sarah tells stories

of light and the courage to lean into it

2012-01-31T10:56:00.001+10:30

yesterday I copied and pasted a post on facebook about the silent illnesses many live with and the way you really can't understand without personal experience. the post generated varied responses, from naming or hinting at the illnesses people are living with, to remembering that I have lived with some silent pain and illness for much of my life.
it is a long time since I reached the point where I had lived half of my life with back pain - thankfully, I don't suffer nearly as much since finding a practitioner of network system analysis, which has helped my body to find healing for itself. I realised this morning that as I turned 34 last week, I have reached the point where I have lived half my life under the cloud of depression. From now on, more of my life will have been woven through with experiences of mental illness than not.
as I read today's daily reflection in Disciplines perhaps these thoughts shaped my somewhat angry, impatient response. the scripture passage was Isaiah 40:28-31, in which the hearers are reminded that God's strength does not wane, and therefore, in God, neither does ours.
the writer of the reflection talked about driving through unknown rural roads in the dark; then this empty platitude - let God's strength and provision guide you through the darkness. what what does that mean?? How is God's strength, are God's promises like light in the darkness?

Sitting in a kitchen wanting life to end because the pain of depression is so overwhelming and has lasted so long you can't imagine any other way for the pain to stop without ceasing to live. That is darkness. It is a darkness out of which you have pushed everyone in your life. You cannot love when you no longer want to live It is a darkness you imagine no one else can inhabit with you, and before your housemate comes home, you crawl into bed and cry yourself to sleep.
But in the morning, you wake to a small surprise - you are alive. You realise that though you sat in that dark cave, with your hand on the trap door to escape, you did not open the door. You realise that though you were curled up in a ball beside the trap door in the dark, today you are sitting once again. You begin to wonder what stopped you from opening a door, from taking an escape you longed for with all you had left. And suddenly you see - you are not alone. Your Holy Friend has remained - there was no request from you for departure - and, like a light, small and faltering but unmistakeable, hope is lit. Together, you stand, ready for the climb toward life.

That is what light in the darkness is like. That is what it is like to draw on God's strength. To have been in the darkness, known God's presence with you there where no one else can be with you, and to find the strength and the courage to live through silent seering agony.

of telling stories around the table

2012-01-28T11:07:00.001+10:30

Last night I was the guest of The Last Supper, a gathering organised by my friend Cameron, of folk who like deep and engaging conversation ranging over various facets of life - religion, politics, social issues, humanity ...
Cameron invited me as a Biblical storyteller to come along and, well, tell stories, sharing a bit about storytelling as well.
We me upstairs at Jah'z Lounge in Cinema Place in the city - it's a lovely cafe, the staff are friendly, the food was delicious, and right by Palace and Nova cinemas, I recommend it for the dinner part of your next dinner & movie outing.
As we gathered, conversations already began to touch on issues and ideas that would be raised through the stories I was going to tell, such as: how do we meet each other in our difference, willing to listen, or assuming our worldview is the correct worldview and everyone else is just burning (in hell?) to hear the Truth we have to offer?
I began by sharing a little of what it is to be a Biblical storyteller -

I am a Biblical Storyteller – I learn thestories, tell them for an audience / listeners

In many ways, all artists are storytellers– different genres

Actually, we are all storytellers – eachhave a story to tell

As a minister, I am a story hearer – Icreate spaces in which we as individuals and as a community can tell our story,be heard and affirmed for who we are

Incidentally, I am not a biblicalstoryteller because I am a minister – I am a minister because I am a biblicalstoryteller

For those who follow Christ, thefoundational story of our tradition and communities is the Story of God, theBiblical Story

We are called to embody this story with ourliving and our being

As a biblical storyteller, it is myprivilege and responsibility to embody the story, so as to communicate,inviting others into the story of God, to be moved, transformed, to findhealing and wholeness, to discover & encounter the Holy

I tell the stories so as to extend an invitation to encounter God in whom I have found healing and wholeness. I don't invite others assuming that this is the only way you can find healing and wholeness. I invite others because when you discover something wonderful - a piece of music, a movie, a book - you want to share this experience with others.

And this is the nature of Love, God's Way of Love - we know ourselves to be loved, and we cannot help but love in response.
I shared another discovery I have made this past year: God's Way of Love is named in the New Testament as the kingdom of God / heaven. Bruce Sanguin talks about the kin-dom of God - where a kingdom is about a king's power and territory, this term seems to me to be more about relationships (our kin) ... and it holds the radical contrast between God's realm and earthly rule with its hyphen replacing the g.

I talked a bit about how when I tell the stories of Jesus, and tell the stories he told, I find myself standing in his shoes, feeling the compassion he felt for those outside community, and his understanding of the restorative love of God.
I told the parable of the father and two sons (otherwise known as the story of the prodigal son), as one of the stories he told to demonstrate this unconditional, radical, challenging and uncomfortable love for those we think cannot be welcomed home.
Conversation ranged about how we respond to such stories, where we find ourselves in the story, and how there is a tension we could learn to live with that has us simultaneously the older son and the younger son (and perhaps the father as well).

'Tell us another story' - words that make a storyteller's day. So I told the beginning of the story of the beginning of our story - Genesis 1:1-5, and talked about how I translate the Hebrew 'ruach' with the three English words it conveys - 'breath-wind-spirit' - because these three meanings are held in the Hebrew word, and when we hear it in our language, I want us to hear the nuances, the complexity and the levels of meaning held here. I come to this decision because of how it feels, telling the story - in other contexts, I might translate ruach as wind or breath or spirit; here, it feels to me as if we need all three for the hovering ruach over the waters.

Conversation ranged far from here, as we explored what it means to live on earth, shared our knowledge and ideas as we wondered at the extraordinary growth in the earth's human population, and our relationship with creation.

I finished with the first part of a story I am developing as part of a series I began to imagine when I was on study leave last year: I am calling the series, 'In the name of ...' In this series, I want to explore how we see / don't see each other, as fellow humans, and how when we do not see each other, when we dehumanise other/s, we are capable of great harm: conversely, when we truly see the other, when we recognise the importance of each other for our own fulness of being, we are capable of great courage and extraordinary, life-giving love.

The first story I am working on for this series has a working title of 'Eichmann versus Wallenberg: in the name of what is right', and tells the story of Raoul Wallenberg's thwarting of Adolf Eichmann's plan to force the evacuation of all the Jews in Hungary in 1944, for the extermination camps. I appreciated some early feedback from the group, as I develop this, and other stories in the series.

It was a joy to share with this group of people - 8 or so around a table, engaging in deep, thoughtful, respectful conversation as we shared our stories, shared of our selves. For these moments, we are alive: for community, for the fulness of our humanity. For what else have we been created, but to be fully, beautifully, wonderfully, human?

The Sin-Eater & a Bee in my Bonnet

2012-01-23T13:45:00.001+10:30

Another thing Lynch said in his introit to this gem of a book was: Argyle (the main character) 'knows the greatest gifts are one another; the greatest sins against each other.' (xxiv)

I have a bee in my bonnet at the moment, as I've been developing stories for telling, and the words I want to say when I address a dinner this Friday.
The kin-dom of God attracts me as a name for God's Way of Love, otherwise named as the kingdom of God/ Heaven. It is a term I read in the poetry of Bruce Sanguin (If Darwin Prayed, 2011). I like it for its direct contrast, swapping a hyphen for the 'g' and turning the focus from a power-protecting king to relationships with kin.
One of my favourite concepts from the Hebrew Bible is hesed, in English most accurately translated as lovingkindness - a love that affirms the other in the fulness of their being.
It seems to me that Jesus was all about fulness of being, he came that we might have life in all its fulness.

these disparate thoughts come together in my dream for the world, which emerges from my experience. I dream that all would know what I have come to know - fulness of being. I dreamt for such a long time of becoming a writer, of living into my gift with language and story in a way that would bring something of value to the wider community. I hope I am doing this through my unexpected call to ordained ministry within the Uniting Church. I feel more fulfilled than I could have imagined - this combined role of minister / poet / storyteller suits me; my ecclectic gifts, my understanding and love for people, my introspective bent, my ability with words and passion for story, and my preference for rhythm over set patterns in daily living.

it causes me great sorrow to think of my fortune at having found my place, knowing that there are so many in disadvantaged situations who will be considered fortunate merely to survive each day in the face of famine, drought, war and illness, let alone realise their fullest potential as human beings.

People have often heard me say that I hate money - what I really hate is that commercialism has taken over our way of life to the extent that the opportunity to shop and to sell is more important than the public holidays previous generations faught hard for so that families could spend valuable time together. I hate that love has been commercialised with Valentines Day and Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day; I hate that two central festivals for the Christian community have become opportunities for making and spending money more than they are opportunities to encounter the Sacred.

What I really hate about all that is that opportunities to make money cause blindness - we see dollar signs before we see human faces, and we are all complicit in this exploitation of other humans and think it's ok because we're saving a few dollars here or there. And we see this attitude with regard to creation, too, when we get incensed at the suggestion that we might have to pay more for energy as a result of attempts to encourage us to use the earth's resources more wisely and appropriately.

We have a privileged place in creation with God - with it comes responsibilities to care for creation. We have failed to do this. It diminishes our humanity to do so. When we fail to see creation, we cause harm. When we fail to see each other as fellow human beings, we cause harm. We can only perpetrate genocide when we fail to see the other's humanity. We can only sling anti-gay diatribes around from soap-boxes when we dehumanise those of other sexual orientation.

I have a bee in a bonnet about our propensity to fail to see the value in the other, in other humans, in creation. And it makes me so angry I cannot actually construct a reasonable reasoned argument. I can only name what I do not like as a lament, and hope that we might learn again to see, and thus to love with lovingkindness that honours God and each other.

Thomas Lynch's The Sin-Eater: first impressions

2012-01-23T12:59:00.000+10:30

There are lines in Lynch's poetry and introit that resonate deeply on first reading, that invite further reflection. I am going to list them here, for my benefit, so I know which ones I want to dwell on. Perhaps they'll entice you, spark your imagination - and I hope they'll invite you to seek out this wonderful collection of poems about an intriguing character.

'to be awestruck was better than certainty' (xii)

questioning 'the legalisms and accountancy by which glorious and sorrowful mysteries were rendered a sort of dogmatic and dispassionate math' Lynch says, 'to be so certain about God struck me as sacrilege. Faith must be more than religious belief and obedience.' (xvii)

'When someone shows up - priest or pastor, rabbi or imam, venerable master or fellow traveler - to stand with the living and the dead and speak into the gaping maw of the unspeakable, I know I am witnessing uncommon courage and my perennially shaken faith is emboldened by theirs.' (xxi)

'What makes this aching in the soul? he thought ... And though no answer was forthcoming he went forth.' (Argyle's Return to the Holy Island', 19)

' "The last among the earthen decencies -
this shovel and shoulder work by which are borne
our fellow pilgrims on their journeys home." ' ( Argyle Among the Moveen Lads, 31 )

'Sometimes he counted words or parts of words
as if they amounted to something more
than sound and sense attuned between his ears' (His Ambulations, 33)

'Some days he felt so happily haunted,
by loving ghosts and gods upholding him.
Some days he felt entirely alone.' (He Considers Not the Lilies but Their Excellencies, 37)

'Among old stones a calm came over him
as if the dead beneath them held their own
redemptions on their journeys heavenward,
like wild flowers gathered out of bones,
their sweet bouquets a comfort beyond words.' ('He Weeps Among the Clare Antiquities', 39)

Thomas Lynch, The Sin-Eater. A breviary.

of God calling Samuel

2012-01-15T15:35:00.001+10:30

this morning at Belair I told the story of God calling Samuel for the first time. I didn't spend a lot of time preparing this one, so I in some ways I am still sitting with questions I usually work through before I do a telling.
the main one is regarding Eli. in this story, Samuel hears God calling to him, but not knowing God or having heard God's voice before, he doesn't recognise it as God. So he assumes it is the near-blind priest Eli calling him, and each time he runs to Eli's side - 'Here I am, for you called me.'
Eli responds - 'I did not call, return to bed and lie down.' I haven't quite worked out how much characterisation I want to put into this - you could go over the top and yawn, and do an old man's voice ... as a general rule, I tend not to act too much because the difference between storytellers and actors is that storytellers take on the role of the narrator, actors take on the role of the character.
So I want to sit with that a bit more.
And there's another question about the telling of this story I am yet to resolve - how to tell Samuel's response to God when he has been guided by Eli. Is he a little timid? Does he hesitate? This morning I told it with a hint of 'I'm trying to remember what Eli said to say and get it right because this is God talking to me'. On reflection, I like that. But I still want to sit with this story some more.

As to why I didn't prepare it so much - I decided late to tell it, and it was one I knew from learning Hebrew, as we translated this passage, so the words were inside already. This is an interesting question for the future, I imagine, as I build up the stories I know - the balance between laziness and trust that I have the stories within and can tell them without needing hours of rehearsal ...

of the Holy in me & in you

2012-01-14T11:03:00.000+10:30

Reading Marilyn Brown Oden's reflections in Disciplines (The Upper Room, Nashville, 2011) this morning, this was more or less my train of thought (the passage was 1 Corinthians 6:12-20):

The body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (v. 19) - the Holy Spirit is within you. The Holy Spirit is therefore within each person we meet (Brown Oden).
I remember the eastern greeting, Namaste - the Sacred in me greets the Sacred in you - Holy, Divine, Sacred ...
Holy = set apart (recalling the understanding of the stories in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament).
Humans are set apart.
I remember what we heard from Craig Mitchell in Church Ministry & Sacraments at college: that ordained persons are set apart within the priesthood of all believers, for the good of all, the good of the whole. We have a particular role and function, but are not above, or extra special or outside.
So then I get to thinking that humans are set apart from the rest of creation - within creation - for the good of all creation. When we ignore the responsibility of this set-apartness and see only the privilege, we diminish rather than enhance creation, and ourselves.

Elsewhere Paul talks about the Holy Spirit (who dwells within us) gifting each one of us. The Holy Spirit sets each one of us apart with our particular gift, for the good of the whole Body.
An ear is set apart for the purpose of hearing, feet for the purpose of standing, walking, running (in partnership with ankles, legs, back, heart, lungs ...). Then I pause to think about this - many members of the body are involved in the task of walking: heart and vessels to pump blood, lungs and mouth and nose for breathing, legs and feet for carrying, arms and torso for balance, eyes and ears for direction ... (and I do remember that there are plenty of people who in reality manage to move about without certain of these members, but for the sake of the metaphor ... ) - each member has an important role to play in moving the body along. No one member could do it alone - if the body were all eyes, it could see where it wanted to go but never get there.

So what are you called to be in the body of Christ (here I begin to make links with the other lectionary passages for the week, and the pieces fall into place to finish off my reflection for tomorrow morning's worship gathering at Belair). How does the Holy Spirit dwell within you and gift you for your fulness of being, and for the health and wholeness of the Body, the community?

telling the story of John the Baptist & Jesus' baptism

2012-01-09T11:16:00.002+10:30

yesterday as part of a joint worship gathering of Blackwood and Belair Uniting Churches, in Belair National Park, I told the story of John the Baptist & Jesus' baptism (Mark 1:4-11).

John the baptiser appeared in the wilderness - question of emphasis: if on 'appeared' makes it seem as though he apparated like the witches & wizards from Harry Potter's story; if on 'the wilderness', says something about the history of salvation for the people of Israel, which so often happens in / out of the wilderness. This is a story of salvation, of God's participation in creation for the redemption of God's creation.
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins - this feels like a mouthful, and I ask myself, is it a tautology? I think not, for we must turn back to God (repent) in order to enter into the grace (forgiveness) God bestows.
And people from the whole Judean countryside, and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him - this feels like the Hebrew parallelism that says things twice in order to convey magnitude. so a lot of people were travelling into the wilderness towards John.
and were being baptised by him in the river Jordan - question of emphasis again - on being baptised? well, that's what they were there for; the river Jordan? that's just geography; by him - aha, and here I was helped by socio-cultural interpretation, which tells me that Jewish people ritually cleansed themselves with water as part of purification rites: and the important thing here is that they cleansed themselves, it was an individual act. so they were baptised by John - this is what to emphasise, this is a new baptism, a different kind of rite, and the next sentence summarises what the meaning of that rite is:
confessing their sins - this is a baptism of repentance for the once and always forgiveness of sins. this is a baptism, a water rite, that will not be repeated. there is a simplicity in the baptism that John is offering, a simplicity that is demonstrated by the narrator in the following sentences that describe his clothing and diet.
Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. these are traits of prophets in older stories from Israel, and point to a simplicity of living which mirrors the simplicity of his message and actions. it's really difficult to convey the meaning of these characteristics of John, for it sounds to us like a very strange way to clothe and feed oneself, so we automatically pick up on the oddity, rather than the simplicity. I am not sure if I conveyed the simplicity, but I did try to speak these sentences without a tone of surprise or 'wasn't he a strange person'.
He proclaimed, 'The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptised with water; but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.' It felt to me that this proclamation from John was in response to an undocumented question - and perhaps this proclamation is an example of his broader message, and the question around whether John was the messiah was frequently posed. But as I spoke these words of John, I had the question in the background, which I think gave a tone of response to these words, rather than a grand and general declaration. We have established already that John's being, his message, was of simplicity - he didn't feel like a grandstander, so his proclamation would have been drawn out of him - or that's the sense I got as I inhabited his story.

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee - another question of emphasis, of meaning. what is the relation of John's 'the one' to 'Jesus' here? John's just talked about this one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit, so is the narrator implying a trumpet sound and 'ta daaa!' here he is, Jesus! This is how I spoke it at first, but it didn't feel right in the context of what follows. It feels more like a step back from the words of John for a moment to introduce Jesus, who is baptised by John like all the others, but as he comes out of the water, here's the Holy Spirit John mentioned, here is the 'ta daa'.
and was baptised by John in the Jordan - however, when this story is being told, in communities of followers of Jesus, they all have accepted that Jesus is the messiah, so there would have been a bit of surprise that the messiah would submit himself to another in this way. the message here then is that Jesus was identifying with the people who needed to repent of sins, who needed to turn back to God, for whom he was sent to proclaim his message of the realm of God. I pause a little, gave a little space around, and emphasised slightly 'by' here, to draw the attention of today's audience to this element of the story, to remind us that this was significant, Jesus' participation in John's baptism, his submission to John, who as a messenger of God symbolised a submission to God. submission - I'm thinking here of giving oneself over to the reality that we cannot be human without each other or without God, and that this baptism is about more than individual salvation - it is about the kin-dom of God, which is community, wholeness experienced together; so we need each other to guide us through the waters of repentance, through the door back into the presence of God ... that's all there for me as I tell this story, a deeply felt conviction about the nature of the kin-dom of God.
And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart - I look up here - and the Spirit descending like a dove on him - here I have lifted my arms up, and brought them down again, and closed my eyes.
And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved, eyes remain closed: for Mark, this experience was for Jesus only
with you I am well pleased.' here I open my eyes, for the implications of God being pleased with Jesus are for all. Jesus is here for all.

Of course, when I actually came to tell this story, I was rained on. We met in Belair National Park on a stormy weekend, and it was difficult to know how much the rain beginning during the telling of the story was a distraction from the meaning I was trying to convey. I just had to trust that God was in the story and in the moment of the telling, and let go ...

of Christmas @ Belair Uniting

2011-12-28T12:19:00.001+10:30

Christmas Eve #1, in which I bookend the story with a welcome and a blessing

Christmas Eve #2, in which I lead with my licorice stick

Christmas Eve #3, in which I take the part of the angel ...

walking, I received a gift

2011-12-24T09:29:00.000+10:30

what the butterflies taught me about life

fragile, beautiful,
fleeting - but to have had it -
ah, that is the gift

of music, the language that speaks straight to the heart

2011-12-16T10:16:00.002+10:30

music is a language that speaks across so many of the boundaries we place between ourselves and others. of course, not all music does that, and music can itself be boundary-making - my dad dislikes much of the music his daughters listen to, and vice-versa. but there are those pieces of music that speak to us, regardless of our preferences of style, and remind us, connect us to, our common humanity, and perhaps also, the sacred.
last night at our Blue Christmas service, music did that, I think - we had with us three Papuan men, whose land, whose families and friends, are suffering persecution as the people of Papua strive for liberation. These men had brought their instruments with them - a guitar, and a drum whose beat resonates hope. These men had brought their songs with them, sung in the midst of great personal and communal suffering, songs of the trust we can hold onto in the midst of such pain and grief, that God is indeed with us. We can learn much from each other. And Australians who enjoy a measure of comfort and security and freedom (though not all of us) would do well to pay attention and listen to these songs and these stories - for what we know of the hope and peace we sing of at Christmas is not all there is to know.
a friend posted a link to this song, a very different kind of Christmas 'carol' to the European carols we sing. I often wonder why we continue to sing songs of deep mid-winter, and appreciated greatly the songs Leigh Newton has written and sang at the Alive @ 5 interactive Christmas last Sunday - imagining, retelling, the Christmas story in an Australian voice, in our language, with our images and land in mind. It doesn't snow in Australia at Christmas, and the sun shines bright and hot - so we need to tell the Christmas story in our language - light breaking through the darkness isn't nearly so evocative an image for a summer Christmas celebration. We sing the carols of our ancestors because they are the carols of our ancestors, and I have no problem with that. But let us also allow the new carols of this land to emerge and be sung, for music is a language that speaks straight to the heart.

or has stories told about her & her family

2011-12-15T14:34:00.002+10:30

page three of today's indaily has the story of how Flinders University is kind of like our family business.

of Mary's encounter with the angel Gabriel

2011-12-11T21:09:00.001+10:30

This evening I told the story of Mary’s annunciation at Rosefield’sAlive @ 5 interactive Christmas.

I found it interestingthat whenever I rehearsed the story, I almost cried at Mary’s acceptance ofGod’s invitation to participate in the incarnation, but didn’t quite get thereany of the half a dozen times I told the story tonight. But then that doessometimes happen – the emotion is more under control in front of an audience. Iwas disappointed, though, because it felt right to feel that response of shock,awe and wonder after the words from Gabriel: ‘anything is possible with God’. I would do this sharp intake of breath,as this 14 or 15 year old girl realises what she’s being invited to do, thatGod has chosen her, that this is actually almost incomprehensible.

