Freedom,oh freedom

A recent commentator to this weblog says: "Nice blog. Probably I am prejudiced, but many of your opinions seem totally out of place, coming from a priest."
I feel quite proud!
I replied " You say many of my comments seem out of place for a priest...I guess that is dependent on what you think a priest ought to be. It seems to me that it is important for a priest to give witness to the truth, and that I try to do.
Probably not very well.
Too often priests (and other holy people) have fallen back on the privilege to withdraw from contentious issues...as a Christian this is not something that I observe Jesus doing.
So I try to follow him.
St Paul says ...it is for freedom that we have been set free...I take this to heart and think that I should be trying to set people free and also to live a free life myself."
If I was clever enough to design my coat of arms then that is what would be on it...it is for freedom that we have been set free.
It just seems to me to touch almost every aspect of our lives.Whether it is about liberating people from actual captivity, or struggling to not manipulate family and friends in personal
relationship we find this rather hard.
One of my problems as a priest is to try and allow people to decide for themselves and for them to not simply decide: "I will let you decide for me".
An organisational dilemma is that in trying to stand back to let people exercise their freedom....all too many other eager beavers, often out of impatience, and even well-meaning kindness are ready to rush in and decide for others.
It always seems to me a mistake except perhaps to avoid extreme danger.
So we live in communities of people who try to never make a decision.
They are thus vulnerable to the powerful and the unscrupulous.
It is a hard struggle but we need to commit ourselves to it!

Skilled Chaplain

It was a great delight to attend the commissioning today of my friend Peter Williams as the chaplain at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Over the last few years he has had a number of different trials to deal with.
But today he was acknowledged as a skilled and gifted chaplain, perhaps by some who have actually questioned this in recent times. He is in my estimation an exceptional supervisior and clinical educator. His role as a key leader in Clinical Pastoral Education must not go unrecognised. Many, myself included, would give testimony to his perception and wit. One of the themes of the service was learning from suffering. There is much that could be made of this, but I think Peter is a master at this. He also seems to me to have been a victim of unneceessary suffering inflicted by others, but that is a story of another day. From one troublesome priest to another...well done Peter.

The answer

from Tennyson: "In Memoriam AHH"...you remember Year 10 English...or Intermediate as it was in those days.

Man...
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law --
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

More on "Intelligent Design"

It is worth printing this article from the English "Church Times" The article is called "Nature, red in tooth and claw"...without Googling what is the origin of the quotation?
The author, Giles Fraser, is Rector of Putney in the Diocese of London.

Does the existence of the Christian Right in the US constitute a disproof of the theory of intelligent design? The conservatives' latest fad is a film about penguins; and, just as they did with The Passion of the Christ, they have been bussing the faithful to the cinema.

The March of the Penguins has now become the second-highest-grossing documentary of all time, behind Fahrenheit 9/11 . It tells how a group of penguins trek across the ice to mate, and then huddle together to protect their eggs in freezing temperatures. Christian conservatives love it because, apparently, these penguins demonstrate the inherent naturalness of Christian family values.

Out of curiosity and mischievousness, I did a web search for "penguins" and "homosexuality", and chanced upon several versions of this story: "A German zoo's plans to tempt its gay penguins to go straight by importing more females has been declared a failure. The female penguins were flown in especially from Sweden in an effort to encourage the Humboldt penguins at the Bremerhaven Zoo to reproduce. But the six homosexual penguins showed no interest in their new female companions and remained faithful to each other. Zoo Director Heike Kueck said: 'The relationships were apparently too strong.'"

The existence of gay penguins - it would seem, in permanent, faithful, and stable relationships - throws into question the ways in which conservative Christians throw out terms such as natural and unnatural. "Natural" is a slippery word. Often it functions as some sort of divine kite-mark, offering a moral nihil obstat from the creator. Even atheists use natural as a mark of moral approval.

But I don't get it. Is cancer natural? Is the way the cat cruelly plays with the dying bird natural? Was Hurricane Katrina natural? Likewise, to call something unnatural indicates profound disapproval. But why? Is democracy natural, or a piece of Mozart, or most of the drugs that save lives every day?

