Don't kid yourself

While in not way wanting to underestimate how culpable churches are in child abuse it would be foolish to assume that only churches have perpetrated sexual abuse.
I look back on my very brief time as a teacher in the SA Education department and can see that in the 70s there were probably things going on that in the 21st century would be regarded as highly suspect. That was then this is now. My feeling is that if you begin to peel back the layers we discover the problem is wider than institutions .....it is about men and what we have been allowed to get away with. Or rather what we have allowed ourselves to accused of.
Churches of course are full of men, so is the Scouts and various sporting organisations, the army and lots of workplaces, surf life savers, university colleges and so on  ....do you get my point?
It would be easy to say this is a church only problem...it is not.
If we do not go root and branch then we will address only a fraction of the situation and the cause.

The bookies got it right

There is a certain irony that English bookmakers shut the shop two days before Justin Welby was announced as the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
But they got it right and here is Welby's statement on You Tube



I hesitate to say "He seems to be the right choice!" Because that's what my very good friend said about Rowan Williams (and I agree) but that poor man has had an awful time of it.
But he seems frank, spiritual and unflappable.
He is not my type of Anglican, an Anglo Catholic, but I am also sure he is not a Jensenite either.

Americanisation

When we were children our greatest delight...and as I remember it source of huge fun...was bobbing for apples on Halloween...which is tonight, 31st October. the Eve of All Hallows' or All Saints'
I don't recall it having great (or any) religious significance.
Apples would also have string pushed through them and suspended from the ceiling, hands behind your back you would try to bite them.
It was great fun.
We also made lanterns...remember that in the Northern hemisphere the dark is crashing in. I don't think we ever ruined a pumpkin;  we used, rather, large turnips (probably what I now know as a mangle wurzel...which my dear friend and parishioner R gives me and they are so good....) and patiently dug the middle out of them. Once we had done this an eyes nose and mouth was pierced through the shell and a candle could be placed inside to give that wonderful eerie effect.
But no pumpkins. Indeed I don't think I'd seen a pumpkin until we came to Oz.
Nowadays I note that Coles sells "Halloween pumpkins" especially for today
They don't appear to be food...they do appear to be expensive.
As the years have gone on we have heard of this thing called "Trick or Treat" which seems to have obsessed the US for 50 years.
I just don't understand how this works. It would seem that parents allow children to get dressed up as ghosts, fairies and vampires etc.
And then they visit their neighbours saying "Trick or Treat"....as far as I can tell this never happened in England or SA (until recently)
By and large the wise victim is going to say "treat" and give the callers some sweet treat.
I can't imagine anyone saying "trick"...because then, it seems, they throw eggs or mud or ...worse
at you, yours and your house. On the whole it doesn't seem that fantastic

Of course this is also a different era. Do we really want to send our kids off to houses of people we only vaguely know....a breakdown of the social hub...and allow them to accept "treats" from strange people like me.
I don't think so.
Incidentally I have a bowl full of choccy treats, just in case.

Actually it has never happened.
But I remember the happy evenings of apple bobbing in our childhood with great fondness!!

Ohh and I bought $10 worth of chocs just  in case!

What passes for debate

Bishop: "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones"; 
Curate: "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!"
"True Humility" by George du Maurier, originally published in Punch, 1895