I took out the opening words ‘in the sixth month’ as theyseemed to refer to the earlier passage talking about Elizabeth’s pregnancy, andhere I was just telling Mary’s story. the angel mentions Elizabeth being in her6th month anyway, so the reference is there later, and more clearly. I alsoswitched into an active tense rather than passive – so rather than the angelGabriel was sent by God, I said ‘God sent the angel Gabriel.’ So as well asbeing active, which is better practice for storytelling today, I also put Godfront and centre as the instigator, the one acting, in the story. which I thinkis important, as these events are all at God’s instigation, out of God’s grace– coming amongst us, choosing Mary, sending the angel …

I condensed the story of here visit to Elizabeth, and ledinto Leigh Newton singing a version of the magnificat he wrote, which workedreally well. I had felt as I rehearsed, that the magnificat should be sung,that the way I had crafted the segway was leading into music. I could have toldthe whole thing, but I think it was better to have it sung. And in the light ofthe short amount of time we had, it meant that more time was given to music,which probably also worked well. I wonder if I had told the magnificat, if Imight have found a contemporary English translation more appropriate than theNRSV I usually use. The words of Leigh’s song – which of course I can’t recallaccurately now – put Mary’s praise of God’s feeding the hungry, remembering thepoor, into this sort of language, rather than lifting up the lowly, which wouldhave been meaningful at one time, but loses an audience rather quickly today. Especiallyfor the number of folk who come to such gatherings as this one from outsideChristian community and tradition, and don’t know the language.

The telling changed a bit for me with different sizedaudiences – because most of them were small, I made my voice a bit small,and brought the power from the voice not the diaphragm, so my voice is feelingquite strained now. From a technical point of view, this is important learning– and I may need to seek out a voice coach to help develop & nurturetechniques of projection, using the diaphragm even when I don’t want a ‘big’voice. Then Leigh did one more song for us – the musos and a couple ofvolunteers – and was pleased to hear that, though this song isn’t used very much,it has been sung in recent years at my former home church. He also did anAustralian Christmas story in verse, which was great. I wondered about learningsomething like that myself …

of being in bed listening to the rain and pondering

2011-12-09T09:07:00.001+10:30

I was lying in bed this morning listening to the rain, one of my favourite things, and it occurred to me - wouldn't it be great if everyone could take these moments, extend them, delight in them? These moments of beauty. But they can't.
And so I tweet: 'in a just world all wd b free 2 delight in moments like these: lying in bed listening 2 rain', when it occurs to me - I wonder if people will find it strange that this is my picture, my prayer, for a just world? Rather than saying 'in a just world all will receive an education / be fed / have access to health / be allowed to marry who they want,' I say, people should be able to lie in bed and listen to rain.
Well. Of course I want all to eat and be healthy and have the right to ask the state to recognise their life partnership under the law if they want to. But my prayer this morning, in response to this moment, is for a world in which all are free to appreciate, delight in, this beautiful world God created and gave us.
I watched Dogma* last night with my young adults group, and this film's picture of God (played by Alanis Morisette) - in a dress, smelling flowers, doing handstands - lingers with me. It is a picture of God who delights in humans, creation, life. It is one of my pictures of God.

In the wealthy West, we tie ourselves up with busyness and purchases and striving to succeed, and thus deny ourselves the freedom to stop, slow down, pay attention. And we are poorer for it.
In the sometimes less visible (or ignored) western places, people are bound by their poverty, poor health and mental illness, violence. Are people in these situations free to stay in bed and listen, smiling, to the rain?
And then there are war-torn countries, where families hear rain and find another hole in the roof from the rain of bullets; or developping nations where HIV/AIDS or drought or famine cripples whole communities and countless individuals.
Or the child in any number of countries who doesn't go to school because he has to get up at dawn or earlier and spend the whole day walking to the water hole and back for his family. He is not free to lie in bed and listen to the rain with joy. In a just world he would be.

Like I am free to lie in bed, delight in the sound of rain falling, birds chirping, and write about it all. But until that child, until all, are free to lie in bed (until all have a bed who want one), and listen to rain on the roof (until all have a roof who need one), I am not free.

* Kevin Smith writer / director. View Askew Productions 1999.

a prayer for joy in Advent

2011-12-08T10:16:00.001+10:30

This is from a book called Openings, and it helped turn my mood, my sense of being, from feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, to feeling at peace with all the 'tasks' of this very busy season for Christian ministers, and more joyful about the season itself:

O God, let some joy loose. Let it rise to the surface and shake me out of preoccupation with lists and tasks. Forgive me for my heavy-hearted approach to your season on joy and light. Help me not to let long lists and calendar events overwhelm the wonder of your birth. Smiling God, let some joy loose in me, and let it rub off on others. (Larry James Peacock)

May it be so.

telling Mark 10:13-16 - Jesus & the little children

2011-12-05T10:25:00.001+10:30

This was the second of three stories I recorded this week for Pancake Day 2012, with a theme of who is our neighbour.

People were bringing little children to Jesus that he might touch them - but the disciples spoke sternly to them. The disciples spoke sternly - that is to say, they were sending the people away. My voice carried a sternness, my gaze a rebuke, and I swept my hand strongly, palm upright, between where I imagined Jesus and the people to be as a 'stop'.
My immediate feeling with Jesus' indignation was to insert 'Oi!' into his rebuke of the disciples! In the end, the 'Oi' dropped out of the telling, perhaps because it felt distracting, or too comical, or too much like eisegeting Australian culture into the story. I carried the feeling of the 'oi' into my expression of Jesus words - Let the children come to me.
And as I spoke the rest of his words, I entered his character a little more, and played him inviting the children in between the phrases do not stop them, pick up a child and lift him above his head, and I would look at the camera as he spoke, for it is to such as these that the kin-dom* of God belongs, take a baby from the mother and hold her in his arms, back to the camera, Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kin-dom of God (looking back at the child now for a moment) as a little child (and back to the camera) will never enter it. Then I played Jesus handing the baby back, and looked at the camera again for the final lines - and he took the children in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them (with a smile).
It felt important to enter the character of Jesus and cross the line into acting just a little in this story, for a number of reasons:

I was telling this within a theme of who were Jesus' neighbours, so I wanted to bring the children in as neighbours, as characters present in the story. It is Jesus who brings the children into the story, into the picture, so rather than only having the narrator tell the audience that this is what Jesus did, communicating the meaning of this by showing Jesus welcoming the children felt more effective.

In some ways, this story isn't about the children as neighbours, but about how we are to enter the kin-dom of God - with the vulnerability of little children who rely on their parents with a dependence for their lives. However, here's something that occurred to me as I was reflecting on the story: if we do not welcome others - vulnerable, unseen, seemingly insignificant human beings like children were, and often still are - we can not learn from them. In this story, Jesus welcomes the children, and invites the children to teach the adults something very important about the kin-dom of God - that we are to remember our vulnerability and deep dependence on God for our very lives. How many times have our 'children's talks' in gathered worship taught the adults more than the sermon? How might 'children's talks' become opportunities for the children to more explicitly and intentionally share with adults? This is something I am hoping we will explore in my congregation in coming months - to have adults share with the children (and adults) something of their life, their work, a hobby, an experience, that implicitly or explicitly shows their faith & life lived out; and to have children share, as a group what they're exploring in sunday school, and as individuals, what's happening in their lives. Perhaps we can thus learn and grow together, through relationships of vulnerability, sharing of who we are, how to live God's way of love in the world.

I often find myself deeply engaging with Jesus when I tell his story - imagining what he might have felt, feeling the indignation at children being turned away. I couldn't feel his indignation, which is there in the story, and not show it. My instinctive 'Oi!' was a deep connection with his feeling here, with the emotion in the story. Storytelling is a gift because it connects with the emotion and invites listeners to connect with the emotion. When we feel something we know more deeply than anything we know cognitively. And by allowing myself to feel his indignation, I understood the value he placed on those children, and how, when looking at them, he was reminded of our relationship with God. His love for the children, his love for the adults, moved him to urge the disciples to look at the children, and understand God and their relationship with our Divine Parent.

of writing and worship, courage and comfort

2011-12-04T15:03:00.001+10:30

This morning in gathered worship @ Belair, the events in the lives of some of our members reminded us all of the way joy and sorrow sit side by side, sometimes painfully & uncomfortably, in life. And as a couple of us reflected after the service, one of the beauties of a community like church is that when we can’t sing songs of joy, others will sing for us until we can. And while we lament and while we weep, others will weep with us. We are not alone.
We are using the material from SeasonsFUSION worship outlines: the theme for this week was words of comfort, and that I wrote the words we were praying gained a new depth this morning, as we heard of the pain and sorrow in the lives of folk from our community. I haven't mentioned that they are my words, and there's part of me that doesn't want to draw attention to that - perhaps I will once the Advent, Christmas Epiphany season has finished, and we move onto using others' words. We prayed specifically for a couple of people this morning, but it struck me as we spoke together the call to worship after having shared news early on, that these words were crafted by their minister, and all of a sudden it was as if I had written them just for us. I know that people in churches around the country and the world will be praying those prayers, and I wonder what will make them particularly significant for them. What are the needs of their communities, their members, that will help them to feel that those words were written just for them? Because I hope they feel that.
Writing for Seasons, you're about 12 months ahead, or more, and it can feel a little odd, a bit removed from the moment of gathered worship. You have a community in mind, one that you know, but you also know that you've got to write in such a way that the words invite people from different countries, hemispheres, experiences, ages ... to worship God, and you don't want to compromise so much that you say nothing at all. So as we prayed the words I wrote 12 months ago, I had a moment of deep gratitude for the way they spoke into our longing for comfort today. And for that, I can only thank that wondrous, mysterious, Sacred Spirit, as well as the courage of those who shared their pain with our community this morning.

interpreting Mark 7:24-30 for telling

2011-12-01T22:11:00.001+10:30

The story begins with Jesus going away to a region in Gentile territory. He goes into a house and doesn't want people to know he's there. So he's taking time out, seeking rest; I felt his tiredness, exhaustion. That becomes important for me in telling his response to the woman who kneels beside him.
That he couldn't escape notice made me imagine the crowd that travelled with him, followed him. Wherever he went, people were talking about him, his teaching, his healing. This was a man to notice.
As the woman comes to kneel beside him, I imagined that she would have to fight through a crowd, and probably fight to get past the disciples. I'm not convinced I quite conveyed that, because to show here fighting her way through the crowds is a lot of movement, or requires adding something to the words of the story. To do it with movement only would be to distract unnecessarily - especially for a recording. I settled for communicating the woman's determination and a gentle embodiment of the strength I imagine she would have needed to fight through the crowd.
As I told Jesus' response - the words he says about feeding the children first - I imagined that he wouldn't look at this woman. From the opening description of his desire to be alone, for no one to know he was there, it felt to me that he would be displeased, disappointed, to have this wish not come true. And I felt his tiredness. If he wanted no one to know he was there, this man who was so giving of himself, I imagined that he had nothing to give, and needed time to rest and regenerate his energy.
And so we come to her response - she's been dismissed. Let the children be fed first - and at this point, he doesn't even have the energy to feed the children of Israel, hence the sojourn in territory beyond the people to whom he feels sent. But she says - dogs eat the crumbs from the children: which I heard / felt as 'all I am asking for is the small amount you have left'. And as I think about it - is this a statement of trust and faith that even his small amount of power will be enough to heal her daughter. Because, actually, Jesus says over and over again, it is the faith of the people themselves that heals them, or their loved ones. Does she know this? I don't think so. She knows that through him, healing is possible for her daughter. She believes.
And met by this faith, Jesus can't resist. Exhausted as he is, her faith makes him turn around and look at her. And as I turned, telling the story from Jesus' point of view, I felt like taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh, with a fair amount of effort - like breathing the Spirit, acting on her faith. I'm not sure what the words are to describe what I understand the meaning of the sigh to be, but the sigh felt like the right action for this part of the story. Then I felt him reach out to her, extend the invitation into the kin-dom of God beyond the borders of the nation of Israel; acknowledging her faith and the broader possibilities for God's dream.
And I turn back to look at the camera for the final words of the story - she went home, found her daughter lying on her bed, and the demon gone - with a big smile on my face!

of filming stories for pancake day

2011-12-01T19:48:00.001+10:30

Pancake Day - held on shrove tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday at the beginning of Lent - is a huge fundraising campaign each year for UnitingCare, the Uniting Church's social care agency. Churches, schools - any group really - cook pancakes for their community asking for a donation. The money goes to UnitingCare. And awareness is raised for these agencies.
Part of the awareness raising of the event is the pre-materials inviting people to take part in the event.
That's where I come in. They asked me to tell some stories of Jesus and his neighbours. My friend Jana offered a reflection on how we engage with our neighbours, living out stories like the well known story of the Good Samaritan, working together to feed, nurture, offer care, and share love.
Filming of the clips was this afternoon, and we did have fun! Scouting out all the nooks and corners of Pilgrim Church to find just the right spot, the right light balanced with the feel of a sacred space, including standing on chairs and stepping side to side in front of windows ... half an our of this & two takes (plus one false start) for 5 minutes of stories!
But that's what it's all about, really, bringing our gifts, each of us, our insight and our experience, the vision for the job and making it happen - working together, appreciating what each other has to offer, and enjoying the collaborative effort.
And once you hear Jana's sermon, you'll all want to find a way to be involved with pancake day - I promise!

For reflections on the stories themselves, the three I prepared and told, and new things I heard from Jana, stay tuned.

of angels, yearning and hope

2011-11-26T13:35:00.001+10:30

I have been sitting with the theme of angels for our Advent and Christmas gatherings at Belair for some time. This week, I had to move from the vague images and feelings to something concrete to share in a reflection on the Sacred Story for the worship gathering tomorrow, Advent 1. We've got our angels made by the youth arriving in the church tomorrow, being hung to wait with us through this holy and sacred season. It is their drawing explorations that led us to invite angels to be the dominant image for our reflections through Advent in particular, and I am very grateful. I am tingling with anticipation at the possibilities for engaging with the stories from the Bible and our lives in coming weeks that this invitation is opening up.
This week I have heard some angel stories from people in my congregation, that have brought me to tears in their beauty, mystery and sacred wonder. And as these stories moved within my imagination, I began to find my way to the reflection I have to write for tomorrow.
Late yesterday afternoon, I could feel the ideas floating just out of reach of my consciousness - it usually takes a fair amount of distraction and procrastination before I can catch the thoughts for any piece of writing. But I have learnt to trust the process, and when I the words are eluding me, I go do something else. Yesterday afternoon, then, I came home and ate birthday cake with my sisters, then went to the chiropractor. I had been pondering the angel stories of others, and thinking, with some disappointment, that I didn't have an angel story. Then, as I was lying on the table at the chiropractor studio, I remembered.
And the opening to my reflection for tomorrow wrote itself on my way home. As it does.

A man has been doubting,questioning, the story of God. He encounters an image of an angel, and is drawnto it, inspired to reach out – God, if you are here, send me an angel.
The angel appears – tell therest of that. And after he tells thisstory to a friend, four more angels are given to him, and he knows the presenceof God with him still.

A 16 year old girl istravelling alone across Europe, a long way from her home Down Under. As shefalls asleep one night, she senses the presence of two centurions, come toprotect her. They accompany her all the way from Germany to England, where shemeets her mother. Back home, as she tells ofthe experience, her dad says – oh, yes, those are my angels. He had sent themto take care of his daughter.

A 19 year old woman issitting in the kitchen, desperate to end the pain of her depression. She is sodesperate in her longing for an end, that she has begun to see only one way –to stop living. But as she runs through theoptions for this course of action in her mind – wrists, alcoholic stupor,driving her car into a tree – she finds she can not move from her seat, untileventually she decides to go to bed, and cries herself to sleep. Years later, looking back,she thinks she can see angels with her on that long dark night, holding hertight, holding her safe, God’s messengers of love and care an answer to herlonging.

I have always known God's presence with me - and tomorrow, we will consider what difference it makes to know God is present with us in our yearning for home, our longing for hope - what difference it makes to our responses to oppression, disempowerment, violence and despair.

ponderings provoked by the psalms

2011-11-22T10:23:00.001+10:30

Psalm 139:16 - 'Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.'

As I read part of psalm 139 this morning, this verse arrested me, and provoked questions -

how would a woman who had aborted a baby respond to these words?

do the people strongly advocating for women not to abort really think God doesn't see the whole woman who has conceived? do they really think there is only one life - the unborn life - at stake in those situations?

Then the Christmas story we're about to live and tell again came to mind -

how do women who have aborted or lost a baby during pregnancy or childbirth respond to the story of Mary's conception & giving birth?

And, inevitably, the broader questions of storytelling -

how do we make room for the 'underside' of the stories we tell?

do we make room in the cycle of our telling for the underside stories? the difficult stories?

I am grateful to those who initiated services of solace, or blue Christmas services - for these do create space in which we can acknowledge and tell the stories of pain and hurt and grieving amongst a season of sometimes quite loud and overbearing calls to joy and singing.

Following a wandering train of thought - I then reflect on how it is interesting to me that a partnership has emerged between Belair Uniting, Blackwood Uniting and Blackwood Church of Christ for the contemplative, difficult storytelling at Easter and Christmas. We come together for Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Blue Christmas, each congregation hosting one of the three each year. Sometimes it seems easier to gather together for the joyful celebrations. We come together to remember Christ's suffering, and our own, in the seasons of the telling of the central stories of our faith tradition - the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you are finding it difficult to celebrate joyfully this Christmas, or need space to acknowledge the underside stories of loss and grieving, I encourage you to find a service of solace in your area.

Blue Christmas / Service of Solace - Belair Uniting Church (18 Sheoak Rd), Thursday 15 December, 8 pm

telling letters - Paul to the Corinthians, one in the Spirit

2011-10-31T20:23:00.001+10:30

1 Corinthians 12:4-13

Now there are varieties of gifts, but (I paused here, it felt right to do so - what does that tell me? I was perhaps drawing attention to the fact that it is the same Spirit) the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. after I had been rehearsing this for a while, I suddenly began to put stress on 'all' and 'every'one. I had been finding it difficult to decide where to place the stress in this phrase without making it feel as though Paul is saying that everyone has every gift activated within them ...

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. I gestured here to random points around the room for 'each', and swept my hands up from my sides for 'common good'. Also, I smiled with common good - to lift here, because this is joyful, our common humanity.
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. I started this part slower, and gradually picked up the pace through the list, by 'interpretation of tongues', giving the feeling that the list could go on because these are all examples, not an exhaustive list, of gifts.
All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. I reversed the gestures from above here - hands up from the sides with 'all these' and indicating random points in the room for 'to each.'

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. I wanted to gesture here, but found nothing worked successfully without feeling odd about drawing attention to my body, which felt like an uneasiness because I am a woman. This bears more reflection.

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. here I repeated the cup gesture from the portion from 2 Corinthians for 'drink of one Spirit,' and I paused here for a moment or two, to hold our attention on our oneness in the Spirit of Christ, which felt like the heart of Paul's message here.

telling letters - Paul to the church at Corinth

2011-10-31T19:49:00.000+10:30

2 Corinthians 5:11-21 – The Ministry of Reconciliation

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. The better I got to know these words, the more I felt the concern of the writers for the recipients of this letter. Hypocrisy was something Jesus spoke against in the religious leaders of the temple; Paul addresses the issue in his letters, too, showing great concern for the harm that people do when they say one thing and do another, especially when the people they are teaching and leading are just beginning along the way of Jesus. This is one of the rewards for me of telling the letters - getting right inside, not only the argument, but the love of the writer for his audience. It helps me to make the message a message of love and encouragement for my listeners, here, today: not merely the complicated rhetoric we sometimes struggle to comprehend.

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. As I spoke these words over and over in rehearsal, I experimented with different expression. Through this process, I discovered a meaning that made sense to me: by putting the emphasis on 'we', I indicated the contrast between the writers (Paul & Timothy) and those 'who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart.' This contrasting integrity is the reason Paul & Timothy offer an answer to the hypocrites leading the church in Corinth along a harmful path.

For the love of Christ urges us on (I didn't quite settle on where I wanted to place the emphasis here - it felt again like a contrast between what urges Paul & Timothy on and what might be the motives of the hypocrites, so I went with stress on both 'Christ' and 'us', but it never quite felt right), because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. (again, the emphasis and stress was difficult to settle here, the language is sparse compared to how I would probably say it in English today, and even with expression it's not always possible to convey meaning effectively. The 'even though' follows from the previous phrase, but also leads into the next, and so is carrying quite a lot of meaning. I kept wanting to put a 'but' before 'we no longer know him' - perhaps that would have helped.)

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (this sentence felt joyful - I lifted on 'new creation', pulled back on expression with 'everything old ... ', and built up to a climax at 'become new!' And really felt Paul's excitement and passion at the good news in the story of Jesus Christ.)

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. To this point, as with the letter from John, I had used little gesture. But here, I introduced gesture - with 'reconciled' & 'reconciling' I gestured linking my hands in front of me; held my right hand up, palm away from me for 'not counting ...', and brought my hands up in a cupping motion with 'entrusting' - hopefully indicating that this message is a gift to treasure.

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. I repeated the gesture of linking my hands with 'be reconciled to God'.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. I slowed down the last phrase, in a sense of reverence for God and the gift this is to us. Even so, it felt inadequate, because I feel as though 'righteousness' has lost meaning for us. I wonder if retranslating it, or including some further explanation to more effectively convey what Paul might mean by 'the righteousness of God' in this context ... ?

reflecting on John's letter of love

2011-10-30T17:40:00.000+10:30

1 John 4:7-21 – God Is Love
storytelling - synod/presbytery day one

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. I spoke the latter phrase as a parentheses - the writer punctuating his argument with theological commentary.

Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. The inherited text runs on here, but it felt to me like a better place to pause than where the text had a paragraph break (after the next sentence). No one has ever seen God; (I didn't add it in, but it felt like there was an implied 'but' here, which I hope I implied with expression) if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we (I wondered if 'we' referred to John and the disciples, or followers of Christ in general) have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. As I repeated these lines, I could feel the reference back to 'God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us' - when we love each other. I having a lingering question about whether perfection means something different to a state of no blemishes ... I didn't quite answer this question, and therefore didn't know what I wanted to communicate with those words: I also, then, didn't quite nail effective expression for that phrase.

