The Eighth Day

9/11 ten years on

2011-09-11T21:28:00.001+10:00

It remains one of those events that we can all recall where we were and what we were doing the moment we learned of it. Ten years on from those tumultuous events known popularly as 9/11, it is hard to identify any winners: Osama bin Laden is dead, and the vulnerabilities of the United States have been exposed in surprising ways. But the ramifications have been much more widely felt than in some artificial divide between so-called Islamic extremism and the democratic West. We do well to revisit that dramatic day and analyse afresh the symbolism of the event – something which has so far been difficult to do because the political sensitivities attached. Whether the distance is enough to fully appreciate the events is still a matter of conjecture, but the symbolism is so powerful, and the ramifications felt across the symbols so profound that we dare not take the opportunity for some fresh reflection.

For good reasons, the focus of 9/11 has been firmly upon the destruction of the World Trade Centre towers which dominated the New York skyline, and which tumbled so dramatically before our eyes. It is too easily forgotten that there were two other targets on that day: the Pentagon and the White House, the former suffering severe damage, but in a limited part of the building, while the attack on the White House was averted by the actions of some brave passengers aboard Flight 93. Together, these three buildings stood as symbols – pillars – of American world domination at the turn of the millennium – the political (White House), economic (World Trade Centre) and military (Pentagon) – underpinned America’s status as the sole superpower of the time. The attack on these three buildings was intended to send a strong message, distorted by the total destruction of the towers and the terrible loss of life. An important symbolism is to be found in the method of these attacks: using commercial aircraft – a symbol of American freedom and mobility, turned against its three pillars with catastrophic effect, and all taking place on the date which represents the number which Americans dial in case of emergency - 911. The method employed suggested that the greatest threats to the American way of life lay within - that decay lies within - rather than externally.

Reflecting upon the changes affecting those symbols of American supremacy provide some pause for thought. America’s original response was swift, and somewhat perplexing, drawing on its military supremacy with telling effect. The USA plunged into two wars, taking along other nations with it – wars from which it is finding great difficulty defining victory and thereby extracting itself; wars which were widely regarded at the time as having been pursued on dubious grounds. The long-term effect has been to stretch American military capacities to the margins, limiting their ability to respond in other areas of need. And yet perhaps the greatest effect has been felt economically. The effect of the trillion-dollar plus cost of waging these two conflicts has been to stress American financial resources to the limit, leaving the nation with limited capacity to respond not only in the immediacy of the global economic crisis of 2009, but in seeking to rebuild itself in its wake. In ten years America has moved from a healthy position of a sustainable budget in surplus to a point where both its total debt and per-capita debt ranks amongst the world’s highest, with little potential for finding agreement as to how to rectify the problem. One legacy of flexing of its military might in response to 9/11 has been a significant, though not fatal, erosion of its economic might.

If the military and economic capacities of the USA have been wounded, more profound has been the impact on politics. One consequence of 9/11 is that we have inherited the black-and-white view of the world which the West generally rejects in Islamic extremism, and by which the terrorists justified their actions: the death of “infidels” being morally justified in their binary view of the world. The rising and almost unshakeable suspicion of refugees and asylum seekers has only grown in the last ten years and become an almost unquestioned tenet in political thinking. We have effectively learned to demonise the “other.” A second, perhaps more far-reaching consequence has been the elevation of fear as the primary informant in debate on matters of public policy. No longer does informed debate appear in the public arena as we face global challenges of asylum seekers, or climate change for example. We find ourselves informed by slogans and accusation – reflecting the black-and-white view of all policy matters.

As much as one might find the emergence of the Tea Party in the US and its approach to public policy to be disturbing, one can empathise with their lack of confidence in existing political processes, which feeds their suspicions and fears. No longer do we find reasoned debate and consideration of the best interests of a nation paraded in its public forums, but fear, innuendo and blind partisan politics determining outcomes, to the point where the world’s most significant economy is brought to the brink of defaulting on its debts without consideration of the gravity and complexity of the situation or its consequences. The increased prevalence of minority governments in Australia and around the world reflects a deep disillusionment with the partisan approach to politics which has become more prevalent in a post-9/11 world.

There is no doubt that the 9/11 attacks have left enduring scars on the political, economic and military foundations not only of the USA, but on many Western nations. Unwittingly we have opted to fight the battle on the terms dictated by the terrorists, rather than calling to a higher ideal, and a higher principle. It makes for great headlines and sells more newspapers, but at what cost in the longer term? The challenges presented to us by the events of September 11 have not been overcome ten years on. It is hard to see where the catalyst to change the present tide will emerge from.

Why I support putting a price on carbon

2011-09-05T13:19:00.002+10:00

Four years ago, both major political parties in Australia presented themselves to the electorate indicating that they would institute a carbon pricing scheme. Since that time there has been much more heat than light in relation to the issue. There are good reasons and benefits to introducing such a policy which is lost in the argy-bargy of political debate at the moment. These are the reasons I support a price on carbon.

Because it is the smart thing to do
Politicians wax eloquent about the years of coal supplies which are buried beneath the surface of Australian soil, but few lament the untapped sources of clean energy which are wasted every day. Solar, wind, thermal and tidal sources of power are much more plentiful and offer a sustainable way of powering our lifestyles than the use of brown-coal-fired electricity generation. Whether you believe the climate scientists or not, it is much smarter to develop renewable and sustainable forms of power generation, and to encourage a shift in our economy towards more sustainable forms of living.

Because it is the just thing to do
That Australian action to reduce carbon emissions will only result in a miniscule reduction in overall carbon emissions in the world is an oft-cited mantra for doing nothing, while China’s rapid increase in carbon emissions is regarded as an indication of greater blame. It is forgotten that Australia remains per capita the worst emitter of carbon pollution in the world, and tenth on the list of overall polluters. While our own efforts at reduction have minimal impact on overall production, it is patently unfair to shift the responsibility to other nations whose equivalent rate of emission is much lower than ours. The flip side of defending our overall production levels is a tacit approval for other nations to raise their per capita emissions to levels equivalent to Australia. Such an approach is diabolical. We cannot expect the burden of this to fall on those who are not responsible for its production, and who are often less capable of meeting the subsequent costs.

Because we all pay anyway
There is already a cost attached to the levels of carbon emissions in our world whether it be in the decline in the air quality across our cities and into the country, in the impact on the fertility of our soil and its capacity to grow crops, or in the more catastrophic impacts of extreme weather events which appear with increasing regularity. It is barely a generation past when it was considered appropriate for companies to discharge their water by-products into rivers and waterways – a practice we rightly abhor in this day, but which seemed natural at the time. To continue to release carbon into the atmosphere changes the chemical structure of the environment, for which we are already paying the cost. To charge it at the source rather than the fruit seems more equitable. An ounce of prevention…

Because we need a catalyst for change
Many corporations (and consumers) only begin to change their behaviour when the impact is felt in the hip pocket or on the bottom line. The cost of carbon pollution is presently being paid by a more vulnerable and less responsible group of people than those whose actions directly affect it. Making such decision-makers account for the impact of their actions, or at least their contribution to the impact, is a sure way to begin the behavioural change which is necessary. At the moment the system works like a lottery, where those who pay just happen to be in the path of a major weather event. A price on carbon brings this cost back home to its genesis, and provides not only a catalyst for change, but an incentive for innovation.

People either don't seem to understand that the point of the system is to encourage behavioural change, or don’t want to acknowledge that a change is needed. The opportunity is before us now to take action which, even if it makes a miniscule contribution to overall carbon emissions in the world, can make a significant difference to the way in which our lives in Australia interact with the land on which we so much depend. It’s time to swallow some medicine which will only serve to make us all the better for it.

New technology - New Language

2011-05-25T14:45:00.003+10:00

A response to Bill Keller's concerns about communications technology.

Anyone who has received a message which reads “Tnx. CUL8r” or been rebuked for yelling in an email written in capital letters knows that new communication technologies are more than a simple medium of communication: they are a new language altogether. And, as Bill Keller points out, this new language brings with it a new culture, with its own mix of skills and rules for engagement. While Keller rues the loss of familiar skills (some long since diminished), his half-glass empty response fails to embrace new and demanding challenges to which this new language will be required to respond (and for which we will require some new language!)

For those who grew up in earlier eras and now thrive on skills which were the bread and butter of their time, the diminution of emphasis on selective skills is often lamented. But good analysis tells us that today’s children will be working in ten years in occupations which are not even thought of as yet. And they will be facing challenges of which we presently have but a hint.

Developments in technology and in science have laid many challenges at our feet over the last twenty years with which we are still grappling. DNA, Assisted Reproductive Technologies, cloning, stem cells, and genetic engineering are just a handful of the technologies which have birthed a new language and a new set of moral, ethical and cultural issues which previous generations could barely imagine. Throw into the mix the potential of cybernetics, nanotechnology, transgenics and artificial intelligence, the fundamental question of what it is to be human is laid bare before us alongside the challenging ethical and social challenges, echoing Keller’s final (and perhaps most important) concern. The ability to gather information and synthesise insights of disparate and rapidly-evolving fields will be a far more valuable skill than the capacity to recite entire texts.

It is easy – and almost traditional – to deride the younger generation for their apparent shallowness. Blaming short attention spans associated with digital technology may be an easy target, but we do well to remember that the exponential rate of growth in available knowledge – generating more information in the past 18 months than has previously been available in the entire history of humanity – demands that new thinking require quick assessment and assimilation/rejection. We should also ask ourselves whether is it realistic to expect teenagers to gather the sufficient combination of information, experience and worldview to fully comprehend and shape the environment in which the world now finds itself. Sixty-five years on from Hiroshima and we still haven’t resolved the nuclear question, yet we are prepared to deride a generation’s learning in relation to technology which is less than a decade old. Are we being fair?

Assuredly social media has changed the rules of engagement. No longer do we meet people face-to-face as often, or for as many reasons as previous generations did. On the other hand, social media enables interaction with a larger and potentially more culturally-diverse group of people than when we were limited to neighbourhood engagement. Granted, much of what transpires as “updates” is meaningless dross and faux camaraderie, but in this year alone we have seen significant social change – the so-called “Arab Spring” – largely facilitated by this very media.

But Keller has hit on an important point, every step of progress is accompanied by a sense of loss, whether it be loss of ability to recall large reams of data, loss of community as we once knew it or, more simply, a loss of innocence. The challenge for educators and community leaders is to evaluate the trade-off, and provide support for values and infrastructure which needs to be retained or reshaped. We cannot turn back the clock, or seek to close off access to such technology. Education, society, and its laws is forever chasing technology into the future.

We need to be clear about what we expect from different forms of media. I do not complain when a comic book contains no deep political or social analysis, nor when I fail to gain a laugh from a serious work on psychology or technology. Keller’s expectations of Twitter are - in part - a case of unrealistic expectations. In noting that serious responses to his tweet “TwitterMakesYouStupid. Discuss” utilised a different media to respond, Keller highlights the limitations of Twitter, rather than the stupidity of its subscribers, or the impact of using it. Were it the only form of communication available for serious discourse, we might have cause for concern. In a similar way, its penchant for being a distraction is something to be noted. It is a mark of maturity that we learn as users to control the technology, and not be at its constant beck and call. Early indications of the impact on brain structure and function, while a pointer to change, still presents us with uncertain implications, in the same way that its social impact is still seeking understanding.

It is an easy thing to fear that which we do not know – and we do not know where this revolution in social media will take us – but that has never stood in the way of exploring new ways of being, and new ideas for development in the past. We feel and think our way into a future which is only partially able to be predicted, and for which the consequences of present actions are never fully clear. But as long as the questions are able to be raised – in whatever form of media available to us – the prospects are improved.

And of course, without SMS, how would I ever know what brand of cereal I was meant to buy!? Many an opportunity for marital disharmony has been averted… but perhaps this only serves to prove Keller’s point about memory.

The Sound of Scratching in the Ceiling

2011-05-17T14:11:00.002+10:00

As I sat in the kitchen supping a late-night hot drink, the sound of scratching overhead announced the unmistakeable presence of a possum in the ceiling. I pause long enough to acknowledge the sound and announce its presence to the family before returning to the drink and the book I was reading. It was an experience not unlike the previous week’s budget and the reply speech – I lifted my eyes long enough to acknowledge them before resuming what I was doing. The distinct lack of any narrative, let alone an inspirational or aspirational one, relegated the budget speech and the reply to the recycling bin and the back of our minds before the week was out. All that remained was that unmistakeable scratching in the ceiling, annoying but ultimately meaningless.

The budget was delivered without any connection to a narrative, failing to ignite passion, resonance or ownership through a story about who we are as Australians, or who we are becoming. I took a quick mental survey of Australian history and brought to mind a sample of narratives which are deeply engrained in our national psyche, which our political leaders could have drawn upon for inspiring us to their grand plans.

Much of our early Australian iconic imagery is marked by the willingness to rise up in the face of adversity – often in the face of the establishment – to bring about change and the emergence of a fairer society. The Eureka rebellion is an enduring image of a small band of Australians standing up for an important principle, leaving a hallmark of justice which still stands as a powerfully evocating symbol in our day. In a different way we similarly look back with romance upon many of our Bushranger legends, preferring to lean on the side of fighters for justice and equality against an unfair establishment over against the lawless rebels they could so easily be painted. Over time this morphed into the loveable larrikin image, epitomised in, but not limited to movie character Crocodile Dundee, whose knockabout and casual approach, with its running commentary on establishment, takes the world by storm. Without taking ourselves too seriously, we can still show the world a better way of being and doing.

The turn of the twentieth century brought the enduring narrative of a nation riding on the Sheep’s Back, resonant in the ballads Click Go the Shears, and the enduring Waltzing Matilda. These stories remind us that we are a nation born of the land, and built with blood sweat and tears. We overcame the obstacles of the land, in particular its harsh and often unforgiving climate, to forge a new nation.

The legend of the ANZAC, born on the shores of Gallipoli in 1915 has endured as one of the most important symbols of our nation, adapting to new generations and new situations. That it was a moment of defeat on the battlefield is less important than its capacity to represent enduring and key qualities to succeeding generations: sacrifice, and mateship, and boldness as we seek to forge our identity as individuals and as a nation. The ANZAC legend has risen to a place of pre-eminence among all Australian narratives in recent years, but its focus remains squarely on history – to remind us of the need for gratitude for those who have gone before.

As the post war years of building and construction unfolded, the dream of owning our own home was symbolised in the Quarter-Acre block, often partnered with the Hills Hoist and Victa motor-mower. These symbols – paraded at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics – became emblems of our egalitarianism. The Great Australian Dream came to be regarded as the right for all, a story which has faded and now directly challenged in the pursuit of higher-density housing, and as the impact of negative gearing pushes the dream out of the reach of many.

One of my favourite narratives is the much-maligned Tall Poppy Syndrome. I believe it to represent one of our most precious attributes. Popularly understood as our capacity to pull down successful people, it proves itself to be much more selective and strategic. Not all successful people find themselves subject to this, as memorials to Lionel Rose this past week have attested. The Tall Poppy Syndrome represents the Australian capacity to bring back to earth successful people who have lost touch with their roots – or worse – turned their back on them. Australians have never resented the success of its own on the national or world stage – unless and until we sense that the individual has lost contact or turned their back on their heritage. As we have moved away from the ideal of an egalitarian society, we see this characteristic less.

Being a small country in terms of population, it has always given us great joy to see one of our own leading the world on the sporting stage. Black Caviar’s catapulting itself onto the top of the world rankings has raised the interest of many Australians in the sport, bringing to mind the feats of another great horse, Phar Lap. We have all held our collective breath with Greg Norman in his quest to conquer the great golf tournaments of the US, and when Australia II finally lifted the Americas Cup from the US. The feats of The Don are legend, not just as a cricketer, but as an Australian icon, his domination against all comers. Sporting heroes remain an enduring symbol of our ability and perseverance.

Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country birthed a mantra of good fortune which paradoxically undermined the challenge he articulated. In popular terms it articulates the belief that we are destined for good fortune, in contrast to Horne’s warning that we not squander the opportunity afforded us by the riches of our land. It has, in many ways, inspired a lethargy and complacency which, in times like the present, allow us to be satisfied with what we have and not strive for even better.

And herein, perhaps, lies the core of the problem facing our political leaders: we have never developed a sustainable narrative of success. Our celebrations of triumph on the international sporting stage have that mark of the upstart about them – that we a young nation with a small and remote population are able to triumph over seasoned adversaries reminds the world of our presence and capabilities. The celebrations still have that air of the younger child beating an older sibling in the back yard… less a sense of we have made it, but that we are capable of punching beyond our wait. In a similar way the Lucky Country imagery retains a deep sense of Horne’s irony, even though we deploy it in denial of that.

But the last two decades have taken Australia on a long ride of economic growth and success. Even as the rest of the world ground to a long and deep pause, our economy merely slowed, retaining a resilience and resourcefulness which gave flexibility to respond. And now that this moment has passed, politicians find themselves unable to articulate a story to carry us – to inspire us – on to the next stage. Some might point to the single moment when Kevin Rudd lead the parliament in an apology to the stolen generations, but it withered on the vine as a symbol of the future. It is with a deep sense of angst that the only narrative we find lingering is one we would rather deny – the xenophobic Australia, encountered most keenly by early immigrants from non-English background, who endured the cruel taunts – and more – of early Australians. In the dog-whistling which accompanies political posturing on refugees (more accurately, refugees arriving by boat) there is a not-too-subtle nod and wink to the racist tendencies which have long marked the experience of new immigrants, and of Indigenous Australians, conveniently masked by the relatively harmonious nature of Australian society. We celebrate many of the benefits of this cultural diversity whilst still managing to impugn the character and motives of many recent immigrant communities. There is a good story to be told here which is drowned out by the dog-whistling.

And so we find ourselves mired in the present moment. Our political leaders apparently aren’t able to fashion a story to lead us into the future – it surely can’t be obtained through opinion polls and group samples. It requires an ability to lift the eyes of the people to a future worthy of our aspirations and energies, one which is attractive enough, and within the realms of possibility that we can all be motivated towards paying the price of achieving it. As long as we continue to think small, and seek only to offer small targets (which are quickly fired upon), the hope of such a narrative emerging are small, quelled and quenched by a media and an opposition which reward point-scoring in relation to minor things – of which they are being supplied in plenty.

Many of the narratives outlined above have periodically found their way into the political narrative. Some of them were historically more readily associated with one side of the political spectrum or the other. But they have all, bar the ANZAC legend, largely disappeared from our political discourse. Narrative itself seems to have disappeared. Both sides of politics seem to have given up on the idea of a unifying story which leads us into the future.

Can such a dream be born in the midst of plenty? Is there someone who can raise our eyes to a future which fulfils our sense of destiny and purpose? Or must we wait for such moments of injustice that inspired Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech? Or times of desperation such as inspired Churchill’s “We shall fight them on the beaches” oration. Only JFK’s vision of putting a man on the moon stands out as a narrative born of possibility and hope – of attaining something significant out of prosperity. Without a vision and a narrative which calls us to be what we CAN be we will find ourselves wallowing in the mire of petty nitpicking and naysaying. For which we will all be the losers. We wait to be inspired to lend our full creativity and ingenuity, along with a preparedness to pay the price to a future worth striving for. Until such a passionate cry emerges, the sound of budgets and leaders will, like the possum in my roof, distract me for a moment before I return to what I was doing, to what we have always been doing.

Who won?

2011-05-03T16:48:00.000+10:00

I cannot celebrate the triumph of violence, no matter the victim, for violence remains the only victor and humanity the perennial loser.

Why I can't celebrate bin Laden's death

2011-05-02T20:44:00.001+10:00

The reported death of Osama bin Laden has saturated the news media all day. In style of this communications era, I heard via SMS. My response was minimal, if slightly saddened. I often find myself saying words at a funeral which intimate that the death of the person is the death of a part of each one of us. I’d take that one step further – our response to the death of another is indicative and formative of who we are. As I have listened to reports and responses in the hours since, I find myself ever more deeply saddened. The first words I read were those of President Obama, who lauded the American achievement. "Tonight is a testament to the greatness of our country," he said. I wondered if he really meant what he said, or even fully understood it. After all, it only took 10 years, more than one trillion dollars, the death or mutilation of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, the almost complete destruction of two countries, and the sacrifice of hard-fought freedoms, but this great nation caught its one target. Perhaps we should take the president's statement with a little hint of irony, I thought.

And then I cringed at the response of our Australian political leaders. Osama bin Laden “had been brought to justice,” declared the Leader of the Opposition. Really? I thought he was dead. No court on this planet can bring justice now – at least not in the way I thought the West understood it. And our PM welcomed not only the news of bin Laden’s death, but the death itself. His death is one more tragedy in a long line, bringing about neither greater peace nor security.

People rightly point to the terrorist acts which bin Laden designed and/or inspired as justification for their rejoicing in his death. The use of destructive force against other human beings is rarely, if ever justifiable. We too easily overlook the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, regarded as collateral damage in pursuit of a larger cause. That this justification could readily be employed by both sides and gain a supportive hearing depending on the context is a stark reminder that the line between terrorism and pursuit of justice is an indistinct one, and is shaped by where one is born on this planet. Even President Obama recently declared – unashamedly – that resorting to violence to solve an argument was inappropriate. Such a response underlines the insanity which pervades political debate about war and violence.

Ought we celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden? He was a human being created in the image of God. What motivated him remains a quandary, but in order to find the way of peace and hope, we must find our common humanity with him, and others like him. It is when we dehumanise others that it becomes easier to kill them, to regard their lives as less than our own. Al Qaeda and its supporters celebrated the deaths of those in New York on September 11. While we celebrate his death we demonstrate ourselves to be alike him in ways we would not care to admit. From the perspective of his supporters and those who loved him, such celebrations are insensitive in the same way we regarded the earlier 9/11 celebrations of his supporters.

It always intrigues me to see photos of infamous killers as babes-in-arms, innocent and hopeful, loved and embraced... it gives me pause to wonder at what transpired to shape them into cruel and sadistic killers. Osama bin Laden was such a babe-in-arms once. What life, what world, took him down the pathway which was his life? The answer to that question might give us pause for thought when we consider celebrating his death today.

A 6-year-old writes a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury answers

2011-04-27T14:16:00.004+10:00

The six-year-old's letter was very simple: “To God, How did you get invented?”

The archbishop's reply:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

Read the Times Report

Easter Day

2011-04-24T14:34:00.001+10:00

Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there.

We have nothing to fear… but truth itself

2011-04-09T11:19:00.001+10:00

On a wall in our home hangs a painting which always draws comment from visitors – a striking sunset bouncing its light across the waves at the beach. It was painted by my wife at the age of 15. Her teacher’s response was curt: “I’m glad you’ve got that out of your system, now get onto some real painting,” (by which she meant abstract). It took some years for my wife to regain her confidence.

A friend who is now a university professor still vividly recalls the day he went to enrol in his first post-year 12 course. The person taking the enrolment looked at his grade and turned to a colleague, asking out loud, “Do I have to accept students with these results?” A few years later that same person sought to recruit my friend into his research lab, without success.

A young lass in her first season of basketball is told by her school coach that she’ll never amount to anything, and is left on the sidelines for whole games when there was opportunity to give her time on court without jeopardising the team’s chances. She hung on through the season and began to flourish under another coach in the ensuing years.

