The Present Geoff's Interests

Faith -

I seek to be follower of Jesus. His standard is that I am to love others as He loves me. If I do so He tells me that others will know I am devoted to Him. (John 13:34-35) It seems too that before I can effectively love I need to listen; another challenge. The amazing thing is that I am forgiven when I fail – Amazing Grace!

Spiritual practices are important to me, I believe they gently and slowly help me to grow or be transformed to be a bit more like Jesus. These practices include things like; meditation, prayer, fasting, solitude, submission, service, study. In recent times, after reading Tish Harrison Warren's book "Liturgy of the Ordinary", I have adopted simple sacred practices to use throughout my day.

I don’t think God is in a hurry so if I desire to be lead by Him I need to slow down and consider the important things. Retirement has been good in providing space and freedom.

I value my church family, many of which normally meet at Newtown Mission, the Renovare Organisation and Conversatio Divina: A Center for Spiritual Renewal.

"Now with God's help, I shall become myself." - Søren Kierkegaard

Fitness -

Remaining active and being part of my local community are special to me. A few years ago some friends told me about Parkrun; they both ran at the Cooks River event. I decided to join them and around 150 other runners, joggers and walkers. Some are fast, some are slow, some bring their dog, others push a pram. Parkrun has become a special community for me having now completed over 250 runs. A group of us "ancients" are now seeking to do all 33 events in the Sydney area.

Parkrun is a weekly, five kilometre timed run which is held at over 400 locations around Australia and in over twenty other countries around the globe. There are now even Parkrun events in gaols.

Some might say my running has become a bit obsessive and they are possibly correct but it was a real joy to run the Fernleigh Track 15km run with my son, Darren, last October.

Fotography -

My first camera was a Brownie Box; black and white with eight shots per roll. A far cry from today where one can bang through a mega number of images.

Over the years I have sought to improve my skills by being involved with the Inner West Photographic Society, undertaken the odd course or two as well as being part of a couple of groups including Len's School. If I look at my old efforts I think there is improvement but I now have a greater appreciation of the images of others.

I am currently dabbling in enhancing my images using ON1 for post-processing plus exploring abstract images as well as dabbling the Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) technique.  Adding emotion in my work is still an unfulfilled aim. I was challenged to do this after listening to Adam Williams.

Some of my photos can be viewed on the Gallery page.

Food -

Food is special to my wife and I. If we go on holidays the  discovery and enjoyment of food is often a key component. If I think back on places we have been to then what I ate will be what remains in my memory.

Food is linked to hospitality and sharing meals with others is important. Lorraine has coordinated a dinner group for many years; we meet bi-monthly in a local restaurant. We don't meet in posh establishments, we prefer local places where we can chat to each other.

When our children were young, around eleven and fourteen, Lorraine thought we should all share in the cooking so we were each allocated a day a week. This was the best thing for us all as cooking became a regular routine. We appreciated each others efforts even if one family member cooked Shepherd's Pie for a number of weeks with various colours of potato topping.

By cooking regularly our children have become good cooks. I also enjoy cooking and still roughly follow the weekly roster although, with only the two of us now, a dish usually is enough for a couple of nights. My Signature dish is Risotto, I like to be able to prepare all the ingredients and then do the cooking with some good jazz playing in the background.

You can find a few of my recipes here.