New lyric

1. Sovereign Lord who made the earth

and rules in every nation,

grant that we have eyes to see

the breadth of your salvation.

To every soul in every place,

the nearest and the farthest,

let us speak your word of grace.

The fields are ripe for harvest!

2. Sovereign Lord, your word is true

and you alone will triumph.

So we stand, our strength in you

and face our fears, defiant.

No enemy can thwart your plans

the threats of men are empty

Your word is life for every man

It’s light and hope and mercy.

3. Give us hearts that yearn for you

And wonder at your glory

Let our lips delight to speak

and tell salvation’s story

The fields are ripe, so let us go

The days are quickly passing

We reap the harvest, take it home

to you in joy unending.

sar 2014

What's your strongest instinct?

My mother in law (who, unlike me, has significant training and expertise in things psychological) appreciates the Enneagram personality tool. So I thought I'd check it out. First up, you do a test and are indentified as type 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9. All good. But after that, you do another test and find out your 'Instinctual variant'. (I find this more interesting then the first part.) I could tell you about the different instincts, but it's probably best that you do the test first, and read about it later.

Do this instinct test here and then read on. It will only take a couple of minutes.

Okay. So you've done the test? Got your results? Good. Now you can read about it. All of this next section I lifted from this site here. 

Enneagram Instinctual Variants 

In addition to the Enneagram type, people are also considered to be one of three instinctual variants (also called subtypes). The self-preservation instinct (dealing with oneself), the sexual (dealing with another person) and the social instinct (dealing with a group) can be most pronounced.
We strongly identify with one primary drive and with some secondary traits in another drive. On the occasion when two of the instinctual drives are equally dominant, it is noteworthy that the third drive is usually omitted. This perhaps still demonstrates the imbalanced use of the three very essential instinctual drives. The teaching of Instinctual Subtypes suggests that these fundamental instinctual drives need to be equally cared for and in balance in order to harness the energy needed to move toward transformation. The concept is that the energy expended in dealing with the instinctual drives' imbalance diminishes one's access to the energy necessary to move against fixation and toward transformation.

Self Preservation (SP) InstinctPeople who have this as their dominant instinct are preoccupied with the safety, comfort, health, energy, and well-being of the physical body. In a word, they are concerned with having enough resources to meet life's demands. Identification with the body is a fundamental focus for all humans, and we need our body to function well in order to be alive and active in the world. Most people in contemporary cultures are not faced life or death "survival" in the strictest sense; thus, Self-Preservation types tend to be concerned with food, money, housing, medical matters, and physical comfort. Moreover, those primarily focused on self-preservation, by extension, are usually interested in maintaining these resources for others as well. Their focus of attention naturally goes towards things related to these areas such as clothes, temperature, shopping, decorating, and the like, particularly if they are not satisfied in these areas or have a feeling of deficiency due to their childhoods. Self-Pres types tend to be more grounded, practical, serious, and introverted than the other two instinctual types. They might have active social lives and a satisfying intimate relationship, but if they feel that their self-preservation needs are not being met, still tend not to be happy or at ease. In their primary relationships, these people are "nesters"—they seek domestic tranquility and security with a stable, reliable partner.

Sexual (aka "Attraction") (SX) InstinctMany people originally identify themselves as this type because they have learned that the Sexual types are interested in "one-on-one relationships." But all three instinctual types are interested in one-on-one relationships for different reasons, so this does not distinguish them. The key element in Sexual types is an intense drive for intimacy and a constant awareness of the "chemistry" between themselves and others. Sexual types are immediately aware of the attraction, or lack thereof, between themselves and other people. Further, while the basis of this instinct is related to sexuality, it is not necessarily about people engaging in the sexual act. There are many people that we are excited to be around for reasons of personal chemistry that we have no intention of "getting involved with." Nonetheless, we might be aware that we feel stimulated in certain people's company and less so in others. The sexual type is constantly moving toward that sense of intense stimulation and intimacy in their relationships and in their activities. They are the most "energized" of the three instinctual types, and tend to be more aggressive, competitive, charged, and emotionally intense than the Self-Pres or Social types. Sexual types need to have deep intimacy in their primary relationships or else they remain unsatisfied. They enjoy being intensely involved—even merged—with others, and can become disenchanted with partners who are unable to meet their need for intense energetic union. Losing yourself in a "fusion" of being is the ideal here, and Sexual types are always looking for this state with others and with stimulating objects in their world.