Our Archbishop rightly reminded us how our pioneer first bishop
Augustus Short, was keen to keep before us
the need for vigorous struggle ( a couple of wider reflections here)
In particular though often we think of him as a typical Victorian conservative
but he was also a pioneer colonial bishop
keen to move the colonial church beyond the limits of the established
C of E
He, like others alongside, saw that non English dioceses needed
to be able to make effective decisions without referring everything back to Canterbury or Westminster.
Bishops clergy and laity had to develop a way of talking effectively to each other and to expedite this efficiently and effective...and they saw a Synod (basically a meeting of representatives of  the whole organisation)
as the means of doing this
The Church would not just be an arm of government
it would be Bishop clergy and people working together.
So the Synod is a crown of churches, and indeed the Australian churches played no small part in helping a worldwide Anglican Communion to develop something which did not really exist in the State church in the old country
Our Adelaide Synod met over the last weekend. It was a real curate's egg...parts of it were indeed excellent. But quite a lot of it was tedious and boring, angst-ridden, or just offensive.
One things that is of particular concern to me was the debates that we were trying to have about some aspects of human sexuality.
The particular concern I have is that we seemed to spend more time discussing whether or not we were going to discuss the matter than we did discussing the matter.
I think this is an unhelpful ploy, that has been used at other times.I noticed for example in Stuart Piggin's essay about how the ordination of women debate was controlled in the Diocese of Sydney (outlined in the recently released Preachers, Prophets and Heretics a history and reflection on 20 years of ordained women's ministry in the Anglican Church of Australia ) he suggests (see for example pp 190-195) that shutting down debate and discussion  was precisely the strategy the ultra conservatives used to prevent anything happening.
There was a certain sense of irony that "Preachers Prophets and Heretics" was formally launched  at this Synod when on more than one occasion the debate on issues to do with listening to particular pro-gay Christian voices.
We spent more time discussing whether we should discuss the motion than we did in considering what the particular voices might contribute, or indeed what other (perhaps opposing) voices  it might also be useful to hear.
Shame on us for then also deciding (however narrowly) that we would not even have the discussion.
I can't, and don't, believe that shutting our eyes and pretending a problem is too hard for us to discuss is a healthy and honest way to proceed. I suspect Holy Augustus would agree!

Despite my lauding of Synod as a noble idea, it is also a treacherous place.
Maybe this is true of everywhere!.

The window of opportunity

Our Bishop reminded us tonight that the Diocese of Adelaide has a window of opportunity. Three years ago we were rather desperately wounded and weak and not capable of doing much.
Three years in the future our ageing profile will be that much older that the opportunity may well have passed (I am not entirely convinced that old people are unadventurous...many are real go getters and achievers...but let's move on)
So now...he suggests in his Synod address....is a time to act.
It was a call to action and well-received I suspect.
The people gathered in St Peter's Cathedral (though old) were also ready to hear the call to move forward.
I said to my lovely friend as we drove home that I would love to take the opportunity.
Wouldn't it be wonderful, for example, to offer to use St John's Church as a dedicated music space for our next door neighbour Coromandel Valley Primary School.
Do we have this sort of vision? Could we move out of our fortress and allow ourselves to serve?
I suspect we are slow, or reluctant, possibly even resistant...but maybe we can challenge ourselves...wouldn't that be wonderful. The thought of our lovely church being used to enrich and enliven the hearts of the young is just enlivening

The cost of petty politics

I intend (when I get quarter of an hour) to sit down and make an estimate of how much Question Time in the Federal Parliament might cost [Would be interested to read your own calculations in the comments section]
I suppose you might take in the salaries of all MPs converted to an hourly rate.
The cost of a Press Gallery. The Parliamentary Staff
All that free water that keeps getting handed out to members!
The maintenance and upkeep of the Federal Parliament, the production of Hansard
Televising, news coverage etc. etc. etc

You might then analyse a typical session...and delete the time wasting, posturing, procedural games. And the Dorothy Dixers (questions that the Government asks itself)
Productivity would then most likely be halved at least. The cost therefore effectively doubled.

While some might argue that this is good for democracy, there are others of us who would suggest that it is an enormous waste of money spent appearing to be democratic

Too slippery by far

The Parliamentary events of the last day or so are sickening. Ironically the only one who seems ultimately to have acted properly is Mr Slipper, though perhaps he could have resigned earlier.
The Opposition was right to condemn the whole scale hypocrisy of critiquing one person's sexism and not another's.  The Government was right to condemn the hypocrisy of claiming high moral ground (always a danger)...nothing could be more bizarre than hearing Abbott say "The one word this PM can never say is 'Sorry!'"
What short memories we have. PMs (other than K Rudd) don't seem to like to say sorry...and it seems to me  the long-term intransigence of PM Howard with regard to the apology to indigenous people was of much worse import than the rubbish we have been served up for the last six months.
The total hypocrisy of the constant charge..."Wasting taxpayer's money!" must surely be levelled at everyone in the Parliament.
Whilst struggling to govern this year has wasted thousands of dollars on ridiculous Parliamentary procedural games. These are not about due process, they are about raw and naked pursuit of power. One might say this is what politics is about...however I thought it should be about government.

