Have you got round to reading this great novel

This is sometimes said to be both a Chinese curse or a blessing.. may you live in Interesting Times.. personally I am inclined to think it is better to live in interesting times.
It was an interesting week earlier in the year.
A funeral of a friend who died quite quickly. 
I was called to bless a dog that was going to be put down.
Australia is besotted by the centenary of ANZAC at Gallipoli.
The Dr told me my "blood" was OK but I have a B12 deficiency (reading the Wiki entry it seems to describe me to a T)
I read The Narrow Road to the Deep North  an amazing read for Australians intent  on misunderstanding the involvement we had in WW1 & WW2 :Thom Keneally's review here)
I attended one of the many Parish Nomination Committee meetings [I have become  a "professional Diocesan nominator"...and the level of vacancy makes it rather taxing... I take this role very seriously, and I am glad that His Grace seem to do so also] The church is changing, morphing, declining, growing....those things may seem contradictory...but church is rather like that

Interesting times!
In the meantime...I live with an interesting person (my daughter!....lest you forget!) , I married my niece. I visited a jail. And greatest of joys...I went to fix my daughter's shower....and was able to hold the most precious member of our family in my arms. I like that better than anything else (even better than the sound of my own voice!)

Interesting times! Interesting times?
A curse, but most likely,
a blessing

Prison versus gaol

It was a privilege last night to go to Mobilong "Correctional Facility"/ "Prison"/"Gaol or Jail".

It was another graduation service (the second of the week for me...the first being a University Graduation) but on this occasion for a group of about 20 prisoners in one of the State's prisons.
This is run by Kairos Prison Ministry. An ecumenical endeavour to prisoners, a short course, and weekly contact with those in jails. (we are still having a debate about jail  or gaol) 

The guys who did the course spoke about "what they had learnt" and "how they had changed". In some senses fairly trite questions...and the guys recognise this...but they roll with it.

Some of my observations:
These dot points have grown too long... I hope you read them all

• We had a good conversation in the car on the way home about the way language is used. We had all noted that the,  otherwise, very excellent speaker from the Dept. of Correctional Services used the lingo of her Department.  These were "offenders", and we and they  were told that Kairos was one step towards them getting back on the right track.  This is the language of the Department, I guess, but fairly heavy handed
• My first impression....and this is not the first time I have been in a gaol... as I looked at the security is that:  if this is 'medium and low security'  then what  is high security?  It all looked awful to me
• I was struck by the male membership of the Kairos team and supporters. This is not something that you always experience in the life of the church. It is good to see that  good men think this is valuable ministry
• My friend, Rob, had lured me by the assurance that the guys who would speak would be a  profound experience
• It was indeed,. Groups spoke...and then there was Open Mic ( as a person who does funerals I think this is a big mistake.) But today.......the groups Matthew, Mark, Luke and John....I wonder where those name came from.... and then (sometimes with a little reluctance) from individuals came very interesting reflections
• Most spoke about Forgiveness.  The guys spoke about three things:   How they needed to seek forgiveness.  Well yes!  
• how they needed to forgive...well that's a bit more challenging and complex...they are not only Offenders but are also Victims....some of them were able to even articulate that their families of origin didn't really support and/or love them.    This is bitter stuff. But they needed to forgive... the failures of those who should have done better
• They spoke mainly about the need to forgive themselves .....pretty deep stuff for guys who we may so often think of as hopeless!
• Finally,  and this is not everything I thought,  an APY guy played guitar and  about the Cross. he sang (I am told) in the Pitjantjara language (Were I a producer I would be signing him up today!!)
• I found myself pained, as one who has artistic proclivities, what do you do if you are denied the outlet of your life.   If there is no gyuitar in your room. If you cannot pen the poem that is in your heart (my particular issue)
• I am thankful to shake the hands of those guys...who had to return to lockup

These dot points have grown too long... I hope you read them

When enough is enough!

One of my Facebook friends draws our attention to this post of Bp John Spong who opens with the gambit that he has decided he is no longer going to dignify the discussion about homosexuals in the life of the Church by trying to convince bigots that they are wrong. (see here)

The good Bishop does have a point.

There is much of what he writes that I do not agree with, but I have always admired the way he makes people think, myself included.

I therefore have some reservation about a 'manifesto' that says there will be no more discussion; but I can understand how one can get to this point. There is too little time to waste it trying to convince people who just aren't even prepared to listen constructively to another viewpoint.

