And things that go bump in the night

The greatest thing about Halloween this year is that the youngest Clark is saying when kids come knocking for trick or treat tonight (Does anyone in Australia understand how Trick or Treat works?) ...any way she is saying that we should not give them anything and say "We don't believe in Halloween, it's against our religion!"
I feel so efficient as an indoctrinator!
I don't think we should be so cruel. The oldest child says she thinks Trick or Treat will be BIG this year. This is probably divined from the MSN grapevine (anyone over 50 don't even try to understand what MSN might be about).
Any way I am thinking we will have saint cards available and a lolly or too.
As I understand it it is not so unChristian a feast.
Particularly since I am Rector of a Church with a very traditional dedication of All Hallows.
Some people make the mistake of thinking that is about Halloween. But Hallows is an old English word for Saints, so we could equally well be titled All Saints.
Halloween is a contraction of Hallows Even, or the Eve (day before) All Hallows Day (Nov 1st). Naturally as we think about the glory of heaven on All Hallows (All Saints) Day we also think the day before of the other side of the coin...and so the ghosties and ghoulies and four legged beasties and things that go bump in the night get to capture our imagination.
But as blessed youngest S of Blackwood would have you know... we don't believe in this.... it's not that we don't believe in the dark world so much, as we don't believe it exists with the sort of forces and powers that the movies and imaginations gone wild would have us imagine. In fact quite the reverse orthodox Christianity believes that when Jesus died he defeated all that sort of evil.
We need to believe this I think.
One of my colleagues once said to me, these things have the power we give them. The unfortunate thing about horror as a genre is it tells a lie about how powerful these things are, and gives them power they do not have.
So any kids who come will get a nice saint picture....and a lolly too

Abuse

I was rightly told off by an erstwhile reader for only posting twice last week.
It was one of those weeks .
Part of the hurly burly was caused by the Diocesan Synod which took up Thursday night, Friday from 2-10 p..m., Saturday from 8 a.m. -8.30 p.m., and Sunday afternoon.
It was not all hard slog and there were lighter moments. There were also profound insights and deeply moving times.
During one discussion a priest began his address by saying "I am a survivor of sexual abuse in this Diocese..." and he went on to invite us to be sure that we did not perpetuate abuse by victimising (particularly) gay and lesbian people.
I had indulged in my own theatrics my declaring myself to be a "bastard in the eyes of the church".
There was some laughter at suggested that I was still so.
I made this disclosure to show how sexual morés change.
My mother was divorced, the victim of a violent marriage. My father was her second husband. In the late 1940s when they were married the Anglican Church would not marry divorcées, and regarded those who married as living in adultery.
My mother, though a devout and practising Anglican, was married in the Presbyterian Church and readmitted to Communion (as she had been technically excommunicated) in the Church of England a week after she was married.
When I was born the church still regarded divorced people as living in adultery. So I technically am a bastard......resist the temptation, resist it, resist it!
My particular personal appreciation for the priest's disclosure that he was a survivor is that given my own bizarre "bastard" disclosure, about the way the church used to treat divorced people as though they were living in adultery even if they were legally married as my parents were, gave me a deeper appreciation of how abusive this was for them, and how this abuse was perpetuated for decades.
My mother worked through it but it probably took her 30 or 40 years. My father (who was not really a church person) in one sense couldn't have cared less about the stupid church games but it certainly made him feel unwelcome and less inclined to embrace the life of the church. Both of them were abused by this and I had never clearly named it like that. So I am grateful for that insight.
There was much other stuff to be thankful for.
The enjoyment of the company of other Anglicans who you only see at Synod once a year, which used to be so much a feature of Synod and shared meals and conviviality.
Is everything returning to normal? I hope so.
But it will never be the same again.

The limits of tolerance

Sydney's Anglican Archbishop said yesterday that the world should follow the lead of his diocese in rejecting homosexual people as clergy. (here)
Many will no doubt agree with him, but I find it difficult to do so. While Dr Jensen suggests that many have reached the limits of their tolerance, I would at least want to make the observation that there are numerous aspects of the Diocese of Sydney which suggest that the limits of tolerance are not very large any way.
They are certainly not tolerant of practising homosexuals.
They are not tolerant of women priests, who cannot and are not licensed in that Diocese.
They are even not tolerant of priests who want to wear a certain style of eccelsiastical haberdashery which is common throughout the world.
They do not seem to be tolerant of the cooperative work of the Christian denominations through the work of the Australian Council of Churches.
They do not seem to be particularly tolerant of other Dioceses' right to exercise the same sort of authority in their Diocese as Sydney exercises within its boundaries (in recent years for example "Sydney" style congregations have popped up in neighbouring Dioceses without the authorisation of the local bishop)
While Dr Jensen may think that Sydney's example is one to be emulated, I find that difficult to stomach.

