Sex, prayer and food!

Readings for Sunday 29th July 2012 (9th Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 17) 2 Sam 11:1-15; Psalm 14; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21

Sex, food and prayer
The title for this week may surprise some! But these are themes from these readings.

Though they don't neatly 'click' together, they speak of some really fundamental things that drive us.

David who we continue to read about, is at once both heroic and flawed

It was ever so!

Here we read about how the successful King

successful because he has been responsive to God's promise

yet he can still, and does,  get it wrong.

He commits adultery and fathers a child.

More than this, he weaves a web of intrigue and deceit

ultimately climaxing in the murder of the innocent man he has wronged.

For this he will come to know God's wrath

and he will live with this serious failure for the rest of his life.


Take Care
I reflect that we should all be careful of being judgmental

There but for the grace of God go you and I?

But how does David lose the plot so fundamentally.

Like you and me he does it because he forgets that it is God who is is charge, not David!

David thinks that it is his life plan that he is implementing

and that he is invincible.

It is the fall of the proud... hubris ... in classical terms


The power and danger of greatness


Paul's prayer this week is for his fellow Christians that they may freely acknowledge God's love and greatness

It is a mystery which lies outside our understanding

and is part of of our growth and learning as humans.

David's fault, like us so often,

is that when things are going well

we can easily be seduced into thinking it is we who are responsble.

And we  act as if we are God

and give ourselves permission to do anything.

Even sin.

This requires some subtlety and care

issues are not always, indeed never,

Black and white

and so Paul's prayer

"that (we) may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that (we) may be filled with all the fullness of God"

is a good and necessary prayer for caution and humility.



God's abundance

The wonderful story of the feeding of the 5000

reminds us that we have no need to panic (as David did)

and that God will always act with abundance in our lives.

At times we will even see Jesus walking on the water and inviting us to join him!

So today, our prayer is to remain faithful to the Spirit of God

who has blessed us time and time again

to not presume, as David did,

that God does and will sanction everything and anything we choose to do.

God requires more of us than that.

Pray, as Paul urges us, that we all may understand the mystery of God's love

ever deeper and deeper in our lives

And let this be our prayer for each other.

     God pours out his abundant love,


     spiritually and materially


     we don't need to panic.


     We can trust his control of our lives.

Can we trust ourselves?

How great thou art!

How great is it to be 18?  Picked up the youngest SC after her ES (Evangelical Students) camp today
She was telling me all sorts of great stuff.
I am very impressed by the serious level of discipleship that was being taken.
She told me that she took a seminar on Old Testament Theology!!!
This being my first love...(well Hebrew language is actually my first love but theology will do)  I was entranced

And then we sat in the car and debriefed for an hour...about what was genuine and what was indoctrination. I felt proud of my daughter that:
a) She would be seduced by the Hebrew Scriptures, and recognise that she could love them more. To which all I can say is "Baruch Atah Adonai Elohenu. Melech Ha Olem"
b) She would recognise that her faith could be exciting and thrilling. Woo hoo (two out of three ain't bad)!!!
c)She can also recognise that this is ambivalent...the price for conservative faith is a a level of conformity and rigidity....and, indeed, she questions a lot of that.

I found it great to be 18, enthusiastic, extreme and devout.....so I am happy for her

Darkened skies

The skies have darkened
and the thunder sounds

Amazing afternoon

Was privileged, with others, to spend time with Nancy Sheppard who was a teacher for a number of years in the 50s and 60s in the APY Lands in remote South Australia....so remote it will take us two days to get there when I go in a few weeks time with four other 'old fellas'
Nancy's book "Sojourn on another planet" is a series of reflections on her time in Ernabella and Fregon
It is at once instructive, entertaining and certainly confronting
She tells many stories that confront some of our complacency about the interaction of the so-called dominant culture with our indigenous people

My most poignant memory of Marumaru is from 1962
when he was about 13. The class was working through
a series of lessons concerned with Charles Sturt's
journey down the River Murray to Lake Alexandrina.
I had a picture showing a crowd of Aboriginal men
on a river bank carrying spears and decorated with
what looked like war paint. The explorers were seated
in a whaleboat in the middle of the river, and Captain
Sturt was standing with his rifle to his shoulder aiming
at the men on the bank. I read the caption under the
picture to the class, 'Captain Charles Sturt firing over
the heads of the natives to frighten them off.'
The class stilled. The children looked at each other
and at the floor. Then Marumaru said matter-of-factly,
'Don't say that. White people didn't shoot over our
heads. They shot at our bodies ... to kill us.' The truth of
his statement struck me forcibly. I folded the picture
and put it away.

