Author: Peter Hallett

sunrise, sky, colours, beauty

Walking forwards backwards or being really alive

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Working on a project last week, I read a quote from an amazing Australian social reformer who should be better known to us than he is. Hopefully I can have a part in changing that shortly.

Anyway, he wrote that “most people move forward backwards”. The reason is that the future is “dark” in the sense that we cannot see one minute into the future (although we can imagine or project our ideas of what the future might be). On the other hand, the past is like a “blazing light” – we can see its details clearly and so although we may well feel we are moving forward, we do so with our eyes towards the “light” of the past.

But, he says, there are some people who move forward looking forward, watching carefully to see and embrace what emerges from the “dark” of the future. Something like watching the world take shape as night gives way to dawn.

These people, moving forward and looking forward, are those that are “truly alive”, he concludes.

I think we can convince and comfort ourselves we are moving forward when really in life there’s not much choice, as time and our beings go relentlessy where they haven’t been before, whether we like it or not. But are we looking forward.

It’s easy to step into the next thing life offers but have a good measure of our heart and at least one eye on something of the past that shines particularly brightly, even if it is the glistening of tears, or the rich glimmer of a golden time, or the sparkle of youthful innocence.

Move forward looking forward and save your best for what is and is to be. The past will take care of itself – which could be what Jesus meant when he gave the call to follow and said, ‘Let the dead bury the dead.’

I’m not saying it’s easy, or that I’m any good at it. But it makes sense, I reckon.

photo, mystery, lightening, ultrasound, clouds, xray

Brought to sight by a flash of light

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It’s small in the scheme of things
But significant all the same
Brought to sight by a flash of light
The unseen is suddenly seen

Water surrounds it darkly
Future written in the sky
Brought to sight by a flash of light
Startling momentous life

What is it?

Spammer’s nice try

Peter Hallett1 Comment

Spam comments often take the form of praise towards the unsuspecting blogger.

The goal is to have the comment published so that readers might follow the link to a sales website.

I thought this was a particularly flattering attempt (until the last sentence) although it was posted on Utterance’s report on Bear Gryll’s Christian faith so not sure what ‘problem’ is being ‘brought to light’.

‘Can I simply say what a comfort to uncover a person that truly knows what they’re talking about online. You actually understand how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More people must check this out and understand this side of the story. I was surprised you’re not more popular because you most certainly possess the gift.’

I’m hoping this feedback leads to even stronger expressions of heartfelt admiration….

At six minutes and 14 seconds into the new year…

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Sydney, New Year's Eve, Fireworks, 2013, Leichhardt, photo, time, new year

At six minutes and 14 seconds past midnight on January 1, 2013 I took this photo.

I didn’t know this at the time, but my phone did, on which I captured the image.

At the same moment a person in front raised their hand also to take a photo so that it appears they are balancing an explosion on their fist.

Here we all are, leaning forward toward the new year, counting down the solidity of year with the stuff of split-seconds.

We have so much information at our fingertips without trying, down to the unconscious moment of tapping for a photo… and yet faced with a new year we know nothing at all, not even today, not even tomorrow.

If the psalmist David was among the crowd on this balmy Sydney night, passing through the crowd with reflective gaze, he may have strolled back up the hill in his shorts, thongs and a Tigers t-shirt, typing as he walked:

“The life of mortals is like fireworks,
they flourish like a sparkle in the night.” *

And at the same time, sensing Someone eternal, walking alongside.

* Psalm 103:15-17 – The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,

 

 

The complexity of command, conscience and covenant: new year reflection

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The Christian life is a complex interplay of command, conscience and covenant – and none of these words are particularly popular or well understood in our culture or, perhaps, by many in the church.

traffic, conscience, right, wrong, covenant, maturity, choice, freedomFrom time to time debates rage in one corner of Christendom or another as to what Christians should or shouldn’t do and rarely is a mature understanding of these coexistent realities displayed.

