After many years, my book We’re just shooting stars has now been published. This personal project, from which I’ve shared extracts here at different times, will, I hope, bring some joy and impact to those who read it.
As a thank you to supporters, it’s available for free until 6pm Christmas Eve in Australia (AEST – 5pm in Qld – check your time zone) or midnight 23 December Pacific Standard Time. Here’s the link on Amazon for downloading your ebook. https://www.amazon.com.au/Were-just-shooting-stars-Darkness-ebook/dp/B0CQDPCKPY/ Cover price reverts to $4.99 after this.
Here’s an extract to celebrate, which is a moment in the book from which the eventual name comes (it had some other iterations!).
Looking skyward again, he caught a glimpse of stars, then a shooting star, and a thin crescent of moon. He remembered years of camping alone under these same stars, running from anger and fear and he realised the tangle of his life also included the Aboriginal people he’d met, the bonds made in childhood, how he couldn’t lose a sense of loss and guilt. He though of Yarri and wondered if he was alive out there somewhere, wandering too. If so, was he alone as well? And Faith, who had somehow done something to his heart with just a look. What had become of her? The three of them, he thought, we were just shooting stars, bright flashes against darkness, forever caught in a moment. He felt their loss keenly, like beauty seen only once and then lost.
It’s unlikely the world is going to think itself to a better place.
Yes, I know it’s tempting to join the thought-tsunami of 24/7 social propaganda, news opinion, (in)activism, fact stretching, gas lighting, virtue signalling, artificial reality, loud-mouthing, guilt-tripping, victim blaming, victim leveraging, language control and pseudo-intellectualism that passes for considered conversation in 2023.
Why wouldn’t you want to add your equally poorly considered inexpertise?
It’s enough to leave you wondering (with the deep existential angst of the overfed and the even deeper FOMO of the perennially entertained) – what on earth is going on?
And, maybe you are also asking, why doesn’t everyone agree with my hard-fought (won an argument with my ignorant flatmate) and well-researched (read two or three long tweets) position on every global situation?
Oh, of course, it’s because they are fascists and haters, or perhaps Pentecostals. But everyone else (in my tribal bubble which is tiny but feels like the whole world) who is reasonable and tolerant is with me.
But to help you with the enormous temptation to believe the world needs more 2023-level thinkers, there’s this:
‘… I say, and I testify in the Lord; ye are no more to walk, as also the other nations walk, in the vanity of their mind …
This week threw up complex choices about where to be and who to be with complicated by Covid hotspot definitions and various responsibilities.
Interestingly, I was (and still am) to speak on the story of the Good Samaritan in our church this Sunday, something I postponed at one point, thinking I would be elsewhere.
With its message of loving your neighbour, Jesus’ ancient parable was a fitting backdrop for a week of trying to understand what that might look like among some competing relational priorities.
There was an opportunity to be in Canberra enjoying family for a special occasion. Seems like an obvious choice, something we longed to do.
But there are other family members in an area of Sydney still classed as a hotspot, who are vulnerable and value our support. To visit them pretty much ruled out visiting Canberra.
Who is my neighbour in this case? They all are of course in the sense of extending love and respect. But it highlights why the teacher of the law asked Jesus, ‘But who is my neighbour?’ because we are finite, and the opportunity to love and be neighbourly is without end.
Now family is a special case, our primary responsibility is to our families, and of course they are the keepers of our fondest affections. But even here are difficult choices and a need for patience and poise.
All of this to say that the point of Jesus’ parable was not so much to answer the teacher of the law’s question, but a different one:
‘Who are you?’
The neighbour in Jesus’ story was not so much the man beaten and robbed, but the man of a despised racial group who showed practical mercy and compassion as it was needed,
In telling this parable, Jesus is saying to the teacher of the law, to all of us: when you have room in your heart for compassion and mercy for others that moves you to cross the road and help another, then you will know who your neighbour is. Until then, its a pointless theoretical debate.
He finishes the discussion after the parable by saying, go and do this constantly. Go and let compassion and mercy and a love for God, others and yourself be the hallmark of your life.
