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Philosophy café

Saturday, 17 December, 2005

Yesterday I updated my CV, realised how good I must appear now that I know how to use Dreamweaver MX and Photoshop (sort of), and applied for 10 jobs—6 of which were with UNSW which has an online application form where you can put in your references and attach your resumé. Autofill makes those things very easy to do and I attached letters which explained why I wasn't bothering to address the selection criteria by saying, “I am applying for this job in order to satisfy the conditions for receipt of Centrelink's Newstart payment but I only require work for the period of December as I already have employment lined up for January. I apologise for taking up your time.”

Ben arrived home in the afternoon, all hot and sweaty and very glad to see me. We both got our results from Moore College and I am pleased to report that we both passed everything and I will get my Diploma next year. My best subject was Greek and I did okay at everything else but not spectacularly well. The exam results reflected the state of my exam technique—adequate but not stunning—and I tried to fend off St. George Girls High ways of thinking in trying not to be disappointed that I didn't get top marks in everything.

Ben wasn't keen to go to the Philosophy café at church (part of FEVA mission) so I made him dinner and left without him. I really wanted to stay home and watch television with him but we must make these sacrifices every now and then for the sake of the gospel, mustn't we.

It was a very balmy night and the mission team had set up a canopied area in the front part of the church lawn. They had an incredibly professional looking coffee machine there where Meg (who we met in Wollongong when she started out as a student there and then later transferred up to COFA) made these amazing capppacinos and hot chocolates, complete with pretty patterns in the froth. Jeff and Andrew were jamming away up the front and I met a guy named Cameron who reads my blog (except for the boring theological bits).

That got me thinking about why people read my blog (I don't mind if they skip the boring theological bits) because some people read it because they like the theological bits and they think the “What I did today”-type posts are boring. And some people really like the “What I did today” posts (Cameron included) and others, I am guessing, want to find out what it's like to do MTS or be at Moore College or live with someone who has depression. I kind of like the fact that my blog caters to a host of different interests and cannot be classified as strictly a “daily journal” or “theological reflections” or “movie reviews” or “craft blog”.

There weren't very many non-Christians there (I think there was just one) but we kick-started the evening anyway. The idea was to have a panel of people who would answer questions on philosophy or different worldviews. When they asked me to be on the panel, I told them, “I'm no good at philosophy. Am I the token female?” Francis said, “We know, Ben told us you're no good at philosophy. Yes, you're the token female Asian.” Malcolm said, “I want you on the panel because you're a quick-thinker.” And in the end only one philosophy question was asked and it was mainly fielded by James who did a major in philosophy. The rest of the questions were mostly about God and the Bible, the obligatory question about why God allows people to suffer and a question about other religions. So it was mostly apologetics.

The nice thing about being on a panel is that, if you forget to mention something that would round out the answer nicely, someone else will pick it up for you. Steve, Baz, James and Malcolm were the other panel members and between us we managed to answer everything, even the tricky ones like, “Why does atonement have to be made with blood?” I quite enjoy fielding apologetics questions but I am always worried that I haven't said enough or haven't given the full picture of what the Bible says about the subject.

We went until 10 pm and then people were pretty much ready to stop. The team packed up everything and even said nice things to me about how things went with the questions and answers. That made me feel less bad about not being supportive of them this week in not going to stuff (and I almost regretted not going to the Gingerbread night when I saw Marinka's gorgeous creation; Ben would have loved eating something like that). I also gave away two books—one to the anonymous person who asked the question about suffering (If I were God, I'd End All the Pain by John Dickson; Steve asked, “Do you get commission for these?”) and one to a girl on team who had always wanted to read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.

And then it was home to my husband who was watching Jerry Maguire with the lights off.

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