We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. Gesture and movement is more sparse in letters, as you take on the place of the letter writer - there are no characters whose places to take, no directions in which they move. So my hands were still for much of this telling. But in these phrases, I was gesturing the 'hate' with my left hand, palm away from me, and then I turned my palm up with the 'do not love', indicating a person to be loved, and as I spoke 'cannot love God', I turned my palm away again for the 'have not seen'. This made me wonder, is the 'whom they have not seen' referring to not seeing God because no one does see God, or that we haven't seen God in the brother or sister whom we have 'hated'? Since further above, John has said, 'if we love one another, God lives in us ... '

The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

reflecting on telling the letters of John and Paul

2011-10-30T17:39:00.000+10:30

I thought I would reflect on my process preparing to tell portions from the letters of John and Paul for our Synod / Presbytery annual meeting's opening worship and Bible studies. As I was talking to others, the phrase - inhabiting the text - came up. It really is like that, preparing a portion of Biblical story to tell: you repeat the words over and over and they travel further and further into your being - mind and soul and spirit - and becomes part of you, and you enter into it. With the letters, I find that I enter into the argument and enter into the spirit of the writer, their passion and concern for the recipients of the letter, and it becomes my concern. It becomes my argument, too. And then - as observed by another in conversation at the meeting - it's like I am speaking to the listeners then and there, making the argument up myself.
So what happens to get to this point, and what's so good about it? So posting here, I'm going to take each of the portions I told at the meeting and note my processes and discoveries.

of discerning, dancing and becoming

2011-10-26T14:27:00.001+10:30

This morning I read about a person who was discerning whether or not to go to college; she asked God for a sign, like a rainbow, to confirm her path.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. It comes a little too close to treating God like a puppet, or expecting that we are puppets, or something. Or it personifies God too much. Yes, perhaps that's it. My friend Heather commented here a few weeks back that God is like a feminine presence, with us all, all the time.
For me, discerning has been less about signs and wonders, and more about attentiveness. Perhaps looking for signs is a different kind of paying attention, I don't know, but as I pondered my response I remembered the process of discerning that led me to apply to candidate for ordained ministry, or the moment of arriving at the decision, more precisely.
The call to ordained ministry for me was like standing at a junction, with several paths I could choose; some clear and safe, others enticing but hard to make out.
And having listened - really listened - to God and to myself for about a year, suddenly my mind and soul and body (yes, it was a physical knowing, which I feel even now, years later, as I recall it) together turned toward the direction I was going to take. It was like in stopping, and paying attention, I found or saw, the Spirit dancing around me, calling me into my own becoming - into the gifts the Spirit herself had given me - and the delight she exuded as I glimpsed the path that would lead me into fulfilling and fulfillment.
I have been preparing a portion of Paul's letter to the Corinthians to tell at Synod on Saturday, in which Paul observes that the Spirit gives us our gifts for the common good. We are one body, many members yes, but one together. None of us are whole on our own.
And those of us who have heard and seen the Spirit dance and are following her lead, must help others to hear and follow the call into our own becoming, together.

A story - Jesus is challenged on the question of taxes

2011-10-19T18:00:00.003+10:30

Matt 22:15-22

Thestory from the perspective of an (imagined) eye witness.

MyDad and I were in Jerusalem that year, it must have been only my secondpilgrimage I think – I was not yet quite an adult. We were staying with anuncle. As we got closer to Jerusalem, we met people along the way who toldstories of this man called Jesus, who seemed to be gathering quite a lot offollowers. They were telling stories of healing and teaching and spending timewith people we had always been told were unclean, and would make us unclean ifwe got too close. This Jesus guy sounded to me like a very strange person, butstill, someone I really wanted to see for myself.

Whenwe got to Jerusalem and heard he was there too, we went straight away, followingthe crowds to get as close as we could. And we felt what the people on theroads had said they felt – that he was talking just to you, and wherever hewas, that was where you wanted to be.

TheJewish leaders in Jerusalem didn’t like Jesus at all. They were saying terriblethings about him, and if they heard you’d been in the crowds, they would getvery aggressive and want to know what he said and what he did and who he waswith. And they would tell you to stay away. I didn’t like them very much. Theymade my skin crawl.

Oneday that week we, my dad and uncle and I, happened to overhear some of thePharisees talking about Jesus. It sounded like they were plotting an attack, somy dad and uncle got this idea that if we listened in and heard what they wereplanning, maybe we could warn Jesus. We were in a market, and the men werehiding in between some stalls. We kept out of sight around the corner, andlistened in. Even though it was crowded and noisy with people and animals inthe market, and we could only just hear what they were saying, I realised I was holding my breath, I was sofrightened of what they might do if they heard us loitering around the corner.

Thegist of their conversation was that they wanted to trap Jesus into sayingsomething against Caesar so that the Roman soldiers would arrest him and hewouldn’t be around to stir up trouble any more.

Weheaded out early the next morning, to try to get close to Jesus before thePharisees did. There was always such a crowd around him, though, that wecouldn’t get close to him at all, let alone tell him what we had heard. ThePharisees posed the question, and really, it was so obvious what they weretrying to do, sucking up to him like that. ‘Teacher, we know that you aresincere (they didn’t think that at all), and teach the way of God in accordancewith truth (they called him a liar most of the time), and show deference to noone; for you do not regard people with partiality (but they thought peopleshould show deference to them and were angry that he didn’t). Tell us, thenwhat you think. (dramatic pause as they tried to contain their anticipation) Isit lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?’

Oh,now for quite a few that day who were not sure about whether Jesus was a goodguy or not, this swayed it for them that he was a good guy. Jesus was so calm,I didn’t even think about calling out to warn him not to answer because it wasa trap. You could tell he had the measure of these guys. And he called them onit – why are you putting me to the test – you hypocrites! And he asked them toshow him the coins we used for taxes. Whose head is this? The emperor’s. thengive it to the emperor. Give to God what is God’s.

Iheard people tell the story later, describing the Pharisees as being amazed,but it was more than that – they were speechless, deflated, and seething withanger.

Asmy dad and uncle and I walked home later, I asked them about Jesus’ response.The Pharisees might not have cared about the answer, but we certainly did. Ihad heard my parents and the other adults in the village talking and arguingand wondering about this question: whether it was right according to Torah topay taxes to Rome. Was it right to show such allegiance to this emperor whocalled himself divine, an empire of people who worshipped many, many gods?

We talkedabout what Jesus had said, and decided that paying taxes to the empire isn’tgiving our allegiance to their gods, because Jesus said to give to God what isGod’s. Our hearts belong to God, our lives, our mind and our strength is allfor God. So our money can go to Caesar, it is the money of the empire, and itsupports the work of the empire, like building roads and buildings and aquaducts.And our allegiance, through prayer and studying Torah, and singing the psalms –our allegiance we give to God.

Butthen we wondered, if we’re supporting the work of the empire, are we showingour support for the unjust things they do? We don’t think their taxes are fair,they make poor people even more desperate. Shouldn’t we make a statement aboutour opposition to this injustice by withholding our taxes?

We talkedabout how, because we give our heart and mind and strength to God, and liveaccording to Torah, we are taught to love our neighbours. So while our moneygoes to a sometimes corrupt and unjust regime, our time and our energy and foodand shelter is shared with those who need it. So with our actions and the restof what we have, we say, this is a more just way of living, this is what we doout of our allegiance to God.

Thisis what we thought Jesus meant by advising us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’sand to God what is God. We know our lives to be a gift from God, so that meanswe have to – and we choose to – give our wholehearted devotion to God.

You’restill telling this story so many years after it began – what do you hear in theanswer Jesus gave to the Pharisees?

The Esther Project: lessons in sustainability

2011-10-19T09:22:00.000+10:30

I have been invited to share from the story of The Esther Project today at a national gathering of ministers from the Uniting Church. Feeling a little nervous - telling the story through the lense of sustainability when this became an unsustainable community makes me, its leader, vulnerable. However it is a story we need to tell, revealing lessons we as a church must learn if we are to enable new models of church to emerge and flourish, enriching our wider communities with nurturing communities of faith.
The full text will become a chapter in the book I am going to write - now that I have finally begun - but the nutshell I have arrived at in regards to sustainability is this:

Fresh expressions need time and money. The church will need to fund ideas and dreams, give time and resources to leaders pursuing possibilities, making space for opportunities, building relationships. Out of these relationships fresh expressions may - may - emerge.
God is always calling us beyond where we are. We have not arrived. Let us journey off our safety maps and discover God in the world.

Why do we sing?

2011-10-16T12:50:00.002+10:30

Well, yesterday was all about why we sing.
Jonathon Welch's keynote explored the question first up:
Apparently someone has done experiments with water, playing music or saying a word at a glass or bottle of water then freezing it. When you freeze water, crystals form. Depending on what word or music was directed at the water, the crystals took different shapes. Yes, water responds to words and music. Speaking hate at the water caused the crystals to shatter. We are 80% water. We respond physically to music; we respond physically to what is spoken to us and how.
Also, when we hear music, it is not the logical left side of the brain that responds, it is the emotional right side of the brain. We have no choice, but to respond to music. And this is how / why music helps us to open up emotionally; why it opens us up to healing.
Jonathon's experiences with choirs of people from disadvantaged situations shows how, even though they don't seek to be a counselling help group, or a rehab program, people bring all of who they are into every situation, and when it's a music situation, and the emotional part of our being is being opened up in this way, he and the other volunteers needed to be ready to respond and care for the members of the choir.

After morning tea (right, donated by Villi's), I attended a workshop with David Roach, on arts and healing.
Space is important for our healing - architecture of churches often resembles a striving for God, a looking beyond what we know towards the Divine, the Other. Healing is a looking beyond, looking beyond what we are experiencing now to a time without pain, suffering, illness ...
When it comes to healing spaces, it has been shown that in hospitals, patients who have a view to outside, nature, heal more quickly and effectively than those who don't. Windows are a portal, an escape - help us to look beyond. (come to think of it, it's one of the things I appreciated most about the chapel at college, the window looking out on nature ... )
David also spoke about music, and how music and song have always been part of human rites and ceremonies. We connect with music and lyrics that express something of experience, and in the naming, find healing. (connection came up at a few points over the weekend; there seems to be something inherently healing about connecting with each other - when Jesus healed people, it often involved their restoration into community ...) And the healing that happens through music therapy, through any therapy, is as much about the healing nature of the relationship as it is about the music. Connection.
Visual arts have been part of human experience as long as we've been human: we've been making our marks on rocks to tell our story, who we are, and communicate with each other across the world and ages.
Why do we sing (or engage in any artistic genre)? Art explores our senses, and it is through our senses that we engage with the world and make meaning of that world and our experience. Art expresses feeling and engages the mind in a creative process helping to relieve the pain.

After lunch, the workshop with Jonathon turning us into a choir for our evening performance, and then the evening's concert itself, were the experiential underpinning of the earlier reflections on why we sing. Joy. What other reason do we need? And it's a joy that isn't happiness, because happiness is fleeting, and joy can remain even when we are not happy. Singing expresses who we are, leads us into wholeness, connects us with each other and with the Holy.
What more reason would we need?

Thanks to the Centre for Music, Liturgy and the Arts for a fantastic weekend. Well done team!

on arts, culture, and social inclusion - Jonathon Welch part 1

2011-10-15T08:15:00.000+10:30

Last night I had the privilege of hearing Jonathon Welch speak, as part of the Centre for Music, Liturgy and the Arts' Weekend with Jonathon Welch.
Jonathon shared a lot of his own story, in a generous gift of himself than any of us were expecting. Much of his story, and along the way the stories of folk from the Choir of Hope & Opportunity (formerly Choir of Hard Knocks) and others, demonstrates of music what I so often observe about story: through music (or story) Jonathon finally saw how everything he had been given came together, why he had been given the gifts he has - for the benefit of the community. And isn't that why any of us have the gifts we have - so that together we can live out the fulness of our humanity?
He spoke of the gift that the choir had been - giving people a much longed-for chance to participate in life. And more than the music - which, by the way, is enough on its own, contrary to so many people's apparent opinion - the learnt to work together, to trust each other, something they'd long forgotten how to do. This choir also offered them the experience of being acknowledged, which for people of disadvantage on the edges of society is so rare: they were acknowledged for their contribution and for their existence. (Again, this resonates with what I observe about the experience of having our story heard)
Arts and culture - as Jonathon said - are how we carry who we are, have been for all people throughout all time. Why, then, are they so little valued when it comes to making decisions for funding?

The question he raised for me was, how is a community choir / choir community (or family, as the choir of hope & opportunity has become) like a faith community / community of faith ... ? And what would teaching on social inclusion through community arts programs offer to the students at our theological colleges, training to be leaders in our communities of faith??

Jonathon Welch continues to offer reflections and bring a choir together in one afternoon today, and will be performing, with this and other choirs, at Maughan Church Adelaide this evening, 7.30 pm. $15 ($10 conc). All welcome!

on Christmas Trees and Holiday Trees

2011-10-13T13:25:00.001+10:30

This is part of an email that was sent to me today:

Apparently the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year which prompted CBS presenter, Ben Stein, to present this piece which I would like to share with you. I think it applies just as much to many countries as it does to America .     

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.   My confession:  

 I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.   It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.   

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.   

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God ? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.  

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.   

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'   

...

My response:

I'm not sure I agree with what Anne Graham says, that if we push God away how can we expect protection - still implies that God made the hurricane happen, or failed to protect us from nature, when nature's forces have been set in motion, and the earth will crack its surface and create big winds to stay at a sustainable temperature for all creation ... rather than God sending hurricanes or stepping in to stop their force.

I agree with Stein, though, that people who believe in God need to stop apologising as much as we need to stop disrespectful proselytising ... let's have some integrity about who we are and what we believe, and some deeper resepect for each other. (including the celebrities whose lives we think we have a right to scrutinise!)

From 28 August
I feel more settled as a writer, more confident perhaps that this is my gift and my responsibility is to nurture that gift. I feel inspired, with ideas for stories, poems and essays. Overwhelmingly, though, I feel less worried about the other half time of my working life...

When I talked about this feeling coming home from study leave, I don't know if I really believed I would do it. But I am! Looking at the number of posts I'm putting up here, the thinking and reflecting I am doing, the writing I am producing (volume wise, not necessarily claiming quality) - I think it is possible because I have come home with that confidence I wrote about, the peace about the other half of my 'working' life being spent writing, teaching, leading workshops and telling stories. I must say, I am enjoying it.

All this sparked by an email with a thought-provoking perspective on where God is and how people of faith are placed in Western society! I am shaking my head to recall how as I read it, my thoughts started to emerge, to write themselves. This is the life I dreamed of - the life of a poet, writer, storyteller.
Some day I'll take some of these blog posts and polish them - as I think I promised to do post poetry workshops, but at the moment, I am enjoying simply writing, and when others join in the conversation, that is also something I enjoy. And your reflections will probably help shape any polished pieces that might emerge from these ramblings ... so, in anticipation, thank you!

of returning to God's way of Love

2011-10-13T10:50:00.000+10:30

Stories weave in and around and through each other in such mysterious and enlightening ways sometimes.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that the book of reflections I'm using has been inviting me to read Psalm 119 in recent weeks. Today we reached the final stanza of that epic psalm, and its final verse struck me.
I have gone astray ... I have not forgotten thy commandments (KJV - I like reading the psalms in this version, the language is beautiful, and we all know I'm a fan of Shakespeare - this is his language).
I digress.
These words from the psalmist reminded me of an image that emerges for me when I consider the notion of 'sin'. There's a lot of baggage and years of unhelpful theology that tumble after that word, and get in the way of my understanding the message from the Epistles, and understanding our relationship with God. So I have this picture, and thankfully it seems to appear like the 'beep' over people's bad language in family tv timeslots, so that I don't trip on all the baggage. In the same way the TV editors replace an offensive word with a 'beep', my mind replaces 'sin' with a picture of humans turning away from God.
The grander picture it reminds me of is a picture of our living God's way of love - it's a continual movement of turning towards God, turning away and turning back. It is the multifaceted 'I have gone astray ... I have hot forgotten' of the psalmist.
And the most beautiful part of that verse is what the psalmist says in between: 'search me out'. God seeks us as we turn away and turn back. God does not turn away. Even in the stories of the ancient Hebrew people, when they understand that the covenant relationship with the people of Israel forced God's hand with their apparent punishment: God goes with them into exile. It may feel like God has, but their experience is always that, in fact, God does not turn away.
Our experiences lead us to trust in this constant presence of God: this trust means we can continually turn back, confident that God is also reaching out to us as we reach out to God, welcoming us back into the home, forgiveness, grace, love that we long for.

Our trust in this presence of God, our commitment to remember God's commandments even though we have gone astray, shapes the decisions we make in our daily living.
This week for my reflection in worship at Belair, I am considering the story in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees with the question of taxes. Do we owe our allegiance to Caesar, Rome & their polytheistic spirituality, or to our God, the One True God? It's a question the posers actually don't want an authentic answer to, they're out to trap Jesus and get him arrested. The answer, though, is authentic as much as it is a clever sidestep out of trouble.
The question of allegiance isn't just about what we do with our money. It's about how we live our lives, how we live out our commitment to God's Way of Love. Do we use our resources of money, time, energy, love, and collectively the earth, for the common good, or only for ourselves? This is not to say that we can't enjoy and appreciate the good things we have - Jesus came that we might have life in its fulness. But do we share of the goodness or hoard it for ourselves with not a second thought for those whose life is less fortunate, or for God who is the source of all that is good?

This is the question.
How then shall we live?
We steep ourselves in the story of God's way of love, immerse ourselves in a life of prayer and song and beauty and serving and caring - love itself.
And so, our choices reflect the story, reflect God's love.

Paying taxes supports the leaders who provide services for the community. Honouring our civic responsibilities become one part of the way we live out our commitment to God's way of love. One part of a whole life lived according to love.

A chance to sing with and hear Jonathon Welch!

2011-10-13T10:27:00.000+10:30

 This Weekend ... Conferenceand Concert with Jonathon Welch!

Performer, conductor,speaker, teacher and social inclusion activist – Jonathon Welch AM has inspiredAustralians to reconnect with music and opened our eyes to issues includinghomelessness, depression and addiction. Jonathon’s talent and passion wereshowcased on ABC TV’s Choir of Hard Knocks and Jail Birds. Workshops includesinging and non-singing options.

Conference

Fridayevening October 14th and Saturday October 15th

PilgrimUniting Church, 12 Flinders Street

Registration:$120 conc. / $140 reg.

Can't make theconference but want to hear Jonathon Welch perform?

Concert

SaturdayOctober 15th at 7:30pm

MaughanUniting Church

Tickets:$10 conc. / $15 reg.

Come along to theconcert featuring the conference choir with Jonathon Welch and also enjoy...

The Voice ofTransition - a group of young Adelaide vocalists who sing, arrange andgenerally rock out to produce amazing music together. With a broad range of repertoireand an outstanding vocal blend, these local talents have gone from strength tostrength since their formation in 2008 and have become an award winning choir.The Voice of Transition is directed by acclaimed vocalist, teacher, arranger,director and musician Kim Spargo.

Ngarrindjeri MiminarKykulan - a group of approximately 8 women from the Ngarrindjeri nation. Theaim was to give women of all ages the opportunity to develop their vocal skillsas well as have an avenue to express themselves. One of their members recentlyreturned from the Melbourne premiere of Pecan Summer, Australia's firstIndigenous Opera, written by Deborah Cheetham. Jonathon Welch also performed inthe Opera.

The International Gospel Choir - a group ofrefugees from Burundi who sing energetic and life-giving music. Their Africanrhythms and soulful sound will have everyone dancing in the aisles.

on the doors of opportunity

2011-10-10T10:34:00.000+10:30

gate with two people, Santa Fe August 2011

Life really isinteresting. This week I’ve faced some open doors – one open that I had walkedthrough only to come up against another unexpected door before I could go anyfurther, and another that had been left ajar for some time, with hope but notpromise it would open more fully. The unexpected door remained shut, but in themean time the preferred door fulfilled its hope and promise and swung open …

And then I wasreading my daily reflection today and the practices bit is exploringdiscernment this month. There’s a line that is still ruminating: ‘… you learnto look and listen for the nudges and whispers of God. God often speaks throughunexpected events and persons.’ This seems to me to be a picture of God actinglike humans, the same sort of interaction we have with each other. But is itlike that? does God tell us – go this way, go that way? Park here, apply forthat job? Or do we apply for jobs, explore opportunities and in the exploring,praying and listening for the call of God along the way, discern the path ofmost integrity for us and who we are becoming?

I think about my callto ordained ministry. It wasn’t as if I heard God saying, I would like you tobe a minister now. It was more that I listened – learning about specifiedministry, looking at my gifts and dreams and passions, examining my place inthe community / body of Christ. And in this active listening, the Spirit wascalling me – ah, see when I use Spirit language, yes, I tapped into the Spirit,this is what the grand call is after all, God / Spirit calling to us toconnect, to live God’s way, and when I did that the call was a call for mepersonally and for the whole body of Christ. We are only whole with each other.The call I was listening for was the call into my fullness of being.

Does God nudge? Thatis my question. I’m not sure. Perhaps. But the phrase conjures up an image ofGod I want to leave behind – the puppet string pulling, find me a car park,finger pointing old man in the sky God pushing us one way or the other.

That picture negatesfree choice. That picture is too small and individualistic. That picture makesus wonder if God is nudging me this way or that, why doesn’t God nudge thedespots and dictators towards peace?

There’s always alistening on our part. And I’m not convinced it’s a listening for a particularmessage for a particular moment. It feels to me more like we listen to thestory, for the grand call of God into the fullness of our humanity, into God’sway of healing and reconciling love – and when we do that, we find the answersto the day to day questions about how then shall we live.

So with this dooropen and me having actually stepped through it, I had found there was anotherdoor unexpectedly placed before me. It was unexpected for those on the otherside of the first door too. So we had a look at the keys to see if I had thekey to open this new door. In the mean time, a door that had been standing ajaron the other side of those rooms with many doors swung open. This was a doorthrough which I was much more disposed to walk. This door I would walk throughout of love, passion, gifting and my calling. The other was a choice for money,if I’m being honest.

And the first doorwith its new door – well, turns out I didn’t have the key.

Now I am faced with choicesfor how I respond to these doors and their opening and closing.

Do I get bitter aboutthe new door not opening for me when I thought I had done enough? Do I offerthanks for the preferred door opening after all?

Or do I learn fromthis again that the decisions I make for money are less successful choices thanthose I make out of love?

doing it for ourselves

2011-10-09T17:45:00.000+10:30

I was sitting in the lounge today, waiting for my lunch to cook, when I heard a crash in the courtyard outside the window. The courtyard is sunken, about 6 or 7 steps down from the driveway, covered, with a wall around one corner that has vine and jasmine crawling over it. It seems that a koala may have been climbing on the wall and slipped down the vine into the courtyard. And then he (why is my default assumption that this koala was a boy?) had to find his way out.
The photos can speak for themselves with what he tried. It was very hard to watch, though, and I felt a little bad taking the photos (I stepped away from the windows occasionally out of respect for the koala needing to find his way without an audience). But this was one of those instances when I really couldn't help - the obvious language barriers would make my visitor feel a little threatened, and koalas are not cuddly teddy bears with those frightening claws ...

