Wedding Videos

If I could make wedding videos like this, I would make wedding videos.

Singleness

I preached on singleness in church the other night. I'll upload the sermon soon. Maybe nowish. But here is the video I showed at the beginning of the sermon. I realised I left off my phone number. Oops.

Enjoy.



Update: The sermon is now available here on my preaching blog.

Winning Strategies

I'm having a debate with another single guy at church at the moment about who has the better strategy for getting into a relationship.

His strategy is to wait until a woman comes to him and let's him know how much she loves him, and then they'll go out, get married and live together happily forever.

My strategy has been a little more proactive. Asking girls on dates, getting set up, going on dates, stuff like that.

The two strategies basically boil down to do nothing vs do something.

I took a poll of some single and married people last night and they all said that my strategy is better than his.

His comeback was "But look you're single and I'm single, so obviously your strategy is as effective as mine."

He has a point there.

So judging by our scientific observation of our lives, those options don't work, the answer has to lie outside of our two approaches. I wonder if there's a third strategy something that is neither doing something nor doing nothing. Therein, lies the secret to true love, I'm sure of it.

The State of No Union

Happy Valentines Day and all that.

I've been thinking about being better at dating lately.

A friend challenged me to be engaged by the end of the year, and there's nothing I love more than a challenge. Except perhaps potato wedges. And Thai food.

Oh and movies.

But aside from those things (and some other things I've not mentioned), there's nothing I love more than a challenge.

Actually I only really like challenges when people are challenging me to do something I want to do. "Tom, I challenge you to go a month without eating Thai food." That's a crap challenge, who wants to do that?

"Tom, I challenge you to go the the movies 15 times in one weekend." Now that's a good challenge.

So getting challenged to be engaged is a good challenge because I would actually like to get engaged. I'm very happy being single, but I reckon I could be pretty happy being engaged too. Particularly if I was engaged to someone I was in love with, rather than just someone I was getting engaged to to successfully complete a challenge.

Still I didn't accept the challenge, because though I am romantically deficient even I can see that getting engaged to win a challenge is a bad reason to get engaged. Especially since my friend didn't offer me a reward for success. I would only get engaged to someone I didn't love if there was a particularly handsome reward, like a Ferrari, or my own kidnapped Thai chef to live in my kitchen and cook for me.

However what this thinking about relationships has meant is that I have decided to be more open to getting to know women this year. And I have also decided to let my friends meddle a bit more in my love life, like setting me up and stuff. The idea doesn't particularly excite me but if there is anything that the last half of my life has taught me, it's that I'm pretty much romantically incapable by myself. Perhaps it's more a team sport, so I should let people help out a bit more.

I know I blogged last year about how happy I was being single, and I am still happy. Singleness rocks! But who knows I might get a wife who I love out of this, or even my very own Thai chef.

These are prime dating years of my life, what's the worst that can happen? Apart from losing my freedom and ending up married to someone I despise, things can't go too badly wrong can they?

Forgettable Moments

Remembered history says that David ran up to me on my first day of primary school and said "Will you be my friend?" and we've been friends ever since.

On Saturday I went to Melbourne see him get married to Andreana. It was, to be sure, a lovely wedding. If I'm honest I'll probably forget the vows, though I liked them more than most. I'll probably forget that I had to pretend to be a water pot, though I've never done that before, least of all in the middle of a wedding ceremony. I'll probably forget that there were people handing out food and drink before the ceremony or that the whole thing happened on soggy ground while the rain made empty threats to come. I'll forget the conversations I had before and after, I'm already forgetting them. I'll forget the jokes Howie and I made as MCs at the reception, and I'll forget Russell the manager of the bowling club who kept asking us questions about the wedding we didn't know, ("We're just the MCs!"). I'll forget that there were three different types of cake and that I forgot to bring a belt and a jacket. I'll forget that Anmol ate two cheeseburgers on our way home.

I'll forget most things about Saturday.