On my way out of school one afternoon a mother pulled me aside and informed me that her child had been told by the teacher that her parents were going to hell if they didn’t go to church.

These four events are alike in every respect bar one: no-one seriously suggests that we should refrain from teaching art or encouraging students to take on challenges in education or sport because some teachers have performed badly. But to listen to many of the complaints about religious education in schools is to encounter this type of thinking underpinning the desire to banish it from our schools.

In every educational pursuit there are two questions that need to be addressed: what is the purpose of teaching a particular field of study and what are the qualifications of those who teach? Age-appropriate instruction by qualified staff is important at every level of education, and should introduce students to various fields of learning in the hope of awakening a thirst for further knowledge, alongside the need to prepare students to live as part of the human community. There is an unfortunate arrogance amongst those who would banish religious education which mirrors the very attitude which is despised in the worst of religious education: the belief that they are right and beyond question. The arguments are not primarily about quality of teaching, nor about its purpose, but about the right to be taught at all.

There is an interesting paradox at work here: this attitude which seeks to drive religious education from schools is the same attitude which drives parents to choose an education which is entirely framed within a Christian religious cultural framework: it is a fear of the truth. If we truly are committed to the quest for truth, and are convinced that our perceptions of truth are accurate, then what is there to fear? Questions can be raised and addressed, and students better equipped to deal with an error they have explored and resolved in their own minds. Instead we find the inherent insecurities of both extremes, fearful that their particular world-view and value system might have chinks in its armour exposed by engagement with difference. When a child comes home from school and reports beliefs and truths which run counter to those of the parents, there are two responses: to sit and dialogue with the child to assist growth in understanding of difference and to firm the reasons behind the familial belief, or to rail at the school for allowing one’s child to be exposed to ‘alien’ ideas. The latter attitude is not uncommon to parents within faith communities and to those who express no faith.

Religious endeavour, at its core, is a response to the numinous: a recognition that there is still more to life than we have learned or experienced. While prone to magical thinking, the religious quest at its best seeks to address deeper questions of meaning and purpose, and inspire a sense of awe and wonder that flows from the unique life that we experience in this small corner of a vast universe. It is humbling to know that even if we were to draw on the entire fountain of human knowledge, we will still encounter mystery and unknown: huge gaps in our understanding remain, even while we are eating into those gaps. And we know that many mysteries will endure and multiply.

I recall a discussion with a geneticist not long after the completion of the human genome project and its accompanying observation that over 80% of our DNA was “junk.” I queried this classification, suggesting that perhaps it serves a purpose which was yet to be discovered. My concerns were largely dismissed at the time. I was therefore interested to read recently of a geneticist who has made it his work to undo the notion of “junk DNA” arguing that it is only “junk” because we have yet to identify the purpose it serves. All fields of human endeavour are prone to over-extend their knowledge and the certainty with which it can be held. Many truths held dear today were once thought to be impossible. And there will be scientific and other certainties we hold today which we will need to discard in the future. No one seriously suggests that we dismiss the scientific endeavour for this learning curve.

Arguments that religious instruction should be excluded on the basis of freedom of choice are also misguided. We do not offer freedom of choice by taking away the very materials upon which such choice rests. Instead we provide a safe space for exploration and discovery, guided by those who have taken the learning journey already, and who are trained and equipped to aid others in beginning that journey. That there are those who have breached guidelines for teaching is important to address, but immaterial in this discussion. A teacher who has allegedly punished his grade one and two students with physical violence does not bring cries for the removal of these grades from our schools. Rather we seek to ensure that proper standards of behaviour are enforced for all staff.

Those who suggest that religion is based on myths and fallacies deny the basic tenets of epistemology which underpin every knowledge system. The recognition of the use and abuse of power in history of religion does not validate the same use and abuse of power against religion. It is ultimately ill-befitting the secular state which values open dialogue and discovery.

And an argument for a secular education cannot be sustained on the notion of a value-free education. Such a beast does not exist. Every epistemology and world-view, including atheism and agnosticism, promulgates implicit and explicit values. Indeed, every field of human knowledge prioritises certain information and processes above others, and therefore creates its own value system. The purpose of education in such an environment should not only include the desire to equip children in the three Rs, but to teach them to evaluate and discern truth amongst competing and sometimes complementary world-views. With access to the Internet only expected to increase as they grow, the ability to discern and sift and evaluate are important skills to learn across a range of human endeavours.

Should education provide only a narrow focus on selected beliefs, how are we to prepare students to live in a world where the place of religious organisations and institutions in both society and its economy is significant: contributing the bulk of volunteers, underpinning a significant percentage of the helping professions, let alone institutions for aid, development, and social and community service. The commitment of religion to global justice itself is significant enough to warrant engagement by students with it alongside other educational and motivational paradigms.

And then we need to remind ourselves that our children will grow up as natives of the global village, where governments and societies around the world find their basis in religious beliefs and practices. To enter dialogue from a place of ignorance, or to champion change without respecting the traditions out of which such societies and cultures have emerged is to guarantee failure and risk escalating violence and conflict.

The notion of a secular state is not one where religion has no part, but a society in which no particular religion or belief – sacred or secular – is imposed upon its citizens by the government. The provision of religious education in schools – regardless of the faith taught – does not breach that notion. Well done, it can serve to strengthen its fabric. But we do need to acknowledge there are clear problems in the system which require further thought and response.

The zeal with which opponents of religious education in schools have pursued their case has a distinct flavour to it. In most cases its basic premise is self-defeating because it implies a claim to complete knowledge which is so despised in the religion they depict. An implicit claim to total knowledge which denies any truth in all religions is arrogant and unbecoming. (We would do well to remember – on both sides of this debate – that the push for a universal education has its grounds in religious movements which refused to let class and breeding be the determinant of opportunity.)

Would it not be better to explore how best to introduce such learning to students and establish the frameworks for best practice? We are all beneficiaries if we are able to respectfully dialogue about our differences from a position of understanding rather than of ignorance, or of bad experience.

Public Space and the Libyan Stalemate

2011-04-08T11:10:00.001+10:00

In January this year Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled the country with an iron hand for 23 years was ousted in what is now known as the Jasmine revolution. Inspired by the transformation in their regional neighbours, Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo against the rule of Hosni Mubarak, an equally dictatorial regime which exercised authority over an apparently compliant people. In just 18 days, the 30-year rule of Mubarak was at an end, and a new era dawning in Egypt. Inspired by the events of its neighbouring countries, Libyan rebels were emboldened in their desire to oust another dictatorial leader in Muammar Gaddhafi. With a reign exceeding 40 years, there was a belief that the time had come for change. Anti-government rebels launched their offensive in Benghazi, it spread to the capital Tripoli and other cities with some rapidity, feeding the belief that change was imminent. But Gaddhafi did not lie down, launching a vigorous counter-attack. When it appeared that the rebels were about to be over-run, the United Nations stepped in, authorising the imposition of a no-fly zone, which has been enforced by action which appears to exceed that mandate. At best a stale-mate has been reached, and we must ask why it is that such dramatic change in its eastern and western neighbours has failed to be replicated in Libya. What is it that has clogged the pathway to change in Libya which has seemed a highway in Tunisia, Egypt, and this week in Cote d’Ivoire?

One critical difference is the use of public space. In Tunisia and Egypt, the protests brought increasing number of citizens out into the public squares in support of change. Sometimes the consequences were nothing short of brutal and shocking – such as the self-immolation protest in Tunisia. There were at times brutal exchanges in those places, but above all there was a growing unanimity and support amongst the gathered masses that they would accept no other outcome. The use of social media has been highlighted, but its strength was demonstrated only as people were prepared to leave their private spaces and risk themselves in public. It appears that such support has been missing in Libya. There is no doubt that Gaddhafi raised the stakes significantly – clearly demonstrating his intransigence and a preparedness to exact a high toll upon his people, but he appeared to have raised the stakes to a point where many Libyans were not prepared to pay the price of change. The call upon the international community – an entirely understandable request met with a response which was founded on compassion and protection for the vulnerable – only confirmed that those who had started this movement had not counted the cost and foreseen all the possibilities. It no longer became a call for change from within. It was no longer democracy at work so much as the war machine – the power of fear and destruction – which was being employed against Gaddhafi.

And thus we have a stalemate. The moral call for change in Libya emerging from the vox populi has been replaced by the might-is-right voice. The argument cannot be advanced without significant damage to the very people whom the interventionists profess to be fighting for. Whatever the outcome, democracy will not be the winner.

The public space has proven to be the most significant space of all in regime changes around the world in recent decades. No-one can forget the collapse of the Berlin wall, the encounter in Tiananmen Square, the overthrow of the Marcos regime in the Philippines. Each of these events transpired because the people took their stance in the public space and found themselves accompanied by a growing number of their compatriots. Without violence and bloodshed, significant change emerged. We have seen similar impacts in our own nation, looking back to the Moratorium marches against the Vietnam war, the streets clogged with trams, the marches for reconciliation, and the GetUp events against Workchoices. The extent of their impact varies, but each has made their collective mark upon the public psyche, each has brought about a change in the public realm.

In this increasingly privatised age, we are wont to forget the power of the public space. It is more than getting a face in the media, it is an indication of the preparedness of the people to get out of their comfortable spaces and claim the public space again – a space that is too readily left in the hands of celebrities, politicians, and media personnel to take the lead. When large numbers of people take to the streets, we see the true democratic voice being exercised, even more so than at the ballot box come election time.

Of course we would be foolish to believe that every venture into the public space brings about the change we desire. Gaddhafi has demonstrated that there are those who will fight back, sometimes with alarming and disproportionate force. People are killed in such circumstances, but that does not mean the end of their cause. This past week we have commemorated the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Who can forget his “I have a dream” speech, its echo reverberating through time, its passion still stirring today? King – and many who joined him in the public space calling for change – paid the highest price for their efforts. But their call for change lived beyond their deaths, and continues to bring new life and new hope to today’s generation.

The fear is that the Libyan stalemate will be prolonged, with escalating costs in terms of human life and human well-being in Libya, and significant funds being diverted into continuing military efforts. It is a quagmire Libya – and the world – can ill-afford. But it should serve as a reminder that privatised solutions are not always the most effective or efficient, even when the alternative cost seems potentially high.

Is this a case of "None so blind..."?

2011-04-04T11:38:00.002+10:00

"We stress the importance of calm and urge all parties to reject violence and resolve differences through dialogue..."

These words were uttered by U.S. President Obama after retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan in response to a reckless act of provocation to Muslims. One might ask what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan and Iraq if it has rejected violence as a solution?!
See the full story here.

Religious Education in Schools

2011-04-03T22:43:00.002+10:00

The question of religious education in schools is undoubtedly an emotive issue. Revelations that religious education is apparently not the optional curriculum component in Victorian schools that had been widely assumed has sparked levels of concern ranging from moderate to outrageous. The notion that Victoria’s status as a secular state automatically precludes religious education, however, is both ill-conceived and wrong-headed. There are many valid reasons to include religious education as an essential component of a good education.

Politics around the world is influenced by and the product of different faith traditions. While we in Australia imagine clear lines of definition between politics and religion, this distinction is at best illusory, and in many parts of the world non-existent. If we are to truly educate our children to understand difference and engage in the global village, some understanding of religions and their belief systems is important. One third of the world professes Christian faith in some form, and a significant percentage of those who do not identify have been impacted by Christians belief systems and values. Understanding the source of many of these beliefs may help future generations deal with their excesses and address them from a common source.

A further 22% of the world professes Muslim faith, and many of the world’s leading and emerging nations are founded on Islamic belief systems. With increased international migration, many Australian residents and citizens now base their lives on Islamic teachings. Burgeoning international trade has also brought us into closer and more regular engagement with our Islamic neighbours. Bringing down a hijab on understanding by banning religious education can only serve to heighten ignorance and further misunderstanding. It has also been highlighted in our media that many terrorist organisations claim Islamic tenets for their actions and positions. Out of ignorance we are then doomed to assuming they represent the faith accurately.

Christianity and Islam represent the belief systems of over half of the world’s population. Dare we claim to educate our children well by excluding study of these faiths from our education system? The notion of a secular education and a secular society was to create an environment where freedom of religion could abound – as distinct from freedom from religion. The claim to offer an education which does not include religion is not the same as a value-free education, nor one which does not promulgate a particular belief system. All systems prioritise values, and create structures of meaning. Better to allow our students the tools to deconstruct and analyse for themselves rather than make decisions based on ignorance and prejudice.

And without moving outside of the education system itself, we should recognise that a great deal of literature and history studied by students is better understood and engaged when the socio-religious influences are acknowledge and explored. Better understanding of much of the employed imagery and metaphor emerges when its foundations in religious imagery is acknowledged. We might also ask how one can study the Second World War without some understanding of the Jewish and Christian belief systems and how they impacted Germany? What about the influence of religion upon US politics? Shakespeare is replete with biblical imagery, along with the works of many great writers. Do we forget the religious influence upon art and architecture? Upon science? Upon adventurers and other “heroes” of history? We diminish both our children and their education if we isolate religion from their educational experience.

I find myself somewhat bemused by the protectionist approach suggested by some. Education today focuses on developing skills of critical thinking and analysis, particularly in an age where all sorts of ideas and thinking is readily accessible via the internet. Is it suggested that in religious education classes students suspend these skills, and are unable to bring what is taught there to others for information and analysis? Does the authority of a religious education teacher usurp that of a parent? I struggle to believe that one R.E. teacher in one hour a week can undo the learning and skills of the rest of the school system, let alone familial and societal values reinforced in so many different ways. My experience as a teacher tells me that students have a capacity to question and challenge what they perceive to be questionable.

There are valid questions of competency which need to be clarified. Religious Education Teachers should be subject to validation and scrutiny as befits their place in the education system. But where do we draw the line? Schools regularly invite community representatives in to inform students about their work, with either an implicit or explicit expression of the values which underpin their approach, for which we require no formal accreditation or skill set. I have sat through some such presentations where it was obvious that the speaker could not communicate effectively with the students, and others where the values expressed drew some expressions of concern from staff and students alike. Clearly more effective scrutiny of religious education teachers is required than situations such as this demand. Whether the accreditation of a non-profit organisation such as ACCESS ministries is sufficient, or the establishment of a government agency to accredit across faith lines is needed ought to be a matter of public discussion and community consensus. Two issues are important: the skills and competencies of the volunteer teachers, and the protection of children from would-be predators. Systems already exist to address the latter, and I am not suggesting that this is presently inefficient. The community needs to be comfortable with the standards of teaching across all aspects of education, including religious education, and arguably greater transparency would help.

Perhaps the real issue is not that we have religious education in schools, but that it is left to volunteers and their organisations to ensure that the education of our children is well-rounded; one where all the social, epistemological, value, and educational perspectives are considered in an environment where safe critique can be undertaken with respect. Leaders who emerge from our education system without a healthy understanding of religious perspectives and a respect for those who hold them might find themselves walking unwittingly into territory which is unknown to them, but well-charted.

At the Ocean's Edge

2011-03-27T21:44:00.002+11:00

The Melbourne Sunday Age has published my faith reflection today. You can read it here.

Of Broken Promises

2011-03-26T08:54:00.001+11:00

Politicians break promises. Not much news there. We’ve had the ‘L-A-W’ tax cuts. We’ve learned the difference between core and non-core promises. We’ve enjoyed a ‘never-ever’ GST for ten years now. There have been workplace laws arise unannounced from the mist. And we know that “No child will ever have to live in poverty again.” Both sides of politics have a long history of doing other than they promised during an election campaign. And there are times when there is good reason to do so. Circumstances, understandings and beliefs do change. So why is there such angst about the present PM’s direction on carbon pollution? Her position – both at the election and at the present moment – have never been entirely unequivocal. At the election she promised no carbon tax, but expressed a commitment to a price on carbon. Now we have movement towards a price on carbon, and there is legitimate debate about whether the approach is a tax or a precursor to an ETS. There is genuine reason to believe that the anger about broken promises is confected. How else do we explain the lack of outrage which followed broken promises in this same area after the 2007 election – when both parties went to the election promising a price on carbon, only to walk away afterwards? Where the hue and cry about political integrity then? Both the present leaders were complicit – even openly supportive – in those promises.

Broken promises are primarily about trust. Each promise that is not kept erodes at the base of the relationship we share. It is a challenge faced regularly by parents in the negotiating space which young children bring to the family environment. As a parent, I was always careful in answering children’s questions not to breach that trust. This can be quite tricky at times. “Is there a Santa?” is but one of those questions which places the parent in a difficult position. I preferred to be honest with my children. “Of course there’s a Santa!” I would reply, “…I’m Santa!” Delivered with the appropriate sense of irony and robustness, the children would laugh and decry my claim. When the truth dawned on them and the challenge of integrity was raised, I was able to remind them of my honesty. At other times it was better to reflect back the question with another, or offer an explanation of an apparent injustice, seeking to help the child grow in understanding and maturity. To admit that I blew it, and explain why I haven’t delivered on a promise might not make all things right, but often serves to strengthen the relationship.

However, keeping promises isn’t always easy, or even possible. There are times when circumstances have intervened to stymie the keeping of a promise to a family member. And then there were some promises which should never have been made – those blanket, romantic assertions which are beyond the capability of anyone to deliver. “I’ll never let anything happen to you…” “I’ll always be here to protect you…” It is part of the growth of parents and children that the discovery of human limitations reveals the fallacy on which such promises are made. As idealistic as it might be to believe that all promises must be kept, we recognise that there are times when promises need to be broken, and even that there are times when promises are made in order to be broken. While we might readily debate the ethical principles at work, we all operate at some level or another in complicity with such an understanding.

In any case, it would deeply disturb me if we simply elected leaders to be automatons who simply and only implemented the promises they made during an election campaign. We elect our leaders on the strength of their promises and for their ability to lead. These two often exist in creative tension. Ought we have expected the Rudd government to maintain budget surpluses when the Global Financial Crisis hit? To do so would have been an abrogation of leadership, sacrificing responsible leadership on the altar of purity, and we all would have been losers. And how would we have expected leaders to respond in the wake of September 11, given that no promise had been made at the previous election about such an event. We simply cannot afford to restrict leaders to do that and only that which they had promised at the last election. Our representatives owe us their judgment, and we ought to not only expect it of them, but demand it. An opportunity to deliver our assessment will follow at the next election. Arguably the electorate did so in 2010, turning on a government lead by a person who declared climate change to be “the greatest moral challenge of our time,” and then backing away from acting. But the electorate at the time did not embrace the alternate position either.

I can appreciate those who protest the government’s commitment to a price of carbon when they argue the merits of the approach, but not on the basis of some confabulated sense of broken promises. The question at hand is not whether the promise delivered at the time of the election was broken – a debate which could last for years without resolution or agreement – but whether the approach adopted towards the delivery of an ETS is both needed and appropriate. The former response is at best unproductive and at worst potentially divisive. The latter allows all to air their perspective and concern and allow the community to reach some form of agreement or acceptance about the way forward. Banners of the ilk represented at yesterday’s Canberra gathering are neither witty nor constructive, serving only to demean the spirit and integrity of their protest rather than to further debate or understanding, and are ill-befitting those who seek to claim the high moral ground.

'Unproductive burdens' still have a right to live

2011-03-25T09:58:00.002+11:00

Here's a perspective on euthanasia that deserves to be circulated as widely as possible. It appears in today's edition of The Australian, and is written by David van Gend

THERE was a moment during the last national debate on euthanasia that deserves to be revisited by a new generation of legislators, a moment that crystallised fears that the so-called right to die would come to be felt by the frailest among us more as a "duty to die".

It was 1995 and our then governor-general, Bill Hayden, was addressing the College of Physicians during debate on the Northern Territory's euthanasia laws. The scene was significant, since the dual concern with euthanasia is the corruption of the relationship between the state and its most vulnerable citizens, and between doctors and their most vulnerable patients.

Our head of state urged doctors to support euthanasia not only as a right, but also as a positive duty towards society. He reflected on past cultures where the elderly would take their lives when their usefulness had passed, and declared of our own culture: "There is a point when the succeeding generations deserve to be disencumbered of some unproductive burdens."

The next day a retired state governor, Mark Oliphant, publicly supported Hayden's astonishing message to "unproductive burdens" that they should do the right thing by society. This is the callousing of social attitudes, the insidious pressure on the frail and demoralised, that we could expect within a culture of mercy-killing.

A year earlier in Britain, a House of Lords select committee on medical ethics completed the most thorough enquiry into euthanasia ever undertaken, and concluded in stark contrast to Hayden: "The message which society sends to vulnerable and disadvantaged people should not, however obliquely, encourage them to seek death, but should assure them of our care and support in life."

This committee began with a majority in favour of euthanasia, but ended by rejecting it as unsafe and corrupting public policy:

"It would be next to impossible to ensure that every act of euthanasia was truly voluntary. We are concerned that vulnerable people - the elderly, lonely, sick or distressed - would feel pressure, whether real or imagined, to seek early death."

Doctors have no illusions about the pressures that can be felt by vulnerable people.

One patient of mine, a woman with disabilities and minimal self-confidence, received a cruel letter from a close relative effectively telling her she should be dead, and demanding certain arrangements in her will. She then developed cancer.

Consider such family dynamics in a setting of legalised euthanasia, and ask what the "right to die" would mean to a cancer patient so isolated and intimidated.

And the public should have no illusions about the corruptibility of doctors if they are given authority to take life.

According to the Dutch government's own data, doctors in The Netherlands put to death several hundred patients a year without any explicit request, even where the patient is competent to give or withhold consent.

The Dutch officially legalised voluntary euthanasia in 2002 and some claimed that bringing euthanasia "out into the open" in this way would reduce such abuses. Not at all. The Netherlands' 2007 report on euthanasia states that the rate of patients killed "without explicit request" since legalisation in 2002 is "not significantly different from those in previous years".

And why would we expect a reduction?

Doctors who treated the law with contempt when euthanasia was illegal would be even more comfortable and relaxed about abusing the practice once it was socially approved.

Professors of psychiatry in Brisbane, Frank Varghese and Brian Kelly, warned of the impossibility of protecting patients from "the doctor's unconscious and indeed sometimes conscious wishes for the patient to die" once doctors run the state machinery of mercy-killing.

Even the assertion by euthanasia advocates that psychiatric assessment will protect patients by detecting any depression that might be marring the patient's judgment is shown to be a sham, on the available evidence from the US State of Oregon and the Northern Territory.

In Oregon, for instance, of the 49 patients who died by physician-assisted suicide in 2007 not a single patient was referred for psychiatric assessment prior to taking their lethal drug. In the NT during the period of legal euthanasia (July 1996 to March 1997) there were four deaths, all presided over by euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke.

Psychiatrist and palliative care specialist David Kissane reviewed Nitschke's cases and made this assessment of the so-called "safeguard" of compulsory psychiatric assessment:

"Nitschke reported that all patients saw this step as a hurdle to be overcome. Alarmingly, these patients went untreated by a system preoccupied with meeting the requirements of the act's schedules rather than delivering competent medical care to depressed patients."