So we visited our Sydney relatives, cooked them dinner, served up watermelon for dessert, did some Christmas decorating, got things down from high cupboards and put other things away. We brought some encouragement in what has been a long and challenging year, especially for the elderly.
And we face-timed our Canberra relatives who are celebrating this weekend and they were gracious and generous in response.
And then this morning I decided to write this all down, as a precursor to sharing here my modern day telling of the conversation of Jesus with the teacher of the law and the famous parable that resulted. (If you want to hear more, join us on Sunday.)
Jesus meets the celebrity psychologist at Costco
A celebrity psychologist sees Jesus at Costco in Sydney’s southwest.
‘Man, how strange seeing you here! I’m just doing some pandemic research for a spot on Nine tonight. You know the toilet paper crazies and everything?’
‘Oh yeah, no worries. I’m here with Pete, he’s picking up some toilet paper for the crew,’ Jesus replied.
‘Ok. Well… Hey we should get a selfie together, it will go off on social, great for our profiles! You could say you are, I don’t know, maybe, mixing with the real people?’
‘Yeah, nah.’
‘Fair enough… although I might sneak one.’
He ducks in beside Jesus, produces a perfect smile, and presses silently on his phone.
‘By the way, I’ve been very keen to ask you what you think it is in your religion that can help people live a peaceful, inclusive and compassionate life?’
Two women barge between Jesus and the psychologist, gripping a large pack of toilet paper. One of them treads on the psychologist’s foot.
‘Seriously ladies, what are you thinking!’ the psychologist exclaims.
Turning to Jesus, he whispers: ‘I hate coming to these places…’
Peter arrives with a pack of 96 rolls of toilet paper. Jesus takes it off Peter and hands it to the woman who lost the toilet paper fight. She grabs it in a bear hug, and walks off, but stops, looks over her shoulder, and mouths ‘thank you’.
Peter stands staring in disbelief, shakes his head, and trudges back to the toilet paper aisle.
Jesus returns to his conversation with the psychologist.
‘You were asking about a good life, so, what have you read?’
With a slight puff of the chest and a glance around the small group of straggling shoppers now beginning to gather, the psychologist clears his throat before speaking in a more baritone voice.
‘I understand your Scriptures say that to live a good life you should love God with everything you have and love your neighbour as much as you love yourself.’
‘That’s well said,’ replies Jesus, and the psychologist seems to stand a little taller.
‘Now go and do this every day and all the time, wherever you are really.’
The psychologist seems to shrink a little. He looks around at the multicultural crowd and, crinkling his nose, edges a few inches away from a small dark man holding a very large salami.
‘Oh sure’, says the psychologist, running his finger inside his designer shirt collar, and taking another step away from the salami.
‘But, well, the idea of neighbour is a complex social construct and not at all easy to tease out. I’m not even sure I could define who my neighbour is.
‘I mean, people like me know many people and are recognised most places we go. We would need some boundaries around the idea of “neighbour”.’
Jesus considers the women queuing with their large packs of toilet paper, still glaring at each other. He looks around the massive warehouse store with every consumer item on display. The people grazing up the aisles with their trolleys like lost sheep.
‘Mmm, I didn’t realise your neighbour was an ‘idea’…. In any case, I don’t think the issue is, ‘who is your neighbour?’ That’s pretty obvious really.’
The psychologist leans in, a frown on his botoxed forehead, the smart phone spinning in his fingers.
Peter returns with another large pack of toilet paper. Jesus takes it off Peter and gives it to the psychologist.
‘No, I think what would help most people live a good life is to consider who they are. Are they a neighbour? Do they have room to love a neighbour, any neighbour, in their heart, or just room to love themselves?’
Jesus takes the toilet paper off the psychologist and offers it to the small dark man with the very large salami.
He grins widely, with a few missing teeth, and offers Jesus the giant salami in exchange. Jesus, who is quite dark himself, takes the salami with a smile and a nod of thanks. They both turn and join the queue.
