Weekend

Yesterday was OK as a day off, though deliberately trying to make it as a break means that today (Saturday) I now have a pile of stuff today.
I need to stop sharpening pencils and get on with it

Things that go bump in the night

It has been a funny old week with many disturbing things. They vary in quality, some seem serious, some seem ho-hum, some are depressing. I can do things about some of them and nothing about others. It all leaves me feeling just a little dazed about what is going on in my life.

• Sunday was my first Sunday back, everything went OK. Sometimes with a longish break your drop the rhythm and its hard work just leading worship. It wasn't so this week. Maybe that's good and maybe that's bad. It rather reminds me of the cartoon of the old woman shaking the priest's hand at the door of the Church, after one of a the new style of services (so typical of the 60s and 70s) had not gone particularly well. "Don't worry Vicar, " she said, "we'll soon be rattling all the new words off without a thought!"
• We also had a little administrative meeting after church and I came away feeling ambushed about discussions that had obviously taken place while I had been away and no one had bothered to tell me about them. The actual content didn't bother me so much, but I was left with a sense of little concern for me and my feelings.
• The weather has been dark and cold, and I was very conscious that last year this took a toll on my mental outlook. I cannot wait for it to end, but there is weeks to go.
• All this Aboriginal stuff is horrible. I feel for those communities that are so vulnerable to government whim and posturing in order to gain electoral advantage
• I was deeply disturbed after Spiritual Direction this week. I came away with a feeling that I had made no connection at all with my Director. And I wanted to go back and say "This can't go on!" and yet the thought of having to find someone else is too much to bear. The irony is that (as those who know about Direction will testify) that such a strong response inevitable means some powerful sort of movement within.
• Despite my previous bemoanings that my dream analysis has been pretty lacklustre, I have really been having a series of dreams which have quite disturbed me.
• I was more than a little spooked by the Religion Report this week (here) An awful story of alleged systematic child abuse within a 'respectable' religious order, where almost all of the serving brothers have had allegations brought against them. I am not involved. I don't know any of the people. But it has saddened me greatly. Perhaps it confronts an overly idealistic vision of the religious life, which the world sees through all too readily but which I have clung on to. What if, as the fiercest critics say, it is all just a sham and a cover for evil and neurosis? A case could be made.
• Yesterday, I saw my 89 year old friend. In the process of great decline. He is sad and depressed and will die sometime. His spirit is almost defeated. His body is packing up. His active mind is understimulated. There was little I could do or say to address any of this.
• This morning in my prayers I realised how fed up I am of all this.How angry with the God who seems to be playing "Yes Minister" with me!...yes this is what I call the Appleby effect. . I have noted it before when I have watched.. as I have this week.... ten episodes of that hilarious but bitterly cynical show which I got on DVD for my birthday
  

I am prepared to admit that all this might have some greater meaning...but enough is enough!!

Weakening the twenty second catch

Many will be, if not pleased then, interested to hear that the dreaded health checks of aboriginal children will not be compulsory. (see Minister Abbot's comments here)
Threats of these checks have allegedly sent mothers scurrying with their children into the bush, fearful that those who 'fail' their tests will be removed from their parents. This, after all, is a strategy used throughout Australia, not just in aboriginal communities...children 'at risk' are placed in care. It is difficult to know what else to do, since child abuse situations clearly demand prompt action.
What, too, if checks actually uncover child abuse and promises have been made that children will be left with their families...whilst the spectre of removing children from their parents looms large in aboriginal communities, nevertheless what to do?
All this stresses the need to have a properly resourced (and highly resourced) totally independent body that oversees this. That is totally free of political interference.
Maybe this is just vain hope and naivete on my part. As each decade goes on this problem get worse, and more expensive. At what point will we bite the bullet and say this is actually more important than being in Iraq. Or maybe I just have unrealistic expectations of what governments and politics can achieve.

Black children overboard?

I have resisted the temptation to leap (overboard?) on this awful issue of disarray (too weak?) or anarchy( too strong?) in remote aboriginal communities.
I don't know that I have formulated clear ideas about this issue so much as a series of dilemmas which I can't easily get my mind around. I suspect in this regard I am like many people.