More than once I have urged Nitschke to study palliative medicine, to broaden his awareness of what can be done for people with advanced disease. When we look after such patients well, thoughts of euthanasia often fade. Then, in the words of one hospice patient who had asked me for euthanasia only the day before, but was now pain-free, "It's a different world, doc."

However, I would not use the argument against euthanasia that "palliative care can ease all suffering". We cannot ease all suffering in dying any more than we can ease all suffering in childbirth, even though we have made enormous progress.

Rejection of euthanasia is not dependent on perfecting palliative care for all patients.

Its rejection is on the grounds of injustice to the weak, as Kevin Andrews made clear on presenting his Euthanasia Laws Bill 1996, which overturned the NT's legislation: "The people who are most at risk are the most vulnerable, and a law which fails to protect vulnerable people will always be a bad law."

We must reject euthanasia both as a corruption of the doctor-patient relationship and as an insidious oppression of society's "unproductive burdens".

And parliament must reject the Greens' trivialisation of such a momentous issue, their proposal that five politicians on Norfolk Island or nine in the ACT assembly should have authority to transform national culture on a matter of life and death.

David van Gend is a Toowoomba GP and a senior lecturer in palliative medicine at the University of Queensland. (This article does not purport to represent the view, if any, of the university.)

Melbourne Environment Warning!

2011-03-23T06:52:00.000+11:00

Unconstrained Energy Leak Engulfing City

While residents on the north coast of Japan watch and wait as the environmental impacts of the damage to its Fukushima nuclear power generators in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami, and communities along the Gulf of Mexico continue their cleaning efforts after the sustained release of oil energy from the disabled drilling platform, Melburnians today are being warned of a major energy disaster engulfing the city. Energy many times the capacity of either the reactors in Japan or the oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico is being released across the city in an unrestrained way, impacting the lives of every resident of and visitor to the city. Daily reports of this leak fill our news media, with papers regularly reporting the times in which its release begins and ends, often indicating when the peak impact will occur during the day. Radio programs punctuate the hour with updates, often reinforced across the hour. Yet in their typically laconic Aussie style, Melbourne’s residents seem to take it in their stride.

Far from being concerned about this release of energy into the atmosphere, Melbourne’s citizens seem to revel in it. Though extreme circumstances can cause severe damage to the skin, and often lead to a significant reduction in productivity, marked by a surge in residents leaving the city and heading to the shores, shedding work responsibilities and, incredibly, soaking up its rays, for the most part the atmospheric presence of this unrestrained energy source is taken for granted, with little pressure being exerted upon governments and industry to take action to curb this waste.

A variety of symptoms of exposure have been reported, including in its mild forms, increased consumption of liquids, and the shedding of external clothing by humans, and at extreme levels increased risk of skin cancers. But its release can also lift sombre moods, stimulate the playful twitter of bird life, and the encourage the blossoming of flowers and flourishing of gardens. Oddly enough, a common response when this energy release is at its peak is for Melburnians to increase demand for and consumption of coal and gas-fired energy sources which have even more adverse effects on the atmosphere and the broader environment, intensifying its impact in the atmosphere. Some of Melbourne’s citizens have consequently been pressing for investment in the nuclear generation technology which has Japanese residents presently in a heightened state of alert. In spite of the abundance of this energy source, few Melburnians seem concerned enough to harness and utilise solar resources in the overall generation of power through its infrastructure. This terrible and unconstrained wastage passes daily with little concern by the average citizen, save to occasionally retreat when at its most intense or, paradoxically, also when it is at its least intensity. In stark contrast to the citizens of Japan and the Gulf Coast, Melburnians seems strangely relaxed about this unconstrained release into the environment and the accompanying wasted opportunity, yet at the same time apparently concerned that we move to harness and deploythe very sources of energy which have paralyses these other places for extended periods.

Interestingly, were such unconstrained release of energy of the kind we see each day be of any other form of energy being consumed around the world, the death toll would be enormous and the environment damaged to the extent that it would be uninhabitable. Conversely, harnessing this power source for our daily conduct of life will do nothing to diminish the enjoyment of it in other ways by others, and may even provide benefits in other ways to our communal well-being, without the risks which most alternatives bring. It almost beggars belief.

So every time you hear a weather report today and revel in the sun’s rays, take a moment to remember and perhaps pray for our sisters and brothers in Japan, and contemplate the waste we tolerate every day.

A Game-Change in Libya?

2011-03-21T22:47:00.000+11:00

The intervention of the United Nations into the Libyan struggle, while welcome at one level, and a game-changer at another, will also change the nature of any victory which ensues. The struggle for change in Libya commenced as an internal struggle, not unlike others seen in recent weeks in the Middle East, most recently Egypt, where the victory was won by non-violent revolution within the powers of the people. True democratic reform has taken place because it was the voice – and actions – of the people which prevailed. Libyan citizens, encouraged by what they had seen in the neighbouring country, took up the struggle for change. The time seemed right to bring the long rule of Colonel Gaddafi to an end. However, Gaddafi not only resisted the voices, he responded with force against his people, and the people were threatened.

At one level the response of the United Nations to sanction military intervention by other nations is understandable. Gaddafi was not going to go quietly, if at all, and the cost in terms of lives was set to escalate. Having stood by and watched such brutality in other countries unfold without intervention, and with an escalating and tragic cost in lives – both in terms of number of deaths and in the number of refugees created, the argument for intervention was made, and accepted. But in so doing, the nature of the struggle has changed.

The use of such a powerful force against the Gaddafi regime, nominally in enforcement of a “no-fly zone” changed the game significantly. No longer is this simply a battle for political transformation rooted in the power of the Libyan people, it has become a battle of forces far greater. Any victory is no longer an ideological victory based in arguments for a freer and fairer Libyan society, it has been shifted into a battle based on who can unleash the greatest force for the longest time. Paradoxically, an act taken to empower the Libyan people may well undermine the very case they are trying to make – that true political power is rooted in the voice of the people, not in the tyrannical exercise of force.

If Gaddafi manages to survive this assault, his position will be strengthened, and an argument can be made that the coalition has effectively undermined the moral authority of the arguments made by the Libyan people in their rebellion. If the UN coalition succeeds in removing Gaddafi from power, there consequently exists a moral claim upon whoever assumes power in his stead, one which has laid a foundation of power which still rests upon violence. The game will have been won, but a far different game than envisaged at the outset. It is no longer only the struggle of the Libyan people, it is now a battle between Gaddafi and the world. Any victory will thus create a power vacuum, echoing problems we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. And with the additional factor in the equation – Libya’s oil reserves – at the heart of Western interests, a new power struggle emerges in the wake of any regime collapse.

We may well ask about the alternatives. Should we have let this struggle play itself out as an internal struggle, just as the world allowed to happen in Cairo? Do we not believe in the power of the people’s voice – democracy – enough to let this struggle continue? Is the presence of oil the real catalyst for action, or a genuine and altruistic commitment to protect the Libyan people who began this uprising and were struggling to see it through? These are complex questions. But it is of concern that we turn so readily to the use of force to solve such problems… if such actions really do solve them at all. Is the ultimate answer to all tyrants only that we have the bigger weapons? What happens if they manage to gain this upper hand?

Living in Community

2011-03-16T21:56:00.000+11:00

While reading Parker Palmer's "The Company of Strangers" I came across this provocative quote:

"Community is that place where the person you least want to live with always lives!"

Palmer adds a corollary:

"And when that person moves away, someone else arises to take his or her place!"

The State of the Planet

2011-03-15T23:30:00.001+11:00

The first part of 2011 has been remarkable for the number of catastrophic events which have been on our screens and in our newspapers. Floods, cyclones, bushfires, earthquakes, and tsunamis have appeared almost in sequence within this region of the world, prompting many to pause and ask “what is going on?” The ever-present and continuous news presentations providing blanket coverage of these events has, to some extent, heightened awareness and – possibly – the sense of trauma being felt within the community. The distance from our lounge-room chairs to the flood-devastated residents of Brisbane and North Queensland, to the bushfire threatened residents of Perth, to the shaken and shattered residents of Christchurch or to the inundated residents of Japan has been greatly reduced by the wonders of telecommunication technology and the conspicuous presence of 24-hour news coverage. It is hard to avoid being drawn into these dramatic events. It is equally difficult to escape their presence. The trauma being experienced by the residents is encroaching upon our daily lives.

At one level, the sense of disaster we feel is heightened by our proximity to the events, both in vision and experience. Who can but help to be shaken by the images of waves destroying everything in their path which have saturated our screens in recent nights? How can we not be shaken to the core as we witness first-hand the distress of residents standing outside collapsed buildings wondering whether friends and loved ones are trapped inside? We experience these things in their raw state, entering ever more deeply into the experience of the residents. Not for us any longer the capacity to wait for news to reach us, often processed with the benefit of passing time. It is raw. It is filled with anguish. And the very screen which brings us into this drama also cuts us off from resources to help us process it. Aid and support workers are on the ground helping residents deal with their shock and grief, but not in our lounge rooms. We find ourselves either immersed in the trauma, or conceptually reducing it to a form of entertainment. (Remember the reminders during the events of September 11? Newscasters had to remind audiences that this was real. Note that we no longer find the need to do so.)

At another level, we seem to have been hit by an uninterrupted sequence of catastrophic events of an extreme nature. This sequence also gives rise to the question – is there something unusual about this sequence? Have we tripped off events by human action? While I resonate with Boris Johnson’s decrying of those who search for simplistic answers to this situation, I hesitate to rule out the need to ask ourselves whether our actions have somehow disturbed the delicate balance in creation to a point where the frequency of events has been accelerated and their ferocity intensified. Is it realistic to assume that we can extract billions of litres of crude oil from below the earth’s crust and replace it with seawater without upsetting the balance? Is it naïve to believe that setting off nuclear explosions beneath the earth’s surface has no impact on the stability of the tectonic plates? We are already pondering the impact of our carbon emissions on the planet… ought we not extend our considerations to other aspects below the surface? Of course the earth is not a person who “exacts revenge.” It is, however, a system in balance – an ever-shifting balance with tremendous capacity to adapt to changes – but one which does have limits to its flexibility. We can no longer presume on human capacity to treat creation as its plaything without some consideration of the potential consequences. Whilst I would agree that it is only human stupidity which seeks to ascribe simple or singular causes to such events, I would also suggest that it is only human arrogance that can allow us to continue as though these things were entirely matters of chance.

Yet when we hear the question, “What is going on?” echoing through ordinary conversation, we recognise the conversation being turned towards discussion of meta-narratives – is there a bigger picture of which this is part? The search for meaning is a basic human trait – that sense of purpose in life which explains who we are and why we live in a certain way. Although some might suggest that the idea of the meta-narrative has gone the way of the dodo, its resurrection at times such as this (and not only at this time) indicates that questions of meaning are still very much alive. This is why some find it irresistible to offer simplistic explanations: “It’s the judgment of God,” or “It’s the earth fighting back.” These are as helpful as Johnson’s suggestion that “we don't have to treat this as any kind of verdict on mankind's activities,” or to borrow a phrase from another politician, “shit happens.” An inappropriate response – at either end – does not invalidate the question. There is a middle ground where some thoughtful reflection needs to be undertaken about the impact of our lifestyle on the planet while we pour our efforts and resources into aid and support for the devastated regions (and not just those in the West!)

We do need to contemplate where our lifestyle is leading us, and whether these events are indicators, or simply isolated episodes consistent with the inherent volatility of our planet. Failure to even ask the question might allow us to journey into even deeper troubles.

Facebook and Faith

2010-10-10T13:49:00.000+11:00

The proliferation of communication technologies in our day cannot be disputed, both in terms of the breadth of take-up and in terms of its penetration into almost every aspect of our social lives. Those born in the last two decades are on native turf. They have not known an unwired world, and have accepted that developing a relationship does not require physical proximity in the way previous generations formed their bonds. The presence of the telephone in every home in Australia took until the late 1960s or early 1970s, and streets were still littered with public telephones, whose purpose shifted from providing universal telephone access to a place where conversations could take place in a somewhat uninterrupted space. Public telephones have all but disappeared thanks to mobile telecommunications, first the mobile phone, then the advent of mobile internet devices.
To those who have adapted to these technologies, or who have seen their children or grandchildren take to them with alacrity, this can cause some consternation, particularly when reading about the perils of the internet, access to unfiltered information and images, and the capacity to create cyber-identities for purposes which might be regarded as malign. The information about oneself on line, particularly through social networking sites like Facebook, causes generations reared on privacy to wince.
How are we to adapt to this (un)wired world?
We need to recognise that this world is more than a communications medium – it is the harbinger of a new way of understanding our world, as well as interacting with it. It brings with it a new set of values, a new paradigm, and new language. Nowhere is this more clear than in the ways in which we understand our bodies. Whereas once we defined the body in mechanical terms, we now define it in technological terms. Health check-ups were once referred to as a tune-up, and transplants akin to replacing new parts in an engine. Now we recognise the systemic nature of our body. With developing knowledge of DNA, we talk of re-programming. Brain chemistry now speaks of neural pathways and connections. These are just two of the ways in which computer technology has shaped the ways in which we see ourselves, let alone our world.
Those who seek to adapt to this new world may make the mistake of thinking it is merely a matter of adopting new technology: create a web site, join Facebook, send an email (perhaps more appropriately, a tweet!) But this is only part of the challenge to be faced. We do not embrace the new ways of being and thinking simply by bringing a computer into the office, or joining the internet-connected generation. We need to learn a new language, a new etiquette, a new way of interacting. Reading an email requires a different set of eyes than reading a hand-written letter. A facebook status update must be read with different eyes again. We need a different judgment, a different skill set.
Much of the fear surrounding the impact of these technologies is not unlike the cross-cultural experience: not understanding the symbols, cues and language which is on the surface familiar, but substantially different. The value points, communication signals and relational cues are different.
The gospel speaks to each generation with different voices, conveying a time-honoured, eternal message. The job of translating the message into this environment, requires a rethinking, a reimagining, of the import of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the overall work of God in the world. God who is the word, whose word became flesh, would enter the digital world in a creative and unique way. So should we.

A Choc-o-holics' Dream

2010-09-28T20:44:00.000+10:00

One for real addicts: how long would it take for you to eat it?

Life is Messy

2010-09-23T17:43:00.001+10:00

Life is messy. It is an illusion of childhood and adolescence that attaining adulthood means acquisition of control over one’s life. Our adult life often represents the struggle to maintain this illusion in the face of a variety of events which threaten our equilibrium and prompt periodic adjustments to our plans. Some of them are ultimately welcomed and embraced, others less so.

In pastoral work I regularly encounter people in life moments where all semblance of control is lost: standing with a parent outside a surgical unit while her teenage son is undergoing surgery after an horrific car accident; sitting with family whose loved one has suffered a stroke wondering what the next few hours will hold; weeping with a woman who has been learned that breast cancer has returned and metastasised; staring into space with parents of a premature infant struggling for life; sharing parental anger when a child is diagnosed with a terminal illness. In these places any sense of control is shattered, and one’s human limitations are laid bare.

It has not only been in pastoral work that I have encountered these limitations. I have watched my emaciated grandmother lying in a bed wasting away; struggled with infertility for ten years; watched my own parents battle cancer; sat by a warming tray as my 600 gram son struggle for each breath and fought against the constraints which the tubes inserted into his body represented. How I wanted their struggles to end, feeling acutely the helplessness which comes in the face of such circumstances. Something deep within me yearned for some semblance of control, an ability to step in to reduce suffering, to find a constructive way forward. To sit as one engaged in these struggles was often excruciating, but there was no escape; no place to dodge the pain. Even when not present with them, I carried the pain pulsating within.

I understand the impetus which drives the call for the legalisation of euthanasia. These are very difficult places to be – to watch someone ebbing away before our eyes, seeing our relationship dissolve as the progress of insidious disease gradually tears our loved ones away from us, stripping them of much of what we consider to be components of human dignity in adults – down to the very basics such as control of bodily functions, and ability to communicate. To sit with and speak to someone without response, all the while watching them slowly slip away from life, tears at the very fabric of our being. When final hours linger into days, sometimes stretching into weeks or excruciating months, the pain becomes more than we can bear, both for our loved one, and for ourselves. Words fail to articulate what such journeys involve, let alone mean, for those who are pressed into them. The desire to ‘take control’ in the face of life’s last enemy offers the opportunity of at least a pyrrhic victory – a final declaration that we are in control of our own destiny. But it remains an illusion.

Early in pastoral ministry I learned an important and sobering lesson. A member of my congregation had suffered a debilitating stroke and lay uncommunicative in a hospital bed for a number of days. When she made an unexpected recovery, she expressed one of her frustrations during that time – that she had been able to hear and understand all conversations that took place around her, but was unable to respond. She was locked inside a non-responsive body. Although from the outside her humanity appeared to have been stripped away, it remained, locked away, oblivious to those around her. Her expressed fear was not that she had lost some control over her bodily functions, but that she found herself being ignored –the greatest indignity for her, to have others pretend that she was no longer there, even in her diminished and somewhat emaciated state.

The equation of euthanasia with ‘dying with dignity’ is a distortion. As the life cycle turns, we recognise that the ageing years can often bring a shift in relationship balance, where the child becomes the parent and the parent needing the guidance and support of their children. We feel the discomfort which comes when we find ourselves taking a parental role with our own parents, and seek to do it in the most caring and dignified ways we can. When cancer or dementia begins to overtake, the nature of such parental care can even mimic that of caring for our infant children, particularly when it comes to hygiene and cleanliness. But we do not such acts to be undignified towards our infant children. We talk with them and relate to them in the process in order to build and maintain the relationship. I have seen the expert and gracious care of many palliative care nurses towards aged patients in a similar manner – actions which maintain dignity even where the body makes it more difficult without assistance.

I do not judge or condemn those find it difficult to remain present when the last days drag on. It is confronting at times to journey those last hours and days with someone we love; to know that the person shrinking before our eyes was once hale and robust, full of life and energy. To talk to someone without eliciting a response where once their witty repartee brought raucous laughter or punctured the tension evokes a deep grief which cannot be readily expressed while they still live, even less so while we are in their presence.

Ranjana Srivastana’s column in The Age on Wednesday was refreshing for its honesty and humanity. As are her reported comments of the son. That death has its own timetable pushes us into uncomfortable and apparently inhuman spaces, spaces and experiences which we do not talk about enough, either about death or grief, or our own human limitations. Yet to gain the illusion of control may be to lose something at the very fabric of our being, something of our deepest selves.

I find myself asking what I would fear about a lingering death such as Sanjana describes? I identify pain levels which can only be known by those who experience them, much of which can be controlled or ameliorated with medication. I note the loss of control of bodily functions which threaten one’s dignity, but which can be cared for both physically and emotionally. Then there is the slow decimation of the body, slipping into being a shadow of my (former) self. But I realise that one has to learn that by degrees as one ages in any case. And then there is the sense of being left alone to die. I realise that it is the relationships that make me who I am; the people around me who give meaning, purpose and joy to life. These are those who celebrate success with me, who chide me when I fail, who urge me on to other things, and with whom I share a similar privilege. To be human is to be remembered, to be re-membered as part of a community. This is perhaps the greatest fear to be faced, particularly for those who believe that there is no comfort in death, and no company with us through the shadow of death’s valley.

There is a need to be there with a loved one in those difficult last moments not because they have anything to give to us as such, but so that we can be with them, showing that we remember, and that we care. This is the greatest gift anyone can give and receive in life. I fear that an acceptance of euthanasia may serve to undermine that gift, and therefore undermine our very humanity.

Life is messy. Let’s not make it clinical.

Beyond Ground Zero

2010-09-11T20:03:00.002+10:00

The call by an American pastor to mark the September 11 anniversary by burning a copy of the Koran is not only an inflammatory gesture, but represents a misunderstanding of not only the gospel which the pastor seeks to represent, but of the events of September 11 themselves. It has become acceptable to link the September 11 attacks with either an attack on American religious freedom (more particularly its Christian heritage) or an attack on American culture and prominence itself. A closer examination of the events of that day demonstrate a far more simple statement was being made in a rather more complex manner than the pastor suggests.

American dominance throughout the second half of the twentieth century was rooted in a combination of its economic power, its military might, and its political power. It is hard to separate these from one another, so interlinked have they been. As we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century, each of these three pillars has lost some of its sheen, and the gap between the USA and the rest is reducing. US budget deficits are measured in the trillions, trade deficits continue to grow, and the might of the US military machine has been tested and stretched significantly on the Iraq and Afghanistan stages, where not only its expertise has been exposed as insufficient to bring out the desired outcomes, but the overall cost has significantly impacted the local economy’s capabilities in responding to the financial crisis. All of these, together with the shambolic outcomes of some presidential elections as far as the integrity of the voting process is concerned, have combined to undermine the political authority of the USA, particularly when further taking into account issues of diplomacy and in addressing global concerns such as Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals in addressing global poverty. Whilst still the preeminent nation on the planet, there are reasons to question where the present directions of the US might lead, and what the pecking order on the list of countries might be like at the end of this century.

An arguable turning point can be anchored in the events of September 11, 2001. The events of that day are deeply entrenched in American culture and in global perspectives on American responses. The images of the World Trade Centre Towers collapsing are burned upon the minds of all who lived through those days. The residual anger in the community makes analysis of the events problematic and prone to misunderstanding. But rather than regarding these atrocities as random or completely senseless acts, we should look more closely to examine the import of the events of that day. Of course, one does so with a sense of trepidation, realising the tremendous cost, both in terms of lives lost on the day, but also its damage to American pride. The tragedy of that day and the deep grief which continues for a nation, and many individuals within it needs to be respected.

The visual imagery conveyed in the events of September 11 wield a coherent narrative, seeking to challenge the very structure of power which facilitated and underpins American dominance. In fact, in spite of the apparent wanton and random nature of the devastation it caused, the combination of events on that day exhibit something far more strategic. Consider the three targets: the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and the White House.

The World Trade Centre has remained the single enduring memorial image of the events, thereby masking the overall imagery of the day. It stood for decades as a symbol of America’s dominance in the world economy and of its engineering capabilities. It supplied 15% of the available office space on the island, and housed major multinational corporations. Billions of dollars of transactions passed through its offices annually. Its size related not only to its importance architecturally, economically and culturally to New York, but to America’s economic influence internationally.

The other two targets are remembered only in passing, perhaps because the impact was much less obvious – the symbolic skyline of New York being reshaped far more dramatically – and the loss of life in those other places less so. One of the airliners crashed into the Pentagon, causing not only the loss of life of passengers and some on the ground, but also significant damage at the point of impact – yet not enough to change the shape or the functioning of the buildings in any significant way. Similarly, Flight 93 was brought down by the courageous act of its passengers over fields in Pennsylvania, well short of its intended target, the Whitehouse, which continues to stand physically unscarred by the events of 9/11. In light of these outcomes one might suggest that the overall effect marked as a failure for its perpetrators, failing to significantly scar the three pillars of American dominance on that day, and allowing the reframing of the story by the victims for their own purposes.

