Obsequy

Today I will officiate at the obsequies of my friend Alan who died on Christmas Day. A regular hobbit of man! Worrying in his habits and his perception of the world, yet strangely courageous and gentle; generous to a fault even to the point of foolishness.
Only Christians and romantics would find this combination attractive I think.
A sometime writer and wit, who drank and smoked too much for his own good. And who has been spared the years of suffering that modern medicine could have brought him.
His great gift to me, apart from his many kindnesses and generosities was to join me in the morning so that the prayer of the Church could be corporate, said together. He had no need, no requirement to do this...as I have as a priest.....he did it because he wanted to.
One of those men who with better opportunity for schooling and furthering his education could have been quite remarkable...because he thought well, thoroughly and carefully...and yet the spirit of the age and the demands of life, the scourge of a World War, denied many those opportunities. He would not have thought of it like that. He would have thought his life went well, he would have said...I have had quite a good life, and I've enjoyed it, I've done what I could.
Not spared the heartache of the world: drought, and rural decline, marriage breakdown, mental illness, the struggle with alcohol and lungs ravaged by tobacco...and finally a general breakdown of his health.
On Christmas Day, he sat down and died.

Toxic faith (1)

This entry is (someone elses summary) of key points in a book¹ called Toxic Faith. Below is an interesting list extracted from the summary. The premise of the book is to critique what the author calls "Toxic" faith...ie. spiritual habits and perceptions that are positively lethal to the healthy soul.
We may not agree with every insight, but there is a little challenge for us to think about during the holiday season!!

B. 21 erroneous beliefs that can fuel toxic faith (various forms and degrees of unhealthy Christianity)
1. Security and significance with God depend on my behaviour
2. When tragedy strikes, true believers should have a real peace about it
3. If you had real faith, God would heal you or the one you are praying for
4. All ministers are men and women of God and can be trusted
5. Material blessings are a sign of spiritual strength
6. The more money you give to God, the more money he will give to you
7. I can work my way to heaven
8. Problems in your life result from some particular sin
9. I must not stop meetings other's needs
10. I must always submit to authority
11. God only uses spiritual giants
12. Having true faith means waiting for God to help me and doing nothing until he does
13. If it's not in the Bible, it isn't relevant (all truth is in the Bible)
14. God will find me a perfect mate
15. Everything that happens to me is good
16. A strong faith will protect me from problems and pain
17. God hates sinners, is angry with me, and wants to punish me
18. Christ was merely a great teacher
19. God is too big to care about me
20. More than anything else, God wants me to be happy (free from pain)
21. You can become God


1. Toxic Faith. Arterburn, S. & Felton J. (Oliver-Nelson, 1991)
2. Toxic Faith: A Summary, Jackson, B. (http://www.philosophy-religion.org/criticism/toxicfaith.htm accessed 21.12.2005)

Happy Christmas

Well that's it for another year. Nice church, three very lovely services.
But tired as anything.
Have a nice day

A surprising commentator

The Virgin is pale, and she looks at the baby. What I would paint on her face is an anxious wonderment, such as has never before been seen on a human face. For Christ is her baby, flesh of her flesh, and the fruit of her womb. She has carried him for nine months, and she will give him her breast, and her milk will become the blood of God. There are moments when the temptation is so strong that she forgets that he is God. She folds him in her arms and says: My little one

