Tress and I were in the same car on the train home last night. It was however, so crowded that I could not make my way to where she was standing. So she and I could see each other but there were maybe 15 or so people between us, within a distance of maybe 5 or 6 metres. That’s how congested trains in Melbourne are today.

We got home and I walked the little black jedi, while Tress cooked a wonderful dinner of noodle soup with yong tofu. It was a near perfect dinner. The little pooch was very excited with the walk last night. It was just after 6 but it was already nearly pitch dark. I thought he behaved differently to the other times when I walked him. Maybe the dark brought about different scents. Maybe the possums were out in full strength and my little champion pooch knew and his senses were heightened as a result. I thought I heard them on trees and the fact that Scruff stopped several times and looked up some trees confirmed my suspicion. The half hour walk was certainly more interesting than it normally was, and I got home very ready for the noodle soup. It was delicious.

As satisfying as the dinner was however, I had trouble going to bed early – must have been the coffee I had just before 4 that arvo.

Life is slowly settling down to a certain pattern for Tress and I now. I’m not sure what shape that would take eventually, but I can sense the process taking place. We both just want to go to work, have our time off after work and at weekends, and catch up with kiddo whenever she can. We want to play a part in our local church but only in a way which doesn’t create any angst particularly for me. That will almost certainly mean I leave the board sooner rather than later, and maintain my involvement at the cell at the most. Even that will cease at some point, probably before too long. I have now been doing this cell thing for a few years now, and it was by default. The cell leader had left the church and the cell coordinator did not appoint any replacement and I ended up “carrying the can” and I haven’t found the opportunity to revisit this role since.

I guess it would be an understatement to say I am presently no longer convinced an active involvement in the local church scene is necessary or even beneficial. The Board has come across as an irrelevance, even a nuisance. The activities which appear to be happening feel like they are disconnected from the articulated vision, and I have no idea what is being done which is part of where the church was meant to be heading. It would be better to park all of that sort of consideration and simply turn up each Sunday, spend time with other believers, listen to the sermon and go home for that weekend rest. I have a feeling I am not alone in feeling this way.

I continue to despair over what appears to be a frustrating knot in the church board.

We had a board meeting last week, a meeting I should have ceased attending since December of last year. I’m still hanging on, having avoided further angst in insisting I left the board – one which I have been frustrated with.

In the meeting last week it happened again and found myself just at a loss of where/what we’re onto.

There was an agenda of clarifying vision. When someone else asked why we needed this agenda at this point in time, it was suggested that we still had differing values and we couldn’t decide on a number of things as a result. How this apparent non-decision necessitated a vision clarification was something I could not understand and asked if it could be discussed further.

It turned out – or it appeared to be the case – that the source of this revisit was issues with spending approvals. How questions on spend requests lead to a need to clarify vision is still beyond me. The church had a vision – has one.

The unfortunate fact is that little has been done to flesh it out.

The vision was a “DC3” depiction – discipleship in a multi-cell, multi congregation and multi community context. Given that vision I would have expected a concerted effort to build the cell ministry as a start. We had next to no drive to build on whatever cell activities that had pre-existed the current history of this church. The several times I tried to utilise the cell platform – by disseminating snippets of information on missionaries etc – to cell leaders have been met with completely muted response. There was one single cell leaders meeting with little or no follow up plans, programs or activities.

We had instead, a number of what appears to be unconnected parcels of programs. How these were connected to the vision were not articulated or sold. It all seems like prescribing something for a totally different condition, and the Board continue to be made out as an irrelevance while all the while it was said it was the pastor’s first team.

The frustration continues…

Exiting a “ministry” role in Steer is different to leaving any other role or organization. You keep wondering if you should dig in regardless. The underwhelming nature of the role however, coupled with a changed home equation, meant rationally it was the right thing to do.

I head off o Malaysia today for a week, then to Sydney for a few days, before starting with Super Partners, back in a legal role.

