If You are Willing: On Power and Possibilities
In Matthew 8:2 a man with leprosy approaches Jesus not with the anticipated “will you heal me?” but a statement, “If you are willing you can heal me…” The man has no doubt about Jesus’ ability, just his willingness. It’s a little confronting. Perhaps he had heard of the man who had been an invalid for 38 years before Jesus healed him at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-16). He might not have enthused about the wonder of this miracle but asked about the others at that pool who weren’t healed – did Jesus not care about them? Did Jesus only...
Read MoreA Walk in the Woods…
This week Rosemary and I managed a short escape down Margaret River way, in part to celebrate my 66th birthday. Most of the family joined us and we were amply accommodated in a cavernous home that could have coped with a party twice our size. The weather was great in a wintery way – cold and sometimes misty, but nothing to stop us carrying out our plans, one of which was to walk the Chimney Trail in Wooditjup National park – a walk suitable for both 5 and 65 year olds (we did it the day before my birthday, when I was younger). A few things struck me from our walk in the woods....
Read MoreThen I remember, death comes before the rolling away of the stone
It was a throwaway line in a talk by a speaker whose name I have now forgotten: “We feel more moral, more right, more cheaply than ever before.” It was a comment on the shrill nature of much public discourse, and how easily we feel moral because we have expressed a noble sentiment, though expressing it has cost us nothing. Although not necessarily the intention of the speaker, it set me thinking about spiritual and moral formation, and how we learn and grow in life. And then I stumbled upon this magnificent conclusion to Mary Oliver’s poem At Black River “Then I...
Read MoreWhen Leaders Fall…
To be clear, this post isn’t a reaction to some new scandal and I’m not making any veiled references to some unsavoury incident soon to shock and dismay the Christian community. It is true that there have been so many moral failures that we should be disturbed – but even if you immediately attach a name to what I am about to write, I am not thinking about any one person – just a disturbing trend that impacts us all, no matter which flavour of the Christian faith you adhere to. Come to think of it, it’s not simply Christians who are impacted, for when we talk...
Read MoreBecause Biography is not Identity: From what we do to who we are…
In a throw away line in a podcast shortly before his sudden death, philosopher-poet-theologian John O’Donohue observes that, “biography is not identity.” Think about it. We spend so much time trying to impress people about what we do, or the achievements we can list on our CV, and far too little time focusing on the inner landscape of our life. In his book The Road to Character, David Brooks differentiates between what he calls resume virtues and eulogy virtues . The first focuses on the virtues that leave people saying “wow, I’ll employ you”, the second...
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