The Stone of Madness

Posted on by
4

When I was away over Christmas I read Magda Subanzki’s autobiography ‘Reckoning’. You might know Magda better as Sharyn Strezleckie (from Kath and Kim – she is Kim’s second best friend) or Esme Hoggett from Babe, or to take it back a bit you may remember Michelle – the super-bogan from the Comedy Company with her mate Ferret? And there is of course Magda the Irish dancer…

Subanszki is one of Australia’s most successful comedians and her book is a gem. A really honest and raw piece of writing as she tries to come to grips with who she is in this world.

The opening of the book tells the story of her Polish father – who she describes as an assassin – because that’s what he was during the war. He killed people – many people – as a young man in the Polish undergound resistance army . And she writes about how she felt a terrible weight of shame because of her father. Later she felt shame from her migrant background – her struggle with weight gain and her sexuality.

But the book opens with a powerful image. She writes of a painting she has seen in the Museo Del Prado in Madrid, by a guy called Heironymous Bosch around 1494. It’s called ‘The Extraction of the Stone of Madness’ and it depicts the ‘medical procedure’ called ‘trepanation’ which was in those days supposed to be the cure for insanity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What that means more specifically is that the surgeons drilled/hacked into your skull and then removed – something – what they called the stone of madness – and surprisingly many people survived… I doubt anyone went back for further treatment, but people made it out alive.

It was this curious belief that part of our brokenness was found in our physiology and if we just sort that out all will be well.

What Subanszki writes next is what I found intriguing. She says:

I swear sometimes I can feel that presence in my head. A palpable presence, an unwelcome thing that I want to squeeze out of my skull like a plum pip, using nothing but the sheer pressure of thought and concentration. If I just think hard enough… 

 

That stone was my father’s legacy to me, his keepsake. Beneath his genial surface, somewhere in the depths, I would sometimes catch a glimpse — of a smooth, bone-coloured stone. A stone made of calcified guilt and shame. I could feel it. I can feel it still.

 

This highly competent, very successful and much loved Aussie icon speaks in a very honest way of her struggle with guilt and shame – a struggle that goes on to this day – and those themes play out through her book.

And it’s a struggle beneath the surface of an otherwise apparently all together life.

What I love about Subanzki’s book is that she has been gutsy enough to say what plenty of other people feel but don’t dare say. ‘I’m not ok – there is something wrong with me – I can’t even articulate it properly – but it ends up with me feeling guilt and shame. And I wish I could shake it – but I can’t…’

I think if we were having this conversation with her, many of us would just want to reassure her – ‘you’re ok – there’s nothing wrong with you – just believe you are ok and you will be fine’.

But… I think she mighta tried that…

I’d want to say two things to Magda – two things I believe we can take from the Bible that speak to who she is – in fact they speak to all of us because what she experiences is not unique

The first is that yes you are ok – you are much more than ok! You are made in the image of God. You are created in the likeness of God and that is good! You aren’t a random evolutionary misfit that popped up on the planet by chance. The Psalms says he knew you before you were born and he has plans for you – he wants the best for you. More than that he loves you.

The creator of the universe sees you and loves you

You matter to him – you are of immense worth.

But I’d also want to say ‘you’re right – in your feeling that something is wrong – that you’re not ok – you’re spot on – none of us are ok.’

Sooner or later we all feel what you described – that sense of guilt and shame about our life – that somehow it doesn’t stack up – that somehow we are less than we could be.’ That we have done things we never thought we’d do and been people we never thought we’d be…

And we bear the guilt and shame of our stuff ups. And no matter how we try – Nothing we do can fix it.

Perhaps you might have either seen the movie The Kite Runner or read the book. It follows the story of a young boy called Amir who abandons and betrays his friend Hassan. Hassan lives in his home where his father is a servant. One day Amir watches him get brutally beaten up and assaulted and he says nothing – he does nothing. In fact when he gets home he has Hassan’s father dismissed from his job because he can’t live with the shame of his own failure.

The book opens with these words ‘there is a way to be good again’. And the rest of the story looks at how Amir seeks to atone for his failure and his betrayal to help his friend – how he tries hard to erase his guilt and shame and find his way in life again – to be ‘good again’.

That theme of redemption is common in literature – and my hunch is that it’s so common in our stories because it is so common in humanity. The quest for a life that is noble and honourable and good and the desire to overcome the evil that lurks in us – to somehow ‘right the ship’.

None of us wants to live a bad life. None of us wants to screw up our own lives or the lives of others. But because we are naturally self centred – because it is part of our DNA to seek our own interests first – that is the trajectory our life will take unless there is another power at work. Unless a new imagination of life can grasped, we will inevitably find our lives veering in that direction. Like a car with dodgy steering it takes all of your effort just to keep the thing on the road.

Most people live trying to balance the scales of life so that the ‘good’ they do outweighs ‘bad’ but they never really know if they’ve done enough – or if they’ve done enough if that ‘enough’ was done with the right motives – and will it count?

How do you become ‘good’ again? Can you become good again?… How can you erase guilt and shame? What does it mean to live well – to live a full life – to live in ‘shalom’ – peace – wholeness and goodness as God intends?

With your iphone you can plug it in and restore it – take it back to its factory settings. How can you do that with life?

It begins with accepting the reality that you are broken – you are not the person you hoped you would be. Sooner or later as you go thru this life you come to the dark realisation that you are messed up and your brokenness affects everything about you and everything you do.