Social (aka "Adaptive") (SO) InstinctJust as many people tend to misidentify themselves as Sexual types because they want one-on-one relationships, many people fail to recognize themselves as Social types because they get the (false) idea that this means always being involved in groups, meetings, and parties. If Self-Preservation types are interested in adjusting the environment to make themselves more secure and comfortable, Social types adapt themselves to serve the needs of the social situation they find themselves in. Thus, Social types are highly aware of other people, whether they are in intimate situations or in groups. They are also aware of how their actions and attitudes are affecting those around them. Moreover, Sexual types seek intimacy, Social types seek personal connection: they want to stay in long-term contact with people and to be involved in their world. Social types are the most concerned with doing things that will have some impact on their community, or even broader domains. They tend to be warmer, more open, engaging, and socially responsible than the other two types. In their primary relationships, they seek partners with whom they can share social activities, wanting their intimates to get involved in projects and events with them. Paradoxically, they actually tend to avoid long periods of exclusive intimacy and quiet solitude, seeing both as potentially limiting. Social types lose their sense of identity and meaning when they are not involved with others in activities that transcend their individual interests.

Then the next step is to think about how your top two instincts work together. Look for a brief description on this site.


Then leave a comment. Tell me - was it a good reflection of what you're like?

Before and after

The brick feature of our living area.

I tried to describe it in the post below. Maybe this will help.

Getting my blogger on.

Well after a break of 5 weeks I'm back to the ol' blog.

Since I last wrote we've:

1. Moved house. We didn't move far - still in Cairns, of course. We're in a suburb called Mooroobool which has 3 sets of double O's. The house is okay. Bigger than what we had, but a little odd in spots. Here's the floor plan for the living area. (I did it for the real estate agent to show where we want picture hooks.)

You might notice a something I've labelled 'funny brick thing'. It is a gigantic, bricked in indoor garden facility. Think permanent, huge planter box. I could have a small rainforest growing in the middle of our living area if I wanted to. But I don't. The bricks come up about as high as a chair seat and there's 2.6 meters of them on the flat side. Then it curves around to make a cut out semi-circle planter box in the front room. In the past, people have clearly regretted the presence of this monstrosity, but haven't had the courage to take to it with a brick hammer. Instead they've made a permanent room divider wall thing stick out of the straight side, but truthfully, the wall looks as odd as the planter box. It doesn't reach all the way to the ceiling and sort of looks like an old fashioned overhead projector screen. I'm hoping it will look less weird with a nice picture hung on it - that's if the owners let us stick up picture hooks. Here's hoping. I'm trying to turn the planter box into a feature daybed thing. Cushions etc. I have hopes that I can make something of it. At the moment the curved part is holding musical instruments.

Overall the house should work okay. There's lots of space, 4 bedrooms plus study, front music/lounge room, wide hallways, big living/dining, brand new kitchen with so much bench space I don't know where to cook dinner... Here's (half of) our pool. We're trying to work out if there's a way to keep the mud and branches out when it rains.

Thankful that we're in. Needing to get the final things sorted before work starts again in a week.

2. Driven about 5000kms. It was a lot. We listened to Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, some sermons, quite a bit of bible and lots of music. Love the fuel economy of our new diesel car. 1000km per tank!

3. Seen lots of friends. This was excellent. Particularly encouraging to go back to our old church.

4. Seen my brother and sister in law. They live in Paris and have just bought a little dog. His name is I'Marvin. The 'I' is silent. The french have rules for naming pets and any dogs born last year need to have a name beginning with 'I'.

5. Ordered a new little dog. We looked after Andrew's brother's family's dog for 6 months last year (Daphne) and I so enjoyed having two dogs we are replacing her with a new pup. We are getting a cavachon - Cavalier x Bishon Frise. She was born 30/12/2013 and we'll get her at the end of February. Here she is at about 6 days old:

Haven't decided on a name yet. At this stage four out of five of us refer to her as the Tricksy Pups.

6. Thought some more about my myers briggs personality type and preaching thing. More to come in the next couple of days.