I got to this point in the debate in the Australian Church about the ordination of women to the priesthood.

For two decades we were told that we should all be open & listen to those of differing viewpoints. That culminated in a whole series of toings and froings and pseudo church legal proceedings which seemed to resolve nothing (see a time line here) Finally when the Bishop of Canberra was ready to go ahead an injunction was taken out in the NSW Supreme Court to prevent him from doing so. I felt deeply saddened, and wondered why those who kept saying that their opposition was 'scriptural' seemed to have forgotten the scriptural injunction to not take your fellow Christian to court (see 1Cor 6:1-10 for St Paul's very strong teaching on this ).

This was a watershed experience for me, I realised that however tolerant I and my ilk were prepared to be the other side were not playing by the same rules. Indeed today, 20 years later, they still do not appear to have shifted. Indeed in the Diocese of Sydney it appears that things are worse. Even though ....but that's a whole other issue :)

My point?

Like the good Bishop, I can understand there comes a point when you realise that continuing on being 'tolerant' and 'fair' is actually aggravating the situation.

I am not quite at that point with the gay issue, but pretty close!

Missing the point

The Sunday readings at this time of year are about issues to do with social justice. So last Sunday was about The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). It's a rich, cultural tale lambent with meaning.

My point about these stories is that Jesus is often reinforcing the obvious. In this case, we all know that Christians should be looking out for the underdog.

A couple of interesting points about the story.

We've all heard interpretations over the years about why the priest and the levite walked by on the other side, my insight is that they probably just didn't see the guy beaten up on the side of the road.

This to me is the real problem in this mad world.....we just don't see need. Though the man is lying dying on the side of the road they just don't see him. They might be frightened, or careless...which heightens their inability to see properly, or at all, but basically they are blind.

Jesus's point? We are to do better than that.

Any way the homily went well, and people said nice things which seemed to suggest they had understood what I was saying.

One person engaged me in earnest dialogue and she had obviously understood. But then she adds..

"The trouble is these days it could be a drug addict"

"Would it make any difference?" I asked quizzically.

"Well they could punch you in the face!"

I had the good sense to just leave this conversation at this point

On being boring

Eldest daughter was a bit put out that she went to Church on Good Friday and I didn't even notice she was there!
Later in the day she told me
"You preached too long!"
"I only preached for 10 minutes"
"It was too long!"
You can't win them all, and your family are a preacher's worst critics!
"Any way, " she countered when she realised she was maybe just being argumentative, "you always say the same thing!"
"So what did I say?" I countered.
"Well you always say how death is so important that we shouldn't run away from it!"
I said no more, content that at least one person had heard what I had intended to say!

Don't always get it right!

Yesterday an elderly parishioner passed out in church. Right in the middle of my sermon!

This happens from time to time and is not usually because they have been so overtaken by the Holy Spirit that they swoon. It seemed a little more serious than that, and indeed was.

Despite the fact that I had been thinking during the week that I needed to do a bit more/better sermon preparation in order that the receivers might be able to have a chance of receiving it well...and I was a little bit more conscientious...I just decided that it was best to jettison it in mid-stream.

Not much else you can do when all eyes and ears are elsewhere.

Important lessons?

We always need to be coy about how much of the preaching exercise depends on we preachers any way.

Perhaps the incident was a sermon in itself. I was able to draw out a 30 second reflection after the ambulance had been and gone that what I was actually talking about was the presence of Christ in the world, and that so often we didn't cope well with things like a medical emergency during worship because we have invested so much energy in making worship a cocoon against the approach of the world.

Any way, A was taken off to hospital and says (in her nineties) that she plans to live for another 20 years!

back to the past

The curiously named "Back to Church Sunday" will be held on September 13, and it was quite heartening to see that driving up Unley Road this morning a huge banner was being put up stretching across the road advertising the fact.


The single mosty frequent comment from church people is that they don't like the name. And perhaps its subtitle "come as you are" is a happier concatenation of ideas.
I have some mixed feeling about it. Theer are after all a lot of people who don't come to church who did come ten, twenty, thirty years ago. We sometimes talk about these people as though they stopped coming to church yesterday. When I came here I was told that E was 'the hall booking lady'. As far as I could tell she had moved out of the parish some years before, but still continued with her mundane task. There are many curiosities like this
I have long felt that we are misguided if we think that trying to encourage those who no longer come is the best way to go, many of those people for example have stopped comign to church by choice not be accident. It is part of the way we don't take responsibility for what happens in our churches. How many times have I sat in a discussion about outreach and evangelism only to hear it turn to blaming those who don't come for their failure to respond.
Any way, we are accepting this opportunity for what it is. It may allow some people to join us for worship on 13th September (contact me if you would like to)

And I am sorry for all those who still feel hurt by events of the past, or the cliquish nature of the church, or who just think church has lost the (Christian) plot.

