Back to normal programming

With the seemingly non-stop sprint to the end of the exam period over, it feels good to finally be back blogging. I fell into a deep black chasm at the start of Moore College Stuvac and four days after my last exam I've finally managed to crawl out. So over the next few weeks no doubt I'll be offering some reflections on the year gone. It's hard to believe (results permitting) that I've finished a whole year at Bible college.

I feel generally exhausted, but I'm appreciative for the time off to recharge over summer. I've noticed a lot of my classmates are working jobs over the break. Sarah asked me whether I thought we should also be looking for paid work. But we don't need the money and we need time to rest. Plus, not working means we're able to help out leading a strand at the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students' National Training Event (NTE). And I'm preaching for three weeks at my home church in Maclean for our mutual edification. So with summer college work, working up some new sermons, serving the university students and catching up with out of town family, it doesn't make sense for us to be working a job purely to have more money to waste. That's not to disparage those who work, but we have relatively few financial obligations outside our daily living expenses.

I've been reflecting a bit lately on the idea of rest. I've found myself using the categories of productivity to qualify and quantify my 'rest'. That is, I have found myself asking how much I need, what makes something restful, is a particular activity (e.g. blogging) to be counted as rest? In one sense, rest can only be defined in relation to work. But it's more than the absence of work. And I don't think I rest merely in order to recharge to do more work. I think rest is a state rather than an action.

Anyways, this is my 'clearing out the cobwebs' blogpost.

It feels good to be back.