But dogs are also messy. Part of the cost of having a dog in the family is cleaning up after them, sometimes they bark excessively, they sleep on the good furniture when you aren’t looking and make it dirty, they eat your best pair of shoes, they dig holes in your garden, and when you need to be away from your house for a while, you need to organise someone to care for them.

I never really liked this “messiness” about having a dog, and I used to think that when Rosie eventually died, it might be nice to not have a dog, and not have to worry about all that stuff anymore. I loved Rosie, but in those moments when she made be angry because she slobbered all over my biscuit I was just about to eat, I would sometimes think about not having a dog one day, and how it would be nice to not have to deal with the “mess”.

And then one day Rosie did die, quite unexpectedly, and I was surprised that I missed her much more than I thought I would. I miss her joy, love, and enthusiasm she had for me every time I came home from work. And while I do enjoy not having to deal with all the mess that comes from having a dog, the tradeoff is that I don’t have all the good things to enjoy either.

Life in general is like that. If I want to, I can disengage from life and from people, and avoid some of the “messiness” of life. Life can be complicated. People can be messy. Engaging with people can bring things into your life that cause discomfort. But by removing yourself from life and people, you also miss out on the soaring highs that come from real relationships and intimacy.

Life is messy. But I’m learning that diving into the mess and sharing it with people brings a much fuller life than trying to pull back and live a quiet life on your own.

It’s always fascinated me that a God who created the universe, whose power exceeds our wildest imagination, should choose to reveal himself not with loud shouts and incredible signs, but in a quiet whisper. Many times we are told to listen for his small voice in the stillness of life.

Have you ever got up real early before the rest of the world is awake? Before cars are driving on the road, before people are walking down the street? When was the last time you did it?

The other day I woke up early for some reason. It was getting light, but there didn’t seem to be another soul awake for miles around me. It was silent. And sitting there, looking out over the world, all I could hear was myself breathe. And the world looked very different. Away from all the chatter and noise of our 21st century lifestyle, my mind was cleared and turned to more important things in life. Eternal things.

If you haven’t done it for a while, I really recommend it. Get up early, or just go and find a quiet place somewhere. A really quiet place. And listen. If you’re bold, even ask God if he’s there. It will be worth it.

As I walked through the carpark, I noticed about 50 metres away a man standing very close to the back of a car, almost leaning against it. His stance looked strange, and as I got closer, I realised he was actually urinating against the back tyre of this particular car – all out in the open for everyone to see.

Thoughts raced through my mind. Should I confront him about it? Is he drunk? Will he pop me one in the face if I say something to him? There’s children around, this is a public place, you can’t do that. Some poor person is getting their car urinated on! I think I might just turn left and go that way…

But then as I got closer, the strangest thing happened. He finished his business, then got into the car and drove off. It was his own car! This guy had decided “I’d rather wee on my own car in full view of the everyone, than use that public toilet over there”.

I spent my trip home thinking about that guy, and how we’re all so different. Never in my wildest dreams would I consider just going to the toilet where I felt like it. But some people obviously think very different to me. And I was again amazed at just how different we all are, and how we all have our own perspectives and different life circumstances.

Another guy who reminds me of that is Mr Sitting-On-A-Chair-In-The-Middle-Of-India man. When I was a teenager I went to India for a few weeks. As part of a study tour we went to some town in the middle of nowhere, and were touring around the back streets, looking at every day life in India. There were thousands of people milling around the place, but on one particular back road alley, there was one guy who caught my attention for some reason. He was just sitting on an old chair, next to his corrugated iron hut thing, watching the world go by. I only saw him for a split second as we drove past.

I saw hundreds and thousands of people like that, but sometimes I think about that man in particular. As I go about my hectic life, is he still sitting in that chair, down the backend of a maze of backstreets? What’s his life story? How is his life different to mine? What does he do all day? Is he still alive? Does he have family? What are his hopes and dreams? And like him, there are 6 billion other life stories going on at the moment.

Life has so many variations, so many different stories. We’ve all got a unique tale to tell.

So thankyou Mr Weeing-On-My-Own-Car man. You’ve reminded me again about the amazing variety of life all around us.

One nest in particular, along our driveway, is a tiny nest, maybe only 5cm across, and is home to some kind of small “finch” type of bird and it’s three babies. We found it before the eggs even hatched, and since that time have checked on it every few days, carefully peering through the branches to see it’s progress. One day there were three tiny little babies in there, and over the last couple of weeks we’ve watched them get bigger and bigger, as the mum goes out and gets them food.