Some of us hide that well – we appear to be ‘together’ – while for others of us it just leaks out all over the place and there is a big ‘mess’. And I’m not talking about being criminally messed up – I’m just talking about realising that because of who you are life does not seem to work as it should.

Because of who you are you never feel content. Because of who you are your marriage is always on the edge. Because of the person you are its hard to keep a job – or its hard to have friends. Because of who you are your finances are in a mess. Because of who you are your kids are living dysfunctional, destructive lives.

And you despise your part in your own dysfunction, but you don’t know what to do… You don’t have an answer…except to try harder next time.

And even if your life is not in chaos – you still know in your guts that something is not right. The quest to attain to the kind of life we hope for feels always out of reach.

It’s where the Jesus story offers such great hope. There is a ‘way to be good again’, but it doesn’t stem from our own efforts and our own ability to right the ship. It comes from his willingness to take the penalty for our sin and to rise again and offer that power to us to follow him and live differently.

There is way to be good again, but it’s rooted in God’s love for us and his grace rather than in earning our way back into his favour. I’ve said it before ‘Grace trumps Karma every time!’ The Bible says in Romans that God has shown us how much he loves us in that while we were sinners – broken and messed up – Christ died for us.

There is a way to be good again, but it finds its energy in the salvation God offers through Jesus rather than in our own moral actions. In his letter to the church in Ephesus Paul wrote that it is by God’s grace we have been saved through faith in Jesus so that no one can boast. It is Jesus who is the source of life – the source of salvation and nothing we can do ourselves.

Its totally counterintuitive and this isn’t a theme we see in much literature. Most of our redemption stories are people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and ‘making good’.

If you look at your life with a degree of despair sometimes, then that’s not a bad thing. It’s an acceptance of reality – that you are broken. Plenty of people can’t see their own brokenness. – plenty of people feel their own ‘stone of madness’ deep in the psyche. But it’s where you go from there that matters. You can’t fix yourself, but God can.

God wants to – its why he sent Jesus to be the one who dies for us – the one who takes the hit for all of our stupid choices and terrible stuff ups. He takes what was due to us and allows us to walk free into life – right with God and empowered to live in a whole new way.

There is a way to be good again and that way is Jesus.

Doing it For the Boys

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve read it twice now, but I still haven’t really got my thoughts together on Winton’s latest novel, The Shepherd’s Hut.

The first read I was in page turner mode and just chasing the story to its end, but after getting there I wanted to read it again to savour some of the insights Winton offers on the struggle to be a good man in a world that is often against you.

Whatever else he is gifted at by way of writing there’s no question Winton can choose some wonderful names for his characters. Mort Flack, Quick Lamb and Pikelet are just a few, but in his most recent work Jaxie Clackton meets Fintan McGillis and both are as wonderful, colourful characters as their names would suggest.

Jaxie is a broken, angry kid from a one horse town in the mid west of WA, whose mum has died leaving him with a violent and screwed up alcoholic father who he describes like this:

“He wouldn’t give you the sweat off his balls, the old Captain, but when it come to dishing out a bit of biff when you weren’t looking, well, then he was like f…ing Santa.”

As the story begins Jaxie comes home to find his abusive father dead under his ute. Being a tightarse the old man had tried using the kangaroo jack for his mechanical work instead of axel stands, but the car had tumbled on him and crushed him. While everyone in town hated him, Jaxie fears he will be blamed for the death and so hits the road on foot bound for ‘Magnet’ where his girlfriend (and cousin…) lives, hoping to escape the madness and find a proper life.

He is a badly broken kid – but a kid with hopes for a better life – a normal life – even an appearance of a normal life – but he doesn’t know how to get there.

His journey takes him across the Mid West salt flats where he discovers an old hut with its one inhabitant – Fintan MacGillis, a ‘defrocked’ priest who has been dropped out here for his crimes (we never find out what they were – but Winton makes the point of telling us he wasn’t a pedophile) and has lived alone now for years with only the occasional food drop as human contact.

MacGillis is a good man – but also a flawed man and the remainder of the story explores the relationship between these two. Jaxie is cagey, suspicious and relates to MacGillis like a dog that has been kicked too many times. MacGillis seems at ease with himself – settled in his identify and with no need to impress or win Jaxie over. There is no posturing with MacGillis – he is too old to be bothered, but he seems to know what Jaxie needs – a man who will do the righty by him and not screw him over – someone who will listen and not judge – who will ‘be there’ and put up with his shit – and Jaxie dishes out a fair amount of it…

I remember once buying a rescue dog on Gumtree and seeing this timid, frightened dog come alive as it realised it was safe and it was loved. Its that kind of slow burn that we see in Jaxie as he relates to MacGillis. It seems Winton has been doing some thinking and writing around the idea of ‘Toxic Masculinity’ and this novel is one of his foils to the devastating  brokenness we see in so many young men.

Winton describes what he sees happening with young men:

Boys and young men are so routinely expected to betray their better natures, to smother their consciences, to renounce the best of themselves and submit to something low and mean. As if there’s only one way of being a bloke, one valid interpretation of the part, the role, if you like.

 

There’s a constant pressure to enlist, to pull on the uniform of misogyny and join the Shithead Army that enforces and polices sexism. And it grieves me to say it’s not just men pressing those kids into service. 