As I've been thinking about the koala's efforts to escape I've been thinking about how there are times when we have to sit back and watch others try to find their way through the challenges they face, and as much as we would like to jump in and help, show the way, or even do it for them, it would be more harmful to try. So we sit back, sit on our hands if we have to, watch and hope from the sidelines - little koala, that's not the way out, why don't you use the steps?? - with gasps as his claws cling onto the rafters and the branch wavers.

There are times when we do step in - we came close, my koala friend and I, as the vine looked like it could
tangle him up dangerously - but what a discipline it is to recognise that we are not the only ones who possess the ability to find a way through a particular circumstance; that our right way may not be the only right way, may not be the right way for another. How hard it is to watch another make mistakes, risk harming themselves, but knowing that if we intervened we may cause even more harm to them and us.
I hope my keeping my distance was enough of a gift to the koala to help him find his way on his own. On reflection, my visitor has given
me a gift, too, a reminder for the next time I am tempted to 'help' someone by showing them the way through a challenge they are facing. Perhaps I will remember the koala, and will keep my distance, step away from the window and let another make mistakes and take some risks without an audience (staying close enough to be on hand for a fall or tangled vine if needed).

Psalms, prayer and a dream

2011-10-08T10:32:00.000+10:30

I’mreally enjoying Openings, a daybook ofsaints, psalms and prayer (Larry James Peacock) (available from MediaCom). I don’t spend even half an hour with it usually, butsince I moved my papasan chair into my room with my table, which I’ve decoratedwith monet prints from diaries and calendars, I have finally found my way intoa daily rhythm of sitting with psalms in stillness. The book has for each day aperson to remember, a passage of scripture (usually from the psalms), areflection for contemplation and some suggestions for spiritual practices. It’sone page per day. Tiny criticism is the usa-centricity of it, but one writesfor one’s own context and that’s the author’s context. It’s not overpowering,the people for remembering do come from places other than America regularlyenough, and even when the reflections centre on education and teachers inSeptember which is out of context for an Australian academic year, it’s stillhelpful guidance to remember the people who have taught us and given us thegift of mentoring, whatever time of year it is.

At themoment, the book is guiding the reader through psalm 119, the longest chapterin the bible. Its celebration of God’s way / teaching / law / commandments isworth taking time to savour. God’s way of love has been a thread woven throughmuch of my reflections with Belair this year, and psalm 119 seems to hold someclue, some kernel of aha that might reveal itself to me in time, about living thatway. You know. It’s like there’s this question in the back of my mind, probablyinspired by this being my first placement as a minister, about how we live, asindividuals and as a community, committed to God’s way of love. What shapes ourliving? What guides our discerning? It’s the story of God, the story of God’srelationship with creation and in particular humanity throughout time. If wecan steep ourselves in that story – that guidance, teaching, covenant – it willshape our living. Of course I see it through the lens of story. I guess youcould name it something else if you were an artist (you’d talk about paintingthe picture), or a cook or host (you’d talk about the feast and welcoming), ateacher or nurturer (you’d talk about instruction and wisdom), or a healer (you’dtalk about healing, wholeness, reconciliation). For me it is story. if we knowthis story as well as we know our own story – for the story of God is our story – we will live out of thatstory as we live out of the story of all our experiences that have shaped whowe are. And this is a story of healing reconciling welcoming nurturingbeautiful love. Such a story shapes whole people and communities of care, ofwisdom, of reconciliation, of love.

I justwant to say this over and over again to my community, to anyone - everyone! It is a dream towardswhich I feel compelled, pulled, drawn, enticed. I think this is God’s dream. I thinkthis is the dream Jesus is describing when he tells his stories of the kingdomof God. Oh, it makes me shiver to imagine living this dream!

So I mightnot spend that long sitting down in silent contemplation each morning with this book, but sitting down with it each morning is sparking the prayers and thoughts and dreaming, and inspiring my living.

church as exercise for the heart

2011-10-05T09:15:00.002+10:30

thanks to the South Australian Council of Churches e-news for this reflection which came through today:

Gospel

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son…” Matthew 22:1-14

For reflection…

Heaven, the scriptures assure us, will be enjoyed within the communal embrace of billions of persons of every temperament, race, background, and ideology imaginable. A universal heart will be required to live there. Thus, in this life, it is good to get some practice at this, good to be constantly in situations that painfully stretch the heart. Few things - and we certainly all admit this - stretch the heart as painfully as does church community. Conversely, when we avoid the pain and mess of ecclesial encounter to walk a less painful private road or to gather with only persons of our own kind, the heart need not and generally does not stretch. Going to church is one of the better cardiovascular spiritual exercises available.

Ronald Rolheiser ‘The Holy Longing’

how then shall we live?

2011-10-04T10:28:00.000+10:30

Sunday's reflection at Belair was inspired by Psalm 19, Matthew 21, and the story of Clare of Assisi, and followed along the theme that's woven through most of my reflections this year - God's way of love (also known as the kingdom of God / heaven).
Clare of Assisi lived a life of radical poverty, inspired by Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan monks of his order. This was really radical poverty - Clare and her fellow nuns refused to own anything, even in common. Even the reasonably strict Benedictine order instructs people to own things in common. They only ate what the Franciscan monks would beg for them (they're in the 13th century, and it was not advisable for women to beg). Clare fought hard with the various popes to protect their rule of life, and succeeded, mostly. Within a decade of her death, though, the nuns were ordered by the church to follow a rule of life much more like the Benedictine Rule, having to give up the institutional poverty they had committed to.
I wondered in my sermon whether this radical poverty was actually untenable. I didn't focus on that question, but explored then what can we learn from Clare's story. It did force me to ask questions about how I live, and what I might do differently in order to live in solidarity with the poorest in our world, and make the small changes that will reduce my eco footprint, and that if we all made, might help to redistribute wealth around the world with greater fairness for all.
In conversation over morning tea, another person wondered if it might have been a good opportunity for discussion - and I think it would have been, staying with the question of poverty, and whether those with wealth are called to leave it all behind and embrace poverty, or whether it is more a question of to what extent we live responsibly and share what wealth we have.
What of Clare, then? Do we think she was wrong? That there was no point to her choice?
I wonder if people like Clare, Francis, and their orders, are like the Old Testament prophets whose message was given not only in the words they spoke, but through their actions. Those prophets married prostitutes and walked about naked in order to visibly and radically share the message from God calling the people to change their ways.
Does Clare's radical poverty not call all of us to radical poverty, but like the hyperbole of Jesus' parables, exaggerate the point so that we receive it and understand it?
In the radical poverty of Clare of Assisi might we hear a call to fair distribution of wealth and a reminder of the poverty that exists in the world, a challenge to mindful living with the earth and all creation ??
Jesus did come so that we might have life, in its fulness. But I think we need to realise that our fulness of life is not complete while our neighbours live in poverty.

2011 Biblical Storytellers Australia National Gathering

2011-09-23T10:35:00.003+09:30

I wonder

2011-09-14T16:58:00.000+09:30

this question emerges out of a recent conversation, which i was pondering some more today ...

is there a master plan? do things happen for a reason?

or do we, when we open up to the Spirit (however we name it, the depth within, the breadth without) find the courage and hope and temerity to keep opening doors until we find the door through which we fit?

or perhaps, we are being led through a series of doors - by fate / destiny / God / experience - and through each we learn something that helps us to get to and through the next ... and the next ...

reflecting on theological education

2011-09-10T14:36:00.000+09:30

I was invited to be interviewed for a research project into theological education yesterday, and it prompted reflection on my experience as a student.
Two things linger from the conversation.
The first is how committed my theological college - Adelaide College of Divinity / Uniting College for Leadership and Theology - is to honouring the individual student's experiences and needs. Especially in Uniting College, the focus is on forming people for engaging in ministry as lay or ordained people of God. But there is no 'cookie cutter' vision of what a person engaged in ministry looks like. Each person comes to college, to ministry, with their own unique gifts, experiences and passions, and each person comes with their own needs for education and formation. So when I came to the college with these wild ideas of engaging in ministry as a creative person, creating Christian community in a new way, guided by an openness to art and spirituality, the faculty and staff listened. They honoured my sense of being called by God along this path, thus honouring me and honouring God. They identified gifts in biblical studies, and supported me in the extra learning I needed to undertake in pastoral studies. They set me free to learn about being a pioneer leader starting a new Christian community by starting a new Christian community. This commitment is time and energy consuming, but it seems to me to be a most faithful living out of their own calling as an educational community, to support, encourage and equip the leaders of our church. I am glad I had this moment to look again at this quality of my college, and to be grateful and just a little bit proud to be associated with it.

The other thing that lingers is my desire to continue to be part of the college, as a graduate and as an educator myself. My experience as a very out of the box student has provided many opportunities to learn about how I and others learn, and what we as a church need to continue to learn for the next stage of our journey here in Australia, with alternative and emerging forms of Christian community and the leaders required for those communities.
But also, my experiences while on study leave in the USA and Canada have sharpened my vision for postgrad study, and heightened my desire to live out a vision one of my mentors had for me - the wandering bard. I feel quite grateful for the support of my landlords and my church at the moment, and am feeling much more comfortable about letting the next part of my pioneer leading emerge in good time. I feel like for the other half time I'm not at Belair Uniting, I am something of a freelance minister / storyteller at the moment, and this feels quite good. Freelancing, I can spend a month listening to the stories of patients and families at the hospital; I can take on short term teaching, marking, research projects; and I can, and will, lead more workshops, take on more storytelling engagements, and write. I am looking forward to part of my freelancing time being given to mentoring and supporting the (pioneer) leaders studying at the college, in one way or another, and to exploring with the college and the wider church, the implications of our commitment to emerging and alternative forms of church for these leaders.

travel log. coming home.

2011-08-28T17:57:00.000+09:30

the final days of the bus tour were spent in the nation's capital and new york city. visiting sacred sites for the people of the USA was interesting, but I felt I was there out of interest, or respect for the nation in which I was visiting, not because it was particularly meaningful for me.
so it was interesting to note the revered place in history and in the heart of this nation that John F Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Martin Luther King Jr have. As I write that, I note these are all men. King is supposed to be having a memorial to him unveiled in Washington DC today, but there is a hurricane along the east of the country, and I haven't heard if the unveiling is still going ahead. I am imagining it will be postponed.
I was intrigued by the statue of Lincoln, which is imposing if not intimidating in its size, but which has one hand clenched in a fist symbolising his resolve to abolish slavery and one open reflecting his love for his people. I think the two aptly go together.

New York City is too big too loud too crowded full of people for me. I didn't see much, but I glimpsed it from the water of the Hudson, taking a ferry to Staten Island past the Statue of Liberty, from above on the viewing deck of the Empire State Building, from below in the subway, and on the streets and its park, walking through Times Square and Central Park. The latter I do like, an oasis in a city that, I discovered, really doesn't sleep.

Then the trip home. From NYC to Adelaide was to have been 31 hours of flights and waiting in airports. All was going well until we were taxiing onto the runway at Brisbane airport (where, I have to say, I was wondering why my travel agent hadn't switched me off the international flight and put me straight onto a flight to Adelaide rather than continuing onto Sydney). The pilot decided he wasn't happy with something and we turned around so that the engineers could sort out the problem, which we never learned what it was. a delay of an hour and a half, the time I was to have had to get through customs and onto my final plane home. Needless to say, I missed that flight. But I was flying Qantas, so as I arrived in Sydney airport, ground staff told me what flight I had been booked onto and what time it was leaving. Customs was a breeze, apart from not really being able to see clearly what line I was supposed to be in, and then it was another wait before finally getting onto the plane and flying home.

I am glad to be home, but it feels like I am not quite all here yet. Perhaps it is that I am not ready to be here yet. Or that I want to be careful not to return to home and the patterns of before, because I know I have changed in the month away and I don't want to lose those changes.

I feel more settled as a writer, more confident perhaps that this is my gift and my responsibility is to nurture that gift. I feel inspired, with ideas for stories, poems and essays. Overwhelmingly, though, I feel less worried about the other half time of my working life, perhaps because of the first two things I mentioned. Perhaps the emerging shape of ministry for me is less about forming a specific new community and more about encouraging the church to learn our story again for a new time / context and equipping the church to tell that story in a post-Christendom world.

travel log. juxtaposition.

2011-08-28T17:15:00.000+09:30

my last post was just after having visited Niagara Falls, which provided one of the most memorable moments of the trip. many of the other memorable moments have been meaningful spiritually or emotionally or intellectually. this one was raw physicality. we took a boat out to the falls, and it gets right up close to the bottom of the Canadian horseshoe falls, so that firstly you feel and look as though you're in the rain, and secondly you feel the power of that water tumbling over the edge. it is awesome. I kept taking pictures in a feeble attempt to capture the moment, but you can't, this is one of those times in life where, really, you just had to be there. having experienced this, I couldn't believe that the waiter serving us in the Hard Rock Cafe has lived there for 20 years and never been out on the boat, never had that experience. we urged him to do it.

this awe and joy was followed by an experience of shame and discomfort. on the way to Washington, D.C., we travelled through Amish country. hearing the stories of these communities was fascinating, and we had watched a movie about an Amish community that I had enjoyed. but when we drove past the houses in which Amish families live, and our guide was pointing them out, it felt as though we were on safari in Africa, chasing a glimpse of a lion in the wild. it was demeaning and disrespectful. a young boy was in a shed and ran to hide as our bus approached - people laughed. children ran from the bus, not knowing whether to wave or hide - people clambered over one another to take a photo. I hung my head in shame and felt I would either cry or vomit, this whole experience made me feel so ill. we don't drive through other countries and say - look there's a native Parisian, let's take a photo. these are fellow human beings living a life of peace. we would be better to learn from their way of life of peace and harmony, than to rush to the other side of the bus to photograph them at lunch or play.

travel log. too busy to write.

2011-08-21T21:45:00.000+09:30

we have had very full days with this bus tour, and I can't remember where I left off my travel log. I am writing from the bus as we begin a long day travelling from Niagara Falls to Washington D.C.
There are some stories and poems and essays brewing from this month of study leave. Stories of travel, discovery, and points of difference and similarity between humans from different places. Poems of seeking and seeing, imagining, doors and windows into new worlds and new perspectives. Essays exploring the place of story in our healed wholeness, the arts, the Divine.
I saw, in Ottawa, an exhibition of Carravaggio paintings and works of artists he inspired and influenced. What I saw, my responses, my questions, formed themselves into lines for poems as i wrote in my notebook, security guards looking on.
As our guide tells stories of the native people of these places, not only do they resonate with the stories of Australia's First Peoples (at times, Simona could have been talking about Ingidenous Australians the stories of stolen children for example, so similar to those of our own Stolen Generations), but they spark ideas for a series of stories for which I have been striving, stories that tell of our humanity, but that don't assume a Christian audience. For me, this is where we begin, with our common humanity. The stories that help us each to make meaning of that human experience will be different, spirituality will take different shapes, but we are all human. So before I tell you the story that makes meaning of life for me, or you tell me yours, let's first tell the stories of our shared humanity - and then perhaps we can appreciate and celebrate the differences and not lose sight of what we have in common. Perhaps then we might find peace.
And these last thoughts will shape themselves into fuller, more exploratory essays. For this is my passion, and this is a deep need - the faithful telling and hearing of our stories for our healing and wholeness. This is where I find God.

travel log. bus tour day one - nyc to boston, or making new friends

2011-08-16T11:19:00.000+09:30

my last night in Asheville, friends and I had icecream from the nibble nook at ridgecrest conference centre and were heading off in search of a racoon Leigh had dubbed 'Rocky' when we encountered this little creature. my first american squirrel. We didn't see Rocky, so I left asheville a little disappointed (my favourite toy for a while as a kid was a racoon, and I was eagerly anticipating a chance to see one in real life).

we drove from boston to new york today on the first leg of the 9 day guided bus tour of new england, quebec, ontario and washington d.c. I should perhaps begin the story with the delayed flight out of dallas that was already going to have me arrive quite late in new york city, but which ended up having me finally crawl into bed at 2am, knowing my alarm was going to wake me up again at 6.30 am. I didn't sleep much, for anticipation, fear of sleeping too long and missing the bus, and that level of exhaustion that means you actually can't switch off and go to sleep. I was in NYC for less than 12 hours.
driving through the city, each turn was a new delight, seeing for myself scenes reminiscent (and probably actually in) of beloved films and tv shows set in this fascinating place. I am looking forward to my albeit short return next week, and a walk through central park at least.
the rain did not abate as we had hoped, but continued through new york state and our introductory information about the tour and excursions we could choose to take, connecticut and stories of native american nations and tribes from this region, as well as generally in the USA, rhode island and the origins of its name with the greek isle of rhoda (? it's late), into massacheusettes and stories of puritan founders of this region and the country we now know as the united states of america. those puritans are part of the protestant church that is my heritage, so it has furthered the depth of my understanding of my story to hear part of theirs.
and then we arrived in boston, a gorgeous city with history and architecture that is vast and diverse and intriguing. music is rich here. irish heritage is rich here (at the time of the potato famine, many irish settled in the area, bringing irish catholicism with them). education is rich here, with MIT and Harvard. We walked around the latter university, and along part of beacon hill. the second photograph is of the latter walk, these new friends from europe mostly, and me the lone australian (actually the only passenger whose first language is engligh - the guide gives all information in english, german and italian). I am very grateful for three new friends who have tucked me seamlessly into their family for the week, sharing umbrellas and rain coats, meals and stories. they are the other english speakers on tour, though it is not their first language. I am looking forward to stretching my wings in french tomorrow as we head into Quebec - surrounded by italian, german and flemish, the french words are bubbling in anticipation at a chance to fly. and so we may.

travel log. biblical storytellers' gathering. snapshots.

2011-08-14T06:40:00.000+09:30

As I sit on a rocking chair on the balcony outside the coffee shop, looking out at the forest home of black bears and rattle snakes, I begin to reflect on the past four days that have been the 2011 biblical storyteller's international festival gathering.
And while it is predominantly a gathering for the USA network, it is an international event, with tellers from Canada, the UK, Australia and Italy, and quite a focus on the international storytelling mission of the network and members of the network with other organisations, into places like the Gambia, Papua New Guinea and South East Asia. Later this year, the first festival gathering for Canada will be held, which is a cause for some excitement, as is a gathering for 140 pastors and their partners in Cambodia, made possible by considerable fundraising efforts of the network in the USA. For the network in Australia, we are excited by emerging partnerships with Indigenous Australian storytellers and storytellers in Indonesia, and it was good to be able to share this news with our friends here, sharing the gifts we have to encourage the gift of storytelling we share with our neighbours all over the world.
One of the highlights for me this week was the telling of the story of the young David by Matteo, from Italy. Not only is he obviously a gifted storyteller who can weave music into the telling to great effect, but his telling was all the more remarkable for being carried out in a second language, struggling to find the right word very very rarely. As a young man, Matteo conveyed well the internal struggles of boys yearning to be men already and brought humour and insight into the story I had not encountered before. I have a deeper understanding of the story; can see it from David's point of view more clearly now, because of Matteo's telling.
Another story that has new images for me is the story of the man brought by friends on a mat to Jesus for healing. First, Zac told the story in worship, using a big stick - it's like a hiker's pole I guess, light wood, and engraved. Zac says it was a gift from a friend that sat in the garage until he discovered storytelling, and found it a help to sway in and out of characters, as he can't do this with his voice. In this story, Zac used the stick to 'dig' a hole in the roof - a subtle but I found very effective gesture that brought the story to life in a new way for me. Second, we used this story in a workshop on bibliodrama, that introduced to me a way of exporing biblical stories friends had mentioned to me but that I had yet to encounter. When I tell stories, I will often invite listeners to 'wonder' about the story, voicing the questions we have of the text, characters, time and place. Bibliodrama invites listeners to pause at various points in the story and imagine themselves into the story - you are the people carrying the mat, tell us who you are, why you are here, what you are feeling when the crowd won't let you through to the house. Some of the insights were unexpected - even one I voiced was something new. As we were exploring the man's response when he was healed, and moving out through the crowd, I had him thinking 'now you move' of the crowd ...
The other lingering thought for me at this point is the last workshop I did this morning, with Rabbi Rachmiel Tobesman. We were exploring the pursuer of peace, how hard it is to work for peace, costly, and certainly not a passive inaction. And as we did, I was struck by how the Rabbi's presence with us here at this Christian gathering was itself an act of peace making, as many Jews are still guided by fear and mistrust in their relations with Christians, who have been the instigators of so much suffering for the Jewish poeple throughout history. It must take much courage to be here, and to continue in relationships with Christians in this way in the face of misunderstanding and criticism from his community. I am grateful for his model, as much as for his stories and his words.

travel log. weather report.

2011-08-14T06:15:00.001+09:30

woke up Thursday morning to this beautiful sight of mist over the mountains.
the weather here is muggy, not humid and sticky like a queensland summer, but enough to feel a warm damp weight in the air.

Friday afternoon we had blue skies, before evening rain that moved the 'olympic games' inside, and today thunder promised a storm that blew over with no further ado.

travel log. asheville to ridgecrest. 10 august.

2011-08-14T05:55:00.002+09:30

it pains me to say it but I did get up and cross the road to the golden arches for breakfast this morning. they'd been advertising a pineapple and mango smoothy on the tv when i was in dallas my first night here, and I wanted to try it. Also, didn't want an expensive breakfast in the restaurant again, nice as it was my first morning here. The walk across the road also gave me a chance to take photos of my hotel. The top one is the main hotel, the bottom, the manor house, in which I stayed.

I had the same taxi driver who took me to Biltmore yesterday, who shared with me some poetry he had mentioned on the first drive, exploring his ideas about God. He seemed grateful for the opportunity to talk with someone open to such questions and exploring, and I was glad to have been able to offer him the gift of attentive listening. His reaction surprised me, but it shouldn't have - this is what I talk about so often, the transformative and healing and hope restoring effect of being genuinely heard when we tell our story. he didn't want to receive a tip, though i insisted, and do you know, I almost think he didn't want to accept payment at all, so grateful was he for the hope he felt had been restored to him through our conversation. these are moments to live for. precious moments of shared humanity, affirming each other's worth, and enriching life.

and so I arrived at Ridgecrest Conference Centre, set in the mountains outside Asheville. This is a vast conference centre, and seems to be run largely on the contributions of many many volunteers. There is a group of children here for a summer camp, and another adult group, but apart from meals we hardly see each other. there are several different accommodation buildings, and several different buildings for meeting rooms. our bedrooms are like hotel rooms, with ensuite bathroom and daily cleaning / tidying. I have a lovely view of the mountains, past our meeting building.

the people here seem to have heard the feedback from earlier participants who have felt a little excluded by the old hands when they are here for the first time, as a real effort is made to welcome and orient newcomers to the festival gathering. As I am also not jetlagged, have all my luggage, and am confident that I belong in the network of biblical storytellers, I have felt as though I belong right from the start. this should be a wonderful event.

tavel log. Asheville.

