great photos" and the most natural response for me was to say, "God did all the hard work, I just pressed a button on the camera".

Now maybe some of you are thinking I'm a wacko! And maybe it is weird that I would respond like that. Clearly I had to focus the camera and frame the picture in such a way, etc, etc. But even those small things wouldn't be possible without God giving me life and breath and everything else...don't worry I'm not yet at the point where if you thanked me for getting you a glass of water I'd be 'praising God' for it.

But it is a much healthier mindset to realise that instead of taking credit that doesn't belong to me, which is usually what happens, I was able, in this case, to direct the credit to it's rightful owner instead of stealing it for myself.

So I guess I am coming to understand that these 'whacked out' people who "Praise God" saw things a lot more clearly than I did and at the end of the day all I'm doing is pointing a camera!

Just in case there weren't enough quotes, here is a prayer from Holden Village they send you out with. I really like it.

"O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN

Listen Carefully (a poem)

Listen Carefully


Today is our opportunity to learn from a wise woman,
A gentle and softly spoken soul that requires careful attention
Consider her message as highly essential
Before she speaks, let me just list her credentials

Inventor and teacher, provider and preacher
Come, listen in to our wonderful speaker
Will we hear her voice,
Through all the noise?

Magnificent Mathematics arranger of art
Symmetry and Patterns she knows off by heart
Her artistic masterpieces hang in galleries round the world
People flock from distant lands to see her works unfurled

Well qualified to speak in both Science and Theology
In Physics, Horticulture and Molecular Biology
This woman inspired many of our greatest thinkers

Experts realise her teaching methods generate real thought
Charging thousands for students to be immersed in how she taught
Her curriculum is not a race, learning happens at students pace
They discover, ask questions, create and play
Think for themselves and are sent on their way
Imagine, experiment through trial and error
All learning styles catered for what could be fairer?

This woman we discuss
Educational genius
Her motto 'Long live curiosity and adventure'

Her school is free for all, not a single charge to pay
For some reason enrollments are getting smaller every single day
They're always open too, so you can't be late to class
With miles of playground that make ours look like a farce
Come, give it a chance, then you'll agree
It's the best school going around guaranteed

Look to the skies,
things too big to describe
Feelings of awe, simply open your door
Do you get the sense there's something more?
Patience, waiting for crops to grow,
or rain to come, or clearing snow
Consequence, touching spiky plants
or stepping on a nest of ants,
Or going alone and risking attack
Constantly having to watch your back
In community we find the safety of a pack,
Can't shirk, hard work, in Nature's school
Laziness invariably exposing the fool
“Shelter, yeah that idea sounds clever
I'll get around to it...whenever”
Now it's too late, in the cold of night
Fingers numb, you have no light
The night feels long and lingers on
Dare not complain or take aim with blame
Out here you can't play the, “not my fault” game
That long hard night teaches me,
To take responsibility
In Nature's school you reap what you sow
And if you plant nothing, then nothing will grow

We depend on each other and on the land
We depend on teamwork and being well planned
Gently flowing rivers teach us to deal with frustrations
Watching water carve a path with persistence and patience
The water wont give up, even though it's being mocked
Giant stones laugh proudly, and the flow seems all but blocked,
As streams we tend to give up at the first sight of a clock
“It's too hard”, we complain but as we watch this stream in shock
We witness a gently flowing river, H2 0wning rock!

With curiosity and adventure these things were uncovered
What other lessons lay outside and wait to be discovered?


An apple falling from a tree
got Edisons attention
We all know about gravity but...

Have we considered the apple an invention?

All our creativity, comes back to nature
We plagiarized her ideas, then took turns to rape her

Non-stick frying pans from a ducks back
Ideas for warm clothing stolen from yaks
We take what she gave us and cultivate cheese
Made Air-Con, experiencing a fresh summer breeze
Artwork we've admired
From her was inspired
A Fridge from the snow
A Watch from shadows
Showers for waterfalls
Bamboo for Soccer balls
Planes that have grown
From birds that have flown
Knives from sharp stones
No ideas our own

A huge walk-in pantry, a giant hardware store
A doctors clinic and oh so much more.
Mother Nature used to speak, but sometimes I wonder
Have we gone deaf in the land down under?

Please, I beg you, come and see
Bet you didn't know pepperoni came from a tree.