Farewell to the destroyer

When I was at theological college the mother of the good senator Natasha Stott-Despoja, was a much loved journalist at The Advertiser. One of my colleagues would refer to her as "Shirley the Destroyer".
Soon the young Senator came to prominence and we understood that the epithet had passed from mother to child.
It was wonderful to see the stuffed shirts get so cross that Natasha the Destroyer could get so much press coverage simply because she was young and a woman. They who lusted after the media would seethe about how unjustified this was. In reality they were just jealous!!
She had much substance, not a little style...and was the source of inspiration to a generation of young voters who were about ready to slough off the dead skin of the political process.
I am pleased that I hear no one today saying that she should not quit politics.(here) She, quoting her health concerns and the need to properly care for her husband and young family, has no doubt made the right choice.
Though cynics will no doubt suggest she is deserting the sinking Democrat ship, she has more than adequately contributed to "vitam politicam". Though I am sure she will not be silenced completely, she will be missed.

The flower that blooms in the Spring

We have had the joy of planting two new roses in our respective gardens. Called "A Blooming Miracle" these, I suppose you would call them, apricot coloured blooms are sponsored by the Anglican Board of Mission; or as we affectionately have always known it ....ABM.(here)
The flowers bloomed at St John's a week or so ago (the first photo) and yesterday they were more fulsomely in bloom.(the second photo....I am afraid my camera phone photos don't entirely do them justice

Although Mission agencies aren't terribly fashioonable at this point in history our fondness for ABM is well placed.
Although only a small agency it's work is critical and creative. I was struck by this some years ago when I heard a speaker who was responsible for the delivery of government educational programs in New Guinea.
It occurred to me that churches at least had enabled the establishment of social infrastructure like education and health delivery, and continue to work in creative projects like enabling women to develop independent incomes, and villages to have pure water.
These are small projects in world terms, and life changing to individuals.
Any way this speaker began his talk by saying, "I am an Anglican the son of an Anglican, the grandson of an Anglican."( I too can say this)
What occurred to me was how seriously we have taken the need to prepare young men and women in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Phillipines, the Middle Eas, parts of Africa, Korea and Malaysia and all sorts of other places.
The result?
A Blooming Miracle!

Writing on the wall.

Strange things are happening about the war in Iraq. (And I am not just referring to the fact that this week the petrol cycle didn't happen...Petrol didn't really go up on Wednesday as it usually does. Even though thge local BP did put its price up but when the other stations didn't it came down again, they tried this twice then finally gave up. Small victory for the coinsumer. Though, as the local wag said on radio, there is something being said about changing times when we are glad that petrol is "only" $1.09) any way back to the war...

Mr Beazley, a former Defence Minister and usually pro-war, has now oibviously been convinced that the only distinction between Labor and Liberal that will matter at the next election is who is for the war and who is against. Clearly then the Laborites have got over their fear that they will be seen as weak on terrorism (a view the Government is trying to paint of the Labor party) and have realised that no one is going to win this argument in Australia. So the distinction is now being drawn fairly sharply.

Mr Downer went into flight, and patriotic flight at that.....never has any Australian leader suggested anything so cowardly as leaving our Allies to stand alone.

The PM, seems to be taking stock and though he is mouthing the standrad "establishment of democracy" justification for this pig of a war...is the writing beginning to appear on the wall.
As we see military chiefs questioning the wars veracity, and Iraqi PM saying Australia will be out by 2007/2008...the ground seems to be shifting.
It will only take a number of Australians to be killed and the popular tide wil turn once and for all.
In all this we realise that these decisions are not lightly taken, they are not intelligently taken. All sorts of questions influence decisions which have little or no hearing on right or wrong; but rather on how it will affect the ballot box.
This seems sad to me when we are involved in something that has such enormous human cost.

Same, same...once again!