What is topsy-turvy about the commitment of conservatives to Pingu's family values is that, while they bang on about natural and unnatural relationships, they consistently ignore the real threat to the natural: global warming.

Furthermore, though they prefer intelligent design to evolution, when it comes to politics, they are Darwinian, red in tooth and claw. In the light of the inequalities exposed in New Orleans, it is perplexing that conservative Christians don't seem to appreciate that it is the politicians they voted for who really subscribe to an ideology of the survival of the fittest.

Which saint are you

You are Joan of Arc! You don't really want to hurt
anyone, but if they attack your friends or your
country and no-one else will stand up to fight
them, you head into the battle. Beware though,
conviction tends to get you killed.


Which Saint Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Misunderstanding

Tonight we will see on Australian Story the account of rugby star, Ian Roberts, involvement (but not sexual involvement) with a young man of 15 who was murdered. All the more extraordinary because of Roberts' controversial admission (now over a decade ago) of his own gay sexuality.
Roberts will tell of how difficult it is in our liberal society to be honest about these issues, and how he himself...though never a suspect...fled his responsibility to try and shed light on this whole sorry mess.
I don't think Roberts is to be blamed, but I long for a time when a homosexual person will not automatically be assumed to be a child molester. Evidence throughout the world shows that by a factor of at least 5 to 1 paedophiles offend against girls. We do not automatically assume that because a person is heterosexual therefore they are likely to be a child molester....perhaps we should
I don't think I am alone in longing for a time when gay people (yes! they are people too) will be free from guilt by association.
It seems to me that the problem about paedophilia in our society is not essentially about sexuality at all. It is about gender though! The issue is not how can we stop a person of particular sexuality acting a certain way...the issue is what can we do about a culture that has allowed men to get away with this sort of behaviour.
How have we allowed men to violate our children.
Well done the brave Ian Roberts. But there are those who will not see beyond his forthright and honest admissions of years ago, shame on them.

generosity(ii)

So what is generosity...
some reflections might include:

• generosity is not handout. Foreign Aid for example is not generous if it all it does is throw good money after bad. It needs to create an environment which can begin to generate its own support. In seeing this as a goal we should be generous, even if for the most selfish reasons, because enabling people to reestablish self-sufficiency is to everyone's advantage. It needs to not just make the giver feel good but truly benefit the one who receives the gift.
• generosity is not so much an economic stance, nor is it a state of mind but rather a disposition of the heart. Or am I just an incurable romantic.
• generosity is not entirely pragmatic and will confront the giver to do more than is prudent.
• BUT how can one be generous to those whose lives have been shattered by abuse. There is not necessarily connection between financial generosity and what is needed to fully address the needs of people who have been abused
• This should not be an excuse to not be overwhelmingly generous, but rather a challenge to recognise that generosity is multi-faceted.

It is not easy...so I wish Bishop Jeff and the Diocesan Council well.

generosity

A correspondent wrote to me yesterday to ssay that our soon to be installed Bishop would be meeting with the Diocesan Council this weekend to decide how much "generous" is!!
This follows through on our Synod last week and various criticisms of offers that had been made to claimants on sexual abuse cases ........to be continued

Make the Pie Higher

This is a short poem made up entirely of actual quotations from George W. Bush. These have been arranged, only for aesthetic purposes, by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.
Like all Bushisms...it is deeply worrying to think that this man has a certain button under his control!