• There is no doubt that these problems exist and need immediate attention
• We are so city focussed in this country that we have a huge problem in this country taking issues in remote and rural communities. It is easy for these issues to slip out of any effective focus and to get anything done. This is not just an issue about abuse, it is also about the inadequate resources that are made available for health, education and human services in general
• This problem has been with us for decades and I am suspicious of why there is now such a strong focus. The electorate is (in my mind) rightly suspicious fo what the political motivation for this might be; and the phrase Black Tampa, perhaps a highly emotive one, is worth keeping in my mind
• It would seem to me that everyone should be trying to keep our political masters (for masters they mainly are) out of the controversial process decision making. This seems unlikely since we are talking big bucks, and the current political mood is not so much about the community good as about getting value for the dollar.
• I also have tucked at the back of my mind the question of why the focus is on aboriginal communities alone. This is not to understate the importance and the community's particular responsibility for the ruin of aboriginal people. But what of other socially depressed and oppressed groups
• The nature of these sorts of issues is difficult to discuss and uncover, but let us not pretend that the issue sof child abuse is in aboriginal communities alone or exclusively
• This stuff is not good!
  

Dream a little dream

I had a conversation last week with a colleague about CG Jung (the psychoanlayst some would say the PSYCHO analyst). In his refreshingly blunt way W said...."The trouble with Jung it's all crap isn't it?" [Does one expect more of a PhD than "it's all crap"] I tend to respect his point of view as it's likely that even in areas where I am quite well read he is likely to be better and more extensively read and to have synthesised it better (in fact Yes! I hate him for being so smart!).
But I think he is probably wrong.
The trouble with Jung, I suggest, is that he has been picked up by so many New Age wierdos that it looks like Jung is whacko himself. In fact I think he is more seriously scientific than that.
His writing and life's work extend well into the modern era, which makes him rather different than Freud who died just as the Second War was breaking out. So while Freud seems like psychology (rather like Darwin is foundational biology) from which we have moved on, we are still enaging with Jung as someone who continued to adapt and change, and that change has continued for good and ill as the work of others, some of whom have hung their whacko work on Jung's shingle to give themselves a respectability which they otherwise would not have.
Maybe I am one such!

My present round of reading and study is about Jung's understanding of personality and the process of the maturing psyche, about self-awareness and the process of growth that he calls individuation.
Part of his way of looking at things focusses on dreams. Not so much the interpretation of dreams (as the whackos want to have us believe) as the understanding of our dreaming.
He has certain key principles (which I won't bore you with here) and there is an encouragement to record your dreams and review them, in order to try and discern what they reflect about our lives.
As people we are fascinated by dreams, they just have that mystery about them which is enough to suck us in to believing that they may be bigger than they are.
This is where we might be invited to get (as W puts it) sucked in by the crap. Not all dreams are of the calibre of the sort Joseph and Daniel interpret in Holy Writ.
But as with life maybe our ordinary dreams are as important as the extraordinary, if not more important because they are ordinary.
Any way, I finding it helpful at the moment to try and record the dreams I have.
I struggle a bit with how far I create dreams so that I have dreams to record...Catch 22...but I am like that.
The question for me as I encounter Self (Jung suggests that Self with a capital S is not God, but that part of us which knows God...that seems to me a tantalising idea) is how does this invite me to be more free....which is what individuation is about

A thing to remember

As I thought about yesterday's blogpost in the shower (here) I had a realisation that this was all closer to home than I thought.
I sat through a meeting yesterday afternoon which could have been straight out of David Marr's analysis of how debate is stifled.
It all looked OK. In fact we were constantly told by the chief PB (that could be Pooh Bah or Power Broker depending on your proclivities)...this is your meeting, this is your agenda.
And on one level this was entirely true. Though the agenda was carefully controlled through the timing, and the opening and closing remarks to each section (always by the great Plus himself).
At the beginning of the session there was little comment and he jokingly remarked...well perhaps you are all satisfied and happy.
And I (how naughty I am) cynically said to those around me .....Or just wary and anxious!...At least the lesser Pooh Bah sitting next to me laughed. I am glad that the venerable one may just understand that I am not really disloyal but rather a bit of a sceptic.
Now I suspect that those of you who were at the meeting may understand what I am talking about, and others will be just plain bamboozled....but my reflection is this:

