Pacifism

I imagine a hard thing for good world leaders is making decisions about going to war, so recent decision to send more troops to Afghanistan must be hard for Rudd and Obama.  The principle is, I suppose, doing a lesser evil to allow a greater good. Though this is slippery slope stuff, and indeed the difference between politics and philosophy or ethics.

(Read for example an awful account of a current defamation trial in The Age. An alleged rapist and brutalist is alleged to have said about his brutality and killing of his enemies 

(Reporter),Paul  McGeough reported (in an interview with the man known as  Captain Dragan )  as saying: "Because of me, fewer have died than might have. And I don't think you will see any prisoners of war treated as well as ours."

Such language is of course total and utter rationalization. )

Thomas Merton says:

"I have learned that an age in which politicians talk about peace is an age in which everybody expects war: the great men of the earth would not talk of peace so much if they did not secretly believe it possible,  with one more war, to annihilate their enemies forever"

 in The Collected Poems pp 374-75  as in Seeds p. 34

Our beloved leaders would do well to hear this caution

What a swine!!

I haven't quite figured out the subtle difference between swine and pig, though I was bemused to see The Advertiser billboard referred to the current influenza scare as "Pig Flu".

This seemed to me wrong, and then I thought that I suppose 'Swine' in this case is a euphemism, after all we don't want to panic the multi-million dollar pig industry.

It's one of those Maths things: all pigs are swine but not all swine are pigs.

In the United States, the term "pig" refers to a younger domesticated swine weighing less than 120 pounds (50 kilograms), and the term "hog" refers to older swine weighing more than 120 lbs. In Great Britain all domesticated swine are referred to as pigs

I guess this is like the difference between lamb mutton and hogget, all of which are sheep.

However if you call me a pig it seems to have a different meaning from calling me a swine. Both of which may be individually true!

On not forgetting

We are reminded each year by the indomitable spirit of those who march of many things; I think of the fact that try as they may ANZAC continues to be more of a community observance than a political one.

As the particular political concerns move out of popular consciousness these people keep marching. All of us are particularly aware of the enormous cost of war...and of the brevity of our attention to the cost paid largely by the young and those who lack influence for the decisions of the powerful. What senseless waste, what total insanity.

Wilfred Owen, the poet of The 'Great' War wrote in one of his finest poems The Parable of the Old Man and the Young, of the travesty of who makes the decisions and who pays the price

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps

and builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him, thy son.

Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,

A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not do so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Pardon my ignorance

I do mean to keep asking.

All these stimulus packages that have to be paid back by governments.... who is lending the money for them... and how come they have money?

Short prayer

(a poem of late January 2009)

Some days
it is enough
to pray
for a short time.
This is not the day
when, almost unbearable,
I grit my teeth
and wish it were over.
Those are the days
when I must spend
the impossible hour
knowing
that feeling you are not there.
recognising
that I am barely present
is the surest sign
that this is it.

But some days, like today,
I could sit here
for ever
and shouldn't,
because today
it is OK
you are there.
It has not been too hard.
And so I go
I do not need to struggle.
for that, today.
I can give thanks
whilst also knowing
that it is the days of struggle
of pain
of impossibility
that are what it is all about.
But today is not onesuch
and so I go

Simple gifts

By its very nature my job means I spout a lot of words into the atmosphere. It can be vaguely disconcerting because you are never quite sure if people are hearing what you are saying (or for that matter if what you sayign is worth being heard!).
Yesterday morning for example things seemed to be going quite well then I noticed that M (who notoriously absents herself from mental engagement with sermon and/or worship) had sort of connected...but about 5 minutes in became quite animated. She was obviously watching what was going on behind me!
Then H was looking in the same direction.
I felt a degree of anger well up within and wanted to turn round and see what could possibly be more fascinating than me! I resisted the temptation and the desire to publicly chide them.
The stupid candle, which hadn't been changed because for the third month in a row the rostered sacristan hadn't done her job, had gone up in a blaze of glory. Obviously far more more interesting than the proclamation of the Gospel!
It is easy to be judgmental. I have absented myself from too many homilies in the past to be judgmental about those who couldn't give a stuff about what I am saying.
Any way. God, who is rich in mercy, allowed me to have two simple gifts the next time round.
There were a number of young kids in the later service...it's always difficult to compete. But they were good and indeed..delightful.
It was great when asking a rhetorical question "After all we people of faith know that Jesus is alive, don't we?" To have a little 3 year old voice say "Yes!" without looking up from her drawing and without any casuistry, total conviction!
Then after the service, checking that the oldies were OK, I asked K who's having a rought trot at the moment (and who's had a helluva life...but she would never see it that way) how it was going.
And she beamed, in way that I had worried she had forgotten how and said "OOOh you know Easter, Don't be alarmed!"
She was quoting back some of Mark's account of the resurrection about which I preached on Easter day (here). It is worth it if one person listens!