This example is typical of many simple stories which pack a punch.
Personally, I like being taken out of my comfort zone. Even if it terrifies me and it surely will

The ongoing saga

Whilst not a fan of the so called Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) (the umbrella organisation of a number of  breakaway churches of people who once belonged to the actual  Anglican Communion (here)
I am interested to read the latest Ad Clerum of the new Primate of that breakaway church, Archbishop Prakash of India. And, indeed, to note the difference in tone from the pompous ramblings of the former pontiff (for so he would see himself) John Hepworth (who was a former RC, former Anglican..and very troubled chap)

Prakash, in a very frank discussion of what is now happening, seems to suggest that 

"Bishop Hepworth (is) openly advocating schism within the TAC"

 Hepworth has now been unseated by the TAC (I doubt that he accepts that...he has never accepted anything).

I remind my readers of the words of a former Adelaide Archbishop (the genuine Anglican kind) who observed to me 30 years ago that splitting churches just keep on splitting.

Does it matter?

I have had  a number of conversations with people about same-sex marriage in the last week.
It often devolves to the LCD (lowest common denominator) aren't there more important things to get agitated about? The answer is Yes!
I actually think that the plight of homeless kids, suicide amongst rural men, and the awful deaths at sea of those trying to get to Australia are all "more important".
BUT, is it either/or?
The truth is that the human being is wonderful  and  is capable of doing more than one thing at once!
In the crude Americanism...we can chew gum and walk at the same time!
Doing the right thing by refugees, putting more resources into caring for the homeless, and supporting rural guys should all be done.
And I want to say, that doing the right thing by gay families is also important.
The truth of this seems self-evident....some people are gay!  Shock! horror!
As a Christian I want also to say God is love not hate!
God does not hate anyone...despite what Westboro Baptist Church wants to tell us...it is clear to me that the Lord Jesus Christ would have been proud to say that he didn't care (I would use another cruder expression) about people's sexuality. ( I am well aware that many of my sisters and brothers think otherwise )
I want to say....by their very nature, families are really mixed up...the 'normal' family is really hard to define.
Mum, Dad & 2.3 kids seems to be the exception rather than the rule. I want to encourage families to be as stable as they can.
Because families are all mixed up...some even have two same-sex parents, some have only one,  some are blended (and that's really difficult)  let's not make it more difficult than it is.
I want to encourage as much stability as I can.
Seems to me if two women or two men are prepared to commit to each other...then I want to do what I can to support commitment.
Better, in relationships, to encourage stability and commitment
For the kids we can only say "Hear! Hear!"

A week and a half!

The best thing about this week is that we have got past 21 June...which in this southern hemisphere is midwinter. Already the days seem longer...sun rising earlier, and sun sets later...well here in Blackwood it's rained, there's been fog and so cold!!!
I have longed (in my new photographic incarnation) for the golden hour, just before the sun sets to show off what is most beautiful about our wintery environs.
Of course cold is relative...I did notice it was -2 in Launceston...but I don't think here we have got below 3 ...but apparently there was snow in Melrose.
I am looking forward to a visit to the centre in a few weeks.....I am sure it will be beautiful days, and beautiful people....and bl*&%^dy cold nights!!...but it is part of the bucket list.
Amidst all this N has been floating in and out. I hate it when people are at risk and don't realise it. And I realise that for all my piety and conviction there is little I can do...and what I do do seems pathetic.
Feel tired and ineffective....I suppose that's called winter

(a photo taken at Red Poles on the occasion of my 60th)

A homeless boy and a dead dog

Thinking about a homeless boy and a dead dog

Far-fall soft
leaves of autumn
tipping winter's balance

All too soon
it is weighted
thick fogs, rain and chill'
Tilting scales
so that no remedy
yet
can tip it back.
That will come with time
and time alone.

On such a day as this
the dog died.
She, too, tipped far
into an abyss
from which
she could not even stand
to escape from.
And so, I dragged
her heavy body
(she was not lifeless
even, though dead,
her body
carried so much of
my life
that she will never be
lifeless.
Still through the hawthorn
blows the cold wind)

Now today
plenty of tipping
and there is
an invincible boy
who thinks he is fine,
yet sinking fast.
out in the cold and wet
two girls
giggling at the adventure
do not begin to realise
what danger
winter is

Here, amidst all is beauty
winter threatens.
Lest we forget
your tyranny
-- there was a dead dog
let there not be a boy

June 19   2012

The Seven Decades....the 2010s

 Not much of this decade has yet elapsed but it has been eventful.
The youngest S  finished school and began University. The medium S was married to the wonderful DN.
K & I met in Singapore and went to the Phi Phi Islands.
S, S & I saw Bernadette Peters at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival ....the only person who had received a standing ovation before she even appeared on the stage
I went to Israel, for what was one of the most profound experiences of my life had a great trip to Bali in January 2012
We have just watched the Queen's Diamond jubilee...and here I am on the day I, myself, turn 60 I ask the same question as I asked at the beginning...how can this be so?
Yet it is!