 

These boys in the surf. The things they say to me! The stuff I hear them saying to their mates! Some of it makes you want to hug them. Some of it makes you want to cry. Some of it makes you ashamed to be a male. Especially the stuff they feel entitled or obliged to say about girls and women.

 

What I’ve come to notice is that all these kids are rehearsing and projecting. Trying it on. Rehearsing their masculinity. Projecting their experimental versions of it. And wordlessly looking for cues the whole time. Not just from each other, but from older people around them, especially the men. Which can be heartbreaking to witness, to tell you the truth. Because the feedback they get is so damn unhelpful. If it’s well-meant it’s often feeble and half-hearted. Because good men don’t always stick their necks out and make an effort.

 

Winton’s picture of the broken teenage boy is as tragic as it is accurate – the pressure to conform – to ‘renounce the best of themselves and submit to something low and mean’ – or as he puts it so well ‘to join the Shithead Army’ and continue to enforce the destructive culture they have grown up in.

This is tragic stuff he is writing about and if it were a piece of non-fiction it would be a lament about the state of masculinity in our culture today.  I’ve also sat in the surf and heard those same conversations, and the unashamed misogyny he describes .I’ve literally paddled away at times because I’ve been at a loss for what to say and all I’ve had left in me was rage.

I’ve had a few conversations with friends about this book and several times found myself fighting back tears because I’ve been so close to the impact of this abuse on a kid like Jaxie and I’ve seen someone fighting thru, trying to be a ‘good man’, but all the time having to resist the script that is so embedded in their psyche. There have been days this summer where I have felt like a MacGillis type listening silently as the vitriol and anger spills out, as the rehearsed script gets enacted, but then listening more deeply to the raw pain of someone who doesn’t want to be ‘that bloke’. Its broken my heart at times.

I’ve had someone suggest the ending of the book is unsatisfying, as if he got bored and just wound it up so he could move on to something else, but I found the ending every bit as powerful as I am guessing it was intended.

Read on if you wish… it might spoil it for you…

You see in that critical moment MacGillis doesn’t let him down – he doesn’t give him up.  MacGillis – for all his flaws does the right thing by Jaxie at the cost of his own life – and Jaxie sees and experiences that a new way is possible.

You don’t have to be a selfish prick to be a man – you can be a good, kind, gentle, courageous man. I love that Winton has wrapped this message in such a raw and brutal story because it highlights the beauty of MacGillis sacrifice. In the end the reality is we are all broken but we still get to choose how we deal with that brokenness, but if you’ve never seen an example of a better way then you are stuck. I get the sense this novel is ‘for the boys’, the Jaxie Clackton’s of Australia (and elsewhere) who need men in their lives who will show them a different way to live.

MacGillis doesn’t ever get preachy – but his life speaks loud to Jaxie. There is another way to be a man.

Because Peace is Always a Win

Posted on by
2

After a 40km drive down a dusty corrugated road we arrived at what was once the town of Wittenoom – in its day the largest town in the Pilbara region – but now literally a ghost town – a town site with run down houses that have simply been vacated and the contents left to rot or be looted.

We cruised in and parked up near the old convent and guest house – 3 carloads of us – and got out to take a walk around and see what the place looked like. It had been a few years since we were last there and I was curious to see what had changed. Since first going there back in 2011 it has become a bit of a favourite place of mine for solitude and quiet.

But on this particular morning it was anything but quiet.

We got out of the cars into the blazing sun and within seconds heard an angry Eastern European voice yelling expletives. Many of them – aggressive and clearly directed at us. At first we wondered if the bloke was yelling at his dog – but slowly we realised – nope… it was definitely us… Essentially he was telling us (in vernacular vocabulary) to get out of there.

What to do?…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A rumble went around the group – maybe we just get back in the cars and get out of there – is it safe?. This one resident (one of three or four who still remain in the town) clearly didn’t want us there and who knows where it could go… More than likely he would have a loaded gun in that house of his and we really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his anger.

I was for taking a walk around – but I didn’t want to put anyone in danger – or have people feeling scared. Then Danelle said to me ‘Do you want me to go over and talk to him?’

‘Yeah’ I said ‘That sounds like a good idea.’

You’re probably thinking ‘Really?… What part of sending your wife to speak to a crazy dude sounds like a good idea?’

I know it may seem like an odd course of action, but over the years we have discovered that there are times when Danelle can walk into a volatile situation and bring calm and this just felt like one of those moments.

Another murmur around the group about whether its wise / safe etc, but by the time we had agreed she was already half way there. She walked slowly towards this older man with his wild bushy beard and menacing tone and said ‘Hi – sorry – were we disturbing you?’

He launched into a rant about the place being private property and people coming and running amok and leaving a mess. She responded by agreeing that what had happened wasn’t cool and then let him know she grew up in the area and wanted to show her friends around the town if that was ok with him.

Instantly he softened – she had found some common ground and shown she wasn’t there to fight him. They chatted about where she had lived, her memories of the area and as their conversation ended he said ‘ok sure – look around but close the doors after you.’

She strolled back and gave us the green light – now somewhat of a hero in the group for disarming Mr Angry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what happened there?

We hit a volatile situation and she made peace. In that moment there was a choice to ignore him, escalate the conflict or to run away. In each of those scenarios no one wins, but by walking over and speaking to him she gave him an opportunity to be someone with real concerns and she allowed him to see reasonable people who didn’t want to destroy his town. I’d suggest she showed him a different way to deal with conflict.