But yesterday morning when we went to take a look at the nest, to our surprise it was missing. And then upon closer inspection we found it, upturned and fallen down into the lower parts of the bush. Looking at the surroundings, a whole bunch of shrub branches directly below the nest have been crushed, snapped, and pushed over, and it seems pretty obvious that some animal, almost certainly someone’s cat, has attacked the nest and devoured the growing babies. Who knows if mum met a similar fate, or if she got away. I don’t know if birds feel sorrow like we do, but it feels sad to think she may still be around, mourning that loss.

Of course, this is nothing new. Every day, death and killing happens millions of times around the world, as it has every day for thousand of years. It’s a sad fact that we live in a broken world, where living things kill and eat each other to survive, or sometimes even just kill for other reasons. Death is a part of life, and will be until all things are made right again.

But this incident does remind me that death can come so quickly, and is rarely expected. I still remember waking up one morning as a 14 year old boy to find my father had died. It was of course the last thing I was expecting, and it changed my life in ways I still don’t fully understand.

Life is precious, and fragile. Remember that the people around you can be here one day and gone the next. Don’t put off anything you can do for them today.

Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity has come of age, however, it should be left behind.

Several people commented on this post, approving it, claiming it was such an enlightened statement, and how dumb you must be if you don’t agree with it.

But one line in particular from the quote made me almost laugh out loud when I read it: Now that humanity has come of age, however…

Come of age!? On basis does anyone think that we’ve “come of age”? Most generations tend to think that they’ve come of age. They’re much smarter and more enlightened than previous generations. They know so much more. They’ve learnt from the mistakes of their predecessors. They’ve made significant advancements into science and the understanding of life and the universe.

But we’re deceiving ourselves if we think we’ve “come of age”. We still don’t know much about the universe and what goes on around us. We still hurt each other, kill each other, and do things we don’t understand. What we want to do, we don’t do. And what we don’t want to do, we keep on doing.

No matter what achievements or advancements we think we make in unlocking the mysteries of life, usually each discovery produces a bunch of more unanswered questions. Rather than pride ourselves on our coming of age, we should humble ourselves and realise we don’t know all that much really, we often get it wrong, and our understanding of things doesn’t even come close to the infinite wisdom of the creator and designer of all that’s around us.

Life’s a great adventure! Let’s marvel at it, even the things we don’t understand, but let’s never try and claim we know how it all works.

But what if there were some topics that even in democratic societies were no longer open for debate, even though the evidence (or lack of it) demands it?

One such topic is within the area of scientific debate, and in particular the debate about the origin of life. It is not widely known, but there have been many prominent, well respected scientists, professors, and teachers across America and around the world, who have been sacked from their jobs because they have held a different world view on the origin of life.

The fact is, that Neo-Darwinian or evolutionary theory does NOT hold all the answers to how life began. Like most theories, it has many gaps in it. And as molecular biologists and scientists discover more and more about the amazing structures of our bodies, particularly inside our cells and DNA, more and more of them are wondering whether it’s even possible that this could come about randomly by chance. Should they lose their job because they are asking those questions? Why is there a suppression of free and open scientific debate? Isn’t that how science develops?

Evolutionary theory contends that life is the result of a random, purposeless process. This theory is often taught in schools as if it is the only plausible scientific explanation of how life originated and developed. But other theories, such as Intelligent Design theory, challenge evolutionary theory but are being suppressed worldwide.

Both are scientific theories, and the debate is therefore legitimate. Why are people being sacked just for asking the question?

To support freedom of debate in America and around the world, visit this site to learn more and sign the petition.

There’s obviously a number of reasons for this. The main ones are that children are innocent about many of the world’s “evils”, and don’t have the responsibilities that many adults are faced with, like paying a mortgage, dealing with a stressful job, negotiating complicated relationships, worrying about world affairs, and so on. When I think back to my childhood, my fond memories are often related to being in a state of innocence and not having responsibilities.

But regardless of the reasons, it’s still an interesting statistic. We start out in life full of wonder and excitement. Everything is an adventure. And then as we get older we tend to let the burdens in life weigh us down more and more.

I think we have a lot to learn by looking at our children. Not only should we try to laugh more like they do, but I think that taking a look at life and the world through the eyes of a child every now and then is a healthy thing to do.

“Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.”
Jesus