But then again, I've forgotten most of the things David and I have done together as friends. The few significant moments are eclipsed by the thousands of insignificant ones. But whatever the memories are, when David asked me to be his friend he changed our lives. Neither of us would be where we or who we are today, if it wasn't for that moment 23 years ago when David began something significant.

So while I will mostly forget the wedding, I probably won't forget that under a giant tree one February afternoon in 2011 in Melbourne, one of my oldest friends married one of his newest friends. They will profoundly change each other's lives. My prayer is that they help each other be the best David and Andreana they can be and they love each other in all the forgettable moments as well as the memorable ones.

For myself, I'm thankful that David is still beginning significant things and creating relationships that change lives.

Flirting

I was driving home today, and while I was stopped at some lights in Lindfield this little white car pulled up beside me. There seemed to be a lot of movement in the car, so I looked at it. Inside were two girls. The girls were looking at me and the girl in the passenger seat seemed to be leaning over the driver to wind down her window. I thought it was odd but didn't want to stare so I looked back at the car in front. The little car beeped so I looked back and both girls were still looking at me, the window was down now. They were giggling, one waved, and the other did the Thumb-Pinky wave at me. I thought "Oh goodness, I think they might be flirting." So I smiled an indulgent and probably rudely dismissive smile, and then drove off (the lights had changed) and tried not to look at them again, just in case they really were flirting. I don't know how to do inter-car flirting so I thought my best response was just to drive away as quickly as possible. Shame really, because had I known what to do, I could be partying with the ladies right now.

Sigh.

Heartbreak

I found out today that your friend and mine, Natalie Portman is engaged and pregnant.

While I wish her all the best, it's hard when all the people you've been holding a flame for fall for other people, and get on with life. First it was Winnie from The Wonder Years and now Natalie.

What's a man to do?

It's times like this when we need James Blunt to sing for our hearts. Sing it for me tonight Blunty:

Lament

Sometimes I wish I had a girlfriend so we could share our Google Calendars.

On Singleness

I'm not sure if I'll ever post this, but I thought I might write it because sometimes I think about it. Obviously, if you're reading this, I posted it.


I'm twenty-seven years old.

I'm single.

I'm happy.

I'm worried I won't be.

I'm worried that one day I'm going to wake up, I'll be forty, single, creepy, childless and lonely. All my friends will be married and have kids and I'll have no one to hang out with on a Saturday night. The issue is, while I see this as a possibility, my current contentment with my situation gives me very little impetus to do something to change it.

Generally my life has gone like this: Be single and content, find a girl I like, like her for way too long, ask her out, get a "No", feel depressed and analyse what I did wrong, eventually I stop liking the girl, then I be single and content again. At least that's the general process, it doesn't always go like that but it's always been variations on the same theme - unrequited love and a general lack of wooing skills.

So singleness rather than being a curse I must bear, is a blessed relief from the angst and disappointment of long term attraction. And in the positive, I love being single. I love being free to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I love having time to devote to whatever takes my fancy. I love not having to consider the needs of someone else a lot of the time. And most of the time, I don't feel any great need to be in a relationship.

The goodness of this is that when my friends get engaged, I get excited. When they get married, I love it. When they have babies, I think it's awesome. These significant life moments don't make me feel depressed about the lack of ladies and babies in my own life. What they do do, however, is give me this sense of being a somewhat late developer. Like somehow I'm stuck in the happy bachelorhood of an early-20s bloke, and everyone else is off being adults. It does make me feel like I'm immature. Maturity becomes not about age but life experience. And the experience of almost an entire life of singleness seems far less impressive or valuable than a couple of years of relationship, or marriage, or parenthood.

The other day someone close to me who loves me and who I love and respect a lot, challenged me on my contentedness, they told me that if I think God is calling me to be single I should be pretty darn sure God is calling me to be single. They said that by not being overly pro-active in relationship pursuing I'm depriving a girl of the chance to have a relationship that they may desperately want, and more than that, I'm missing out on all the joy, and happiness, and growth that being in a relationship brings. They implied that my love of romance and marriage and love stories, is hypocritical in the light of my lack of action on the romance front.