However, a long-term analysis suggests that the damage might be more significant to Pentagon and Whitehouse than the scars of the day itself. The US response was to send its troops into Afghanistan and then to Iraq, ostensibly as revenge for these attacks, and as a pre-emptive response to any future acts of terrorism. Convinced that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were involved and complicit in the 9/11 attacks, a massive commitment of troops succeeded in overthrowing both regimes in reasonably brief time frames. However, due to inability to establish a lasting peace or a stable government, the troop commitments are nearing the end of their first decade, involving significant loss of human life, with over 4000 US troops alone killed in action, and thousands more civilians and enemy combatants added to this number. In addition, the economic cost to the US economy of the two wars already exceeds $1 trillion dollars, with no end in sight to US involvement in both theatres. While these significant costs related to the conduct of action in Afghanistan and Iraq escalated, a new threat on the home front emerged – the global financial crisis. Already under significant budget stress, the financial cost of these wars has severely hamstrung the US administration in its ability to formulate meaningful and significant responses to the economic downturn which has pushed unemployment levels in the USA to double figures and created significant pain for its people. Economically and militarily, America’s vulnerabilities have been exposed, and any belief that the economic and military might of the US could shape the world as it pleased has been undermined. While only the World Trade Centre was brought down on the day – and is on the brink of re-emerging in a new form, the military and economic scars may well endure for many years to come.

And along the way, we have seen the gradual undermining of America’s moral authority on the international stage. There is no doubt that the practices of rendition, the images of Abu Graib, and the existence of Guantanamo Bay, where “enemy combatants” have been held indefinitely without charge or trial have done America’s reputation no favours. When you consider the restrictions placed on American citizens in order to “preserve America’s freedom,” including “no-fly” lists, wire-tapping, and other intrusions into privacy, the emergent paradox is how far one’s freedoms being removed in order to protect one’s freedoms can be justifiable and morally sustainable. While we may well understand the strength of commitment to ensure that US citizens are protected on their own soil, many of the legislative responses to increase homeland security have caused heartache for many innocent citizens.

The World Trade Centre (symbol of American economic power), the Pentagon (symbol of her military power), and the Whitehouse (symbol of political power) were all attacked by commercial aircraft – itself another symbol of American freedom and ingenuity – on a date which translates as the same telephone number as Americans dial in an emergency – 911. Can we really claim this was a random act of wanton destruction? Can we really simplify this event as an attack by one religion on another? Is the call to “burn the Koran” merely a reflection of the type of stereotypical ignorance which prompted the attacks in the first place?

We do well to hear the pain of the American people as they remember these events, for the wounds and the scars run deep. These attacks were callous and calculated, and designed to send a message. But if the only response is to “burn the Koran,” we have to ask whether anyone was really prepared to face up to the full implications of this day, let alone the call of the gospel to love one’s enemies and to pray for those who persecute you. But to use one’s power to trample on the beliefs of another is to continue to pour fuel on the fires which stoke such acts of violence. At the same time we need to remember that this attack was on much more than the area called "Ground Zero" today...

This is Just Weird

2010-08-23T16:34:00.002+10:00

Talk about a strange coalition of events. Try this one.

But reality is often stranger than fiction. Consider the political situation presently being faced in Australia. A national election on Saturday has failed to deliver any party with an outright majority. Granted, that is de rigeur for Italian politics, but rather unusual in an Australian climate. The situation is made more complex by the fact that balance of power in the two houses of parliament are held by different ends of the political spectrum. The lower house, which forms the government of the day, has three independents from the political right who will ultimately determine who has the first opportunity to form government. These rural politicians are generally conservative in their views. In the Upper House, on the other hand, the balance of power falls to the Greens, who are at the left of the political spectrum (arguably the only party in Australia - with seats in parliament - who is on the left). Consider the challenge to be faced by a minority government: to have legislation which meets the demands of the three independent right-leaning MHRs on the one hand, and the Green left-leaning Senators on the other.

Sounds like a recipe for healthy government. Goodbye slogans, hello meaningful debate!

Sometimes the weird outcomes are the most productive~! (but time will tell...)

What would Jesus do about economic growth?

2010-06-24T10:13:00.002+10:00

Article from Ross Gittins printed in Fairfax papers on the weekend. Refreshing.

Should Christians support capitalism? According to a leading English layman, despite all its material benefits, capitalism as we know it contains moral flaws with serious social consequences.

I'm in no position to preach to Christians, but I'm happy to pass on the views of Dr Michael Schluter, founder of Britain's Relationships Foundation, which will be of interest to a wider audience (and can be found here).

Schluter's beef is against the failings of capitalism that arise from corporations, which have developed as its primary engine.

His starting point is the belief that God is a relational being, whose priority is not economic growth, but right relationships between humanity and himself and between human beings. Christ's injunction to ''love God and love your neighbour'' points to the priority of relational wealth over financial wealth because love is a quality of relationships.

Corporate capitalism's first moral flaw, he says, is its exclusively materialistic vision. It rests on the pursuit of business profit and personal gain. It promotes the idolising of money, which Jesus calls ''Mammon''.

''People are regarded by companies as a resource, or as a cost in the profit and loss account, devoid of relational or environmental context. So capitalism constantly has to be restrained from destroying the social capital on which it depends for its future existence,'' he says.

This focus on capital lends itself to the idolatry of wealth at a personal level, and the idolatry of economic growth at a corporate and national level. Shareholders pursue personal wealth with little knowledge of how it is generated, and senior management with scant regard for pay structures at lower levels of the company, while customers are persuaded by advertising to pursue self-gratification in its many forms.

Corporate capitalism's second moral flaw is that it offers reward without responsibility. In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus implies that gaining money through interest on a loan is ''reaping where you haven't sown''. Lenders may accept some small risk, but they accept no responsibility for how or where the money is used.

Debt finance generally results in relational distance rather than relational ''proximity'' because the lender generally has no incentive to remain engaged with, or even in regular contact with, the borrower.

In the workings of large corporations, shareholders generally have little say in decision-making. Most investors provide share capital through a financial intermediary, such as a pension fund. Often they don't know or care in which companies they hold shares. Even the financial intermediaries generally do little to influence company policy.

Perhaps, Schluter says, instead of ''no taxation without representation'' we should adopt the slogan ''no reward without responsibility, no profit without participation''.

Corporate capitalism's third moral failing arises from the limited liability of shareholders, which allows debts to be left unpaid where the company becomes insolvent. Worse, the unpaid creditors are often employees, consumers and smaller companies supplying goods and services.

Because the downside risks of borrowing are capped, while the upside risks aren't, management has been willing to borrow huge sums relative to the company's share capital and thus expand companies at a frantic pace.

In the finance sector, incentive schemes often reward risk-taking excessively on the upside with no downside penalties, reflecting the risk position of shareholders. Consequent mega-losses have to be financed by taxpayers to limit wider economic fallout.

Schluter's fourth charge against corporate capitalism is that it disconnects people from place. In the Old Testament, the jubilee laws required all rural property to be returned free to its original family owners every 50th year.

This ensured long-term rootedness in a particular place for every extended family. A byproduct was to ensure a measure of equity in the distribution of property, which ensured a broad distribution of political power.

By contrast, capitalism regards land and property as assets without relational significance. This greater flexibility and mobility undoubtedly bring material benefits. But as extended family members move away from one another, and communities become more transient, they can no longer fulfil welfare roles.

Grandparents can no longer help look after grandchildren, and responsibility for care of older people and those with disabilities falls on the state, with the costs having to be met from tax revenues.

Schluter's final charge is that corporate capitalism provides inadequate social safeguards. It has no concept of protecting the vulnerable through constraints on the market. Deregulation limits constraints on consumer credit although the devastating consequences of debt for personal health and family relationships are well known.

Deregulation ensures labour is available for hire 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whereas biblical law protected a day a week for non-work priorities including rest, worship and family.

The adverse consequences of these flaws start with family and community breakdown. ''The greater wealth of some sections of society in capitalist nations has to be set against the greater 'relational poverty' which extends to an ever greater proportion of the population. The danger is that over time these relational problems become self-reinforcing and self-replicating,'' Schluter says.

Another consequence of capitalism's failings over the longer term is a huge growth in government spending. As the number of damaged households increases, so does the size of the bureaucracy.

Government spending on welfare has reached a level many regard as unsustainable, Schluter argues, yet without it many vulnerable people would have little or no physical or emotional support.

As state agencies take over many of the roles of family and local community, they undermine the reasons why these institutions exist and thus further lower people's loyalty and commitment to them.

Schluter's conclusion is that Christians need to search urgently for a new economic order based on biblical revelation.

Ross Gittins is the economics editor at The Sydney Morning Herald and correspondent for The Age. Original source

BP Ad from 1999

2010-06-01T09:43:00.003+10:00

Some Science Fun

2010-05-12T16:20:00.000+10:00

Fake science, really.

If you find God too easily

2010-05-04T08:21:00.001+10:00

Thanks Andy for posting this thought/prayer from Thomas Merton:

If I find Him with great ease, perhaps He is not my God.
If I cannot hope to find Him at all, is He my God?
If I find Him wherever I wish, have I found Him?
If He can find me whenever He wishes,
And tells me Who He is and who I am,
And if I then know that He Whom I could not find has found me:
Then I know He is the Lord, my God:
He has touched me with the finger that made me out of nothing.

From the Outside In?

2010-05-03T18:11:00.002+10:00

It strikes me that there are a number of significant hurdles to be contemplated as we reflect on the invitation to theologically reflect on what it means to be a Baptist denomination, any one of which serves as an obstacle of some size on its own, let alone where there is a range of issues in the mix. Let me articulate some of these:

Complexity – “re-imagining the BUV” assumes we can “imagine” it in the first place, and then understand the complex permutations and combinations which changes to structure might cause. Starting this process is like grabbing hold of a loose thread in a jumper – once you start pulling, you risk unravelling the whole jumper. Building aeroplanes in the sky and herding cats are two images which strike me in this process. I wonder whether it is a little too clinical an approach. Theological reflection is an ongoing process in which praxis is essential. One act of reflection (or a time) without consequent action and further reflection is insufficient, and suggests there is a “right answer” to be found.

Experience – it is fair to say that there are those of us who find ourselves at one end or other of a spectrum: there are those who do not have a positive experience of denominational life, for whatever reason. And there are those for whom participation in denominational life has been a complete blessing. We all read the denominational structures through a particular grid of experience, none of which disqualifies us from recording our observations and communicating them for the good of its future (or should I say, our future, keeping in mind Frank’s observation that the BUV is our denomination).

Understanding – from the outside in. How many of us have a real understanding of what is happening inside the denominational office? Of the considerable complexities which reflect the theological, pastoral, ethical, organisational, legal and administrative issues. The question could be asked as to how effective any reflection is from a distance…

Personal Concern. There are those who believe that speaking out about their experience and concerns will compromise them in terms of future pastoral appointments, and therefore choose to continue to suffer in silence. The only way for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. But there is another risk in speaking out – not having one’s concerns validated by others. There are times when we haven’t been pastoral in our response to one another. The history of the VBMN list shows this. The use of the anonymous post feature of the list has demonstrated the need for a place to vent in complete confidence.

Incompleteness – sometimes we hold strong convictions about something without necessarily having the capacity to offer a potential solution. That’s OK. It is a function and a privilege of community to hear the incomplete thoughts born of pain, angst, or even joy, and to help one another work through the implications.

From the Outside In? Asking us to reflect on something most of us have only experienced at the margins is problematic. There may be longer term strategies unfolding which aren’t apparent, or to which we may not be privy. A change in organisational direction, theologically and strategically, emerges from familiarity with the systems and their impact in relation to the strategic plan, surely. BUT… let us never forget that the central figure and central story of the Christian faith is found at the margins: outside a city wall, amongst the poor and marginalised. If we are to develop healthy denominational structures, we need to hear all voices, all thoughts, because we should be listening for the voice of the Spirit, and not one of self-defense or self-justification.

My efforts in these writings are an exercise in “thinking out loud.” And certainly – as one who has had little contact with the internal workings of denominational life – from the margins. Theological reflection is a conversation. It is dynamic. We all need to offer our half-formed thoughts, impressions and observations.

Denomination by Association

2010-04-30T13:24:00.003+10:00

My first response to the night of theological reflection, and to Frank’s paper is rightly determined to be too theoretical. In retrospect it is my effort to put some parameters around the nature of theological reflection, and to underline that our capacity to determine what God is doing in the present is enhanced by our knowledge of what God has done in the past and of the hope which calls us into God’s future. The question, “What are the implications?” is an important one, but must always be answered with the realisation that all actions and structures express values and embody particular futures. In this light I turn my attention to the Baptist tradition of Association.
From the earliest days Baptists were drawn into association with one another. We need to consider what the nature and purpose of association meant at that time, and how association became denomination…
It is something of a catch cry that the reason for denomination is that there are things that we can do together that we can’t do separately. While acknowledging the truth in such a statement, it does need clarification. Over time it has amounted to a deferral to the denomination rather than the cooperative spirit which undergirds the notion of association. In association, churches found support as they grappled with the implications of the theological convictions which drove them to establish Baptist churches in the first place. In the same way that Paul’s mission to the Gentile world raised questions related to practices such as circumcision, so the embrace of liberty of conscience and commitment to corporate discernment of God’s call pressed the new church to consider the implications. We have studied these movements around theological conviction: General vs Particular Baptist distinctives are but one example, but the ways in which they developed the practices at a local level are as formative as the theological statements produced. Association was about shared conviction, commitment to exploration of this call and its implications, and about supporting one another in this journey, so that individual churches did not feel isolated and alone in the struggle. I do not get the sense of an “Association office” being established to support the work. Rather the Association itself was engaged in the struggle and questions emerging at the local level. They were local church practitioners together. And one would assume, not in large churches by modern standards.
The purpose of Association was directed towards empowering and supporting the local church. This was enhanced by the development of theological frameworks for understanding their mission, although the coming together as Association was arguably founded on this.
One of the arguable outcomes of the shift towards “doing things together” is an increasing disconnect with that which is done corporately from the local experience, to the effect that it looks more like outsourcing than cooperative ministry. By way of example, our Baptist social service and missional ventures are now quite distinct from the local church and disconnected from a significant proportion of those who make up our churches. The major connection, if it exists at all, is through funding rather than an identified partnership in mission and ministry together.
The problem of distance is one which plagues all denominational offices. Ministry at the local church level engages at a different perspective than a denominational office. Not only are they shaped by different concerns, the engagement interface is different. In hindsight, this is one of the troubling thoughts which plagued me on the night and since – the theological reflection undertaken appeared to be largely from the inside-out. That is, we seemed to be reflecting on what is and how to make it better/more effective, rather than taking up the call to reflect on what God is doing in the world and asking how we might align with it. Here I would respectfully disagree with Jeff Pugh’s contention that this is limited to “in those places and with those people who are preaching his message and where the message of the Cross and resurrection is bearing fruit.” Such a limited view of God’s work in the world implies that God is only at work in the church, or in terms which the church readily understands and identifies. If we are to learn anything from the history of the early church and the mission of Jesus it is that God often appears at the margins – even of religious life, inviting us to see His work in new ways and new perspectives. If we limit our theological reflection to what God is doing in the church we risk becoming increasingly insular and inward-focussed. Theological reflection has always been on what God is doing in the world, and where God is leading creation, and those who would follow the call of God.
It is beyond contention that the ministry interface at the local level has changed considerably over the last forty years, perhaps with increasing pace over the last decade. The metaphors and narratives which inform people’s lives are increasingly disconnected from the ones which have nurtured the church’s history and, until recently, Western culture. The risks of and frameworks for ministry have changed considerably. How do we negotiate these in the context of the world and not merely in terms of the risk exposure of the denomination? How do we engage with these in ways which open us up to the new possibilities which God is already creating? How do we prepare ourselves for different ways of being and doing that reflect God’s call in the present and towards the future which God has called us to?
The shift from association to denomination has created a structure where a disconnect between the view from a denominational framework and that from the local pastoral office is not only possible but extremely likely. One potential outcome is the drifting apart of the member churches as they engage more intentionally with their local settings, formulating responses which might be informed by any combination of scripture, Baptist tradition (from the local to the global), openness to God in the present, and understanding of what the future of God looks like. As each develops their own matrix of these (and other) backgrounds into their local church culture, the overarching denominational distinctive gets lost.
Some might argue that the capacity of a denominational body to engage in meaningful ways across the whole state is limited (echoing something of the argument in Federation about the redundancy of the states). As we look back to our associational heritage, we must ask ourselves whether its culture and approach is worth recovering and in what way. Let me offer some food for thought.

An Association view of our Union of Churches could see:
A move to having say 8-10 Part-time area ministers each with 20-25 churches in their locality to care for the pastors. This would enable regional pastors to engage with ministry at the local level, possibly into smaller churches, thereby putting leadership skills to work where most needed. It could also establish a sense of equality and partnership between pastors and their area minister, knowing that the interface of ministry is fresh for all, that many of the challenges being felt by the area minister are direct and not vicarious, creating a sense of mutuality of support and care in ministry. Area ministers would be based at the local level, and therefore have local understanding of issues and context.
In this scenario, the role of the Director of Ministries would have a significant responsibility for leading/mentoring/pastorally caring for the area ministers, modelling the type of care and support which is hopefully reflected in the local settings. This could enhance the environment whereby the process of theological reflection begins to inform wider aspects of denominational life, and the local level engagement with the wider denominational level is enhanced. Rethinking of denominational funding arrangements might also release funds and other resources to the different areas where decision-making around its use is also enabled. Resources shifted back from supporting denominational initiatives towards initiatives at the local level, with particular emphasis on those conducted in association.
As the listening ear to all that is happening across the various regions within the state, the potential for prophetic leadership role by the denomination, both to the churches and the wider community, speaking to missional and into cultural issues such that the church’s engagement through public theology is enabled and enhanced. Whilst recognising that there will be evident tensions as a consequence of doing so, providing a framework in which engagement with the wider culture and community can be modelled enables the public aspect of theological reflection and engagement to develop.
It might be worth reflecting on how the particular associational groupings are established at a local level, and whether a uniform size for each association is appropriate. One might also want to examine whether the area minister was employed by the denomination, or resourced by the denomination through the local church, or even the local association. In any case, such an approach may well place support into the local context where it is needed, with a degree of mutuality amongst pastoral leaders in the area.
And then there are issues around the operation and culture of the denominational office which I haven’t yet begun to articulate...
Another time, perhaps.

Theological Reflections on Re-imagining

2010-04-23T12:38:00.001+10:00

The Baptist Union of Victoria is presently undertaking a phase of ‘re-imagining’, which provided the foundation for a time of theological reflection in a session earlier this week. Principal of Whitley College, Frank Rees, was invited to present a paper, which he has published on his blog. Carolyn Francis, Jeff Pugh, and Alan Marr offered responses. I found it difficult to find the appropriate point of connection to the conversation, partly because of the “so what” question which lingered in the back of my mind, and partly because of the confusion about whether the focus is on the denominational office, or on the Union of Churches themselves. Frank identified this important distinction. Frank’s starting point, however, was one which is worth underlining:

“Frankly it is deeply concerning that so little of our decision-making seems to be guided by any overt theological consideration at all.”

What sort of theological reflection do we need? Two aspects of our theological reflection are perhaps on more solid foundations than the other. We need an historical theological reflection: one which looks back to the scriptural foundations, both the text of scripture and the life and teaching of Christ. While this apparently rests on a sure foundation, there are issues to be addressed not only in relation to the way that particular texts are interpreted, but also to the particular texts we choose to interpret. Keeping the entire corpus in the conversation and reflection is more of a challenge than we like to admit. Certain texts often are chosen as interpretive grids through which all other aspects are filtered. There are uncomfortable tensions within scripture that we need to keep alive. These must also find consistency with the teaching, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, through whom our understanding of God and his work in the world is ultimately shaped.

But our historical theological reflection must also embrace our own Baptist history, looking back to its foundations and its journey through the centuries. As long as we claim to be re-imagining the future of the Baptist church in Victoria, we must be clear about what we imagined it to be in the first place. Again, this is not as simple as it sounds. Not only do we need to hear our founders’ call to liberty of conscience, even to the point of protecting those who choose not to believe, we must hear also the calls of our Victorian founders, whose unusual step to seek government regulation of our constitution sits oddly with the commitment to separation of church and state. And still more recently we must grapple with the source of the unique diversity which our denominational ties represent, forged on the anvil of some difficult debates in Assemblies, but arguably given a mere nod in the present.

Historical theological reflection is important to our understanding of the present. We cannot hope to understand where we are without examining the journey to this point.

The second aspect of theological reflection which perhaps rests on more solid foundations is that of the future. The eschatological hope which calls us forward. At the core this is clear – the reign of Christ and the restoration of God’s order. We believe that God’s future is clearly established in the just reign of Christ. It is hope which shapes our action in the present. It gives us something to work towards, even if we do believe that the end interrupts rather than fulfils the directions of creation. Our task and call is to work consistently with God’s purposes, which are spelled out for us. But again, this is more complex than initially apparent. Interpretations about the way the end will come cloud the apparent consistencies we uphold about what that future might look like – at least in terms of the internal values it represents: justice, peace, grace. Eschatology asks us to articulate what we believe God is calling us to become. This is grounded in scripture, and in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, which if it confirms anything tells us that the purposes of God are stronger and more sure than any systems which earth can array against them.

The third aspect of theological reflections is somewhat more contentions: reflection on what God is doing in the world today. It is a tenet of mission: to find where God is working and partner with it. How are we to do this? It is important that we undertake the first two aspects of theological reflection before entering this phase. We cannot know where we are without understanding where we have come from (how we got where we are), and where we are going. Any interpretation of the present must find its orientation between these two points. And it must be done in partnership with some form of sociological reflection: an understanding of what is happening in the world around us. Jesus once rebuked his hearers for not being able to read the signs of the times. The temptation is to paint this picture in two colours, rather than to engage the nuances of God’s work in the world today. The world is both getting worse and getting better. This curious admixture of good and evil is ever the challenge for the church to negotiate. For the purposes of our own denominational journey, we must constrain our focus at some point to reflection within the churches which make up the BUV, and the denominational office itself. (As much as I support Frank’s contention that the denomination is the churches, we must recognise and articulate the disconnect and individuality of identity. It is the only way we can work to realign them.)

I hesitate at this point to offer some pithy insights which such a reflection might bring, as the complexity of the task is one which requires more than one person. I will, however, make some observations.

First, there is no such beast as “value-free action.” We wonder whether the BUV should lead the churches. It does. The actions it has taken have always conveyed a message to its member churches. One of the best ways to identify the values of anyone or anything is to evaluate its actions. The statement about intentions should always be measured against the actions which are undertaken, and vice versa. Are we doing today that which reinforces the values we espouse? the calling we confess? On Tuesday night I found myself pondering this when the statement was made by someone that smaller churches seem to be grappling most and coming up with the most creative responses to the present missional challenges, and considered the parallel denominational discussions about the viability of small churches. The disconsonant ring between these two points echoed in my ear. Similarly we speak of the BUV as the union of churches, yet our new governance structure seems to reflect a governance model which moves away from empowering churches in this regard.

Second, I had some difficulty understanding whether the focus on re-imagining is about new ways of being church, new ways of being a denomination, or new ways of structuring the denominational office and function. The conversation on Tuesday night left me in somewhat of a quandary here. Perhaps the issue relates to articulating the primary purpose of our churches and structuring our denominational office so that churches can achieve that. Arguably the greatest challenge to be faced is how we build the bridge between our scriptural and denominational heritage and our present setting. With Frank, I believe that our Baptist heritage leaves us well-placed to engage the public realm. Many tenets of Western belief systems are found within our own: liberty of conscience, commitments to freedoms, and to just action. Losing grasp of our denominational heritage has hampered us somewhat here.