• Don't just blame the PB if we allowed his controlling to go unchallenged (I have sent him one email already)

I think in the past I have often just been bitter and twisted about a lot of stuff and shot my mouth off with gay abandon, probably to try and be seen as smart or if I was honest just plain hurtful

• We are probably not alone in our disquiet

I had a phone call from a colleague who I trust and who trusts me and we both were feeling the same thing. We both agreed we could contribute positively to debate and not leave it up to PB to come up with all the ideas, even though he seems to think that is his right and that he is the only one who can. At the very least we can try and develop thought so he thinks he came up with an idea!

• Resist the temptation to bury your head in the bunker

PB actually named this. "I have never been in an environment where so many people say they just keep their heads down and get on with their jobs" .
I wonder if he reflected on why only about half of those who could have been at the meeting were there!
I thought in the shower...will I go next time? I mean what'sthe point.
And then I remembered yesterday's blog!
It may be hard to challenge and keep on challenging deaf, manipulative leadership. But if we don't then we only have ourselves to blame.

And I doubt that +PB is reading this, but if you are then I assure you that I think you are trying. But we don't feel safe yet!

I'm the Voice try and understand me

Most of us probably won't get round to reading David Marr's Quarterly Essay: "His Master's Voice...the corruption of public debate under Howard " though if you read Julianne Schulz's review in the SMH you get a pretty good idea of the ground that it covers.
To be fair to the PM, Marr doesn't lay the total blame at his feet but rather suggests that we the people have allowed ourselves to be silenced. That we have co-operated with the demonising of individuals, like leading industrial academic David Peetz who dared to criticise Government policy (see one such critique here) and was, Marr argues, subject to one of the most bitter smear campaigns we have ever witnessed.
He was in no lesser place than the Senate caricatured as one who was involved in: "Moral equivocation and terrorism"
This slurring of his character became a matter for the Privileges Committee (see here)and his explanation makes clear that it is his belief that the slur was meant to diminish his standing in the eyes of the community and thus diminish his ability to be regarded as a reputable commentator.
This is a standard political tactic, we might argue; YES! If we are talking about thew tactics of Stalinist Russia.Not the democracy we purport to be.
Marr argues that this is not so much deliberate policy as accepted practice, and happens because we the electorate let it happen.

There is no doubt that Marr can be something of a socialist whining, old, poof and that can be a bit painful and boring...but he does have something of a point.
In getting the politicians we deserve we should remember that we fail to hold our politicians accoutn for their undemocratic behaviour. When they shut down debate, we also allow the debate to be shut down. When they bully, standover, besmirch and fail to be accountable, they get away with this because we let them.

I am not entirely brimming with ideas of what to do about this.

• I think we should keep the pollies on their toes by writing letters to them.
• I think that blogging is a good idea.
• Public questioning as we lead up to election time seem to be quite a good thing to do.
• Writing letters to the paper

In a way these are fairly pathetic responses to what is a serious problem. But democracy only really works if there is genuine debate. We get the pollies and the system we derserve, in so far as we fail to hold them to account.

Fibre to the node

Just a little warning to be careful about what is being said/promised with regard to broadband in the run-up to the forthcoming election debacle!
In trying to outbid each other both parties are settling for less than the best technology when it comes to broadband for the nation.
I don't pretend to understand the multitude of variations that is being offered at this point in time, but both major political parties need to be encouraged not just to win the next election but also to ensure that they lay down the future for the next phase of technological development.
We are being offered increased broadband speeds of between 10 and 25 times current speeds. Which of course is good, until you look at the fact that world-technology is 100 to 250 times present speeds!
The issue for Australia may well not be "speed"at all, but roll out. Our unique problem is not particularly that we are small, but that we are spread out. And the rhetoric of the players in the last week or so, seems to be who can roll out the biggest network across the largest area. This is I think the issue. It is not the service that will be offered to the cities, but to the bush that will count.
On top of this we must also recognise the war between Telstra and Optus (and partners) that is going on.
Both are ruthless players seeking to maximise profits, and that is their job. But at what price? The Free Market dogma would seem to suggest that , if not 'greed', then ruthlessness is good.
The vitriol with which Telstra spoke of the new consortium yesterday....using jingoistic language...."A free ride is being given to a Singapore based company"....which seemed to expect that listeners shoudl somehow now be disposed to offer most-favoured status to the now privatised company. Well get real! Isn't that what privatisation is all about, and that is what they wanted? Personally I think the privatisation of public utilities is pretty hair-raising stuff.
As we are now finding. Instead of policy shaping the future for the nation, we are back to the thorny issue of political expediency and the ruthlessness of a free market which will take no prisoners.
Is this what we really want?