Of course, I'm not sure God is calling me to singleness. I'm sure that right now I have the opportunity to use my singleness to be free to do God's work. Right now, singleness is a gift from God. And I really like being single - totally free to do God's work. I'm probably selfish too and happy being selfish, independent and unchallenged.

The thing is that intellectually all this makes sense. I see the sense in putting the effort in to find a relationship so that my love of love isn't mealy theoretical. I know that I may be depriving someone of a life with me and I could be depriving myself of an excellent life with them. I understand that out-there there are probably many girls I could be very happy with. I understand that I may one day end up bald, sad, lonely and unhappy.

But what I understand in my head, and what I know in my heart are two different things. I may be in the middle of my own personal climate crisis. And while I say "Peace, peace" the oceans are rising, and soon I'll find that I'm treading water, searching for dry land, because I didn't do anything about it when the time was right. I am Al Gore's polar bear. I am Al Gore's unconcerned citizen.

But this isn't about my head, it's about my heart. I feel disinclined to pursue people just because they're single, Christian and female. I can't be bothered putting myself or anyone else through the awkwardness of date asking, coffee drinking, emotional ambiguity, engineered situations and strange relationship defining conversations if I'm not really committed to the idea of having a relationship with them. I don't want to hurt them or get hurt if I have just gone through the motions because I'm intellectually committed to the idea of relationships, or desirous of a relationship just not one with that particular girl.

That said, I know that my past experience of dates and hanging out with girls, while having had their disasters have also, at other times, been greatly beneficial and enjoyable. And I'm sure I have good friends now that I wouldn't have if it wasn't for doing a bit of awkwardness and flirting.

I guess what I'm waiting for is for a girl to come along, who I fall totally in-love with, who I really want a relationship with, and who I pursue, and who somehow, by the grace of God, is attracted to me and wants a relationship with me, maybe because of my excellent wooing skills, or maybe just because God predestined it that way. And while liking girls in the past has generally only caused me pain, I'm totally willing to do it again. I'm committed enough to love that I'll make myself vulnerable once more and I'll take the risk that my love is unrequited once again if it's for the girl. As long as I'm longing for her, I'll endure anything.

But as for anything else, as for pursing girls because I don't want to become old and lonely. Or seeking out a relationship because I have read that "it is not good for man to be alone." I don't know. It makes sense, but my heart's not in it, and I could be wrong, but it just seems to me that this is one area where you need your heart on board.

But maybe not. Maybe the times are changing, and my heart needs to catch up.

I don't know.

Singleness may be something you only really understand when it's over.



So if I stumble
And if I fall
And if I slip now
And lose it all
And if I can't be all that I could be
Will you, will you wait for me? - Alexi Murdoch

Sex, Sex, Sex That's All You Ever Think About

It's the end of a long week.

I've still got sex on the brain.

I preached on it tonight and it felt really long with out many jokes. I think I might have been the first person in my church to ever say in a sermon "Giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up, babe."

Even though it felt long, I wanted to preach on the topic for a good three hours. I feel like we don't regularly teach a good Biblical theology of sex in the church.

I reckon these days I have a higher view of sex and marriage than I ever have. The more single I am the more I appreciate what it means for people to be together. And it doesn't make me jealous, nor does it make me feel lonely. I guess I feel excited that I have friends who get to get married, and have sex, and have kids, and participate in this great gift of God.

I wonder, as I have before, if this is because I am so unmarried and unsexed, that I can idealise it from a far. Maybe that's my role at the moment. Everyone else can do the hard work of marriage, and I can to the easy work of telling everyone how good it is.

On the other hand, I never have married people telling me how good singleness is. Perhaps they should. Then again, most people don't covet singleness like a lot of people covet being in a relationship. Perhaps the only people who covet singleness are the ones who are too righteous to covet having an affair, getting a new partner or doing friends with benefits, but too unhappy to enjoy their current relationship.

Maybe I could do a survey.

Or maybe I could go to bed.

I'll pick the latter.