And why didn’t I go with her?

Because she’s good at this stuff – at disarming angry people and bringing calm. There have been other testosterone charged situations where I have hung back – not out of fear, but out of wisdom, knowing that Danelle will be able to get a hearing and often bring peace, whereas my presence (as a bloke) could just antagonise and bring more conflict.

In the end we went for a walk and explored some pretty quirky old buildings, and enjoyed a piece of West Oz history that may not be there for much longer. We took a drive out to the gorge and the old mine site and then made our way out of there, but the talk of the day was how Danelle had the courage to go and talk to the angry bloke and brought peace

I’m sure there are times when it wouldn’t be wise to do what she did, but for the most part it just takes a bit of courage and kindness to see not a madman – but a man – a man who wanted to be heard and taken seriously.

So many times in life when conflict hits we have the opportunity to make peace or to seek a ‘win’. I like what the Bible says ‘as much as it depends on you live at peace with everyone’, appreciating we can’t control what other people do but we can choose our own course of action and a ‘win’ is always when we find peace and relationship rather than one person getting their way at the expense of the other.

The Olive Man

Posted on by
3

A few weeks back in the middle of the afternoon there was a knock at our bottom door and I went downstairs to see who it could be. An older man probably in his 80’s was standing there and as I opened it he asked ‘I was wondering if you had any plans for your olives?’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked totally clueless as to what he was talking about.

‘You have an olive tree down there’, he said pointing towards our shed. ‘Do you mind if I pick them?’

In my head I’m thinking ‘Really?… you approach a complete stranger to ask if you can have his olives?… That’s weird…’

I’m also thinking ‘really – I have an oIive tree? I had no clue’.

I hadn’t got my bearings at all with the situation. I was expecting a courier, or a JW, not an ‘olive collector’. I mean who does that!? I didn’t have a pre-scripted fob off response for the ‘olive man’ so I reverted to my telemarketer spiel and offered a ‘nah she’ll be right mate.’

‘I guess that’s a no then?’ he said as he began to turn around sadly. ‘I’d give you some of the oil you know’.

And as he said that I became a little curious. I started to wonder firstly ‘where is this olive tree?’ and secondly maybe he really is just offering to pick them.

I wandered down the front steps and he pointed to the tree.

‘Oh…’ I said, ‘so we do have an olive tree.’

‘I’m John’ he said. ‘I live in Two Rocks. You might know my daughter?’ And he mentioned a local business person. I knew who she was.

I began to realise this wasn’t a runaway dementia patient. This bloke was genuine. We chatted briefly and eventually with some bemusement I said ‘Sure John – knock yourself out. Take as many as you like…’

I had assumed he was a local rambling eccentric with an olive fetish, but at the same time pretty harmless so I was happy to oblige. End of story.

Then in a recent conversation with friends they tell me of their Italian neighbour who came over to pick their olives and make oil with it. I laughed – a second odd bod – fancy that?!

And then I learnt that this is a ‘thing’. There are people who seek out olive trees and who are happy to pick the olives and make stuff out of them and its been going on for ages – its just part of being in community with others.

I felt a little sad that I had put John in the nutbag category pretty quickly because he was doing something that didn’t compute with my way of life. He was used to being in a community where we shared what we have and I was saying effectively ‘no – go away – let the olives fall to the ground.’

It was just a small reminder of how communities can be when we allow people into our lives and how we have been shaped to protect and guard ‘what’s ours’.

Perhaps if we picked one another’s olives, mowed one another’s lawns and engaged with one another’s lives on a more regular basis we would enjoy healthier and happier communities. No question about it…

So if one day an elderly ethnic man comes to your door asking for olives don’t laugh – he’s for real – its a good thing (and yes – you do have an olive tree.)

A Place to Call Home?…

Posted on by
4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once upon a time in a city called Perth (and not so long ago) when a group of people began a church they did so firstly in a home, then maybe a community centre, or a public building of some sort until they decided that they really needed their own building… a proper church building with a foyer, a ‘sanctuary’ and a baptismal pool (if you are so inclined…)

So the people got together, gave gifts, sold assets, mortgaged houses, and by hook or by crook (or by faith… maybe a bit of both…) raised the funds needed to buy land and erect some kind of building – often a small ‘hall’, which served as ‘stage 1’ of any future work. Sometimes stage 1 was all there ever was and that was fine. But stage 1 created equity so that stage 2 could then happen. In those days land was cheaper and developers would often allocate churches space in new suburbs at minimal cost.

That was ‘then’. Those days are gone.

Today we are in a very different cultural and economic space, so the task of church planting and becoming established and rooted in a community becomes a very different consideration. The last 20-30 years has seen the ‘community centre’ church building, the sports centre church building, the commercial venture and the Christian school arise as significant means of establishing churches in the newer suburbs.

What seems to have has largely disappeared (in new church development) is the idea of a community of people pooling their resources, giving generously and/or taking a loan to build a dedicated space.

As I look around the far outer suburbs in Perth I see churches meeting in schools, churches meeting in community centres, but very few meeting in premises they own. It seems only the wealthier, centrally funded denominations (Anglicans/Catholics) have the resources to pull off that kind of thing, or the ‘franchises’ that can use equity in an established building elsewhere as security against a loan in a new development.