Preces Privatae

AAAggh! Don't you hate questions that don't make any sense? Once again the Murdoch press has a bizarrely naive headline on the front of this morning's paper..."Vanstone: Keep religion out of politics"
To practising Christians, and I would suspect Jews and Muslims also, religion is essentially a communal activity. If you look at the teachings and activity of Jesus it is clear that he is not simply drawing people into a private experience of God, but he is encouraging his small band to be community, and is vitally concerned with people's day to day lives.
I, for one, can't see the point of struggling with all this religious stuff if it doesn't actually have some effect on how life is lived. One has only to look at hundreds, nay thousands and probably millions, of socially active people throughout the world's history and see that many, perhaps most, of them are driven not be political ambition or intellectual commitment but by deep faith.
Outstanding examples are civil rights' campaigner Martin Luther-King, scientist - Isaac Newton, anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce, pioneer health professional Florence Nightingale, liberation campaigner Mahatma Gandhi and too many others to list, to realise that faith drives the political action of many, many people.
It is also noteworthy that as we look at even those few named above, they were not without their antagonists. No doubt many saying they should keep their religions out of politics.
I want to say that it is actually an affront to my personal liberty, is it not, to tell me that I can only practise my public religion privately.
Politicians may find it inconvenient when religious folk speak out about difficult subjects. But that doesn't mean they should deny people the right to do it.
Rather the reverse. In a democracy we should be encouraging, rather than discouraging people to engage with community debate.
A famous Anglican Divine, Lancelot Andrewes, wrote a treatise called Preces Privatae (Private Prayers). Here is one short section of those for whom he thought the Chriostian should pray:

Infants, children, youths, young men, grown men, old men, them that are in extreme age, the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, prisoners, strangers, those without friends; the sick in soul, or body, weakhearted, those that are past hope; those in prison and bonds, those condemned to death; orphans, widows, strangers, those that travel by land, by water; those with child, those nursing children, those in solitude.

Plenty of political meat there I would have though

It is not difficult to see that Andrewe's, at least, appeared to think that the worlds of politcis and faith should be concerned about the same sorts of issues

Back to work

On the eve of going back to work there is already one phone call from a parishioner's daughter telling me her mother has moved, there is another one telling me her mother is dying...and there is lined up this week...a conference, a tutorial and seminar, personal supervision and peer group meeting...on top of all this I have to just remember how to do it all. And I also need to process the mail for the 6 weeks we were away.
At least on this my 55th birthday I have gained thermal underwear, and I feel comfortable weraing it and comfortable because I am wearing it! I had a minor shock (age I suppose!) when I realised I was 55 not 54 today!

Ho-hum

Allowing for the fact that it is the last week of sitting for the Federal Parliament, and I have been away for six weeks, I am already tired of the drivel that is passing for serious political debate.

The beat-up about using Kiribilli House for whatever purpose is tedious in the extreme. Likewise if I hear the carefully scripted use of the term "Union bosses" again I will scream...when will we actually get down to policy and substance.

I want to discuss not "catering costs" or "election strategies" as tittilating as these might be; but rather such issues as:

• how is the education system going to be upscaled in the next two decades to set us in a key postion for the future?
• how are inequalities between various people in the workforce going to be addressed to allow the whole of our society to benefit from the relevantly buoyant state ofg our economy
• what is being discussed behind the scenes about issues to do with future power-generation, nuclear power and carbon emissions

Let's drop the crap about the fluff and get on with the important stuff.

Closer to reality

I do apologise, dear reader, if in my enthusiasm to re-establish my blog on a regular basis that this week's entries have been unduly long and serious. Part of the art must be in trying to work out what is appreciated by you and having been away for six weeks I have to get back into the rhythm. So, hopefully, I am getting there.