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

Evil is as evil does

It is interesting to dialogue with young people about the difficult philosophical problems which, by and large, our hedonistic world has tended to ignore...on a side issue, what we will do with a future in which our young people have not been taught to think properly...This young woman (one of the holy and blessed three who is related to me by ancestral descent) was grappling with her philosophy paper, The existence of evil proves that God does not exist or something like that.
Now I am no philosopher but it was interesting to bat it backwards and forwards. My answer really is...the existence of evil actually supports the existence of God.
Point 1: We wouldn't really call 'natural disaster' evil at all. The lack of any element of free choice renders them morally neutral.It is perhaps unfortunate that we use the emotive word "disaster". Why don't we just characterise it as one of a range of events. If we called this a "natural event", then would the question of evil come up at all in this sense.
(By the bye I must admit that the accompanying picture...the first that came up on Google when I typed in flood....is quite disturbing because it looks rather like our current car!!)
But of course the point of interest is
Point 2: The acts of evil that individuals choose to do. Why, if God exists, did he not create people to do good. The answer is, in a classic sense...or a classic Christian sense any way...God created humanity to be in relationship with him. More than that the desire was that we might love him. Now the nature of love is such that it must be the fruit of free choice. Love not given freely is not "love" at at all.
So if the choice has to have any meaning, then there must be the choice to love and the choice to not love. If there is no choice then there is no love. That it is clearly demonstrable (from experience) that some people choose to not love, or to do evil rather than good thus points to the reality of a God who is the originator of choice. The fact that some choose to do good and some choose to do evil, seems to suggest that we are not just products of evolution all moving in generally the same direction, but rather that we are free agents. Free agents because this distinctly unevolutionary characteristic is part of what God has made us to be .....being continued (perhaps by you now rather than me...what do you think?)

come and go

So we had the Synod referred to below we spent a night and a day discussing whether or not we would sell Bishop's Court and in the end we decided not to. I am left wondering what we spent all that time doing.
More important was the opportunity for the man, referred to below who called us to action on the issue of child abuse and our inaction, to address the whole synod. The dearest and finest Archdeacon of them all tried to persuade us not to, but in the end we took the risk of compromising our legal status. I am glad that we let ourselves have the tiniest bit of vulnerability, time will tell if we were foolish.
If and when I retire, or leave the church, or get another job, Synod will not be something I miss. Once it was fun and engaging, but not so any more!

Yesterday's hero

Looking as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, we saw the interview with Mark Latham on Lateline last night. Now Latham used to appear on that program on Friday nights before he was leader. A tongue-in-the-cheek stoush with Liberal wannabe Chris Pyne was always amusing watching. Latham was there because he was seen to be a hard-hitter, a strong man, someone who could land a punch. As indeed was Pyne.
Not so last night. He obviously wanted us to believe that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Clean-shaven, newly showered, open-necked shirt; were we to believe that Mark had turned over a new leaf. He was on one level restrained and even a little self-deprecating.
To my mind it doesn't quite wash.
As the interview went on he condemned person after person: principally Beazely,but also his former patron, Whitlam (a risk, as many Laborites think of him as St Gough the Wrongly Done By, who led Labor out of the wilderness and who though he is not the deity himself is nevertheless a close personal relation!), Keating...countless others (Hawke, surprsingly went by unscathed).
Even though Latham apparently took the blame for the recent election defeat he seriously qualified his responsibility by then adding...of course there were advisers, advertising committees, campaign managers etc.etc. who I never even met with.
Now forgive me but all this rather sounds like...It's all everyone else's fault, I may be a little to blame but even that is really someone else's fault....I just don't find that convincing. And I suspect no one else will.

So why did they pull the Latham interview?

I have been trying to grapple overnight with how and why Mark Latham's interview with the intrepid Mr Denton was pulled when its advance screening was planned last night. (see one version of the story here) Having been glad that it was going to screen at 8.30 I was disappointed to be told an injunction prevented it from being so.
Who, I wondered, had sought the injunction? And I have puzzled about that as I laid awake all night....but seriously.. that it turned out to be the Packer empire should have occurred to me earlier.
That it was then aired at 10 p.m. has really annoyed me, even though I am glad the injunction has been lifted.
The reason for the injunction....not potential slander, or libel, not even a paranoic Labor Party...but rather Channel 9/News Limited protecting their "exclusive rights". That the injunction was not upheld should cheer us all. Well, it should cheer those of us who think that the media should present a diverse voice and not simply a filtered one, through the filter of the powerful Packer or Murdoch or even Fairfax interests.
What ever else we think about non-commercial TV, this incident should warn us of its need in the struggle to preserve lack of bias and integrity and more than the 30 second grab!
Nasty stuff I think, more serious than we imagine.