2011-08-10T09:09:00.001+09:30

art and beauty sure form the theme of my american adventure. today was a day to wander, some free space between the glen workshop and the storytellers' festival gathering.
breakfast was in the red stag - the hotel's restaurant - I sat alone at a table enjoying the classical music and some poetry (Besty Sholl), and my pineapple juice, poached eggs on english muffin and coffee.
guest services called me a cab, though with a bit of a mix up out front, they had to call again ... so I sat enjoying the jazz music and art in the lobby.

the taxi was taking me to biltmore estate, the largest house in america apparently. built in the last years of the 19th century, this home is inspired by art and beauty everywhere you look. the ground level rooms all lead off a sunken winter garden, bringing nature's beauty inside and showcasing it year round. the detailing in the rooms on walls, frames, pictures, furniture and furnishings is almost too much to take in all at once. there's a pipe organ in the dining room and the chairs in that room must have all been hand carved, and you can seat almost 40 in there.

the library is on the ground floor
taken from the Italian garden

the family ate lunch in the breakfast room and breakfasted upstairs in a lounge between the master bedrooms. there are two floors of guest rooms. at the moment the family have an exhibition telling the story of the restoration of some of the bedrooms, painstaking in the research as much as in the actual restorative work. each room is like an art installation. I kept feeling it's such a shame the house is no longer lived in, in a way, because the chairs all look so inviting, in music room and salon and tapestry room and - not least of all - the library. I want this library. It's a little like the one in the movie My Fair Lady, with a mezzanine floor of shelves, a piano, chairs you could spend all afternoon in reading in front of the fire - and the original owner of the house had over 2300 books, though only half are in the library.

the lovely people in guest services at the house called me a cab, though again we had to call back, this time they had gone to the wrong part of the estate.

on returning to the hotel, I spent some time in the hotel's gallery, where there are some fabulous pieces, including work of collage with torn paper - i liked a couple of pieces using sheet music to make musical instruments - and some using coffee to create sepia toned painting, which is really effective.

then I wandered around biltmore village, which was also established by the owner of biltmore estate, including the episcopalian cathedral of all souls. i saw another art gallery, which would have cost me lots of money if I lived closer. lucky I don't live closer.

dinner is beer and pizza, then i'll take another bath in my luxurious bathroom and perhaps watch a movie.

travel log. Santa Fe to Asheville.

2011-08-09T11:58:00.000+09:30

I got up this morning at 4.30 am, dressed, packed my room up, slid the evaluation forms under the door of one of the staff members because I'd forgotten to give it to them yesterday, dropped my key in and went to wait for the bus as black began to turn to dark blue. I had a moment or two of concern that the bus I had confirmed yesterday wasn't going to show, but it did, 10 minutes late, and I was on my way, with only the moths to see me off. Actually I was grateful of that, because one alternative was for a brown bear to witness my departure, and that would have been frightening for us both.
Two hours later I was at Albuquerque airport, checked in, bag checked through to Asheville in an act of supreme trust when I wasn't sure I had any, and then the waiting. I found some breakfast - tried one of these 'biscuits' they have here; like our scones, but more crumbly (biscuits are cookies here, at least the sweet ones - ah language).
Landing in Dallas, you could feel the heat almost as soon as we touched the tarmac - they're having temperatures over 100 F. I overheard someone say it would be like that in Asheville too, and this news was not welcome. I did a quick 15 minute walk around from terminal A to terminal B in the number 8 shaped Dallas Fort Worth airport, was assigned a seat, and entered another waiting time.
We departed a little late, and the heat was really coming strongly off the tarmac into the little American Eagle plane. Most passengers kept their window shades down for the whole trip, so harsh was the sun most of the way.
Asheville is beautiful. Mountains again, but not desert. This is green lush country, and as the taxi drove me to the hotel, I could imagine the colours that will adorn the trees after I am gone. Oh, and I have my bag.
I have chosen to stay at the Grand Bohemian, because it is in Tudor style (aka like Shakespearean
England) and is part of a chain of art hotels. There is gallery, and stunning attention to the artwork on each floor, and as I entered my room, a cd of music produced by the hotel chain, and another also - jazz! I had a moment reminiscent of Iris in The Holiday, when she arrives at Amanda's house for their house swap, and is delighted at the luxury. And here I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

travel log. Santa Fe. 7 August.

2011-08-09T11:37:00.000+09:30

It's the last day of a full rich week. I want to go and do some 'laundry' (australian = washing), but I can't move from the cafeteria. There has been a lingering, or a desire to linger, to not finish, to postpone saying goodbye since the workshop yesterday.
I have made friends here that I hope will remain friends for a long time. I'm already planning to fly into LA or San Francisco on my next trip to the US, so I can drop in on two of them who live in California!
As I try to reflect on this week, I feel as though there is much that I won't really discover or understand until I get home, after some distance has been made between me and the experience. But to have had this week, this space, to attend to the poet, the poems, the poetry - has been profound, moving, transformative. Perhaps I will aim to come back - I'm not sure of anything like this in Australia, the southern hemisphere. I will look, or perhaps create ... I told the president of Image that now they have a Glen East and a Glen West, we might start a Glen South - Down Under! Apparently the Canadians have had a similar suggestion for a Glen North in their backyard! To have such a high calibre of artists taking workshops and participating, and within the tradition of christian spirituality is such a gift, and is so much the yearning of my heart, to create spaces for artists to attend to art and spirituality.

It's been quite an overwhelming experience, this week, one way or another. To have tender anxious nerves suffer further blows from delayed flights, delayed luggage and jet lag - it was disconcerting, unsettling. I didn't know who I was for a few days.
When you don't know, or can't quite remember, who you are, it is that much harder to share who you are with others, or to embrace who they are. Which intensifies the feeling of being an outsider in those first days here. As a few people began to befriend me, I gradually came back to myself. I think preparing and leading communion also helped to remind me of who I am. I'm not here primarily as a minister, this week I am poet, but connecting with that other part of me, seems on reflection to have been helpful to me in pulling myself back together in this faraway place.
And when I called and heard that my bag was through customs, had a Fed Ex number, was on its way, I already felt somewhat reconnected to my things, my stuff, my belongings.
*aha moment*
those things that belong to me - and I belong to them. In a place where I didn't yet feel I belonged, I was without even those small things that held my belonging. No wonder I was so transformed when my bag arrived.
Belonging.
I belong at the Table. My things belong to me and tell me and tell the world who I am.
What a discovery.
Belonging. I belong as a performer / leader of worship: I read a poem in worship on the Monday night, and that showed people who I am. Reminded me of who I am. As I made friends, and people seemed glad to see me, and I was glad to see them - I felt known, and surrounded by people I now knew. I found I belonged here; we belonged here, together.

Today has been another liminal space, in-between place. There will be a few more of these in coming weeks. I wonder what there will be to learn there?

travel log. Santa Fe. 6 August. part two - a whim and a party.

2011-08-09T11:10:00.000+09:30

after we finally left the classroom, having given Betsy some chocolates from our Santa Fe adventure on Thursday, and got her to sign books, we eventually made it to lunch in the cafeteria, where most of the group sat together, still lingering.
With a free afternoon before us, we let the conversations flow, and revelled in the opportunity that few of us get to simply sit and chat - about life, faith, things frivolous and things profound. Gradually people drifted away from the table, and Ghost Ranch came up - two of our number were planning to stay there for a night before leaving New Mexico. Tim and I hadn't been there before, and Sheryl said, I have a car, I could take you there - let's go, I would love it! We thought we would love it too, so we went. What a delightful whim that was. The colours of the earth along the way - the mountains rising like layered icecream cakes, just as Sheryl had described them. This is Georgia O'Keefe country - celebrated American artist. Ghost Ranch is now a conference / retreat centre, and we poked our heads into the welcome centre, bought some things, took some photos, drove around a bit more and saw the rocks from different angles. It's pretty isolated, and when Georgia O'Keefe lived here with small community of other artists, writers and others, the would have only had generators for power and no running water. We remembered how recently some parts of the USA have been connected to running water, and I remembered the stories and the people from our Lent Event reflections at Belair this year, close neighbours to Australia, who don't have running, or clean, water still. Let us always remember the poor.

The drive back was almost like driving through different country - it all looks different coming the other way. You have the Rio Grande beside you, which you can't see from the other side of the road, and its lush corridor of green in the midst of the high desert scrub. And the mountains are different shapes on the other side.

After dinner, a concert from Over the Rhine, who have been leading the songwriting workshops for 8 years. I didn't know their music, and yet when I heard it there was a familiar quality to it. At first, it was recognition of the jazzy, bluesy style I love so much, a pleasing surprise when I'd been expecting a style I wouldn't like. And then I recognised the characters of Jamie Callum and Norah Jones, hints of similarity that made listening to this music like coming home. With another three weeks of carrying a suitcase around, I decided not to buy their cds on the spot. I will get hold of their music, though, and if you like jazzy blues and lyrics that are thoughtful and open to the Sacred, perhaps you will too.

We had a dance party to finish. Well reception and dance party. And I got to meet some people I had served in communion during the week, and who consequently felt they knew me better than I felt I knew them! And talk with some of my friends who had helped me early in the week, buoys in the ocean of my uncertainty. And then we danced. There is something about dancing that I find very liberating - a surrender to the music with body and soul, letting the mind loosen its grip ... though I probably didn't need to stay up talking until almost 3am.

Travel log. Santa Fe. 6 August. part one - the poetry

2011-08-09T10:50:00.000+09:30

Final day of workshops, and none of us wanted to leave. One of the group posed the question - what has been the greatest gift from this week (or something along those lines), and for many of us it has been simply the space to be, to be poets, to be together.
For me, the workshops in particular, have given me the challenge to give more attention to my poems. To not be so complacent, letting them emerge in one burst of creativity and then not polishing them, not making them the best they can be. It's a bit of a cop out, to leave the poems in their form of the moment, and I must stop it.
We shared some more of the poems from our exercises during the week, too, and people really found the words that Betsy had given us take us to some deep and profound places. Here's a couple more of mine. I think I will work with them and polish them, but with these exercises, it's kinda cool to see where they begin.
One was to have two words, a 'God-made' thing and a human made thing. Don't think I've put this one up. People had difficulty with my accent understanding that I had 'clock' and 'tree' (they got tree, but what they thought I was saying when I thought I was saying clock ...) mmm.

The clock tree

her wide trunk
keeps time within
time - history - her
story
        in time
                   and season
rippling out from the heart

she tells of the time when rain
did not fall
she held her breath
                              waiting

she tells of the time when flame
wrapped his tendrils
around her
her scars - her healing

she tells of rain falling
steadily, she readily growing
stretching branches towards the sky
roots into the earth

stumped; at the end,
her body now a grandfather
holding a cuckoo,
our tree keeps time
                              still

and we swapped them around, so I had rabbit and radio to take away with me.

wildfire

rumour reproduced
on radio, internet
faster than rabbits

oh, and when we were asked to think of a bunch of red things, and write about three, a rant in prose gushed forth from my pencil. I went away and let it all sit, and eventually the poem emerged, still pretty rough, but a little less morose.

to experience

red wing lights wink
as if they know what awaits
have they seen, or not seen,
my bag
            miss flight?

my new red t-shirt boasts
of a visit to Santa Fe
joyful colour, a place worth
remembering - but not these
first days, which I will put down ...

the stop signs here are also red -
and octagonal - would they not be?
but as I venture out, and notice,
my grip loosens, and the baggage
                                                   drops.

Travel log. Santa Fe. 5 August.

2011-08-09T10:36:00.000+09:30

Friday. The exhaustion from yesterday's excursion into Santa Fe made my eyes heavy all morning, but as we talked about the poems I was struck by the tenuous balance a poet must aim for with the details that are needed in order to communicate the meaning of the poem, and the way that too many details can distract, weigh the poem down. Being a poet is hard!

Our workshop group went to Maria's for lunch. they make the strongest margharitas in the world. I was tipsy on ONE all afternoon!

I chose the least hot thing on the menu, and still was able to enjoy one of the restaurant's oldest recipes, tried and true, and delicious. Was great to spend this time away from the classroom together, and get to know each other in a different context. This really has been a wonderful group of people with whom to share poetry, the craft, and the beauty.

In the evening we had a reading from the two poets leading workshops, Robert Cording and Besty Sholl. If you get a chance to read their work, do. They're both fabulous.
In the question and response time, somone asked about poetry and prayer: are poems prayers for these poets? In their responses, both kind of leant towards 'not'; poems are artful, which is often too much for a prayer. I have been thinking about it, and I might have added that for a liturgist, prayers are poetic. People have commented that hearing prayers I have composed, one can feel the touch of a poet. Perhaps it is in the intent - a prayer is a prayer, poetic or otherwise, a poem is a poem, prayerful or not - and perhaps differntly for the reader and poet.

The open mic included some poems from our group - five of us got up together in one of the five minute spots and shared a poem each. I recited 'Shakespeare's Summer Daze', which is one of the most successful poems I've written, and which I love. I feel like perhaps I might have the courage to attempt more of these poems that play with lines from Shakespeare (this one takes the most famous opening line of his sonnets - shall I compare thee ... and does something else with it. and it's not for publishing here. sorry). But it was such a buzz to get up there together and share our work!

travel log. Santa Fe. 4 August.

2011-08-06T15:17:00.001+09:30

we had a free day, and I spent it with four other young women from my poetry group. we walked into the town, taking about an hour, stopping for photos of gates and doors of various intriguing designs in the characteristic terra cotta walls of the houses here. all the buildings here.
when we reached the town, our first stop was one of the chocolate makers listed on a chocolate trail we had planned to follow. Kakawa, if you're ever in Santa Fe, is well worth the visit, for its warm chocolate drinks, iced chocolate drinks, and chocolate itself. we tasted various drinks, then sat for a bit and chatted and read poetry and felt very much like poets.
from here, we headed further towards the centre of town and stopped at the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. I wandered around as an outsider, which for a person of the Christian faith tradition felt odd, even though this is a Catholic church and I am Protestant. I felt very much like an observer, not a potential worshipper in this space: this was the sacred space of another people in the same way the Synagogue I visited in Adelaide is the sacred space of another people. I think I am saddened to feel this much an outsider in a church of my own faith.

some of the things I noticed were a greusome crucifix, Jesus carved in a light coloured wood, features painted on, including blood dripping down his body; the living tradition surrounding the figure of Mary in the side chapel, who has 80 costumes that are changed according to season or festival; the stations of the cross are painted by a woman and their characters all appear quite feminine in their faces; there is a mexican flavour to the art, which is the case for much of the south west of the usa I am learning; there is a balance of art and white space on the walls; the baptismal font has flowing water and symbols of the four evangelists - I want it.

next we visit a second hand bookstore, where I picked up a cheap copy of a complete works of Emily Dickinson, edited by someone who, according to the owner of the shop, knows his stuff. I have been searching for a complete Dickinson for a while, and it seemed appropriate to pick it up here, in the usa, during a week of poetry during which our teacher has quoted Dickinson a couple of times.

we found some wine for our evening's activities, and there was a sign in the shop pointing to wine regions around the world - including the Barossa, 8000+ miles away ... that sign is pointing to my home, I told my new friends.

along a verandah on the edge of the plaza in the heart of town local American Indian artists sell their work. I indulged a bit and bought a ring in the shape of a feather, a symbol of the American Indian people, but also a symbol for me when in the shape of a quill; it seemed to be an appropriate memento of this week of attending to my craft in Santa Fe.

We tasted the beer of the Blue Corn Cafe, who brew their own, and I discovered that this wasn't just a gimmik - there really is such a thing as blue corn. i ate blue corn chips. and we read more poetry sitting on the patio under the hot Santa Fe sun, drinking: Honey Wheat Ale, Atomic Blonde Lager, Atalaya Amber Ale, road runner IPA, End of the Trail Brown Ale, Gold Medal Oatmeal Stout, Hefeweizen, Wit-less Belgian Style Wit beers.

On the way back to the college we found a second of the chocolate shops, and tried a surprising white chocolate with lemon, lavendar and almond. I don't usually like white chocolate. but i liked this. there was an almond toffee that I also liked, and Australian apricots covered in dark chocolate - we bought a couple of them for the group, because I am from Australia (though I didn't tell them I don't really eat apricots, or any fruit, for its texture ...).

we took a different route home, with more sun and less shade than we would have liked, and were exhausted when we finally arrived back at the college. after dinner, we watched wings of desire, a film that seems to have inspired city of angels, but that has more space - a quality of european films i adore - and depth than the later american remake.

and then we flopped into bed. exhausted. quenched. sated. satisfied.

travel log. Santa Fe. 3 August.

2011-08-04T14:07:00.000+09:30

shall I tell you a bit about the workshops, since that is what I am here for?
We've been workshopping the work of two poets for an hour each each day. The feedback has been generous and respectful, affirming and encouraging. For instance, with mine on Monday, I appreciated with my poem 'Surrender' the varying responses to my use of solidises (forward slashes / ). People wondered if, on the page, the slashes impeded the reading of the poem; were reminded of the use of slashes in prose when quoting poetry, marking line breaks; thought it made it look like / sound like a song, flowing, resembling the river in the poem which was seen to be like a song (I loved this response, because the river was a metaphor for God and I also like to think of God as a song); and observed that the solidises seemed like steps to them, like the steps spoken of in the poem, adding to the fluidity, meaning, mirroring the river's tumbling. How amazing, because for most of this, I hadn't even thought of it. I use solidises for my more overtly performance -like poems. I had tried writing this poem without them, more like usual free verse, but hadn't found the flow I found putting it into my performance poem form. Perhaps that's because some of this other stuff was happening, without being observed by me except for the finding of the rhythm.
I have also, through workshopping my own and others' poems, been reminded of the need to find detail, specific detail, to help a poem along: Betsy (Scholl) said that the detail then becomes a pool from which you can draw imagery later in the poem.

then we've been doing exercises - taking names of paints, or lists of random things, or things of certain colours, and putting them into poems. this may become more than an exercise, but here's my paint names exercise:

Benjamin Moore arrives home

out of the horizon
bursts an Alaskan Husky
chased by sleigh bells

the half moon sends
silver beams to catch
the sabre grey of her coat

she slows
and the bells cease
as she nears the stonewall
covered in ash wood moss
behind which her pups
are sheltering from the snow

(Benjamin Moore was the name of the brand of paints; I couldn't resist adding it in too, as the title!)

today my friends from the poetry workshop and I have been planning an outing into Santa Fe for our free day tomorrow. We've discovered a chocolate trail, heard about a local brewer of beer, and want to visit some of the many art galleries and museums dotted all over town. What we don't see tomorrow, I'll go back into town and see on Sunday once the rest of the Glen participants have departed.

We heard an excellent presentation from Jeffrey Overstreet, on play. Oh, so much resonated with me.
- visions of beauty can create a sense of recognition, can cause us to feel reparied even when we weren't aware of being broken
- limitations create opportunities for play: for example, singing in a choir when you have to focus your gaze on the conductor and sing in time and tune with and move in coordination with the members of the choir - focusing your attention on these things brings about a freedom in which beauty is created. this reminded me of jazz, and how the structures of the music provide the framework around which the musicians improvise. Overstreet was talking about students needing a balance of structure and free time so as to have the opportunties for play, for creating beauty.
- and he spoke about the ways he has experienced community, deep connection with others, through playing together; I wondered about the implications of this for my community at Belair - how are we encouraging play, how might we encourage it more? I think we are a playful community, and so I see that my job is to encourage and enable this playfulness to grow, to continue and not be stifled.
- creativity is emerging as a key quality recognised in effective leaders, and there is new thoght that the right / left brain dichotomy might not actually be as helpful as once thought - creativity doesn't happen only in the right brain, it needs the left brain (or whatever way around it goes).
- play is encouraged in the Biblical story, in places like Proverbs, the Psalms, Isaiah and Zecharia, not to mention in Jesus' parables and playful interactions with people.

this evening we heard from Lauren Winner's upcoming memoir on the middle stage of faith - after conversion and before later calm wisdom. might be middle stages, actually, because we move through many. my goodness she is an entertaining writer and speaker, and hers have been added to the list of books I will seek out when i return. (not risking putting them in my bag to take home)

so it's been a full rich day, not least because today my bag finally arrived, and I have been reunited with my 'stuff', and reconnected to the internet, and thus my people at home. people here and at home have been right beside me in my lost-ness and uncertainty and discomfort during this waiting time. I know it's a small thing to have lost in the scheme of things, and I've actually been pleased to witness the Aussie laid back nature come to the fore as I have endured with patience and a certain resignation to the situation.

travel log. Santa Fe. 2 August continued.

2011-08-04T13:36:00.000+09:30

I went for a short wander around the campus a bit this afternoon. was good to stretch my legs a little, and it made me feel the calmness and presence that I now have here in this strange new world. I asked a man passing by to take a photo of me with the college in the background. He said yes, then his phone rang and he had to take it, missed it, then got the message and had to listen to it, then finally took the picture! bit more of a saga than it needed to be, which was a trend to the early part of my american adventure I was hoping had passed ...

we listened to Melissa Pritchard read an essay that was so profound, so beautiful, I almost cried again. still emotionally fragile it would seem. Pritchard is a journalist, essayist and fiction writer. This essay was an exploration of her grief at her mother's passing, also describing her time on writers' retreat in Scotland just after her mother had died. She also told us a bit of the story of the Afghan Women's Writing Project, with which she has become involved after getting to know some female soldiers and airforce officers when embedded in Afghanastan. one young woman in particular was also a writer, whom Pritchard was going to mentor, but this young woman died in Afghanastan, and Pritchard now promotes the work of this writing project in her name.

After this, I led communion with a group of about 15 or 20. the little room we were in was full apart from two or three chairs. it was simple, went for about 15 mins, and one of the things people have seemed to appreciate most was the pre-service bit where I introduced myself and then checked that my assumption about shared liturgical responses among protestant traditions was correct - and we were so delighted to discover, not only that I from Australia used the same liturgy, but that all these people had this in common from across their different states and traditions in America. One person said to me this afternoon, he so appreciated (having come from a Catholic background particuarly) that here was a place he could participate in communion with a woman presiding, and a woman with cool coloured hair and from Australia no less! We enjoyed this time together so much that we're doing it again on Friday (one protestant communion service was originally in the program, but the program director is delighted to offer another time).

