“What do you think Luke would say about what you’ve put up tonight?” MasterChef judge Gary Mehigan asked winning MasterChef grand finalist Kate Bracks, of Orange.
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Category: People
Father Bob neighbour of next year’s The Block
The producers of The Block may have a thing for living near celebrities but they certainly no how to make Father Bob angry.
“While this year’s houses in Richmond back on to Molly Meldrum’s lavish Egyptian-themed property, the four houses believed to have been bought for next year’s show are opposite the home of renegade priest, Father Bob Maguire,” the Herald Sun reported yesterday.
Father Bob tweeted that he was “Not happy me”. Well known for his med
ia appearances and run-ins with Catholic authorities over his retirement, he clearly resented the renegade title.
The four side-by-side terraces in South Melbourne are located on Dorcas St, overlooking the parish of St Peter and Paul’s.
The properties were recently sold and came with planning permission for a third storey, to maximise city views.
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Chinese officials float over road and around the world
Utterance more often than not tackles relatively serious and reflective issues but can’t resist the hilarity that has surrounded China’s three levitating officials inspecting roads in Huili, south-west China.
The original badly doctored photo has spawned a creative range of imitations and even prompted a re-issuing of the original photos.
The three men will probably remain nameless forever which is a shame, I hope they can have a good laugh with the rest of us. And let’s hope the person who posed them floating over the new road is not locked up! Enjoy…
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Pieters-Hawke and bonds of love and affection
Sue Pieters-Hawke has been in the news this week for an argument with Blanche d’Alpuget, wife of her father, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
The two women have reportedly been at odds over comments about Ms Pieters-Hawke’s mother, Hazel, in d’Alpuget’s biography of Mr Hawke. Hazel is suffering from advanced dementia.
The disagreement occurred at Brisbane Airport last Thursday and the next morning Ms Pieters-Hawke gave an address to HammondCare’s Rehabilitating Aged Conference in Sydney.
Listening to Pieters-Hawke, it was obvious she was passionate about the care of older people, particularly those with dementia.
In describing what she learned in the years spent caring for her mother, Ms Pieters-Hawke said, “My job description while caring for mum… was doing my best to help her maximize her own enjoyment of life. Her subjective sense of happiness and well-being was both the very point of me doing what I did and the ultimate measure of its value.”
As care for older people and the growing incidence of dementia are among the greatest challenges facing our communities, I encourage you to read the rest of my story about Sue Pieters-Hawke’s address. A more passionate advocate you will not find.
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Bin Laden death ‘welcomed’ by all who believe in peace, human dignity
US President Barack Obama has today announed that US forces have killed Osama bin Laden.
He said the death would be welcomed by those who believe in peace and human dignity.
Read the latest report in the Sydney Morning Herald:
See the latest coverage from Reuters.
What’s your reaction to this news? Welcome, disbelief, or something else? Please comment.
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Royal couple kiss us (twice) into a new day
Whatever interest there has been in the Royal Wedding to this point, it has almost been overshadowed by one small act of affection, the Royal Kiss.
As much as people have been caught up in the pageantry, celebrity and history of the Royal Wedding, humanity seems to crave even more the intimacy, reality and spontaneity of two people touching lips to show their love.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana were the first royal couple to kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, and it is rumoured that Charles first paused to ask permission of the Queen, which was duly granted.
Now William and Catherine have given their own romantic demonstration, as if to anoint the vows that went before, accompanied by the oohs and aahs of a couple of billion television viewers.
Many television commentators, swept along by the great sense of good ‘will’ accompanying the wedding, have spoken of the couple as carrying with them the hopes of a new generation and a renewed era.
But a marriage is more than a wedding service and balcony kiss (or two), and hopefully William and Catherine have taken time to learn the lessons of the past and will find their way to live with wisdom, balance, faith and, as their prayer from the wedding mentioned, generosity.
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Be who God meant you to be… Royal Wedding sermon
The Bishop of London, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dr Richard Chartres gave a stirring Address at the wedding of Prince William of Wales and Miss Catherine Middleton.