‘Friends, why not go and do this continually, then you will have a good and godly life,’ Jesus says to the group around him, the small dark man and the psychologist.
The psychologist ducks his head and walks quickly towards the exit.
The small dark man pats Jesus on the back and smiles even more widely, nodding his head.
Peter rolls his eyes and walks off towards the toilet paper aisle.
My wife was not impressed, but I’m claiming this for ‘sufficient courage’ and ‘fruitful labour’. Perhaps it will progress your joy.
Contemplating his own death, Paul in Philippians 1 expresses hope that whatever happens, he has on that day ‘sufficient courage’.
Then comes that great declaration ‘to live is Christ, to die is gain’ before the thought of continued ‘fruitful labour’ convinces him that it is better to remain ‘for your progress and joy in the faith’.
These two phrases became an early morning prayer for the day ahead… sufficient courage, fruitful labour… and have continued to be whispered in all manner of circumstances.
I’m content to have sufficient courage to be what I’m called to be and if this leads to fruitful labour, even better.
And to see progress in another’s joy or faith is certainly a great reason to keep turning up!
There’s a wounded person in heaven which means all wounded people may find their way there which is all of us.
After Jesus rose from the dead on what we now celebrate as Easter Sunday, it wasn’t long before he was showing the doubtful ones, which is all of us sometimes, the scars in his body so they would know that even in death there is life, even in brokenness there is victory.
I may not stand with Thomas and see the nail and spear scars with my own eyes, but the story rings resoundingly true, and as I’ve put my trust there, my own wounds have found meaning, healing and reconciliation.
The greater story – of God become human to bring all humans to God – makes sense of an otherwise senseless world. If God was just good but distant then what in the world is going on? But if God is close and wounded like us, for us, with us, then there is no quick fix but an everlasting answer.
Even in these dark coronavirus days we find light shining through the fresh wounds and thickening scars of a suffering world. Prayer where there was no prayer, gratitude where there was only blame, unity where there was only division, care where there was carelessness, time where there was only rush.
And for the sick and dying, we cannot look and find any worldly light other than courage and dignity and sorrow, but his scars let light in nevertheless.
This is not an attempt to find meaning in the meaningless. This is finding that light has been shining through a wounded people and planet always and at the fullness of time focused like a searchlight on one person’s perfect, divine expression of this.
As you take up his wounds, his life, his light, they become your own; his journey becomes your journey, and you know where he is today….
He cries out in the common tongue of his day, the first verse of Psalm 22:
My God, my God why have you forsaken me?
To me, today, it is not a cry of despair but of defiance. Having begun the Psalm, his well trained mind would have followed on through verses of violence, treachery and sorrow to finally arrive in praise, triumph and completion.
The Psalm ends, as does the suffering of Jesus, with this remarkable promise:
They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!
This is Good Friday.
The forsaken knows to his last crucified breath that he will save generations.
And not even time can hold him, certainly not death.
I don’t know how Great Uncle Roy died, only that he was lost on April 4, 1918, as the Australian Army scrambled to resist the final German offensive which included attempting to capture Villers-Bretonneux. And that his body was never found.
So I’ve imagined what might have happened, and I’m sharing it with you to mark Remembrance Day 2019. It’s from my yet-unpublished novel, Shot. Was it his final moment in my fictionalised story? You’ll have to read it to discover.
Lest we forget.
Roy
Waiting until he heard a heavy burst of fire, probably directed at Dickson and Tuite, Roy clambered out of the drainage pit that was their temporary refuge and threw himself down onto the sharp rocks of the railway siding. Taking a couple of deeps breaths he then crawled over the tracks as fast as he had ever moved, banging knees and elbows on the steel and wood, the smell of coal and diesel filling his nostrils. All of this failed to register in his conscious mind with his awareness instead focused on the shrill fact that, for a few seconds, he was visible to the enemy, if they should look his way. But these men who someone had decided should kill him and his, were preoccupied with keeping other parts of the Australian line pinned down, and so his almost comical scramble across the tracks went unnoticed and he rolled down into the ditch he had hoped would be there, with its promise of life-giving cover.
