The attitude of our hearts and how i hate driving in Sydney.

Watch this maybe

and now don’t think about it. Cause i’ll refer to it later.

Today i have had one incredibly fun day. I am going to tell you all about it but first I need to confess some things.

I get stressed out when i have to drive in a new city and hold conversations. So hard is it to think outside of ‘don’t crash the car in this city’ that i can barely take car directions other then ‘turn next left’. I can’t deal with ‘Maybes’ or ‘we should’ve turned back there’. Its as if my brain goes mono-job. – I drive, other person navigates. (week 4 of life without a smart phone – no GPS)

Secondly I like being productive every day of my life. This looks different most weekends but i still like producing anything. When schedules change and the day comes to an end and i have less time to make something, i begin to freak out. Internally i begin looking for any way out, any way towards creation.

Thirdly, i had an incredibly beautiful day in the company of three of my favourite people. I drank really good coffee, i learned a lot of new things about people and coffee and Sydney and friends. I ate one of my most favourite meals in the whole world, i found a new favourite book shop, i saw amazing beauty and i didn’t pay a cent.

Hence – The attitude of our hearts. And how much gratitude changes how we see everything.

Waking up before 5am is getting pretty normal for me. My body doesn’t love it, but it almost shocks it enough to forget about allergies. I met Kelcie in the kitchen making cinnamon rolls and coffee. She is even more positive in the mornings and i was fascinate by how smoothly she bakes and multitasked whilst i struggled with walking and packing two books in my giant red bag.

I drank an amazing coffee, laughed at Jonny Lees amazing wisdom and surprise at how hot the tea stayed. I got into the blue car to join them and Stevie on a quick road trip to drop Stevie at the airport, Jon at a friends house and then me and Kelcie would return around lunch time so I could wash my clothes.

We began listening to amazing music whist eating the heavenly rolls on party plates. Conversation turned to the future. The exciting, powerful, almost awe inspiring future. Stevie is one who inspires me almost with no effort. He is an incredible man who combines creative influence with down to earth humility. And some how he communicated in a way that even my half deaf-ness clearly heard every word. In the back seat me and Jon would exchange different thoughts, but for a lot of it we listened to good stories and engaged in vision creation.

Quickly the sun began to rise, reminding me of the incredible times God woke me up in Cambodia just to show me another beautiful sun rise over the city of Phnom Penh. I was filled with glorious food and drink, sitting in the company of greatness watching God create beauty. Doesn’t get much better, and then the first bars of Kanye West start playing. Truly, heaven on earth.

We hit Sydney in pretty good time, dropped Stevie at the airport and then the stress out begins. Perfect start to the day but for some reason i don’t let it invade the rest. I don’t let peace surpass understanding and just chill.

Not knowing how to get to surrey hills, I make no decisions about direction and somehow we found ourselves passing an organic bread place, ending up parking horribly outside a private hospital. Creepily looking for a toilet we ask a nurse covered in 8 take away coffees and Jon in his nice and polite way asks, ‘Is there a washroom and good cafe around’ She leads us to the toilet and then points at the coffees ‘This place is the best, the organic bread place is amazing’ It was up the road.

Jon and I have a sitting toilet chat about Matt Dawson, but I finished quicker and began to browse the hospitals awards. We drove to the bread place – including Jeremy driving freak out number 2 when i couldn’t find a park in the tiny back streets, didn’t understand the parking rules, found a park and then got out into the refreshing morning air.

We got amazing coffees whilst Jon had me in awe about the intricacies of coffee. The cultural differences between Americans, Asians, Aussies. and how its subtle, but HUGE. I left a few comments in the comments book next to be, smiled at the baker – a thumbs up with my face and we walked on. Past Greek church number 1 (of maybe 3), through the cross, past some incredible beauty and then back to the car (including Jeremy freak out 3 about how we were late for our parking, still not understanding it.)

And then began a hilarious journey all around Sydney to Newtown, via the rocks and roseberry?. (Freak out 4 thru 12) Parking debacle two and three and then we got a perfect park next to the Thai place and an incredible book shop. Walked around. Fell in love with Newtown again. Thought about some of the books i had seen in the shop. Chatted a whole bunch. Hot chocolate. Agnostic front dude. Ate amazing Thai food, chatted about some things I’ve been thinking about a whole bunch. Appreciated how Jon combined genuine concern for people but was bluntly honest and didn’t beat around the bush. Swapped a few outreach stories, talked about what our DTS mates are doing now. Spoke about being almost a cultural minority in your own country. Then headed to a park, via a huge pile of free magazines. (#excellent) Lay in the the sun and then fare-welled Jon, beginning freak out 13 thru 167.

Without a GPS and getting stuck in weird traffic, our return journey blew out to almost three hours. Whilst in Sydney, this stressed my brain out sooo much. But once again, if i had shut up my terror i would’ve appreciated driving through beautiful parts of Sydney. As soon as we hit the outskirts Kelcie started a conversation that made me think a whole bunch. We probably spoke non stop till we got through the weird detour and disaster struck. I’m just going to say, certain people shouldn’t leave it to the last minute to tell me we should stop at a petrol station.

Say all that to say this – attitude is everything.

If i had no expectations on today, or if i had communicated early that i didn’t like driving in Sydney ignorantly – i could’ve gotten a better map and i wouldn’t’ve stressed out so much when we didn’t arrive home when i thought.

If my attitude continued to be in awe of the goodness of God in bringing heaven to earth through my friends – i would’ve been in the moment even more. When the day was 70% good, my attitude could have pushed it to a round 98% very quickly.

Its the same with all of our days – attitude is everything.