You are welcome. And just come as you are!

Heavy weigh-in

Events of the last few days seem to be sitting heavily with me, though there is a sense in which crap is being moved. And while that is messy, it is good to do it. And even better to have it done. But why is there so much of it?

In a conversation with someone after Kirk on Sunday they said "I just wish it would all be over!"

I agree. I remember thinking in my early days on the Professional Standards Committee (of which I am no longer a member), Surely this week when we go for our meeting we will ahev made some head way.

But no, each time there was a new pile, and then the next time time another pile.

Recent events, take me back thirty...no forty years! (here for one version!). And an awful lot of chickens seem to be coming home to roost. So maybe this is good....But really sad! Hurtful! And it grinds you down!

I am struck (yet again) by how poor the church is at process. And how like everyone else we are when we should deal better with people. But we watch our backs, we stretch the truth, and like everyone else some of us must (apparently) not be telling the truth, since mutually contradictory tales are being told

God help us!

Resilience

I told one lot of people I was interviewing last night that I had already been told to $@*& Off! once today already.

To be fair the chap was off his tree. G. Declares himself to be a brilliant mathematician (as he has done on a number of previous occasions) and then carries on about some circumstance where he is worried about someone else having an accident. "Four people died that way last year!"

When I at least tried to invite him to make some statistical analysis of that (seemed like a reasonable thing to ask a 'brilliant mathematician' to do), and also reflect on the fact that he was trying to seriously impede someone else's freedom (something he is not to keen on for himself)...well it was then that he stormed off and said the choice words.

It sort of shakes you, particularly that there are some people who you just can't (and won't ever) reach.

Contrast that with another visitor I had last week, a woman who camped for two nights on our property.  And who was also not well-balanced. Someone referred to her as a 'tramp', and I suppose in the 20s and 30s that is how she would have been pigeonholed. 

She did not particularly need me or anyone else to converse with as she was capable of having very animated conversation with herself.

My role in this situation? Just to try and be normal, I sort of think of myself as fixing a peg in order that a person who is floating may be able to grab on if even for a little while. Sometimes it is hard work, and it was with this woman. But there was a certain good humour about it.

She said things like...I like to sleep on church ground because the wicked men can't get me here. They attack a single woman.  

There was a sense of awful pain in her past.

 Then she didn't think it was better to sleep in the church, rather than outside. That wouldn't be right...She was happy to stay as long as you don't call the doctors or the police...I assured her there was no need to do this. Though there was a temptation to think that maybe this would be the short-circuit to dealing with this situation

Any way there many things...and I was happy to try and present a safe haven for just a couple of days.

She was not dissimilar in the degree of disorientation to G and there was an edge that indicated that things could go pear-shaped. As it turned out she came and went, left a note thanking me for letting her use the church (which is normally open). 

She made choices about where she would live, and they were not what most 'doctors and police' would think should be done (hence her reluctance to deal with them I suspect), but really her life worked quite well.

I was drawn to thinking that it was sort of like the aboriginal people who chose to camp outside rather than live in some Housing Trust accommodation. Her life worked well, though not what authority figures (doctors, police and clergy) might suggest.

There are lots of people like this around.

Curiouser

Have that curious feeling of knowing there is much to do here on Christmas Eve, but it's 7.51 on a Sunday morning and while I would usually be vested by now ready to say the first Eucharist we are only having one service because it is Christmas Eve and it is at 9. Feels almost indecent. I have had a sharpening pencils start to the day (here)but have resisted the temptation to drink caffeine...this will not last (here)
By the time I get back (it will be short and sharp) everything will be efficient. We have to get through a long day, and be ready for the "fun" of tomorrow.
My mother sometimes used to speak Polish to us (don't know why) and say " Boże Narodzenie jest dla matek" which I think means something like ...Christmas is for mothers....I am sure someone will enlighten me if that is not the case
I have just made myself a cup of coffee...well there is half an hour of pencil sharpening to do.