You know how there are times in life where you are in moment, your telling that story, that joke, the worm  or whatever it is for that second you have all the monkeys off your back and your just…..you.   On the reverse side we see those we love in these moments as well, sometimes the same story, the same joke, the same dance many times.

I was chatting with a good mate the other night, and realised that these moments define us, as much as they define those we love.  Do we in our glum, casual, dismissive way point out that we have seen this 50 times or do we sit back and just leave the moment alone ?  Let it fill the soul of that person in whatever way it does.

Knowing someone intimately should empower you to protect that person.  Don’t mistake having fun with demeaning the ones you love.

Sometimes our silence shows far more love and support than our words.  I know there are words I would like to take back, I know there are times where I felt utterly betrayed by the person I trusted and relied on the most.  Standing at one moment tall, and in the next like a child being scorned.

If i could tell one thing to my boys as they grow up, if I could teach them one thing. It would be the delicate art of embracing or letting a moment go.  Of holding your tongue, resting instead of reacting.

Last time Jesse and I visited Reef in Melbourne saying good-bye was so hard.  So hard for Jesse, but I know I need to take him to see his brother, as hard as it is. So we’re sitting in the plane on the way home, and I look across to him and he is staring out the window. My heart is just breaking for him as I know he is feeling just what I am.  Resting my hand on his knee I say to him “You ok buddy?”  After a moment he says very quietly “Dad, I just miss Reef” I can see him crying and all I can do is lean over give him a kiss and say “I know”

There was no explaining, I knew in that moment I had to just be there for him.  My words would have been white noise.

So I suppose the main thing is that we need to learn that some moments are better left to their own beauty or tragedy, and we just need to sit back, shut up and let them be.

It seemed only yesterday that I was sitting with Jesse,  giving him a kiss good night and he was saying his nightly prayers. “Lord I pray that Bubba Reef will come out RIGHT NOW” haha.

Now that ‘right now’ is here….Our new little boy has arrived.  Almost nine months of waiting and many sleepless nights for my beautiful wife but all that evaporates and what is left is a clear image of a great future for our new little man.

The awesome responsibility of having a child is never has raw as it is that week after there birth. They are so small, so helpless and so incredibly loved.  Holding a 2.8kg child that is solely dependant upon you being sane, controlled, strong, compassionate, soft but firm, inspiring but approachable, loving and above all present in there lives.  Is a very overwhelming feeling.

I feel it overwhelmingly because unlike my gorgeous new son, I am acutely aware of my flaws, and there are days when they cause me to doubt myself, to sell myself short.  Reef does not see them, does not actually even look for them.  To him, I am his Dad. Pure and simple. He trusts implicitly that I have his best interest at heart, and believes in me completely.

In the light of this I kind of understand the passage where Jesus said in Mark 10:15 “Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it”

It is 1st of September now,  4.5 months on from that beautiful day.  There have been some very challenging times, but we are very blessed. Reef is a very content little guy. He is sleeping well, feeding well and starting to really express himself.  The biggest challenge I have found to be honest is the dynamic of Reef being my second son, but my wife and I’s first.

I am not sure why I never finished this entry, maybe because I could not express  the challenge that was facing me articulately.  The date today is 28th April 2011, Reefy just turned 2 years old and for the last year has been in melbourne with his Mother.  It is looking like they will be there for good.  I have this punch drunk sense where I am waiting to feel something but nothing comes. I suppose it is like when you get badly physically hurt and you don’t really feel the pain, kind of like your body protecting you from how bad it really is. Because if you felt it would probably would die from shock.

At times I get this overwhelming sense of sadness but need to push on.   I am looking, trying, struggling to look for a lesson in all of this. The moral to the story, the good that comes from bad,  the silver lining.  Although I feel life has sold me a lie here, that sometimes there is no silver lining, there is a sad story that has no moral. It is just sad.  I just need to accept it, smile and move on.  Be there for my boys, be the Dad they need.   I am not naturally a pessimistic person,  although I do feel sometimes in life we need to get real. Love life with all it happiness and pain.  Stop glossing over that which can make us human. Our failings, our junk, our successes. 