from Bariona: the Son of Thunder

byJean-Paul Sartre

Some things about Christmas that we need to think about

Rafaello's Madonna of the Candelabra

December 25th. It seems unlikely that Jesus was born on December 25th. A most significant part of the story: that the shepherds were in the fields has, a sort of ring of truth about it (why else would you include it?) However one looks at Bethlehem's weather this week (see here) will show that night temperatures vary between -2 and 7 degrees Centigrade. Brrrrr! Why wouldn't they just brng the sheep in for the night? Either that or it was earlier in the year.
Born in a stable. One current theory suggests that the "stable"was not quite as outrageous as we might think, but that animals may well have been housed on a lower level of an open plan house. And this may have been quite common!!! The shepherds may already have been there in that case! And this might account for the popular artistic interpretations of animals just loafing around.
Mary and Joseph. Were they married? We have rather fixed ideas about when and how marriage takes place. But our marriage customs are relatively recent. The legal end is really about the proper allocation and transfer of property, people who didn't have much didn't need the formal contractual stuff. Families can recognise marriages much easier than the law can.
The Virgin Mary you don't have to be a genius to realise that there are powerful vested interests involved in keeping Mary a virgin. The fact that the Hebrew scriptures don't sustain the meaning "virgin" in the way we understand it but rather lean towards "young girl" as a proper translation is constantly overlooked by these interests.
Does it matter? To my mind it is of little importance. But for some everything seems to hinge on this.
Those of us who have had children know how "The Holy Spirit overshadows...." the mother when she conceives the unique child of God...I have three such unique children. It seems to have nothing to do with whether or not one is a virgin!
The Son of God. Was Jesus God's only son? This is not essentially a scientific question (ie. we are not so much interested in how "The great God of heaven" could inseminate a woman) but a faith question (what are we saying about God and humanity when we see Jesus as God's Son).....for me a person of faith it is the most exciting development in human history. It transforms life and enables us to be fully human. But it is a mysterium fidei....a mystery of faith

The truth about Christmas

For me the truth about Christmas is so profound that I am infuriated by those who want to trivialise it. Mainly the self-righteous who constantly bemoan the "commercialisation of Christmas".
There is so much good in this season that it is sad to see it reduced to nonsense.
For most of the Australian community Christmas is not a particularly "Christian" festival at all. If anything it is the feast of the family, or the celebration of the end of the year. This is not to be poo-pooed.
I say to my fellow Christians, if you lament that people don't understand what Christmas is all about you only have yourself to blame. We have lots of opportunity to articulate some of the more easily understood ideas.
God's like a baby. What ever else we think about God, Christmas tells us that God is understood when we see him as a baby. He is not Elton John, or the powerful ruler. He is like a baby.
God has strange friends and allies. The "stars" of the Christmas story are all a little odd. Mary a young girl who is quite unremarkable, who has become a cult figure...but apart from this act of motherhood she is not particularly remarkable. But then mothers are like that. Remarkable in their families. Quite remarkable. But not much known outside that sphere.
The shepherds....the wise men...a carpenter....all quite unremarkable, and not the sort of friends you would choose to win friends and influence people.
God exists in the vulnerability of our life. How tenuous his birthplace, miles away from home, in a shed in a country occupied by a foreign army. How shaky the relationship of Mary and Joseph.....he doesn't like the fact that she got pregnant before they married...who would?

This is not how we see God at all at most times.

Gay "marriage"(ii)

The trouble with the notion of gay "marriage" is that the terminology is all wrong.
From a high Christian point of view marriage is something more than the recognition of any old relationship. It is God's way of ordering society. Many wedding services say something like..."this is the way God orders society, so that children can be nurtured in safety and security."
This notion does not say that procreation & nurture is the only distinctive feature about marriage. We tie ourselves in knots if we say that this is the only purpose for marriage.

It is also a relationship of mutual edification and support. It is a God-ordained relationship in which a man gives himself completely to a woman for life so that she might be fulfilled, and a woman does likewise. Far from a relationship of domination and submissive obedience, it is mutual and voluntary submission one to another. This is hard and challenging stuff, and the high divorce rate indicates at the least that most of us find this really hard.

Christians of my tradition call this a "sacrament", a mysterious sign of God's commitment to act in our lives. People who are or have been married understand a little fo this mystery. It is, in my opinion, hard for those who have not been married to fully understand it.

My question then is that if the main business of marriage is about strengthening your partner through mutual submission and love then why can two men or two women not commit themselves in the same way? That is the question of debate at the moment.

My leaning is that Christians should do what ever they can to promote stable relationships. This for the good of society and as part of pastoral responsibility to people. It is not I think good pastoral care to say to homosexual people...get married to a person of the opposite sex. Though some, even many, have done this it doesn't solve the homosexual orientation, and can be a most destructive element in a relationship leading to secrecy, lies and deception and ultimately great unhappiness for all concerned. It doesn't have to be, but it can be.

I am inclined to believe too that most homsoexuals do not choose to be so, it is curious to make this sort of claim. As though some people are so wilfull that they would choose to ostracise themselves. Many, many homosexuals claim to have been born that way...I have no reason to doubt that claim. I am sceptical about claims of "healing" homosexuality, and I am concerned about the sort of glasses this causes us to view sexual orientation through.