The third comment emerges from what appears to be an elephant in the room. Not one conversation picked up on Frank’s observation that “churches in general, including Baptists, will continue to experience significant decline in numbers, finances and viability.” If any piece of information should cause us to pause and reflect, surely this is one. This is a challenge of imagination as much as anything else, something which perhaps requires a paradigmatic shift in our thinking about church properties and denominational assets. Currently about half of our denominational office is funded from a source whose original charter proscribed its use for such a purpose. This has the dual impact of reducing funds available to churches for the original purpose of the fund, and covers up a question related to the longer-term viability of our collective ministry through the denominational office.

This is an important conversation, and a welcome initiative from the BUV leadership. Getting one’s head about its complexity perhaps requires that we be less focussed on the immediate structural responses and more about articulating the correct questions to be asking. I thank those who presented their reflections on Tuesday night, and who engaged in response. I would say, however, that the demographic in the room also gave some pause for reflection…

Back yard - Places Where our Stories are Formed

2010-04-22T22:27:00.002+10:00

The back yard of a family home is a place filled with memories. When conducting a wedding recently in such a setting, I was drawn to reflect on the ways in which certain places impact our spirituality, our identity, and our journey in life. The choice of a back yard for a wedding potentially symbolises a love grounded in the realities of relationships, not only that of husband and wife, but the wider family and community, recognising that love is planted firmly among family and friends, and grows out of the reality of our daily lives. It is a place where ordinary experiences are made ever richer by shared love, and shared in subsequent years as the family gathers again. But in the back yard we are reminded that love is also open to the sky… a place where friendship can take wings in love; which opens up enormous possibilities together. But in the back yard we are also exposed to the elements, requiring us to let go of some control and enjoying the exploration and randomness which nature can often bring, and which relationships with family and friends can often bring.

Back yards are rich and creative places: Walk around most back yards and you will see very creative use of often discarded materials: they are living testaments to recycling. Back yards are also collections of family stories, each place bearing a memory on which life has been built. Most of us build our lives and values on recycling these values – in at least two ways.

The first aspect of recycling grows out of the reminder that it is out of old materials new things can come. Marriage is a setting where most recycling occurs – we sift through the gifts that our parents have given us, the values they have sown within us, the example they have set us. We have to learn from them, share them with our partner, then present them to our children, to our own friends and community, who will do the same. In fact, well before we come to marriage, we have spent our late adolescent years sifting the values which our parents have spoken to us about, and lived before us (the two not always consonant) as we begin to shape our own selves more intentionally.

When conflict arises in a relationship, we sift through it and pick out the lessons so that we understand ourselves and each other better, and learn to move forward together in love. Occasionally we have to clean up the back yard – go through and throw out that which now stands in the way, and create some new spaces. Married couples are still two very different people, and if handled well these differences can be the source of strength and creativity.

For me, the back yard was a place where I learned something about justice. Being the youngest in the family, I was often out-played or outweighed when it came to the rough-and-tumble of back yard matches. I learned to respond to apparent injustice, to rebound when I felt cheated or overwhelmed. I learned my own skills to deal with taller, faster, stronger siblings. I am sure that these skills have impacted me to this very day. I certainly knew how far to push, and when it was better to let things go. I learned to use my own assets in creative ways when a direct one-on-one contest was too daunting.

Back yards are also closed spaces. There are times when you can just chill out the back – away from the phone, from the front door, from neighbours. Here in the back yard it is your space. I remember times sitting in the back yard pondering the skies and my place in the universe, or the wonder of the myriad stars so far from the earth, illuminating the skies. Looking into history – for the light I could see twinkling left its source many years before – I pondered perspective and the bigger questions of life. And in more mature years I would sit in the back yard with my beloved, and share dreams and hopes together, pondering imponderables, and simply enjoying each other’s presence. These dreams could be something apparently mundane: we can plant this, we can build that… but the intimacy to be built finds its roots in common dreams, shared values, a mutual spirituality – the essence of all that we consider life to be about, and what we yearn to build for yourselves and for those we love. In our marriage relationship, it is this intimacy which moves into the kitchen, the family room, and the bedroom – where a real one-ness is shared – body, soul and spirit. Such places of intimacy need to be nurtured in our spirituality, in our marriages, and in other relationships.

There are many other ways in which we find our shape in the back yard. They are social spaces – places where you share with others, and they with you – around the barbecue, talking about the garden, and just getting outside to think in a quiet space; they are places where we experiment (I well remember almost burning down the family garage), and where we begin to build bridges with strangers (kicking or hitting a ball over the fence meant an introduction was necessary to retrieve it); they are places where our horizons are broadened with family, friends and acquaintances.

Many memories – stories – which shape who we are, how we perceive the world, and our capacities to create within it. Here is a place where the ultimate breaks into the penultimate; where our perceptions of life, love and God find their roots. It is arguably one of the most important places where our lives are shaped.

The Places Where our Stories are Formed

2010-04-20T12:49:00.000+10:00

As I prepared to conduct a wedding recently, which was celebrated in the back yard of a family home, I was given pause to think about the ways in which our identities and values are formed. The impact of setting and place - the context for our experiences - is significant on our understanding of the world and our place in it. Where we are born, our early childhood experiences, and the people who impact our lives are seminal in shaping values and identity, giving shape to the ways in which we view the world.

As those who live in the West, with access to a computer, we are clearly in the upper echolons of economic value in this world. Resources and opportunities are available to us which the majority of the world cannot imagine. Yet within our own subset, there is considerable diversity of perspective. This is due in no small part to the places where our stories were formed.

The back yard one such place filled with objects and reminiscences of life for most Victorians. But there are others. As I have returned to the routine of a daily run, the places where our stories are formed have been subject to reflection (yes, it is possible to think and run at the same time!)

I can think of a number of places where my sense of justice, value and identity were formed, and will reflect on these in the days to come. Are there particular places which stand out for you?

Changing Gear

2010-04-16T20:46:00.000+10:00

The last week has seen me changing gear in a significant way. A week ago today I submitted my completed thesis - the result of 10 years' work. The past 6-9 months have been intense as I have sacrificed other things in order to bring it to a conclusion. Late nights fuelled with doses of caffeine in the form of chocolate and Coca Cola have left their mark upon me in many ways. Last Saturday, after conducting a wedding, I came home and went on a 20-minute run. It was pain free (well, except for the excessive huffing and puffing, the occasional break to get my breath back and allow my legs to recover) - as a long struggle with plantar fasciitis is now behind me. I have spent much of this week sifting through the detritis of filing, notes, and other resources in order to transfer them into a filing cabinet, both at home and the office. Time will come when I start to cut and dice the thesis for publication in different journals, but for now the focus is upon gaining control of my life again and restoring some balance.

It actually feels good to go for a run with a clear head.

Food Waste

2010-01-21T14:43:00.002+11:00

I was aware a number of years ago when the price of bananas in Melbourne reached $12 a kilo in the wake of a North-Queensland cyclone that there had been no real shortage of bananas. Instead most were being pulped or sent to zoos because supermarkets would not stock them on the shelves due to the imperfect nature of their skins. I was appalled at the food waste on the one hand, and the assumptions about consumer behaviour on the other, which this practice represented. I had no idea of the extent of this practice until reading Chris Middendorp’s article in this morning’s Melbourne Age. Rather than summarise it, I reproduce it here in full. Do we really need the "perfect" fruit or vegetable?

A blight on us for a perfectly fruity fetish
Our obsession with perfect fruit is a symbol of our consumer culture and greed.
When it comes to the critical problems facing humanity, there is one issue that does not command our attention the way it should, but in its own quiet way is every bit as compelling and troublesome as climate change or the global financial crisis. It's our flagrant abuse of fruit and vegetables.
Sounds like a bit of a parody, doesn't it? But the fate of the banana, the tomato and the carrot have a lot more to do with our environmental and economic woes than many would at first suspect. How we grow, depict and treat produce in the West is a stark representation of the pernickety, self-destructive consumer society we have become.
For some years, the major supermarkets have behaved like a phalanx of door-bitches fronting exclusive nightclubs. They have decreed that the fruit and vegetables they sell must meet stringent standards of appearance, or no entry.
Although this quest for perfect-looking produce is driven by what customers want, it raises some serious agricultural, not to mention ethical, problems.
The issue has been festering for some time at the Victorian Farmers Federation, which in December doled out some home truths about consumer expectations. A frustrated Andrew Broad, the federation's president, said the expectations were unrealistic and growers were going broke.
The problem is simply stated: people only want to buy produce that looks attractive. Any fruit and veg with a few blemishes or a slightly unorthodox shape are shunned. In some cases, growers have had whole crops rejected by supermarket buyers.
The banana provides an instructive example. In Queensland, Australian Banana Growers Council chief executive Tony Heidrich recently admitted to a high level of wastage that he described as "disappointing".
A more apposite d-word would be disgraceful. At least 100,000 tonnes of bananas are deemed not attractive enough for public consumption and are sent to the shredder and buried. Unattractive fruit won't sell. Customers will only take home the perfect specimens.
This objectification of fruit satirically echoes many debates feminists have had about society's objectification of women. In the quest for some totally artificial construct of an ideal, many people are overlooking the single most important fact - that it's what's on the inside that matters.
Where is it written that wonky looking fruit isn't good for you? It is frequently remarked upon that the flavour of those perfect-looking tomatoes in the supermarket is perfectly bland. Any home gardener will tell you that a rough-looking home-grown tomato, blemished though it may be, is utterly delicious next to an insipid, store-bought example.
This is mildly amusing until you think about the implications. Fruit that fails the appearance test is rejected; thrown away or ploughed back into the ground.
This happens to up to 25 per cent of all produce.
When you consider how many people on earth are starving, and that industries are looking to minimise carbon footprints, it is totally unforgivable to throw away carefully grown and tended food just because it isn't pretty enough.
But human behaviour is often perverse. It's frequently said that what the West spends on dieting could, if re-directed, end starvation in the world. Our inexorable quest for perfection - for beautiful bodies, fabulous homes, shiny cars, breathtaking holidays, perfect meals - is largely responsible for the pollution and damage we have wreaked on earth. You don't have to be Al Gore to apprehend that our lifestyle is screwing up the planet.
It's enough to make one pessimistic. What hope is there to solve complex human problems when half the planet is so hung up on appearances that it refuses to eat food that doesn't have the right look?
It's not just the fault of supermarket managers. Until last July, the European Union had set specific cosmetic standards for most produce and oddly shaped fruit and veg were effectively banned from sale. The prohibition has been lifted largely because of the global recession, which has partially recalibrated some of our commercial decisions.
But supermarkets worldwide still insist on crazy notions of perfection and, of course, they blame us, the customer. We've asked for it. No one really knows just how much food around the world is rejected and wasted in this way. It could be billions of dollars worth each year. Is Western culture even more decadent than anyone imagined?
Under the pretext of preserving the planet's finite resources, the media and government often try to whip us into a frenzy of guilt and accountability. We're implored to get roof insulation, to invest in solar power, to recycle our rubbish, to ride a bike to work, to buy drought-resistant plants and let the lawn die. Tell it to the turnips. Until society learns to value and manage food responsibly, what's the point?

(published 21 January 2010)

Perspective is an Interesting Thing

2010-01-20T16:22:00.001+11:00

Our first day in Helsinki – day one of the trip, assuming you don’t count the day sitting on an airplane – was… cold. One degree Celsius was in stark contrast to the warm summer behind us in Melbourne. As we meandered around this beautiful capital, wandering in and out of shops, gaining our bearings, and beginning to appreciate the city’s culture and architecture, one of the shopkeepers remarked that the weather was “unseasonably warm!” It was a comment that pulled us up in our tracks. I don’t ever recall thinking that one degree Celsius could be considered warm. And with the wind chill cutting our ears off at the base, the depiction of warmth was furthest from my mind. But when the forecast for the days ahead included top temperatures lower than -10, and our later journeys in the UK keeping us in temperatures below freezing for days on end, it may be unsurprising to note that when we resurfaced into above-freezing temperatures someone commented on how “warm” it was!
Ah, perspective. What can seem easy to one is a struggle to another. What challenges one person bores someone else. What one embraces as beautiful, another shuns.
The artist John Constable once noted: “I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.” Life’s richness is rooted in the depth and breadth of perspectives offered by difference. When we experience something on the way up, we are more appreciative than in times of decline.
The tendency to absolutise particular perspectives robs us of learning experiences. To be pushed out of our comfort zones is not something many of us yearn for, yet such experiences teach us to appreciate what we have.
A journey up the Eiffel Tower in January offered us temperatures in the wind which hovered between -10 and -15. At that stage I would have welcomed a single balmy degree above zero. By then I had learned the beauty of many things which had previously been alien to my experience. Perspective is a wonderful gift which has encouraged me in the journey towards deeper understanding…

A Falling Out

2010-01-19T11:37:00.001+11:00

The trials and (self-inflicted) tribulations of Tiger Woods have been well documented in the media, but it was 15 minutes in Madame Tussauds in London that underlined his fall from grace to me. Of all the sporting figures on display in the waxworks, not one picture was taken with Tiger during the 15 minutes we tarried in that section. Sporting greats of the past and present all had people stop for photographs, but poor Tiger was alone. The fact that I saw people having photographs taken with Adolph Hitler in a shorter space of time says something about the fickle nature of our memories. What is it that leads us to hold people up in such high esteem on the one hand, and then abandon them when their human frailties are exposed, only to laud others whose dastardly acts bear remembering only in order that we never repeat them again?

In Surprising Places

2010-01-18T09:49:00.000+11:00

Settling back into Melbourne after six weeks travelling Europe, there is now unhurried time to reflect upon the journey and upon the many experiences which were ours during that time. The distance is clearly epitomised by the difference between the last two Sundays - last night worshipping in our small community in West Melbourne was a stark contrast to the previous Sunday night in Sacre Couer, listening to the liturgy in French.

My first reflection comes from London - Westminster Abbey, in which only two scientists are found memorialised. I sat for a little while to watch the reaction of passers-by as they paused for a reality check at the name carved into the stone on the floor. One of the two scientists is an Australian, Howard Florey, who was responsible for the development of penicillin. The other, however, has been the source of much controversy within the church for nearly two hundred years: Charles Darwin. In the era in which fundamentalism has carved its voice, it is hard to imagine that Charles Darwin would be welcomed in such hallowed halls as this, and for this reason many people stopped and called to associates to come and examine the inscription. Darwin and the church have a chequered history, but not so chequered as to be outside the embrace of at least one faith community.

I wonder how many people are written off for the public profile they hold... people whose positions remained largely unexamined because of popular opinion. If Darwin’s Origin of the Species was so anti-Christian, how does he end up memorialised in such a place as this? Perhaps it is more what those who came after Darwin did with his theories that shape our perceptions.

Darwin wasn't the first and won’t be the last one to be misunderstood. When people challenge our perspective on the world, they are sure to be wildly opposed. Maybe even crucified.

In the wrong game?

2009-11-09T16:10:00.000+11:00

Here I thought that God was interested in helping the poor, but Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein reckons that it is the banks who are doing God's work by helping companies raise money.

I wonder what Bible Mr Blankfein is getting that from? Maybe he's better at raising money and rewarding executives than he is at interpreting scripture...

The Way of Becoming

2009-11-09T10:43:00.002+11:00

This poem by T S Eliot strikes me for its profundity, and for its challenge to the ways of our present culture...
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

T S Eliot, Four Quartets, 1944 ed, p 29

Nature's Amazing Creativity

2009-11-04T16:37:00.002+11:00

See some Amazing trees and watch water bouncing. Nature is amazing...

Sand Animation

2009-10-02T12:37:00.001+10:00

Absolutely brilliant... better if I understood the comments.

Honest Questions

2009-09-30T11:34:00.000+10:00

Two kids are on their way to Sunday school when one says to the other, "What do you think about this Satan stuff?"
"Well, you remember Santa? This could turn out to be your dad too."

How's your memory?

2009-09-28T16:18:00.001+10:00

The BBC has produced an interesting test of facial memory... See how you fare. If you are interested in my results...

Visual memory %100
Placing in location: 86%

So, if I remember your face, but forget your name, you'll understand (I hope)!

Why Willow Creek and Saddleback are Losing Influence While North Point and LifeChurch.tv are Gaining Influence

2009-07-31T13:23:00.002+10:00

Why Willow Creek and Saddleback are Losing Influence While North Point and LifeChurch.tv are Gaining Influence

Posted using ShareThis

Cultural shifts are ever with us... but to ascribe a single cause is to be in error. Perhaps the impact of the economic crisis is one of the causes of staff and program reductions. Nevertheless, an interesting trend, which raises questions about discipleship and community.

What are we ministering towards?

2009-07-15T13:25:00.002+10:00

Christine Sine raised an interesting question which I have been walking with for a number of days now:

"Don’t you think that pastors and church leaders are preparing us to live in the world they inhabit not the world that most of us live in?"

Given that christians seem to be evacuating the traditional churches in large numbers, one suspects that the question isn't too far from the mark. It's not to do with the style of worship, or the language, or the furniture, but the vision of the world that is carried, and our role within it. Being in full-time ministry, much of my waking time is devoted to thinking about church and ministry matters. If I am not careful, these thoughts become framed without the backdrop of the daily realities faced by most human beings, or risk being disconnected from the issues which permeate broader culture.
Two models of ministry and spirituality come to mind: engagement and withdrawal. We generally aren't very good at melding the two. Over recent decades there has been a tendency to a spiritual activism which leads to burnout on the one hand, or an ascetic spirituality which seems disconnected from the realities of life.
Much of the language of church and faith reflects first century Palestinian realities and experience rather than 21st century society, which is both more affluent, and more globally connected. The tools of trade and the context of community and commerce are vastly different. How to love one's neighbour in a world as connected yet diverse (economically, spiritually, socially, and politically) as ours is deeply perplexing. Yet I have been to (apparently successful) church where not one mention was made of anything outside the building.
Jesus picked up and used the hands-on images of his day to depict the work of God - ploughs, pigs, lilies, mustard seeds... Not many of them resonate with our present experience, although they are somewhere within our knowledge bank. What images of the kingdom resonate in our 21st century environment, and how do they help us imagine God's ideal future? Reflecting on the Navman in my car driving experience is just one example of how we might reconsider our tools as images of God's purposes.
We cannot hope to prepare people to live in their daily world as followers of Jesus without pointing to ways in which present experiences might embody God's call. Some vision of what it means to be a christian in the 21st century workplace, community space, and retail places - amongst others - is part of today's ministry challenges.
What do you think?

Pope Benedict on the Global Economy

2009-07-10T08:53:00.002+10:00

I read with interest news stories of the latest papal encyclical - it read as a breath of fresh air into a world where profit and economic growth have been slavishly served to our detriment. Then I received this wonderful summary by email this morning, so post it here, with a link at the bottom to the full encyclical, which runs to 30000 words.

As the G8 Summit begins in Italy, Pope Benedict XVI has released a new encyclical on the global economy. Despite the sometimes dense philosophical and theological language, his message is clear: The economy must be guided by the criteria of justice and the common good. It is a comprehensive document, and while I haven’t yet read the entire encyclical, from news reports and a quick skim, a number of important things stand out.

Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), is rooted in a stream of papal teaching on economic justice that goes back to 1891 with the encyclical Rerum Novarum (Of New Things). It is a far-reaching look at the relationships and issues that the global economy has created, and their impact on the world’s people.

From the beginning Benedict states his basic foundation, that “charity in truth is the principle around which the Church's social doctrine turns.” It is:

a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action. I would like to consider two of these in particular, of special relevance to the commitment to development in an increasingly globalized society: justice and the common good.

And, he says, those principles are both in service and involvement in the political arena.

The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practice this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path -- we might also call it the political path -- of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis.

He deals with profit, writing that while it is useful, once it “becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.” The current economic crisis, he writes,

obliges us to re-plan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and to discover new forms of commitment. ... The crisis thus becomes an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future.

He discusses globalization, which has “led to a downsizing of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the rights of workers,” and cites how

budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending often made under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens powerless in the face of old and new risks; such powerlessness is increased by the lack of effective protection on the part of workers' associations. Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions.

The crisis of world hunger and lack of clean water lead to an affirmation that:

The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination.

He writes about the “pernicious effects of sin” in a market where there is a “speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only short-term profit” that does not make “a real contribution to local society by helping to bring about a robust productive and social system, an essential factor for stable development.” Financiers, he says,

must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.

The encyclical also addresses the rise of global inequality, the threats to the environment – “we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it” – and the need for new solutions to the world’s energy needs. “The fact that some States, power groups, and companies hoard non-renewable energy resources represents a grave obstacle to development in poor countries,” Benedict writes.

The international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources, involving poor countries in the process, in order to plan together for the future.

Perhaps the most provocative and controversial suggestion is his call for a reform of the United Nations that would produce a “true world political authority” and would give “poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making.” Such a world body would “need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power” to “ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties.” That power, he suggests, could include the ability

[t]o manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration...

Near the end of the encyclical, he underlines his basic premise:

While the poor of the world continue knocking on the doors of the rich, the world of affluence runs the risk of no longer hearing those knocks, on account of a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human.

Caritas in Veritate is well worth our careful and thoughtful study. Its richness and depth will add new insights to Catholic social teaching. The entire text is available here.

(reproduced from Sojomail 07.09.09)

Preach it brother!

2009-04-21T20:54:00.000+10:00

(or is that sister?)

The Stranger

2009-04-02T11:35:00.000+11:00

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.
If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry the stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind..

Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honour them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home... Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular Basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished.
He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked.... And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?.... .. .

We just call him 'TV.'

He has a wife now....We call her 'Computer.'

What's in a Name?

2009-03-27T00:09:00.000+11:00

The number of people in Britain with surnames like Cockshott, Balls, Death and Shufflebottom has declined by up to 75 per cent in the last century.

A study found the number of people with the name Cock shrank to 785 last year from 3,211 in 1881, those called Balls fell to 1,299 from 2,904 and the number of Deaths were reduced to 605 from 1,133.

People named Smellie decreased by 70 per cent, Dafts by 51 per cent, Gotobeds by 42 per cent, Shufflebottoms by 40 per cent, and Cockshotts by 34 per cent, said Richard Webber, visiting professor of geography at King's College in London.

"If you find the [absolute] number goes down, it's either because they changed their names or they emigrated," Professor Webber, author of the study, said.

He said that in many cases, people probably changed their surnames as they came to be regarded as in bad taste.

"It's because the meaning of words can change. Take the name Daft - that as a term for a stupid is a relatively recent innovation."

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Daft meant "mild" or "meek" in Old English, whereas it means "foolish" today.

"That's why there are names which people think aren't really very pleasant names and you wonder why they persisted as long as they did."

Professor Webber, whose work can be seen on the website mapyourname.com, got his data for 2008 from credit card firm Experian and mapping service Geowise. He then compared it with the census of 1881.

Webber also discovered that the most popular names in Britain have not changed over the past 127 years.