I got home after work yesterday to be greeted to the sight of a happy  Kiddo, who is home for the Easter holidays. She asked if I saw an email she sent not long before I got home. It was a piece of good news, in the form of an ANU scholarship. It is meant to cover lodging for a year, and it is good for 4 years. It is given to all PhB students, which isnt a large group.

It’s the first time we got money from the government, after paying out truckloads of dough in taxes all these years. We’re very grateful none the less.

I also start in my new role at Super Partners in a few weeks and will have to plan my routines and priorities again.

The waiting to hear back scenario played out again yesterday and toward the end of the day I sort of had a mini meltdown. Scruffy and I had what was probably a 2.5 hour walk and he certainly went to parts of Blackburn he had never been to before.

By the time I got home, Tress had left a note saying she had to be in church for a meeting. She was being her usual quiet yet clearly supportive self.

It can be very hard trying to expect a tangible engagement from God. It is probably what I dont really want in any event but sometimes the external and tangible assurance would have helped.

Anyway, the wait continues

(it has now been 24 hours since the last meeting)

DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang has declared that Pakatan Rakyat will probe attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail and former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan for alleged criminal wrongdoing if it captures federal power in the next general election.

This, he said, is because Prime Minister Najib Razak’s refusal to act on former Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (CCID) chief Ramli Yusuff’s complaint that Gani had fixed him and his team of police officers after they arrested an underworld figure.

“If there is no judicial tribunal, then we have to go back to the mandate of the people for a tribunal to find out whether we have criminals as the (former) head of police and attorney-general,” Lim told a 5,000-strong crowd at a Pakatan Rakyat ceramah in the Kuala Selangor stadium last night.

Lim said the allegation made by a former top police officer was unprecedented even in other countries and should have warranted an immediate investigation from the premier.

Last Friday, Najib had dismissed calls for a tribunal, stating that it was merely a claim which had yet to be substantiated.

Following this, Ramli expressed his disappointment that he and his officers, which he said had been wrongly charged but subsequently cleared by the courts, have been denied any avenue for justice.

Police officers willing to testify

Malaysiakini had reported that in 2007, Ramli (right) – on the orders of then deputy internal security minister Johari Baharum – investigated Johor-based underworld figure Goh Cheng Poh only to find, according to the ex-CCID chief, indications that Musa had helped Goh in his gambling and money-laundering businesses.

Gani was said to have then instructed the Anti-Corruption Agency (now the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission) to access highly-confidential files on the case and used that information to hunt down informants who assisted Ramli’s team and coerced them into implicating the police investigators instead.

Ramli and six of his police officers were later hauled to court on various charges but they were all acquitted.

Following the revelation, several police officers, both serving and retired, have come forward with offers to testify if a tribunal is set up to investigate Gani and Musa.

These past 2 weeks have been very difficult ones. For one reason or another people I admired have either publicly had a go at me, or do flip flops in relation to work and stuff I care about. Or maybe cared about.

A very dear friend and brother put up a rant in his facebook a few weeks ago. I dont think I am wrong to come out of it thinking I am one of those in the line of fire. The other stuff he wrote about also arced me up so I dwelled on it a few days and then I wrote a personal letter to him. A letter in the traditional sense, ie sent via post rather than an email. I wanted to make it a personal communication without making it easy for re-transmission, although of course it could be easily scanned if this mate of mine (I hope he still is) should so decide.  I have not heard from him since. I dont know what to expect going forward, and whether we can still claim to be close friends after this.

And then a few days ago after a church meeting, I wrote to someone with some points to consider. I wrote it in an email the next day after the meeting. The response suggests he is unhappy with the church board, probably principally me. Since reading his response on Friday night I have been having a torrid time.

I tried leaving the church board almost 3 months ago precisely for this reason – to avoid this sort of exchange. It isnt a nasty one, just that it shows up areas with so many unresolved issues and areas which there are so many disagreements from the perspectives of values and approaches.

I am not known as what some have termed as a “relational” person. Yet these developments have been eating at me. I dont know what relational means – maybe it simply means we high 5 each other more than think about our relationships. So I dont have that “touch” factor so much so perhaps I am not as relational.