What is literary truth?

The Australian continues its war against teachers of English. Justine Ferrari can scarcely hide her indignation in a front page piece today (28/2/09) this is followed up by editorial comment which suggests that professional teachers of English have (once again) got it wrong. We are of course entitled to our opinions, though Ferrari's article purports (and I use that word advisedly!) to an objectivity which is tainted with snide comment and emphatic utterance which hardly renders it impartial.
The thrust?
In discussing the national curriculum English teachers want us to recognise that the teaching of literature is inherently a political act. This Marxist view has undoubtedlyt an element of truth.
When you think back to what you were required to read at school, at the very least we should all recognise that we were being given a world-view which was the political correctness of the time.
Not all of this is bad?
But what I think the English teachers are suggesting is that kids read cultural values outside the bounds of literature. Indeed kids don't read anything approaching 'literature'. They do web-surf, they do watch music videos, anime, youtube and so on.
If they were to leave school not being able to evaluate this populist material they are far more vulnerable than if they have never read Great Expectations or even watched youtube about it!!
TheAustralian also takes opportunity to whine about the teaching of grammar ( I have blogged before)
I have mixed feeling about this, but I am most concerned about the fact that the constant demand to "teach grammar" is not about addressing understanding but about doing something manageable. It is not an exercise in education, it is an exercise in control (pretty Marxist sort of stuff ehhh?).
I am not convinced that understanding what an adverbial clause is necessarily contributes to understanding.
I do think that spelling is important, though meaning is more important.
It is important to be able to read critically and to be able to address issues...this is not about parsing sentences and so much of what passes for grammar.
We need to recognise that grammar is the servant of language and not the end.

Smudgy

I noticed that Joe Biden had a smudge on his head at a news conference and also a Palestinian negotiator in Jerusalem.

Ash Wednesday

Those of us who attend the rites of Ash Wednesday to mark the beginning of the fasting season of Lent will know that there is a certain irony becaue we are told not to flaunt our piety, and then promptly marked with a visible cross of ash on our foreheads.

We know that it's important to wipe it off before we continue our day's journey, but those of us in the know can often see the greyish remains of the ceremony.

Thomas Merton reminded me this morning:

All self denial that is not entirely suspended from his (Jesus')
promise is something less than Christian
Thoughts in Solitude p. 29

It's a good reminder to not play games with this sort of stuff, I mean what's the point?

Pancake Tuesday

We loved this day as children, it was the only day we ever had pancakes. Now I have a 15 year old who can whip up a mean batch for breakfast any Saturday.

Today as I lead a (pre-Lent) Bible study we were talking about how this Christian Festival (Shrove Tuesday...the day before Lent begins, sometimes even called Mardi Gras or "greasy Tuesday"  to translate) had been taken over as hundreds of pancakes were given away in Rundle Mall without any explanation.

The trouble is it's ancient. The trouble is it's northern hemisphere.  The trouble is we live in the (in my opinion) second-most secular country in the world (after France).

Any way...'shrove' means "having gone to confession"...when you are shriven you go to the priest and confess....I must admit I have not been run off my feet!!  

But perhaps give a thought before you guzzle another pancake with blueberry cream and ice cream...perhaps it's worth doing something about the crap in your life too.!!

Happy Lent!

Lightweight Soft Cell

In an amazingly lightweight analysis of recent SA crime statistics Family First  MP Dennis Hood "blasts"the Government because as an Advertiser article puts it:

NOT a single rapist, child pornographer or killer driver received a maximum sentence in South Australia last financial year

If you were to look at this as glass "hall full" rather than "half empty" then perhaps we should give thanks for this. If we assume that the court system works (not that it is perfect but that it works) then we recognise that a "maximum" sentence should not be the "usual" sentence.

The court system does not simply rubber stamp verdicts, but rather expects to take circumstances into account. 

I am always deeply cautious when there is an outcry against particular sentencing, few of us are in the court to hear the circumstances. Newspapers and television necessarily abbreviate the reporting and habitually miss the complex detail out. Circumstances are often and inevitably complex and often "boring" detail.

So outcry is often based on an incomplete reading of the evidence...hardly justice. The trouble is (and the cause of outcry) that we disagree about how circumstances should be weighted.

Isn't that why we have judges and magistrates? And why in the free world we do not allow (by and large) politicians to imprison people.