In the midst of life

Don't think me morbid. Despite the temperate weather we have had last night we had freakishly high wind gusts, and Sue told me that the ute was full of hail when she went off to work at 6 a.m.
The hail was still on the ground when I came back from the bus at 8.10 as too was the late magpie, pictured right. We have a colony of anything up to ten of them. I was reminded again, as I have been too many times in the last fortnight, how despite all our social sophistication we still have to live in harmony with our mighty environment. Alas! dear birdie the environment got the better of you.

The Clayton's Synod

The Synod of the Diocese of Adelaide meets tonight for the last time before we have a new bishop.
A few weeks ago I was suggesting it would be over in half an hour, which rather exposes our incredible dependence...or the overdependence...on bishops.
Now we are promised a good debate about the wisdom of sellng the episcopal home, which is probably straight forward but emotive.
And because of the agitation (see below) of a victim of child abuse, no small number of synod members will come prepared to agitate on that issue......who knows, too, what else might be prepared.
What does it all mean?

Abuse at the hands of the church

I was deeply disturbed at a meeting last night when a man told us about his deep dissatisfaction at the processes we have invented to try and care for people who have been abused by boys' group leaders in our church.
There are many mediating factors that could be, and have been, re and reiterated why this has been horrendous for all concerned. What stood out was one man's total helplessness to influence the processes and his absolute desperation...was this the last ditched attempt...to get anyone to listen effectively.
However we may feel about that man, (and some up the ladder will feel he is a troublemaker), we also have to question and question again whether the rhetoric that we spout about putting victims of abuse first is anything more than rhetoric.
In the Anglican Church we are supremely good at rationalising...absolutely anything....we must keep saying over and over again...it is the needs of those who have been abused that we must put first.
No matter how difficult they are, (their "difficulty" probably has some disturbing roots) every single one of them deserves our attention.

Incomprehensible logic

The news that Jakarta embassy bomber 30-year-old Iwan Darmawan Mutho, alias Rois, is sentenced to death by firing squad has obviously "delighted" Foreign Minister Downer. He suggests that it will act as a deterrent to other suicide bombers. "Mr Downer says Rois's conviction will deter others from carrying out similar terrorist activities" reports the ABC.
Now I can see the hole in the logic!
What is perhaps more disturbing is how easily we can be delighted by the death penalty. Even though this absurd argument, that those who would give their lives in armed struggle are likely to be deterred by the death penalty, rather exposes the specious nature of the deterrent factor logic , it nevertheless reminds us of how easily seduced even the best of us might be by its simplistic logic.
We should never assume that the struggle against the death penalty is over.

Unbelievable

You never fully understand some things until you do it yourself. Having just taken an elderly man who has just come out of hospital to get some shopping, I am staggered once again about how difficult it is for someone who has n0t fully got their wits about them to engage with the routine of going about the daily business.

• I smiled in relief when he told me his car battery was flat. While it will no doubt be a loss of independence, it will protect him and others on the road.
• Time and time again supermarket shelf stackers left their trolley in the middle of the aisle, making it difficult for anyone with a walking frame to get passed. More often than not cartons of goods were strewn off the trolley further blocking the aisle. The possibility of a person with low vision actually realising an obstacle was there was almost negligible.
• The busy and the hurried are impatient of the slow and tiring . I count myself amongst this group. Towards the end of a shopping trip which would have taken me about 30 mins, but which took well over an hour...I was resorting to "Just wait here then you won't have to walk all the way down there to get a can of pineapple". Patronising but efficient. But the worst example was a man who ducked and weaved to avoid my shopping trolley, but then almost toppled my friend and his frame. An audible tutting was noticeable. Thank goodness my friend is quite deaf.
• Most shop assistants were good at dealing with the man who couldn't distinguish between the $10 & $100 note...but then I was checking like an hawk that he was getting the right change. How much would the $100 or so of groceries cost him if I hadn't been there.

I tell myself that it would be good for me to go shopping like this every week...in the end we were both chuckling about our little adventure...but I know that I will be glad when one or two of our parish family takes over this responsibility.

For those who care

It is quite true that I have lost the rhythm of posting regularly. But I want to assure you, dear reader, that I am trying to regain it!!

