Author: Peter Hallett

Cross carries comfort for Scott Rush

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When Scott Rush arrived at Denpasar’s District Court on August 26 his white shirt shone in the Bali heat.

By the time he stood in court a dark, wooden cross, of the kind commonly carved and sold in Bali, was hanging around his neck, outside his shirt.

As he made his statement to the magistrates, he told them that his fate was in their hands ‘and the hands of God’.

During his statement, he made an apology for his actions, and as he spoke the words, his right hand lifted up, searching for the cross, which he held and caressed while speaking.

‘I wish to say to you, my parents, my family, and the community, how sorry I am for the crime that I have committed and the pain that I have caused.

‘I have brought much shame upon myself and my family. I have a deep sense of guilt for what I have done.’

In a recent letter to Australian Labor politician Chris Hayes (Member for Fowler), Scott Rush wrote:

”I truly feel sorry for the hurt and pain I’ve caused to my parents. I hope to have the chance to prove I am capable of reform. I want to give back to my community and be an ambassador against drugs.

‘Please say a prayer for me, and remember me to your wife Bernadette. I continue to pray every day and night.’

Rush, the youngest of the so-called Bali 9, has done it tough in prison. A strange episode where he was supposedly circumcised by Muslims being just one example of the spiritual, cultural and legal forces swirling around his life.

He has some strong support in his appeal including a letter from the Australian Federal Police saying he played a minor role in the heroin smuggling operation. An Australian academic respected for his knowledge of international law, has also made a statement on Rush’s behalf.

Now might be a good time to join young Scott in those prayers, morning and night.

And to bring the humanity of this incident more to life, visit the Scott Rush website, obviously developed by his family.

Fake men, lots of kids and not enough housework…

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Sydney Opera House with a tall ship in the for...
Image via Wikipedia

The Opera House was a dangerous idea in its time and so it is fitting hat it hosts the Festival Ideas of Dangerous Idea in early October.

Having argued that there is no more Dangerous Idea than Jesus, let’s check out a few of the less dangerous ideas under consideration at the festival: Are all men fakes?; Why the religious will inherit the earth; and Australian husbands are the worst in the world and why it’s women’s fault.

Oh, and at the end of the story, check out my ‘Biblical perspective’ on the ‘dangerous ideas’ covered…Read More »

Miner’s faith strong, 700 metres and 17 days beneath the earth

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The Faith, sculpted in stone from Badajoz in 1...
'The Faith', sculpted by Luis Salvador Carmona in 1752-53. The veil represents 'not by sight, but by faith'. Image - Wikipedia

Quote of the week:

‘Dear Liliana, I’m well, thank God. I hope to get out soon. Have patience and faith. I haven’t stopped thinking about all of you for a single moment. I want to tell everyone that I’m good and we’ll surely come out okay. God is great and the help of my God is going to make it possible to leave this mine alive.’ Mario Gomez, 63.

Mario communicated these thoughts 17 days after being trapped 700 metres underground in a small room with 32 other men, knowing it would be weeks or months before rescuers would reach them. These are beliefs not lightly held…

The reality of God and the value of faith is often discussed in theoretical terms, as if life and death are not involved. But not for Mario and his friends. Seventeen days is plenty of time for an unreal pretense to have been stripped away. And yet faith in God has surfaced loud and clear.

Interestingly, Mario’s daughter made the following comments after hearing of the note from her father:

‘No-one will be able to take this happiness away from me… I’ve never felt anything like this in my life. It’s like being born again.’

Faith tends to have that result, whenever you encounter it… even for you, today.

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Utterance passes 10,000 visits this year

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Oh, I just noticed Utterance has clocked over 10,000 visits. Nice. It all started with a New Year’s Resolution to blog every day, something I haven’t managed to do, but almost.

My best effort was seven posts in one day, including three audio posts via mobile phone, all while participating in the 14km City to Surf. Have you ever tried to jog and type on Nokia E71 keyboard…

Anyway, we have a way to go in the year and lately I’ve been thinking of a little book of Utterance, maybe available around Christmas time. Some of the best of Utterance in a nice little real-book package… What do you think?

And some Utterance trivia, I posted a story about Masterchef and the seven deadly sins back in July and it continues to be one of my most popular postings. To date, more than 350 people have visited it directly, many in the past couple of weeks. Is it a fascination with Masterchef or sin? Not sure… If you missed it, check it out.

Masterchef’s seven sins; God’s endless forgiveness

Swans win emphatic, election less so

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While the nation pondered its electoral fate last night, 40,000 Sydneysiders were in no doubt who won the Swans verses Bulldogs clash at the SCG.

When the ABC’s Adam Spencer gave a half time election update it was like instant polling as the crowd cheered and booed various results.