There was no time to rest and he crawled on his belly along the ditch, panting from the exertion, until he found the spot about 60 yards along where the lower corner of a paddock dipped towards the drain. He could see now the soil was black and damp and obviously a low spot where water gathered and the grass grew more thickly. He remembered the fields at home and the undulations – gilgai – that defied farmers’ efforts to sow them which meant they survived like little oases of ancient Australia surrounded by the grainy signs of progress.
Drawing on all his bushman’s skills he chose a path up into the paddock and the longish grass, trying to avoid disturbing it and alerting the Germans to his presence. Still on his belly, he made his way to the thickest part until the smell of crushed grass and clay soil enveloped him. As he rolled onto his back to rest, for a moment he could almost have been a boy again on the banks of the Hunter, contemplating a swim, a speckled sky above.
He wondered at how he had got here, how life had conspired somehow to bring him so close to death and with not one person at his side. What had driven him to this place? What had driven him always to the hopeless cause? He suddenly had a piercing memory of himself as a young boy reaching for the barrel of a gun and saying no. No to the unruly, stubborn brokenness of the world. And here he was, again grabbing at the barrel of a gun, mercy thick in his throat, and tears forming in his eyes. The scar on his foot seemed to throb in remembrance.
But the battle alertness that had carried him this far re-asserted itself and he knew there could only be a few moments before the counter fire of his mates would light up and his chance would come to make a run at the machine gun post. In fading light, he made sure of his gear, circling his fingers around one of his grenades, hoping he would have the presence of mind to deliver it with devastating effect against the Bosch who were targeting his friends. Lifting his head slightly to look back at the Australian line, he could just see Dickson and Tuite, still behind the excuse for a mound, holding each other now to make the most of their cover. There was little movement from them and he hoped he wasn’t too late. He could not see Ewings and the others from this position but then a racket started up from their way and he knew the time had come.
With his mates firing and yelling and carrying on as if they were launching a major attack, Roy got onto all fours, steeling himself for the run and then, the whole world seemed to move into that place between times. As Roy leapt up and made his run towards the machine gun pit, he felt the grimace on his face and the roar of his voice as if it was someone else. He saw the flash of fire from his enemy with perfect clarity, directed to his left, intended for the men he had left behind.
He made out four German soldiers who as yet had not seen him, busy feeding and firing their weapon against the noisy Australians who were apparently attacking from near the railway line. And then one of them turned and his eyes locked for a moment with Roy’s in mutual understanding. It seemed to Roy that in some kind of frozen motion, the man’s arm then flung out in his direction, pointing, his face contorting with a fearful scream and then all heads snapping towards this slicing silhouette that bore down on them.
Still moving fast, Roy drew back his arm and threw the grenade with all his strength. Even as he was doing this, the machine gun was whipping around towards him, shooting without break, delivering a curling arc of fire. Roy was now desperately seeking the ground but felt a tearing across his body just before he landed heavily. The explosion of the grenade ripped across his ears, a shock wave buffeting him. He held his breath and waited but the dreaded gun was quiet and had been replaced by the dying groans of men.
Only then did Roy begin to wonder if he had been hit but the chaos of war was not finished with him. A large explosion rumbled through the ground on which he was pressed and he propped himself up on an elbow in time to see brown dirt and dust resettling in massive proportion where Ewing and the others had been. He turned further left just in time to notice Dickson hoisting Tuite on his shoulder and making a run for it, no doubt oblivious as to what had been done to save their lives.
He lay back down and realised that two men would live at least a few moments more but a dozen had just perished and the sense of it was momentarily lost to him. Sliding his fingers down his side he felt the warm gush of his own blood, and a spasm of shock went through him.
‘It’s all right Roy, just a flesh wound,’ he told himself out loud and then curled up and covered his ears as more explosions filled the air. It occurred to him that there was no one left who knew where he was. How long could he lie here losing blood? Could he move himself back towards the Australian line?