Rain pours and thunder roars
We run and hide, it's safe indoors
The world is too great, to sit inside and ignore
Get up, get outside, go and explore
“Wow”, we exclaim, watching National Geographic
I'll go there one day but right now, stuck in traffic
Disconnected from nature, completely unplugged
Your PC probably, the last thing you debugged!
Come and see, I urge you, take a look
But there's no wireless out there to update Facebook!

But from the clutches some manage escape...

When did nature become the exception rather than the rule?
When did sterile portables replace the outdoor school?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I may be mistaken
The “real world” is the one to which we now awaken
Filled with busyness, files and shopping in aisles
Not the sunrise that greets me and causes a smile
Or that useless un-developed land that's been here a while.
Life is money, deadlines and a paperwork pile
Well I guess I'll take the fairyland with which I'm contented
With Mother Nature, mountains, trees, and what God invented.

Andrew

Man vs Wild

After spending two weeks in the Holden Village kitchen, Lorimer and his mates got an unexpected call. He and his friends Sam and Thomas had made the short-list for a new reality TV series documenting human survival in the wild.


Lorimer spent his next kitchen shift organizing a 'special meal' for his friends to celebrate. The special meal worked a treat and soon the short-list became even shorter...


Being found the only candidate worthy, (aka alive) Lorimer was selected to appear on the show. He was flown to Alaska where he went into training with some local lumberjacks. Andrew was amazed when he saw they could "do this thing where they hit pieces of wood a bunch of times and they would split in half".


He was even shown how to decapitate a log by throwing an axe at it. Andrew attempt ended in splitting not logs but the sides of those in the crowd who watched on as he struggled to lift the axe. "That event's not much chop anyway" he later commented to the media.


That red thing used to be Chuck Norris' head! Norris was mouthing off in the audience so the Lumberjack crushed him in his hand. RIP Chuck.

After the intense training Lorimer was dropped in Talkeetna, Alaska, where he had to survive two weeks in the wilderness. His journey was to be documented and aired as a new version of Man Vs Wild. The show was AXED almost immediately when Lorimer was seen running away from a squirrel.


This dealt a huge blow to Lorimer manhood who decided to prove himself in the Alaskan wilderness. His first target, a moose!


Andrew ventured into the back-country and spotted one, happily munching on weeds. Hoping to catch her attention, Lorimer threw a rock, landing only inches away. The moose didn't flinch, ignoring the pitiful attempts to get her to look at the camera and be "Shot".

Andrew shouted something nasty at the moose before leaving and then sent the above photo in to the local paper with an article he'd pre-written about "Shooting" and "Bagging" a moose.


News of the Lumberjack trainee spread around the area, while Lorimer went in search of his next victim. High up in the trees he spotted an eagle which he started hurling insults at. "Get some hair baldy", "Advanced hair, yeah yeah"...on he went until realising that American's wouldn't appreciate finding out he'd "Bagged" their national emblem.


He couldn't stop, despite all the WARNEing signs. But the puns were just too easy to come by.

The jokes got more and more hairendous and the eagle told him to cut it out or else he'd be headed for serious stubble. "You really need to brush up on your puns" Lorimer quipped before heading to the safety of a car.


Moments later while traveling down the road a piercing sound shattered the quiet country air. Andrew looked back in disbelief as the rear window of the car was shattered. Forensic experts are baffled at how the back window got shattered. Most agree that the only animal capable of the speed required to do this is a FALCON. Ruling out Lorimer's eagle theory.


What do you call a guy who makes vases and doesn't shave?

Hairy Potter


After that close SHAVE, the boys did a few DONUTS and HEADed back out to the road, the THINNING traffic a sign they were venturing further into the wild.


Lorimer was nervous and it was a good thing he was feeling awfully small at this point as this was the only urinal at Taco Bell. This seemed like the perfect hideout for Andrew, dirt cheap prices and non existent hygiene standards!


But out of nowhere he was given a reprieve. Two locals offered him a place to hideout until the ruffled feathers had been taken care of.

After listening to hours of deerpressing moosic Andrew couldn't bear it anymore. He had to get out and find some better protection.


Despite the bargain price this clearly this wasn't big enough for the job. Lorimer went searching elsewhere.


He needed something bigger!


With the new protection in place Lorimer gained the confidence to step back outside and explore Alaska. He still took all the necessary precautions. It is said that if you tuck your socks into your pants it stops animals picking up your scent, and when you have a cent like Andrew, people start calling it a dollar!

The animals were at a loss, but the wise old owl suggested that "if we can't find him, we'll let him find us"


The animals found Lorimer's weakness. Lots of food, bargain prices and Pride.

