doing stuff that works
Why buy when you can build? Who says you can not learn new skills, talent is as much about perseverance as it is an innate ability.
So you want to find us.
We live at 75-5835 Kuakini Hwy
Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
Apartment N2, that is the set of apartments just abve the office.
There is visitors parking on the Left, above and below the open small field.
Have a look at this link to get an idea of how to come and where to park.
You’re not the person I married.
We just drifted apart.
We got bored with each other.
Our marriage was a farce.
If we want to live like we do then I need to work like I do.
They were more married to their job.
I just had to prove myself.
I have often seen churches, missions, jobs, sports, entertainment and the placing of ‘that thing’ above marriage. Always with great sense of duty, vocation, even service. I don’t know if it is because it is easier to serve and be dutiful to the thing than the person they married. Maybe it is a slow slipping, just the way things happen, a first world problem.
At times I have been outspoken against certain activities because of the rotten fruit it produces in some people’s marriages. But really, there is no one thing or groups of things that can be eliminated and your marriage will be sweet. It is as if the weather of this world is constantly howling against our marriages, trying to find a way to get it’s cold tentacles into our hearts and freeze them. You shore up one area, and another gets attacked.
The issue at point is, what are the chasm creators in your marriage?
What have you allowed to slowly bring separation?
What is the elephant in the room?
What topic is always left unspoken?
From an untidy, lazy habit, to a full blown obsession.
The telling question that can only ever be asked, never forced on the other, is.
What things am I doing that are creating a chasms between us?
Every one of us has things that the other person is doing that grate. I am not talking about answering this question to change traits in the other to just make ourselves comfortable. Rather I am thinking of those things, those actions, were one spend oneselves, that is eloquently justify, that are creating chasms. Things that even while doing a lot of good are a winters cold slowly penetrating, allowing the beginning statements to come into existence.
It only takes one to create a chasm, it takes two to close it.
Since the South Wairarapa A&P Show we have been planting. You wait till after the show as often a southerly rips up the country dump a load of snow on the Tararuas. You get a couple of fine days and down come and end of winter frost to wipe out all your hard work.
So this is what we did, and have been planting out what we had started in the Aquaponicse green house.
I may no longer have children and do not yet have grand kids (no hint here!), but that would not stop me playing with this.
From the kick starter: STRAWBEES, a simple connector system for straws or cardboard. Strawbees construction kit is based on one simple unit that lets you connect straws to each other. You stick a Strawbee into the ends of a standard quarter inch (6mm) straw to make struts and then connect them with another Strawbee.
https:
//www.kickstarter.com/projects/1624049406/strawbees-dream-big-build-bigger?ref=techdirt
If you think being a faithful christian is about getting people into church, getting people converted and going to church then you have lost the plot.
If you think that going to church is what makes you a christian, that church is where it is at you have lost the plot.
You can no more go to church that you can go to love.
By the actions of our lives we be church, we be love.
That building is nothing. Bricks, wood, tin, mortar. It is not holy, sanctified, blessed or special.
Only people are.
Meetings, gatherings, sunday services, these should be the dust in our lives, not the pinnacle, not the
climax of a week. If they are then you have lost the plot.
The sabbath does not exist except in the daily rest we have with one another.
Faith without works is dead, works without faith is vain.
We are saved, we are being saved, we will be saved.
Worship is less a song sung that a stranger helped.
If we are not uncomfortable then something is missing.
If we don’t mourn then we have not engaged.
The lack of activity has been due to a lack of presence in NZ.
We have just spent a month in Kona with these guys and others.
So my thought today is:
Often we are unwilling to accept the obvious, and change our ways, because of what we think it means, not realising what it really means.
Or as another friend of mine said, don’t be dumb. He said he like mine better, more polite.
A month goes by and I get too busy to post.
We have just come back from Ngatiawa River Monastery, http://www.ngatiawa.net/. https://www.facebook.com/UVNgatiawa where we were doing some fun stuff. Got a bit smoked out in the Yurt, and got the van stuck in a paddock.
Back here at home, the rocket stove is under construction.
The man cave has had a clean out.
Jeremy is setting himself up in the office with a work bench.
Now that Katherine and Jeremy are with us for a while we need a project for Katherine…. any suggestions?
This is a question that I have been asked a couple of times lately. It may also be asked: “So what University did you go to to learn Computer Sciences?”
“Ahr, None. I do not have a paper qualification.”
Blank look from questioner.
“So how did you learn what you do?”
Which really gets to the sad heart of the reality. That too many of us have been raised to think we can only learn if some one sits us down, talks to us from the front of a class and makes us take exams. And I have only learnt if I pass that exam!
I don’t even like the term “self learner”, rather I like the term whole life learner. To become fascinated by everything.
A while back I went though a stage of watching dozens of “How it is made” video on YouTube. Now I know how McDonald’s nuggets are made and how hot dogs are made. I’ll still eat hotdogs, but McNuggests… maybe not. I also know how large tires are made, cat 6 cable is made, nails are made, spanners, ball bearings, harps, chocolate cookies and sugar is made. Well the list goes on.
So for me, getting to know stuff is not just about what I do to turn a few coins, but it is about everything, like the rocket stoves I am currently building, the aquaponics, vegetable gardening, and this list goes on.
Now this was by way of introduction for this.
There is this RSA video that Jonathan showed me a couple of years ago.
The basic premise is around how are we best motivated. Or from my point of view what make life good, enjoyable, happy.
There are three things highlighted in the video (if you have not watched it).
We need income, we need profit, but as an end goal both are unable to provide long term motivation that grows people and our communities.
If you live in the Wairarapa and want a lift to this event, we are looking at taking a van full, so the first six people get a seat.
contact@opensourcegathering.net.nz