Returning to blogging...and to this city

Some may have noticed the lack of bloggerisation on this site. There is a good reason for that - I dont like this platform! I just started writing a large blog (about the first one ever...) and then I lost it all when Explorer went belly-up! And that's the second time that has happened to me (back in December last year - same thing). Grrrr...!

But I am going to try and contain this frustration (and ensure my fist does not 'make uncontrolled contact with this computer display' ... hehe). I want to use this blog for a purpose now (but I will have to hit Save a bit more now!).

For some time now I've been wanting to express my thoughts on a number of 'societal' issues (read "Kingdom issues"!). I believe God has placed a number of things in my heart with regards to Government, Community & Economic Development, transport infrastructure, business, defence, the role of The Church - and how all these apply to the Kingdom of God. I've been wanting to express my vision publically for some time now, and I feel this portal (as incompetent as it is!) is the way to help get stuff off my chest.

Today I was thinking about why people leave regions like Bendigo to head to 'the big city' (such as Melbourne). Why do particularly young people disengage from cities such as this and perceive them to have little opportunities. Here are some thoughts...

We all seem to have an innate desire to be apart of something bigger than ourselves. And I think we also have a desire to sometimes get lost in it! I believe its a human longing God placed in people so they would desire Him and His Majestic Kingdom (perhaps a tangent for another blog another time!).

Here's an example: I remember as a kid going to Melbourne airport, and perceiving the place as been soooooooo HUGE!!! I loved it and was totally excited by been there – I wanted to explore, and thought I could be there for days on end looking around. However, having been there this week, its now more of a headache trying to wheel bags into the terminal and making sure I both check in and get to the gate on-time. The excitement has been lost because I’m now very familiar with it all.

I suspect the nature of large cities (eg, over 1 million people) give young people a perceived opportunity to reignite that passion to explore– been lost in the large city crowd can be an exciting adventure to discover news things. I think this is one reason why many young adults have a keen desire to travel.

The idea of seeing ‘big cities’ having more opportunities that ‘regional areas’ (I will explain these differences in a later blog) is probably just that – “seeing”, or perception. Simply seeing so many people in the one physical location (for example, Bourke St Mall in Melb) seems to trigger in people the idea that there is so many more opportunities to interact, do something new, and make a positive change in some way. More people means more resources to do things, and more experiences to be had. I think experiences is a key word – have you noticed how ‘night-life’-type music seems to trigger experiences and ideas of cities of large amounts of people? I’m listening to that type of music right now, and I’m having ‘feelings’ for been caught up in the ‘buzz of a large city’.

That all said, I would like to overlay these perceptions with some other observations.

I suspect that there are more opportunities in places like Bendigo. Although it doesn’t seem like it (due to the seemingly lack of people), there is more opportunities to impact an entire region through cities like Bendigo – something I feel I’m on the path to doing through initiatives like the Bendigo +25 – I will again describe in subsequent blogs.

There seems to be less opportunities to ‘explore’ (ie, look around physical locations, and meet interesting people) in a place like Bendigo. However, I believe that the sense of community in such a location offers the opportunity to be connected and actually checkout some very interesting places and people indeed – opportunities you wouldn’t have in a larger city. Even if the ‘smorgasbord’ isn’t there (perhaps another young-persons driver – choice), I believe that if people are engaged to discover things together, that sense of ‘nothingness’ can be overcome.

I also suspect that a setup of ‘satellite communities’ may also be a key – places like Newcastle for example. The Hunter has a population of about 600000 people, yet Newcastle (‘the capital of the Hunter’) only has about 200000. Yet there is a sense of something ‘big’ in the region because of the surrounding districts like Macquarie Lakes.

I guess in summing up – ultimately that ‘void’ in people’s hearts can only be filled with the riches of God’s Kingdom. The Word of God says that He goes from “glory to glory” – a continual newness & discovery, something I think we all are seeking.