The Seven Decades...the 2000s

It was always going to be a dramatic decade. Beginning with the Olympics. Two daughters graduated from two different Universities. Woo Hoo!
My mother, who had had a nasty stroke in the late 90s had a few good years, witnessed the birth of great grandchildren, and then she died in April 2002.This transition in families is quite profound as the last of a generation dies.
I took as my theme for her funeral homily...She had a helluva life! And moved on to say she would have called it a 'heaven of a life'. That heaven of a life was not expounded by me at her funeral, but by the power of her coffin being carried by her grandchildren ...first into St Cuthbert's Prospect and then in St Martin's Whyalla...she was placed in the same grave as my Dad in the Whyalla cemetery. And by four little eulogies which just told of what she had meant to her grandkids.
We had a lovely time with our property at Port Elliott and there was no doubt in my mind that I would retire there and grow proper vegetables with the reticulated sewerage water system working at its prime.
We had a wonderful dog called Tilly, who would have been such a good guard dog. She would have licked  any intruder to death!
We had a number of fun holidays in Bali including webcam shots (in real time) from Poppies. One of our favourite places.
Sue and I had a great holiday in Europe in 2007. For me, it was the holiday of visual art.
I am not a terribly visual person, I get it when I am told, but otherwise I am a bit slow.
But time after time I was hit by the power of the artist to affect the deep emotional impact.
I had seen small water lilies by Monet in a Melbourne exhibition and thought they were wonderful. I was determined to see as many as I could.
I had twigged that the Orangerie Museum close to the Louvre was particularly designed to house a number of these paintings...so was glad to be in Paris on the first sunday of the month (May 2007) when all the national galleries are free.
When I saw the first of the lilies, I felt my heart drop...I almost burst into tears. Not 60 cms square but metres high and metres wide.
So visually stunning that I was just overcome.
Equally stunning was the curious Picasso Museum de Paris....a motley collection of Picassos to be sure, but when you see (probably) two or three hundred, for the first time suddenly I understood why Picasso was so great.
My lovely friends Robyn and Gary told me I must go to the Rodin Museum. Like most people I knew the Thinker, and also the Burghers of Calais.  But I didn't understand the sculpture process, nor most of Rodin's other work. Well done to the French that they have got their artists trained to leave their art to the state. certainly Auguste Rodin did.
Sue didn't go (think she went to Lafayette), but I thought it wonderful.
As I walked home along the Bois de Boulogne (probably had a sentimental air) I thought I just had to sit down...I felt totally overwhelmed.
My good friend and parishioner Jenny Poole, who was a highly experienced Art teacher, told me this is the Stendhal Effect ( or syndrome) in which people become overwhelmed by exposure to high art.
There was much more in this trip too, London, St Bees, the Lake District, Whitehaven, EdinburghKuala Lumpur.
Despite the fact that we enjoyed so much this experience, and even each other's company Sue and I decided that we could not continue a marriage that was not only destroying both of us but was seriously affecting our kids as well. We separated in 2008....
In fact the day D asked me if he could marry my daughter was the day we told our kids that we were finally separating

Age

If I could have the time again,

would I do things differently?

The girl, trying to pierce

my melancholy

states the obvious.

“Do you really think

you would do things differently?”

I had

and have

no doubts

(this at least is certain)

“Yes, there are things

I would do differently!”

She was shocked

when I told her

just one thing

I wouldn’t do.

And she immediately spotted

the butterfly effect

“But then you wouldn’t have….”

Right, and wrong.

If I could have the time again

I would spend more time with my children,

I would be more generous,

less spiteful,

more reckless,

and be as outrageous

as I could and should be.

I would be more outspoken

and less-opinionated.

Less seduced by fame

and more devoted to intimacy.

I would say “No!” more

and “Yes!” even more.