I saw a show the other night called insight and they spoke about birth order, and it kind of answered the challenge I was having when Reef was just little.  They spoke how I felt, that I neither favoured one or the other, but loved them in different ways as they were both very different little men.  I could never quite explain this to Reef’s Mum, she always thought I loved Jesse more than Reef.  I never did, I loved them both equally, just in different ways.  Kind of like how you would love your parents I suppose.  You love them equally, but in different ways.  

P

It was the 2nd day of this brand new year 2011, and I was driving back from having an incredibly fun time away with some good friends up the north  coast.  As we all do I suppose I was thinking about the year just past, and the one still to come,  hoping to God above it was going to be a better year than last ha. 

Realising that I had been unintentionally listening to really shit country and western for who knows how long, I flicked the search button on the radio, and a  man voice was speaking it about how 5 writers had been asked to sit down and list the top 5 things that would be of most importance in 2011 for humanity in general.  It sparked my interest somewhat. So despite his semi-egotistical tone of voice I listened. 

A lot of them were what I thought they would be, committing to carbon neutrality, water revolution…..Then one of the writers starting speaking about how he felt 2011 should be called the year of pessimism. I thought “wow that’s a feel good message hey, and wasn’t that what 2010 was ha” 

He went on to talk about how our attitudes are too optimistic, and don’t allow us to embrace and accept tragedy and failure when it comes.  It made me think.   I felt 2010 was like watching a gorgeous sunrise out the window of a  train wreck.  Moments of beauty and joy wrapped in loss, sadness and pain. 

It was like what this guy was saying was the very opposite of what I should do this year.  Why ? because I had already had my time of pessimism, I knew how it felt, it was too close a companion, I kind of knew how to accept it, and in part I felt I knew how to learn from it and come out hopefully a better person.  Still not the best person I can be, but better than I was. 

So as this booky was expelling his theory on how we should all be pessimistic this year, I was saying to myself  “It’s time for you to now believe in some optimism”  There seems to be something in all of us, that allows us to get up again, to believe, trust  and embrace all that life has for us again. 

So as I was driving that day I decided to set out and find that ‘something’ this year,  I decided to embrace an optimistic position.  Embrace it fully, not like one of those half hugs you give a distance relo at christmas, or one of those awkward semi hugs you give someone who is not really into physical touch ha.  

A full arms wide open,  laying it all out there, completely vulnerable embrace of optimism.

I sit at my desk and in front of me is my phone, laptop, notes about things I must to, notes about things I want to do, my wallet, box of matches and a tape measure.  The reason the last two are on my desk are more to do with hiding the matches from Jesse, and measuring out my life as it were to see if it fits into our new home, that we move into on Thursday.

I find myself gazing out across the ocean, watching the sun glinting of the ever-increasing swell and I know the two words that will be said at the beginning of every surfers conversation today “swells up”.

Home is a funny thing. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  Some people see home as an acquisition, some see it as just a pit stop as it were in their race that it is life.  Stop for food and sleep, then off again. Some see it as a prison (teenagers mostly ha) and some actually see it as the only safe place in the world, and are mentally incapable of stepping outside that door.

Home to me is when I walk through that door and I am accepted and loved for who I am. The people I love most in my life are in that place. Karinda, Jesse and Reef don’t care if I surf a big wave that day, or got a good wrap from my boss. All they care about is that I am there.  I always remember reading a great quote “Replace presents with presence; this is the key to great parenting.”

As much as love stability and security in my home, I realise today that a home is just as much about whom, as it is where. The funny thing I have observed on occasion is where people choose things, places, ambition, public perception over what is really important. In my life I have had quite a few cars, lived in different countries and houses,  various jobs, met many great people but that all comes and that all goes.  I have one fantastic wife, and two precious little men.