New Moon

Warning: Spoilers ahead

Gem, Matt and I went and saw New Moon and it turned out to be even more terrible than the first movie, which is quite an achievement. While I spent much of the first film laughing, I spent much of this one saying "Oh my goodness" in exasperation at the poisonous trash that was defecating all over our eyes. Matt sat next to me and regularly said words which I shan't repeat on the blog, but it summed up my feelings better than the ones I could express to the limits of my Christian piety.

The acting was terrible, Edward still looks like a sad, cancer patient, and the writing was atrocious ("I love you, I can't live without you, you're my everything, I'm terrible for you, you're my breath, get away from me, but I actually really need you"). The only good bit of script was when Edward quoted a chunk of Shakespeare. It had a rather jarring effect finding such quality amongst such ugliness, kinda like finding a Rembrandt in a crack house.

I know I'm sounding rather harsh. But I can't find much to redeem this film. If you're a lady Jacob Black's abs are impressive and they might redeem the film a little (as they did for Lesley). There was a squeal in the cinema from many females when he took off his shirt for the first time. He spends almost the entire film with nothing but a pair of shorts on. His clothes get destroyed when he turns into a werewolf, but somehow he has an endless supply of jeans cut-offs at his disposal for when he goes back to human form. One imagines he spends all his time when not a werewolf at Wal Mart buying jeans then going home and cutting off the legs.

But apart from Jacob's conspicuous abs (which did little for me except make me feel inferior) this film is pretty useless. I don't think any of the character's are happy for any moment of the film. They're all depressed and spend the whole time moping about lost love. It makes for infuriating watching.

And then there are the messages. Which I think are probably the most horrendous bit of the film. Because I can cope with bad films if they aren't spreading terrible lies. This film is emotional porn at its worst.

There's the total dependence of Bella and Jacob on each other. They live and breath each other, and yet when they're together they just natter at each other (Bella: Turn me into a vampire, Edward: No, I won't, I love you and wouldn't do that to you, Bella: Turn me into a vampire, Edward: No, I won't... and so it goes). They are so co-dependant that when Edward thinks Bella has died he tries to kill himself, only to be saved by Bella as she proves to him that she's still alive. And this attempted suicide, sparkling in the sun, is seen as Edward's great romantic devotion to Bella. If a guy kills himself because he can't have his girlfriend any more, it's not romantic, it's totally unhealthy. Why do people want to hold up Bella and Edward's relationship as the epitome of true love? Teenage girls don't need any more encouragement to get into unhealthy relationships.

Romeo and Juliet is held up through out the film as this archetypal love story for Bella and Edward, as if Romeo and Juliet are the pinnacle of romance. They're not. The play isn't a romance, it's tragedy! Romeo and Juliet die! It wasn't as if Shakespeare wrote it to say "Hey kid's, be like this. Woo!"

If Edward was a vampire with any courage, when he found out Bella was dead, he wouldn't kill himself, at risk of sounding terribly clichéd, he'd decide to keep living with the pain, working at healing and making something good of his life, because that's what Bella would want. Except she probably wouldn't because Bella is one of the most selfish leading ladies in cinema since Scarlet O'Hara. She spends the whole film using and manipulating Jacob because it makes her feel better about Edward being gone and then using and manipulating Edward to make her feel good and turn her into a vampire.

If you want to get all Christian about it, then Bella and Edward are in the high priesthood for the idolatry of relationship. Surely Stephanie Mayer, the Mormon, can see that elevating anything other than God to that level of obsession in your life is going to be fundamentally destructive to the soul. We may not agree on who God is, but we should probably be able to agree that romance isn't God.

But perhaps the whole divine marriage thing of the Mormons, and the elevation of humanity to divinity in the after life is part of all this. So I could see how you could allow Bella and Edward's romance to be seen as some kind of representation of true humanity's realisation. After all it was the romance of father God and mother God who made the world and birthed us. But I digress.

Aside from Bella and Edward's mess, there's a scene in the film where Bella meets the fiancée of the head werewolf. She's had half her face ripped off by her fiancée in a snap fit of rage. And there she is, the first time we meet her, serving muffins to her man's equally dangerous friends. And when he comes home, they give each other a kiss and continue as if nothing is wrong. And this should be a cause for concern in the film. But it's not. No one thinks to mention that perhaps this girl should get out of the relationship. Their not even married and the guy has torn half her face off, and they just go on as if his fit of rage just comes with the territory of being engaged to a werewolf.