Last year, Smith, Jones, Williams, Brown, Taylor and Davies held the top five spots, in exactly the same order as they did a century ago.

Professor Webber also found that between 1996 and 2008, the names Zhang, Wang, and Yang and experienced the fastest growth. Zhang rose by 4,719 per cent, while Wang grew by 2,225 per cent.

- Reuters

What do you get if you divide science by God?

2009-03-26T11:33:00.001+11:00

A prize-winning quantum physicist says a spiritual reality is veiled from us, and science offers a glimpse behind that veil. So how do scientists investigating the fundamental nature of the universe assess any role of God, asks Mark Vernon.

The Templeton Prize, awarded for contributions to "affirming life's spiritual dimension", has been won by French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat, who has worked on quantum physics with some of the most famous names in modern science.

Quantum physics is a hugely successful theory: the predictions it makes about the behaviour of subatomic particles are extraordinarily accurate. And yet, it raises profound puzzles about reality that remain as yet to be understood.

WHAT IS QUANTUM PHYSICS?
Originated in work conducted by Max Planck and Albert Einstein at start of 20th Century.
They discovered that light comes in discrete packets, or quanta, which we call photons.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty principle says certain features of subatomic particles like momentum and position cannot be known precisely at the same time.
Gaps remain, like attempts to find the 'God Particle' that scientists hope to spot in the Large Hadron Collider. It is required to give other particles mass.
The bizarre nature of quantum physics has attracted some speculations that are wacky but the theory suggests to some serious scientists that reality, at its most basic, is perfectly compatible with what might be called a spiritual view of things.
Some suggest that observers play a key part in determining the nature of things. Legendary physicist John Wheeler said the cosmos "has not really happened, it is not a phenomenon, until it has been observed to happen."
D'Espagnat worked with Wheeler, though he himself reckons quantum theory suggests something different. For him, quantum physics shows us that reality is ultimately "veiled" from us.
The equations and predictions of the science, super-accurate though they are, offer us only a glimpse behind that veil. Moreover, that hidden reality is, in some sense, divine. Along with some philosophers, he has called it "Being".
In an effort to seek the answers to the "meaning of physics", I spoke to five leading scientists.

1. THE ATHEIST
Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg is well-known as an atheist. For him, physics reflects the "chilling impersonality" of the universe.
He would be thinking here of, say, the vast tracts of empty space, billions of light years across, that mock human meaning.He says: "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless."
So for Weinberg, the notion that there might be an overlap between science and spirituality is entirely mistaken.

2. THE SCEPTIC
The Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees, shows a distinct reserve when speculating about what physics might mean, whether that be pointlessness or meaningfulness.
He has "no strong opinions" on the interpretation of quantum theory: only time will tell whether the theory becomes better understood.
"The implications of cosmology for these realms of thought may be profound, but diffidence prevents me from venturing into them," he has written.
In short, it is good to be humble in the face of the mysteries that physics throws up.

3. THE PLATONIST
Oxford physicist Roger Penrose differs again. He believes that mathematics suggests there is a world beyond the immediate, material one.
Can science explain all of life's meaning?
Ask yourself this question: would one plus one equal two even if I didn't think it? The answer is yes.
Would it equal two even if no-one thought it? Again, presumably, yes.
Would it equal two even if the universe didn't exist? That is more tricky to contemplate, but again, there are good grounds for a positive response.
Penrose, therefore, argues that there is what can be called a Platonic world beyond the material world that "contains" mathematics and other abstractions.

4. THE BELIEVER
John Polkinghorne worked on quantum physics in the first part of his career, but then took up a different line of work: he was ordained an Anglican priest. For him, science and religion are entirely compatible.
The ordered universe science reveals is only what you'd expect if it was made by an orderly God. However, the two disciplines are different. He calls them "intellectual cousins".
"Physics is showing the world to be both more supple and subtle, but you need to be careful," he says.
If you want to understand the meaning of things you have to go beyond science, and the religious direction is, he argues, the best.

5. THE PANTHEIST
Brian Swimme is a cosmologist, and with the theologian Thomas Berry, wrote a book called The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era.
It is avidly read by individuals in New Age and ecological circles, and tells the scientific story of the universe, from the Big Bang to the emergence of human consciousness, but does so as a new sacred myth.
Swimme believes that "the universe is attempting to be felt", which makes him a pantheist, someone who believes the cosmos in its entirety can be called God.

Mark Vernon is author of After Atheism: Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life. source:BBC

8 Brilliant Scientific Screw Ups

2009-03-18T20:20:00.004+11:00

Hard work and dedication have their time and place, but the values of failure and ineptitude have gone unappreciated for far too long. They say that patience is a virtue, but the following eight inventions prove that laziness, slovenliness, clumsiness and pure stupidity can be virtues, too.

1. Anesthesia (1844)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Recreational drug use
Lesson Learned: Too much of a good thing can sometimes be, well, a good thing

Nitrous oxide was discovered in 1772, but for decades the gas was considered no more than a party toy. People knew that inhaling a little of it would make you laugh (hence the name “laughing gas”), and that inhaling a little more of it would knock you unconscious. But for some reason, it hadn’t occurred to anyone that such a property might be useful in, say, surgical operations.

Finally, in 1844, a dentist in Hartford, Conn., named Horace Wells came upon the idea after witnessing a nitrous mishap at a party. High on the gas, a friend of Wells fell and suffered a deep gash in his leg, but he didn’t feel a thing. In fact, he didn’t know he’d been seriously injured until someone pointed out the blood pooling at his feet.

To test his theory, Wells arranged an experiment with himself as the guinea pig. He knocked himself out by inhaling a large does of nitrous oxide, and then had a dentist extract a rotten tooth from his mouth. When Wells came to, his tooth had been pulled painlessly.

To share his discovery with the scientific world, he arranged to perform a similar demonstration with a willing patient in the amphitheatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital. But things didn’t exactly go as planned. Not yet knowing enough about the time it took for the gas to kick in, Wells pulled out the man’s tooth a little prematurely, and the patient screamed in pain. Wells was disgraced and soon left the profession. Later, after being jailed while high on chloroform, he committed suicide. It wasn’t until 1864 that the American Dental Association formally recognized him for his discovery.

2. Iodine (1811)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Industrial accident
Lesson Learned: Seaweed is worth its weight in salt

In the early 19th century, Bernard Courtois was the toast of Paris. He had a factory that produced saltpeter (potassium nitrate), which was a key ingredient in ammunition, and thus a hot commodity in Napoleon’s France. On top of that, Courtois had figured out how to fatten his profits and get his saltpeter potassium for next to nothing. He simply took it straight from the seaweed that washed up daily on the shores. All he had to do was collect it, burn it, and extract the potassium from the ashes.

One day, while his workers were cleaning the tanks used for extracting potassium, they accidentally used a stronger acid than usual. Before they could say “sacre bleu!,” mysterious clouds billowed from the tank. When the smoke cleared, Courtois noticed dark crystals on all the surfaces that had come into contact with the fumes. When he had them analyzed, they turned out to be a previously unknown element, which he named iodine, after the Greek word for “violet.” Iodine, plentiful in saltwater, is concentrated in seaweed. It was soon discovered that goiters, enlargements of the thyroid gland, were caused by a lack of iodine in the diet. So, in addition to its other uses, iodine is now routinely added to table salt.

3. Penicillin (1928)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Living like a pig
Lesson Learned: It helps to gripe to your friends about your job

Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming had a, shall we say, relaxed attitude toward a clean working environment. His desk was often littered with small glass dishes—a fact that is fairly alarming considering that they were filled with bacteria cultures scraped from boils, abscesses and infections. Fleming allowed the cultures to sit around for weeks, hoping something interesting would turn up, or perhaps that someone else would clear them away.

Finally one day, Fleming decided to clean the bacteria-filled dishes and dumped them into a tub of disinfectant. His discovery was about to be washed away when a friend happened to drop by the lab to chat with the scientist. During their discussion, Fleming griped good-naturedly about all the work he had to do and dramatized the point by grabbing the top dish in the tub, which was (fortunately) still above the surface of the water and cleaning agent. As he did, Fleming suddenly noticed a dab of fungus on one side of the dish, which had killed the bacteria nearby. The fungus turned out to be a rare strain of penicillium that had drifted onto the dish from an open window.

Fleming began testing the fungus and found that it killed deadly bacteria, yet was harmless to human tissue. However, Fleming was unable to produce it in any significant quantity and didn’t believe it would be effective in treating disease. Consequently, he downplayed its potential in a paper he presented to the scientific community. Penicillin might have ended there as little more than a medical footnote, but luckily, a decade later, another team of scientists followed up on Fleming’s lead. Using more sophisticated techniques, they were able to successfully produce one of the most life-saving drugs in modern medicine.

4. The Telephone (1876)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Poor foreign language skills
Lesson Learned: A little German is better than none

In the 1870s, engineers were working to find a way to send multiple messages over one telegraph wire at the same time. Intrigued by the challenge, Alexander Graham Bell began experimenting with possible solutions. After reading a book by Hermann Von Helmholtz, Bell got the idea to send sounds simultaneously over a wire instead. But as it turns out, Bell’s German was a little rusty, and the author had mentioned nothing about the transmission of sound via wire. Too late for Bell though; the inspiration was there, and he had already set out to do it.

The task proved much more difficult than Bell had imagined. He and his mechanic, Thomas Watson, struggled to build a device that could transmit sound. They finally succeeded, however, and came up with the telephone.

5. Photography (1835)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Not doing the dishes
Lesson Learned: Put off today what you can do tomorrow

Between 1829 and 1835, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre was close to becoming the first person to develop a practical process for producing photographs. But he wasn’t home yet.

Daguerre had figured out how to expose an image onto highly polished plates covered with silver iodide, a substance known to be sensitive to light. However, the images he was producing on these polished plates were barely visible, and he didn’t know how to make them darker.

After producing yet another disappointing image one day, Daguerre tossed the silverized plate in his chemical cabinet, intending to clean it off later. But when he went back a few days later, the image had darkened to the point where it was perfectly visible. Daguerre realized that one of the chemicals in the cabinet had somehow reacted with the silver iodide, but he had no way of know which one it was … and there were a whole lot of chemicals in that cabinet.

For weeks, Daguerre took one chemical out of the cabinet every day and put it in a newly exposed plate. But every day, he found a less-than-satisfactory image. Finally, as he was testing the very last chemical, he got the idea to put the plate in the now-empty cabinet, as he had done the first time. Sure enough, the image on the plate darkened. Daguerre carefully examined the shelves of the cabinet and found what he was looking for. Weeks earlier, a thermometer in the cabinet had broken, and Daguerre (being the slob that he was) didn’t clean up the mess very well, leaving a few drops of mercury on the shelf. Turns out, it was the mercury vapor interacting with the silver iodide that produced the darker image. Daguerre incorporated mercury vapor into his process, and the Daguerreotype photograph was born.

6. Mauve Dye (1856)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Delusions of grandeur
Lesson Learned: Real men wear mauve

In 1856, an 18-year-old British chemistry student named William Perkin attempted to develop a synthetic version of quinine, the drug commonly used to treat malaria. It was a noble cause, but the problem was, he had no idea what he was doing.

Perkin started by mixing aniline (a colorless, oily liquid derived from coal-tar, a waste product of the steel industry) with propylene gas and potassium dichromate. It’s a wonder he didn’t blow himself to bits, but the result was just a disappointing black mass stuck to the bottom of his flask. As Perkin started to wash out the container, he noticed that the black substance turned the water purple, and after playing with it some more, he discovered that the purple liquid could be used to dye cloth.

With financial backing from his wealthy father, Perkin began a dye-making business, and his synthetic mauve colorant soon became popular. Up until the time of Perkin’s discovery, natural purple dye had to be extracted from Mediterranean mollusks, making it extremely expensive. Perkin’s cheap coloring not only jumpstarted the synthetic dye industry (and gave birth to the colors used in J.Crew catalogs), it also sparked the growth of the entire field of organic chemistry.

7. Nylon (1934)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Workplace procrastination
Lesson Learned: When the cat’s away, the mice should play

In 1934, researchers at DuPont were charged with developing synthetic silk. But after months of hard work, they still hadn’t found what they were looking for, and the head of the project, Wallace Hume Carothers, was considering calling it quits. The closest they had come was creating a liquid polymer that seemed chemically similar to silk, but in its liquid form wasn’t very useful. Deterred, the researchers began testing other, seemingly more promising substances called polyesters.

One day, a young (and apparently bored) scientist in the group noticed that if he gathered a small glob of polyester on a glass stirring rod, he could use it to pull thin strands of the material from the beaker. And for some reason (prolonged exposure to polyester fumes, perhaps?) he found this hilarious. So on a day when boss-man Carothers was out of the lab, the young researcher and his co-workers started horsing around and decided to have a competition to see who could draw the longest threads from the beaker. As they raced down the hallway with the stirring rods, it dawned on them: By stretching the substance into strands, they were actually re-orienting the molecules and making the liquid material solid.

Ultimately, they determined that the polyesters they were playing with couldn’t be used in textiles, like DuPont wanted, so they turned to their previously unsuccessful silk-like polymer. Unlike the polyester, it could be drawn into solid strands that were strong enough to be woven. This was the first completely synthetic fiber, and they named the material Nylon.

8. Vulcanized Rubber (1844)

Mistake Leading to Discovery: Obsession combined with butterfingers
Lesson Learned: A little clumsiness can go a long way

In the early 19th century, natural rubber was relatively useless. It melted in hot weather and became brittle in the cold. Plenty of people had tried to “cure” rubber so it would be impervious to temperature changes, but no one had succeeded … that is, until Charles Goodyear stepped in (or so he claims). According to his own version of the tale, the struggling businessman became obsessed with solving the riddle of rubber, and began mixing rubber with sulfur over a stove. One day, he accidentally spilled some of the mixture onto the hot surface, and when it charred like a piece of leather instead of melting, he knew he was onto something.

The truth, according to well-documented sources, is somewhat different. Apparently, Goodyear learned the secret of combining rubber and sulfur from another early experimenter. And it was one of his partners who accidentally dropped a piece of fabric impregnated with the rubber and sulfur mixture onto a hot stove. But it was Goodyear who recognized the significance of what happened, and he spent months trying to find the perfect combination of rubber, sulfur and high heat. (Goodyear also took credit for coining the term “vulcanization” for the process, but the word was actually first used by an English competitor.) Goodyear received a patent for the process in 1844, but spent the rest of his life defending his right to the discovery. Consequently, he never grew rich and, in fact, wound up in debtors prison more than once. Ironically, rubber became a hugely profitable industry years later, with the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. at the forefront.

By Eric Elfman

When the Camera Angle Matters

2009-03-17T22:00:00.000+11:00

These photos are creatively composed - the camera angle makes all the difference!

Work Value

2009-03-13T07:34:00.000+11:00

In 1965, U.S. CEOs at major companies made 24 times a worker's pay -- by 2004, CEOs earned 431 times the pay of an average worker. From 1995 to 2005, average CEO pay increased five times faster than that of average workers. While CEO pay continues to increase at rates far exceeding inflation, wages for the vast majority of American workers have failed to keep up with rising prices. In fact, real wages for the 90% of Americans who earn under $92,000 a year have actually fallen since 2001.

A Changing World

2009-03-10T11:27:00.001+11:00

Food for thought:

Tree Power

2009-03-09T08:29:00.002+11:00

How Autumn works...

Are executive salaries part of our present problem?

2009-02-27T23:25:00.000+11:00

We have been constantly reminded that one of the main reasons for high executive remuneration is the need to attract and retain world class leadership in our corporations. Consequently we have seen annual remuneration spiralling above $10m per annum in many of our largest corporations. Such packages not only mark significant reward for expertise, they create significant pressure on executives to produce results commensurate with their remuneration. To demonstrate to shareholders (and possibly to themselves) that they are worth such compensation, there is a subtle pressure to make changes in order to improve profitability, increase growth rates and shareholder returns. And quickly. It is quite feasible to recognise the pressure towards short-term thinking for quick improvement in a corporations reported fortunes. With the average rate of turnover less than five years, what benefit is there in working on developments which will have significant long-term benefits? What incentive is there to adopt short- and medium-term pain in order to set up a business for decades to come? The pressure to justify the remuneration creates an environment where it is beneficial to sacrifice long-term creative thinking for short-term creative restructure, and has perhaps encouraged increased risk-taking. It explains why so few companies are ahead of the curve when it comes to carbon emissions. Why it is easier to close an operation in Australia because costs are cheaper overseas. The bottom line in this year's report is more important than the well-being of the workers or the country in which you sell.

The pressures on business executives are immense and worthy of recognition and reward. But have we created extra (counter-productive) pressure by rewarding at the levels which have been evident in recent years? And is that part of the price we are now paying in the global economy?

Hope in the aftermath

2009-02-24T11:21:00.001+11:00

“I will transform the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope” (Hosea 2:15)

Last Monday, a friend returned for the first time to the property where his sister and her partner died in the fires of February 7. It was a profound experience as he and his brothers sifted through the remains of their bush property. The landscape was blackened, the yard strewn with deformed metal and glass, made molten in the flames. The kitchen in which they spent their last moments was barely a shell. The utter devastation of home and surrounds was confronting, yet helped the family to realise that their destiny was written firm in the flames, and not in any folly.
The scorched landscape stands as a metaphor for the grief that crept its way into their hearts in the days following the fires as they awaited some news. Its black and life-deprived visage now reflects the despair and devastation of the heart: what good can be found in the wake of such events? Could we ever find joy and hope again?
As they walked the property and sifted the charred remains, they stumbled across two unexpected finds. In the otherwise blackened yard, fresh green leaves from a rhubarb plant had already sprouted - the first signs of new life already evident, fresh green against the black merely a week after the flames had passed. And, embedded in the walls of the kitchen, intact pieces of their sister’s art work: tiles she had painted and which were previously sealed by fire. They remained as a testament to a life lived: one reminder that her presence in life has not been obliterated.
Such is the shape of grief: an encompassing blackness where it is impossible to imagine any beauty, where all seems lost; broken by discoveries of a life that has left its continuing mark, and which springs forth with new prospects. The discovery that joy does return, that hope still springs forth, even in the midst of loss, is a story slowly emerging across households and communities throughout the state.
The prophet Hosea reminds us that God gives new hope - often born in the midst of trouble, not in spite of it: that beauty can emerge from devastation, not in spite of it. It is the gift of God which embraces the pain, while opening the future once again.

Economic Realities and Opportunities

2009-02-03T15:39:00.000+11:00

In the lifetime of most people there has never been the depth of economic instability which is in evidence today. Seismic shifts in economic activity in every sector are apparent as we see the unwinding of an economic boom which has lasted nearly two decades. Governments are working furiously in the hope to prevent this turning into another depression. The Australian government is still operating under the belief that it can stop the recession and prevent the falling in house and other asset prices. When you remember that the ultimate catalyst for this economic downturn (I use the term advisedly) was the collapse of the house of cards which propped up share and house prices in the USA – ill-secured debt. A perfunctory perusal of graphs showing the shift in share prices, house prices and household wealth over the last 60 years shows that we had long abandoned any attachment to the long-term trend line. But… such trend lines cannot be ignored unless there has been a quantum shift in the economy, such as happened during the industrial revolution. Such a shift is not yet evident, although the emergence of environmentally-sensitive technologies might be the basis of one (though not yet).
No Western government whose citizens have experienced this asset bubble will be able to escape its unwinding in this downturn. Long-term relationships are evidence of a deep-seated connection between the price of assets and absolute wealth. This bubble was created by profligate use of debt, which has ultimately been its undoing, and cannot be left behind until the debt has worked its way out of the system, either by repayment (unlikely in many cases) or in declared losses by corporations carrying the debt. No economic stimulus package can escape this reality.
So what are governments to do?
In the best interests of the country, the governments should invest in the next generation of infrastructure. In Australia, the targets are obvious: solar technology, public transport infrastructure, education, and communications are clearly areas of underinvestment which would benefit from government investment, which would not only provide employment in the present, but would also lay out a foundation for a more environmentally friendly and efficient future. We don’t need further tax cuts to be spent on plasma and LCD TVs. We need to move our economy away from dependence upon coal, iron ore exports and uranium to prop up (I use the term loosely) our current account. Let’s get ahead of the game. The country’s budgetary position is better placed than most to auspice such development at the moment.
The next two to three years will be difficult as the economy absorbs the realities being unwound. Now is the time to shift the paradigm. Now is the time to recognise opportunities. While companies are dealing with a shifting economy, let them factor in a serious carbon trading scheme, and let households be encouraged to invest in solar technology and water capture and recycling.
We dare not prop up industries and companies which we would be better off without in the long-term. Our task is not to maintain what is, but to facilitate what will be.
I fear, however, that our governments will squander the opportunity, to the detriment of us all.

Benediction at Inauguration

2009-01-23T10:03:00.001+11:00

Text of the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery during President Barack Obama's inauguration, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions:

___

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.

We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.

He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.

Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds, and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.

And while we have sown the seeds of greed — the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.

With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Transcript of Inaugural Poem

2009-01-23T10:01:00.001+11:00

Elizabeth Alexander, a professor at Yale University, wrote the inaugural poem for Barack Obama. Below is a transcription of her poem, provided by CQ Transcriptwire:

JANUARY 20, 2009

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching
each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is
noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our
ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole
in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons
on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your
pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or
declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then
others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's
something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we
cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the
dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering
edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every
hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial,
national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to
preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any
sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking
forward in that light.

Rick Warren's Inaugural Invocation

2009-01-23T08:11:00.001+11:00

The prayer by Rick Warren at the Presidential Inauguration

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our Father, everything we see and everything we can’t see
exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to
you. It all exists for your glory.

History is your story. The Scripture tells us, “Hear O Israel, the Lord
is our God. The Lord is One.” And you are the compassionate and merciful
one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now, today, we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power
for the 44th time. We celebrate a hingepoint of history with the
inauguration of our first African American president of the United
States. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled
possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the
highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a
great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.

Give to our new President, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with
humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead
us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President
Biden, the cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race,
or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for
all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we
forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our
prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow
human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve,
forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new
birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in
our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all. May all
people of goodwill today join together to work for a more just, a more
healthy and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we
never forget that one day all nations and all people will stand
accountable before you. We now commit our new president and his wife,
Michelle and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua,
Isa, Jesus [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus, who taught us to pray:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily
bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

source

President Obama's Inauguration Address

2009-01-22T09:57:00.000+11:00

This not only makes interesting and inspiring reading, it also reveals much of the rhythm, meter and style of his oratory. Let us pray that the reality lives up to the oratory.

