A (re)intro - Who I am

G'day everyone, my name's Daniel. My dear wife Joanne has recently opened an Instagram account on my behalf to try to get this humble little webspace some more exposure. I thought I could do a little bit of an intro post so that you can get to know me better.  

I'm an American, born and raised in NYC. I've been living in Sydney for the last eleven years, and I have a lovely wife and two beautiful kids. 

I grew up during a distinct and particularly tumultuous period of American society, a period that saw rapid change in the way that you're supposed to wear baseball caps. I remember that it was cool for a while to keep the brim flat, and then later I heard that pre-bending the brim has made a comeback. For a while, you were supposed to keep the "New Era" sticker on the hat, and then the other day someone made fun of me because I still had the pricetag sticker on the underside of my Mets cap. Long story short, I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore, but people keep buying me hats, so to play it safe I've decided to wear it exactly as it looks like coming out of the box. 

When I first moved to Sydney, I couldn't find any of my favorite comfort foods down under. There weren't many places that offered nachos, mozza sticks, or general bar snacks. I had to ask my mom to mail me Franks Red Hot in order to make my own buffalo wings. But since then, Australia has leveled up in just about every kind of heart attack dish I crave that reminds me of home.... except NYC-style pizza. Which is why I have, since we'd gotten an oven, spent countless hours and shaved countless years off my lifespan trying to perfect my home kitchen recipe. I think I can humbly say that the best NY slice in Sydney (and probably the entire Southern half of our globe) comes from my oven. 

Since the middle of last year, I have worked as a pastor at CCC Milsons Point, a Chinese Church in one of the most beautiful suburbs of Sydney. A five minute walk gets you here:

Last year, as a little bit of a Covid project, my friend Chong and I started a podcast which we call In Good Faith. We talk about society and culture through the lens of our Christian faith "in good faith", that is to say with charity, curiosity, an open mind, and with the hope of being winsome. Sometimes we talk about current events stuff like cancel culture, and sometimes we try to engage our readers with high-concept subjects like why everyone's always angry on the Internet. By far our most engaged-with episodes to date are our spicy two-parter about Donald Trump.

I've had this blog since I was in university back in the States, although I've never been that consistent with it. But since I started my dream job as a pastor, I've realized that I have a real passion for writing. I'd like to use this space to share some of the things I've been learning in my theological studies, my job as a pastor, and I suppose my life and the world in general. 

When I was in college, I was obsessed with the Greek language. I thought it looked super cool and gave me tons of cred as a scholar. So when I started this blog, I decided to give it a pretentious Greek name. θαυμάζω (pronounced "thaumazow") means "I marvel". I think it still captures the attitude with which I aspire to approach the world. Thanks for reading!