Billions around the world heard Rev Chartres urge William and Catherine and all listening to set the world on fire by being who God meant us to be.
He also highlighted that every wedding is a royal wedding in the sense that every bride and groom are kings and queens of creating new life.
Rev Chartres said that in marriage we are to make our spouse our ‘work of art’ while at the same time not placing on them a burden of expectation that only relationship with God can carry.
Interestingly, the sermon included a prayer composed by William and Catherine which asks God’s help in keeping their eyes fixed on what is real and important and to help them to be generous with their lives, ‘to serve and comfort those who suffer’.
Read the full sermon:
‘“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.
‘Many are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one – this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope.
In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future.Read More »
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Bear grilled (lightly) on Aussie TV, Hillsong
Bear Grylls featured on Channel 7’s Sunday Night program tonight where besides eating spiders and leaping out of helicopters, he was also shown visiting Hillsong last weekend.
Admitting that speaking to an auditorium full of people is scarier than most of his Man vs Wild adventures, he also revealed how he got his nick-name, Bear.
Rather than arising from ‘wrestling a bear when I was 3’, Grylls explained that his real name is Edward, which was shortened to Ted, and then Teddy, on to Teddy Bear and finally just Bear.
So one of the world’s toughest men is named after a soft toy…
Described on the show as a ‘man of God’, Grylls once again acknowledged the importance of Christian faith in his life and the importance of prayer.
For more on Bear Grylls and his views on God, visit my previous Bear post. He also has his own blog where he describes making a show in an Australian swamp as one of his hardest yet. You might also like to visit the charity page on the blog, and see how he uses his fame and fortune.
Speaking of which, he said fame and fortune were two things that caused him the most trouble which may be why he supports so many charities.
Oh, and the worst thing he’s eaten was a toss-up between raw goat testicles and bear poo…
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‘Jesus had two daddies too…’
Sitting in a Christmas Eve service I was enjoying a short film from the kids of St Paul’s in New Zealand, when a phrase spoken by one of the children went off in my head like a gun.
‘Jesus had two daddies, God and Joseph…’
While people sometimes stumble over the paternal origins of Jesus, the children who made this Christmas film had no trouble accepting that there were, in some sense, two fathers in Jesus’ life.
And why would the kids of today have trouble with this concept when so many of them live with this reality, and even more complex ones.
In the work in which I’m currently involved, I spend much of my time with children and young people coming to terms with a constellation of adults who represent mother and father figures to them.
It is particularly difficult at times for foster children, who find themselves in a loving foster home with carers they regard as their mummy and daddy, while at the same time having regular contact with other people who are, in many cases, equally loving parents.
It is one of the main challenges of child protection globally to know how to resolve this issue in a healthy and a whole way, for the benefit of the child. It rarely is easy and often encounters incredible difficulties.
Hundreds and thousands of foster children will be faced with this dilemma this Christmas season and how well they negotiate it will depend a lot on the selflessness and security of the adults involved.
Then there is that other broad category of children who have multiple parental relationships – those from families touched by divorce.
Perhaps for the first time it occurred to me, during the Christmas eve service, that Jesus had found yet another way to identify with the heartache of this world – represented by the complexity of having two dads.
I know it’s different, and I know having God for a dad is unique, but in the moment that child spoke these words, ‘Jesus had two daddies’ I knew many children would feel happy to hear that they were not alone in working this out.
For many years I have attended church and was aware of and in touch with global poverty, local disadvantage, the ravages of substance abuse and the struggle of mental illness, but I had scant knowledge of the hundreds and thousands of children balanced in the fulcrum of parental responsibility. Who has responsibility for them – mum and/or dad? Uncle and/or aunt? The government and its delegated foster carers? Or have they taken responsibility for themselves at far too tender ages?