Narrow Perspective

When I was a "trainee" priest an older wiser colleague said that the trouble with Funeral Directors was that they thought they were 'directing' the funeral and that ministers thought of them as 'undertakers'. This bears some thought.
One director/undertaker runs an ad in the paper which says

• My Death Wish
• Don't go to Church
• Don't like wasting money
• Care for my partner and my children
• Don't want all the pomp and costs of a full funeral.
• I am choosing a short. simple, non religious
• MINI-FUNERAL at a cheap price

I actually think that this is socially inept and bereft of understanding what a funeral is actually about.
While I think it is possible for funerals to be an outrageous financial burden, this is not the only factor that needs to be taken into account.
I say this not because I wish to preserve the religious component when clearly many people are alienated by this, but I don't actually believe that many undertakers are better qualified to 'direct' funerals.
In fact I could give you any number of instances when undertakers have been blasé with their charges to the point of an affront, treating the dead as if they were hunks of concrete to be carted around.
They often lack the subtlety or capability of dealing with people who are actually grieving. Too many funerals fail to confront grief, and become sort of like birthday parties where the particular celebration is that the guest of honour happens to be dead.

At the very least, the religious (any religion really) helps us to confront our mortality.

What does this particular ad mean when it says it doesn't want all the pomp of a "full funeral"?
Is it somehow promoting a part-funeral, or a less than complete obsequy and why?
If I know anything after 30 years of taking funerals it is that you don't get a second chance to get it right.
Unfortunately the narrow viewpoint that this sort of company promotes,

• as cheap and as quick as possible,
• preferably without any grief or sadness
• an alleged celebration of life but no appreciation of death

I suspect does more damage than good. This doesn't need to be expensive, or religious but it shouldn't be cheap and nasty. Funerals are important. Important enough to get right.

A thought for today

Thomas Merton said in one of his earlier books

"Before we can see that created things (especially
material) are unreal, we must see clearly that they are real"

Thoughts in Solitude (p.4)

Not a bad little thought to sit with for today!

The dog house

Rightly or wrongly we acquired a new dog at the weekend. After our beloved Tilly died in the winter last year it has taken me a long time to think I could enter into relationship with another dog, though we talked about it for some time.

Our new dog Alto is a beagle puppy; so, highly intelligent and crazy. Not necessarily a good combination! I am surprised how anxious I have been that he is OK through the night (Yes a he...so he could have been mor aotly called Counter Tenor ...but this doesn't really trip off the tongue, so we decided that he is a male alto instead!)

Fun days ahead. watch this space for The Adventures of Alto

On being self-righteous

As a callow youth, early in my days of ordained ministry I was occasionally aware of older clergy looking at me wryly when I was pontificating. In those days I would often think they didn't like enthusiasm (often true) or were resistent to change (also often true).
But I also recognise that sometimes they may just have thought I was stupid and/or naive (often true!)
Hence a previous post (here) does at least allude to the fact that, as the song says, "Regrets I have a few!" - particularly the naivety of not realising that when ever you think you clearly understand what God is saying that you need to be cautious.
I sometimes say that the real problem for me is discerning when "The voice of God!" is really the "voice of Stephen". An exercise in self-validation.
So I am cautious about saying this or that is God's voice. I am wary of those who do likewise.
One such is Danny Nalliah, a Victorian pentecostal pastor, who stated that he believes God revealed to him in a dream that Victoria would be punished for passing abortion laws last year. he has drawn the construction that these awful fires are that punishment (some comment on Wikipedia here)
He has, rightly in my opinion, been roundly criticised (see here and here )
That Jesus repudiates this cause-and-effect sort of theology is evident in a number of different places in the gospels.
That all preachers need to be cautious about their own Messiah complex is less well understood.
I say to all non-Christians. We are not all like this.
The quiet faithful pastor of Marysville, Norm Hart and his wife are now without house and church. They are not being punished by God, for other people's sins.
God most certainly did not allow hundreds of people to die and be injured in order to vindicate Pator Nalliah's view of the world.
God bless those Christians (and others) who see that the best witness is to stand alongside people in the midst of trouble; and not to make self-righteous capital out of it.

Daughters

I wrote this poem for S's birthday

A daughter is a cherished thing
at once young
and
bold
then shy and
sometimes sad.
One sings
one shouts
one laughs.
All cry.
And then they sing again.
A daughter is a cherished thing.

A boyfriend is a risky thing.
But a good risk
to take.
He could teach the cherished one
to be a risk taker
he is
invited in
to jokes and tears
and other things
where father cannot go.
Yet this risky man
is God’s gift to my daughter
that both may blossom,
and, so, I yield but
he is, nevertheless,
a risky thing.

A daughter is a risky thing.
She will touch the heart
you have so carefully hardened
and make it burn
with pride
with joy
with song!
If ever singing stopped
now that would be
a dangerous thing.
A daughter
(and I am blessed with three)
is worth the risk
is the risk
must take the risk
and love

and be loved.
A daughter is, indeed, a risky thing

February 10, 2009

The horror

We can only but imagine the horror of the bushfire tragedy in Victoria; South Australians remain tight-lipped because we know that there but for the grace of God are we!

