The Masters Apprentice

Yes, I’ve moved to my own place. I’m all grown up now. Welcome.

The Masters Apprentice New Home

Read Full Post »

Hello good people, for the first time in two weeks i have actually been able to get online, courtesy of my neighbour with an MTN Broadband thingy.
Thing is i’m on a much needed hiatus. No work just me, my Master and my wife. I need to re-evaluate where i am in life and where i’m going. God has arranged for me to be in the mountains like Moses, though hopefully not for 40years.
Anyways, post will be few and far in between but I haven’t deserted the community.
God keep you all. I’ll be in touch

In the words of Mr. Spock, Live Long & prosper!

Read Full Post »

To all my fellow bloggers who can safely admit they wish they could make a ton of money just blogging, here’s your chance. Good luck you lazy bums.

Shalom

SYDNEY, Australia — Position: Island caretaker. Duties: Lazing around Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for six months. Salary: 150,000 Australian dollars ($100,000). 

Unemployed, take heart — the aforementioned job ad is for real. Billing it the “Best Job in the World,” the tourism department in Australia’s Queensland state on Tuesday said it was seeking one lucky person to spend half a year relaxing on Hamilton Island, part of the country’s Whitsunday Islands, while promoting the island on a blog. 

The move is part of a AU$1.7 million campaign to boost tourism in the state. In exchange for the plush salary, free accommodation in an oceanfront villa and airfare from the winner’s home country, the “employee” will be required to stroll the island’s white sand beaches, snorkel, maybe take a dip in the pool — and post photos and videos of his or her experiences on a weekly blog. 

“It’ll be huge,” Tourism Whitsundays chief executive Peter O’Reilly said, adding he expected thousands will apply. 

Applications are open until Feb. 22 and 11 finalists will be flown to Hamilton Island in May for the final selection process. The job begins on July 1. 

On The Internet: 
IslandReefJob.com

Read Full Post »

So yeah, i’m back after a long abscense to tell you that i’m leaving for the holidays. Yep, its that wonderful time of the year where I can’t somehow help but belt out the phrase “BAAA HUMBUG!”

I know you must be shocked that I, of all people, an Apprentice to the Master in whose honor we supposedly celebrate this season, could be saying such things. Well truth be told, I actually hate the over commercialization and materialism that Christmas is all about these days. 

Everyone thinking about food and drink and gifts. Nobody thinking about the Master being born in a manger, come to save us from out own demise. John 3:10 For God so loved the world… Now thats an amazing gift. But it’s the least acknowledged or even wanted gift. Be honest with yourself. 

So once again, I’m thankful for the 2week break from work but i’m loathe at all the nagging xmas carols and decorations all around me throughout the period. Well it could be worse, could be snow lined streets, snow men, santa’s helpers and God forbid, Reindeer. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish to dismiss the whole holiday cheer. I’m still trying to find meaning for myself in this whole thing. The pressure is on now, cause I have a wife and someday kids who will be desperate for some sort of xmas tradition. I pray the Master will show me the paths of righteousness and holly jolly spirit. 

I say we need to rediscover the true meaning of these holidays and be givers more than getters. Lets give more love, more forgiveness, more laughter, more peace, more compassion. Lets focus not on how much we’re going to spend on ourselves but rather how much of ourselves we can spend on others.

Well, I bid you all a very warm and Merry Christmas and supremely prosperous New Year in 2009. Peace, Love and Joy to all. May the Lord Christ be at the center of your homes and lives.

Shalom

Addendum: Someone just pointed out to me,that in the heat of my own rant, i proved my own point of how christmas has lost it’s true meaning when inadvertently misquoted John 3:16 as John 3:10! I’d love to say it was a typo but…I am terribly embarrassed but thankyou. God bless you, i know He has done so for me.

Read Full Post »

It’s Monday again and like most of the 7billion people on this planet, I’m not to excited about it. But to be honest, i have it really good compared to many. For instance, have you ever stopped to think about the self worth of a street-sweeper? Do they even have the slightest passing thought that they are making a difference in this world or that they are people who deserve respect and honor? Who even thinks about street-sweepers?

But more importantly, who even thinks about you in your current choice of work?

Many of us wake up each morning struggling with our jobs, we think, its crap and i’ll never get any recognition or fulfillment for what I do. There’s a deep gnawing in your heart that you’re at the very bottom of the career pit and nothing you do can make a difference in the world. You long for the fame that comes with being a Fortune 500 CEO, a world renown busty musician or even an LCIV chairman in banana republic.

