Reflections

On asking the wrong questions

by Anna Blanch on March 11, 2013

“Thinking itself is a spiritual activity” – Abraham Kuyper If you’re around little children, especially those around 3 or 4, then you’d be pretty used to the questions: why? what’s that? So what happens to us? At what point do we become rubbish at asking questions. Does being told ‘because’ finally strangle the curiosity? When [...]

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I am (still) not a feminist

by Anna Blanch on March 8, 2013

In honour of International Women’s Day, 2013. I am (still) not a feminist,  but I am a Christian who believes that our world needs a serious shake up. I am still not a feminist, but I’ll defend your right to be one and to call yourself one. We still need to raise awareness through discussions [...]

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(un)comfortable masks

by Anna Blanch on March 4, 2013

Much has changed in my writing since I first responded to Joy’s call to write Life: Unmasked. And for all the naked theology, I still find my resolve waning and egoist as it is, my own sense of vulnerability threatens to overwhelm. I often wondered how much trust was involved in the relationships of bloggers [...]

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You are not special

by Anna Blanch on February 28, 2013

Working with ‘the public’ for the last four or five months, one pervasive attitude has struck me as being detrimental to our communities growing and thriving. It’s something that I don’t see the church as being immune from either  and some of the people I’ve come across in the ‘public sphere’ who have made it [...]

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I am a writer

by Anna Blanch on February 20, 2013

Hi, my name is Anna Blanch and I am a writer. Jeff Goins states my hope for my writing clearly: “We have an opportunity. To write words that matter, to change lives with language.” (6) So here goes nothing, I’m now a writer with two part time jobs to pay the bills. With the part-time [...]

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One Word for 2013

by Anna Blanch on January 3, 2013

One word. It’s  a tough ask on one level. How do you encaspulate your hopes and dreams for the year ahead in a single word? At first I hesitated because it seems limiting, but just like I see value in dreaming about the year ahead and laying out some priorities and projects i’d like to [...]

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2012 in review: best posts of the year

by Anna Blanch on December 28, 2012

In thinking about quality over quantity I’ve come to see that I’ve probably been crowding out my better writing with some junk. So here are what I consider to be my 20 strongest posts of the year. Some of these may be new to you, if so, let me know what you think – comments [...]

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2012 in Review: by the Numbers

by Anna Blanch on December 28, 2012

I’ve been doing my own version of an annual review this week. I had found the Getting Things Done model for annual review helpful, but felt like it needed some more impetus to allow me to be creative. With some additional tweaks and a little help from reading all of Chris Guillebeau’s archival material on annual [...]

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I’ve been there: why most of us are just like Jill Meagher

September 28, 2012

I’ve been there. It’s only 5 (10, 15) minutes walk home. I know the way. I’ve walked it before this late. “I know how to defend myself.” I say this to convince them and myself; with false bravado. Yet, I hold my keys threaded through my fingers, held in a loose fist the whole way [...]

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Control

September 26, 2012

Control. Sometimes it is what we grasp for, in the smallest of things when we don’t feel like we have it over anything large. I used to let the way a housemate washed a dish, or what my mother did or did not say right in comforting me, or errant books or shoes in living [...]

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