The Hicks' Riddle

The continuing saga of Australian prisoner David Hicks grows more convoluted from day to day (here).

But for the life of me I find it difficult to fathom. That it is allowed to go on and on seems amazing and should be brough to some resolution one way or the other

There would seem to be only a limited number of possibilities about what is happening here.

1. Hicks could be guiltier than most people seem to suggest, and this is known to American and Australian authorities who are therefore reluctant to do anything to see him released. This seems unlikely since throughout the whole debate he has only ever been touted as an insignificant player deluded by a warped sense of purpose which few of us can share.
   
2. Despite the fact that we are touted in the coterie of America's closest allies we actually have no influence at all with regard to the way Australian public opinion is respected by the Bush regime. We have not been able to do, for example, what the British and other "allies" have done, and that is have their citizens repatriated to be dealt with at home. This does not really surprise us. We are a very small country, and although Bush has been happy to trumpet John Howard as an ally; and Howard has been happy to receive that accolade we seem remarkably powerless when it comes to bringing that influence to bear where it really matters. Our farmers, for example would testify to the fact that marketrs are closed and unfair barriers remain in place which prevent any sense of level-playing-field. This Hicks' case is just another example of that impotence.
   
3. The Australian government doesn't have the slightest interest in the welfare of David Hicks and just keeps hoping it will all go away.This certainly seems to be the net effect of what is happening even if it is not the deliberate policy. It nevertheless says to me that we are not a country where justice for all is prized, and where due process is regarded as being a key principle in the exercise of democratic freedoms. There seems indeed one law for some and another law for others.....
   

That this goes on and on seems a source of great sadness.

Panic!Panic!Don't Panic

This was written just before our recent fabulous trip
I am a Dad's Army tragic, so Mr Jones the butcher would be proud of the degree of panic that I can engender when trying to organise others.
Getting ready to travel overseas (however briefly) requires ensuring that we have taken everything with us, the dog is at her holiday house, someone can pick up the pieces if a parishioner dies.
This trip is a little one, and later in the year there will be more of a pilgrimage. I simply don't know how I'll cope with that.
Panic, Panic.Don't panic!!

On being a cad

I had an attack of charitable cowardice the other day. A young girl came to to the door and thrust a "Save the Children" pamphlet into my face. I am normally defensive about doorknowcking charity seekers, though I respect "Save the Children"
Conscious of the fact that I have a bit of Christmas money destined for charity sitting in my pocket, this seemd like a good thing to pursue.
It was stinking hot. The girl assured me that she was not collecting money now. So I decided that this would be good to support. But I was ready to hand over $40 cash
OK she said....let me see your driving licence.
"Why?" I asked. But she didn't seem to hear.then she flung open a giant form which wanted credit card details and direct debit etc. etc.....
So I said "No thank you!"

After all this was all happening at the doorstep, unsolicited. .She looked astonished and uncomprehending
I do feel like a cad sometimes when I reneg on being charitable. But the more I've written this, the more I think I was prudent. I am inclined to think we will aim for a $20 or $30/month project...but I am blowed if I am going to do it on a stinking hot day, unsolicited at the doorstep.
Was I mean? Am I a cad?

The end is near

So holidays come and holidays go. With very much fun, a little home difficulty I could do nothing about, with very warm weather, lots of water, and not too much tropical rain...but enough to at least have experienced it. The end is near. One more sleep only.

Encountering my father

In the way that travel plans occasionally consumed me over the last few weeks I headed off in search of Private Harry.It was a complete diversion, but reminded me of the fact that this trip to England later in the year is at least partly chasing ghosts. The ghosts of two dead grandfathers, one of whom was worshipped and adored by his wife and daughters. The other of whom nothing was ever spoken. I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would in fact not chase them. Though the effects of these men's lives have deeply impacted my family, I don't need to stand at their graves unless I happen to be there.So it was a surprise to go chasing my father's war record...as I say a complete diversion. It was not something of which he spoke much. But we looked at staying at Victory Services Club which seemed like a good idea at the time. In order to so do I needed to prove my father was a soldier.This became harder, and then a little easier, and then harder again....I think unless I can turn up an active RSL record (he died 20+ years ago) it will be too hard. Then Adelaide turned up what is in my mind 95% likely to be him

Enlisted on the 29th june 1944 was sent to the Leicester Regiment until 1946

onto the Border Kings Own (now not in existeance) and ended in

East Lancashire Regiment in 1947. But did not have a demob date.