This week I am slipping back into it slowly...at times this process is easy and at times it is not so easy.

• I have begun intensive reading for the course on Jungian analysis I am doing this semester, and in reality during normal times most of the reading tends to get done in one intensive  rather than evenly spread out over the 50 or so days. The great disadvantage of doing it very rapidly (and PTL I can read fairly rapidly) is what to do when your head starts to spin because the neurones are firing with joy at all the new information you are absorbing. And of course it takes a while to assimilate it. So this has disturbed my sleeping a bit.
• I have tried not to begin work before I actually go back next week. This temptation is difficult, but I have succeeded. Yesterday  I met with my friend and colleague, who has also been on extended leave, to chat but also to discuss how we were feeling about getting back into it. Both of us had been very tired before we left and we knew that things would need to be different when we returned. Will they be?

  When J asked me about this I said we would need to see what happened next week! I think this is a good thing, as I was actually quite anxious about coming back before I went away...if that makes sense. It would seem to suggest that I am a little less anxious about it. 

• This time last week we were in Kuala Lumpur  and a week before that in England. It came as something of a shock yesterday to realise how quickly it all slips away.
• I was brave enough yesterday to look at the credit card bill.  Verdict: a little bit worse than I had hoped but not as bad as it could have been! So that would seem to be as it should be!
• And this weekend  another birthday. I delight, in a way, about getting older; but also wonder where the fifty four years have gone. If you know perhaps you could tell me!

To die or not to die.

As if the euthanasia and/or capital punishment debate weren't complex enough; pro-death advocate Philip Nitschke this week suggested that Tasmanian mass murderer Martin Bryant who is in jail "never to be released" is a prime candidate for some form of euthanasia. (see here).
I am not one who thinks that Nitschke should be dismissed out of hand because his views are outspoken or extreme (or more accurately because I largely disagree with them!) but I think he has done nothing to advance his cause by making this sort of comment.
It will actually expose for a lot more people just how defective and slippery his arguments are.
For me the issue about euthanasia is more about the downward slide.
That is, once you admit it, no matter how strong the safeguards are that you put in place, how then do you actually stop these safeguards being weakened as time goes on.
History would show that humankind, being what it is, we tend to slide downhill and strict safeguards get weaker. Some would think this is a good thing, I don't.
Curious argument
Nitschke's argument in the case of Bryant, is that Bryant has tried to kill himself unsuccessfully on several occasions, to continue to allow him to languish in the penal system is akin to torture and is therefore cruel punishment. Because Bryant is 'never to be released', the possibility of his rehabilitation whilst in jail is obviously being denied. What then is the purpose of his incarceration?
This raises the question about what we are doing when we send people to jail any way.
Are we trying to punish them, make them suffer or rehabilitate them. Or some combination of all three?
This is where I think Nitschke has exposed himself.

His unremitting advocacy for euthanasia has essentially been about relieving the suffering of those who are going to die. It is about a dying person making a choice, not about having the choice made for them. Nor is it that a person who is depressed about, or fed up with, or just plain bored with life being allowed to top themselves!
While Nitschke and others may feel that it is OK that euthanasia is purely a personal or individual decision, most people in our society don't. Euthanasia is for the dying, not the bored.
The particular case of Bryant, who committed one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, only further confuses the issue.
What do you do with a man who mows down tourists, adults and children unremittingly?
Most people are happy to let him languish in jail. As a country we believe that the death sentence is not appropriate. Not all of us by any means accept this view.
But that is where we stand today.
We will not for example extradite people to countries where it is likely that they will be subject to the death penalty.
While we may be drawn to the idea that Bryant should be executed. And I am not! We actually say, we do not believe that taking people's lives is a value that we want to incorporate into our nation's world view.
Martin Bryant, however deservedly, should not be allowed to be executed even if he wants to be.
We do not want to be the sort of society that has capital punishment. Why should a mass murderer be allowed to flout that? Why should Nitschke's euthanasia agenda be allowed to flow into this complex area too?
This is my point. The slippery slope.
While some may have sympathy with a view of euthanasia that hastens the end of a life of pain which is headed irrevocably towards an immediate death, most of us are scandalised by the idea that euthanasia might be used as a tool of social control.
Misfits like Bryant might want to die, as a society we do not believe that it is appropriate that suicide of those who are not terminally ill should be sanctioned, and certainly it should not be assisted.
The question is not whether it "could" be done, of course it could, but whether it "should" be.