My musing comes as I’ve been wandering Yanchep looking for space to gather a bunch of people and its not an easy task. I have had very curt refusals from two schools, making me wonder ‘what happened there?…’ Maybe this is how it is now… There is precious little community space and strict rules around who can use it and when, and there is no larger facility in the suburb itself. Finding a space to gather people is one of the things we need to get sorted, but its proving problematic…

One of the limitations of being a church that currently meets in a school is that we have no asset base of our own if we ever did wish to build something else. (The upside is a fantastic free facility…)

Lately as we have scoured the suburb looking for space I have found myself wondering just what shape church planting will take in these next 20-30 years.

Will we have to wait for a denominational school to set up shop and give us space?

Will we be shunted from public building to public building?

We could decentralise and meet in homes, but my experience of this has been a degree of unavoidable fragmentation.

Maybe we need a new privately owned commercial venture that can double as a meeting space?

Perhaps its time to come full circle and rally the troops to raise funds? But no matter how strong your ‘faith’ the thought of a $2-3 million dollar building project being undertaken by a fledgling group of battling families in the mortgage belt just doesn’t seem like a wise move either. I’m sure this is why no one is doing it. I’m really reluctant to lead any bunch of people on a building project in this day and age, partly because it is such an all consuming thing, but it also moves me from ‘pastor’ to ‘fund raiser’ – a man with mixed motives… Its unavoidable when large sums of money come into play. And costs do tend blow out… just a bit…

So I’m pondering… and praying… wondering what’s next? What shape will our missionary endeavours take in the barren outer suburbs? Those planting in established areas with plenty of community buildings may yet experience the struggle to find space too, but when there’s no space available anywhere the question becomes ‘what now?’

I’m up for creative thinking and exploring new options – maybe there are possibilities we just haven’t seen.

Oddly enough in a recent conversation with a mate we were discussing the value of being a physical presence in the community – being seen – being there – being present. He suggested that a church that meets in a local facility often ‘doesn’t exist’ in the minds of the community, and perhaps even in the minds of the church people themselves.

So there’s that consideration too.

If you live at the fringes of the city where infrastructure is minimal and population is booming then church planting takes on some different questions to days gone by.

‘That Bloke’ and ‘Those People’

Posted on by
4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Friday was one of those perfect, warm, Yanchep evenings and I was strolling past our new surf club with Lucy in tow. As I walked up the hill towards the beach I saw an older couple with two dogs and what I am guessing was a granddaughter. They had stopped to do a poo pick up when one of their dogs managed to get free and bolted towards Lucy, jumping on her, snarling and appearing to attack her.

In the heat of the moment I instinctually responded by kicking the dog and breaking them apart. The dog returned to the owner and he apologised for the incident, but then added quite strongly, ‘but you don’t need to kick my dog mate!’

It was only a couple of months previously that a large aggressive dog had got off the lead and attacked Lucy so I had responded similarly then. The dog got the message and backed off so my response was somewhat reflexive – I’m not a random dog kicker…

Hearing the reprimand in his tone, I responded with ‘If you kept control of your dog it would never have happened!’

‘She’s a pup – she just got away!’ he responded loudly.

I started to explain how Lucy had been attacked before, how his dog was a big ‘pup’, but the words came out like bullets and they were received as such. ‘She jumped on my dog and was being aggressive!’ I said, but the tone had begun to escalate and voices had been raised.

Suddenly both of us were ‘right’, both of us were ‘wronged’ and my neighbour had become my enemy…

A short argument ensued and finished with me telling him that if his dog ever came near mine again in that way I’d ‘kick the shit out of it’ (yeah – proud moment) before we went our separate ways. I wandered up to the old surf club to sit and chill for a moment like I usually do and they went the other way.

What was normally a place where I enjoy some quiet reflection became a place where I found myself asking what just happened there?!’ ‘Where did that come from?!’

I’m not ‘that‘ bloke…… I thought, and they probably aren’t ‘those‘ people…

But both of us were ‘that bloke and those people’ at least for a short time. Both of us had something primal and dark inside that rose to the surface when threatened. I began to walk back feeling a bit rueful at my fairly poor showing in that moment. I can’t remember the last time I have flared up aggressively like that at a random stranger.

As I walked towards the food vans that were doing their thing, I saw the other people and their dogs a hundred metres or so in front of me. As I got near they crossed the road to get some food and suddenly there was a choice – to follow and apologise for being a dick – or to walk on and let the ugliness remain.

The problem with doing nothing is that the ugliness never goes away. Its like a stain that never gets washed out and every unresolved neighbourhood conflict becomes another dark mark on the community. When you get enough unresolved stuff the place can feel nasty and dark.

I hope to live in a community where people rise above pettiness and stupidity (including my own) so I ended up walking across the road and catching up with them, apologising for the harsh words and discovering that they weren’t ‘those people’ either. They were as embarrassed by their own response and the conversation that followed was one of healing and reconciliation – one that meant that next time we see one another on the street we can say ‘hi’ rather than avoiding or seeing one another as the enemy.

Let’s be honest… the truth is we are all ‘that bloke’ and ‘those people’, because there is a darkness that lurks in all of us, but we also have the ability to be more.

Its just down to the choices we make.

Church Planting 15 Years On

Posted on by
1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early last year we began thinking and praying about planting a church in Yanchep, the community where we have lived now for 7 years. It began with the hope that we might get access to the old surf club and use that as a venue for a very relaxed Sunday afternoon gathering and then grow and serve the community from that space during the week.