Simplistically we could draw understanding from the humble traffic light. Red and green are commands and amber is more or less a matter of personal decision or conscience. Red does not ask you if you feel you should stop, it tells you that you must. Amber however allows you some measure of consideration. And green, like red, is a command to go and if you are in doubt about that you have not experienced missing a green light in Sydney traffic.

The context for the command and conscience of the traffic light is the covenant we all have with each other that we will obey the traffic rules, including traffic lights, and likewise drive safely and responsibly. When we as a community balance command, conscience and covenant well, there is relative safety and amenity on our roads. When these three are out of shape – frustration, damage and even death can result.

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Peace on earth, good will…

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Peace on earth?

children, massacre, violence, peace on earth, Don’t tell me there’s a
book, blog or documentary
pope, priest or commentary
that will make it alright

Can’t yell me to believe in
stronger  legislation
better educate them
to take away the fright

I’m not going for no
positive reinforcement
expert’s free endorsement
to mitigate the sight

22, Chenpeng children, kitchen-knife stabbed, village school
20, Newtown little ones, gunshot dead, kindergarten classroom
10, Dawlatzai innocents, bombshell bled, collecting firewood
And that’s just this week

I don’t wanna make sense of
Everything that’s senseless
Everything that’s broken
to help me through the night

There’s nothing you can show me
That undoes all the madness
Liberates the sadness
Or sends all the children home

But I can still remember
A broken twisted traitor
Who said he was a Saviour
Who radiated right

And I can still feel
A resonance of matter
Perpetuance of laughter
An ever outsourced light

Good will…

Photo: Robert Davies, UK

Return to me on the mountain and don’t smash your future

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“Prepare two stone tablets like the first ones, and make a sacred chest out of acacia wood to keep them in. Return to me on the mountain, and I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the ones you smashed.” Deuteronomy 10:1-2

Bible, future, recovery, God, MosesMoses had spent 40 days removed from the normal rhythms of life in the presence of God receiving a blueprint for the future, an agreement for living, a look at how things could be, all written in stone by the finger of God.

Then God gives Moses those tablets, bearing the words of the 10 Commandments,  even though he knew it was going wildly skewiff on the ground. No doubt God was peeved too but it was Moses, tired and hungry after a 40 day fast and difficult climb, who took the ‘future’ and smashed it in the midst of his community’s messy ‘present’.

Things don’t always work out the way we expect. Our most holy moments can end up trampled on by golden calves. Outraged, brutalised, despairing, we smash the future in our all or nothing reaction just as Moses smashed the tablets God had given him.Read More »

Slim Moment

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Mantel’s Cromwell stands amidst the past like a house burned down

It fattens your thought like cholesterol in your veins
Like tar in your lungs
The past clings to things heavily
And you carry the weight without knowing
Your fastest manoeuvre is leadened, leavened
And you blame the present
Ignoring the heavy metal armour of yesterday
But in a slim moment you glimpse
You – divested of this insulation to life
A sharper, faster, nimbler you
One that was forgotten; no, more than that
One you didn’t know existed.

Can you forego once and for all
This raking of the coals
This teasing of your soul
Your sabotage of certainty and seasons
Ah, of course there is no once and for all
That is what keeps you there, in the past
Unfinished business that can’t be finished
So unfinish it with His “Finished”
Even deadly, devout Cromwell knew as much

Related articles

Poetry of rock in motion

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Rock is like water, only slower.

Walking along a rock platform today I saw waves coursing through the stone, swells and surges of infinite patience, little turgid trickles, the splatter of very slow rain, a steady splash and cheeky, rocky streams.

Shapes and forms, pleasing to the eye, that take seconds to occur in water minutes or hours in sand and centuries or millennia in stone.

And yet the rock has its movement, too slow for our perception, rendering it still to our transient eyes.

But for the Inhabiter of ages, for whom a thousand years is a day and moments are a lifetime, all is poetry in motion.

Which is why I walk peacefully on watery rock and Jesus saunters on solid water.

Wakeful words

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Waking this morning, my mind moved to these words even before I was properly awake: thank you.

I can take no credit. Gratitude for answered prayer was awash within me and overflowed into my wakeful thoughts.

A good way to start the rest of life, or just today.