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. More Information can be found here -  https://renovare.org/about/ideas/spiritual-disciplines)

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. I think COVID is teaching me this.

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. I am one of the older ones but there are young kids too. Its run by volunteers and it just doesn't matter how quickly I run or if I run at all.

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

I find it is good to throw in a bit cycling during the week especially as more safe cycle paths are slowly being created.

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. This includes exploring abstract images and also attempting to create some emotion in my work. 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 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.