In the awful Ash Wednesday fire of 1983 I remember that from the pulpit of St Michael's Mitcham, I asked the question "Who is to blame?" (there was a lot of focus on this question at the time and for some years afterwards). My naive response was "I am to blame".
I went on to postulate (perhaps pontificate is better) that I had not exercised one prayer for what was well-known to be a dangerous situation. I am some what embarrassed about this even though there is an element of truth in bringing to the congregation's attention the fact that we tend to not take much responsibility for anything beyond the smallness of our own lives.
Augustine suggests that prayer is not about getting God to act in a certain way...ie. it is not about manipulating the deity like some sort of spiritual slot machine...it is about understanding what God is doing, can do and how we can cooperate with that.
In that sense I think my point is worth making. We do need to learn the lessons of the past, and indeed the present. (whether we are spiritual or not).
I imagine that this present tragedy will demand some very, very strident changes. But that debate is yet to happen.

Night's Middle

I wrote this poem in February 2006


NIGHT'S MIDDLE

If I could live at night's middle
instead of running rather ragged
and
drilling at the day
then my vision would be brighter
and the voice of
God heard clear.
This morning, even,
the moon's fullest beam
shone
bright as day.
total stillness
haunted dead trousers on the line
until the softness
of the Spirit's coolest breath
walked them gently
and I shuddered, not with fear
but with delight
as my too warm
breast was cooled
by the lightest of touches.
Who can faint while such a
zephyr
reminds me of my own aliveness.

I did not rise.
almost
disciplined
to stay in bed
to the point of pain
lest, in embracing
the middle of the night,
I devoured the day
which still demands my
full attention.
And so, I crept
as early as I could
to put pen to
paper.
visions fleeing,
God's voice whispering
"Wiedersehen!"
and by a few lines,
the rising of the sun,
the plaintive magpie
and the start of the traffic
night's middle
had gone.

Correction

One 'Anonymous' correspondent notes that I actually misquoted Joanne Lemmer in a previous blog. The quotation should read (see full text here):

While they're watching us, we're watching you!

The point is still the same, that is, that the strategy is Any publicity is good publicity! (The text of the article actually talk about that strategy)
I apologise for the error.

All in all

It's been quite a week!
As the heat subsides we will all be relieved to get back to the reality of less stressful weather. We have a rush of family events this week so they will provide a much needed distraction.

On having your head chopped off.....

I determined two weeks ago to "do better at blogging", and I will leave it up to you, dear Reader, to decide whether or not that goal has been achieved.
But twice in the last week I have had people challenge my right to make blog comment on the basis of the fact that I happen to be a priest.
In my mind I blog as 'Stephen' not as "The Rev'd Fr", though I often like to talk about religious stuff. But I am also interested in politics, film, culture, family, language and poetry, and education and science.
I can't, and don't, distinguish particularly between myself as person and priest....it is not just my job it is my vocation.
So the critique has been that there are some areas that it is not appropriate or nice for me to talk about. That is a matter of opinion. Certainly there are some things that I would never dream of blogging about. I do not, for example, think it's appropriate for me to expose the private life of my family...or anyone for that matter. So if I am blogging in this area, I try to depersonalise it.
Some people of course can connect the dots better than others, and one child in particular has made me remove stuff about her...glad to do it.
BUT you cannot talk into a vacuum, and people who put their heads out there...politicians and business promoters the cases in point this week....want people to notice them. They cannot expect people just to roll over and accept what they say. And why would they want to?
The question in my mind is, then, why am I as priest/person disqualified from commenting on what is in the public arena? The answer is: I am not.
Indeed, (and many non-Christians don't seem to get this), I actually don't divide my life up into religious and non-religious. My Christianity actually compels me to try and dialogue with the reality of life. I have no time for a Christianity that is so heavenly it is of no earthly use.
I am happy to have my head chopped off when I stick it out there...serves me right for sticking it out.
I don't accept that I can't exercise my freedom to speak out, indeed I feel compelled to do so.
And I get a bit worried about those people who have very clear limits about what religious people should and should not talk about. So very often it seems as though it is OK to speak out if it is 'conservative' and 'nice', and not if it is challenging.
It is at that point we are told to get back into our pulpits.
Well I have news for you........

You're being watched

Local Blackwood Real Estate Agent, Joanne Lemmer, wiull probably be delighted she is the focus of an article in the press today (here), in which her use of a racially offensive joke about President Obama is critcised. It is an old and pathetic joke! Of the cheap shot variety.
Ms Lemmer is well-known in the local community for her outrageous publicity. You either love it or you hate it! Mostly for me it is the latter.