Once again the question of committed same-sex relationships is bubbling up all over the place.
Here in South Australia the Attorney General, Michael Atkinson, claims that legislation to remove inequalities for same sex couples will begin its progression through the Parliament this week. I will believe it when it happens. Though falling far short of "marriage" it will attempt to remove some discriminations. One I heard yesterday was the transfer of ownership of vehicles from one partner to another. Presently if you are married and, say, husband transfers ownership to his wife then you pay a fee (about $45) to cover the administrative costs. I have actually done this on one occasion.
However if you are not married then you have to treat this transaction as though it was the sale of the vehicle and thus you are liable to pay stamp duty....depending on the value of the vehicle this could be $750 or more. Thus a same-sex couple, even though their relationship continues on exactly the same footing, are arbitrarily prejudiced against. This is only one of these sort of anomalies, when you consider the issue to do with the tranmsfer of real estate it is even more horrendous.
I do not begin to unravel some of the graver complexities involved with the custody of children.
Meanwhile in Massachusets some clergy are saying that the churech should get out of the marriage business completely (see here) this isn't quite as straight forward as some imagine, but it is an interesting idea. Throughout many countries in continental Europe for example, it is necessary for those who wish to be married to be married before a civil registrar in order to be legally married.
They may subsequently go to church ( and many do) and have a religious marriage; this however is not a legal requirement.
But the strategy outlined above (getting out of the wedding business) begs the question of what clergy might say and/or do at non-legally official celebrations. Would they for example receive the vows of life commitment which in the Western tradition are the core of the marriage bond? Though this might not be legally required (a couple having already been married) Christians regard these most seriously. And indeed binding. In my experience many people, maybe even many non-church people, regard taking vows before God as something much more important than signing a legal form. (Which is why they often want a church wedding).
I came across, too, the other day the beginnings of a discussion (here) of what "same-sex divorce" might imply. This is of course a serious issue, even though most of us can't get out heads around same-sex marriage yet.
While it is all indeed same, same (here)and then again (here) there is an awful lot of different happening too these days!

Poetic licence

Morning birdsong cracks the lock of dawn

I did think that little poetic phrase was worth committing to print before it escaped my mind

Imagine that!

 Did an educational exercise with a group on Thursday night in which I invited them to imagine themselves (the committee) as a person and to then answer some questions about that person?It needs to be said about this exercise that it is an IMAGINAL exercise as opposed to an IMAGINARY exercise. We are developing an Image  rather than fabricating an unreality.
Indeed the theory would seem to suggest that the Image is to help us better understand the reality.
The group; older rather than younger, male more than female; struggled with even consenting to this imaginal exercise. Part of my reflection to them was  that we are "such victims of our education".
They protested this some what....but they did keep saying "Tell us what you want us to say"
This is really my point. Our education system so often skills us in telling the teacher what they want to hear, rather than in investigating concepts or ideas.
This sort of IMAGINAL exercise of course is designed to get us thinking. So it was interesting to experience the genuine puzzlement and even pain...I can't see the point!
The book from which I had drawn this exercise warned me of all these potential issues.
Nevertheless, we did discern a few things about our committee. Conservative but not overly formal, fairly relaxed, probably male.Enjoys quality but in a restrained way. Needs to relax and spends a bit too much time getting things done.
We even got something of a name...Bernard Jones....which seems to me to be about right. Even now just saying ...well what would Bernard think about that has developed an interesting shorthand way of viewing our little group.

Police check everyone

I am about to have my second police check done. This requires that I submit a form to the police and they check my record. Lots of people have them done; teachers, health professionals, social workers, volunteers, childcare workers and of course clergy. It is a good and necessary thing to do or at least to be seen to be done. What it actually highlights is whether or not I have been caught doing anything. The irony is that the grossest offenders of recent years, Brandenburg, (here for example), and magistrate Peter Liddy (here for example) would have been able to go through the police check process and nothing would have been turned up. Because although as guilty as hell (and I use that term advisedly) there had been no prosecution or conviction until everything blew up completely. By then Brandenburg had suicided.
It could be argued, and often is, that the committed sexual abuser would easily avoid the facile police check, and does.
It is interesting, too, that the ones we remember and the press reminds us about are the olnes who molest boys. The evidence shows quite clearly that more girls are molested than boys (by a factor of least 2 or 3 to 1) and yet in a way most of these pass unnoticed or unremarked. Almost as though it is some how more scandalous when boys are abused and there should be more public outrage.
It is of course easy to deal with this sort of issue if we can marginalise the offenders, so the community continues todemonise homosexual people and infer that they are a stone's throw away from being child abusers. No matter how often it is said that sexual abuse is not about sexuality, no matter how often it is said that more girls are abused than boys we won't name the issues correctly.
So we should not be surprised, too. that our community continues to endorse the ineffective police check as a means of being seen to be doing something, even though that something is pretty ineffectual. It would be totally exposed if everyone was police checked. Apart from being a bureaucratic nightmare, there would soon be public outcry about the fact that the results are fairly meaningless, and the intrusion pretty insidious.
I will and do submit to this process quite willingly. But it is entirely unsatisfactory!