Open House

This afternoon there is "Open House"and everyone is there having a good look. I will post a few more pictures over the next few days. They've done well, and seriously upgraded the house. Its prominence on a major road will alsobe a good advert for the builder.
A number of internal features...a wood burning stove, and original fireplaces have been retained. A sensible idea, what is the point of modernising a period house if it is just going to look like every other box.

Die Zauberflöte

Just to note, as one should, that the Elder School of Music proved yet again what a wonderful future we have with young singers and musicians in their production of The Magic Flute.
An innnovative and very professional production which you just might catch if you get to Scott Theatre very early tonight (Saturday).
Pleasing to see also the ever-watchful hand of a former (Modbury) parishioner, Peter Riley, in the technical area supervising the work of the students of the Centre for Performing Arts

What did Donald say?

The phrase the "Lucky Country" coined by the likeable and even reluctant academic in his book of the same name in 1964 is indeed one of the most coined phrases and also our most misunderstood.
Horne, who died yesterday, was making a plea that Australians get their act together. That we had for too long relied on our "luck"to see us through. He saw, what we ourselves may never have fully appreciated, that you have to do more than rely on luck.
This lesson still needs some learning. We still scrimp and cut corners on future investment. Though we can glibly say that children and youth are our greatest resource, why are our the education systems starved of money.
It may be an economic rationalist strategy but it is hardly good future planning.
With an eye for future welfare we should be pouring resources into all sectors of education not starving them. In 2020 it would be great for the world to think of Australia as "The Clever Country" knowing that we are the best educated and the most prepared to meet the challenges of science and technology.
Instead we continue to promote dumb luck. What else is this posturing to ensure that we have convinced ourselves that it is morally acceptable to put our eggs in the bubbling basket of nuclear energy. Conveniently advantaging the "good luck"we have of possessing 40% of the world's uranium resources.
The Clever Country would be responding to the challenge of how we escape from the slavery to luck that is uranium and the inevitable disaster it will reek upon the world.
In 2020 it would be great for the world to thinkof Australia as "The Energy Country"and see that we have really developed wind and solar technology, that advances with the hydrogen and battery celled cars have really made a difference.
But, have we heard Horne's plea? It doesn't seem like it.We are indeed a lucky country but it is no way to plan for the future.

Glorious Day

I know it's fully hard to grasp it unless youré there. But yet another image of a whale. Taken on 7th September. This actually appears to have been a mother and two calves lying in the glorious shallows off Boomer Beach. The people who recently rented our house would have had a million....if not a two milion....... dollar view from their new upstairs living space.
I guess, Gill, if you are reading this too...it might just make you a little homesick!

Literacy

The ongoing debate about literacy drags its weary head above the depths again. I am not convinced there is a huge problem...but that is another issue.
And I shall no doubt come back to it as it is something of an hobby horse.
Amidst all that, in this month's edition of "The Monthly" Gideon Haigh, in his article "Beach Boy", writes a personal appreciation of Shane Warne on the eve of Warne's final, nerve-jangling Test match in England. [what a gem]

"When Warne arrived he asked what book I was perusing. I explained that it was an account of the hurricane that destroyed Galveston. Warne nodded. 'I read this book once,' he said. 'It was about UFOs.'"

At least he knows how to text...does that count as literacy?

The chain of God

I noticed that our 12 year old received this chain letter just the other day:

DO THIS FOR ME
(I need this back. If you'll do this for me, I'll do it
for you) When there is nothing left but God, that is when you find
out that God is all you need. Take 60 seconds and give this a
shot! All you do is simply say the following small prayer for the person
who sent you this.
Father, God bless all my friends in whatever it is that
You know they may be needing this day! And may their life be full of
your peace, prosperity and power as he/she seeks to have a closer
relationship with you. Amen.

Then send it on to five other people, including the one
who sent it to you. Within hours five people have prayed for you,
and you caused a multitude of people to pray for other people.
Then sit back and watch the power of God work in your life

It's a tricky one isn't it? On one level you want to encourage prayer...but what is this all about. I think the biggest problem that I have with this sort of thing is that it seems to suggest a sort of spirituality which says nothing about personal change. Is it, indeed, seduced by the consumerist's view of just about everything...that if you have more then it must be better....On the other hand I quite like the idea of taking one of the world's stupidities-chain letters- and trying to sanctify it.
God knows what a mess we make of this sort of stuff...thanks goodness that he is probably not terribly worried just so long as we do it.