Amazing trip

I have just had the most amazing trip to the north and west of South Australia.
To be sure it was a sort of a 'bucket list' that was generated in the wake of becoming 60.
I am rather over it!
Thank goodness for something I read which convinced me that 'bucket lists' were a bad idea.
But it was good to do..
Five of us, 50+ guys ( we all needed to get up at 3 a.m.!!! at least once during the trip) in some of the most remote parts of our state.
After 3 days I was clear that what ever answers I thought I was going to get had suddenly evaporated.  There are no simple answers.
Don't mean to be preachy but fortuitously (as so often happens) the first Sunday I came back the book of Proverbs reminded us (Proverbs 1:22) "How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will....fools hate knowledge?"
There are no simple answers. Rich aboriginal culture. Dire poverty. Squalor. Government crassness. Waste of money. Gentleness. Violence. Rubbish. Dead cars. Depth of humanity. The clash of the past and the present .....and so much more
I will try to unfold this in the next couple of weeks
There will not be any answers

Eviction!

It's Sunday 6.30 p.m.
TV Choice is SBS news ...a wonderful Compass story on ABC about African Dads and their kids...and Big Brother...the first eviction.
I plead no contest!

But then I am also watching Spicks and Specks for the umpteenth time instead of the news.

Just imagine

Today (Sat 11 August ) there have been a number of rallies country-wide in favour of legalising same-sex marriage.
During the week I have thought how useful it might be for us to engage in some imagining.
Imagine, for example, that the reason procreative marriage is so important has its roots (sic) historically not in some existential verity but  in the fact that communities are flimsy. And dependent on the succession of generations

This is very obvious in the Old Testament, the patriarch Abraham longs for descendants as numerous as the stars and as uncountable as the sand grains on the beach. This in fact is the promise of God to him.
It is an idea that has entranced me about my own family.
(Though we appear to be stalled in the next generation ....I am sure this won't last for ever...and any way there are already great nieces and nephews and I am an unashamed and proud patriarch!)

You don't have to wholeheartedly accept this idea, but it is not beyond the bounds of credibility that tenuous communities worried about their survival would feel that it is important that numbers increase .
It was important to have sons and daughters. Sex was about and for procreation. [This would seem to be, by and large, the Roman Catholic Church's position about the purpose of marriage]

This is of course has a certain truth about it,  but also not so urgent. Communities are (by and large) not on the edge of extinction.  It is no longer  necessary to breed ourselves into existence. Rather the reverse.
We are in danger in various parts of the world, not the least in our fragile continent, of threatening our delicate world with too many people.
So let's imagine, what seems to be scientifically obvious. There is no longer a breeding imperative!

Let us also imagine that we are now mature enough to recognise that the human being is a sexual being.
If modern psychology has taught us nothing else it is that sex is not shameful, rude, or embarrassing ...but rather that it is key to our human identity. The human being is a sexual being.
Psychology would tell us that to be a whole person we need sexual fulfilment (along with a whole lot of other things...emotional, creative, spiritual, physical, intellectual...) but certainly the healthy person will have a mature and healthy sexuality.
Now we don't have to imagine very hard what we now know.
Our world is almost full and sex doesn't particularly (or at all) require us to generate children.
BUT, the human being is a sexual being. And some human beings are not sexually attracted to members of the other sex.
No one should be being denied a healthy sexual relationship.
They can choose such....but where do we get the idea that God requires celibacy for the homosexual.
Indeed to do so is to actually say you are not to be a full person.
So we play games
The Catholic Church has promoted this long untenable proposition that sex can only be about making babies.
Life, touch, sex education, the Pill, psychology etc. etc. tells us that sex is good and no one need to not be sexual.
BUT some people will not be having sex with the opposite gender!  They are just not made that way.


Let us honour the fact that men and women, women and women, men and men,  women and men will also say "I commit!" to another person . Just imagine

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