I decided a long time ago, when my first marriage ended, that despite what people said, I would devote myself to what I felt was important in my life.  Everyone has their opinion.  Three months after my separation, Jesse was 2.5 years old and I got offered a job in Singapore, for a considerable amount of money.  It was a twelve month contract with possibility of an extension, and some colleagues at the time said I would mad not to take it.  I knew if I did, I would not see Jesse for over a year and I just could not imagine that.

I got to the place one day, where I was fighting to see Jesse and it all seemed so much easier to just take the job. I had made up all the justifications in my mind.  I called a very good mate, as I needed some clarity and he made it very clear. He said “Ok I am guy in the street, and I walk up to you and say.  I will give you $40000 cash to not see your son for a year. What would you say to me?”  My eyes were opened in that one moment.

I realised that I had been putting a price on the value of my parenthood, my presence, my love for my son.  Something he would never do.

I saw a movie the other week called “Deep Water”. It was a poignant reminder of this principle. In 1968 a simple man called Don Crowhurst set off in the first ever solo non stop boat race to circumnavigate the world.  He left under prepared, on the very last possible day to leave, under skilled, and under enormous pressure.  He was not a professional sailor, just a husband and Father that loved sailing.  His sponsors had invested huge amounts of money in the adventure, and the whole of the United Kingdom was barracking for him as the underdog.  The sponsors had told him prior to the race that if he did not leave by the last day, or make a good attempt at the race, he would be financially responsible to pay them back. There fore leaving him bankrupt.

So he sailed away from his wife and children that day, knowing deep down that he had no chance of making it around the world, but he felt he had no choice.  He wanted to be a hero to his kids, a legend to his country and a champion in his own mind.  He was unable to accept the reality of the day he was living, and as a result he drifted for months and months and was never to be seen again.

What he did not realise that day, was that he was already a hero to his kids, a champion to his wife and in his mind that should have sufficed.  If he had decided to pull out before leaving, amongst all the trouble he would have faced. His kids would have grown up with a Father, and his wife would have been able to spend her life with her one love, and not alone.

If we are unable to accept today and the decisions we need to make, whether they are huge or small. Like Donald, we will just drift in an ocean of predictable uncertainty.

Today my challenge is accepting all that today brings, and giving it all I have to give.

PM

It seems Irony drips of every I touch these days.  Is it the dew that settles on new days leaves, from the remnamts of the day before.  The mistakes, the apologies, the regrets, the moments of tenderness. I found an old notepad that I had scribbled some th0ughts on back on 2003. I remember this day sitting in the chelsea teahouse, having a coffee, and a very guilty smoke.  I saw this mum and her little boy walking past.

“He chatters away walking three feet behind..mum mum mum

She strides of ahead , so may thoughts in her mind…hum drum hum

Only months before she waited on his first word, when will it come,

now his talking away and barely heard, listen to your son.

The years will run by and those words will be lost, never to return,

If she had captured them now and treasured there sound, her love he would learn.

and billy said that, and johnny said this, can I go for a ride today,

more than words that are said, there is a cry in the tone,  listen mummy I pray.

All it takes is a turn, and the catch of an eye, and what was that you said,

if your to busy to listen, your too busy in life, stop and turn instead.”

As I open my eyes and looked out across the ocean I just knew it was blowing westerly.  The ocean had that smooth cold look about it.  It was race day, and I have to say I was a touch apprehensive about my first downwind ocean stand up race.   The thought of 16-20km or 2 and half hours of paddling down the coast was daunting.

Although even more so today, as the wind was completely wrong.  Very very wrong.  In down wind you ideally want the wind on your back, and a good pushing swell running underneath you.  Not a wind that runs across you, or even worse directly against you.

So I kissed my boys, gave Jem the run down and headed off.   As I drove to long reef the wind just kept getting stronger and stronger, but it was a head wind. My heart sank, I was not going to pull out, I knew I had to follow through, but I just knew the pain ahead.