Tibetan confluence

In one of those rare moments of agreement both Rudd and Howard are now falling over each other to meet HH The Dalai Lama (here).
One can only imagine that their discernment machines have some how revealed to them that the popular mood is that the electorate wiull not take kindly to Australian leaders submitting to Chinese bullying.
The man himself said today....To me it is not a very big issue but you (referring to the media at the National Press Club) seem to think it is very important. hahaha....with that insane cackle that he has

Pride in voting

I must admit that one of the proudest days of my life was the last Federal Election, when Sue & I stood in line at the Port Elliott Memorial Hall with our two eldest daughters waiting to cast our lot. For S, the younger of the two, it was the first time that she had voted and she was visibly excited (isn't she always?). We had spent some time in the weeks leading up to the election discussing various issues and who one might vote for. I have no way of knowing who they did actually vote for, though I suspect they voted the right way!!
And here we are on the eve of the next election. There is already increasing foment in the community about not just which candidates/parties to vote for but the process of voting itself.
Compulsory voting - a misconception
It has always seemed to me a good and democratic thing that the right to vote is something that is required of everyone in Australia. And, although in some other democratic countries (the US and the UK for example) voluntary voting is the order of the day; a sound case, I suggest, can be made that it is a democratic citizen's responsibility to exercise the right to vote.
To this, some would say, choosing not to vote is also a choice and should be permitted. I agree with this, and we have that option.
In fact the misconception is that you do have to vote. That is not so. You only have to have your name ticked off. You are not compelled to write anything on the ballot paper...we actually have compulsory name ticking off not compulsory voting.
It is not unreasonable to suggest that in a democracy citizens actually have responsibilities, and a (if not the) key responsibility is to deliberate and vote (indeed democracy cannot work without that process).
So why does the Liberal party in particular seem to promote voluntary voting?
Why are we having a discussion about whether or not certain people in jail should be denied their right to vote?
Why do we have draconian regulations being suggested that would close the voting rolls on the day an election is announced....regulations which would effectively disenfranchise those who, perhaps given a fortnight or two, would do what they ought to have done more prudently weeks or months before? Recent figures suggest that 400,000 voters enrolled or amended their enrolments in the couple of weeks after the writs for the last election were issued...this would not be possible under the new regulations unless that were all done by 8 p.m. on the actual day the writs were issued.

On the grand scale of things one person not being able to vote here or there probably doesn't make all that much difference. But it is, I would suggest, incumbent upon our society..if we want to be hailed as democratic... appropriate that we encourage people to vote, not discourage them. That we promote the notion that you should engage with the process, even if you decide not to vote, but we should not just allow our fellow citizens to languish out of apathy or cynicism. And we should protect the rights, in particular, of those who are most likely to be easily disenfranchised.
While one or two votes may not actually make any difference, the fact that we deliberately disregard anyone's rights does affect the sort of society we actually live in.