Dinner with some of the poets from the other poetry workshop, sharing differences in approaches of the teachers. These poets were a Lutheran pastor (John?) and Episcopal priest (Kit).

The program this evening was visual arts, with Ginger Geyer showing her porcelain recreations of everyday objects, onto which she reproduces classic paintings - they're stunning, check them out on her website. She also creates stories to go with some of the pieces, involving an alter ego she has invented. Kim Alexander's artwork is another kind of sublime - using the finest of brushes she paints these intricate and huge pieces, many of which draw on stories of refugees from war torn countries all over the world struggling to make a new life in America. These are moving pieces. Very moving pieces. And a stunning way to process the difficult stories she hears, and also to give voice to these voiceless people in her community. Kim had made a bet with a young man that she wouldn't cry too much as she talked about the pieces. If she did, she would sing in the cafeteria in front of us all. If she didn't, he would do 30 push ups in front of us all. She didn't, and he did the push ups then and there! (sorry, wasn't quick enough to get a photo).

then there was open slides, and there were such diverse and stunning works of art shown here - gorgeous pantings in a contemporary style I really like and can't describe of parables and other biblical stories; etchings (in a different form that I don't know the name of) and monsters painted from digital creations; assemblage; pieces created using ground coffee or cinamon; portraits; collaborations between mother and daughter; and another form i can't remember the name of (hopefully it will come back to me). was such a delight to sit there and absorb the beauty and creativity.

travel log. Santa Fe. 2 August.

2011-08-04T10:39:00.000+09:30

I am feeling a lot better today. at last. my bag still isn't here, but i have borrowed a phone charger, called Qantas, and discovered that it has cleared customs and been assigned a Fed Ex number and should be here tomorrow. It is a surprising relief to simply know it is on its way, to have a more definite idea of when to expect it to get here. Again, an example of how difficult the not knowing places are.
I am getting to know people a bit more, with conversations moving beyond who are you to acually talking about church and faith and life.
it is a gorgeous day again today. I don't think I have mentioned it, but the weather is delightful. warm days, thunderstorms, cool evenings. apart from, or perhaps despite, the pressure on your lungs making it painful to even ascend a flight of stairs, I am really enjoying this place.

Our workshops are making me think that I am not being thoughtful enough, or in line with our theme, attentive enough, to my poems, putting them here on the blog earlier than I might. What would it be like if I took the time to let the poems expand and contract, develop beyond the first burst of inspiration, become a little more polished? perhaps I will try that.

I am wondering, too, about joining or starting a poetry workshop when I return home. hearing responses from a small group of readers before releasing a poem finally into the world might also be an act of love and attention my poems deserve.

travel log. Santa Fe. 1 August. Evening.

2011-08-04T10:31:00.000+09:30

I forgot that I was the reader for worship tonight! Luckily erin noticed my name on the front of the bulletin (that's US for order of service), so I had time to check what I was doing and read through it a few times. Was a poem called 'Stone'. I was a bit nervous, which was unusual for me, usually I'm nervous until I get up and speak, but this time the nerves didn't settle. People seemed to appreciate the reading, from what they said after. We read the psalm and a prayer as 'choirs', and it felt quite odd to be surrounded by a room full of American accents; mine sounded odd amidst them.
When we sang, I started to cry - had to let the people sing for me. The beauty of community.

My bag still has not joined me in Santa Fe. I am quite lost without it. My phone and computer batteries are both out of juice - I have put a note on the board asking if anyone has chargers I can borrow. I feel quite cut off, disconnected from home, not being able to check in. Perhaps it is forcing me to be more present here. Or maybe I am just beginning to make friends and feel part of things. But I also want my bag for my shoes - really want to go for a walk, as my back is hurting. Drinking more water is helping the headaches, though. The high altitude mixed with jet lag is a dreadful combination.

It is later, and I am not sleeping. Part of me is regretting my decision to travel alone, though I do realise that this discombobulation is all part of the travelling experience. You can't expect to travel to the other side of the world and your body and mind and spirit not to feel dislocated, unsteady, uncertain in a new place. you can't travel across town to an unfamiliar place without some of that discomfort. This is a really difficult place to be. Alone, on the outside, adrift. And it is exhausting.

travel log. Santa Fe. 1 August. keynote address.

2011-08-04T10:15:00.000+09:30

Robert Cording gave the keynote address this evening, exploring attentiveness, weaving around the idea that we (humanity) have seen Eden, but Eden is now mostly obscured from our view (from George Herbert), and that seeing is impossible without love (Ruskin: love as an exercise in overcoming oneself for the sake of the other). Drawing on an Old Testament / Jewish understanding of creation stories, we live in a good - not a perfect - world. (resonating for me with the book I'm currently reading: Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity) This is a world that we know, a world that we don't know, a world about which we know more than we can say. When we don't love the world enough, we overlook the world - we don't see it.
I liked Cording's thought that it really is courtesy to know the names of the trees and flowers and birds outside our door. But there is so much more to a thing, as with a person, than a name: and when we think we understand something, we cease thinking, we stop seeing it.

I want to explore more an idea Cording touched on: of the Bible as a story about waking and sleeping. this intrigues me.

And I have circled and underlined this in my notebook: The poet produces the beautiful by focussing on something real.
in our workshopping of my poems, there were several occasions where introducing clearer details, describing something real, would enhance the clarity and effectiveness of my poems.

Another thought to remember: What matters is being attentive to what is being encountered.
the theme for The Glen Workshop is acts of attention.

travel log. Santa Fe. 1 August.

2011-08-04T10:03:00.000+09:30

It is kind of hard being here on my own. I feel like such an outsider. And I am surprised at how unused I am to being in a place where no one knows me, especially a gathering like this, a Christian gathering. Australia, the Uniting church, must be a small place indeed; I can go to events all over the country and still look around the room and expect to see a familiar face. Here, not at all. I look around the room, expectant, but then remember - you don't know anyone. No one you know will walk through that door just because you look again five minutes later. so it's hard; people aren't seeking me out, to talk to me. they're friendly enough, and I've had some good conversations, but they're not easy, free-flowing conversations you have with friends, or even acquaintances and colleagues in the church.

I was awake from 2am to 5am: jet lag. I suppose I will crash at some point later today. I want to go for a walk during this long break between lunch and the afternoon session, but as my bag is yet to arrive, I haven't the shoes, nor enough changes of clothes. I would like to check emails, too, but I resent the idea of paying for things unnecessarily, like time in the computer lab, as I have a computer. The chord would be helpful for charging the battery and rendering the computer useable. Again, that's in my bag. In LA.

We had our first workshop this morning. We're going alphabetically workshopping each person's work, so of course I was up first. I appreciated the way Betsy, our facilitator, set the mood and the guidelines for how we respond to each other's poems. i will admit it was probably important for me to remember not to speak so as to show how much we know, but to ask helpful questions.
Was affirming to hear Betsy name my poems as strong, and that she was pleased to discover them.
I think it's going to be a good group - thoughtful and affirming responses, respectful of the poet and the poem.

travel log. Santa Fe. 31 July.

2011-08-04T09:52:00.001+09:30

I have arrived in Santa Fe at last! Flying over Texas, it looks so flat; from the air it seems as though there aren't even any undulations, just flat flat fields with circular plantings for miles and miles. Oh, and I was enjoying this view from first class!! no wonder the ticket cost so much more! must have been all the travel agent could get, but I did enjoy it!
Driving through New Mexico from Albuquerque the landscape had changed to hills and near desert. All the buildings looked the same, all made of mud. I don't know why I was so surprised by this, that all the houses should look old and made of mud.
My bag has not preceded me. It may not join me until tomorrow.

Saint John's College is a small campus, set in the hills surrounded by pine trees. There seem to be a few people arriving for the week. Are all of them here for The Glen, or are there other programs, I wonder?

I am finding all the new, unknown, unfamiliar things overwhelming. With all the delays from Adelaide, in Sydney, and now my bag left behind, I feel a bit fragile and vulnerable. Also anti-social. I respond readily enough when others initiate conversation, but I don't seem to have the energy to start conversations myself. I hope I come out of my shell soon, I do want to make the most of the week.

3 days.
I've been travelling and waiting
for three days.
and with each step away from home
I have retreated a step toward safety.
but now that I have arrived
I am hoping I will emerge:
pull back the hood,
shrug off the traveller's cloak
release my spirit
and embrace
my American adventure.

a snake in sydney airport

2011-07-31T10:35:00.000+09:30

standing in he belly of a dormant
snake of waiting travellers
we make ourselves a community
sharing sighs of lament
raised eyes of understanding
news and stories to pass the time
gifts to lift us from the melancholy
a smile
a laugh
encouraging words
a helping hand
a challenge - accepted - a poem

then the lights come on
a plane takes off overhead
and the snake shakes itself
into life

this one won't win any awards, but marks a moment well enough

travel log. day two. american adventure.

2011-07-31T10:30:00.000+09:30

and so the dramas continued. arrived at sydney airport saturday morning to a power outage and joined the end of a very long line. did not move for 2 and a half hours. when we finally got near the front, they were anxious to get our flight moving, so called the last 6 or 8 people forward and checked us through, asking us to put our bags in a designated area. realised later that this would mean our bags would not be joining us in america just yet. ran to the plane, taking a couple of minutes to stop for a toilet break, though not having had any lunch, and boarded. sat there for over half an hour waiting for the luggage that was coming with us and the last couple of passengers. finally, finally, we taxied onto the runway and flew out over the entrance to sydney harbour. i saw the bridge and the opera house as we departed, and the cliffs on the edge of australia. and then my homeland was behind me.
we flew over sea, then into night, and i tried to sleep, but didn't have a lot of success.
as we lifted the blinds and ate breakfast, we were flying over mexico. now, i thought, now i can believe i am goign to make it to america. the land below was unfamiliar, with its sandy deserts and circular fields, then as we descended and could make out the towns and cities of texas, they looked so strange to me, pockets of housing estates it looked like, rows and rows of houses sandwiched in together, in little sections all themselves. quite unlike the sprawling haphazard city of sydney we'd flown out of 15 hours earlier. the roads are a different colour, remember noting.
got confused in customs, but really it was a smooth enough process. then discovered my bag was indeed not in america at the same time i was and began to feel the urge to cry. held it together long enough to find my way to information and phone to contact my hotel and arrange for a shuttle and at last, i am here. i fell on the bed and cried. what an emotionally and physically exhausting journey to this point. i do hope my travels are smoother from this point on. and i hope my dinner arrives soon. i am hungry. missed lunch again today.
but i've rearranged the final detail for tomorrow that needed my attention, been in contact with the orgniser of the workshops in santa fe, and thankfully don't think i will miss out on too much, as i originally thought i might with all these delays. so it's off to dinner and a good night's sleep, so i can turn my attention to poetry for a week beginning tomorrow.

travel log. american adventure. day one.

2011-07-29T15:57:00.001+09:30

well. the american adventure hasn't got off to a good start. arrived at the airport feeling full of butterflies flittering in anticipation and nervous energy. go to drop off bag to discover the flight has been delayed. a bird or birds smashed into the windscreen of our plane as it was flying from sydney to adelaide and it had to return to sydney with a broken windscreen. so we weren't going to leave until two hours later than scheduled. which would mean we would miss the flight to dallas. a short wait to discover that, no, qantas were not going to hold the flight to dallas, so we would be flying to sydney only today, staying overnight and flying to dallas tomorrow. so i then had to get on the phone to my travel agent and arrange changes to accommodation in dallas and my flight to albuquerque, which i was now also going to miss. thankfully i have a helpful travel agent, and it's all been arranged. and thankfully the insurance company will cover me for the costs incurred because of the birds interrupting my arrangements. if it was a technical fault on the part of the airline they wouldn't have been so generous, apparantly.
the day has been made easier to take by the company of a lovely lady named Grace, who lives in Texas, and is also travelling alone. these things really are a bit easier to handle when the frustration can be shared with a laugh with others in the same situation. met another girl in the same boat who had already had her flight to america delayed from last night. so we're not alone.
but i am hungry, and my 'lunch' has just arrived. with beer. then in an hour and a half grace and i are going to go down for our dinner on qantas.

a prayer for Oslo

2011-07-24T18:19:00.000+09:30

I prayed these words with my congregation at Belair this morning (slightly edited, poet's prerogative).

God, there are lots of words we want to say to you,
lots of people we want to pray for with you,
places we want to give into your care.

Today we want to say things to you about Norway -
we want to say, Why?
What?
We want to say - No!

We pray with you for the people of Oslo
those who have died,
their family and friends who have lost sisters, brothers,
children, friends ...
the people of the city and the country whose hearts are breaking -
our hearts are breaking with them,
and we know your heart is breaking too.

We pray for the emergency services people finding the broken bodies
healing the wounded,
searching for the missing,
protecting the living.

We pray for the person or people who have done this terrible thing
for their troubled souls
and we pray for those who are investigating and prosecuting
may calmness and wisdom guide them.

We give to you what is your land,
the country of Norway
may you be known there as peace and love.
may we not forget the land and the people of Norway
in the weeks and months as they heal.

a moment of honest appraisal

2011-07-21T15:41:00.000+09:30

so i've been thinking about what i wrote this morning, and wondering why i felt so defensive at the enthusiastic promotion of fresh expressions to churches seeking new ways forward in their life, mission and ministry.
in a moment of honesty with myself, i wondered if perhaps i am feeling as though there's a fresh expressions band wagon that people are really happy to jump on, now there are more people saying it's a good thing, and that amongst the enthusiasm and excitement, my story is being dismissed and forgotten. it's not only my story, there are others who tell a similar story.
a story of struggle, and loneliness, and being misunderstood, and not having a place or knowing where my place was as pioneer. and still actually very tempted to choose the easier road of secure placements and income, because pioneering the pioneers has left me quite bruised and battered.
perhaps it's narky and ungracious of me to constantly speak up with the harsh realities of starting a fresh expression. perhaps it is ungenerous to dampen others' enthusiasm.
perhaps.
or maybe i'm a bit jealous and feel like it would be nice to be among the next batch of pioneer leaders for whom the church will be better prepared, will be seeking to find financial and practical support. perhaps i am simply longing for the people i dreamed of gathering for an artsy faith community, feeling i failed to find them and not quite knowing what to do now

it's all about relationship

2011-07-21T09:59:00.000+09:30

speaking with a friend yesterday, some thoughts emerged on my underlining philosophy as we approach 'fresh expressions'. it's becoming such a catch-phrase, and i feel a little anxiety as it's thrown around, that some in the church might see 'fresh expressions' as a quick fix to the missing numbers in our churches, or something. fresh expressions names what is emerging - alternative forms of christian community to the mainstream churches, for people who are seeking community and spiritual expression, but don't find themselves at home in church as it is. these communities take time to emerge.
i was asked recently if spirited conversations, our young adults' gathering, is a fresh expression. my response was 'not yet.' in its first six months, let's not name this as anything other than it is - a gathering of young adults seeking a safe space in which to explore some of the big questions and challenging issues in life through conversation informed by the Christian tradition & story. it may become 'church', the primary community of faith for its members. it may not. let's wait and see.
i know we want the church to be thinking 'fresh expressions', but the new and emerging faith communities will emerge out of relationship.
we need, actually, to think missionally. relationaly. let's look beyond our existing communities, from the strength and gift of our existing faith communities, to the community beyond; let's take the love of God with us wherever we go, meet the needs of the community as best we can, seek to encounter God wherever we are - and people may indeed join existing worshipping communities. or gather to form new faith communities.
can we be liberated from our need to balance budgets or be the biggest church around or have every age group represented - and realise that relationships are enough in themselves? this seems to me to be a core Gospel imperative - Jesus went, didn't stay put and ask people to come to him, he went to people and engaged with them, appreciated them, and built relationships with a core group of people who went and did the same and look how the Christian movement has grown.
our core investment needs to be what God's, what Christ's, core investment is - healing, reconciling, life-giving relationships. communities new and old will grow because of these relationships.

(thanks Cogs for helping me to remember these thoughts, and for the conversation in which they emerged).

of the rich blessing of community

2011-07-19T11:05:00.001+09:30

once a month I go across the road from my church to a retirement village and join a small group of women who meet each week for bible study. a lay or ordained person from a different church goes along each week to facilitate the conversation. I like this, it helps to build the relationships between the various churches and the members of this community. there's three in the group who are part of our congregation, and they are always so delighted to welcome and introduce their minister. makes me feel very special.
I appreciate the opportunity to meet some of the people who form another community of care for these women of my congregation, and who are part of the wider community in which my congregation participates.
today we took a fresh look at the parables from Matthew 13, which have been the lectionary readings for the past few weeks. we usually follow the lectionary in our bible study.
so I suggested that we follow the usual practice of reading a verse aloud each, but that we would read only the parables - not the explanations - and we would stop after each parable and think about what the parable reminded us of from our own experiences. the conversations made me wish (as they often do) that I could jump a couple of weeks ahead in the lectionary for my visits with this group, because our conversations always bring out different thoughts, highlight different discoveries that I don't make on my own and which make me want to go back and change my sermon from the previous sunday...
the parable of the sower reminded one of us of growing up in the country and watching farmers sow fields, seeing the grain picked up by birds before it has a chance to take root, noticing the way a harsh wind or hot sun - or goods trains with their shaking the ground and hot steam - kills off grain that doesn't have strong or deep roots, observing that some farmers are better than others ... it brought the image to life in a new way for me. I had reflected a couple of weeks ago on the nature of the farmer in the parable, and wondered if this was a thoughtless or careless farmer, or a generous and extravagant farmer. But after today, I saw the grain falling on different soil as neither being necessarily careless or generous, but just part of the process, and wondered if I had been reading too much into the parable with my interpretation?
we also talked about how important it is to listen, and how sometimes we have known ourselves to listen to a message or a person's story well and others not very well at all.
we mused on the way we don't know sometimes if a shoot is going to grow into a weed or wheat, and that it can take quite some time to discover the true nature of things - and people. we talked more generally about this parable, and that there is often good and bad natures in all of us, things are rarely, people hardly ever, black and white.
we were coming to the end of our time, so we chose the three parables of the kingdom to finish. the last of these we found particularly hard, though we didn't have much time left to do anything other than express the uncomfortable feeling we had hearing about the harsh judgement that will one day come. then one of us spoke of her memory of another way Jesus describes the kingdom of God as within us. which took us back to the first of these three parables, about a person who finds a treasure and hides it. perhaps finding the kingdom of God within is like that? but then, we asked, wouldn't you want to tell people about it? you want to share good news, we naturally share our joy ... and again, we felt a little uncomfortable, not quite knowing what to make of this parable for ourselves. we remembered that for Matthew's community there were some difficult times of persecution, and wondered if remembering this parable told the people that there were times they needed to hide their treasure, protect the good news and the joy so that it wasn't stolen from them. and we thought that this is an important part of the Christian experience throughout different times and places, even if it hasn't been part of our experience.
there is a reason we are called to read the Bible in community, not just alone - the Basis of Union talks about needing to hold each other to interpretations of integrity and congruity with the Christian tradition. but there's more to it than integrity - there are things we will never discover about the way the Bible resonates with our experience if we only engage with the Bible through our own experience. others' experiences will bring a new perspective, help us to see the story in a new way, and will shine new light on our own story, so that we reach transformative understanding not possible alone. what a gift community is.
may you be blessed by the richness of the stories and the people you encounter today.

“The real voyage of discovery consists in not seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” - Marcel Proust

2011-07-13T11:35:00.001+09:30

Hear the Gospel according to Luke live!

2011-07-12T12:18:00.000+09:30

As part of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, a storyteller is bringing to life the Gospel according to Luke.

Get along and hear it if you can - there's nothing quite like hearing the foundational stories of our faith told from the heart of the teller to the heart of the listener.

Bruce Kuhn's "The Gospel of Luke" is the story of Jesus, memorized word for word from the Bible and told with the passion and surprise of an eyewitness account. In a compelling ninety minutes, the words come alive with the urgency and humor of someone who was there. Alone on stage, Broadway actor Bruce Kuhn weaves the tale of the Christ without props or sets, dressed in modern, casual clothing. The show premiered at the acclaimed Actor’s Theatre of Louisville (one of America’s largest professional theaters) to rave reviews and an extended run. The text is the King James Version, which takes to the stage like Shakespeare.

Tickets:

All single tickets (adult, child or concession) $10
Group deal 5 tickets for the price of 4
We are selling our tickets securely online through TryBooking. Each ticket will incur a 30c booking fee.
Upon payment you will have an option of printing out the tickets. You will be also emailed a link which will allow you to print them at a later time.
All tickets are GST inclusive
To purchase tickets over the counter contact your local Bible Society office

Date	Time	State	Venue

26 Jul	7pm	SA	Concordia College, Highgate - purchase now!
27 Jul	7pm	SA	Scots Church, Adelaide - purchase now!

the lonely role of the pioneer made less lonely

2011-07-08T17:59:00.001+09:30

my spirits were lifted today, as I gathered with a bunch of people from the Anglican and Uniting churches to talk about missional leadership, otherwise known as pioneer leadership, leadership for fresh expressions of church ...
i have written here about the various joys and frustrations i have experienced as a 'pioneer leader', even a pioneer of the pioneers.
we talked about the different places on a spectrum of pioneering that we find ourselves, heard stories of fresh expressions from the UK, and thought about the general nature of fresh expressions as not really new at all, as the New Testament letters are all about exploring how to live in fresh expressions of communities of people of God.
what i found most helpful was being heard, i think. that here was a bunch of people who were open to the stories of fresh expressions and of pioneer leaders, who are thinking about themselves as pioneers and using this language to frame their understanding of their experiences as leaders in the church so far - and this bunch of people heard me say this is hard, this is unbelievably hard, it is lonely, frustrating, uncharted, and their nods and expressions were not empty or blank. i was heard and i was understood. particularly dave male, who is here from the uk and facilitated our discussions, who nodded and affirmed that he understood as one who has been here before. it's comforting and reassuring to meet with someone who has put out some of the signposts in these uncharted waters, and i am glad to feel, for the moment at least, a bit less on my own out here.

and so, though my reflection for worship at Belair this sunday is not yet finished (or hardly started if i'm being honest), tonight i am going to dinner with our guest speaker and fresh expressions folk, because i want to linger with this community of fellow travellers off the map for a little longer.

disturbing pictures

2011-07-06T22:44:00.000+09:30

as the rain thunders against my roof

and I dive deeper into the sanctuary

of warm covers

I can’t help but picture

a woman

diving between raindrops

to steal half a metre of awning

the luxury of stealing another moment

in bed

a fading picture

on a wall she no longer owns

prayer for Uniting Church's anniversary

2011-06-26T13:21:00.000+09:30

This week the Uniting Church in Australia celebrated its 34^th anniversary. Our prayers for others at Belair, then, were prayers for our church.