Getting ready at the car, struggling with the board as the wind attempted to blow it back to Dee Why, and seeing people looking at me like I was a complete nut case was easy ha.  As I stood on the beach with the Simon, Sam and Stuart. We were the only 4 in this division.  As I looked at each of the guys, they were all thinking what I was.  Lets just finish this one.

As the gusts came across the board pushing me out to sea, and I pushed and pushed until I got a lull to  rest and drink, i decided I was not going to try to beat anyone. I was just going to set my strategy and get to the end.   I looked out to my right and saw stuart getting pushed further and further out to sea, and I knew he was not going to get back.  The rescue boat shot out and dragged him back in 100 metres, and he resumed paddling.   We had gone from fisherman’s to north narrabeen and rounded the first bouy, and headed back to long reef with a fraction of the howling offshore with us.

I actually smiled to myself as I rounded that bouy and thought “that must be the worst of it.  We have the North Westerly behind us now, and long reef will be protected. A easy cruise home.” I could not have been more wrong.

The paddle up to long reef head land was tough but do-able. As I rounded the point I saw what I never expected. The wind had turned westerly and was running right in our faces.  On BOM it was clocked at 37 knots.  At one point I felt like I was going backwards. My feet had pins and needles and my back was cramping up.   I thought to myself, pull yourself together son, this is not a long race.  I was pushing and pushing and not making ground.

I got down on my knees,  put my head down and paddled as hard as I could.  I thought to myself, I don’t care how long it takes, I am finishing this race.  In that last 40 minutes on my knee’s I learnt more about myself and how I can let pain teach me or beat me than any other paddle I have ever done.

I rounded the last bouy, and took to my feet. I thought, well I started this standing I am going to finish it standing.  I got feeling back in my legs and paddled the last 200 metres to shore.   Out of the four of us, three of us finished the race.

Sam won,  Stuart came in second and I hit shore 7 minutes after him. 1 hour 59 minutes after starting.  I felt sore and sick but at the same time elated.

I know it was only a race but there are times in your life that teach you lessons that last, this was one of them.  I have gone through life at times avoiding painful situations thinking they would go away… they don’t.  I have hit head winds that have made me feel like I am going back personally, emotionally, spiritually.   At times I have stopped and waited for the wind to die off, but then find myself even further away from where I want to be.

When we are faced with a head wind, be it gale force or a breeze. Those are the times to push in, dig deep and surge ahead.  Sometimes, we have to drop to our knee’s in order to get through.  I see pain not as something I want to be faced with, but when I am, I will determine to learn from it and not run from it……anymore.

A good time away…I needed it. I have come to the point where ministry is really nota great driving passion for me. I know that sounds strange to you. To me it doesn’t.  In the last 6 months I have had all the romance, that I envisioned in ministry beaten out of me.  This evening I am just a weak and troubled man, desparated to do something great for my Lord.

Vision is my driving force,  not ministry. I dream every night and day of what will be.  Feilds of young people, music pouring out across them reaching deep within there hearts and the great message of salvation bellowing over there heads.  Piercing there hearts. Thousands of people. I see sick people healed, cripples walk. I see hundreds kneeling under the power of God. Staring in awe of the Lord that Collosions speaks about in it first chapter and then after.

Christ walking amoungst his brothers and sisters.  I weep.  I hunger for this to happen now…but it doesn’t.   Many things in the kingdom I just dont get.

Why, when youth as an ally, passion as fuel and unquenchable vision as a driving force does He hold us back.  My mind goes to a stallion in the stalls before a race.  Flaring his nostils and stamping his feet, ready to go…now.   Muscles tense, already in his mind running down the track, yet he finds himself constained by a higher force.

A great part of me wants to go, a great part of me wants to stay.  I need to get a deep revelation that I am sent by God and that no matter what goes down, He who sent me will back me up.  So as I stumble towards success, I thank God for his grace.

I was such a frothing spiro back then haha.