Those who do well

It was interesting yesterday to listen to two Vietnam veterans talk about what are the important issues for the veteran community today. There were a number of things that were raised. Perhaps too many to detail.
One reflection I have is that it is a total blindspot for me. There is some explanation given by the two guys who spoke for why this might be so. One in particular offered a reasoning for why Veterans cut themselves off and feel cut off from the non-Veteran community. Their disdain for a trend towards the valueless society was palpable; and while it could be debated there is something of a point here I suspect.
For good or for ill military training is characterised as instilling a sense of values, and modern society rather regards value systems as something to be eschewed (the irony being that the eschewing of values is of course a pretty strong value!).
The other thing that struck me was a quite moving tribute to a dozen or so mates who had been killed in the Vietnam war. The guy (very articulate and thoughtful) outlined what had happened to the ones who were killed, the repatriation of their bodies and the way their families had been treated. He detailed from an obvious personal knowledge what effect these deaths were still having on families. And it was appalling. The ongoing legacy of war continues to be the price that young men and their families pay for the political posturing of old men who do not fight.
Neither Howard nor Downer nor Nelson have served in the armed forces, Bush (it is well-documented) seems to have avoided military service through family contacts and by taking the soft-option of what we would call the CMF or the Territorial Army. Some commentators also claim he did not take even that obligation terribly seriously.
Who am I to talk?
I still remember the fateful day the marbles were rolled to decide who would be conscripted and who wouldn't and the tangible relief I felt when I missed out. Until that day I hadn't particularly worried about it and was rather surprised about the emotional release; and I have often wondered what would have happened if I had gone....those of you who know me can only imagine. I am glad I didn't.
The sort of community rejection that returning Veterans faced is something I have heard about but not encountered, for them it seems very real.
I was struck, particularly, by the articulation of the simple reality. We are not victiums we are verterans and choose to live that way. The true victims are the families.

Let me remind you too that war is the game that old men play with the lives of the young. It was ever so. Read Wilfred Owen's "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" for a powerful statement of this awful grim reality.

In his 91st year

Today I will officiate at the funeral of a man who has been a member of this parish for many decades.
He is well over 90 and in the last few years has become increasingly debilitated.
Though married for over 50 years, he and Edna had no children.
Yet Tom ran a very effective youth program for many years which has been influential in the life of many.

Tom Crowle was a fine though not perfect man

I am aware that times he could be extraordinarily difficult.

We all can!

Things don’t always go the way we want

because they can’t

and we don’t control our destiny.

If we think that security will come from developing mechanisms

to control everything about our life

then death disabuses us of that notion.

For Christians

we are reminded that our security comes from Christ alone.

This Tom knew, and took seriously.

The image that our true life is like being grafted into a vine

is a good one.

We draw our life from being in relationship with Christ.

As all our securities,

our parents, our wife, our work, our health, our youth

are stripped away

we need to realise that only Christ will bring the sort of security

that we crave for.

A funeral might remind us of this reality.

We might also note

that there is an invitation

to respond to Christ NOW

rather than leaving it to the very end of our life.

Tom, knew something of that reality.

He has begun to respond to Christ

He recognised many years ago

that being grafted into Christ

was the way to go.

He was keen to share that with others.

To some young people

he offered a gift for which a number are profoundly grateful

To others it was a hand of friendship

it was rolling up the sleeves and getting alongside

To all of us today

as a death causes us to reflect on our own mortality:

How some things are more important

and some things less important

when we come to weigh up our lives,

his death speaks to us and invites us to respond to Christ now.