Since it is not over

tomorrow

There seems little reason

why I can’t

just get on with it

The Seven Decades...The 1990s

Time moved in a different way in the 90s. Perhaps the greatest thing of this decade was the decision we made to have a third child.
It's a funny story in a way. I went to the Doc in 92 to arrange to get the snip. I came home with a form for both S & me to sign, and instead we decided to have another child.
The fourth S Clark was born in 1993. She has been a great delight, the intellectual and emotional combination of her sisters, and they are all persons in their own right!
I had the snip shortly afterwards.
We left Modbury in 1994 (a mistake I think in retrospect), I became the Priest to the City and we lived at Parkside in pleasant but bizarre Victorian villa that really suffered from the vagaries of Bay of Biscay soil.
In the Church in the 90s, women were ordained as priests. There were lots of amazing films Schindler's List, The Piano, Philadelphia, Groundhog Day, The Hunt for Red October....usw
There was lots of mad stuff going on in our personal lives. I think we left Modbury to divert our attention from our problems and we carried them over to the next job, house and phase.
I never found it possible to apply myself to the new complexities, and am a bit sorry about that.
So we moved again!
Within a couple of years S & I were separated for a short period of time. The youngest SC started kindergarten with both her parents separated. I found one of the most touching things was that when Christmas came round she made a clay model of her hand, the staff were sensitive enough to make one for each of us. Christmas that year was really hard.
We drifted back together .
Shortly afterwards S went to work and  we managed to buy a Beach House at Port Elliot.
Good thing to do.
It was also ways great to spend Christmas and New Year down there. I still remember the bitter cold of NY Eve 1999 as we stood watching fireworks at Victor. Happier times!

The Seven Decades - . 1980s

Every decade seems to get bigger and this one certainly was. It began with my ordination as a deacon in 1980 and then as a priest in 1981, I was married to S in 1982 and K was born in 1984, and the third S Clark was born in 1986.  I had two curacies, two new parishes,  my driving licence was suspended (twice), was a university chaplain, a hospital chaplain (twice), helped found a hospice and co-authored a book. Boy I was on fire!
My Dad died. I was unblocking the sink when the phone call came. He had just dropped dead. It took me at least three years to get over it. I think sons and fathers have a lot of issues, and I rather feel cheated that I had never actually been able to tell him that I did love him. And I did. He was an amazingly resilient man (like so many of his generation) who just got on with playing the cards he had been dealt. And some of them were not great. His family had been devastated by the death of my grandfather, Dad left school became a farm boy and just worked from then on.
He was a bright man.
Read and read and read; and once had a job which was so boring that he used to relieve the ennui by multiplying the six figure numbers on the dials in front of him....in his head.
He read his way through the three local libraries.
Can't help but wonder what might have happened if his intelligence had actually been tapped.
Can't undo the circumstances of life.
Equally well, I was not facing a lot of personal issues...about my marriage, my ministry, the changing world and church. And indeed about myself!!!
Can I also tell you about baby Nicholas, (because it happened about this time of year), on the night of my birthday (17th) ?
I was called up to Modbury Hospital to baptise a baby at 1 a.m. in the morning...when I got there I was told he was dead. It was so sad. Mum held him so caringly, and was surrounded  by her lovely husband and both their families.
There is no need to baptise a new baby who has died...the Book of Common Prayer (which I love so much) assures us that children who have died are not damned.
Let's face it they have not sinned! ....but I chose to baptise Nicholas, even though he had been declared dead...it would have been cruel to that broken family to do otherwise.
When I went back in the morning to check on Mum and Dad I was told that Mum had gone to Flinders with the baby!!!!!!!!
At 4 a.m. in the morning the baby was found alive in a side ward. The subsequent coroner's inquest (at which Mum and Dad were pitted against lawyers for the doctors, the hospital and the nurses' union) found that the State run hospital had locked away equipment because it was a Friday night. That equipment may well have observed that Nicholas was in serious distress
At 3 p.m. or so on the Saturday afternoon he died ...perhaps again!
No I don't think that I miraculously revived a dead child; though I love telling the story and watching people make that connection.
No one was really held to account, though perhaps machines are not locked away on Friday afternoons so that hospitals can be neat and tidy.
The Video really came into its own in the 70s. Our first remote control had about 4 metres of cord which you plugged into the VCR....but you could record a week's worth of Days of our Lives when you went away and S (the mother of my children) used to like to watch them one after the other!
I remember our great friend, Ness Davey, who was an ancient lady who really loved our family and was for a while my Churchwarden...probably our first bay sitter. And Beryl, who was the first of the brain tumour deaths I encountered. It was a privilege to visit her day by day in Mary Potter Hospice; but sad .