I love being a father. I consider myself more blessed as a Dad, than ever before.

PS -  Not quite sure but have commando on with arnie. He just jumped through a glass door, when i am pretty sure it was unlocked.

Listening to “When your minds made up” by Glenn Hansard

My mind today is all about this passage.   There is such distinct truth in this verse and not just in reference to my walk with God.   As soon as I got my P plates I was down the south coast every second weekend. Surfing big empty walls, pretty much all by myself. I had little to no consideration of whether or not people knew where I was.  In all honesty my sole concern was seeking out that next perfect reef break. That inexplicable feeling as you bend your back knee slightly, and watch a curtain of water cascade over you.  The chase to make it out, and the odd sensation of elation when you do, and physical pain when you don’t.

That was my world.  That was my journey.  I felt in control.  I am no sage (herb or wise person…you choose). Although I feel that my life has been made up of distinctly different journeys.  Not always of my choice too.  A child’s journey is really out of their control to a point. Hence the heavy responsibility of a parent to try to choose well, so their children have a great journey.

We don’t always though, and that is life. We are bound by imperfect humanity.  I know if I tried to portray myself as perfect to my sons, I would just end up portraying frustration and disappointment.

When I had my first son, I looked at how I was with myself, and vowed not to be like that with him.  What I mean by this is that I don’t give myself much slack, pretty self judgemental and would classify myself as systematic in my approach to issues in life.  What I never wanted to do was to push those values (flaws) onto my son, and now my sons.

They are there own wonderful, beautiful people. They will learn there own ways of solving problems. I will help them in every possible way I can without disempowering them of there right to try and fail, and eventually succeed.

I have found in my life and work, that the sense of being micro-managed is possibly one of the most  dis-empowering and self deflating feelings.  So instead I try to step back and watch how they will respond or act.  Hold off for that extra 5 more seconds, then help. (as long as they are not in harms way, of course)

My mind is east, south, north and west today.

I am not sure why Jesus decided to say this to Simon Peter (prophesy of his martyrdom) as there were other disciples there with the same fate.  I do know that there was a moment in Peter’s life where he looked at the things around him, as seemingly impossible as they were, and decided to step out.  When all the other disciples stood on the deck of the boat, Peter stepped out.  Out onto the water.

What was running through his mind just before his foot hit that water, fear, faith, and awe. What a feeling when he set him foot down and stood, when everyone looking on apart from Jesus thought he would sink.

There are some moments in this journey when we are faced with seemingly impossible decisions.  When your heart is screaming inside, when your mind is a dust storm and the only clarity you have is that inner unction saying “do it…”   That is when we are defined, when we do step out.

I want to teach my son’s that in life they need to believe in themselves and the spirit of God within them, and step out. I remember hearing Rick Shelton say “The key to good leadership is not caring what other people think…”  This gets more and more profound as the days and years go on.

If your reading this and you feel God telling you can walk on water, practice in the pool first before you step out off a boat

It is 8.45am Tuesday morning and I am sitting in traffic on the way to work,  and have been for the last 40 minutes.  Sitting back I think to myself..”Man, 48 hours ago I was sitting back, looking out across perfect impossibles and a bintang…” The rude shock of reality.  At that moment I realised that the very fact that I could do that with my beautiful family was becasuse I make the descision each morning to get up and do the have to’s in life.  It does not make it any more glamorous, but it does allow it to make some sense in this life.

It is that age old saying , and the one I am sure we all debated in the debating team at school ” the en justifies the means” So we debate once again…..Does it really ??

In world word two, we sent over 1 millions of our bright, young lights into battle and over 26,976 of them never returned home to there Mothers, Fathers, Wives, Husbands and children.  How can the end possibly justify those means, those tears, that pain.  Especially when we really have not concept of what the actual end is, because it is beyond our conception.