If today you hear this invitation

then open your heart to receive the gift of life

that Christ is offering you

not just in death.

But in life.

Here, Today, Now.

Boom go the strings

My earliest political memory is not Harold Macmillan tyelling us all that we never had it so good (see here), but an awareness that China and Russia were lining up their troops on the respective side of their common border. I am not quite sure when this happened but I suppose it was the late 50s or early 60s. I remember a quite reasonable sense of fear pervading my life, and thinking that the world could end!
Many years later, and on a couple of different occasions India and Pakistan have provided me with the same sort of feeling. Yesterday, of course, it recurred with the North Korean test bomb.
I guess I am less pessimistic about the outcome since it seems that future tragedies have failed to eventuate.
But there are an awful lot of imponderabili:

• Is President Kim just posturing in order to get world attention? One commentator who knows North Korea well is seriously suggesting this. The theory being that once they have asserted that they are powerful then they can stop spending the indecent amounts they do on militarism and start looking after the thousands who are starving, assured that the world takes them seriously. This doesn't seem to me very plausible. It would be good if it were the explanation but it's a pretty long bow.

• Is President Kim a madman who is likely to do anything? Or is that just American propaganda? America is a crude propagandist as their relations with Iraq and Iran show us. Their principle tactic has always been demonisation and fear. After all the wolf-crying it is now difficult to know just what the truth is. Australia seems so uncritical of America's lies that we appear to just be like a little lap dog running along behind the pack, unable to think for ourselves.
• There is a real dilemma for the world. Why should the nations of the world respond to the various humanitarian crises in North Korea when they spend obscene amounts of money on armaments and such pathetic displays as this latest one. As a Christian, and I hope a humanitarian, I know the answer to this. But in a real sense Western magnanimity is used to bolster this evil.
• What, too, is the role of China in all this? As a sort of ally, and an enormously powerful one at that, one cannot imagine that North Korea is allowed to get away with anything serious that Beijing doesn't approve of. What then does it mean if China actually permitted this to happen? Some commentators suggest it is about a much, much longer strategy of political ambition on China's part. Are they in fact putting Japan and South Korea on notice, and by implication the American alliance, that the balance of power is shifting. Is this where American efforts need to be focussed? It may indeed be what is happening, but what on earth can be done?

None of this seems easy to me. And reveals, yet again, why so many of us have just stopped thinking in a sophisticated way about world politics it is much easier to adopt simplistic solutions for problems that don't really exist (weapons of mass destruction). The trouble is that such solutions don't actually do anything.

National education

I am suspicious of the current debate about a national education curriculum.
While there is an immediate attraction to a sense of uniformity across the nation I think that there needs to be more teezing out of just what that attraction is all about. If it's the creation of a "level playing field" then that would seem to be a good thing, but if it's the creation of a narrow and perhaps jingoistic conformity to someone's idea of what appropriate values are then this would not seem to be educationally sound.
It is interesting that much of this discussion has been contracted with regard to the humanistic disciplines of literature and history. The other day, for example, Minister Bishop said she did not believe it was appropriate for Macbeth to be examined through the eyes of Marxist or Feminist critique.
The suggestion is of course that schools have reds and lesbians under the bed!
This sort of prejudicial inference doesn't make for impartial discussion.
The average fred or freda probably has no idea what Marxist or Feminist critique is. But it does not seem unreasonable to ask questions about power, institutional injustice and to have a healthy suspicion about the portrayal of women in a play that is exactly about those things.
As with all systems, it seems to me, the process of education is best transacted not by avoiding certain viewpoints but by teaching about them so that genuine choice can be made.
We do not "educate" by limiting viewpoints, we indoctrinate.
A curious under-the-radar example happened in the Sunshine State recently, ABC news reports that "It has been reported that 13- and 14-year-olds at a state high school south of Brisbane have been asked to imagine living as a heterosexual in a mainly gay community."
It seems like a curious, and yet interesting question. And yet we see that Premier Beattie has weighed in and declared it to be inappropriate. The school has buckled under political pressure it would seem.
This is the difficulty. It is not so much deciding what constitutes the national curriculum, but keeping that decision free from populist political pressure.
There should be debate, or perhaps "healthy discussion" about core studies, but this needs to be done in a way that is open and genuine, and not simply dicated by our political masters.