The moaning from the German machine gun pit had stopped and he decided that he might still have a chance to make his return, but his legs stubbornly refused to respond. He lay there, trying to calm his breathing, wishing that Yirra was with him, knowing his friend would have seen him home safely. Soon enough they’d come back, he thought, remembering the determination of the Australian forces not to lose Villers-Bretennoux.
Then the whistle that was so familiar came louder than ever and it was if a hand reached down and picked him up, flinging him around like some plaything until he could not tell where he was, and it was silent. He lay still waiting, then opened his eyes and noticed a droplet on the lashes of his left eye, no doubt dew from the grass in which he had been lying, except he could no longer feel any comforting grass.
The faces of loved ones moved before him, Faith lying quietly in a hospital bed, a faint smile on cracked lips. Yirra prone in the back of a lorry, his hand moving to hold his side as the vehicle bumped its way into a prison camp, a nervous soldier guarding him with care. His father bending low over the hoof of a horse he was shoeing, frowning with concentration as he whispered quietly to calm the beast. His mother staring, sadly, through a kitchen window he did not recognise, the bustle of family behind her. Finally on older, quieter Wal, walking hand in hand with a young woman, down a familiar Singleton street, under a golden sun. And he knew somehow that he had done his job. Then there was a boy’s feet, toes wiggling, both scar free and pink with life.
I found this scrawl of a poem in the front of a year 2000 diary, which, yes, I still have.
I was only two years into Sydney’s public transport at the time. I’m slightly more accomplished 19 years on, but only slightly.
Perhaps the most interesting verses were written in the picturesque margin and I could only decipher these with the aid of a magnifying glass… 19 years on. Here’s the poem:
Timetable requires scientific calculator
Bus requires x-ray eyes
Legs need reminding
Ticket needs exact change
After an inexact queue.
(Asian man smokes
An old white man says
‘Send him back to Asia’
Unrepentant smoker says
‘So where do you come from?
Asian girls look at me to see
if there is conspiracy
in my eyes. I faintly smile,
silently confessing my mind
was on the ticket machine.)
The moment of arrival
Is greeted by the Holy word
But to catch the train requires
100 in 9.8
To be expected in Sydney 2000.
Our wait requires
Dirty looks and muttering
The test of course is to remember
Life in other places
And to take your seat, thankfully.
Working on a complex, time-sensitive writing project, I hit some challenges and could feel stress developing in my mind and body.
For a moment it began to feel heavy and unwieldy, not the way I want to carry this work.
I put it aside to spend some time serving someone else in our household, preparing a simple meal for them.
As I moved through the task, my mind found itself thinking through a solution and by the time I’d finished preparing the meal, I knew how to proceed with my writing project.
‘Stress to solution through service’ I said to myself, and I recognised a principle I had long valued but had rarely summarised so succinctly.
I’m not suggesting you can live by formulas, but if serving another helps turn stress into a solution, well, I’m thinking ‘win win’.
Twenty five years ago last month my sister Melissa Hunt (Hallett) was beaten to death and her body dumped in a remote dam in the Newcastle region, NSW, Australia.
An inquest had two main suspects before it was ended abruptly and information handed to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Unfortunately nothing has happened since.
There was some attempt we believe to examine DNA evidence in 2000 and Operation Impey was created in a renewed effort to find Melissa’s killer.
Still nothing.
Recently an unknown person left comments on another post on this blog, speculating about who might be implicated. Obviously this was disturbing, the information was given to Crimestoppers.
Still nothing.
On Anzac Day April 25, 2019 – 25 years to the day since Melissa’s body was discovered in Burrenjim Dam, I visited the dam with some family members, to reclaim that place and that day and to bring (symbolically and spiritually) dark secrets into the light.
This video tells the story. Please watch, share and come forward if you know anything.
PLEASE VISIT JUSTICEFORMELISSA.COM FOR FURTHER UPDATES ABOUT THE UNSOLVED MURDER OF MELISSA HUNT (HALLETT)
There’s a part of me I almost always hold back. Not consciously but by default.