God of Love and Peace

We thank you for the embodiment of the Body of Christ that is the Uniting Church in Australia.

We thank you for the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches who preceded us, and who continue in Australia and around the world.

We thank you for the dream your people dreamt, for a uniting church, for an Australian church, for a witness to the unity we know through Jesus Christ.

We pray now for the Uniting Church in Australia.

For Alastair McRae, the President of the Assembly, and for Andrew Dutney, President-elect. We pray for the preparations for the 12^th meeting of the Assembly to be held in Adelaide in 2012.

We pray for Rob Williams, our presbytery chairperson and Synod moderator. We pray for those who are employed by and volunteer for the Synod & Presbytery of South Australia, and we pray for Uniting College, and Uniting Church agencies and schools. We pray for the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.

We pray for ministers, lay and ordained, the whole people of God living out your dream in this land.

We pray for this community of faith at Belair Uniting Church, our council, leaders of children and youth, and all of us as we show care and loving service for each other and our wider community with our various gifts.

We pray for the church around the world, embodiments of the Body of Christ in all their glorious diversity. May we be united in our commitment to your dream of Love and healed wholeness for all creation.

Amen

flu complaint

2011-06-20T08:39:00.001+09:30

I don't often complain
but at moments like these –
confined to the bed
I have all to myself
a mountain of slimy tissues
and soothers wrappers
growing on the floor
struggling to breathe
wincing as I swallow
each cough travelling deeper
towards my lungs –
I think of those who have
a partner to bring lemon tea
chicken soup and medicine
and I would really like
my voice

a weekend with jonathan welch

2011-06-02T12:52:00.000+09:30

another exciting thing i'm involved with is planning a weekend with jonathan welch, of the choir of hard knocks and jail birds fame, with the centre for music, liturgy and the arts.
we had our first planning meeting as a team on monday, and i must say, there is already some fabulous energy around this event.
i'm really looking forward to hearing jonathan's stories, his experience and wisdom in the are of social inclusion, and to singing in a big choir.
if that sounds like a good weekend to you, too, stay tuned to the cmla website, and get in early with those registrations, which will open later this month.

in the mean time, if you feel like a good sing, get along to brougham place uniting church on 19 june to sing with michael hawn, who has a wealth of experience in community singing and world music. go to the cmla website for more, or email Jennifer Hughes for information.

reading the Bible aloud in gathered worship

2011-06-02T12:06:00.000+09:30

I led a workshop this weekend just gone, with some of the Bible readers from Payneham Road Uniting Church, on Biblical Storytelling.
The first part of the day was led by Ray, a member at Argent Uniting, and right from the first moment, I learnt something new. Gotta love that. Gotta not love what I learnt, though. Did you know that in a recent survey of what people enjoyed and appreciated most about their gathered worship, the Bible reading was at the bottom of the list? My heart sank.
We spent some time wondering about why that might be. The consensus seemed to be that there has been a trend with reading the Bible aloud, for one reason or another, that has led to people not being expressive or engaging in their reading. It might be nervousness. It might be concern about not taking too long and making 'church' too long. It might be that somewhere along the line we decided that Sacred texts needed to be revered through a 'pious' tone. or that we decided we can't interpret the Bible, so we'll take all expression out of the reading. and sometimes, it's simply that we have stood up to read the Bible aloud without having prepared.
Well. here are my thoughts on that:
nervousness - prepare, and if you're not a person who is comfortable speaking in front of people, perhaps your gifting is not in reading the Bible aloud.
taking too long - the Bible is the foundational text of the Christian faith, give it all the time it needs and deserves.
revering the bible - revere it by giving it due attention so that you communicate meaning, not communicate meaninglessness or a sense that this Book is somehow without meaning.
interpretation - every time we read the Bible, aloud or not, we are interpreting it; take the time to prepare so that your interpretation is considered, intentional, and open to God revealing Godself through these holy words rather than the haphazard interpretation that happens when we try not to interpret it at all.
and not preparing - well, that's just plain disrespectful, to the text, to our community, to God.

and we talked about these things over the two sessions, and about how it is important to make the connection emotionally with the text so that we can communicate meaningfully with our listeners, with our community of faith. They were a good bunch, and open to working on their reading because they are passionate about it, about the Biblical Story, about God, and about sharing God's word with others.
in the afternoon, I introduced Biblical storytelling, and some seemed ready to take the plunge and learn this craft. I hope they do.
And I hope it is as rewarding for them as it is for me - to be able to be free of the page so you can look in the eyes of your travelling companions on this Way as you tell them our story, God's story, the story of God's relationship with us and all creation - it's beyond description as a holy, sacred, God moment.

Please get in touch with me if you'd like to encourage your Bible readers with a workshop on reading aloud, interpreting the Bible for reading aloud, or Biblical storytelling - I would love to come and share with you. sarahagnew@adam.com.au

inspired by a creative Spirit

2011-05-17T17:47:00.002+09:30

having just taught a weekend of workshops on Worship, Spirituality and the Arts, it seems appropriate that in my role as a minister in a congregation I have been feeling particularly inspired by the creative Spirit for our gathered worship in recent times. the reality with inspiration, and with the Spirit, is that sometimes it is close enough to make you feel like it will burst right through you, other times, it is a slippery little sucker you just can't hang on to, and still other times, it feels like a distant memory ...

For our gathered worship two weeks ago, I really did have an experience of receiving a message and having no choice but to faithfully deliver it. It was following the death of Osama bin Laden, and I had been ashamed of my own initial response to the news, not to mention the dismay many have felt at the reaction in certain quarters, rejoicing at the death of a fellow human (albeit one who acted despicably). So I led us in a reflection that looked at the story of the encounter of two disciples with the risen Christ in Emmaus through the lens of this somewhat distasteful story of our times. And instead of a prayer of confession, I led us in a lament - lamenting with God that humans do these things to each other, lamenting the state of fear and mistrust between different peoples, lamenting the need for war. These things seem to have been well received, and overall it appears to have been, as one put it, a satisfying worship experience. Thank you Divine Inspiration.
If you would like to read more, please visit the Belair Uniting Church blog.
(an interesting footnote to the thoughts around the Osama death & reaction - post by Steve Taylor)

And this week, we took time to reflect on our own relationship with God, through the image of God as shepherd in Psalm 23. I was thrilled to have a Lost Sheep book to introduce the Psalm to the kids, and enjoyed having a play with an old song to use it as a prayer for others. Again, read more here.

I am finding my way into the rhythm of preparing gathered worship for the people, and actually think I wouldn't mind doing it every week. But then, being part time means I can do some teaching, lead workshops, write, and dream the next stage of life for our storytelling community of faith once known as The Esther Project. Oh, yes, the Creative Spirit is stirring this pot, too!

a weekend of learning @ Uniting College - get there, grow & go!

2011-05-05T22:09:00.000+09:30

I am putting together the Worship, Spirituality and the Arts stream for Uniting College's annual Grow & Go weekend. This is a weekend - Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon - for learning for lay and ordained people. It's a great investment in the health and growth of Christian communities in South Australia, mostly in the Uniting Church, but anyone can come along.
Steve Taylor blogged about it here, he's preparing for it too, as are a whole bunch of people who will be facilitating different streams for various aspects of life on the Way in community.
Mark Hewitt will be leading the Creativity & worship/spirituality workshop with me; he's the minister at Spicer Uniting, is a visual artist, and is embarking on a fresh expression of church centred around a multi-media artful worship space, Quarterly.
I've been jotting down notes all week from the musings of my sub-conscious / the genius assigned to me. Notes on how our worship spaces can be enhanced with art & creativity, what it looks like for art to interpret the biblical texts, how biblical storytelling draws on theatre / performance art and we can draw on this for all the up front embodied aspects of leading gathered worship ... been concentrating on poetry and theatre, next I am going to think about music. then i'll learn the story of pentecost to tell - we're going to put our creativity into practice in preparation for this high point in the Christian liturgical calendar!
so if you're looking for a chance to think about, talk about and engage in worship, spirituality and the arts, get along to Uniting College next weekend, 13 - 15 May. Call and book first, though: 8416 8427. See you there!

Marcus Borg - Christianity as a Spiritual Path

2011-05-05T09:58:00.001+09:30

a friend shared this on facebook. expresses thoughts i have - i'd rather talk about christian spirituality than christian belief too.

seasonal pioneering

2011-05-04T17:48:00.000+09:30

this is an emerging thought, but perhaps worth sharing in its infancy and opening up conversation - what might it be like to be a pioneer leader who isn't always a pioneer leader? what might it be like, i have been invited to imagine, to work with the rhythms of my energy flows and engage in pioneer leading, fresh expressions of church, in seasons of higher energy?
the predominant (and this isn't a criticism, it is actually a reality) typology for pioneer leaders in new forms of church in our western context is male, married, entrepreneurial, charismatic and young.
i am female, single, creative, dreaming, networking and young. not much in common with the trend. i am also a person who lives with depression, have done my whole adult life, so there is a particular shape to the usual ups and downs of human living i my lived experience.
and i have been identified as a pioneer leader, this is part of my call to ordained ministry. and rather than fighting against the typology or withdrawing because i don't fit, i need to find my own way to live out this part of my identity, my gift to the church, if i am to be true to my call.

so i feel quite invigorated, having felt a little like walking away all together in recent months, by the thought that actually, it might be possible to make the most of the circumstances i find myself in.
the season of my life is ministry with an established congregation, and that is taking most of my energy, so there is less energy for fresh expressions at present. this is the reality. i am not a person who can push myself as hard as others can. my wells of energy do not run that deep. it takes a lot of stillness and silence to maintain my energy. and you just cannot find that if you are starting a new (to you) placement and pioneering a new community. there are only so many hours in a day.

the pioneering new community i was involved with is in a season of dormancy, induced by several factors - my changed circumstances and the different directions we and our host community were taking. this isn't something spoken of much, but a season of dormancy might just restore life, not take it, from our fledgeling community. and reflecting on the community itself, there were clear seasons in our 18 months of gathering - brought about by the circumstances of me as leader, the church calendar, and the movement of other members, as well as the changing understanding of our vision.
a seasonal approach might just be right for this community.
fresh expressions is so much about experimenting - heading off the map and picking a direction and seeing where you might go. we've done a lot of changing of direction. we're not even two years old.
a seasonal approach means we could make the most of what i have to offer as leading storyteller, we could offer community and not burden to those who gather - be community, be part of community, for one season or many ... ah, the possibilities are bubbling just under the surface. watch this space as they begin to emerge in clearer shape.

i am a biblical storyteller. i have a yearning and actually some opportunities coming up, to engage in leading workshops and teaching biblical storytelling and biblical studies. i have a creative community to support the ministry in which i engage.

my circumstances, my health and gifts, my call, might just be well served by a seasonal approach to engaging in pioneering fresh ways of being church and being carried by the rhythm of church life in an established congregation. we have been struggling to work out how this balance might work, the church and i ... today i have been shown a glimmer of hope.

i bloody hate that story

2011-04-22T12:14:00.000+09:30

i've been thinking this a bit last night and today. 'that story' being the story of Jesus' arrest, trial, beating, humiliation, and crucifixion. i commented on facebook this week that i was ready for good friday - for worship at least, if not for what the story would do to me.
it's made me feel sick.

sick with the anguish of Jesus' prayer in the garden - the struggle to find the courage to continue with God's way of love, God's call on his life, even to the point of death; feeling alone and far from God; being terrified; being humiliated and beaten; the desertion and betrayal of his closest friends.

sick with sorrow and grief and shame that this was the world's response to God's way of love.

sick with anger that we keep doing this to each other, humans, beat each other, treat each other with gross injustice, violence, inhumanity.

i bloody hate this story.
the story of good friday.
this story that is so hard to tell, to hear, to enter again.

but this is our story.
Jesus shows us God through this story.
may we have the courage to look and to see God's love pouring out, even though it hurts God.
may we have the courage to love, even when it hurts.

working on writing

2011-04-18T18:35:00.001+09:30

recently I attended a workshop as part of a series I am also helping to lead for the Centre for Music, Liturgy and the Arts. I was thinking I wouldn't have time to stay the whole day, but once I got there and we got into the work, I found a day out to give time to my writing craft was just what I needed, so I stayed.
I wrote a couple of things, and share them here to honour the day and the gift it was.

this stuff comes out of a series of exercises on writing about an apple...
first up I wrote a poem

ode to my lunchtime apple

polished green lumpy Australian
your sight and smell remind
me of perfume, a gift,
and the giver - sister friend

I lick my lips –
delicious anticipation
of your crispy wet temptation
crunch
through the sharp shine of your
speckled skin
spray sticky spit – blink –
wince at the sweet and sour
bite

tongue fights with skin stuck
in teeth
juice dribbles from my mouth
healthy delight

then we had a go at horror ...

in the early morning, so early it was almost night, she fumbled into the kitchen. the low growl persisted, seemingly following her. she reached out, grasping at the table, as the growl grew louder. if only she could switch on a light. if only he had paid the bill before he – no. no 'if onlys'. you are alone. you must take care of yourself.
GRROOWWLLL.
with a start, she made an urgent lunge and plunged her hand into cold fetid liquid.
GRROOWWLLL.
a sudden burst of wind under the door – she shivers and wishes for the comforting velvet darkness of sleep.
GRROOWWLLL.
another lunge, and at last she found her target through the darkness and crouched down behind the kitchen bench to fight the beast growling within with the last of the edible orbs of temptation.

the kids' story I'm keeping for now - just in case something publishable emerges.

one more poem / prayer to finish (the title is a reference to Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love; we heard from a talk Gilbert gave on writing, which gave shape to our day's reflection and work)

Eat / Pray Apple

As I eat this apple God,
its delicious juice
making my chin and fingers sticky,
I thank you for the apple,
the tree and the seed,
the earth and sunshine and rain.

As I eat this apple, God,
I think of the story of Eve
the temptation in the Garden –
was it really an apple they ate,
or have we in error given
apples a bad name?

As I eat this apple, God,
satisfying hunger within,
faces of starving children come to mind
and I wish I could give them
an apple, a tree, a seed –
the earth and sunshine and rain ...

the next in the Spirituality, Worship and the Arts series is a six session stream in the Grow and Go weekend at Uniting College for Leadership and Theology. call the college on 8416 8427 for info and to book. love to see you there.

on neighbours

2011-03-22T09:54:00.000+10:30

How easy it is to get so wrapped up in what's going on for us, how the world is affecting us, that we don't see our neighbours until it is too late.

On the slightly more positive side of that observation, last night my sister and I were invited to join our neighbours on our shared drive way for the celebration of their wedding with a feast. We were hesitant, knowing no one, not really knowing the bride and groom, not knowing what was expected. In the end I heard an echo of a conversation I'd had recently, in which I was reminded that it is not so much how we offer hospitality, as how we receive it, that is our participation in the mission of God. How we receive hospitality. So I went out there grateful for the opportunity to receive my neighbours' hospitality, and found myself wishing I had got to know them better sooner, as we'll not be living here much longer. Still, I am grateful for the chance to share in this celebration, and to have received a most generous, warm, welcome from our neighbours and their friends.

On the less positive side of that observation, I wonder if we knew some of our other neighbours better, they might have come and talked to us when they were concerned at the number and position of the cars on the street, rather than calling the council, who sent someone to slap fines on us. One guy received a $40 fine for being 10cm over a yellow line for not very long, and I got a $60 fine for parking on the gravel at the top of our driveway, end of a dead-end street, out of everyone's way. NOT HAPPY JAN!!! I cannot get over the officious, legalistic, ungenerous attitude of our neighbours, and wish we'd got to know them better, too, so that we might have parted as friends, not in the spirit of antagonism that now hangs in the air like a foul stench. I don't know which of our neighbours called the council, though I have suspicions; if I did I might go and apologise for the cars, and express disappointment that they couldn't come and talk to us first.

in other news

2011-03-19T11:48:00.000+10:30

In other news, amidst the turmoil that is my current church pioneer experience, I have received a scholarship covering the registration, accommodation and food costs for the International Network of Biblical Storytellers' Festival Gathering in North Carolina in August this year!!!

I am very excited - I will have the chance to meet a whole range of storytellers, hopefully be pushed further in my craft as a biblical storyteller, and also hopefully meet some people engaging in studies in performance hermeneutics.

Now to find the end of the rainbow with the pot of gold that will cover my airfares!

And I think I'll look for what else is happening in North America around that time, since it would be a shame to travel all that way for five days. I will barely have enough time to get over the jetlag before I get back on the plane if I don't stay for longer than the gathering!!

alternative church - asking the hard questions 5

2011-03-18T21:35:00.000+10:30

the hardest question of all - one with an answer you don't want to hear

when all the questions have been asked, when we've wrestled with them, when they've kept us awake, made us uncomfortable, and perhaps even moved us further into God's realm of loving kindness, what remains is a question that

does pioneering really have to be such a lonely lonely road?

and of course the answer is yes.

pioneering by its very nature is stepping out of the known, it is experimenting with the new and untried, it is taking risks and holding a crazy dream others are yet to imagine their way into.
pioneers are by nature, out there where others are not - are by nature, in many ways, on their own.

there is a question whose answer we do want to hear - what can we do? from the shore line as the pioneers launch off into uncharted territory, give us seaworthy vessels (what carries us safely is the tradition, the Christian story), keep the lines of communication open (stay in touch, listen for how we are travelling and what we are discovering), send food packages (the money problem: we need enough resources to pay the bills so that worry doesn't diminish our ministry), and send more after us, teaching the next pioneers from our experience.

it won't stop us from being out there alone - but we don't need to remain alone, and we will be helped by not being forgotten or abandoned out there.

alternative church - asking the hard questions 4

2011-03-16T21:32:00.000+10:30

what are the rules?

I've explored the question of the relationship between the inherited church and fresh expressions of church in an earlier post.
This is similar, but a little more technical.

The question that emerged out of a conversation recently is, where do these new forms of church fit within the heritage and theology of the Christian Church? How are they accountable? To whom? And for what?
The person with whom I was in conversation had concerns about the theological soundness of new church communities - were these a bunch of heretics, rebels, not living out the tradition faithfully?

I got a little defensive at first - I am an ordained minister leading this new church community, what is your problem??
But on reflection, it's actually an important question to ask. Not because there is one theology to which true Christians should all ascribe. I don't believe that for a second. No, it's because there is a stoyr here, there is a thread that continues back to Jesus who lived, and even further to the Hebrew peoples and even beyond to the Creator and the story of God's relationship with Creation throughout time. If we are claiming to tell this story - not that we're claiming it's the only story - but this story, we must tell it faithfully, with integrity for the story and the communities of faithful adherents to the story throughout history.
(the problem has become, of course, for the church in the West, that we've got into the practice of telling the story without integrity for the hearers, for the context into which the story is being told, and we have thus inhibited people's ability to make meaning of and through this story, or to encounter God in and through the story ... probably another post in that!)

So, the questions here are around accountability - to?
to the Christian Church.
to the culture, our community here and now.
to God, who is active in the world and calling us to participate in that transforming activity.

and for? ah, here's a question.
we'll be held accountable for authentic representation of the Christian story. Are we interpreting the Biblical story faithfully, holding to the faith expressed in the creeds, teaching and living according to the life, teaching, healing, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Fair enough.

we'll be held accountable for money - if the inherited church (local congregations, presbyteries or synods) offer financial support for these new ventures, what will be the measures by which they will judge appropriate stewardship of resources?
I worry that in a climate of leadership modelled on business, the KPIs for fresh expressions will resemble KPIs for small business or franchisees. Will growth be measured by what - the amount of money we earn? The number of people who become signed up, paid up members? The number of people we encounter, disciple, send out ... Just how do we measure the 'success' of a community of faith? When it's not even yet a community of faith because that takes years - years - to become.

for fresh expressions connected to the Uniting Church we'll be held accountable for the way we live out the Basis of Union. But that raises more questions, like how do we define 'connection' to the Uniting Church, which bring us back to earlier discussion around parenting and responsibility for these emerging forms of church.

and will we - or at what stage will we - be held accountable for the way we adhere to the regulations of the Uniting Church? Some years ago, faith communities became acknowledged as smaller 'congregations' that were small in numbers and couldn't reasonably live out the expectations of congregations as described in the UCA's regulations. Expectations such as the numbers of people on church councils, number of meetings for church councils, financial and other responsibilities to the wider UCA ...
But in my experience, it will be a long time before the members of a fresh expression of church may be ready to name themselves even a faith community, with its lighter responsibilities - because it will be ages before they're even ready to consider naming themselves individually as members of a community. And with the ecumenical, or less overtly denominational, feel to many fresh expressions of church, lapsed Catholics or Anglicans might resist the inclusion of this alternative church community into another denomination. And the leaders of emerging forms of church will necessarily need to be sensitive to these concerns, because it is precisely for these de-churched and the un-churched among our community that we are seeking to create new forms of church.

Personally, I have no problem with the accountability of fresh expressions to the wider church, or to a particular denomination or tradition. I think it is necessary for the integrity of an alternative Christian community to be clearly aiming to live faithfully according to the Christian Story. It is a rich tradition, and it holds much in the way of our ancestors' wrestling with the meaning of the incarnation, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And I have no problem being personally responsible to the Uniting Church. This is the movement in which I have been formed and ordained, and I expect to be called on to adhere to the heritage, polity and theology of this reformed, catholic and apostolic church.

But what it comes down to is polity, is theology, is heritage. Fresh expressions will live out church organisation differently, will express theology in different media and language, are forming a new heritage. How is the inherited church helping fresh expressions of church to do this without throwing away any 'babies'?
We need to find ways to steep pioneer leaders in the heritage, theology and polity of the Uniting Church and equip them to reinvent, to reinterpret, to reimagine the essence of who we are for our time and place.
I think that's what I'm saying ...

alternative church - asking the hard questions 3

2011-03-14T12:21:00.000+10:30

fresh expressions - What are we naming as a fresh expression? Or, when is a fresh expression not a 'fresh expression'?

When we're thinking about fresh expressions of church, what are we thinking of naming as a 'fresh expression'?

When is a fresh expression not a 'fresh expression'?
When it is alternative worship.
When it is a church plant.
When it is a misional activity of an established church.

Why are these things not fresh expressions?
Alternative worship is not alternative church because it is an alternative way of gathering for worship for an established community of faith who are seeking to re-invigorate their expressions of worship.
A church plant is not a fresh expression of church because church plants take an existing model of church and plant it in a new location.
A missional activity that seeks simply to be a missional activity, not to form a new, independent community of faith, is not a fresh expression of church.