Babe the pig willingly sacrificing himself for the cause. 'Operation Waddle' was underway.

After ordering the 'standard' size from the menu Lorimer was immediately questioned by the waiter. "Do you know how big that is?". 'Do I know how big it is', he laughed to himself, confirming his order and feeling offended that he would even be asked such a question.

News travels slow in Alaska and apparently they hadn't heard of his record breaking pasta consumption at Anton's in Canada. But then out came the breakfast which looked like all of Old McDonald's farm had suddenly died and been served on a plate.


Lorimer got to this point and all looked lost. He needed to compose himself and went for a short walk to gather his thoughts. The words from the waiter rang in his ears "Do you know how big it is?". That was enough, Lorimer stepped back up to the plate, cleared all the bases and was now loaded with food.


Mission accomplished...and just in case you don't know who I am, here is my pen from Anton's

The animals couldn't believe it. Not only did Lorimer finish the job but he was still walking around. The chickens had been saving up for weeks for this project and when they heard the news they cracked it! "So much for putting all your eggs in one basket", Mother Hen complained. "Oh Shut up and quit your scrambling", Babe's mother squealed, reminding the hen about her son who fried in vain. "No wonder they call you 'chicken', we lay down our lives and you lay some pathetic eggs. Talk about having it over easy..."

On and on they went as the wise old Owl explain to the others their backup plan. Church.


Lorimer sat through the service and was invited to join the congregation for a potluck, (church lunch) where everyone has bought a dish to share. The scent of Meryl's famous stew was intoxicating and the delicious little sandwiches stood side by side, courageously awaiting their fate. The perfect plan. Not only was it a buffet, but it was completely FREE.

'Operation Waddle' looked set for success. With potato and egg still lodged halfway up his windpipe from that mornings breakfast Andrew politely refused the free lunch and headed back to his hideout.

Not even the wise old owl could comprehend this happening and while all the animals stood around imitating the stunned mullet, Andrew made his escape.


Safely back at his hideout, Andrew was told of their plans by his informANT.

Immediately he began plotting his counter attack. Building this spike suit to disguise himself as a porcupine (no echidnas up here) . This job was too big for a Monotreme, it required a.... MonoXtreme


What do you call a Christmas Tree wrapped in Bacon? A porcuipine


It also required funding from some wealthy tourists and Andrew went sail knocking from Yatch to Yatch pleading for donations to the "Lorimer Wildlife Protection Fund", or as it should have been worded, the "Protect Lorimer from Wildlife Fund"


Donations came in by the thousands and "Projects" commenced rapidly.

This popular project was given the name "Beaver Flats Logging" which some are saying should have been called "Logging Beavers Flat".


This project was referred to as the "Bear Weight Management Scheme"


This was just called fishing!

Lorimer was told to hold the Salmon out in front of him to make it look bigger.


The Salmon community was gutted and went into spawning. Andrew in the meantime was working hard at getting his picture on the front page for what he claimed was a 7ft King Salmon. He phoned the Alaskan Times to share his accomplishment.

However, the interview turned into an interrogation after Lorimer responded to the question "What tackle did you use?" with, "Just those regular ones you see at the football".

After getting vague responses to many of her questions the frustrated interviewer asked, "Do you even know where you caught it?" to which Lorimer replied, "Alaska".

"I'll ask her" she replied, indignantly. Failing to understand his accent.

"Why don't you ask her what a truck sounds like when it's reversing" she yelled and then slammed down the phone.


With no chance of making the front page for his feats of manliness, Lorimer decided it was time to head back to Springfield.


He thanked Eric and Jamie for their brilliant hospitality and a place to lay low.

Maybe he would get a chance to impress the people of Missouri...If nothing else at least he knew he'd have a cool accent.


Andrew's opportunity came immediately when he saw a skunk innocently roaming the streets. Knowing that a skunk couldn't possibly make him smell any worse he chased it onto a patch of grass. There the skunk held its ground and Lorimer approached timidly reaching forward to take photos and then backing away as the skunk moved closer.

Andrew wanted to frighten the skunk into dropping a stink bomb but every time he got close the skunk would hold its ground leaving Andrew to slowly back away. The skunk would then run a few steps and back away. This cycle continued until Andrew decided he didn't want to make use of his $260 rabies shot and left the skunk alone.

His chance to become a man eluding him once more.
Will he accomplish the impossible in Springfield?

Love Andrew,


PS: What do you call a bunch of rabbits with mixo? Hair loss!
PPS: I didn't eat the bacon