Unfortunatetly there was not a date of birth or address BUT they gave me his army number

14****62

At least once he seemed frighteningly close in a way that he has not been for a decade. And I wondered about whether the ghosts would come crashing in and what this would all mean

While the cat's away

There's never smoke without fire. Oh dear. A little ($5000) fire at St John's while the Rector was away. And the Archdeacon in the fire crew...good for him.

Talking Heads

The execution of Saddam Hussein's 2-i-c rather makes the point about the death penalty that I have been trying not to pontificate about.
In the course of the execution his head came apart from his body.
The official spokesman (in all seriousness) assured the news conference...

"I want to assure you the rope did not break, the head just (sic) became separated from the body"

If we had any doubts about the barbarism of the death penalty this should dispel them. This little encounter demonstrates how our perceptions get twisted, and we begin to rationalise the irrational and defend the indefensible.
One only has to read Stephen King's "The Green Mile" which has 3 or 4 well crafted descriptions of executions in the electric chair ( which are clearly based on real-life accounts) to realise that it is nopt a sanitary affair, and indeed unnecessarily cruel.
Oh, how arrogant we are if and when we think we can be masters and mistresses of God's domain

The first law of hols

With holidays being imminent the first law of holidays came into play. And that is that the annual unblocking of the plumbing is demanding to be done. With a day of fiddly things to be done the system has backed up and needs to be whizzed with the snakey thing.
No doubt the second law will also be evident: (the plumber being called Murphy this is hardly surprising)....the plumber will no doubt be on holiday himself.
These laws actually came into play yesterday. The certificate of vaccination for Tilly, necessary for her to get into the kennel, fell off the notice board into a spill of water and became unreadable. When I rang our friendly vet to get a replacement...she was indeed on holidays. Hopefully she done been return today.

Weil der Gruppe alle hier ist

The annual Schutzenfest diverted Adelaideans yesterday.
This excuse for firing rifles whilst totally smattered on beer perhaps explains a lot of things about Australians and Germans, but folk seemed to enjoy the day out.
One news report set me thinking about the nature of our mixed culture. A nation of immigrants, there is inevitability a fusion of culinary and social culture, which is at bext interesting and at worst crass and vulgure.
Cappucino seems invariably served in Greek restaurants and McDonalds with baklava and french fries if you wish.
Chinese and Indian food invariably caters to local taste rather than present authentic cuisine, which most of us don't necessarily appreciate. I well remember (is it from the world of Susie Wong?) about Chow Mein...the Chinese dish that the Americans invented.
So it was not surprising to see a red in the face oompah band (not the jazz band above) swaying in time to their music playing that good old Bavarian Hit...Roll out the Barrell!
I mean how cockney do you have to get.
So it

Lost balls

It was great to watch 7 out of 9 of the cousins playing cricket at the birthday party last night. Some of the characteristics included:

• great debate over the classic "one hand-one bounce-you're out" rule
• much screaming and shouting
• youngest daughter being hit on the arm with a ball (soft) and trying not to cry, while her cousin the bowler looked guilty and then bowled the next bowl into her face
• youngest nephew-shouting "No Ball" but no one paying any attention and Dad remarking "It's sad to be the youngest and the only one who knows the rules"
• And of course (at least) two balls going over the fence.
• "Oh there are many 'lost balls'" Dad was heard to remark. "The neighbours are very good and usually throw them back, and I do a scout around the perimeter in the morning"

Et in arcadia ego! (prize for most obvious modern the source...not the Poussin, too easy to Google. But think Jeremy Irons!)

20 things I don't know

I was faintly bemused (but not at all surprised) to find that certain members of my household were already looking at getting an iPhone...even though they will not be available in the land of Oz until 2008.
Apple have done a good job of convincing everyone to buy their iProducts even when they are often less featured and almost certainly more expensive than comparable products. And not necessarily more reliable.
We have an iPod, for example, which gave up the ghost days after the 1 year warranty expired. Researching on the net would seem to suggest that this was not an uncommon experience worldwide. Its owner, the oldest daughter, finally got fed up of me trying to fix it and bought another one!!! The cheaper version..the shuffle. Miraculously the day after she bought it I got the first one to work!! So I inherited it. Good for me. But it still stops every now and then if you so much as breathe heavily near it. And it cost a fortune.
PC World has a good article about 20 things that need to be explained before you commit to the new iPhone. But we have a couple of years to wait.
But there is a big warning here, n'est-ce-pas, about the triumph of advertising over reason

God is not a homophobe

If the 20th century gave us the word 'homosexual'then God help the 21st century whioch appears to have given us the word 'homophobe'.
I am an Anglican who happily accepts the traditional doctrine of the catholic creeds. Now the word "catholic" is a precious one. Although we use it denominationally, let us use it literally...to mean universal... God is a catholic God, {not a Roman Catholic God but a universal God, anything less is a nonsense} when we state that he disapproves of some of his creation more than others we are, I suggest, diminishing God (often called blasphemy).
The catholic God does not hate homosexuals, or Muslims or atheists. He universally love us all, because he is catholic. (for an interesting little scuffle see here)

Planting Apples

Martin Luther wrote :

"Wenn ich wusste, dass die Welt morgen untergeht, würde ich dennoch heute einen Apfelbaumchen pflanzen"

If I knew the world was to end tomorrow, I would still plant this little apple tree today

Seems like a though worth having!