It’s the bit that says absolute conviction, no holds barred, be a true believer.
Cause that bit of me is already given and you can’t give it again.
I’ll be on the outer when it comes to humanity’s great plans, and I know I’m not the only one.
But I will follow the mysterious direction of first love, even if it seem like the wind in the trees.
And if that calls for greatness or lowliness or never ending service I will die in my attempt to give it, but only because my eyes are on something over the horizon.
Some things are intended to be fleeting, to finish, to fade away. Others are forever, eternal, of enduring value.
Too often we confuse the two. We grip a New Year’s Eve sparkler and hope it will light the year ahead.
We invest our emotional security in passing things, such as possessions or fame or wealth, holding them too tight, and then struggle with a persistent sense of despair.
Or we commodify the deep things of life, such as relationships, beauty or belief, discarding them too easily, and then find ourselves living in a murky shallow pool of want.
Many modern societal structures (including some that should know better) push us to view the world this way because it is good for business.
Often people are lost in this reversal but others have quietly realigned their thinking, perhaps when confronted with suffering or loss, and learn again how to live in the moment and forever.
In countless nooks and crannies around Sydney, locals come out onto the streets for a glimpse of Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks. To see the Sydney Harbour Bridge while just wandering around the corner in bare feet brings a kind of suburbly pride that mixes with warm humid midnight air, mobile phone photography and a temporary congregation of neighbours. Some carrying glasses of champagne, many with their kids and we with our step-ladder and a milk crate to see over the crowd – a trick learned from the Parisians at a Bastille Day parade we once stumbled upon.We are joined this Sydney night by our little grand daughter whose passion for life never ceases to amaze but who nevertheless nearly falls asleep as Sydney’s one great eye sparkles, eyebrow raised, blinks several times, then calls it a night.
‘I love you and you and you and you and me and you and you and me and you and you!’
Pointing at four of my grandchildren in turn and occasionally at myself for comic relief – it was a fun game with a happy message.
‘Funny Pa Pa, you love yourself?!’ said the oldest who at nearly 4 has a remarkable grasp on the subtleties of life.
‘It’s good to love yourself,’ I said, ‘Because God has made us amazing and loving ourselves helps us to love others.’
The moment moved on quickly but it stuck in my mind which means it stuck in her eminently more absorbant mind.
Loving self is the third of three loves forming part of Jesus’ Great Commandment. It is as hard to get right as the other two and in fact all three are contingent on the reason for it all – God so loves us.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 NIV
I pulled up on Norton St near the Palace Cinemas on my way home from an early Saturday morning appointment.
Two skim whites from Berkelouw were in my sights and as I took my free half-hour parking ticket and placed it on the dash, I noticed the little, older man who is often seen around Leichhardt selling hand-made cards.
He was wearing an unzipped tracksuit top over a t-shirt and below were a pair of long, shiny soccer shorts that were at least three sizes two big. Some thongs over socks completed his attire along with a bag slung over one shoulder.
It was a cold morning, he was under-dressed and I decided I would buy the inevitably proferred card. As I walked down Norton he noticed me, and began his distinctive card selling routine. He reached deep into his bag and pulled out the small paper card. His arm then snapped out to full length with the card facing him and he stared at it intently. Satisfied with what he saw he then extended his arm in my direction with the face of the card towards me, and waited.
As I drew closer, I stuck my hand in my jean pocket and pulled out a dollar coin, said hello, smiled, exchanged the coin for the card, wished him a good day and headed towards the cafe. He didn’t speak or smile. Everyone else I saw on the street walked past.
In the more comfortable world of the cafe, with the smell of Campos and the buzz of conversation, the chasm between our worlds opened up and I felt guilty for my one dollar.
Walking back, the thought crossed my mind that I could stay on the opposite side of the road and cross closer to the car, avoiding the card man. There was a slight yearning for this within me, I didn’t really want to bother with the card man’s need. Although it was morning at the start of the weekend I was deeply tired.