Well here’s something to think about. The Master requires the utmost best of us wherever He has called us to be. Did you know that you are worth so much more than your job and you aren’t defined by it? Actually, your job is defined by you! But be warned, the quality of your work does say a lot about you as a person. So whatever it is you do, do it to the highest possible excellence; even if it is sweeping the dusty roads of Kampala. Shalom

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say: Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read Full Post »

A long time ago In a galaxy far, far away…

For those of you who don’t know where that line comes from, I suggest you crawl back into the pre evolution slime that you came from cause the line is infamous. George Lucas made it part of every great story after the success of his very own fantastical adventure about a desert farm boy who discovers his destiny lies in wielding a sword of blue light, fighting his robot father who has a fetish for black plastic headgear and to top it all off, he doesn’t get the girl. It’s called Star Wars by the way.

As you can probably tell i’m rambling on about nothing in particular but there is a method to my madness. In the first part of this story, the boy pulls off a spectacular defeat of the evil empire. We’re all happy. Then in the second part of the story, the empire strikes back at the boy. His robot father cuts off his hand, the girl falls for another man who ends up being turned into a charcoal piece of art for a giant worm! Phew!

Well in the first part of my blogging story, i defeated the evil Blogcks. As you bloggers are very aware, the evil blogcks can stop the mightiest of jedi in their writing tracks. Alas, it has struck back on this naive banana republic boy and quite viciously. For the whole week my mind has failed to conjure up anything worth writing, as if my hands were cut off and i was looking at the bloody stumps dripping on my keyboard.I am reminded of Lucas’s story. Thankfully my father, God rest is his soul, wasn’t a robot and I did get the girl. 

So there ends another useless blog post. I beg your tolerance but one has to do whatever one can, to get rid of the Blogcks. If left unchecked, it could turn into blogckrastination. You don’t want me to get started on that one, do you? I’ll save it for the next fight.

Till the next episode of Secreto de Blogcks…

Shalom

Read Full Post »

I was doing a small assignment at work that led me to an all time favorite poem by Marianne Williamson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light , not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make and manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I first heard part of it in the movie Coach Carter. It basically makes you realise, that the thing we fear most in this life is not some dark evil out there but rather the immense light within our God given spirit. The fear that we can actually be successful, loved, accepted, appreciated. Its actually rather amazing that many of us aren’t even aware of this fear. 

Recently i’ve learned something very disturbing in my personal development. I have a fear of being successful! Yeah you heard me, I’m afraid of success. I’m afraid of the work it takes to be successful and afraid of the way people will treat me when i’m successful. Afraid of people hounding me for money and bad mouthing me because i’m wise enough to know not to lend them any. Afraid of alienating my friends and family who aren’t near the level of success i envision.

Think about it. So many of us have the fear of the greatness within us that we are so good at sabotaging ours paths to success and we aren’t even aware of it. But i’d like us all to be encouraged by this poem. Be brave enough to let the light inside of you shine brightly forth so that we give others permission to do the same.

Shalom

Read Full Post »

Darn it, I have a major, major case of the Blogcks, that nefarious condition that sneaks up on you in the busyness of everyday life. The blogcks is a very shady pseudonym for Bloggers Block or Writers block, that i not so inspiringly have decided to write about today.

Yes, the blogcks…this is whats happening to me now. For days so much has been going down in my life, the Master sometimes doesn’t go easy on His trials of fire, and i’ve been feeling the need to vent and rant on here but I couldn’t. My mind would go blank everytime I think about blogging. Strange. But i’m sure all you bloggers have experienced a case of the blogcks.

I guess it also comes down to an unconcious pressure that comes from being a part of a vibrant blogging community. Like some unspoken expectation that everyday, you log on to blogspirit looking to see what everyone has written. Then you start getting this nawing feeling in the back of your skull that you aren’t on the days updated list. So you feel the need to write something clever, something moving cause everyone else’s entries are just so darned good and you can’t stand not to be counted. Ego demands it.

But, here’s the catch. For the life of you, you can’t seem to think of anything that will be good enough. Your mind goes further into the blank. Soon you start screaming at your inner self. “What the effin hell is wrong with you, you’ve got tonnes of stuff you can blog about….Yeah but i’m really busy write now and besides, the internet keeps timing out.” Excuses, self condemnation, guilt, ego, Blogcks.

So there we go. I’ve added an entry that you’ll all stumble onto shortly. It’s not pretty, clever, probably not too interesting but it will give the allusion that I’m as good a blogger as the best of you. And you’ll respect me. And you’ll keep trying to find out what other shenanigans i’m gonna get up to on my blog. And the next thing that will happen, several undeserved bloggers awards?! Mwah ha ha ha ha

Er…probably not.

Alot more Blogcks me thinks.

Shalom

Read Full Post »