Dry as dust

Although we spent a nice (but cooolish) day at the beach today, I did swim for the first time since winter. It required that I wore a full length wet suit, and even then my head stung as I plunged my face for the first time into the foamy brine which almost felt as though it had icicles in it.
An hour or so later it was a little better, and worth doing. Since I lost more than half my body weight I feel the cold something terrible, so it was a test to see if I was ever going to be able to swim in the Southern Ocean again. Sometimes I swear you can feel those Antarctic icebergs.
In the mean time, although the weather has been variable. Both hot and then cool (tomorrow it will be warmer again), there has been little to no rain. None to speak of.
The only thing I can grow is pelargoniums (pelargonia?) and they are looking quite spectacular at the moment. Everything else is just getting dryer.
Is it right to pray for rain. I have mixed feelings about this. I can pray (quite easily) for people whose livelihoods are affected by the weather. This is paryer, I suppose, for acceptance and resilience. Rather than the more curious prayer that God would send rain on my little patch. This doesn't always feel quite right. Though sometimes I have a sense that this prayer is successful!!
I always say that it has never rained on any bride I have married. Not quite true, there was at least one spectacular example where the bride was kept dry but only by the valiant efforts of half a dozen valiant young men who sacrificed themselves for her beauty. It didn't matter too much on a warm but very, very wet February day. As for the others, it seems to have been true. Sometimes we have had a few spots before she arrived, or a shower whilst in church (this happened on our own wedding day nearly 25 years ago) but usually the bride has been safe.

Being quiet

I am not particularly good at being quiet. Sometimes it frightens the pants off me. And yet I do not like it when other people disturb my quiet.
If I was to suggest, though, one thing that contributes to my wellness over the last year or more it would be trying to be quiet for a little time every day.
Just at the moment I do this using recorded meditations. The particularly good site that I use is called "pray as you go" (here) and it contains daily 10 miniute meditations for Mon - Friday commuters. There are also a couple fo general meditations. One to Review the Day is important as I seek to just trace what has been happening for good or for ill.
Perhaps the inference is that tomorrow I will do more of the good-fostering and less of the ill-creating.
As a pattern this seems to work, and sometimes I manage to repeat one or other of these exercises (sometimes I don't too!)
This has, I think, contributed to sense of well-being for which I am grateful.
There is a nice site to0, called Sacred Space (here) which has a number of different prayer resources for regular use. I find the level of participation that they invite to be quite to my liking.
I am not a great fan of "religious" meditation though both of these sites are quite religious...or should I say Christian (some will understand the distinction), and I find the scriptrurtes to be very helpful for me and very incisive...the two edged sword as it were.
But there are lots of other sites with quite nice secular meditations and meditations from other traditions. (see here for example)
Some will not think that I am particularly sane or well-balanced, but this (for what's it worth) is one of the things that I do that improves me as a man, a person, a husband and a father,

Labour Day

The first Prime Minister I ever recall was Harold Macmillan. I don't know much about him really but I do know that one of the most curiouys things he ever told the British people was "You've never had it so good".
I rather worry about these sort of cryptic yet obvious type of comments. Not unlike Malcolm Fraser's "Life wasn't meant to be easy", they are oft quoted out of context and then they take off and have a life of their own.
Macmillan as post war PM of course was right. The 50s were bliss by comparison with the 40s, but I don't recall them being flowing with milk and honey.
Macmillan appeared to me to be annoyed by those who were suggesting that things might be better. And they could have been, indeed should have been.
It is not unlike the situation that we find ourselves in today where we are being told by our beloved leaders that the economy is so buoyant and work so plentiful that everything is absolutely fantastic.
On this day, Labout Day, we are invited to celebrate the 38 hour week. I suppose it is meant to be the realisation that once upon a time working conditions were out of control. So I feel sad today that things seems to be going that way again.
People in this decade seem to have to work longer than they worked a decade ago. Many privileges and conditions that were sorely and bitterly fought for are now being chucked away by a government that fluked a senate majority as well as a lower house victory.
If Howard echoes Macmillan I will not be surprised. But it is not true that everything is fantastic. Some few are much better off. Most have to work a lot harder. And too many families have to have both partners working so long that they often miss each other in mid air.
So, although it';s nice to have a holiday. This one doesn't quite ring true. And we still have a way to go.