Avast me hearties

News that the recent rescue of an American crew recently attacked by pirates has sparked retaliation (here) sends shivers up the spine.
Those of us who grew up with jolly swashbuckling pirates could be forgiven for thinking that they were really not to be taken seriously, and those of us who think, a la G&S, that "they are all noblemen who have gone wrong" are obviously seriously mistaken.
I also grew up in a town where a significant part of the English merchant fleet had been attacked by American pirates led by the infamous John Paul Jones , causing significant political and economic damage. This perhaps reminds us that pirates are not really a laughing matter.
The temptation? Ahh yes, the temptation will always be to go and blast the crap out of them....I suspect that most of us have no idea of the extent of the problem or of the logistics involved
But we must also recognise that part of these issues we are seeing erupting all over the place, where those who perceive they 'have not' are deciding to take matters into their own hands and demonstrating they are just as greedy and complicit as those they reckon have more, ....any way that long bloggish sentence was meant to convey that gross inequities in wealth will always fuel violence and aggression and , indeed, revolution. This is basic Marxism.
In a world where capitalism would appear to be, if not collapsing then, rethinking itself...we would be foolish to just dismiss all aspects of alternative theory out of hand. Marxism identifies a dynamic for violence and/or revolution which could become more evident as these tough times get worse.

Is enough, enough?

Crows player Nathan Bock has declared that he is repentant and ready to play.
He was caught striking his beloved in anger, whilst drunk. Crows management decided he should be (at least) temporarily suspended. And here we are a week or so later, and he declares he is ready to go.
Is it long enough?
We shall see what they decide. Personally I think spousal violence is a bit more serious!

All will be well

Easter Church went well! But I just seemed to wilt as the day went on. After a post-baptismal champagne, and then lunch with K, I thought I just need to go and sleep.
I think I really was struggling with some sort of virus, too, so I took to my bed at about 8.30 feeling rather sorry for myself.
But I slept well.
I don't like this getting older and finding that staying power all too readily disappears.

What sort of law?

Ever ready to tap into the mood of the moment Media Mike apparently agrees with a 'proposal' of Police Commissioner Hyde to not only confiscate the vehicle of hoon drivers, but to "crush them" (here)

This will no doubt have some, if not a lot of, appeal in some corners of society, but is this sort of vindictive action what our justice system is about?

Would we, for example, countenance the destruction of someone's house because a crime happened to have been committed in it?

Sounds more like the world of the fascist dictator than the liberal democracy we are supposed to embrace.

We have for many years accepted that illegal proceeds might be confiscated and used to recompense victims of crime, why could these cars not be impounded and sold?

There is clearly a mind game going on here, I for one do not want to be party to vindictive retribution which serves no constructive purpose other than to appeal a vicious streak in the populace at large.

Our leaders should do better than this.

Furphy

I don't quite get why those who shoudl know better (see for example a letter from Liberal Senator Minchin in today's Advertiser) keep spreading the misinformation that the Governor General is our Head of State.
The Constitution couldn't be clearer:

Section1. The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall
be vested in a Federal Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen, a Senate,
and a House of Representatives, and which is herein-after called "The
Parliament," or "The Parliament of the Commonwealth. "

Section2. A Governor-General appointed by the Queen
shall be Her Majesty's representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have and
may exercise in the Commonwealth during the Queen's pleasure, but subject to
this Constitution, such powers and functions of the Queen as Her Majesty may be
pleased to assign to him.

Criticising the GG for saying (what she has always said even since before being appointed ) that Australians would decide to become a republic at some point, Minchin says she should just say nothing.
Personally, whether she is our Head of State or not (and she is not), I think it is not only OK, but desirable that she should contribute to public debate. And not just defer to the pollies.

Madonna and Child

So Madonna is on the prowl again. (see here for example)
If Australian experience has taught us nothing else it is that we should be cautious about cross-cultural adoption. The assumption that it is as easy as lifting one child out of destitution and placing them in the relative affluence of a (usually) white and (generally) rich home says volumes about the values that really appeal to us.
This is surely none other than the paternalism of the stolen generations. The simplistic solution is: if I can improve the lot of one person then that is better than doing nothing. And if I can do it is a big way then that is better than doing it in a small way.
This forgets that people do not exist in isolation. That though families may be stressed, even decimated, we need to think in broader frames of reference than just the isolated case. What does this do to communities and nations?
One interesting letter in the London Times makes a few of these points which have quite a lot of resonances with aspects of recent Australian history

The essential thing to remember about Madonna’s continuing adoption saga (report, Mar 30) is that both David Banda, whom she adopted in 2006, and the girl she is reported to be adopting imminently, are not without families of their own. High-profile intercountry adoptions send out the wrong message to vulnerable parents in poor countries who may be doubting their ability to bring up their own children because of extreme poverty.

A report published last year by the University of Liverpool’s School of Psychology described what it called the “Madonna Effect”. It claimed that poor parents in Eastern Europe were willingly giving up their children to orphanages in the hope that they would be adopted by a rich Westerner. The concern is that a similar effect may be taking place in sub-Saharan Africa. Intercountry adoption could be increasing the total number of children in orphanages. The emphasis needs to be placed on the work being done to support vulnerable families to stay together. This may be less glamorous than international adoption by pop stars but it is the only viable solution to provide safe and secure homes for all of Africa’s children.

Anna Feuchtwang

Chief Executive, EveryChild UK

The real problem with the cult of celebrity is that it allows actions such as those of Madonna to go largely unchallenged. But we need to do better than this.