These things might be different expressions of Christian life and community for a particular community of faith, and they are all valid, valuable, and necessary for the health and growth of the wider body of Christ.

However, a fresh expression of church is an intentional effort to engage with people beyond the church through loving sharing of life where people are - rather than waiting for people beyond the church to come to us - and seeking to form a community of faith from that context.
These new forms of church will therefore be shaped by their context, by the interests and activities of the people - not the practices of generations of church-goers.

The reason for fresh expressions is to, as Steve Taylor put it recently, ask ourselves, what is God up to in the world, and to go there and be part of it. To take with us the Christian story and tradition and become conversation partners with others who are experiencing and expressing their spirituality, their encounters with Spirit, and to journey together in transforming relationships of healing and hope.
But to recognise that the Christian Church has become somewhat disconnected with the experience of spirituality for many in our part of the world, has grown comfortable with the way Christian community is ordered, and is not attractive or authentic for this time and this place.
God isn't irrelevant. Christian community and living isn't irrelevant. We have stuck with Ye Olde Englishe when the culture has moved to speaking nu engl'sh. We need to stop trying to translate Christianity into the language of the people, and let the language of the people express for the people the Christian story authentically.

So why ask the question about what is a fresh expression? not for elitism or exclusivism. For the most effective support and resourcing of these emerging communities of faith so that they will grow and flourish and be communities of healing through God's transforming way of Love.

lenten beginnings

2011-03-14T11:56:00.000+10:30

it's the first week of lent, and though the protestant tradition doesn't have such a strong tradition of giving up. we are, at Belair, going to give things up, and we will donate the money we don't spend on little luxuries towards projects that bring hope and life into the lives of some of the poorest people in our world. we're also giving our time and attention to their stories, all of which are acts of friendship that transform our lives as they also transform the lives of others.

I'll blog our progress through Lent at Belair on the Belair website.

alternative church - asking the hard questions 2

2011-03-10T21:21:00.000+10:30

the relationship between the established church and emerging church communities

The relationship between the established church and alternative models of church - at an individual congregation / faith community level - has been described as a parent / child relationship (in conversations around 'fresh expressions' in the Uniting Church SA context).
Why is that?
Perhaps it is helpful to think of the established church as a parent who has been around for a while, with some experience and wisdom, that can help guide a growing child? A parent protects, provides shelter and nourishment - pays for things.
So an established church congregation might provide space for an emerging church to use for gathering as a developing community.
An established congregation might provide wise people to help guide, to tell the story of this family - the Christian Church - as the child, or fresh expression, experiments and explores who they are becoming.
The established church might pay for someone to lead, teach, guide - as a parent pays for schooling, music teachers, sports coaches.
And just as each child develops his / her sense of self differently and in unique time and way, so each fresh expression will discover their identity, develop their independence at a unique pace as is right for them. A parent makes the adjustments, responds to the needs of each child individually: will stay close to one who is more fragile, give more space to a more confident child.

My question is -
Is this a role - the parenting role - for individual congregations, or for the wider church?
Is it - in the case of the Uniting Church - a Presbytery or Synod who is better equipped to take on a parenting role for the various fresh expressions of church that are born in our community through our missional relationships?

Is the Presbytery or Synod a parent to the congregation, continuing to support the children who themselves become parents?
Is this even the best - or only - metaphor?
Might congregations, Presbyteries, Synods be midwives rather than parents?

metaphors aside, the root of the question is:

Whose responsibility are these alternative emerging models of church?

alternative church - asking the hard questions

2011-03-08T22:51:00.000+10:30

part one - financial support for leaders

There's something about the way the Church looks after its ordained leaders. It's at the heart of why we ordain people, it's rooted deeply in Judeo-Christian history. It is forgotten when it comes to 'fresh expressions' of church.*
The Church has processes to ensure a(n established) congregation provides for the minister's living, study leave, etc. But for a fresh expression of church – which by its very nature is not established for the first 5 - 8 years of its life at least, is an exercise in forming relationships beyond the Church and being open to forming alternative kinds of Christian community – who is responsible for providing for the living, welfare, of the leader? If we do not ask this question and continue without an answer, fresh expressions of church will have no chance of achieving our hopes and dreams for them, and our leaders will burn out.
Right from the early Christian church – no, earlier, in ancient Israel, we have taken care of our religious leaders.
This is because these are the people set aside by the community – called by God – to guard the tradition, tell the stories truly, preside at the rituals that mark the important moments in our live.
Why are we not treating the leaders of fresh expressions with the same care and respect that has been afforded to our leaders - ministers - servants - throughout the history of our faith tradition? Come on, church, answer the question - answer the call more fully, and more care-fully.

How much more able would we be to fulfill our hopes and dreams for these alternative models of Christian community – how much more able to answer God's call and serve the world – if we were provided for, set free to be the leaders our church, our community, our God, requires? Instead of spending precious time and energy seeking funding, or worrying about how we will pay for our rent ...

* Some context: Fresh expressions is the term given to a movement encouraging alternative models of church alongside the established Church of England and Methodist Church in the UK. This term, this initiative, is being adopted in the Uniting Church in South Australia. I have been leading a fresh expression of church since August 2009 - The Esther Project.

finding the words I want to say

2011-03-03T22:52:00.000+10:30

well, life has been a little tough lately, with changes to The Esther Project (watch this space for more as a new era unfolds), still on a low income, driving a car that barely makes it up hills (and my house is at the edge of the foothills, while my life is up the hill), sharing the stresses of sisters, and looking for a new house (up the hill).
I have been talking to as many people around the traps as I can, in various positions within the church, to see if together we can reduce some of this stress.
the congregation in which I serve, Belair Uniting Church, and its council, are the most wonderful community of people. not only have they welcomed me warmly so that I feel immediately at home, they are able to offer support and advice that have helped me find some solutions to some of the problems - and there is much enthusiasm for The League of Extraordinary Storytellers (formerly The Esther Project) moving its base to Belair and becoming a vital part of the life of that congregation and their relationships with the wider community. I think I have said it before - life once you have entered the way of the Spirit is wonderful and magical and mysterious and .... I am lost for words.
the newly appointed fresh expressions officer has long been a friend of mine, and fellow creative woman. she listened to the struggles of the esther project, and of its stressed out leader (me) who was feeling abandoned and lonely on the edges of the institutional church. and together we were able to dream new possibilities for me and for the esther project. I am lost for words.

(on one occasion recently when I was lost for words because of anger, hurt, disappointment, I was grateful for a friend who spoke words I could not say - and I haven't yet found the words to thank him)

the fresh expressions team are all very supportive, and we're all trying to learn as much as we can from my experience so that we can help the wider church learn and prepare for the pioneer leaders who will be studying at the college over the next few years - if nothing changes, they, too, will exit college to an institution that does not understand new models of church and what is required to support and facilitate those who lead these emerging communities.

so that's encouraging. not immediately problem solving for me, but encouraging none-the-less. because what i've been lacking have been advocates, people who can discern with me the right questions to ask and do some of the asking for the help that I need in order to answer the call of God.

our pastoral support person for ministers has also been a wise listener and dreamer of possibilities.

the trouble is, though, that all we have been coming up with are more medium to long term solutions - and this week, at last, enough people had heard the story and put their heads together and I have another day's work a week helping a good friend with admin in the international mission office for a couple of months.

it is amazing, and profoundly humbling, to have so many people rally around to stand with you in the hard places, bring torches into the darkness, and tread the ground around you to find the best place for your next step. this is why we are not fully human without each other. because to stand in those hard places alone is to stand there until you shrivel there. with other humans who have light when you do not, can hear when you cannot, speak for you when your voice falters, you can stand and not shrivel, so that strength and sight will return and you can take the steps you need to and you can continue becoming fully human and one day stand in the dark place of another ...

i sat down to write a post about my visit with the continuing learning participants at Blackwood Uniting's community program today, and I will; but it seems i have found the words after a long silence, to express not terribly eloquently, some of what has been bubbling away for me as i have stood in a difficult place and been grateful for the company of friends to keep me standing.

thank you

of beginning at Belair Uniting Church

2011-02-08T10:35:00.001+10:30

There's no truth in the rumour that all one does in the church is go to meetings. mmm. well, not much.
Much of what I've been doing these past three weeks as I've begun my placement at Belair Uniting Church has been going to meetings: last Thursday was back to back 'meetings' all day. Oh, to be fair, I suppose many of these so called meetings have actually been conversations as I start to get to know the congregation as a whole, the individuals who are part of the congregation, and my neighbouring ministers. I've also been getting to know the rhythms of life for my new congregation, where and when we gather (apart from the main gathering on a Sunday morning), where and when people are studying, working, what other groups and activities we're involved in, how our health is, what our hopes and fears are.
And, slowly, I am getting to know people's names. This is one reason to be grateful for a smaller congregation!

This Sunday just gone was one of the high points, as I led in the gathered worship for the first time since being called to Belair, and as we celebrated my induction to this placement.
From some of the brief feedback that has filtered through, I believe some of the things I asked people to do on Sunday morning were a little different.
We didn't have a standard prayer of confession - I had been talking to the children's ministry leaders during the week, who had told me they've been asking the young ones to whip round at the start of their time together and say something about their week. So I mentioned that this is what they'd be doing, and perhaps we could also acknowledge the week that had been - confession for me is less about listing all the things we've done wrong or badly, and more about bringing ourselves fully before God, the good and the bad. There are times for us to focus on contrition and our complicity in social wrongs, but sometimes we've come to worship having had a great week - so it's good to allow space for us to acknowledge however we are before God as we come to worship. And it was a neat way to remind ourselves as the children went out to their activities that we are one community.
At the end of the reflection (sermon) I invited another time of silence, in which I asked people to imagine the relationships in their lives and in this congregation, in light of what I'd pondered about loving kindness and right relationship (righteousness, Matt 5:20ff).
And for our blessing, after the prayer of commissioning, I asked the people to turn, face each other, and sing the blessing to each other - to these people with whom we are called to be in right relationships of loving kindness. So we sang Shalom / peace to each other.
I don't know how different my chat with the young ones was (imagining being salt in the world highlighting the flavours of God the way salt in pizza brings out the flavours of the base, sauce and toppings), or how different it is for the minister to be wearing alb and stole whenever she preaches, not just for communion and baptism, but those are some things that probably also led to the comments about the fresh approach, and help you to imagine our gathering.
People stayed and talked with one another so long that I ended up going back into the church to greet some of them! What a good measure of the health of a community.
As the children had gone out, I asked them to please come and tell / show me at morning tea what they'd been doing, and they did, showing me the sheep they had cut out and named - there's one called Sarah they said. And I heard about the first week back at school, and the friends and experiences, brothers and sisters ...

The induction service was beautiful, joyful, and humbling in the number of people from other communities with which I am and have been connected who joined us for the celebration. There were quite a few from the Urban Mission Network, Blackwood Uniting Church, Christ Church and one of the early co-leaders of The Esther Project, as well as friends and family, and a good number from Belair itself. What a delight.
John Hughes gave us a great reflection on what it means to be called by Jesus to be fishers for people, as much as we are the fish working together for the health and wellbeing of the whole 'school'.
Sharonne Price led us with a great sense of occasion as the representative from the Presbytery.
And it was so good to have young ones and adults involved in reading the Bible portion, offering the symbols of the office of the minister, and speaking words of welcome; and to have Leanne Jenski, minister at Blackwood, lead us in prayer.
As we greeted people at the door, I received hugs and kisses from my new community and from people who have shared in significant moments, in the long journey, towards ordination, towards this first placement with a congregation.
The conversations over afternoon tea flowed for ages, as people found connections with one another, and delighted in this new era for Belair and for me.
I showed people my 'office' - a corner in the sun room which is our meeting room for many different purposes, and found a note of welcome from one of the young ones. A hug from one of the young ones as she left showed me welcome and acceptance - extra special so early in my time with them.

This is one of those moments in life when things feel good and right. I know it won't all be easy, but I also know that it will be a joy and an honour to share life and faith with this community in the years to come. And I'm grateful to the Spirit for guiding me here.

NCYC 11 - turning it up!

2011-01-28T09:26:00.001+10:30

A group of girls in our bible study at NCYC 11 began work on a video during one of the sessions when we were thinking about how we were going to turn it up back home - what was the message we had heard at NCYC11 that we wanted to share with our communities at home, and how did we want to do this?

I have to say, I felt a little bit of proud of the girls as I watched this, and am stoked that they have produced such a thoughtful reflection of their experience to share with the people in their church community.

I hope they feel inspired and encouraged to continue to share the message of God's love for us all in the communities in which they belong.

the struggles of pursuing one's dreams

2011-01-23T10:38:00.000+10:30

sometimes life is hard
previous posts about healing notwithstanding, and not wanting to diminish the tragic hardships facing many of my fellow Australians, not to mention people around the world - sometimes life is hard
my sisters have been applying for jobs for months, without success. the relentless rejection is taking its toll, and it is increasingly difficult to remain positive, to expect that the 'yes' is just around the corner. and there's no explaining it - without being overly biased, they would both be fabulous assets for any employer - so why oh why do potential employers keep overlooking them? i don't understand it. and even i am finding it difficult to trust that the Spirit is moving through this - we feel no peace, we have no hope ... we are deflated.
please pray with us. pray for us.

i am delighted in my placement at Belair Uniting. at the moment, it is a welcome source of joy amidst struggle.
this is a half time placement. the hope has been that i will therefore be able to spend the other half of my working hours continuing to lead the Esther Project, the alternative Christian community of creativity and storytelling that started in August 2009.
there was much uncertainty for 2010 for me and for the esther project, as we waited for me to receive a call to an established congregation. we weren't sure until we knew which congregation whether the esther project would stay with its host congregation, or move with me, or even cease to be. it is such a fragile new venture that the latter was a very real possibility. but there is still so much untapped potential for the esther project, that it would be a deep disappointment if it were to end here.
our host community have begun to wonder if an enriched partnership with this fresh expression of church would in fact inject some new life into their community, help move them in new directions towards which they hope to go. but with a limited budget of their own, and the difficult questions of what such a relationship would look like and how it will challenge us all to change, the past few months have been quite a struggle. not least because we are all very aware of the implications of not enough funding on my life.
i have lived on a shoestring budget for most of my adult life, pursuing dreams and the enticing call of the Spirit. I don't regret it, or begrudge it, and i have been humbled by the unceasing generosity of my parents in particular, and the support of friends and the church through this time. but, as so many in our world know, the constant worry about how one will pay one's bills, the stress of having to rely on ailing and ageing second or third hand cars - it is exhausting.
part of my struggle at the moment is that i had expected that at this point, taking up a new position as a minister, a position of some responsibility, i would no longer be the poor student mimicking Oliver with my hands out again and again - please, may i have some more.
it is demoralising to have to continue to ask for money, whether it is seeking a loan to get me through the transition from student stipend to minister's stipend, or having to seek out possible avenues for funding for the esther project so that i might be paid - i just want to be able to stop worrying about having not quite enough so that i can be free to do the jobs God is calling me to do.
and i want to delete those words, because it sounds ungrateful and like the whinging of a white middle class educated person when so many in the world don't have enough food to eat or a roof over their head.
i knew this call to new forms of church and ordained ministry would be hard. so i am not surprised. i am very close to being overwhelmed. and if i didn't know this call is from God and trust it; if i hadn't experienced the joy and wonder of the Spirit moving through each and every gathering of the esther project in the past 18 months; if i couldn't picture the people for whom this has been a gift - i would probably walk away.

sometimes life is hard. i am looking forward to the clouds clearing and the sun shining on a new day of joy and light.

of healing and wholeness

2011-01-22T10:29:00.004+10:30

Over a year and a half ago, I was sharing with a friend that I had been struggling again with back pain. This is something that has been part of my life since I was 12 years old, which is by now well over half my life.

My friend then shared with me that she had found a chiropractor who practiced a different method of healing, which was unexpected and not everyone's cup of tea, but that she thought it might suit me.

After the first visit with Yvan at Vital Wisdom, I drove home feeling lighter and happier than I had in longer than I could remember. I can still picture that moment. I could breathe! For a storyteller, the breath is an important part of connecting with emotion in order to convey meaning through the story. This, then, has been an important part of the gift I have received from these visits.

It is more than that.

I have begun to feel integrated, whole - body mind and spirit. And for me, this is what God calls each and every one of us towards, and is the reason for incarnation in Jesus Christ - to lead us into healed wholeness as human beings, as all creation.

I no longer hate my body or resent the effects of the numerous illnesses and health conditions I live with. I care about it.

I no longer think about exercise or healthy eating as the bane of my existence and long for the days when I was effortlessly thin. I want to be moving, walking, in the sunshine, because it makes me feel good! I want to drink more water, eat good food - because it makes me feel good!

I love feeling healthy. It used to be that if I was sick, I would wallow in it, because this was comfortable and known - I knew how to be unwell or in pain. I had known it for so long. Not any more, folks, not any more. I get ill or have pain and it doesn't feel like home. This is so amazing for me, to feel healthy, whole - and I want it for all of us.

Whatever path we find to healing and wholeness, whoever we can find with the gift of healing, embrace it, appreciate it and them, for life in all its fulness is surely what we must hope for all.

I wrote a poem last year in another moment of gratitude for this gift of wholeness: tenuous wholeness.

Contact Vital Wisdom: vitalwisdom@iinet.net.au ; 8357 3829

guarding stories, giving the gift of wholeness

2011-01-12T13:13:00.001+10:30

I have received a precious gift from various family members in the past week. In a small way, too, from friends at dinner before Christmas.

Spending time with the people with whom I have shared stories, life, friendship for most of my life has restored me to myself - and I hope is also as restorative for my friends.

Having a role, living the life, that I do, which requires much of me for the sake of community, I am appreciating so much the gift of family and friends who have known me for a long time - the gift of time and space in which to simply be, to take the priestly garments off, shed the prophet's voice, step out of the pastoral chair, and be me.

In many ways all the minister stuff is also me, truly and with integrity. It is hard to articulate what I mean, being a minister is such a particular role with its symbolism for the community, its guardianship of the faith and story and tradition, with the community as we remind the community of the story and our God into which we are called to live.

The ones who knew me before this role have the special place in my heart, in my life - they are the guardians of my story in a way - and I of theirs - in bonds forged through the family ties of blood, through shared joys and sorrows, shared stories. Our stories are woven together not because of my call or my role, and I know this is a key for me to nurture if I am to sustain health and vitality as I move into life as an ordained minister. An ordained minister is who I am - but it is not the whole story.

To my family and close friends, thank you. Thank you. I hope you understand the depth of my love and gratitude.

To those who read this blog - may I encourage you to thank those who hold your story with you, the story of who you are, and to be mindful of the ways you hold the stories of those close to you. These experiences have reminded me of how we are whole people through the telling and hearing of the stories of our lives, and how we have important roles to play guarding each others' stories for the health and wholeness of each other.

ncyc11 day six part two

2011-01-04T10:15:00.003+10:30

After the bible study, Nathan and I agreed that it had been a remarkable experience, really rewarding in terms of the depth of engagement and understanding we were privileged to witness in our group.
Once I had offered a sending out commissioning (see previous post) noone moved! What a lovely moment. This group were in no hurry to leave this space in which they had spent time with the Sacred Story and each other. Lovely.
A couple of the girls got up spontaneously to offer thanks on behalf of the group to Nathan and me, met with applause. This was also a moment of affirmation and friendship.
My heart has been warmed by the responses to the storytelling too, with many from the group telling me or Nathan directly that they have appreciated this way of hearing the Sacred Story, and also telling others, because there have been many people outside the bible study who have approached me to say they've heard good things about our bible study, which is just lovely. One young person even told me that her community has participated in a group storytelling piece recently, and that the next time she has the opportunity to be involved in biblical storytelling, she is going to take it because she found it such a god way to hear the story. yay!!
I've probably said it before, but it has been such a delight to share this ncyc experience with so many young people from around Australia, to be trusted with the stories of a few, to laugh with them, to cry as I see them respond to the movement of God in their hearts and lives.

I enjoyed sitting in the hub under the tree yesterday afternoon talking with other leaders, friends, from around Australia, sharing our stories, joys, frustrations, hopes and fears for our engagement in ministry with the UCA. It is an encouragement to hear each others' stories, and to know that even when our call from God takes us to the edges and to lonely places, there are others out here off the map too, sharing similar experiences.

And then last night it was an honour to have been asked to preside at communion with Alistair McRae, the President of the UCA. It's kind of hard to make a very real connection with a group quite so big as an ncyc community, and it could have been quite chaotic in the serving. But Megan did a great job coordinating it all, and it ended up being a lovely final evening worship.

Before it had begun, I got to hear some JAZZ!! A band called Scat played, and I will certainly be following them up for some recordings, coz they were great. My goodness I love Jazz.

ncyc11 day six milk and honey liturgy

2011-01-04T10:04:00.000+10:30

Closing ritual – Session Four

Milk and honey

The world says come – buy and eat

Yet with all that money can buy

No worldly food can fully satisfy

God calls to us – incline your ear and come to me;

Listen so you may live,

Listen carefully and eat what is good

Delight in rich food

You that have no money

Come buy and eat

Come buy milk and honey – without money, and without price

Let the milk and honey symbolise for us the goodness of the rich food God offers

Let this ritual remind us of the ways we tune into God,

For a message that leads us into life

We have heard stories that remind us of God’s call to us –

I am here, listen carefully to me

We have heard stories that remind us of the blessings God offers

We have heard stories of listening so that we may offer a message that will be heard,

And of living the message with all of our being

Walk then to God’s table, take a cup of milk and a spoonful of honey

Drink and eat how you choose

All are welcome at this table – having tasted what the world has to offer,

come then to God’s table

delight in the richness of the food God offers

we thank you God that you call to us

that you hear our call, that you offer blessings radically different

and more life-giving than any the world can offer

Amen

Sending out:

You are the light of the world

Let your light shine

So all may know in you the love of God

Tune into the story

Transmit the story with all your being

Turn up your availability to God

Turn up your availability to each other

ncyc11 day six part one

2011-01-04T09:22:00.000+10:30

our final bible study went well. we heard some more of the things people are going to do when they go home, to communicate the message and stories of ncyc with their communities.
We heard Jesus say that we are to be salt and light - so we are to live the message with all our being and transmit the message more explicitly through words and actions. This particular crystalising of the meaning from the passage came from one of the delegates - it's so rewarding to hear the young people engage with the biblical stories and draw out meaning for themselves. love it!

I then led us in a milk and honey ritual, from Uniting in Worship II, as I mentioned in my previous blog.

I can't find the amended version of the liturgy, so will look for it when I'm at my next destination and then put it up here as promised to a couple of the bible study participants.