I get it when I give Jesse time out. I get that sometimes, we have to do the unpleasant in order to teach those key lessons in life to the ones we have been given. Those lessons of cause and effect. Those lessons of respect, love, grace, obedience, responsibility.   I get now that we need to do the “have to’s” to be able to enjoy the “want to’s”.

I had the very pleasant experience this morning of my oldest hanging up the phone on me.  He called from his Mum’s wanting me to bring over a particular car that he was missing. As hard as it was, I had to explain to him, that I gave him the opportunity to choose what he wanted to take and he had chosen.  Kind of hard for a 6 year old to understand, but it is a lesson that needs to be learned I felt.  To be careful with your choices and when you make them…..stick to them.

We tell ourselves that the means justifies the end,  we hope that is does, we pray that it does.  I struggle each and every day with getting my means right, so I can get my end right.  Although then I sit back and remember a wise man once said “When I am weak, He is strong” and it causes me to engage my faith. To lean and not push.  To try to rest and not struggle.

To stretch out those wings I call my faith, although they my feel like hummingbird wings sometimes (lots of flapping and no movement).

I whisper to myself sometimes, when all my beautiful ones are asleep “Rise up, rise up…mount up on those wings you know you have….Get back to that place Morgan where you stand no  matter what the waves and wind look like..”

I want to give my Wife and boys a great life, I want to live the life of a man who loves the ocean,  I want to be a man who walks with God.  I know this, so when I sit there at 8.45 in the morning, it can make some sense.  When I have those moments with my boys I can know / hope all will work out.

With the joy set before Him he endured the cross……

PM

Have you ever got to the place in your life as a Father or Mother where things weigh so heavily upon your heart that it is almost too much to bear? As you sit in the chair, rocking slightly back and forth, gazing over the wind swept ocean, thinking…”No more, please no more”

Pressure mounts, layer upon layer.  I remember a time when I paddled out south av. It was probably 10 years ago now. It was monstrous. These perfect 12 foot set were rolling across the bay. Me, Pete and Benny paddled out, in front of little Avalon. Got absolutely smashed paddling out, but eventually got out beyond the break.  As we sat there floating over these watery mountains I felt like I was truly living.

I turned my eyes, and saw one feather off indicators (north Bilgola) and new a good one was coming.  So I paddled for north Av, and swung around just in time to launch into a beautiful mountain of ocean.  Dropping down and burying my rail into this beast I felt fear and invincibility all at the same time. The speed, the power that had nothing to do with me, was humbling.  Just shy of middle of the beach I pull out, and as I pulled off the back I looked out and saw 3-4 bigger sets feathering to break further out.

I was too far out to paddle for shore, and too far in to get over them, so I just paddled out to meet them. Sometimes life is just like that. You know sometimes in life you are going to take a beating and all you can do is just face it, walk towards it.  Or in my case paddle.

So as the first one broke some 8 feet in front of me, I dove to avoid the explosion of white-water.   It hit me anyway, and made me feel very very small. As I swam for the surface, the second wave hit, and drove me deeper down.  I was struggling, swimming, and measuring my breath.  I got up and a quick breath before the third hit and finally came up when that one passed.

I came up to find my beautiful 7’6 gun broken in two and only about 2 feet left of it.  The two feet I had to paddle to shore.   So I reached shore, tired. And bleeding from paddling the broken fibreglass.    What a morning.

As a parent I have had days like this, weeks like this.   Where you can be on top of the world and then in a moment be facing the beating of your life, where in that beating there are times when you are not sure you will ever make it up to once again breathe the fresh air of a normal day.

A good friend once told me “the key to parenthood is consistency”. It is so incredibly true.  Consistently keep going, stand firm, love, show grace, strength and warmth.   My sons will look at me for what they need in there lives.  When they need strength they will look to see if I am strong, when they need to know love, they will look to how I love them. When they need grace, they will look to how gracious I am.

I am at the point of no retreat. I adore my champion j man and my memorizing little Reef.  So when the beatings of life come, I keep swimming for the surface, but I will never give up and sink.