January 21, 2009

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our healthcare is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America -- they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise healthcare's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort -- even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West -- know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment -- a moment that will define a generation -- it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job, which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive ... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

source: Los Angeles Times

101 Best Books Ever Published

2008-12-20T21:12:00.001+11:00

Australian bookseller Dymocks has come up with a list of the 101 best books ever published, according to Australian readers.
More than 15,000 people took part in the online survey and some of the results were pretty surprising.
Proving you can't beat the classics, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice topped the list, with classics accounting for a third of the 101 titles.
The survey also found that Bryce Courtenay is Australia's most popular author.
Here is the list in full:
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings Series - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
4. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
5. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
6. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
7. Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
8. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
9. Magician - Raymond E. Feist
10. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
11. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
12. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
13. Cross Stitch - Diana Gabaldon
14. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
15. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
16. Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
17. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
18. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
19. Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin
20. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
21. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
22. The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons
23. The Bible
24. Eragon - Christopher Paolini
25. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series - Douglas Adams
27. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
28. Tomorrow, When the War Began - John Marsden
29. Ice Station - Matthew Reilly
30. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
31. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
32. The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
33. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
34. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
35. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
36. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
37. Twilight - Stephanie Meyer
38. Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
39. The Pact - Jodi Picoult
40. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
41. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
42. April Fools Day - Bryce Courtenay
43. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Dernieres
44. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
45. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
46. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
47. Tully - Paullina Simons
48. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
49. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
50. A Fortunate Life - A. B. Facey
51. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
52. River God - Wilbur Smith
53. Wild Swans - Jung Chang
54. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
55. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
56. The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
57. Persuasion - Jane Austen
58. The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
59. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
60. Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
61. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
62. Possession - A.S. Byatt
63. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
64. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
65. My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell
66. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
67. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
68. Dune - Frank Herbert
69. Emma - Jane Austen
70. Marley and Me - John Grogan
71. Middlemarch - George Eliot
72. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
73. The Count of Monte Christo - Alexandre Dumas
74. The Secret history - Donna Tartt
75. Chocolat - Joanne Harris
76. Dirt Music - Tim Winton
77. Looking for Alibrandi - Melina Marchetta
78. My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
79. The Ancient Future - Traci Harding
80. Belgariad Series - David Eddings
81. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
82. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
83. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
84. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
85. The Stand - Stephen King
86. It - Stephen King
87. Northern Lights - Nora Roberts
88. The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
89. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
90. The Outsider - Albert Camus
91. The Riders - Tim Winton
92. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
93. Across the Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn
94. Atonement - Ian McEwan
95. Circle of Friends - Maeve Binchy
96. Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly
97. Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
98. The Godfather - Mario Puzo
99. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
100. The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
101. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant

source: Sky News

The Smiling Face of God?

2008-12-02T09:02:00.000+11:00

An unusual alignment of the new moon with Venus and Jupiter last night provided this joyous visage in the skies, visible even to those in the inner city. Makes you feel like someone is watching over you!

A Seminal Moment in History?

2008-11-06T09:27:00.000+11:00

It is not often that one can identify seminal moments in history as they are unfolding, but yesterday was one of those days. The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America breaks down arguably one of the most significant barriers in the USA, at the same time as inviting us into a new paradigm of political thinking. Given that Obama is only one of five blacks elected to the Senate in its history, his elevation to the Whitehouse is an astonishing leap forward. And in doing so, Obama has inspired average punters in ways not seen on the political landscape in a generation.
Obama’s victory speech last night was masterful in its rhetoric. At times he sounded like the archetypal black preacher in the pulpit. He has brought to the main stage of American culture something that has existed across a broad subculture. Yet for me, the seminal moment emerged from his description of the experience of the 106-year-old Georgian woman, who has emerged from a society in which there were two reasons why she was not able to vote – being a woman, and because of the colour of her skin – into a society where she can vote for a black president. In this vignette, Obama cast his view forward a century and asked what society his daughters might experience if they were to live to such an age. This rare sense of vision and perspective is perhaps the most encouraging of all his calls. Politicians rarely look past the next election, and many seem not to think further than the next opinion poll, and we suffer short-term thinking in so many costly ways. For a leader to ask us to imagine the world in 100 years is to free us from terminal thinking of impossibility, and to free us from immediate responsibility for its fulfilment, but at the same time to energise our imaginations and therefore shape our perspective in ways which begin the transformation.
Time will tell whether Obama makes a good president, although when using his predecessor as a point of comparison, it will be difficult to imagine him not being an improvement. He has, however, set lofty ideals which will be hard to match. He does come to office at a time of deep turmoil and radical reassessment. This should play into the hands of a reformer as the case for change does not need to be strongly made. The question being asked in these tumultuous economic times is, “what change is most needed?” By pointing to high ideals, Obama at least has invited us to look beyond our own self-interest and to consider the interests of our planet, and to reconsider what we value as important.
And importantly, Obama brings to the office of the President a unique perspective amongst Presidents. He brings the perspective of the underside of history, of the marginalised and oppressed voices. While not himself a son of slavery, he has lived as one of a class whose history, ideals, suffering, and imagery has not been central to the experience of its leadership, let alone decision-making, Perhaps here we need to honour the leadership offered by George W Bush, who has recognised the gifts and talents of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice and in some small way provided a model to the American people which depicts capable black leadership… a legacy on which Obama has built.
In recent times, seminal moments in history might well have occurred more regularly, but yesterday will stand as a beacon in marking a cultural shift which cannot be turned back. Whether it marks a shift in other ways for the USA and the world will be learned in the unfolding of the years ahead. The seeds of hope and of a different future were on display yesterday, and I pray that these seeds bear fruit.

Religion is Ridiculous?

2008-10-24T11:25:00.002+11:00

Ridiculous, and worse. So say the new atheist books: In *God is Not Great*, Christopher Hitchens does not mince words, calling religion "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." Now Bill Maher's movie *Religulous* lampoons the plausibility and social effects of all religion, ominously concluding that the world will end if religion does not end. But I suggest that social science data point to a different conclusion than do the new atheist anecdotes of hypocritical and vile believers.

Many in the community of faith gladly grant the irrationality of many religious fundamentalists - people who bring to mind Madeline L'Engle's comment that "Christians have given Christianity a bad name." But mocking religious "nut cases" is cheap and easy. By heaping scorn on the worst examples of anything, including medicine, law, politics, or even atheism, one can make it look evil. But the culture war of competing anecdotes becomes a standoff. One person counters religion-inspired 9/11 leader Mohammed Atta with religion-inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. Another counters the genocidal crusades with the genocidal atheists, Stalin and Mao. But as we social scientists like to say, the plural of anecdote is not data.

Maher and the new atheist authors present anecdote upon anecdote about dangerous and apparently irrational religious behavior, while ignoring massive data on religion's associations with human happiness, health, and altruism. The Gallup Organization, for example, has just released worldwide data culled from surveys of more than a quarter-million people in 140 countries. Across regions and religions, highly religious people are most helpful. In Europe, in the Americas, in Africa, and in Asia they are about fifty percent more likely than the less religious to report having donated money to charity in the last month, volunteered time to an organization, and helped a stranger.

This finding 'that the religious tend to be more human than heartless' expresses the help-giving mandates found in all major religions, from Islamic alms-giving to Judeo-Christian tithing. And it replicates many earlier findings. In a Gallup survey, forty-six percent of "highly spiritually committed" Americans volunteered with the infirm, poor or elderly, as did twenty-two percent of those "highly uncommitted." Ditto charitable giving, for which surveys have revealed a strong faith-philanthropy correlation. In one, the one in four Americans who attended weekly worship services gave nearly half of all charitable contributions.

Is religion nevertheless, as Freud supposed, and Maher's film seems to assert, an "obsessional neurosis" that breeds sexually repressed, guilt-laden misery? Anecdotes aside, the evidence is much kinder to C. S. Lewis's presumption that "joy is the serious business of heaven." For example, National Opinion Research Center surveys of 43,000 Americans since 1972 reveal that actively religious people report high levels of happiness, with forty-three percent of those attending religious services weekly or more saying they are "very happy" (as do twenty-six percent of those seldom or never attending religious services). Faith (and its associated social support) also correlates with effective coping with the loss of a spouse, marriage, or job.

Maher would surely call such religiously-inspired happiness delusional. But what would he say to the* *surprising though oft-reported correlations between religiosity and health? In several large epidemiological studies (which, as in one U.S. National Health Interview Survey, follow lives through time to see what predicts ill health and premature death) religiously active people were less likely to die in any given year and they enjoyed longer life expectancy. This faith-health correlation, which remains even after controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and education, is partly attributable to the healthier lifestyles (including the lower smoking rate) of religious people. It also appears partly attributable to the communal support of faith communities and to the health benefits of positive emotions.

These indications of the personal and social benefits of faith don't speak to its truth claims. And truth ultimately is what matters. (If religious claims were shown to be untrue, though comforting and adaptive, what honest person would choose to believe? And if religious claims were shown to be true, though discomfiting, what honest person would choose to disbelieve?) But
they do challenge the anecdote-based new atheist argument that religion is generally a force for evil. Moreover, they help point us toward a humble spirituality that worships God with open minds as well as open hearts, toward an alternative to purposeless scientism and dogmatic fundamentalism, toward a faith that helps make sense of the universe, gives meaning to life, opens us to the transcendent, connects us in supportive communities, provides a mandate for morality and selflessness, and offers hope in the face of adversity and death.

article written by David Myers, a professor of psychology at Hope College and author of A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God is Good and Faith Isn't Evil (Jossey-Bass, 2008).

*Sightings* comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

The Economic Crisis

2008-10-20T11:39:00.001+11:00

"Is it possible for someone to please explain in simple English with simple examples how this crisis came to be?" Here at Crikey, we like to help. So we bring you without further ado, the first (and possibly last) episode of the Wall Street crisis explained. The first instalment is brought to you by fellow Crikey reader Tony Stott, and is titled, The parable of the stock market and the monkeys:

Tony Stott writes: Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers.

"Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each."

The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw the man, nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

Lord of the Rings

2008-10-19T21:57:00.001+11:00

A recent holiday afforded me space to watch the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, followed by a re-reading of Tolkien’s original books on which the films were based. These two classic works share a common thread but differ significantly in depicting the journey of Frodo and his companions in the battle for Middle Earth. It is a difficult exercise to turn a classic and well-loved book onto the screen – the different media requires words to be translated into visual form. The screen offers in background formations that which the text may take many words to describe, while much background history and poetry of the book do not lend themselves easily to the screen. Peter Jackson’s rendition is a classic in its own right, but many significant and creative aspects of the book have been omitted.

The relationship between book and movie makes for an interesting reflection, particularly for those faiths which bear a strong relationship a book. The Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic faiths are themselves grounded in texts, much of which takes the form of story. The living out of the truths of these texts is itself an act of translation from one form into another – from the written word to the lived world. The balance to be struck between faithfulness to the text and relevance to the lived world is an enduring challenge of interpretation and application, between idealism and lived realities.

The lived world is never identical to the written world, yet the truths of one can readily be applied into the other. This challenge faces not only the film producer, but all people of faith - the battle between spirit of the text and the imagery and words. Judgements must be made about the supremacy and centrality of particular episodes within the text. It is impossible to translate any book to the screen in full satisfaction of every viewer. Words evoke different images and emotions, stories and events tap into different memories for each reader. What emerges is the fruit of a dialogue between imagination and memory, literal word and figurative meaning, subject to reinterpretation after each expression. Re-reading the books helped provide contexts for particular actions and differences in the movie – the death of Saruman in the movie obviates the need to explain the purging of the shire on Frodo’s return which the book details. The omission or reshaping of particular pericopes results in loss of imagery and context for particular actions.

Whilst the film-maker seeks to make a faithful retelling of the original story in its original setting, the life of faith seeks to incarnate the spirit of the text in an entirely different context. In this enactment, some stories will hold greater sway, and those which are overlooked pose new questions and challenges which might ultimately change one’s perspective. To relive the spirit of the whole text requires interpretive cues and frameworks which enable one to live faithfully, yet tentatively towards the ideal.

Far from being a stricture to the life of faith, the presence of a book provides a continuing interpretive and reflective resource for every believer. The life of faith is ever a dialogue between text and action, image and reality. In this dynamic tension lie the seeds of reflection on actual events and frameworks for future action and a basis for reflecting on what is, and for shaping what might be.

I Cannot do this Alone

2008-10-18T14:09:00.000+11:00

O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me…
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

An old warning

2008-10-17T18:26:00.000+11:00

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Thomas Jefferson 1802

Back to the Red Centre!

2008-09-08T14:45:00.002+10:00

It has been two years since we returned from the journey which kicked off this blog site, and we have now decided it is time to head back to the Red Centre once again. One thing holding us back from an earlier departure (two actually!) is that Caleb has two basketball grand finals this weekend: one in domestic and the other rep. Hopefully we will head off on Sunday with a smile on the face as we look to enjoy the beautiful heart of Australia.

High Petrol Price Savings!

2008-08-28T11:38:00.000+10:00

Australian road fatality figures are down 11.6% across the first seven months of 2008 accelerating a downward trend which has been evident over recent years. Could this be attributable to changed driving habits as a result of higher petrol prices?
American trauma statistics back this thesis up even further, where road fatalities fell by 22.1% in March and 17.9% in April - the latest figures available, but which appear to be continuing through May and June. WHilst some of this might be attributable to a lowering in the distance travelled, it is more likely that the greater proportion is attributable to improved driving habits to increase fuel economy.
Which raises an interesting economic question. If fatalities are down this much, how much reduction in serious injury is also evident, with what saving in health costs? Dare it be suggested that higher fuel costs might actually be cheaper overall for the economy, even if not for individuals within it?

What Makes Value

2008-08-12T00:06:00.001+10:00

A rare stamp was sold overnight in Melbourne for $29000. The stamp - a 1913 10/- purple stamp with a kangaroo standing over a map of Australia - normally sells for around $1000. This stamp was unique inasmuch as it contained a fault which caused a double-printing of part of its border.

It's amazing, really, when we live in a society which pursues perfection with relentless ambition. Celebrities will often have photographs airbrushed to remove blotches before publication. This week we laud the perfect performances of athletes while many others pass in silence. When we make the inevitable comparisons between ourselves and those in the public domain, we clearly do not match up and tend therefore to undervalue our unique identity. This blemished stamp perhaps serve to remind us that is our unique faults which make us valuable in this world.

Freedom Paradox (Book Review)

2008-08-11T14:08:00.002+10:00

“We have built ourselves a grand castle of freedom but choose to live in a shack nearby”
- Kierkegaard

In his first two books, Growth Fetish and Affluenza, Clive Hamilton began to unmask the prevailing philosophies of our time and expose the high price being paid for our unwitting enslavement to them. In his latest work Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics, Hamilton directly addresses the question which emerges from these two works: Why it is that our unparalleled time of economic prosperity and choice has left us with lower levels of life satisfaction and happiness? Has the modern promise proven empty, and left us unfulfilled, with less freedom, rather than more?

Beginning his journey with the father of modern liberalism John Stuart Mill, Hamilton begins a journey which dialogues with great thinkers through the ages, seeking explanation for the deep unease which permeates Western Culture, in spite of the promise of freedom which the great economic growth spurt promised us. By juxtaposing three alternative views of life: the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life, the framework is set for exploring the dialectic between liberty and limits.

Whereas modernity has conceptually enthroned the individual, Hamilton suggests that we have exchanged submission to obvious powers (church, state) for more subtle ones which subvert our capacity for freedom. Our ability to freely consent has been compromised by our capacity for self-deception, our tendency for akrasia (the ability to act in contradiction to one’s considered judgment), and in response to the subtle forms of coercion from the market and from socio-economic forces, all of which have served to diminish rather than enhance our freedom.

Having articulated some of the ways in which freedom has been compromised at the socio-political level, Hamilton explores the realm of metaphysics for an exploration of the relationship between inner freedom and greater wellbeing. In revisiting questions of the nature of reality, Hamilton boldly suggests that which modernity first announced and post-modernity has buried – the transcendent – remains accessible. The dense argument which comprises the middle stages of the book outlines a philosophical and metaphysical basis for access to the noumenon (the reality which lies behind the world of appearances) which Hamilton argues is based within humans (rather than God-centred), which provides a basis for the real Self as the centre of moral autonomy. In engaging with the mystical world of Buddhism, Sufism and of Christian mystics, Hamilton suggests that the “secret door to the citadel” is in finding the universal Self, where the God within and the God without are united, in the words of William Law, “in the deepest and most central part of thy soul.”

Hamilton examines – in a brief digression – the question of the existence of God, taking issue with Dawkins (whom he criticises for his poor metaphysics), Kant (with his view of God as separate and remote from humanity), and attempts to equate the concept of God as expressed in words with the Supreme Being, abandoning the idea of a God as cosmic policeman (my term) for a “more sublime notion of eternal justice”.

The basis for morality is thus grounded no longer in rational ethics, or an external moral code, but the Universal Self – where our independent existence merges into the Universal Self, shared by all. Morality is therefore grounded in metaphysical empathy, in which we recognise our common humanity, not merely as independent selves sharing a common core, but united by participation in the being of each other. Here Hamilton seeks to redeem emotion, compassion, intuition and conscience as a source for morality. The greatest moral acts are often counter to the prevailing social-cultural norm, citing Gandhi, Mandela and the Dalai Lama as avatars of virtue who have lived life on a higher moral plane.

“The freedom to do as we please is the most subtle form of unfreedom ever conceived,” he concludes. In seeking to reclaim access to the noumenon within the phenomenal world we experience, Hamilton suggests that the journey towards true freedom begins in being rather than doing. Many readers will welcome his call to rediscover the transcendent, although some will argue that he has been too optimistic of the human capability to overcome these forces and gives too little attention to what Christian theologians continue to hold in spite of its contemporary unpopularity: the nature of sin in the human condition, although we perhaps need to confess that the church has often placed this too much at the forefront and so shadowed the good news of grace it seeks to embody.

The Freedom Paradox offers a healthy critique of modernity, post-modernity and institutional religion and seeks to point us back to the deeper reality of which the spiritual giants of history have sought to point towards. ‘Tis a pity that too often we have wrestled with the words rather than the reality.

Clive Hamilton, Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics, Sydney: Allen & Unwin 2008

Review by Gary Heard

Companies or Corporations?

2008-08-08T10:28:00.001+10:00

Quote worth pondering:

We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this - companies that have made big investments around the world.

- a Chevron lobbyist, who asked not to be identified, speaking about a lawsuit brought on behalf of thousands of Indigenous Ecuadorian peasants over the dumping of billions of gallons of toxic oil wastes into their region's rivers and streams. Chevron is pressuring the Bush administration to eliminate special trade preferences for Ecuador if its government doesn't quash the case.

(Source: Newsweek)

Towards a Sustainable Future

2008-07-16T16:40:00.003+10:00

It was the year 1899 when the then Commissioner of the U.S. Patents office was reported to have said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." While he might choose to have retracted those words even before they had hit the wires, we might do well to pause and reflect on whether all invention can be described as progress.

As we enter an era when the level of carbon in the atmosphere continues to climb to hitherto unrecorded levels - and even while we debate the implications of that - we recognise that one of the significant costs of progress remains the environment in which we live. We have, in reality, bitten the hand that feeds us hard, and wonder at its capacity to recover and adapt.

A second thought reverberates through my mind - most, if not all of this progress has been to the benefit of the West, at the expense of other parts of the world, even at the exploitation of them. When we consider how corporations have made millions by using cheap third-world labour to produce garments sold at prices which bear little relation to their production costs, we must consider whether progress for some at the expense of the majority is really progress at all.

The cost of producing many of our staples in the West has ignored the unaccounted costs - those which appear on no corporate books or tax records. While countries debate the possibility of carbon trading schemes (which would appear one small and tenuous step towards addressing the problem), there is an unspoken need for the West to recognise the need to bear much more of the cost of our lavish lifestyles.

This struck me afresh recently as I read through the Psalms, and encountered the reverberating cry, "I am innocent, Lord". I realised that this is a cry that cannot honestly emanate from my own lips. I live in a world system which is biased in my direction. I live a lifestyle which takes far more from this planet than is just or equitable, let alone sustainable. Even as I make efforts to reduce this, I realise that I am a long way from innocence. Such is not to pile up guilt, or to deny the possibility of grace, but to underline the need to give careful consideration to the way I live, to the foods I buy, the products purchased, the use of money overall. By almost any measure, living in the West invariably and conservatively places us in the richest 10% of the planet (certainly if you are reading this on a computer!). With such privilege comes responsibility, one which isn't exercised by deferring to governments for action.

The Bible begins by creating an essential link between humans and the planet: from the dust we are formed, and to the dust we return. Our link with the earth is more than merely symbolic, or at the ends of life. Until we recognise our inherent relationship with the earth, and the inherent link between the health of creation as a whole and our own as individuals and communities, we are set on a path into territories which will raise ever more critical questions about our future.

Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do. Perhaps we don't need new innovations so much as better environmental expressions.

The Voice of Fear

2008-07-10T14:41:00.000+10:00

The suggestion that we should begin a carbon trading scheme in Australia in 2010 has set the voices of fear alight, once again proving the difficulty of conducting serious and mature political debate in this country. What is most disappointing is hearing the Victorian Premier, John Brumby, starting to forecast electricity shortages even before the complete debate about the scheme has got into first gear. The news report last night forecast shortages this coming summer, which is pure nonsense. How can a non-existent emissions trading scheme in the summer of 2008-2009 result in shortages of supply? I am unsure whether this fear-mongering is an interpretation placed by a reporter over the Premier’s remarks, but it underlines the sense of disappointment in the moral fibre of our leadership when they start playing on short-term fears. It is the type of politics we hoped to have seen the last of for some time in the wake of the defeat of the Howard government, which was masterful in such politics.
While the science of global warming has much to both commend and question, there is no doubt that in terms of the health of the planet we are entering into uncharted waters. Instead of crying “Wolf!” or doing the Chicken Little act: “The Sky is Falling!” perhaps we would hope that our leadership might point to the opportunities for innovative and creative solutions to the identified problem of increased carbon emissions. Alas, it seems that we would rather play fear and avoid responsibilities.
In Australia it is hard to justify the absence of a serious effort at solar power and other forms of renewable energy. Instead of playing fear, we should be positioning our state and nation to be at the forefront of renewable energy. So we might have to let brown coal – in such abundant supply – remain in the ground for a longer period. What loss is there if we can develop new export industries which have a healthier contribution to the planet?
It remains to be seen whether the Federal Government has the guts to do the hard work. They’ll be peppered with fear on all sides.

A Priest's Job Promotion

2008-07-09T11:31:00.001+10:00

A Catholic priest and a rabbi were chatting one day when the conversation turned to a discussion of job descriptions and promotions.
"What do you have to look forward to in terms of being promoted?" asked the rabbi.
"Well, I'm next in line for the Monsignor's job," replied the priest.
"Yes, and then what?" asked the rabbi.
"Well, next I can become a bishop."
"Yes, and then?"
"If I work real hard and do a good job as bishop, it's possible for me to become an archbishop."
"OK, then what?"
Exasperated, the priest replied, "With some luck and real hard work, maybe I can become a cardinal."
"And then?"
Growing angry, the priest responded, "Well, with lots and lots of luck and some real difficult work, if I'm in the right places at the right times and play my political games just right, maybe, just maybe, I can get elected Pope."
"Yes, and then what?"
"Good grief!" shouted the priest. "What do you expect me to become, GOD?"
"Well," responded the rabbi, "One of our boys made it!"

Towards Clean Energy?