Where does this leave us? I suggest with a curious view of God. If we think that some how God has created 5, 6, 7 up to 10% of the population with an orientation that is going to, in the opinion of the (self) righteous, permanently trap them in a life os sin. I know it is true of all of us,but why should God victimise that sector of society by giving them a greater than average burden of sin. Doesn't sound like the God of love to me!

Gay "Marriage"

Our Prime Minister announces in the wake of the new British laws to recognise gay civil unions that he is opposed to "gay marriage". It is a fairly meaningless sort of statement. The British laws do not regulate marraige to allow same sex couples to marry. They allow the recognition of same sex relationships and indeed the ABC notes that "Mr Howard says while he is strongly in favour of removing any discrimination that exists for same-sex couples, he does not agree with the British laws".
This seems to me to be a contradictory sort of statement...but that never stopped Johnny before. Surely not recognising gay civil unions is discriminatory.
Why, I ask, are we so coy about homosexual relationships? Howard suggests "That's (The union of a man and woman) the common understanding of marriage in the Judeo-Christian tradition and I would be opposed to the recognition of civil unions".
I would agree with him concerning the common understanding of the Christian tradition, but likewise non-marital sexual relationships such as we call "defacto" are also outside that definition. There is no suggestion that we should not recognise these unions....the political imperative is all too obvious....so if we allow recognition of one group...defacto heterosexuals, and not another....civilly recognised homosexuals....what else is that but discriminatory.
You cannot have it both ways...but despite what the gay vote counters want us to think there are no votes in gay issues.

I'll be home at Christmas----no I won't

Homesickness is a strange thing. It bears in on us at Christmas. It afflicts us as we mature, it almost seemed as though it would kill me when I first went to Uni, a hidden stress that went unnamed that was the most dominating feature of my life in the first six months of 1970.
Every now and then, and particularly at Christmas it irrationally takes me back to the town of my birth, Whitehaven in Cumbria a small town in the extreme North West of England. The picture to the left gives you a sense of it.
Why does it look odd? It looks odd as we look at the boats in the harbour on this sun-shiney day because they are not sitting right in the water. In fact it is because the harbour is frozen!!
It will be like that today in Whitehaven, (0 degrees and below) if it is not dull and rainy. Here in Adelaide it will be in the low 30's.
Yet there is a pang to be back there.
I have lived in South Australia for nearly 40 years or about three quarters of my life. Yet still it there.
It is also there because I am an orphan, and in a real sense there are no parents for me to go home to.
I do what I can to treasure the time with my wife and my children, and to juggle the tension of helping the girls to always feel that they will have a home to be sick of; and at the same time to encourage them to fly the coop.
Christmas....aaah Christmas!

Christmas tiredness

I cannot believe
just how tired I am feeling
Christmas must come soon!

Making a difference-the art of prophesying the future

I find it almost too pathetic to watch what I perceive to be the dying leadership hopes of would-be PM Peter Costello. He is obviously ratchetting up a campaign to distinguish himself from Howard and it seems rather pointless. (see here for example for a pointless story about what you should wear to a race riot). He lacks a certain energy and commitment to non-economic issues which leads us to the supicion that he is indeed a good treasurer, but will not be a good PM
My prediction will be that in 2006, and if not next year then early 2007, Howard will indeed step aside. But the transition of leadership will not be as has always been assumed, one cannot imagine the Abbott's or the Nelson's letting what may be their only opportunity go by. Nor will Mr Turnbull, who seems philosophically quite different from Treasurer Costello and the current Ccabinet, quietly acquiesce.
That is my prediction any way.
Made far enough in advance to allow me to forget it if it doesn't happen, and yet publicly enough to remind you all if it does. AAAh the art of politics.

A fair likeness

We had not been married for long when I commissioned a portrait artist to paint a picture of my wife. At the same time Margaret Thatcher had just told her official portrait artist to go back and start again. It seemed like an impertinence and typical Thatcher arrogance. However when the portrait my wife, Sue, was revealed to us I realised immediately what this is all about.
A painting, however good, is not a photograph; it is not meant to be so and should not be so.
In a way a painting should always shock some part of us, while a photograph might reassure us that we are still there.
So Rolf Harris's portrait of the Queen ,recently unveiled, has something of that struggle.
To paint a wife is one thing, to paint a Queen is quite another. It is a measure of Harris's great artistic talent that we can get a grasp of some of it. He is a quite amazing man!!