Jesus had two dads who both took responsibility for aspects of childhood wellbeing. We live in a time when more and more children are finding their parents will not or cannot take responsibility for them. These are rarely clear-cut or easy decisions.
Stepping into this breach are a range of government and non-government caseworkers, relative and foster carers trying to replicate the love and belonging of birth family, something that is remarkably hard to do. And yet many do it well – and deserve special recognition and thanks.
So if you are going to pray this Christmas, spare a line or two for kids with too many parents or too few; for parents who have lost their kids and can’t seem to work it out; for carers who are family and those who are not, who raise kids with love; and for government and non-government workers who try to put this stuff together, usually with not a thanks to be found. Happy Christmas. Jesus had two daddies too…
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Padre brings Christmas joy
FORTY indigenous students on Bickerton, an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, look forward to the end-of-year arrival of Dave Shrimpton, the Salvation Army’s ‘flying padre’.
‘The padre’s arrival has become a focus point for the whole community who come together, and the kids show what they have learnt during the year,’ said the school’s head teacher, Kirsten Morey. Read more at SMH online.
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Finding faith in the deathly grip of AIDS
Being unable to sleep sometimes has its rewards such as seeing some extraordinary world cinema late at night (or early morning) on SBS.
Early Saturday morning as part of SOS (Shorts on Screen), SBS showed an 18 minute film by somewhat notorious French director Gaspar Noe called, Sida.
In Sida, Noe moves away from the explicit nature of his feature films such as Irreversible, and instead presents the story of an AIDS victim, Dieudonne Ilboudo, in Burkina Faso.
Dieudonne tells his story, withholding nothing, and as the story of his illness is portrayed, so to is his Christian faith, to the extent that the film ends with Dieudonne reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Sida is part of a longer film titled 8 in which each segment promotes one of the eight Millennium Goals. Sida picks up the theme of Millennium Goal six which is ‘combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases’.
Another of the films, The Water Dairy, is directed by Australian producer, Jane Campion.
Please take 20 minutes to listen to Dieudonne’s story – to honour his life, to remember the plight of AIDS victims worldwide and to be inspired by the power of faith even in the darkest hour. (The film is in French and if subtitles are not showing, click the CC button at the bottom of the YouTube screen.)
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The lighter side of zips, oxen and paying for sunshine
One zip and your out
The Brisbane Gabba’s bag policy has been credited as the cause for a lower than expected crowd on the fourth day of the first Ashes Cricket Test.
While most sporting venues have a bag policy which involves checks for alcohol or metal and glass objects, the Gabba has gone a step further and decreed that if your bag has more than one zipper it will be refused entry to the ground.
ABC cricket commentator, Kerry ‘Skull’ O’Keefe, said that under the one-zip policy, there were some concerns that if you had a zip on your jeans, you may be allowed to take your bag in but have to remove your pants…
When you don’t want to be as strong as an ox
The discovery of three teenagers who had been lost at sea for 61 days was described as a miracle and answer to prayer, apt descriptions indeed.
Not so apt perhaps was the description of their condition by one of the fishermen who found them. After commenting that they were very skinny, he said, ‘but mentally they were as strong as an ox.’ Mmm… faint praise?
There goes the sun
And in the same week that Here Comes The Sun (do,do,do,do) became the best-selling Beatles song on iTunes, a Spanish woman has registered the sun as her own personal property and intends to charge for its use.
Angeles Duran, 49, said she took the step after reading about an American who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and several planets.
An international agreement states no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it apparently says nothing about individuals.
Ms Duran now wants to charge for using the sun and give half of the proceeds to the Spanish government, 20 per cent to the nation’s pension fund, 10 per cent to research and 10 per cent to ending world hunger. The rest she’ll keep for herself… Mentally, as strong as an ox?
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Central Railway Pedestrian Tunnel # 1
Murmur of walking feet
Warm, very warm
‘He’s a great vocalist, but he’s just not pulling his weight’
Two Asian girls standing in a sea of walkers
‘And she’s consulting him‘
Two nuns, one speaking, Canadian, flourish of the arm
‘It’s good karma’
Young, white, with long dark hair, and not a clue about Hinduism
Cool near the end of the tunnel
Murmur of walking feet
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If love is value, how do we make it real?