Tomorrow's announcement today

There is little doubt that President Bush will make no friends tomorrow when he tries to justify the sending of 30,000 more troops to Iraq.
It is difficult to both understand and to escape the logic. On the one hand Iraq is clearly the most unstable place in the world, and the 30,000 troops will go towards establishing the stability that is necessary to allow the withdrawal. But will they be able to do what the troops already there have been unable to achieve.
It is difficult to understand just what this war has achieved, and this is the mystery of war...does it actually achieve anything. Apart from the execution of Saddam, which seems to have been more an exercise in bloodlust than peace-making, it is difficult to sustain the case that Iraq is safer now than it was.
I heard an American senator say the other day that he had been to Baghdad 6 times, the first was to buy carpets and the last .....well we all know about the last.
Theer are, however, those whose lives were tyrannised by the evil of Saddam Hussein
The thing that depresses me most about this sorry affair is that it does rather prove the argument that war is not about achieving goals, they are about politics. Bush won a short term victory, until mothers started to lose their sons.
Australia lacks any credibility at all. In wanting to seem to be a big player we all know that we are a piddling little country with few military resources. We ride on the Yankee back hoping for glory by association.
In so doing we lose all credibility because we cannot critique the war that has gone horribly wrong. So terrified are we of losing the American alliance, that we dare not critique what has manifestly failed to work and what has become an immoral debacle.

Rearing its ugly head

I see in today's letters to the editor that the so called "intelligent design", raises its head yet again.
The writer bemoans intellectual critique that was offered earlier in the month which said that ID should be kept out of schools because it cannot be proved or sustained from the evidence.
"Aha" says the erstwhile writer. "If this is a reason for not teaching intelligent design, then it is the reason for not teaching evolution. Because evolution is a theory, and cannot be proved."
This is rather to miss the point. Virtually all education cannot be proved, it is 'theory'. That is it is open to test and then to being tested again and then again.
The writer rather misses the point that evolution as a theory undergoes continual testing and refinement.
I rather take the point that some (poor) scientists often treat theory as though it is fact, but no genuine scientist would do so. Everything surely is provisional, open to challenge and subject to refinement. Evolution has embraced this process, and continues to evolve! We are not at the point where Darwin began, and he would not expect us to be. The trouble with so-called intelligent design is that it wants to stand still at the eternal still point.
No education should stand still; history should grow and grow, any student of the Bible will tell you that it is not a static discipline. Language study that stand still goes backwards. Things change. (some previous thoughts about ID here)

Pigeons on the grass

It is always heartening to hear the copious warbling of the magpies. This morning there was a bunch of them in the rose garden watching the traffic as people wended their
way to work. To hear one or two together is a delight. To see and hear five or six is ecstasy!
I often think that you see more of them close by (like all animals) when things are harsh as they have to take greater risks for food when it is scarce. [frightened they would fly away before I photographed them I also fed them a little morning tea!!] The very dry conditions that we have been experiencing are indeed very harsh, though this theory cannot explain these Maggies because we have had some rain over the last couple of days, but the aridity is so profound that everything seems to dry up very quickly.
As I looked up to go back inside two galahs, and then a third swooped
over the house. Alas I had no coffee cake to entice them to stay for photos.
What does it mean?
Of course it is Epiphany and those of us who know the Leunig cartoon know all about the Adoration of the Magpie.
I couldn't find that one so here 's another early Epiphany cartoon to lighten your day. (It's worth going to the Library to find the early Leunig cartoon books to have a good chuckle)

Converse conversation

I have spent a bit of time with my youngest daughter (13) in the last few weeks. There is a great charge for parents in seeing your children grow and become independent. It is not the physical independence that matters so much at the early teen stage, but the ability to think independently. This is different from the ability to act impulsively.

Anyone can do that! It is not too hard to see a course of action and then hurtle towards it. It would be easy to mistake this for ‘independence’. Indeed we even validate it with sayings like “They’ve got to learn from their mistakes.”

