Yesterday Merril and I were in a shopping Centre for a couple of hours.  We had lunch and then coffee with a mate.  As we were leaving, we looked out and Merril said, “it has been raining.”  It had and we had no idea it had.
What surprised though was it had really been raining.  There was water in a nearby creek that mostly show no sign of water.  When we got home the soil was such that we could seen it had flowed at our place and there were puddles in places where they form in heavy consistent rain.
I looked at the gauge and it showed we had had 20mm or so. The thing is we had not even known it was raining.  A friend who works in landscaping said he was just about finished a job when the heavens opened and he thought, “that is hard rain.”  It turned out to be hail.
The point for me was I seem to be in times of momentous events.  Such things have happened for sure throughout history, but it seems to me they are happening with more regularity.  A friend said, “do you think it is more, or we just see more because of video phones?”  My feeling is it is both.
To me it is like I am gaining momentum going down a hill.  It seems to be one thing after another right now – both good and bad.
Someone I worked with and was an everyday nice person was killed by a stolen car.  That sort of thing always happened but always happened to people I never knew.  Fires, floods, earthquakes and human made disasters in places near to home and places of affluence are becoming so regular I wonder what the leading news story will be every night.
And good things are happening with unprecedented regularity.  I was recently involved in an event where someone who choses their words carefully said, “that just doesn’t happen.”
I think for me to be in denial would be a mistake.  If what I think is happening is happening, then my next question is “why?”

I was reading something where I thought the author was waxing lyrical.  It was pretty, even if I did not agree with all of it.  Yet there was one sentence I read I thought was really good.  “The new frontier lies not beyond the planets but within each one of us.”
It is said there is nothing new under the sun.  So often what is seen to be new is the old recycled.  There is fashion that is again in vogue.  I see it for sale in the shops.  Yet 60 years ago I saw it for sale in the shops too. So often it seems that new means new to me rather than a new idea.
There seems to be an aspiration or a dream at the moment of populating other planets.  I am all for dreams and stretching beyond current limits.  Yet I do not see things currently promoted, as changing things for the better.  That is because I see our difficulties as the old made new again.  To me the frontier has always been within each of us.  Mankind could populate the furthest planet, yet the problem remains with in rather than without.
Again I am all for solving problems without, but as long as the problem remains within, the problem remains.  As Willa Cather said, “the history of every country begins in the heart of a man or woman.”
Mankind faces huge problems.  So much of history is to me the solving of one problem and the going on to the next.  The old new again.  Why I personally have a heightened concern is I believe mankind has, for the first time, the ability to wipe himself out.
To me the problem has always been personal.  Systems of government have come and gone, kingdoms have risen and fallen, and potential answers have been tried and discredited.  To me the human condition is sick and so many solutions have treated the symptoms rather than the cause.
As the Italian proverb says, “once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back into the same box.”  I can have a huge influence or a minimal one, yet, the solution for King and pawn alike lies in a change of heart rather than a change of circumstance.  The old made new again.

I would say “I can’t help it” but really I can and choose not to.  I am a statistics person.  I enjoy the slog of compiling stats from different sources and putting them in one place and then asking, “what do these statistics tell me?”
I have been doing that regarding the suburb I live in.  Namely Burpengary including Burpengary East.  At the moment there have been two ways I have accessed statistics.  One is the census. The latest online is the 2021 census so I have used information from that.
I have determined what I thought useful as opposed to other stuff.  For example, I have not noted the average number of cars per house.  Interesting but not useful for me.  I just know there are a lot of cars at a house up the road.  We only have one, having gotten rid of our other.
The other way I have gotten information is using AI.  I am finding that source incredibly useful.  For example, I asked AI how many and what type of businesses are in Burpengary.  I have a list of the category of businesses and the numbers.  Under Trades & Construction there are Electricians, Plumbers, Builders & Contractors, Concrete Contractors and Excavation Services.  My list only has like “5+ or 3+” but depending how I word the question I can get a list of where each service is.  To me information like that can be very useful in getting say a local plumber or someone’s service I was unaware of, that is local.
For all the negativity I have heard about AI I feel it can be very useful when used the right way.  I understand that so much depends on the gatekeeper and one AI producer will not say anything about what it does not want you to research. To me that is just another example of being encouraged to think in a way the powers that be want me to think.
I am in the early stage of researching local statistics. The Census tells me the median age in Burpengary is 35 and there are around 23,100 people who call Burpengary home.  Also the highest age group is the 20-29 year olds.  They are closely followed by the 10-19 and 0-9 year olds.
That did surprise me though really it should not have.  I see a lot of older people but I think that is because the kids are at school and the 20-29 year olds are at work.
I know this sort of thing is not everyone’s cup of tea but it is mine.  It does present me with a dilemma though like “what’s it all mean?”  I have heard it said that a church should reflect the community.  We have a ways to go but are getting there.