The first one

No one can ever doubt the rapture of the first tomato. I am sure some have harvested already but in our cooler mid-hills climate I seem to be close to the first.
I was quite proud, not arrogantly so I hope, to share with fellow growers at church yesterday.."There is a red-green tomato which I refrained from picking!"
Michael Leunig in poem about tomatoes writes evocatively

"Plump with summer joy… Its branches breathe perfume of promise and rapture”;
In the way that poems often do, he says something surprisingly true about the humble tomato. Or as Richard said at church, "There's something successful about tomatoes. Everyone should be able to grow them"
My dad had a couple of years where he had ripe tomatoes of his own growing every day of the year. It required a little greenhouse, and some of them were yellowy and orange rather than red. But a clever little achievement nevertheless.

We will decide

It is interesting to hear various insights on the Cronulla riots over the last few days. Without too much editorialising the following points, some profounder than others, have caught my attention.

• the crowds on Cronulla streets echo other sentiments when they say "We decide who belongs here." They are echoing a language and a sentiment that issues from the very highest halls of power.
• Government should be aware that they can validate very undesirable aspects of human nature by emotive rather than rational language. This terminology issues from the mouth of Prime Minister Howard himself with regard to the way those other outsiders "the refugees" were talked about. It now issues from the mouths of yobbos whose jingoistic attitudes are not too far from the hearts and minds of traditional Australian fears about being overtaken from outside.
  
• the obvious point is made....what does "an Australian" actually look like.... I could suggest they have brown skin and striking features with surnames like Wanganeen and Coulthard, Karpany and O'Donohue. We could equally well say they are called Carozza, Mario, Bergman, Smolicz, Hamdorf, Jones, Mc Tavish, Menzies, Inge, Ng, Tran, Van, Nguyen, Yengi, Maria, Horst, Florian and so it might go on. It is our nature to be multicultural and polyglot.
• However much some might regret the multicultural nature of our society, and I do not, our nation now reflects what the world is like.
• On wit rang Matt and Dave and said...when discussing what it means to be a real Australian.."I ride a bike, read books, have long hair and care for the environment.....can I stay?"
  

Stormy day

wet jacaranda
blossom gently falling down
early summer's death

Sophie & Stephen

Concise poetry

I am rightly chided by one reader for being tardy in my entries this week...the road to hell and all that.... I did come across a site that reveiwed movies in Haiku form...and thought therefore that I would write a short entry in Haiku. And show you how clever I am!
Can't find the site though, it's on the other computer.
Haiku are good discipline (like many things Japanese)......17 syllables (5-7-5)...and you're done.
A VERY good discipline for bloggers. For example

From the curious "Red Wine Haiku Review"
Frei Brothers Redwood Creek Syrah 2002 (California)
Like a candy cane
That fell into the toilet
Gross, but kinda fun

Perhaps I shall try to write at least an Haiku...

Yesterday was church,
quite exhausting, very hot
singing was quite good

Conscience

In a well written analysis, SA political commentator Dean Jaensch sheds a helpful light on the issue of conscience votes in Parliament. (here).
Professor Jaensch notes that conscience votes are not so much about 'conscience' [per se] but about the thin veil of party unity. It is another one of these issues where the political monster is seeking to limit debate.
I am not essentially a Liberal ( or, these days, any) party supporter but I cannot for the life of me understand why our two major parties seem afraid to be seen engaging in robust debate on issues and require this regimental uniformity.
Are the likes of the Bruce Bairds and the Petro Georgious questioning this orthodoxy in the Liberal party.....and if so, then good on them!
Let's see some more of it on the other sides of politics too. Personally I shudder when I see Peter Garrett playing the conformist game....he of all people should be a non-conformist.
Jaensch says that the solution is to develop a more flexible system which tolerates more diversity of opinion without the threat of politcial excommunication. To this I say" Hear! Hear!