But I owe too much to Someone else to give in so easily so I headed back towards the man and he went through his card presentation routine.
As I juggled the coffees and pulled out my wallet, I reminded myself I was doing no great thing, that the man had brought his hand-made cards to stand for hours in the cold to be ignored by most people to earn a few coins. This was were the courage and commitment lay.
‘I’ll have one thanks,’ I said. There was no sign of recognition of the previous purchase.
‘I’m Peter, what’s your name?’ There was a harsh throaty reply but I couldn’t make it out.
‘Sorry?’
The same reply and I was none the wiser. I looked at the card, it had on it just the word ‘love’.
I fiddled in my wallet, saw a ten – still that persistent reluctance – but grabbed the twenty.
As I gave it to the man he looked at me, and then looked at the note for several seconds. He looked at me again as if to confirm I was sure, and then in one motion the note was flicked out of view as he turned and walked quickly down the street, presumably happy now with his morning’s work.
As I walked towards the car I reminded myself that I didn’t pay the money to have the man fawn over me or so I could look good. Any act of kindness or generosity must be enough for its own sake.
Nearing the car, I saw a flouro-vested, female parking inspector standing near the bonnet.
‘Hello, is everything okay?’
She looked at me with an expression of fear and astonishment. I realised she was about to book me, and confused, I opened the car door, still balancing the treasured coffees, to show her the ticket I had placed under the windscreen.
It was then I realised I had placed it upside down, distracted at the time by watching the card man. These could become very expensive cards, I thought.
I held the ticket towards the parking inspector, in a proferring routine reminiscent of the card man’s.
‘Sorry I didn’t realise it was upside down!’
‘Well I can’t read it if I can’t see it can I love,’ she said, finding her voice after realising I wasn’t going to yell at her.
She studied it intently and gave me a small nod and seemed to clear an entry in her little hand-held machine.
‘Thank you’ I said realising how close I’d come to a fine. I wondered how quickly my feelings of mercy and resolve to do good would have evaporated when faced with a parking ticket.
I laughed at myself, sipped my coffee and reflected on who had been kind to who and the apparent randomness of life which is less random than we may think.
Australia’s new federal government now officially has a parliamentary majority of one after the final seat was decided by just 37 votes.
It seems politics in Australia is now a game of inches, no doubt true also of the Olympics which are about to begin in Rio.
Presumably the level of motivation and organisation for all government Members of Parliament will be at gold medal standard when it comes to voting on bills, knowing that even one latecomer, dozer, long-luncher or call of nature could result in a hung parliament.
It would do us all well to live life as if we are a majority of one. That in every aspect of existence our presence and participation is crucial to the outcome.
Too often we drift through the world as if nothing really matters or worse still, that who we are and what we do is somehow less valuable than someone whose face is instantly recognisable.
When the bells sound for a vote in the next sitting of the House of Representatives, every MP will be mindful that their presence counts heavily. It should always be that way.
There are bells ringing in our lives right now – bells calling for kindness, forgiveness, justice, outrage. Bells calling us not to be another person who just walks by.
We are a majority of one in helping our relationships and families to be strong, resilient and loving – don’t leave it to someone else.
We are a majority of one in ensuring there is truthfulness, fairness, humility and welcome in our society.
For Christians, the founder of our faith had unswerving commitment to changing the world through his majority of one. But it was us he called alongside, to take up our own cross, to also find a way to shine and be a light in an often dark world.
The next time you feel inclined to helplessness, despair, boredom or self-interest, picture our politicians bolting for the Chamber knowing their vote counts.
Remember, no one is unimportant. We are all a majority of one.
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I’ll be writing more regularly for the rest of year, now that I am more busy than ever. Please subscribe.
Sometimes you need to remember what is real. Is it the prevailing tide of opinion in all its digital cacophony, of feeds and tweets and posts and oh so shareable commentary?
Closed minded fools masquerading as open minded elite, intellectually dishonest assuming the cleverest of ground, storytellers spinning their own fairy-tales in self-congratulatory wonder.
For a moment or more I despaired.