A perfect morning

Too good a morning to resist a shot. Cold but golden.

Extraordinary resilience

No the titleof this post does not refer to the people of New Orleans, but rather to the blessed Sophie Clark who with her sister Kate in tow went to the show today. I felt quite safe letting them go, after all the Bureau of Meteorology had said there would be 'clearing showers'...if you look at their site (here) it says:

"Rain periods, easing to a shower or two chiefly
about the hills overnight. Cool with light to moderate southeast to east winds"

Well it appears to have rained...and that's putting it politely....all day. Still, when I rang daughter no. 3 who is now off to the football with mother and wife no.1(thank goodness I am qualified to be a bishop..and that's to say the lesbyter or least).
She said...the daughter of wisdom that is...."It's great"..Are you wet, I asked...She just ignored the question. No, ignored is the wrong word...it did not even register. What it is to be a child at the show!
I, a few years ago, was persuaded to go on the 'Mad Mouse'. I should have known better when the assistant said...."Sir, you should remove your glasses!" By then it was too late. And when did I become "Sir!"?
I understood more about the Show from that time onwards. And I have always felt brave enough to never again go on a ride that would fill me with regret.
Any way Sophie, the daughter of wisdom, just rang from outside Football Park to day "Daddy I want to come home!!!".....what it is on the even of Father's Day to know that you are 'Daddy'.
Tired out I had to assure her that the future of the Adelaide Crows depends entirely on her. She sits in her Aunt's car desperately hoping this wonderful day will end in sleep again.
Ahhhhh! remember Braystones and holidays of one's youth......but that's another story

The descent of humanity

What does the devastation of New Orleans and the "descent into anarchy" mean? How could a city much the size of Adelaide be blitzed by natural disaster and then find itself held to ransom by marauding gangs of gun-toting thugs? It would be easy to moralise and lots of commentators are suggesting "there but for the grace of God go I". See Rex Jory's curious comment here. Inevitably, he suggests, Adelaide will face its own hurricano. While he makes some tentative points about the new Port Adelaide developments proximity to sea and the inadequacy of the Pat's drainage. He rather misses the point.
Of course he reminds us of the 1954 earthquake, and there is no doubt that a similar event would have devastating effect in a much more populated city. He doesn't mention the great fires of the last thirty years, or the great flood of 1956 which has deeply affected every person who lived in the riverland at the time.
We do not need to wait for our own Katerina; we have already, and regularly continue to have the same.
But one thing we don't have, and that is a myriad of gunshops for looters to arm themselves with.
May we ever bear that in mind.

A new era?

We met tonight to discuss selling Bishop’s Court ( the house in which all the Adelaide Bishop’s have lived since the See was created in the mid 19^th Century). The house is something of a liability given its age and its unsatisfactory nature for the modern Bishop. Lots more could be said!

What did happen tonight was that one quiet lady got up and said that we needed to know how much the house would bring and how much it would cost to house our new bishop. No, no the senior legal beagle remonstrated, the synod doesn’t need to know the details…just vote in principle and then trust us to work it all out.

Very patronising stuff!

Thank goodness that person after person got up and supported the original speaker.

Hopefully we might be getting to the end of this patronising behaviour by these diocesan leaders!!…….but somehow

Surreal

Just a breeze through the ABC's Just in News headlines today (link here but it will be out of date after 2 p.,m. Thursday 1/9/05) makes you wonder just how crazy the world is in which we live.
It is the juxtaposition of the ordinary, the deadly serious and the bizarre that gives the effect.
I will leave you to rate the headlines appropriately below:

• Robot watchdog keeps overeaters on tight leash

• Recovery from hurricane will take years: Bush

• PNG not proud of police rapes, beatings: minister

• Tomato fight draws 40,000 to south-eastern Spain

• PM can retire when he wants: Downer

• Baghdad stampede leaves hundreds dead

• Pope tells Catholics to multiply