Student Unionism

When (many years ago) I was a student at a residential college a fellow student deeply disliked being required to be a member of the Student Union.
This despite or because of the fact that he was (as it turns out) an avid supporter of the League of Rights, an offensively right wing organisation ...which hates everything from blacks to poms, to commies to gays; and that memebership was far more objectionable than anything our "union" ever did.
The fact that our "Student Union" only ran a shop and sold soft drinks, had an annual dinner and held a couple of business meetings seemed to add up to sedition and left-wing thuggery in the mind of said rightist gentleman. He was happy to buy thew cigarettes he needed from the shop, and to enjoy the largess of the bottle at the annual dinner.
I reflect that if we had called ourselves the Annual Piss Up Club, he would have had no objection to joining at all.
This seems to me to be part of the problem with the debate on Student Union fees. The use of the word union! But a student union is no more linked to a trade union than being a member of the Labour Party has anything to do with real labour! Or being a member of the Liberal party (in Australia) has anything to do with being liberal!
Student Unions organise campus groups, and allow pathetic forums for people who need to get a life to debate together about nothing in particular.
Why then should our beloved government be so keen to see these pretty impotent organisations abolished. (see recent developments here). I can only think it is because governments dislike everything that has any potential to allow public discussion about anything controversial.
Some of us would think that it is good to encourage young people to discuss vigorously, and even to develop conflicting ideas. Unless we seek only passive acquiescence to a narrow range of ideas.
This does indeed seem something of a desire on the part of our current government.
Let us not thoroughly debate industrial relations, or ant-terrorism laws....but rather let us allow legislation to be guillotined throught he parliament with as little objection as possible.
This is paternalistic government at its worst.
My suggestion......drop the word union, but continue to be intelligent!

'Twas the weeks before Christmas

I remark each year that there is one week when it is impossible to do everything that needs to be done in the weeks before Christmas. There will be at least a couple of nights when you have to be in multiple places at the same time.
I note, each year, (tired old grouch that I am becoming...less and less able to be original) that to be in two places at once is do-able...but I draw the line at three. There are two nights this week when I have to be in three places at once.
So, I look forward to this week's completion. I felt sad for the lady who rang yesterday wanting me to spend almost the whole of one day doing a funeral in two different stages. Unfortunately I couldn't do it. (A couple of years ago our dear elderly neighbour had to be buried on Christmas Eve....what a joy, but what a day for a funeral). Likewise, I felt for my friend and colleague whose wife had a fall yesterday after they had entertained family all day. It is difficult enough without having a broken hip, too!
And today two wanderers will return from overseas. Pleased to have them home, but there has been frantic cleaning up to get things ready so they don't walk into a mess. Still a bit to do!!!
Sunday last the two youngest got into a spat and upset each other no end. But a few hours later they seemed to be back as best of friends.
In January, my remaining paternal Aunt will arrive, we are looking forward to seeing her. And at least by then we will have well and truly earned the holiday we all need.

Power and influence

News that so-called "church leaders"in the swinging NE suburban seat of Florey have intimated they will use their political influence to get people to vote against MP Frances Bedford(pictured right) is an interesting conundrum.(see here).
Her crime? It would seem is being part of a government promoting rights for same-sex couples. Rights which these religious folk say undermine the institution of marriage.
I fail to see this but I shall return to that in a moment.
I am a Christian who believes that the church should use its political influence and not allow itself to be sidelined as if we believed nothng of importance whatsoever.
I would not, however, align myself with the narrow anti-homosexual sentiment which seems to obsess some other Christians. Yes! "obsess" is indeed the word. For the life of me I cannot understand why so much effort is put into condeming gay people, and so little effort into critquing the materialism and selfishness of this world, which seems to me to do so much more damage. Where is the strident criticism of governments who steadfastly erode the welfare benefits of so may in our society?
Where are the "church leaders'"letters saying they will persuade their followers to vote against those who do not actively promote the caus of justice for the poor.
If the balance of scripture is to be weighed it is quite evident that the prophets condemn injustice and exploitation much more than they condemn homosexuality. If the words of Jesus are to be heeded, he does indeed condemn exploitation and injustice. I hear no specific utterance of his about homosexuality.
So what is the obsession of these latter day Christians based on. Why so focussed on and vitriolic against homsexuality? I look forward to being enlightened.
Why choose to reverse the emphasis of the scripture, and neglect social injustice, exploitation of the poor, and the greed of the rich?

Undermining marriage
I fail to see, too, that seeking equal justice for all people....for example why should a gay partner not have access to their partner's superannuation, or carer's leave entitlements...if that is the way they have chosen to order their affairs.
And how exactly does this undermine marriage?
Personally, as a sacramentalist, I hold a much higher view of marriage than society holds. And, I do not see how God's sacred institution will be undermined . What God chooses to do through marriage is not limited to what the law defines, it is a spiritual mystery...powerful in intent, and magnificient in what it achieves.
It is not, however, the only way of ordering relationships. Three maiden ladies, for example, living together in friendship and companionship is a way some I have known have stabilised heir lives. Their arragement is fine. It does nothing to undermine marriage. Likewise, single people who choose to live alone do not undermine marriage.
Marriage is stronger than that.
I want to affirm that we should be just, and not unjust. We are not at liberty to use our faith to justify injustice against others.

