How to begin the rest of your life

I can tell that everybody has missed my lengthy rambles. I’ve been on holiday for two weeks, first on a young adults Christian thing (Hill House) and then in Cornwall with some friends from school (affectionately known, in other circles, as my ‘hipster friends’). I’ve learned a lot. About God, about his plans for me, about myself, the people that love me and life in general. And I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned with you. Just in case any of it happens to be useful.

At Hill House a couple of guys really challenged us all. They’d been reading about the early church, the people that got together to try and live like Jesus said they should after Jesus had left and the Holy Spirit had arrived. And ohhhh boy, were they alternative! They ate together and shared food, met every day to praise God in the temple, and they sold land and possessions and gave the money to people who needed it, or put it into a big communal pot for anyone in the church to use.

I’d like to point out that these guys were not nuns or monks. And they weren’t beggars with nothing to lose, or crazy rich. They had day jobs, families to support, reputations to uphold. They were just like us and they completely changed their way of life to match up with what they believed in. They wanted to live in community, placing the needs of others alongside their own needs, and as a result they were ‘liked by all the people’. (How often is the church today described as ‘liked by all the people’?)

I digress. The main point I would like to make is that there is no ‘correct’ way of living, even if the world around us often insists that there is (and this way tends to place importance on annual salary, good grades, mortgage repayments, the launch of the iPhone 7, etc, etc). So we might as well live in a way which prioritises what we think is important, rather than what we’re told is important.

That will look different to all of us I expect: some people live in community houses because they want to share their home, time and meals, my parents buy their meat from the farmers market because they want to support local farmers, other people cycle to work for environmental and health reasons. 

For those of us just starting out in life, now is the ideal time to decide how we want to live, and for those who’ve already started it’s never too late. Don’t compromise your values, live ‘em.

We couldn’t help occasionally talking about employment (or unemployment!) in Cornwall. And someone said to me that if you aren’t doing something related to what you’re interested in then you’re just working for the sake of working, or living for the sake of living. He, like many of us, learned this the hard way: by spending a year in a job which he doesn’t really care about.

And alright, we aren’t going to get our dream jobs for a while yet, I expect many of us will never get our dream job (if we even have one that is). But if we’re just working for the money, to buy a flat, car, x-box (do people still play x-box?) is that really a good enough use of our time? How many people do you think lie on their death bed and regret not earning more disposable income in their life?

We all gotta eat. We can’t be so picky that we bypass every opportunity that comes our way, but many of us are very privileged in this country in that there are support networks available whilst we’re looking for work, and a range of jobs on offer. So, if I’m going to spend my days answering phone calls I could at least do it for a renewable energy company rather than for Texaco.

So there you go. Some stuff I’ve learned. I don’t know if it was helpful to you but it’s certainly shaped my perspective in regards to what I’m going to do next.

In other news: I don't know if you remember the fairytale I wrote a little while back (the Ash, the Oak and Yew) but here's the cover illustration for it. Butterfly wing cloaks are all the rage right now.

In my next few posts I’m hoping to tackle feminism (and misogyny) in the Bible. So if there’s any bits that people find difficult or confusing or just plain annoying please get in touch and I’ll look into them. Have a good week and I’ll see you on the other side of Soul Survivor Week B!