2008-07-08T21:55:00.000+10:00

While governments in the West continue to argue about the best ways to tackle the ever-increasing emission of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, we do well to note that the fastest growth in mobile phone penetration is currently happening in Africa and the poorer Asian nations, where the infrastructure for landlines is absent and the capital isn’t available to invest. Mobile phones do not require the same extensive and expensive infrastructure in order to provide access, and are at home in a society which is used to production and consumption taking place locally. It is a lesson which should not be lost on us as we consider reducing carbon emissions.
While the Victorian State Government has announced another brown coal-powered electricity generator, it perpetuates the mass-production in remote location approach which underpins most Western economies. A downside of this approach in electricity generation – aside from the massive increase in carbon emissions – is the loss of electricity in transmission, up to as much as 80%. On average we need then to produce at least twice as much electricity as is ever consumed at the point of delivery. Solar power, then, brings production and consumption to the same locality, reducing transmission loss. Here in the West, however, we are unlikely to adopt such a disaggregated approach to electricity supply. Poorer countries, on the other hand, may – as with mobile phone penetration – provide a much more creative response to the electricity needs of their communities. Introduction of solar power into such communities, while initially providing small stocks of electricity, may provide a basis for development which is both environmentally more responsible and with the capacity to grow as the minimal requirements of small communities expands.
Here in the West, the cost is large in comparison with the marginal improvement in supply capacity, in contrast with the possibilities of subsistence communities.
Such an approach should not only be feasible, but offer greater security than the current mega-production centres upon which the current electricity generation strategies are now based. There are more than enough rooftops available in any major city in this country which are available for solar panels. With over a million homes generating electricity across a wide expanse, the capacity can be obtained without further scarring the landscape, and at the same time provide a decentralised supply which is far less vulnerable to outages. Should one of our major generators falter, there would be serious disruption to supply. But solar panels on myriad rooftops offers similar continuity of supply as the internet – interconnected nodes across numerous sites which can shift the load as needed. Loss of one panel provides minimal disruption, alongside the greater correlation between production and consumption quantities.
Perhaps it is the African and Asian communities which offer the best alternative to alternative and environmentally friendly electricity, because they have much less invested in existing technologies. Might our aid and development organisations provide a lead here?

Dobson and Obama: Who is 'Deliberately Distorting'?

2008-06-27T16:18:00.002+10:00

(from Sojourners - some interesting comments, not only on the US election, but the relationship between religion and politics in general...)
James Dobson, of Focus on the Family Action, and his senior vice president of government and public policy, Tom Minnery, used their "Focus on the Family" radio show Tuesday to criticize Barack Obama's understanding of Christian faith. In the show, they describe Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."

The clear purpose of the show was to attack Barack Obama. On the show, Dobson says of himself, "I'm not a reverend. I'm not a minister. I'm not a theologian. I'm not an evangelist. I'm a psychologist. I have a Ph.D. in child development." Child psychologists don't insert themselves into partisan politics in the regular way that James Dobson does and has over many years as one of the premier leaders of the Religious Right. He has spoken about how often he talked to Republican leaders -- Karl Rove, administration strategists, and even President Bush himself. This year he tried to influence the outcome of the Republican primary by saying he would never vote for John McCain or the Republicans if they nominated him, then reversed himself and said he would vote after all but didn't say for whom. But why should America care about how a child psychologist votes?

James Dobson is insinuating himself into this presidential campaign, and his attacks against his fellow Christian, Barack Obama, should be seriously scrutinized. And because the basis for his attack on Obama is the speech the Illinois senator gave at our Sojourners/Call to Renewal event in 2006 (for the record, we also had Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback speak that year), I have decided to respond to Dobson's attacks. In most every case they are themselves clear distortions of what Obama said in that speech. I was there for the speech; Dobson was not.

I haven't endorsed a candidate, but I do defend them when they are attacked in disingenuous ways, and this is one of those cases. You can read Obama's two-year-old speech, [audio link] which was widely publicized at the time, and you can see that Dobson either didn't understand it or is deliberately distorting it. There are two major problems with Dobson's attack on Obama.

First, Dobson and Minnery's language is simply inappropriate for religious leaders to use in an already divisive political campaign. We can agree or disagree on both biblical and political viewpoints, but our language should be respectful and civil, not attacking motives and beliefs.

Second, and perhaps most important, is the role of religion in politics. Dobson alleges that Obama is saying:

I [Dobson] can't seek to pass legislation, for example, that bans partial-birth abortion because there are people in the culture who don't see that as a moral issue. And if I can't get everyone to agree with me, it is undemocratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the Scripture. ... What he's trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.

Contrary to Dobson's charge, Obama strongly defended the right and necessity of people of faith in bringing their moral agenda to the public square, and he was specifically critical of many on the left and in his own Democratic Party for being uncomfortable with religion in politics.

Obama said that religion is and always has been a fundamental and absolutely essential source of morality for the nation, but he also said that "religion has no monopoly on morality," which is a point I often make. The United States is not the Christian theocracy that people like James Dobson seem to think it should be. Political appeals, even if rooted in religious convictions, must be argued on moral grounds rather than as sectarian religious demands -- so that the people (citizens), whether religious or not, may have the capacity to hear and respond. Religious convictions must be translated into moral arguments, which must win the political debate if they are to be implemented. Religious people don't get to win just because they are religious. They, like any other citizens, have to convince their fellow citizens that what they propose is best for the common good -- for all of us, not just for the religious.

Instead of saying that Christians must accept "the lowest common denominator of morality," as Dobson accused Obama of suggesting, or that people of faith shouldn't advocate for the things their convictions suggest, Obama was saying the exact opposite -- that Christians should offer their best moral compass to the nation but then engage in the kind of democratic dialogue that religious pluralism demands. Martin Luther King Jr. perhaps did this best, with his Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other.

One more note. I personally disagree with how both the Democrats and Republicans have treated the moral issue of abortion and am hopeful that the movement toward a serious commitment for dramatic abortion reduction will re-shape both parties' language and positions. But that is the only "bloody notion" that Dobson mentions. What about the horrible bloody war in Iraq that Dobson apparently supports, or the 30,000 children who die each day globally of poverty and disease that Dobson never mentions, or the genocides in Darfur and other places? In making abortion the single life issue in politics and elections, leaders from the Religious Right like Dobson have violated the "consistent ethic of life" that we find, for example, in Catholic social teaching.

Dobson has also fought unsuccessfully to keep the issue of the environment and climate change, which many also now regard as a "life issue," off the evangelical agenda. Older Religious Right leaders are now being passed by a new generation of young evangelicals who believe that poverty, "creation care" of the environment, human trafficking, human rights, pandemic diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and the fundamental issues of war and peace are also "religious" and "moral" issues and now a part of a much wider and deeper agenda. That new evangelical agenda is a deep threat to Dobson and the power wielded by the Religious Right for so long. It puts many evangelical votes in play this election year, especially among a new generation who are no longer captive to the Religious Right. Perhaps that is the real reason for Dobson's attack on Barack Obama.

Art and Science

2008-06-12T10:19:00.000+10:00

In recent years I have journeyed back into basketball coaching, teaching youngsters the skills of the sport. It has involved a journey down memory lane, recalling drills and skills which have become second nature over many many years of playing at different levels. My previous coaching experiences had been of adults, so to take up a young group who are still growing into their bodies, developing basic control over limbs, has been a thought-provoking challenge. Some reflections have been germinating on the experience:

1. Never be afraid of failure. One of the first instructions I give to junior players is not to be afraid to make mistakes. None of us learnt to walk without the occasional stumble and fall, yet the only way to learn is by doing. When all is said and done, nothing of a training session is any value unless it is tried on the court during a game. I don't expect players to get it right the first time, and challenge them often to try something a bit different.

2. Don't be daunted by the size of the opponent. On the basketball court, a tall opponent presents obvious challenges. A recent U13 girls opponent was well in excess of 6 foot tall. Getting past the intimidation felt by the girls enabled them to focus on strategies and tactics which helped them turn the game. The taller opponent had a big impact, but their response enabled them to overcome, using their own capabilities in the face of a challenging opponent.

3. Art and Science. Much time is spent in teaching basic techniques, both individual and team. At the end of the day, however, when a player is on court, they have to make their own choices. The basic techniques hopefully lay a platform which gives them a range of choices and the capability to execute within a game situation. But a coach cannot call every play, or micromanage every game situation. Deciding which move to execute is an art which can be honed and encouraged, rather than managed. The range of moves can be expanded by teaching the technique.

4. Results take care of themselves. Game results are a byproduct of other things: how the team plays, how they adapt to the strategies of opponents, and a horde of other factors. However, if the team plays to the best of its ability, works as a team, and has the skills and techniques to use when needed, the outcome of the game takes care of itself. By focussing on winning - on results - we are often distracted from the capabilities we have to respond to the situation at hand.

Each game throws up different challenges... a lot like life really. The sporting field is a good metaphor for many of life's challenges.

China and Tibet

2008-04-30T18:59:00.001+10:00

I wonder where those "Free Tibet" t-shirts have been made... will I find a "Made in China" label?

Geelong Footballers

2008-04-27T11:12:00.000+10:00

Why do Geelong footballers still carry handbags?
Because it isn't safe to put their money into Geelong investment banks!

The power of a signature

2008-04-01T23:31:00.001+11:00

...poignant message from Amnesty International

With thanks to Stan for drawing my attention to it!

Ahem....

2008-03-26T16:42:00.002+11:00

You will have noticed how quiet things have been from this desk over the last month or so. It has not been the result of holidays or other equivalent inactivity (much to my own disappointment!) I returned home one February morning to see the dreaded "blue screen" on my computer, which reported a dump in progress and inviting a restart. This could not be good news. In fact, the worst. Restart went OK until the time for the hard drive to kick into action arrived. All I could mount in response was the message "No HDD" and an unwelcome and foreboding clunking sound coming from said HDD. Thus began another journey through the digital world.

Having lost a computer due to break-in many years ago (with no backup), I now have a regular back-up plan. I had recently upgraded to Norton 360, which offers a back-up regime. Having backed up only four days earlier, I was not overly worried about data loss. Until, that is, I went to restore data to the new HDD.

For some reason, Norton had failed to recognise and back up any folders I had created in 2008! This meant the loss of a not-insignificant amount of work. Norton 360 also, for some reason, does not back up non-Microsoft web-browsing and email programs, meaning that Firefox and Thunderbird Mail, contacts, bookmarks and the like had not been backed up at all. Grrr.

At this point I searched for data recovery specialists. The first quote to resurrect the drive came in at a cool $2500. This was reduced to $2200 when I indicated I would take my business elsewhere. Another search brought me a quote of around $700, at which point it seemed worth the effort, particularly with a no-data-no-fee policy.

Meanwhile I began the process of reinstalling programs on my new HDD. Fortunately I had placed all disks in one location, so the process wasn't as fraught as it might have been, although it is a lengthy task. Following installation, the search for updates begins. If you run Windows XP, you'll know how many that can mean, let alone office etc, as well as reinstalling and updating Norton 360 and other programs. It's at least a day's work.

Then, on opening documents once again, you realise that you need to reconfigure all settings. Then you realise that some fonts have not been reinstalled. (Norton 360 doesn't back up fonts either). Obviously one program I didn't reinstall carried a font I had used on a number of documents in DTP.

After recovering the computer and getting it operative once again, I received a call from the Hard Drive Doctor, who indicated that he had recovered the drive with 100% data recovery. Woohoo!

Then becomes the process of recovering and resynchronising data... Having used the new setup for a couple of weeks, there were files which had been edited, others created, and emails sent, read and deleted. When trying to open 'recovered' files, I found that some were corrupted - the FAT had recognised their existence, but sectors were damaged.

I now have recovered copies, reconstructed copies, backup copies and other copies of files on three HDDs. And a new backup regime that also targets the Fonts folder as well as the information under Documents and Settings for all programs.

I'm glad computers can save so much time... I think I have spent a bit of it over the last month getting it all back together.

And the interesting timing? I received the note from the Hard Disk Doctor that he had recovered data on Easter Saturday!

Teach Me to Pray

2008-02-20T15:20:00.000+11:00

My Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee.
Thou and Thou alone knowest my needs.
Thou lovest me more than I am able to love Thee.
O Father, grant unto me, Thy servant, all which I cannot ask.
For a cross I dare not ask, nor for consolation;
I dare only to stand in Thy presence.
My heart is open to Thee.
Thou seest my needs of which I myself am unaware.
Behold and lift me up!
In Thy presence I stand,
awed and silenced by Thy will and Thy judgments,
into which my mind cannot penetrate.
To Thee I offer myself as a sacrifice.
No other desire is mine but to fulfill Thy will.
Teach me how to pray.
Do Thyself pray within me.
Amen.

- St. Philaret of Moscow

Response to Change

2008-02-19T09:22:00.000+11:00

I haven't offered sermon thoughts on this blog before, but do so here, given the varied response to the apology delivered by the Australian Parliament to the Stolen Generations - Indigenous families subject to forced removal and relocation as a result of government policy over a period of many decades. I seek to address the fear of change which often threatens all of us, and to challenge some of the romanticised notions of the ways in which transformation has often taken place.

This is not a verbatim or complete transcript, but supplemented notes from which I preach...

What a significant week it has been in the life of Australia. Significant because we have collectively agonised for over 10 years about the appropriate response to the Bringing Them Home report which detailed the stories of Indigenous Australians who had been removed from family. Significant because we had to wrestle with the notion of responsibility for decisions taken in very different circumstances. Significant because there were those who felt that an apology overlooked the important and positive things which had been done. Significant because of the move to bipartisanship at least in some small part of Indigenous Affairs. Significant because for the first time the Parliament had been opened with a Welcome to Country by Indigenous leaders. Significant because it was the first week of the new government leadership in parliament.

Sometimes significant moments creep up on us unexpected. Others emerge after a long and intentional search. Still others in the agony of discovery. It might bring us some comfort that the decision to abolish slavery in the British Commonwealth was one born of similar angst. The birth of the Australian nation came amidst great debate and uncertainty. The dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to bedevil modern thinking. Significant and historic moments are rarely clear-cut in their unfolding or in their acceptance.

As we reflect on the significance of this week, I would like to draw our focus back into two texts of scripture in order to highlight on of the great human realities: we all fear change.

There are times when our discoveries open up possibilities which frighten us. There are reports of scientists in Nazi Germany who made breakthrough discoveries but hid them for fear they would be used in ways which the scientists found abhorrent. There is the same concern in other areas of development today, where scientists seek knowledge, yet are concerned by the way in which the military and industrial might of politicians might see it put to other uses.

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain comes in the midst of a series of events in the life of Jesus which begin to turn the disciples’ perceptions upside down. First the declaration of faith by Peter, then the revelation of Jesus’ impending death, and now the revelation on the Mount of Transfiguration. Each of them met with some resistance.

When we come face-to-face with life-transforming information, we realise that it asks something of us. When I came face-to-face with Jesus Christ, I realised there was a call upon my life that I could not escape.

The disciples here face the same reality. And they hide in trivialities. Shall we build three booths?

We have similar mechanisms today. Let’s put it to a committee. Let’s pray about it. Let’s… you know them as well as I do.

Human beings are very creative at resisting change. I know – I’m one of those. We ask questions. We ignore certain realities. We conceal our real agendas. When Nicodemus comes to Jesus, he comes as a man seeking to resist. How do we know? He comes at night? He asks vague questions then responds to the answers with some skill to avoid the real issue. Nicodemus senses a new wind but wonders whether he can follow it.

Someone once said that if you weren’t a communist in your 20s you didn’t have a heart, and if you weren’t a capitalist by the time you were in your 40s you had no brains. A young William Carey was put back in his place after sharing his dream of taking the gospel to the heathens by a leader’s remarks “If God wants to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without you or I.”

Where do the dreams and yearnings of our youth go?

During the first year of our time at West Melbourne, I could often be heard stating, “We don’t have to worry about failure. We stare it in the face each week!” The only failure was not to try. Not to risk. We knew that unless something different took place we were destined to die. It wasn’t easy.

Why do we resist change?

Overcome by Fear. What if we can’t handle it? What if we don’t have the skills? What if it doesn’t deliver what we hope? Good questions to ask, but ones which point us back to the source of life and hope.

Fear of change. The seven last words of the church? We have always done it this way. There is comfort in familiarity. It helps us feel secure. Safe. But how much gospel is that?

We are often tempted to stay the same because we know it. It stands in stark contrast to Jesus’ call to be born again. To live by the fluky winds of the Spirit. To leave behind families and mothers and brothers and sisters for the sake of the gospel.

Transformation is often harder. But which way leads to life?

A pastoral colleague reflected in the wake of the apology and in the light of John 3: "the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. And in that encounter, in which Jesus so profoundly speaks about 'new birth', I realized afresh what the core of the gospel is: that our past no longer needs condemn us to a particular future; that my tomorrows are not imprisoned by my yesterdays; that in Christ, there is a new and more hopeful reality that is brought into vision.

Today's apology was, for me at least, truly a Lenten miracle, and one that served to highlight powerfully the world-shaking wonder of the gospel of which John 3 speaks."

This past week has raised many other questions: compensation. Future Indigenous policy. Can we meet the expectations raised? The government was not limited by the problem of raised expectations because it heard the call of justice and compassion and truth.

The image of the Exodus is strong in our faith tradition: the call to leave the known and secure, if difficult, to strike out in search of the land of promise. The journey from Egypt to Promised Land was messy, fraught, filled with dissent, grumbling. You'd think there would have been better planning! When we become comfortable with the ways that we know we inevitably and inexorably abandon the call to the future which God has prepared for us.

Note Paul's response:
Philippians 3:10-14 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Sorry Day Prayer

2008-02-14T07:10:00.000+11:00

I posted this prayer yesterday on heardaboutthisone. I reproduce it here today alongside the text of the apology delivered yesterday by the Australian Government to the Stolen Generations. This prayer was written for Sorry Day, reflecting concern for the plight of Indigenous Australians.

Almighty and loving God, you who created ALL people in your image,
Lead us to seek your compassion as we listen to the stories of our past.
You gave your only Son, Jesus, who died and rose again so that sins will be forgiven.
We place before you the pain and anguish of dispossession of land, language, lore, culture and family kinship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have experienced.
We live in faith that all people will rise from the depths of despair and hopelessness.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families have endured the pain and loss of loved ones, through the separation of children from their families.
We are sorry and ask God's forgiveness.
Touch the hearts of the broken, homeless and inflicted and heal their spirits.
In your mercy and compassion walk with us as we continue our journey of healing to create a future that is just and equitable.
Lord, you are our hope.
Amen.

Text of the Apology to The Stolen Generations

2008-02-14T07:07:00.002+11:00

This is the full text of the apology delivered in Parliament yesterday by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd:

Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

Let us pray that the apology will be received by all in the spirit in which it is intended. Let us pray that it will result in our Aboriginal brothers and sisters being able to experience a sense of the closing of a dark chapter of their history, and the healing and release of past hurts and memories. Pray that the apology will release in our nation a fresh spirit of hope and the ability to now look to a future as one people and to work together towards the removal on any injustices, real or perceived, that still exist, until equality is not only spoken of, but also evident in the practical realities of everyday life.

Apology to the Stolen Generations

2008-02-13T13:50:00.000+11:00

I found tears welling in my eyes this morning as I listened to the broadcast of proceedings from Parliament House in Canberra as the final preparations for the delivery of the apology from the Australian Government to the Stolen Generations was made. It was a moment of both relief and thankfulness that this well-overdue apology was made, and a platform laid for moving forward in a spirit of honesty and cooperation.
Indigenous Australia has suffered greatly from European Settlement, not just with the Stolen Generations but began with the creeping assumption of land from them, depriving them of livelihood, sacred sites and freedom of movement. The treatment meted out to Aboriginal peoples has been a scar on this nation’s history, one kept hidden for too long. The release of the “Bringing them Home” report in 1997 for the first time openly detailed the impact of policies which endured during my own schooling years, not to mention the continuing approach which comes at high cost to Indigenous Australia.
Today, some sense of pride was restored for me: pride in our political institutions and pride in our national character, a pride which will always be tinged with a sense of shame that it took so long to acknowledge what our country has done. I long to see the day when not only a mace sits in parliament – a symbolic reminder of the power of the speaker, but a symbol of the Indigenous heritage of our land sits alongside it, so that Parliament will never sit with its eyes unable to see the Indigenous people of this land.
Let me adapt a line from the second verse of the Australian National Anthem: “With courage let us NOW combine to Advance Australia fare”

In case you missed Sunday School

2008-02-12T09:57:00.001+11:00

THE STORY OF ELIJAH
The Sunday school teacher was carefully explaining the story of Elijah the Prophet and the false prophets of Baal. She explained how Elijah built the altar, put wood upon it, cut a steer in pieces, and laid it upon the altar. And then, Elijah commanded the people of God to fill four barrels of water and pour it over the altar. He had them do this four times
"Now," asked the teacher, "Can anyone in the class tell me why the Lord would have Elijah pour water over the steer on the altar?"
A little girl in the back of the room started waving her hand, "I know! I know!" she said, "To make the gravy!"

LOT'S WIFE
The Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot 's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, "My Mummy looked back once, while she was driving," he announced triumphantly, "and she turned into a telephone pole!"

GOOD SAMARITAN
A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. She described the situation in vivid detail so her students would catch the drama. Then, she asked the class, "If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?"
A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, "I think I'd throw up."

DID NOAH FISH?
A Sunday school teacher asked, "Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark?"
"No," replied David. "How could he, with just two worms?"

HIGHER POWER
A Sunday school teacher said to her children, "We have been learning how powerful kings and queens were in Bible times. But, there is a higher power. Can anybody tell me what it is?"
One child blurted out, "Aces!"

MOSES AND THE RED SEA
Nine-year-old Joey, was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday school. "Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt When he got to the Red Sea , he had his army build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then, he radioed headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved."
"Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?" his mother asked. "Well, no, Mum. But, if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!"

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young class memorise one of the most quoted passages in the Bible; Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters a month to learn the verse. Little Rick was excited about the task - but, he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Ricky was so nervous. When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, "The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know."

CHURCH SMILES
There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family Bible to her brother in another part of the country. "Is there anything breakable in here?" asked the postal clerk.
"Only the Ten Commandments," answered the lady.

AMISH CARRIAGE
While driving in Pennsylvania ,a family caught up to an Amish carriage. The owner of the carriage obviously had a sense of humour, because attached to the back of the carriage was a hand printed sign: "Energy efficient vehicle: Runs on oats and grass.
Caution: Do not step in exhaust."

QUILT
Sunday after church, a Mum asked her very young daughter what the lesson was about. The daughter answered, "Don't be scared, you'll get your quilt." Needless to say, the Mum was perplexed. Later in the day, the pastor stopped by for tea and the Mum asked him what that morning's Sunday school lesson was about. He said "Be not afraid, thy comforter is coming."

The Hallelujah Chorus Nuns

2008-02-05T09:11:00.000+11:00

with subtitles!!

Rank your gadgets

2008-01-23T16:30:00.001+11:00

Technology is everywhere. Whether at home, in the office or on the go, gadgets and gizmos of every shape, size and ring tone constantly surround us. But which ones do you feel are truly needed? Rank your favourites and see how they compare with others.

Lines of scripture

2008-01-11T11:48:00.000+11:00

Random thought: It is easier to make our theology, perception and practice based on two or three lines in scripture. Much more difficult to base it on lines running through scripture.