my future is no uncertain thing

I was out cycling this afternoon - the first time in a while. I borrowed a friend's bike and headed out with some friends. Out, down the hill, and here we are away again. Everything else forgotten, just my steady friend, the road, running underneath my wheels, and the familiar burn in my legs, and the sickening feeling of a full stomach plus a coffee jumping around down there (perhaps we timed the ride badly). Pushing up the hills, rolling down the far side, resting. As I ride, I watch the countryside push slowly past me - the grassy fields, cows idly watching us ride; the vineyards, the occasional house; there's some really beautiful countryside not far out from Lilydale. The sunset, to my left, is beautiful. Soft yellows and pinks against some cotton-wool cloud are forgotten next to the flash of metallic reds and oranges that stand on the horizon in place of the sun.

A thought strikes me.
"We'd better head back," I say to Dan Chan, the Chinese-Mauritian student and avid cyclist next to me.
So we turn around and begin to go back the way we came.

Half way there, I get off my bike. Jye and Dan cycle back to investigate the problem.
"It's too dark," I say. "I'm going to walk back." It might seem I'm just trying to avoid riding up the last big hill, but it's not the case. I'm wearing dark clothing and my borrowed bike doesn't even have reflectors, let alone lights. I'm less worried about seeing the road than I am about being hit.

They talk me into riding. "Take the back streets," they say. "Less traffic." It'll be ok.

Riding back, everything's fine. Several cars pass, but they've all seen me and given me some room as they pass. As I ride up to a roundabout, I can see several cars have stopped. Jye and Dan, some distance ahead of me, pass straight through the roundabout, just before three cars go left to right through the roundabout. One, two. You'd better stop, I say to the third car. I've got right of way here. I enter the roundabout, keeping an eye on him. Halfway through. He enters the roundabout. I enter his headlights a metre in front of his bumper. I swerve. He stops. Probably shakes his head at me. So do I.

They say every accident is a result of a chain of mistakes. Bad timing of the ride. Riding on an unfamiliar bike with no reflectors or lights. Wearing dark clothing, with no reflective strips attached. Deciding to push on despite knowing it's unsafe. Ignoring the fact that the sky is getting darker by the second. Insisting on my right of way through the roundabout.

Fortunately God has a plan for my life, and obviously has things for me to do yet.

"My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

"your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be."

Psalm 139:15-16

Read all of Psalm 139.

at BCV again

Well I'm back at BCV again, as the title indicates. This past week has been a bit of a slow one, but it will pick up tomorrow as classes start. I have one Bible subject (Intro to Missions) on Mondays, and Tuesday (1100-1700) and Wednesday to Friday (0800-1700) will be out at the hangar at Coldstream. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the planes. Mum and Dad bought me some sets of pliers for Christmas which will come in very handy.

I'm looking for a new church this year. There's a couple of options, one being Mt. Evelyn Presbyterian, and another being Calvary Baptist Church. I'll let you know how things turn out.

I also have my own room this year, and already it's nice to have my own space. I inherited Kako's coffee machine from last year and am enjoying that no end.

Read this and be encouraged :

"But now he [Christ] has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." (Hebrews 9:26b-28)

'The end of all method is to seem to have no method at all.'

I put this in for Caitlin, who remarked during our afternoon of coffee shops that she didn't want to see a country like a tourist -- would want to live in it and get a real understanding of the place (or something along those lines).

If I were to now visit another country, I would ask my local companion, before I saw any museum or library, any factory or fabled town, to walk me in the country of his or her youth, to tell me the names of things and how, traditionally, they have been fitted together in a community. I would ask for the stories, the voice of memory over the land. I would ask to taste the wild nuts and fruits, to see their fishing lures, their bouquets, their fences. I would ask about the history of storms there, the age of the trees, the winter colour of the hills. Only then would I ask to see the museums. I would want first the sense of a real place, to know that I was not inhabiting an idea.
--Barry Lopez, 'The American Geographies', About This Life

Spotted a sign this morning :

KID'S CHURCH ON SUNDAYS

and thought it was a little sad that they singled the poor child out by himself (or herself) instead of letting him (her) join in with the rest of the congregation.

the end of the holidays looms

Regular updates don't really seem to be my thing at the moment - or any moment, really, but I keep telling myself I'll get around to it one day. Just you watch.

So anyway it's been a fun holidays, especially spending the past few weeks with my Grandma. It was great to see Mum and Dad over Christmas and the new year, and even better to see Joel (my brother) get married on the 5th of January to Carolyn. Good also to catch up with the few people I have.

Well it's back to Melbourne on Saturday, which I am looking forward to. I've got my own room this year, which will be nice. Together with my inherited recliner chair and coffee machine (from Marcos, my cross-roommate last year), I am anticipating it becoming the social hub of BCV - not that my good looks and charm alone wouldn't make it so.