And for the record, that’s not me singing in the audio post…

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Jesus is still a dangerous idea…

Peter Hallett4 Comments
Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...
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The Festival of Dangerous Ideas is on again at Sydney Opera House on October 2-3 covering everything from The Right is the New Left through to that most important of questions, Are All Men Fakes?

But before we take a closer a look at the festival (tomorrow), I recall discovering a dangerous idea when I was at university studying humanities back in the early eighties.

That was a time when Australia still had an active communist party and I think most of its members were either studying or lecturing in my course.

It might also explain why one of the subjects on offer was Studies in Rebellion and I was just rebellious enough to take it.

Then while most of my comrades where sliding to the left politically or dallying deeply into capitalism, I became a Christian and began volunteering in a soup kitchen.Read More »

How to cast the perfect vote… and not cast the first stone

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Australian and I Vote
Hands up who votes for Australia?! Image by Stephen Mitchell via Flickr

Many Australian voters will be hoping to cast the perfect vote on Saturday – one that represents the best policies, the best candidates and the best future for themselves and the nation.

Christians, and many other thoughtful people, are trained to be intentional and purposeful in all that they do, conscious of rights and wrongs and doing what is best in the eyes of God or their own conscience. This brings a kind of moral pressure to bear as we sift through the competing arguments from candidates and commentators alike.

Sometimes casting a vote almost becomes a battle to see who will cast the first stone – is there any among us worthy to pass judgement on the poor, political sinners scrambling exposed in the dust?

The hard, but relieving, truth is that the perfect vote does not exist, and never has because none of the parties or candidates are perfect. So if perfection is your goal, your are looking in the wrong place. I can think of Someone perfect, but He doesn’t need your vote. He would appreciate a chat though…

So take the pressure off, sit back and read my summary of the various options based on years of journalism and a relentless reviewing of parties, policies and posting more than 110 articles on the election in the past two months. 

 Oh, and one thing I won’t be doing is telling you how to vote… That’s your decision.

Visit Australian Christian Voter to read the full article.

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Huge Chinese mattress hides $US1.4 trillion…

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There is no political, social, educational or philosophical quick-fix for human nature. Figures showing the growing gap between the rich and poor in so-called communist China highlight this once again.

Despite decades of communist indoctrination and more recently, greater freedoms and openness to world markets, the Chinese people still like to keep money under their mattress so they can spend it on ‘things’.

And like anything in China, or India for that matter, that’s one big mattress.

A study conducted for Credit Suisse Group shows that China’s households hide as much as 9.3 trillion yuan ($US1.4 trillion) of income not reported in official figures – 80 per cent of it by the nation’s wealthiest.

One reason economists believe this figure is because the strongest area of economic demand in China right now is the domestic purchase of consumer items from designer handbags to flat screen televisions.

Taking the mattress cash figure into account, it turns out the average urban disposable household income is 32,154 yuan, or 90 per cent more than official figures. The bad news is that this means China’s rich-poor gap is most likely much bigger than realised.

The Gini coefficient is a single statistic used by economists to summarise the distribution of income across the population.Read More »

Chattering and tractoring classes worlds apart on election day

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In the inner Sydney seat of Grandyler where I live we have as a choice of candidates, starting on the left:  two varieties of socialists, the Greens, a rare Democrat sighting, the sitting Labor member and a Liberal candidate who is so young that the picture of youths being sent off to war as canon-fodder comes to mind.

Compare this to, say, the rural NSW seat of Riverina and you have, starting at the right: One Nation,  Independent, Christian Democratic Party, Family First, Liberal Democrat, Nationals, Liberals, Labor and Greens although there may be some discussion as to the relative ‘rightness’ of some of these candidates.

In other words, we have remarkably different worlds just a few hundred kilometres apart. It’s a common divide between the city and the bush and grows wider with relative distance from major city CBDs.

While there are overlaps and exceptions, we would do well to understand and respect the differences in priority and perspective between the inner city ‘chattering classes’ and the rural ‘tractoring classes’. 

One lesson is that the Greens have taken a step up from being a minor party that falls into an organisational hole when elections drawn near. They are mobilised even in electorates where they have more chance of being mistaken for a vegetable than winning.

If parties such as the CDP or Family First aspire to real political influence they must find their support base, represent it powerfully and broadly and do the hard yards of political foot soldiering.

As for making sense of it all, an election article of mine has been published in Sight Magazine or visit my Australian Christian Voter blog to find a link and vote in an election day survey – what’s your tip for election day?

Some Friday fun at my expense: City2Surf photos

Peter Hallett1 Comment

Ok, so it’s the end of the week, we are four weeks into an election campaign and two and a half months through a cold winter. On that basis you could probably use a laugh, so I’ll go out on a limb and share my City to Surf photos.

Firstly there are the photos taken by the official photographers, Marathon Photos, who through the wonders of modern technology, allow runners to view a range of photos taken during the race. Keep in mind that nearly 70,000 people finished the City to Surf so to do this is no mean feat.