The Seven Decades - The 1970's

Although I made the observation in the last post that the adolescent years were a time of great change (and they were) an awful lot happened in the 70s too
I saw the greatest piece of theatre I have ever seen...Peter Brook's production of a Midsummer Night's Dream...at the Adelaide Festival Theatre. And there was lots and lots of small plays and ensemble theatre, Alex Buzo, David Williamson ...and films...Cabaret, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Satyricon...(far too many to mention)
I was also in a variety of plays....The Tempest, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, All Well that End's Well, The Bacchae, and a couple of mad Noel Coward plays
I got a job, went to University, got another job, went to Europe, went to theological college...and there I was sitting at the end of 1979 waiting for the gift of ordination.
 In Australia the most outrageous political event took place when the Whitlam Government was dismissed .. but although Whitlam was a visionary and we have much to be thankful for...they were also politically naive. A disease which seems to beset Labor governments and looks about to overtake another one again.
Four years Tertiary education seems a distant memory, though it was time (for me) of great personal growth both intellectually and socially.
It was time of great religious growth for me. Though perhaps not as much as I thought. Finding a 'system' or 'style' of Christianity which I grew to love and which seemed to fit my personality, Anglo Catholicism, was a great gift of this period. But I also realise now that I fell foul of a ruthless megalomaniac who seemed intent on gaining an army of supporters rather than encouraging people to grow spiritually and intellectually. I am sure he would deny that, and indeed would even argue (that was his forte) that in making bigots he was leading people in a way he thought they should go.
Personally I love the eccentricity and extremeness of Anglo Catholicism, but it took me many years to realise I had also been wounded by it. Twas ever the case!.
I enjoyed teaching...but I was always going to be a priest. I am one of these fortunate people who has known that call since I was 10 or 12 years old. I don't think this is because I am psychologically inept or weak, it is the way that God chose to engage me.
When ever I am feeling that everything has changed so much that I want to get out, I also need to recall that I know the truth of my call...and have known it since I was young.
So St Barnabas' Theological College was both good and bad for me. Good because it was the prelude to ordination. I am very grateful for the bizarre amounts of time I was able to spend translating Hebrew....I just wish I could retain it better now.
But more than this....there was a deep  spirituality, prayer and worship that was inculcated without which I could never have survived (and many didn't)
There was also lots of stuff not broached....which meant that though I could start learning how to be a priest; I was in no way equipped for the great changes that have hit the world and the Church since 1980.

Seven decades -1960's

The most amazing thing about the second decade of life is the degree of change that takes place. You start off a  boy and end up a young man. It is disconcerting to say the least.
It is said of the 60s that if you remember it then you weren't there; that, of course, is contingent upon your being a crack head...which I wasn't.
But it was an amazing time in the life of the world. One only has to say Beatles, and that alone explains what a fantastic decade it was. But one could equally well say Moon Landing.
For my family in 1967 we left England and came to South Australia, we did this with a certain sense of sadness. The sort of sadness that anyone will have in leaving the country of their birth, but with no regret and it was certainly the right thing to do....if that construction can be made.
Grammar School in England was very enthralling. I am glad for the opportunity, in particular, of having been exposed to the learning of both French and German...and I rather wish I was better at both (or at least one). School in Australia was quite different, and in some senses I look back and think that it lacked the rigour that I probably needed at the time and so coasted a bit. Regrets, I have a few.
I had a mad group of friends who enjoyed doing plays and music...and of course there was Monty Python (here)
An extraordinary decade really

The Seven Decades-1950's

To quote C Dickens "Chapter 1. I am Born".
I always remember wondering as a small child what it would be like in 2000....and it seemed impossibly far away.  And here we are 12 years after that event.
Well as we know from the last week, 60 years ago the King died and some four months later I was born (no logical connection)...but it does mean that I have known only one monarch both as a citizen of the UK and Australia. She has been a good Queen. I hope that she may be the last monarch Australia has ....but this is not the week to say that.
Strangely, I realised some years ago that what I have always taken to be my earliest memory is associated with the Coronation. I have a quite clear memory of a children's party at which local children gathered in a local tennis or bowls club. I had always thought I was about 3 or 4. When trying to think what this might have been I came to the conclusion it was Coronation party. That means it was 1953...and I must have been 1! That was quite mind-blowing.
The 50-s  had about them the greyness and dampness of post-war England. Though equally well, I also remember lovely summer holidays at St Bees, enjoying school, joining Cubs, and singing in the Church Choir.
I also loved Sunday school, and am deeply thankful to St Charles Moncrieff who taught Sunday school and gave me the gift of the bible story...parables and the Old Testament heroes....a quiet man who fought at the Somme...and you would never have known he knew such pain. But he and Mary, his devoted wife, had deep faith ....mine pales into insignificance.
In politics there was the Suez crisis, which I knew nothing about...but which is perhaps the first time I recognised that sometimes all is not well in the world.
We listened to the radio...comedy, serials and music and for some bizarre reason my favourite song was "The Yellow Rose of Texas!!!" which I guess was the Mitch Miller version of 1955