The old building piqued our interest and grabbed our attention, but the bigger question was obviously ‘what if we don’t get access to that space? Do we still go ahead?‘ A few years back a small group of us met to pray about a new church community in Yanchep and after a few gatherings it fizzled. No one really had the passion or vision for it – the timing felt wrong – so nothing happened. No harm done, but no forward movement either.

In that time however, the Yanchep community has boomed in size and we have put our roots down even more firmly. I have never felt ‘at home’ in a community like I have here so barring some major upheaval we sense we will be here for the duration. The census stats show Yanchep has grown from 4500 to now 9000 people in just a few years and what is interesting is that the church presence is minimal. On any given Sunday there is a house church, a fortnightly Catholic gig and a crew of JWs meeting in the suburb. There is a Foursquare mob who have been going for a long time but they meet in Two Rocks.

And over the course of 2017 as we talked and prayed we have sensed that now is the time to begin something new in this area.

How does that happen?…

The last time I did something like this was in 2003 when we left Lesmurdie Baptist Church to plant Upstream in the developing suburb of Butler. My head was in a different space – my life was in a different space – and we did the best we could with what we knew, learning a lot along the way. That time felt like a fairly momentous move (and it was) as 5 families sold homes and moved 60kms away from what they knew to a new community, to build houses and start over as suburban missionaries. It was a wild adventure.

Part of what made the journey difficult was the challenge of leaving our home church in a healthy way. While we all did our best to make it work, in the end it often felt like a strained leaving rather than a joyful sending. Its part of what I want to do better this time around. How do we lead QBC to a place of planting a church when there is some pain inevitable?

Perhaps ‘giving birth’ is a better metaphor as it one of conception, gestation and then a moment that is both joyful, messy and painful all at once. I feel like we (QBC) are pregnant and that we are now in a period where we need to discern how the birthing takes place.

My role is to lead the church well in that process and try to maximise joy and limit pain. When we did this 15 years ago it was with an element of frustration – that our church was not being missionally effective – we were going to break free and ‘do better’. And I am sure that was part of the relational struggle. We were making a statement by our going. And while I loved the people there, I was driven by a missionary vision and was somewhat indifferent to their pain at the upheaval. This stuff causes pain… deal with with it…

Fifteen years changes a lot and I would sense that I have grown a lot softer and more empathetic in that time. I’m very aware that we have a ‘really good thing’ happening at QBC both relationally and missionally and that this will bring some pain to it. In short some people will leave the church and make their spiritual home in a new community in Yanchep – and we will miss them. Some folks will feel that pain more than others, but it will be there and it is unavoidable.

At this stage we don’t even know who of our staff will commit to leading this new community. Two of us live up here, and we are both open to going or staying. It could be that I give it some grunt for a year or so and then leave Ryan to lead, while continuing with QBC, or it could be that I kick it off and keep going… There is no script and we are all intentionally holding things loosely as beyond the sense of ‘something needs to happen’, we can’t get a clear read on who, how, where and when?

Perhaps my greatest hope is that in leading this process the crew at QBC will embrace both the joy and the pain and see the missional calling as far greater than the desire for comfort and familiarity, so that the end result looks something like Acts 20 where Paul parts with the Ephesian elders. There is much sadness as they part ways but also great love and joy – a response that is mature and one I hope we can emulate.

So we pray… and pray… and listen and wait. I’m not sure all of what is around the corner, but I’m happy to move at the pace we sense God moving, but knowing that the wheels are in motion.

Watch this space…

 

Driving with the Handbrake On

Posted on by
Reply

Last week I read an interview with Bono that enquired about his recent ‘health scare’. (I’m not sure how recent) In the interview he declined to discuss the issue because he felt it a bit rich for a wealthy white westerner to be complaining about ‘health problems’ when around the world millions are dying from preventable causes and do not have access to health care. Fair call.

I have felt similar over the last 12 months as I’ve battled a disturbing and chronic health problem that I can’t seem to resolve. Honestly – my life is pretty damn good. I don’t want for anything, and I’m very content with all parts of where we are at, so to complain about a small problem has felt a bit indulgent. That’s why I haven’t said anything.

But if you’ve wondered why this blog has been so neglected then this might help to explain. Back in January 2017 I developed a problem in my butt. I thought it was a haemorrhoid and I ignored the pain for a bit but when it didn’t go away I went to see the Doc. By this point it felt like strong pressure from inside my butt pressing out – like I needed to go to the toilet – but I actually didn’t…

So it was off to have a colonoscopy to make sure it wasn’t cancer (nope) and then from there it was ‘diagnosis by elimination’. It seems I have developed chronic pelvic pain – a constant spasm of the inner pelvic muscles that results in a really sore butt – a literal pain in the arse…

People describe it as like having a golf ball stuck up your bum… It’s an accurate description – (although I have never actually put a golf ball up my butt before)  It means sitting is uncomfortable and sore. Walking isn’t so bad. But I just can’t sit still for any length of time without squirming in pain.

When I say ‘pain’ maybe 2-3 on the pain scale so hardly the end of the world, but enough to distract me from anything I am doing.

It has taken its toll on all of my activities that involve sitting still for extend periods of time – writing being one of them. It has improved a little bit over the year and I have tried various means to deal with it – physio, stretching, meditation, none of them particularly effective. Google suggests some people acquire this problem and are never able to resolve it – yeeha… So going out to dinner with friends has been hard, driving has been hard, being at church has been hard… just relaxing has been really difficult. And being unable to resolve it has been hardest.