Waste of space

There is a fluttering question going on about Parliamentary prayers at the moment. The local paper's question of the day is "Are prayers before Parliament a waste of time?"
This question has many interesting dimensions.
The three Vox Pops were interesting: One said...If you believe it then it is not a waste of time, I'm a Catholic so that's OK...another said...If you don't believe there is not much point, I do so that would be OK for me...and the final one said...People believe a lot of different things, so if you have prayers for Christians you should have other prayers as well
These points are true enough on a naive level, though I find it interesting that people in praying to God think that it matters that they believe, as if God might be powerless to act unless we beleive that it is so.
Research shows that though remarkably few Australians are regular church goers any more, a surpisingly high number still pray and believe in God. Recently I noted that our beloved PM had exhorted us all to pray for rain (here...and by the way it seems to have worked!!) and some of the questions that that raises.
My recent peregrinations have caused me to reflect quite a bit on the way religious practice conveys not only spiritual value but also cultural identity. (This is sooooooo Sociology IA)
In Italy there is not a moment when you escape overt religionism, and yet the culture is remarkably untroubled by it. In France to be religious is to be different, it was best characterised by the 400 or so people who were at Mass at the Sacre Coeur at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night, a quiet mysterious event which contrasted markedly with the drunken busking that was going on on the steps outside...the two crowds remarkably similar in social makeup.
In England there was the driest of the dry Eucharist at the Abbey, which although it was tres Anglican, seemed to connect little with the spiritual.
This latter aspect best typifies what happens in the Australian Parliaments, prayers rattled off correctly but without any passion. The words are often those of the past from which the Church has moved on decades ago and are filled with anachronisms (thee and thy) and gender bias (assuming the masculine includes the feminine) . Often it seems that the saying of these prayers is about asserting the Parliament's continuation with tradition rather than the Parliament's reliance on God's grace. This is less than satisfactory to me.
Personally, I think there needs to be something about prayer that is a waste of time.
Whether it be Parliamentary or personal.
When we pray, however badly or well, there should seem to be some sense of the fact that we are relying on God, not that we are manipulating God through our belief or unbelief. This is more than just saying well "It doesn't do any harm!" It is an attitude about a cultural value that says not everything is or can be under our control.
But it's a pretty brave thing to say or do.

Strange to wake up

It is, indeed, strange to wake up and have nowhere to go. For all but about one day in the last six weeks we have had to get up each day and either travel or prepare to travel. It has been good to do that, and it is good to be home.
If one were to wax philosophical about it there are at least two contra musings that may be made.
We are always on the move. Some days the journeys are little and some days they are big. They can be big or small, important or unimportant, totally different from or exactly the same as the day before and the day before that.
But we move on.
I have found engaging with that idea to be challenging, because I guess I am the sort of person who tends to try and organise my life so everything is running smooothly and fairly well under control. And yet of course it never is, each day brings about it a sense of difference and change. And its own particular challenges.
Sometimes the challenges of a day seem intimidating, but day after day for six weeks the challenges have been met and the problems solved. Even where some of it has filled me with foreboding and dread, we have managed to weather storms and move on.
The second sense that I have today is that
Everything stays the same!
You forget when you are in new places and nothing is the same that there is a familiar and a usual. Yet the house and garden to which we return is just like ti was, the grass needs cutting and there are still jobs to be done that were there when we left. They didn't go away. No one called room service or house management to fix them!
Indeed the familiar has about it the same sort of challenge as the different.
Each day brings about it a sense of difference and change. And its own particular challenges.
So back to reality....!

Early morning mueslings

As we begin the final stage of our Grand Tour, this time next week we will be preparing for the flight from KL to Adelaide, there are certain random musings about world culture that float in and out at irregular intervals. Some of them are:

• Family is a very close bond. Yesterday my aunt showed me pictures of my grandmother at her wedding and you would have sworn it was my sister. These physical characteristics are perhaps more noticeable when the gaps of observation are decades rather than days or weeks.
• Family Personality transcends all sorts of things. My aunty with whom we have been staying (and who will be reading this!!..hello Adelaide) who is my father's half sister is also remarkably like me in many ways. Both bossy and right! Of course we are also wildly different. My cousins with whom we grew up and from whom we have been separated for many years, are able just to sit down and pick up the conversation and get up to speed in half an hour. A great thing. Of course we walk out of each other's lives for another few years today,
• Supermarkets are a great leveller. They all look like Blackwood or Unley. Though they have their distinctive stuff. Fabulously cheap Pasta and cheese in Rome, beautiful patisserie on the shelves in Paris, and good Pork Pies in England!! Yet there is plastic wrap, garbage bags, shampoo and cup-a-soup, that all look the same!! Great levellers and yet there is regional stamping.
• Cars. The world is transport mad and greedy, it is interesting to note what Adelaide could avoid if it acts now. But most places leave it till it's too late. Maybe this is simplistic...but the world can't go on doing what it has been doing.
• Politics. There is an opportunistic sameness about the process, having been in France for the last Presidential election, and England for Blair's resignation one might asell have been in Australia.
• Synod. I missed my first synod ever because I was away. I seem to have survived!