And a child shall lead them…
Rosemary and I have been blessed to have a weeks holiday together with our three children, their spouses and our three grandchildren. Getting everyone together is something you don’t take for granted, especially in these Covid ridden days, but the 11 of us have been together in a 5 bedroom AirBnB between Denmark and Albany. Although the temperature has been icy, we have been spared the heavy rain that is usually part of our winter and have been able to explore as widely as you can when you have a 1, 4 and 7 year old in the party. Jesus taught that unless we become like little children...
Read MoreWhen a number breaks your heart…
Numbers usually sound a little cold. Aid agencies know this. Rather than tell us that roughly 689 million people currently live in extreme poverty (that is, survive on less than $1.90 a day), they will usually tell the story of one child, knowing that as we sense the sadness of the one story, we will start to sense what it means when you multiply it 689 million times. Without the story, the number is quickly glossed over. The results of the Australian 2021 census came out this week – so it has been a week of numbers. In the midst of a vast array of data, one figure stabbed at my heart....
Read MoreThe Virtue and Vice of Agnosticism
We are sometimes too sure of things we should be open minded about, and too uncertain about the things that really matter. Agnosticism, that tantalising space where we see all sides of an argument and put a definitive answer in the too hard basket, is sometimes a virtue, and sometimes a vice. Let me give a few examples from my almost 65 year sojourn on this planet. I became a serious follower of Jesus when I was a teenager – back in the 1970’s. Some things were very clear in that distant era. I didn’t go to my school ball (even though I had a beautiful girlfriend) because...
Read MoreOn Isolating for a Week with Covid…
You’ve got it. The title of this post is what is happening for me as I write. I’ve had an inner struggle between my easy going self and my Gestapo self, the former telling me that given I have Covid, no one will expect me to post this week, and my sergeant major self telling me that it’s no excuse, after all, what else have I to do with my time other than write blog posts now that a week of appointments has been cancelled. The sergeant won (he usually does), but my gentler self is giving a reader alert that my words might be strung together a little untidily as a covid...
Read MoreA Spirituality of Simplicity
Can less be more? Or, in the world of church and Jesus following, can fewer services, ministries and activities help us draw closer to God? It may sound counter intuitive, but let’s play with the idea and see where it leaves us. It is actually a relevant question. After all, Covid shut downs have seen most churches run significantly fewer programs, and it is important that we ask if that has been to our spiritual detriment, or if in some strange way, it has helped us become a little more like Jesus. If the former, we should probably get back to business as usual as quickly as possible,...
Read MoreReclaiming and Redeeming Gossip…
It was a prayer meeting I was at several decades ago. The person praying suddenly asked that God would help James and Jenni (yes, I have changed their names) in their marriage problems, especially after their last major argument which had been overheard by neighbours and was really very ugly. As the prayer elaborated on each detail of this troubled marriage I heard the person next to me say excitedly, “oooh, really” and then a little later, “didn’t know that”. This was prayer as gossip, and our well attended weekly prayer meeting was a great source of...
Read MoreWhat to do with your one wild and precious life: Alcuin’s Answer
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?” asks Mary Oliver in her poem The Summer Day. It’s a haunting question. Psalm 90:10 tells us that “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty if our strength endures.” In the end it is not the number that counts, but what makes up our “wild and precious life”. Recently I have been thinking about Alcuin of York (735-804) and how, in his own way, he provides an answer to Oliver’s question. Born in a period misleadingly called the “Dark Ages” (it is...
Read MoreOn full stops and commas…
Let me start with a brag, and follow it with a confession. I won the English prize at school. True, that was not far off 50 years ago but I haven’t forgotten the thunderous applause as I walked up to receive my prize. Well – that’s how I remember it, though others might say they simply recall yawning quietly and longing for speech day to end. But here is my confession. In spite of that prize I have always been grammatically challenged. For example, I’m never quite sure when a sentence requires a comma, though I do know that it is different to a full stop, and that it signifies...
Read MoreThinking about Fixed and Growth Mindsets
While Carol Dweck’s 2007 book Mindset is no longer new, it continues to spark rich conversations about the difference between fixed and growth mindsets. The basic thesis is simple: Some people approach life with a fixed mindset, assuming that they are born with certain talents and abilities and that relatively little can be done to alter what they started with. They will repeatedly do what they know they can do well – as this is safe and reassuring and gives them a chance to show what they are good at. If they fail, it is because they are no good at what they attempted, not...
Read MoreBecause God is like a mother…
If you are reading this post on its day of publication, its Mother’s Day – or at least it is in Australia, though date conventions are different around the world. What’s also true is that in Australia (and some other countries) the day has become a little more controversial, some suggesting it is insensitive to those who don’t have a mother, or who would like to be a mother but aren’t, or for children who are growing up in a two dad family or whatever. And we do indeed live in diverse times and it is appropriate for us to be sensitive to those who feel left out,...
Read More