Observing Thaipusam
It’s been a long day. Yesterday I was up at 5.30am and didn’t finish the day until 2am. Today I was out shooting just after 10am and didn’t get back to the hotel until nearly 10pm. Almost all of that time has been spent with the same group of people, from a small Hindu temple, [...]
The Relentless In-Breaking Of The Past
This past week has been something out of the ordinary. I’m here in Adelaide, visiting family and tackling a number of personal projects. One of these, perhaps the most important of all, has been going through boxes and items I’ve had in storage since leaving Australia, nearly twelve years ago. I recall, as a child, [...]
Work and Love
There is an idea, attributed to Sigmund Freud, that life essentially consists of work and love. The absence of one or the other will always hold us back from being completely fulfilled. As long as we don’t define the words too narrowly, it is a sentiment I agree with. Love is, in our culture, too [...]
Success
While reading Ralph Waldo Emerson this morning, the following lines made me pause, “I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship, or the sale of goods [...]
From Metaphors To Names
“When I (re)started blogging in 2004 my life was a mess. I was in a strange country, struggling with a career change and generally feeling as though everything I did kind of sucked, in a deep and fundamental way. My hope was that blogging would, somehow, help me improve as a writer and establish some [...]
Happiness
Sunday’s post, on the direction of my faith and church life over the last decade attracted a number of comments, here on the blog and via other channels. Suffice it to say some folks were genuinely worried about my level of “happiness.” Whilst I appreciate that not being actively connected to a church and expressing [...]
Mapping Changes In Thought And Faith
After a busy end to 2009 I’ve only just started to reflect on the decade just passed, from 2000-2009. The public side of my faith underwent a big and obvious transition in those years. Not so much the “theology” bit, as the day to day and week to week reality of “church” life. Connected to [...]
Clearing the Reader – Recent Blogposts That Caught My Eye
Today I’m in the midst of unpacking and setting up for the first week of the new year. Part of that involves going through emails and unread blogposts sitting in my RSS reader. Of course, I don’t get around to reading all of the 1200 or so unread contributions sitting there. But, here are a [...]
Do It Everyday, Over And Over, Again And Again And Think About It
You know those articles – the ones that give you lots of neat little suggestions to improve some are of your life – 25 ways to be a better parent, 5 ways to become a famous guitarist, or 10 ways to improve your love-life? Tips? Yeah, I hate those. Tips; not the money you leave [...]
Twitter As A Quote Engine
Twitter is used in a lot of ways. One purpose I like is sharing quotes. I’ve always been, even from childhood, a fan of a good quote. I used to love thumbing through our family book of quotes and have dropped good quotes into essays, sermons, articles, blogposts and everyday conversation. Lately, I’ve even started [...]
An Extraordinary Goodbye
This afternoon we attended an extraordinarily moving memorial service for Alan Dick, the late Lower School Principal of the Canadian International School, here in Hong Kong. Fitting tributes were paid to Alan’s exceptional good humour, love of teaching, passion for life, commitment to his faith and dedication to the school that, in a very real [...]
On Leaning To Say No
There are five or six aspects of life where I find myself constantly lacking in grace, confidence and poise. Saying no is one of them. I never seem to manage it in the cool and constructive way I’ve seen some friends and mentors do it. Usually I fumble about with lame excuses and often feel [...]
Looking For Mies
Looking for Mies is a production by Zuni Icosahedron staged as part of the Architecture Is Art Festival, here in Hong Kong. I had the opportunity to attend this afternoon’s matinee performance and I’ve very glad I did. Mies Van De Rohe is a towering figure in contemporary architecture and whilst most of us are [...]
Are You Ready For Your Treatment?
If you haven’t caught it already, Dollhouse is an excellent new(ish) TV show from Joss Whedon (Buffy/Angel, Firefly/Serenity, Dr Horrible’s sing-along-blog). I like the show for a lot of reasons, not least the great cast (including Eliza Dushku and Harry Lennix). But, there’s one line that always catches my attention, “Are you ready for your [...]
Tommy Emmanuel At Berklee
Tommy Emmanuel recently gave a Master Class at Berklee College of Music, in Boston. If you are a guitarist, then I can’t think of a better way to start your week than checking out these videos. There’s a few on youtube – I’ve just picked out three. Evolution as a guitarist Here Tommy talks about [...]
Drawing A Line In The Sand
Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who won her country’s version of the national “Got Talent” television contest. She creates an animation, in real-time, using a backlit sandbox, to depict her nations struggle during the Second World War. Like a lot of people, I’ve mesmerised by her work and performance. If you haven’t already seen [...]
Why Have Church Ministers And Where Do We Put Them
There’s a great discussion on Matt Stone’s recent post, Has Theology Become Too Introspective? In a way I’m as guilty as anyone of being part of the problem – most of my theological blogging is deeply introspective, or as I like to call it, biographical. I don’t really see that as a problem, rather, I [...]
This Week
With the BerkleeMusic Chords 201 course finished (excellent stuff!), I have a week to focus solely on my own work and projects. I’m currently trialling Adobe Lightroom, which seems to have quite a few features that are not available in Apple’s Aperture. There’s a blogpost around the corner comparing the two programmes. It won’t be [...]
When Positive Parenting Can be Negative
A while back, I posted some comments on parenting styles, after hearing Lousie Porter speak. I was hoping to hear her again this week, but schedule changes brought on my the latest Typhoon, scuppered those plans. So, it was interesting to read Alfie Kohn’s New York Times piece, When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means [...]
The Big Battalions
The Big Battalions was one of the most compelling things I’ve ever seen on television. It was screened in Australia and I remember taping the whole thing and re-watching it a few times. Over the years I’ve been amazed at how few people had seen the series and wondered why it hasn’t been re-screened, or [...]
Being Honest About Disorganisation, Confusion And Success
I’m currently on my fourth read through David Allen’s book, Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life. On each occasion, I have found the following quote profoundly challenging and unnerving. “Keeping uncaptured, unclarified, and unprocessed things in our minds creates unnecessary stress. But if we leave them there, we can allow ourselves [...]
Jazz As An Act Of Biographical Mourning
Long-suffering readers of this blog will know that a few years back I was close to releasing my debut solo album. Then I chickened out. Well, actually that is a little harsh. I took a critical listen to what I was doing and decided that it simply wasn’t good enough. Having spent some time recently [...]
Parenting Technologies
OK, we’ve been struggling with the internet for eight year olds. Don’t really have a lot of answers there. The challenge is not so much the whole “internet nasty” thing, rather, social networking for kids. So many websites aimed at this age have a social networking component and that’s, well, creepy. I don’t say that [...]
The Sporting Investment
I enjoy travelling back to Australia to visit family. The contrast between the open spaces and fresh air down-under and the provided with the cramped, polluted environment of Hong Kong, is invigorating. But, I find the popular culture and especially the advertising and television in Australia always hits me with a kind of reverse culture [...]
Fernando Gros is a musician, photographer & writer based in Singapore. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London, Delhi and Hong Kong.