This morning and for the first time in 6 months, I travelled to work alone. Tress dropped me off at the station and it was a pleasant ride into the city and a short tram ride from Spencer into Clarendon/York. I had left home just on 7, having stayed in to watch the Euro 2016 final. It was still level and goal-less when I left, and watched the rest of the match on my mobile on the way in.
I still got in about 10 to 8, but it was quieter than usual. Maybe it is still the school holidays and people are still travelling.
It was a bit of an energetic church service yesterday. Every year during the winter school holidays the church runs a program called “Going Bananas”. On the Sunday after that program finishes, the Going Bananas team re-present parts of that program in a church service and introduces the rest of the church to the children and parents of the program who weren’t regulars.
After church we drove (in our old trusted Camry which was reinvigorated with a full service and new set of tyres) to Madam K’s and as we often do now, caught up with Ronald and Cat there. It wasn’t planned but we’re both regulars in that joint and have been seeing each other there in recent weeks. It’s great to be able to continue a very old friendship. Both Ronald and Cat had been my Sunday School teachers, and I had then been a Sunday School teacher to their boys. We went about our regular lazy Sunday afternoons after that – walking the little fellow, and watching a footy game on TV as well as doing some shopping.
The previous night we caught up with our more regular dining companions, in Gerry and Jess’ home. Jason and Mel were there too and the case of Peter Lehman’s “Pastor’s Son” was delivered and shared amongst the three families. A couple of bottles of the very drinkable Shiraz were opened to accompany the very warming steamboat dinner. Gerry and Jess’ girls are loads of fun now and the conversations were good. Jason told us about an old friend from the old ICC church, who had been diagnosed with cancer.
Life’s vicissitudes continue to confront and I again wondered about life’s turns. As the week commences with a first day I return to work alone, without Tress, I inevitably wondered what the next turn, the next bend, would reveal.
When we were shopping yesterday, we bumped into an old couple friend. She had a surgery recently to deal with some facial nerve issues. He reminded me of an old friend, who was an ex-director of my present employer and whom we got to know well and spent some time with during his final couple of years. He had Parkinson’s and died a few years ago. It is strange that a few years after his death, I am now working in a company he was responsible for building up many years ago. His work and I had no reason to cross when we knew him and even after he died I didn’t know about his involvement in this company.
I now work in this company, trying to contribute to a company that had been lashed by storms of corruption scandals in its US operations. The board and senior management under whose watch the debacles happened have all been cleared out but the legacy lingers. We’re trying to rebuild and every day I am grateful just to be able to come in to do work, to play my part in the rebuilding.
And yet, I continue to wonder if this is it, or is there another dimension to what God has in store. Assuming of course that I continue to work on abiding in Him to seek His will for me. It could be I continue to do this work and that would be His will for me.
At least given I’d likely be commuting on trains and trams again, I can return to some form of regular reading again. Maybe that will help steer the way.
Ante 