Sy Rogers is a Christian minister, married father and a man who lived as a woman for two years in preparation for a sex change operation.
Around that time, as he ventured into an average American church, he learned something of the real meaning of love, a message he shared in Sydney on the weekend, some 20-30 years on.
Feeling that the word ‘love’ has been over-used and stripped of meaning – we love our family but also love our new shoes – he replaced it with the word ‘value’.
‘For God so valued the world, the he gave His only Son…’ or ‘Greater value has no one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends’.
He said love – or his definition for it – value, is delivered, communicated or made real to others through three things:
1. Acceptance – which says ‘I’d rather have you messy than not have you at all.’ Because someone is valuable to God and valuable to us, we accept them as they are. This is where love/value begins.
2. Accountability – which says ‘because you are valuable I won’t leave you where you are, but hold you accountable towards a better day’. It’s the kind of accountability that doesn’t leave a friend playing dangerously on a busy highway, but says ‘ for your own good, because your valuable to me, get off the road’.
3. Affirmation – which says ‘I’m going to show you that your valuable, not just by what I say, but by how I treat you.’ Affirmation is when we communicate that what happens to someone we love, matters to us – rejoicing with those that rejoice, and weeping with those that weep. We need affirmation because of insecurity – ‘a fancy word for fear, a fear that says “I doubt my value”‘.
May your day be full of the giving and receiving of acceptance, accountability and affirmation because you are of great value!
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Oprah’s visit recalls other Christmas arrivals
So Oprah is coming to Australia just before Christmas, including a show at the ‘Oprah House’ on December 14.
Made me think of some other great arrivals around Christmas time and the counter-cultural nature of the Messiah’s mission – just as shocking today as it was then.
While Oprah is bringing her own audience of 300, Jesus had a few animals, shepherds and mum and dad.
Oprah is arriving on a jet plane with a crew of 150, while an unborn Jesus arrived on a donkey with no room at the inn.
Oprah will take over the Opera House with her American audience, crew and ‘thousands’ of Australian fans. When Jesus arrived at Christmas, the angels sang opera but only a shire of shepherds noticed.
Oprah’s visit is expected to be great for Australian tourism although we expect Austria may also get an unexpected boost. Meanwhile Jesus’ visit has sent people travelling all over the planet for 2000 years starting with Persian magi and including many who died for their efforts in pursuing His purpose.
Oprah no doubt will have her detractors but ‘all publicity is good publicity’ in the wild world of television. Jesus had a few detractors too and we know how that turned out.
I do love Oprah’s generosity in springing this great gift on her audience, self-serving as it may be, to a greater or lesser extent.
I do love God’s generosity in giving Jesus, the one purely altruistic act of history, which can be received freely, no strings attached. And the good news is that it is good news forever, not just for this season’s rating period…
Related Articles
- Govt caught up in Oprah fever (news.theage.com.au)
- Oprah, Down Under (chicagoist.com)
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Cross carries comfort for Scott Rush
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.
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Huge Chinese mattress hides $US1.4 trillion…
There is no political, social, educational or philosophical quick-fix for human nature. Figures showing the growing gap between the rich and poor in so-called communist China highlight this once again.
Despite decades of communist indoctrination and more recently, greater freedoms and openness to world markets, the Chinese people still like to keep money under their mattress so they can spend it on ‘things’.
And like anything in China, or India for that matter, that’s one big mattress.
A study conducted for Credit Suisse Group shows that China’s households hide as much as 9.3 trillion yuan ($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 »
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Faith shines, undaunted by broken bodies
I have witnessed holy moments this week, acts of faith largely unseen but shining brightly in an invisible kingdom. They have left me humbled and undone. The first I witnessed personally, the second through the eyes of others.