“I’ve been thinking bout everyone Everyone you look so empty” Stars, Switchfoot
Then I attended a Christian wedding with my happily-married wife of 32 years in a church that continues vibrant Christian worship more than 100 years after it was built. The stained glass reminded me of a good shepherd and I recalled being at the Christian wedding of the parents of today’s bride.
The gathering was ablaze with faith. There was humour and poetry and music and beauty and family and community and generations but must dazzling to me, faith.
The pall of the morning’s mourning was replaced by a mantle of praise and a bringing to life of what Paul described as mystery – how the of the union of a man and woman somehow spiritually, fundamentally, intrinsically pictures God’s love for his called-out-to-gather people.
It was the realest thing by far.
And then they kissed… twice. Before the minister had time to invite the anticipated physical display of affection, the young groom leapt forward and planted a long kiss on his smiling bride, stepped back, and then did it again, both all red faced innocence and joy.
When today’s posturing about what things are important is superseded by tomorrow’s, those things that are eternal, which have never failed, have never looked like waning, will continue on with little concern as to whether anyone else notices or not.
“For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom 8:38-39
For nine months of my life I walked this tunnel twice a day and sometimes I wrote down the snippets of conversation as a kind of random urban poem. I decided to do it tonight for old time’s sake. And something unexpected happened at the end.
Two male office workers, in Friday casual:
‘Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah exactly.’
Twenty something female to friend, both with headphones:
‘And I was like, “My mum made the decision.'”
Man to women wearing hajib and looking skeptical:
‘Don’t know, probably.’
Twenty something man in high-spirits to two friends:
‘Yeah but actually she doesn’t live there anymore.’
Curly haired young woman on the phone at the bus stop:
‘I’ve just hopped off at Central and I’m waiting for the bus… actually I’m pooped.’
Man who approached quietly and is standing close to me:
‘ I don’t like to do this but my son and I haven’t eaten… I lost my job and… [hand out clasping gold coin].
Me: [reaching for wallet deciding with joy I’ll surprise this man with a note]. What’s your son’s name?
Begging man: ‘His name is Sean. S-e-a-n.’
Me: [Giving meagre $5] Well my name is Peter and I’m a Christian and God loves you whatever the story. [I don’t believe his spoken story and I don’t care].
After community breakfast yesterday I visited the home of a friend, clambered over belongings 60cm deep and took in his joy at his painting on the wall.
Earlier he had arrived late for breakfast but we unpacked again so we could chat while he munched on a large bowl of cereal.
We prayed for his parents and he told me that Mary backwards stands for both
You’re Really A Mess
You Really Are Magical
because life isn’t static but we are always coming out of tough times, recovering; or doing better, enjoying life.
I said it reminded me that we are made in the image of God (magical) but fallen and broken and frail (mess) and that Jesus gave his life to forgive and heal our mess and to restore and discover our magical.
My friend thought this was a reasonable interpretation of Mary backwards.
And I still count it a privilege after all these years to be asked for the simple act of brotherhood of a shared meal and to be given the honour of a private artistic viewing and to discuss the profound meaning of words backward.
I know we in the church (and more broadly) argue a lot about the presence/reality/felt existence of God and some say we only need our faith in the Scriptures and others that we find him as we sing or pray and maybe others think that a pilgrimage is required and perhaps all are correct together.
But I remember Jesus said what you do for the least of these you do for me as if he would be intentionally present to renew and reassure us and that’s what I felt after just a few hours sleep, an hour of setup, serving 40 breakfasts including one home delivery, two after we closed, praying with troubled souls and discussing backward anagrams.
Not tired. Renewed, reassured.
And I know whose presence I was experiencing, right where He said He would be all along.
Likewise the day before nursing a baby in the cool of the night waiting for him to settle into sleep. Likewise the next evening being alongside a daughter and her aged mother as they negotiated the challenges of daily life and shared grief with nobility and tears and laughter.
The presence of God is everywhere when we forget to look at ourself. Life is not one long selfie.
utterance 