I never tire of saying that that is not entirely true. We don’t –necessarily- learn from our mistakes. We learn from reflecting on them, and then repeating the action in a modified way as a result of our reflection. We don’t always get this.

So it was good to have a bit of reflection with S.

“Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions?” was the topic of our conversation.

She told me that she had not made any as such, and then went on to tell me that she had been thinking about some goals. These included things like acting more independently, being more organized, more exercise….and so on. Indeed she had been thinking about quite a lot.

I have a couple of reflections myself on this conversation. One, of which I am well aware, is that it was good to have a conversation that didn’t particularly have any greater purpose than just having a chat. I wasn’t trying to make a point, as I so often do when I am talking to my children (to little or no avail…so why bother). It was good to let her speak discursively and decide how much to say and when she had said enough etc….

There should be more of it.

Then she asked me if I had made any resolutions. She wrested control of the conversation from her controlling father, not malevolently but on a mutual and firm basis…so indeed wrested is the wrong word….there should be more of it.

I am conscious that in a couple of weeks we will all (five of us) be on holiday together and it takes a while to get to this mutually accepting conversation. But it is a powerfully transforming dynamic when each day you can sit down with your family and just have an engaging conversation, in which you seek to be present with each other and not controlling (very hard in this family…maybe in all families, but really worth it)

Morning sun

Although today will not be particularly hot (mid 30s) we are beginning a really hot spell. Tomorrow will be 40 and so too the day after. By Sunday we will plummet again, maybe even a little rain.
There is something about the morning sun when it is hotter. It seems to energise everything and everyone. In this house no one seemed to care at 5.45 that I might not be leaving the house and could lie in bed for an hour, they were full of early morning energy.
So I capitulated and got up, pottered around. Conscious of the fact that I am half in holiday mode I am using the laptop outside, where for the moment it is still quite mild (8.30) it will not be so in an hour.
The sun's energy seems to propel one to relax rather than work. To relax with a vengeance. I am having too many ideas and keep flitting from pillar to post unable to complete anything. I must do some reading. I must do some planning. I must write a newsletter. I must put out some info about the AGM. I must visit the lady in hospital. I must attend to travel insurance and I ,must make booking for accomodation and travel in May, there is a sermon to write and various bits of administration to attend to....I shall endeavour to report back later in the day to let you know how I go.

New, newer, newest!

The Rev'd Giles Fraser (pictured left) writes about current troubles in the Anglican Communion, and does so perceptively (here). As one who presumes to preach, I am ever mindful of the fact that I take my life into my hands (or perhaps my mouth) when ever I begin to speak those words "In the Name of the Father....." as if I have some authority.
Strangely I believe I have, indeed my Bishop told me as much when I was ordained as a priest...Take authority to preach. You may or may not agree that this gift is real, I happen to believe it is. I would even give some testimony to "feeling" it to be so; this may just be wishful thinking but it seems real enough to me.
Fraser's point is that we are ever tempted to make our own covenant and call it God's, and more specifically to take God's covenant and demand more of people than God demands. Fraser says:

..... Paul, explaining the new covenant, writes: “For you are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ.” Then comes that famous bit: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.26-29). The Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright — basically, Mr Covenant as far the present crisis is concerned — gets it spot on: “All those who believe in Jesus belong at the same table.”

This is a statement not of radical exclusion, but of radical inclusion. I have made this point on a number of occasions with those who make this rule and that rule: to my mind God is inviting people in not shutting people out. Fraser puts it more eloquently

Yet there are those for whom this new testament is not enough. They want a new new testament, creating a sub-division within the category “all those who believe in Jesus”. They want to write a new new testament that will distinguish first- and second-class Christians. And the sign of this unbiblical covenant is to be sound doctrine, as defined by a small coterie of conservative Evangelicals.

This is dangerous territory but it is, as I say, perceptive. Using profoundly religious language ...."all those who believe in Jesus", we then define what that means not according to God's magnanimity but according to our narrow understanding.
However we line up in current debates we need to be aware of the temptation to name our own narrow orthodoxy as God, and that I suggest is idolatry.

Bloody, bold and resolute!

Having expostulated yesterday on how New Year's resolutions are laughable in our society and how(any way) we are called to have a resolute state for our life rather than a list of good ideas (homily here). I have, nevertheless, continued (after 18 months) with my novella...(see here).
We shall see how long the resolution lasts!
It does seem to me that an awful lot of bloggers style themselves as novelists, and strive to use the medium to force them to write...and then never do it. Myself included.
Well, my theory is a page a day must write 365 pages a year...and 366 in 2008!