>[By way of clarification Joanne Lemmer has asked that
reference to her full text be made. This can be accessed at the reference she
has given me here http://www.hillsandvalley.com.au/uncut/february09.pdf]

But she is the sort of 'Any publicity.....is good publicity' type of person. When you are talking about how stupid it is you at least are possibly reading her ad rather than ignoring it. As she says in one of her documents:

While they're watching us they're watching you?

The particular issue concerns a joke about black people ...I am not going to repeat it, as I think these days it is inappropriate (always was...but hopefully we are not perpetuating the prejudice of the past ). Some of our politicians (mentioned earlier this week) learnt the hard way for example that you don't joke about people who beat up their spouses!
Ms Lemmer's alleged come back to a reporter was to say (when her disingenuous claims to not risk offence were obviously challenged by the reporter) was to say

"Are you black? Well, when you turn black, you ring up and tell me you're offended."

What nonsense! Admittedly she was probably peeved.
Are only men allowed to critique men, or women women. Can only Indonesians write about East Timor?
Come on Joanne, if you are going to stick your neck out these days you have to be prepared to have it cut off. As some of us have learned this week!

The milk of human kindness

I went to see Milk last night, it is an interesting film about homosexual political activist Harvey Milk. The local politics of it is mildly interesting; the world change that it reflects is much more significant. In fact, although it is talking about events in the 70s, it is difficult to imagine not only the deep prejudice but also the irrational fears of the so recent past.
However what really struck me, lest we think this a peripheral issue; Milk says at one stage something like:

I have had 4 relationships in my life and in three of those my partner took their own life. This is not a struggle about acceptance; this is a life and death issue.

By the end of the movie a fourth partner has committed suicide.
It is a point worth noting. This is not just a minor issue. Living with lack of acceptance, prejudice and open disdain is something that no human being should have to tolerate.

PS Sean Penn is excellent, and acts and looks disturbingly like Milk

Quick Response

Within moments of publishing my blog the Hon Alexander Downer had replied by email

Your blog is yet another example of why so many Anglicans have lost faith in the church; superficial, partisan and, for someone who professes to be a church leader,inappropriate.

Alexander Downer

Well I do what I can!!

Disingenuous

Kerry O' Brien accused Malcolm Turnbull of being disingenuous, (elsewhere defined as lacking candor) when he said that Treasurer Swan had declared on Sunday a 51 billion dollar shortfall, and today the PM talked of 150 billion. Turnbull could not resist saying "At this rate by tomorrow..."
Now, he is not given to taking such cheap shots, so, O'Brien rightly called him out. (you can chase it down here). I think Kerry the Red delighted in making dear Malcolm squirm, (it was his first program back for 2009).
Turnbull, who has rightly declared that a principal crisis strategy is bi-partisanship, likes (I suspect) economic management and dislikes political gameplaying. Because he doesn't like it he is uncomfortable and more importantly unconvincing. He doesn't seem like a political leader, it was interesting to hear Chris Pyne's faint praise ..."no leadership challenge from me" [anyone who has watched 'Yes Minister!' chuckles at such words. And leadership wrangling will not draw the public to support the Liberal Party.
Unless Turnbull looks like becoming PM he will no doubt lose interest in playing politics.....so I suspect unless there is some significant victory soon he will get out.
Not so disingenuous is dear Alexander who pontificated (yet again) on who is and who is not Australia's worst PM. (He chose Chifley and and Whitlam). A correspondent this morning rightly wonders why he overlooked Billy McMahon, and of course seriously questions Howard's record.
What is disingenuous is Downer's warning to Rudd;

He should not even dream of using a crisis for political advantage

What gall! Try telling the captain of the Tampa that or any of those who have been dragged into the war that Howard needed to bolster his own view of himself as an international player.

Faith intact

That Michael Kirby can leave the High Court with his faith in the justice system intact says more about him than about the system. Though no doubt he would disagree. (here)
His minority judgments have been many and his championing of the cause of freedom and the rights of unpopular groupings have made him many enemies. A man who kept his sexuality secret from most of his colleagues, even some close friends until quite recently. He reminds us that, as important as sexuality is, it will not and should not be the sole defining factor in evaluating our place in history or society. It should not even be a major factor, and he has not allowed it to be so.
One hopes in the future that he will not just be remembered because he was openly gay (eventually) but because of his many principled judgments which often went against the majority, and almost always championed truth justice and ...well not the American way...but one would hope the Australian way.
God bless one clergy family who named their gorgeous son after this great Australian!!