A tale of two bishops

A meeting yesterday of local clergy with our bishop had the usual ho-hummity about it. And certain matters that were frustrating, but so what. It was ever so.

I struggle, as I listen, to identify with the church-world that is being described. 

Our own bishop, Jeffery, agonises with us about how he needs to stop being an administrator and start (after nearly 3 years) being a bishop...and it is is a real tension for him.

He muses longingly about a conversation he has with his Victorian counterpart about how he causes his office to run....Oh (says +Melbourne)  I have an Executive Assistant paid 100K+, and a PA paid 70K+... +Jeff laughed, knowing full well that was never going to happen here. We did hear of all sorts of other changes that seem to have been made or about to be made without much open discussion...at least none  I have been involved in......most of it would seem to have implications both financial and philosophical for the way we operate. I would have imagined that much discussion would have been helpful to get people on board.

When the floor was opened there was deathly silence. I wondered what would happen if I got up and said "The trouble with all this is that I feel absolutely no ownership or commitment to anything you have just told us." But I decided not to and no one else did, instead we commented on minor irrelevancies

We were also treated to Bishop Ezekiel from Bor in southern Sudan. African Bishops are an interesting lot, deeply spiritual and faithful they have a Christianity which is often disarmingly frank!

Amidst all this we were told...Sudanese clergy are paid nothing, but their  bishops receive a stipend of $3K. 

So +Melbourne could have 33 Sudanese Assistant Bishops or an EA.

I am sure I am not the only one who sees a sad irony in all this.

We live in a number of very different worlds!

Teddy comes home

I guess most of us are relieved that a naive schoolteacher has not been executed for allowing a Teddy Bear to be called Mohammed in a Sudan classroom.
As I understand it she didn't actually do it. The kids suggested names and then they voted on it. And they chose.
Now if she had been smart she wouldn't have allowed that name to go forward...but she did and the rest is history.
What is silly about her is that teaching in such a culturally sensitive environment you would have hoped she would have thought a little more carefully. I was very conscious of how two SA locals Barry and Ann Lock , CMS missionaries in Pakistan, were always deeply respectful of Islam. And were always careful to promote cultural respect and to err on the side of caution when it came to possibly affecting other people's sensibilities.
WE may think from an Australian or British point of view that this is hysterical behaviour, and maybe it is. But other people's houses are always funny places to be...and we should be respectful.
It's interesting that York Minster has sold out of one item of its special Christmas gifts. A teddy bear dressed up like Archbishop Sentamu!
We live in a very mixed worl

As the world turns

It was my great pleasure at the weekend to officiate at a wedding of one of my parishioners. I have known the family for nearly forty years. The uncle of the groom and I were mad Anglicans at university together.
His parents, who in a way look exactly the same as they did in 1970...except for the fact that they are frailer...have been faithful church people, I suppose, for all of their lives.
In fact when I said to their parish priest some weeks ago when we were bemoaning how hard things were...Thank God for KK ....and she said to me with liturgical vigour...Yes thank God for KK!
For that reason alone it was sufficient joy to do this wedding.
KK is probably the quintessential Australian born in the 1920s. Of Anglo-Celtic background, stable job for most of his life. Worked hard. Maintains a sense of humour and a strong sense of service, loyalty and friendship. He and CK, as faithful matriarch and patriarch beam benignly over their family...even though it has not been without its pain.

The groom is a great young man, who works hard and has a great sense of humour. He is lively and intelligent and socially and politically aware. His new bride looked, of course, stunning. She is of Cambodian origin though she was actually born in a refugee camp in Bangkok. Her parents finally ended up with their kids in Adelaide, and they sat with quiet and respectful demur throughout the proceedings. Conversation with them is good, though you are never quite sure of the transmission of subtlety from them to me and me to them. Always, always deadly polite.
The best man, older brother, I married five years ago. His wife today looking quite the mother, and their two daughters (both of whom I have baptised) looking gorgeous. Well, the best man spoke with a humour and dignity that shows the maturation of the marriage process on a man. And it was good to see it.
Did I mention that the uncle of the bride who works in a remote aboriginal community as the administrator/carer/ambulance driver...wasn't actually there, because well he lives remotely? Or that the groom's sister has a boyfriend who is Iranian.
I bumped into a man who told me he was baptised in the church where I am the priest, and he was blown away when I told him I knew his mother.
Much food for thought about our interconnectedness....I tend not to think of it as being inbred!
But any way it does suggest much about the nature of Australian society.
For those who live in small worlds where two chops and three vegetables automatically present themselves for dinner still, and everyone's ancestors were born in England, mainly, or Europe...it is not like that. Probably has never been like that. Thank God for open families. Thank God for culture-clash. Thank God for opportunities like this.

Colourful comment

It is interesting to note that the newly released citizenship booklet (download here if you want) says "No one should be disadvantaged on the basis of their country of birth, cultural heritage,
political beliefs, language, gender or religious beliefs."
I do not then understand how Minister Andrews can promote this document as a key policy
instrument, and at the same time use national and ethnic origin as the significant
filter against refugees of Sudanese origin. (here)
One thing that really worries me about these sort of defective analyses that say: it is because a person was born here, or there; or it is because they belong to a certain ethnic grouping...is that it is just so unreflective.
I mean a headline in the pathetic Advertiser this morning says...Africans drink and fight, says Andrews.
My immediate reaction is to say: it is not Africans that drink and fight it is young men!
(I don't think this is sexist!) Last year it was Lebanese Australians, and "Shire" Australians who were in a pitched battle on the beaches of Sydney. Last Sunday I watched a little of that ever-glorious West-Side Story...there it was Puerto Ricans, Poles and Italians.
It is pathetic to single out one nationality, when it is more to do with bored young men of any race or nation.
At a time when the UN is saying that Sudan is the refugee community of greatest need we are saying ...but we will not take the problem cases. How pathetic!
How pathetic, too, that the Labor Party agrees with the Coalition about this. There is here no ideology, but rather the craven cowing to a racist electorate that wants these problems to be (pardon the pun) black and white!
I do not want a government that capitulates to such populist nonsense, but one that actually says we will do more than just paint racist solutions to what are complex social issues.
Did the victimistaion of the Jews teach us nothing?