When a certain member of my family first saw these, they were in such agony of hilarity that they rang me 50 times to tell me to look. Very funny. All I can I say is that they reveal the agony my legs were truly experiencing by this stage. To view the video of me finishing and a small collection of photos, click here. You’ll see some small thumbnails which you can click on for a larger view, if your game.

Secondly, I took a range of photos on my phone before and during the event and, once again, there are some mildly amusing results. I admit, I’m not good at the whole self-portrait thing… Enjoy, and go for a walk or a jog this weekend!

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Discovering why we do what we do and the guts to change

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Most of us spend some time wondering why we do the things we do and not always finding answers.

There is an ancient Christian spiritual discipline that I know of as ‘examine’ in which the believer is encouraged to take time out during the day, consider the activities and emotions they have been experiencing, reflect on them with the assistance of God’s leading, and hopefully receive insight and awareness into why we do what we do.

This is in keeping with the Biblical imperative of 2 Corinthians 13:5 – ‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves…’

I am always fascinated when I find concessions to a deeper or spiritual life in unexpected places. Such as a marketing blog on the internet. While Seth Godin is not your usual marketing writer in any case, it was still a surprise to discover his recent blog ‘The places you go’ which I’ve quoted in part below:

‘Occasionally we encounter emotions at random. More often, we have no choice, because there’s something that needs to be done, or an event that impinges itself on us. But most often, we seek emotions out, find refuge in them, just as we walk into the living room or the den.

‘Stop for a second and reread that sentence, because it’s certainly controversial. I’m arguing that more often than not, we encounter fear or aggravation or delight because we seek it out, not because it’s thrust on us.

‘Why check your email every twenty minutes? It’s not because it needs checking. It’s because the checking puts us into a state we seek out. Why yell at the parking attendant with such gusto? Teaching him a lesson isn’t the point – no, in that moment, it’s what we want to do, it’s a room we choose to hang out in. It could be something as prosaic as getting involved in a flame war online every day, or checking your feeds at midnight or taking a shot or two before dinner. It’s not something you have to do, it’s something you choose to do, because going there takes your emotions to a place you’ve gotten used to, a place where you feel comfortable, even if it makes you unhappy.

‘…you realize that there are some [emotional] rooms you’re spending way too much time in, that these choices are taking away from your productivity or your happiness. Why are you going there again?

‘Every time you go to that room, you get unhappy, and so do we. Every time you go to that room, you spend more time than you expected, and it stresses out the rest of your day. Every time you go to that room you short-circuit the gifts you give to the rest of the team.

‘Once your habit becomes an addiction, it’s time to question why you get up from a room that was productive and happy, a place you were engaged, and walk down the hall to a room that does no one any good (least of all, you). Tracking your day and your emotions is a first step, but it takes more than that. It takes the guts to break some ingrained habits, ones that the people around you might even be depending on.’

Go for it Godin. This is the beatitudes of Jesus packaged in a 21st century medium and preached by a secular prophet.

‘You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.’ Matthew 5:8 The Message Bible

Dying while bringing sight to the blind

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The headline read ‘Taliban massacre big-hearted team devoted to helping Afghans’ and accompanying the written report was a video featuring the widow of one those killed.

Before the video plays, on the SMH online site, it is preceded by an advertisement for electric toothbrushes.

The team killed in Afghanistan was providing basic medical care, including eye and dental care and one of the workers was a dentist who had handed out thousands of toothbrushes over the years, to children who had never seen one.

This juxtaposition reminds us of the implausible position we in the west too often take – that our wealth and freedom has no connection to another’s poverty  and restraint.

This post is in honour of the six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton who were slaughtered on August 8.

Many of them were Christians, most having given up their life in the west to embrace life in Afghanistan so they could be an example of kindness and goodness.

Read the full report here.

Watch the video report (minus toothbrush ad) and particularly note the response of widow, Libby Little, as she calls down God’s mercy on those who killed her husband.

Read the full statement about the deaths from International Assistance Mission, the Christian organisation for whom the team worked. This is an example of a deeply committed, intelligent, genuine Christian response to the world’s poor.

Asking the poverty question.

Will we remember the world’s poor this election?

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Everything from ear lobes to budgie smugglers to Mark Latham’s handshake has received media attention during the election campaign but quite a few serious issues have gone missing in action.

One life and death question for millions is this: Will Australia as a nation, and in particular, it’s would-be leaders, remember its responsibility towards the world’s poor?

When walking towards the start line of the City to Surf on Sunday I noticed one of the many homeless people who sleep rough in the city and was glad of two things – firstly that I noticed him and secondly that I can be grateful for what I have while sharing it to the best of my ability.

I’m sure many of my readers are the same, so let’s make sure our nation is committed to that path.

Check out Australian Christian Voter about how we call all put the poverty question to our politicians this Wednesday.