G'day Jack

Few images could be quite so South Australian as the November-December showing of the Jacaranda in the leafy suburbs of Adelaide.
It reminds one that there are end of year exams, and the beginning of Christmas parties, and that the weather (however changeable) is beginning to improve. Soon it will be the fulness of summer, and the fragile flowers of the jacaranda will have long gone.
How clever, too, of God---despite dumping the Southern hemisphere with a whole lot of winter festival (ie-Christmas/Epipahny/Candlemas) in the height of the southern summer; and the greatness of the Spring Festival (Easter) as autumn begins....yet nevertheless it was clever to bedeck the jacaranda in the liturgical purple of Advent.

A Happier Note

Tonight we had fun with the Blackwood Christmas pageant. Here a picture of some of the Christian ministers of the area leading the procession and followed by a regular horde of local Christians.

Pretty inclement weather over the last day had us worried, but there was still a good crowd.
I almost "missed"the bus because we went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire.

Great stuff. Both things. But what a day of contrasts.

Quieter reflection

Geraldine Hawkes of St Paul City Ministry calls us to pause for a moment and remember Van Nguyen, his mother and his brother, his friends…..and all those whose lives are affected by illicit drugs….let us acknowledge the need to hug and to be hugged…to love and to be loved…. “if I love my brother, then my love benefits my own life as well, and if I hate my brother and seek to destroy him, I destroy myself also”.
And reminds us of Tom Merton's comments in his preface to No Man is an Island:

Death cannot be understood without compassion. Compassion teaches me that when my brother dies, I too die. Compassion teaches me that my brother and I are one. That if I love my brother, then my love benefits my own life as well, and if I hate my brother and seek to destroy him, I destroy myself also. The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red hot iron: I have to pick up the incandescent metal and burn my own hand while burning the other. Hate itself is the seed of death in my own heart, while it seeks the death of the other. Love is the seed of life in my own heart when it seeks the good of another.

Thomas Merton, Preface to the Vietnamese edition of No Man Is an Island

Death be not proud

I have little or no sympathy for the crimes of Van Nguyen.Some might even say that he is better off dead than spending 40 years in a Singaporean jail. I wouldn't, but some might!

I do say, unequivocally, that when a government takes the life of a person in the name of whatever catchcry it chooses, then that government's integrity is compromised.
Its ability to be believed as civilised, rational, and honourable is just ripped away.

I do say, also, that when other governments sit by and watch their neighbours justify taking life and say little or nothing for fear of "damaging trade", "affecting diplomatic relationships", "treading on toes"; then that government's integrity, also, is compromised.
I feel for the Australian government's inability to act, but one must say....too little, too late....

The fine American poet, Wendell Berry, writes this about death in his poem "Ripening"

The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!

AIDS

For most of us in Australia, World AIDS Day will pass unnoticed in a fairly unremarkable way. Maybe reading this weblog will pause you to stop and think just a little more.
One of the critical points in my understanding of this issue came in the late 80s when Keith Rayner came back from the world conference of Anglican Bishops (held every 10 years in England). Asked what was the most serious problem facing the world at this time he said...We were told that when we meet again in 1998 the world will be dealing with a tragedy caused by AIDS which the world has never known on that scale.
One would have to say that that prophecy is true, though we in Cocoon Australia are pretty well shielded.
My question is, here we are almost another 10 years down that same track and what has been done in the last decade to address this issue? One can only imagine that if it were mainland America where the pandemic was at its height then billions more dollars would have been poured into research.
But it isn't, it's Africa and Asia.
There are no votes for Western politicians in addressing issues in the Third World.
The following graphic is pretty tame(and 2 years out of date) but tells a horrifying story:

Gays
Likewise it has often been noted that there are no votes in gays either. Despite the loudness of their presence, majority culture is simply not interested.

If the New Orleans experience tells us anything it is that if you don't have the influence then you don't get the help.
It is a cynical and sad truth for us to remember on this World AIDS Day.