I have never had mental health issues, but this year I’ve had to make a conscious effort to stay positive and not to be overtaken by despair. Part of that is knowing that some people I know have far worse issues than I do and get thru. Part of it is that life just requires me to press on and keep getting things done. It’s given me a level of empathy for those who struggle with ongoing pain that I previously wouldn’t have had. I think that is a good thing, but I’m pretty weary from it now…

So this year has been like driving with the handbrake on – looking at a sunny day thru scratched lenses – whatever metaphor works for you. I can still do everything but it’s been restricted and as a result I feel like I haven’t achieved as much or been effective in what I have done. It has been hard to sit and think and write and reflect like I used to without giving up and going to lie on my bed. Most evenings I leave the lounge room around 8 and lie on our bed because it eases the discomfort, but it also takes a toll on family dynamics.

I’m not sure if 2018 will see this issue resolved or whether I will just keep ‘learning new things…’

I hear botox can help so that is possibly my next port of call, but in the meantime I just carry on.

The hardest part has actually been my struggle to think ahead and to see the future because I have become consumed with the immediate – relief of discomfort. As someone who likes to think ahead and plan the future that has been frustrating and dis-orienting.

So – this isn’t a ‘poor me post’. Really its not. I have hesitated to even write this – not because its ‘personal’, but because I’m really not suffering like some folks suffer and I’m writing this from the comfort of a big chair on my balcony on a balmy summer night in Yanchep. Life is good. But a part of it sucks right now. As I’ve talked to friends over the year about what they have been struggling with I’ve wondered if I’d swap my ‘problem’ for theirs and often the answer is ‘for sure’, but the reality is that a problem free / pain free life isn’t gonna happen for anyone so sometimes we need to learn how to live with pain.

I was chatting with my mate Scott today about hiking (his thing) and how sometimes it happens in cold and rain and ugly weather and that sometimes it really sucks – but sometimes you just have to ’embrace the suck’.

Right now I’m trying to ’embrace the suck’, learn from it, grow in it, but I’m also hopeful that things will change this year and I’ll be back to normal – or at least something else will suck 🙂

So if you’re wondered ‘what happened to Hamo blog?’ then this might help explain… (And the image above – the evening sunset in Yanchep – is completely unrelated except as a reminder that we live in a beautiful place and life is very very good.

Life Threads – Surfing & The Ocean Final

Posted on by
3

I took this photo the day after we moved into our house in June 2011 and it captures so much of what Yanchep has been for us. The kids looking out to a rainbow over the ocean – a little bit of wonderment and awe and some symbolism of a fresh start. Its been all that and more.

That said, if you told me 10 years ago that we would be one day living in Yanchep I think I would have laughed. Yanchep?… Does anyone actually live there?!

It just felt so far away – from everything – but then we did it. We bought a house and moved. We didn’t know much about the local community, but we did know that we loved the beach and from the upper level of our home we could see the ocean – not panoramic ocean views but enough to say ‘hmmm nice…’ I had never lived in a home with actual ocean views before and with such proximity to the water, so this was a whole new experience.

Now each morning I could look out and see the ocean – see waves – chop – flat blue water, white water on the reefs – but what I discovered is that being able to actually see it makes all the difference. You see we lived in Butler for 9 years, just a couple of kms from water, but we didn’t go there a heap. It was out of sight out of mind a lot of the time.

The Lagoon – a daily drive by

One of the things I committed to from the day we moved in was doing ‘ocean drive bys’ on our way into Yanchep and on the way out. You can go a slightly shorter route to & from our home thru the back streets, but even when I’m running late I still do the ‘lagoon drive by’ either in or out.  It is enriching to the soul every time – just to see the ocean in all her various moods – calm and placid, raging and wild, it doesn’t matter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s me on ‘big Mal’ with Brett, Mark & Cal on one of the best days of 2017 (Photo Corey Kirwen)

Coming to Yanchep was a chance to really get surfing again. I knew there were waves up here, but didn’t realise just how many good spots there were. There are the two well known breaks, (yeah… those ones…)  but also a couple of lesser known but equally fun waves on their day. My favourite is just a short walk from home and when its good – its very good. And when you drive past every single day you are generally in a position to not miss out. Even though I’m well past 50 now, I’ve probably been surfing more than ever – proximity to water – friends in the area – and a pretty quiet winter with work meant I got wet more often that ever before.

As well as great waves, there are a great local crew. I’ve enjoyed living somewhere you can actually get to know the guys in the water. Some days when the surf has been average I have paddled out anyway because I have seen the cars in the carpark and realised who is out there. Sam gets to surf around older blokes who encourage him and push him – and sometimes give him lifts home.  Its a great vibe.

Sambo learning to surf at Club Cap

In our first years in Yanchep we were still homeschooling, so we would take the kids down to the old Club Capricorn to teach them surfing. I never pushed Sam into surfing, but fortunately he’s taken to it, so we get to do something we both love together. That’s a cool thing! Now he spends many afternoons down at the beach getting home just after dark and usually forgetting that its dinner time… but that’s fine with me.

