Andrew Prior

Minister of the Word in The Uniting Church in Australia,
degrees in Agriculture and Theology...
worked in Aboriginal communities, on farms, in UCA congregations and in Information Technology
rides bikes, writes....

... or as the byline on my FaceBook page says....
 an old bloke on a bike, trying to figure out what it all means...

I earn some money as a minister, some in Information Technology, 

but spend as much time as I can at One Man's Web
if I'm not riding a bike. 
I spend my time thinking about what it means to be human,
wondering what we mean by "the good life"
and why we are here.
What does it mean to be alive?
That's my job. 

Why all this?

In our society in Australia we have some confusion between who we are and what we do for a living. At meetings, and parties and down the pub, we ask, "What do you do?" It's a pragmatic and sensible question; "I'm a Gypsy Joker," versus "I'm a cop" tells us quite a lot! In some cases, as at a trade fair where it's all schmooze and networking, it's the proper question for the occasion. 

The problem is that for many of us, that's as deep as we get. There are relatively few role models for asking and answering the questions, "Who are you? Who am I?"  Often we need a long road trip, or hours around a remote camp fire before we are really comfortable with these questions.

It's not that we are disinterested,
or shallow, or uncaring,
or without needs.

But something in our society has always held us "at arm's length" from each other, and often ourselves, especially the men.

The important question in life is Who am I, not What do I do? 

A deeper, and more meaningful life depends on how we answer this question. When we know who we are or, at least, have consciously begun that journey of discovery, all our endeavours have the potential to be 
more focussed,
more satisfying,
even more profitable.

If we never seek an answer to who we are, we are missing the depths of life, pushed by unconscious desires and fears, naively paddling in the shallows, and when the savage side of life bites us hard, out of our depth. The clearer we are about who we are, the better we will do what we do.