The only time the issue is addressed is when Jacob says he can't hang out with Bella any more because he might do the same to her. But then he hangs around anyway because he just can't stay away from her and he's selfish. And she keeps wanting him close anyway because he's her best friend. So we overlook the potential for incredible violence being perpetrated against these women if it's for the sake of relationship.

It's all just so terribly sick. And I think I react so strongly to it because it's so popular and so obsessed over by so many women and girls. It's just sending so many bad messages. If this is what girls are obsessing over, what will they take with them into their future relationships?

All that said though, I'm not going to go on a crusade to rid the world of Twilight. And if it gives us an opportunity to assess how healthy relationship should be done, then I'll take it. So maybe we should just look for those openings, to somehow point out that finding your Jacob or your Edward isn't actually going to be all it's cracked up to be and hopefully in turn, we can help people to see who might be better at protecting and selflessly loving these women who want good love so much.

Line

I thought of a line the other day to keep up my sleeve. You know, one to use on a lady.

I thought it'd be awesome to say "Can I be your Arthur Miller?" I figured it was both cultured, self-deprecating (depending on what you think of Arthur Miller) and highly complimentary to the girl.

But then I heard this song today by Megan Washington where she used the line:

You'll be my Arthur Miller and I'll be your Marilyn Monroe.

I was a little crushed because the girl could very possibly be a Megan Washington fan and think I was just stealing the line. And if she thought that I could just as easily have used any old line. I could have said "Hey baby, that dress looks good on you, but it'd look even better on my floor (obviously after we've courted and then got engaged and then married and before you leaving your dress on the floor starts to annoy me because you never pick up your freaking clothes)" and it would have made no difference.

I guess I'll just have use it on deaf girls. I wonder how you say "Arthur Miller" in sign language.

Sook

I think I'm turning into a bit of a sook. I tend to get choked up watching movies a lot these days. It seems to happen most in scenes involving husbands and wives and parents and their children. I got a lump in my throat in Up when the old man's wife couldn't have kids and then again when she died. I think I got a little teary in Mao's Last Dancer last night when the guy was reunited with his parents. I even got all emotional when Ellen Page's character reconciled with her parents in Whip It. (Speaking of those movies, I should write my reviews of them.)

What's happening to me? I used to be a rock. Now I'm turning into a blubbering mess. Perhaps I'm learning to express emotion in film so that one day I'll deal with it in real life. I hope not.

I think it may be because I spend so much of my time thinking about marriage and love and husbands and wives and kids and parents, that when I see emotional stuff on film it affects me. I often get annoyed when I see bad marriages on film. I think "Damn it, I want to be married so I can do a better job" and when parents are mean to their kids I think "Give me a kid, I'd love them better than that." I have the luxury of being childless and single so I can arrogantly judge movie characters from my idealistic inexperience.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure why I'm getting emotional in films now, when I used to just be able to watch in an entertained but detached way. Maybe I'm going through a quarter-life crisis, or man-opause. Maybe my hormone cycle is changing and I'm growing a heart. Who knows? Whatever that case I hope it just stays in the cinema. I can cry in the dark there and no one will know. If I start crying about real life, who knows what will happen to my credibility as an insensitive male? No one will ever trust me in an emergency, I'll be stuck in a life raft with the women and children.

Happily it should just stay in the cinema, because it still takes a lot of emotional music to get me feeling emotional. So until an orchestra starts following me around scoring my life, I should be able to just keep the tears in the dark.

Conversation

Them: Do you have a girlfriend?
Me: No
Them: How old are you?
Me: 26
Them: Don't worry, you've got time.

I feel like I have this conversation, or variations on it, around once a week with well meaning middle-aged (or old) women. I wonder what they'll be saying when I'm forty?

Them: Well at least you get to watch plenty of TV.