At the start of 2017 – Jan 1 to be precise – I launched into a new experiment. I began taking daily photos of the beach and set up an Instagram / Facebook page called ‘yanchepbeaches365‘. This meant I now took the time every single day to observe the ocean more carefully each day – to be there – to notice and to share it with others. The simple act of being present at the beach every single day has been a really valuable practice both for enjoying it, but also meeting more people in the area. What began purely as a personal experiment has enabled me to enjoy the ocean in a new way and also make friends – ironically social media has connected me with the people in my community rather than keeping us isolated…

Occasionally we ponder the whole ‘moving house’ thing, but then we ask ‘to where?’ It feels like we have found paradise. Last year we considered moving back to Quinns Rocks to allow the kids to be closer to school and to minimise the drive time, but the overwhelming decision after weighing things up was ‘we’d all rather do the drive and live in Yanchep than come back to suburbia.’

Medewi

This was also the year of my first overseas surf adventure since the Philippines back in 1989. Danelle took a team to the Bali Orphanages we are involved with while I headed off to Medewi for some time alone and hopefully some good waves. I was a bit nervous going on my own to a new break and just launching in, but Medewi is a very easy, friendly wave so it turned out to be a lot of fun and very easy to manage. Danelle and the kids joined me after 4 or 5 days and hung out for another 4 days and we all had a great time.

So this our life now. I remember travelling thru the Philippines a long time ago and up into Bagiouo where we met the ‘mountain people’ – people whose lives were based around their physical location. Living by the beach and having it as an integral part of our everyday experience. I never thought I’d be here as a 10 year old Irish kid obsessed with soccer, but 40 years of getting wet and enjoying the natural environment of the ocean has made us ‘ocean people’. Its just who we are now and I doubt that will ever change.

Life Threads – Surfing & The Ocean IV

Posted on by
1

From the hills we moved to Butler in 2003 and suddenly we were within 3kms of the coast yet again. Surfing began to happen with greater frequency and knowing the ‘Alkimos’ was directly offshore I felt it was time to buy a boat (as you do…) in order to get to some of those less crowded waves…

I began with the ‘Queen Mary’ – a tiny 12 ft fibreglass dinghy that lasted 6 months, moved to a 15ft half cab with a dodgy hull that almost sank but was sold on eBay as scrap, and ended up with a sensational 17ft runabout (see pic)  that gave us lots of good times. The Alkimos (name of an old shipwreck with a reef nearby) was- 2kms off the beach – and we did have some great waves in those years (along with many ‘near miss’ boat stories…)

In that time I also had a go at fishing, snorkelling and scuba, but none of them grabbed my heart like surfing did. By this point in life though I was becoming aware it wasn’t just surfing that I was into – it was the ocean. There was something magnetic about the sea that I just couldn’t escape.

I dunno where you meet God, but I have realised that he seems to show up pretty regularly at the beach. I think he likes it too.  In my early years the beach was a place I went to surf – and if there were no waves I would come home. In my 30’s and 40’s the beach was taking on a new significance and I would often just go there and sit… and hang out… a spiritual place.

We lived near Quinns Beach where there were no waves of any significance but I still found myself often at the beach enjoying something I couldn’t articulate. I knew that when I got stressed or tetchy I just needed to go and ‘get wet’ and the world would look different.

It was generally the Alkimos or the odd trip to the Spot where we got waves during this period. I loved the trips to Alkimos, but it was a fickle wave and too much wind could really screw the whole thing up. That and it being a half day event to launch a boat, surf and then clean up took the shine off it a bit. The Spot was busy and it was difficult to find an uncrowded wave so I never really took to it. In the end as life got busier, the boat got used less and less and inevitably cost more and more, so it was sold and replaced with a camper trailer that would be our home for 6 months as we travelled Oz.

Heading North

I reckon its every surfer’s dream – to hitch up a caravan and go surfing around the country for an extended time. We had just paid off the mortgage and were debt free with some money in the bank, so this was the opportune time to do a trip of this nature. In April 2009 we hit the road with a Jayco camper-trailer in tow and a 7ft mini mal strapped to the roof. While it wasn’t a surf holiday, I will confess that the old GQ Patrol did seem to have an inner urge to travel down any dirt track that looked like it could spawn good waves. We took off North and scored a few waves in Exmouth, even a few in Broome, before a long drive thru the NT and far north Queensland saw us not surfing until we arrived in the Gold Coast.

Lennox Head

Pambula – and no one else in sight

From there on we found waves all down the NSW coast, often empty or uncrowded and generally pretty good. My faves were Lennox Head and Pambula beach, but the whole NSW coastline is beautiful and we could have spent 6 months just in this section of Australia. By the time we got to Victoria we only had 4 weeks left so there wasn’t time to hang around and wait for the Torquay area to fire up. We had to keep moving.

The Toilets at Cactus

Cactus Waves

Fortunately we had the good sense to stop at Cactus, an iconic Aussie desert wave and we spent a couple of nights there. I’m glad to say I got to surf it, as it really is a million miles from anywhere and a pretty special wave. We spent one whole day in the rest of South Australia… and then sprinted for home, slowed only by spending our final week in the Busso area and getting home in October and back to reality. It was a different reality to the one we left as during that time away we had suffered a $250K loss and were now well in debt, but that’s another story.

For the next two years I basically worked my arse off to try and get rid of debt. Danelle took up homeschooling and our life hit a new rhythm. We lasted another couple of years in Butler before seeing a house in Yanchep we loved the look of. It was just 300m from the beach and kinda ‘Cloudstreety’, a ramshackle, quirky beach house made of timber and stone and we had fallen in love with it. In June 2011 we made the best move of our lives.