Standing in a rehabilitation hospital I am surrounded by septuagenarians and find myself playing the role of the younger generation, nice for a change.
The first stood, fire in his voice, to pray for his friend sitting in a wheelchair. The pray-er has this year come through life-threatening emergency surgery to remove a massive tumour that was destroying his spine. Remaining full of faith throughout, he feels more qualified to pray for healing, not less.
He wags his finger lovingly at his friend who finds herself in a wheelchair after tumbling down a cliff, breaking her neck and bruising her spinal column.
‘Don’t ever think that God wouldn’t want to heal you just because you are old. He loves you unconditionally and wants you to have life to the full,’ he says. Read More »
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Practical tips to avoid information overload
Futurist Alvin Toffler popularised the term ‘information overload’ in his book, Future Shock, written in 1970. He highlights the negative impact of vast amounts of information on making decisions: ‘When the individual is plunged into a fast and irregularly changing situation… his predictive accuracy plummets. He can no longer make the reasonably correct assessments on which rational behaviour is dependent.’
Read more at Suite101: Practical Tips to Avoid Information Overload.
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Prayer without walls but with Walkman
Mike walked into the prayer meeting, bare-chested, track pants low and blue headphones from his Walkman dangling over his ears.
He sat in various locations, including spread-legged on the floor. The flow of prayer continued on around him.
While not phased by someone off the street suddenly appearing (relationship is a great leveller), there may have been a subtle shift in the group’s prayer to cover Mike, but not conspicuously.
Mike is a strong, nearly 40 man with partly shaven, partly spiked hair, a keen intelligence and the demeanour of an 11-year-old at a party. He can have an angry streak – I have talked him down from an Ice-induced rage on one occasion – but it was no where in sight this night.
‘Can I borrow your vacuum cleaner to vacuum my flat and then bring it right back,’ he said in a loud whisper to Patrick as the prayers continued. Pat quietly suggested they talk about it later.
He continued to find new seats and at times the music in his headphones was so loud, pray-ers had to lift their volume to compete. A gentle wave from one participant, suggesting he turn it down, was greeted with an obliging thumbs up.
As Mike got more jumpy, not in a disturbing way, but slightly distracting, I decided to invite him out to the kitchen for a cup of tea.
He gladly came. ‘Tea or coffee?’ I asked. ‘Tea,’ he said. ‘I like coffee but you said tea and tea reminds me of my grandmother. Can I have three sugars?’
I started preparing the tea and he asked me my name. When I told him he said, ‘I had an uncle named Peter. He was the shepherd of the family, that’s what my grandmother used to say. He was the only one to keep in touch while I was in gaol.’
‘That’s great, that there was someone like that in the family, who would keep an eye out for you,’ I replied.
‘Yeah it was good, although he did steal all the money I had saved up,’ he said. I was stunned by his gentle correction of my appraisal. ‘Well it sounds like he had a good heart, even if he made a few mistakes,’ I said.
‘Yeah, a good heart, even if it was false,’ he said, with no sign of malice. There was no way he was letting Uncle Peter of the hook even though he seemed well disposed to him.
Just as I was feeling a bit clever that I had successfully diverted Mike from disturbing the prayer team, he grabbed his cup of tea and said, ‘Can I go back out there?’ And before I had time to reply he took off, cup in hand, and I hurried after him with mine, realising I didn’t really want a cup of tea.
Mike sat in various locations again, spilt and then finished his tea and became perhaps a little too animated during some passionate prayer.
Finally, the leader of the meeting wound things up and asked if he could pray for Mike. He readily agreed to the prayer and to a hand being laid gently on his shoulder. The prayer began, with Mike giving a whispered sub-text.
‘Lord, deliver Mike from a spirit of fear and a spirit of rejection,’ Rick prayed with strength.
‘Cook it up!’ encouraged Mike.
‘And we pray against the spirit of violence that troubles Mike.’
‘And that has disappeared,’ stresses Mike.
‘And Lord, let your love and your peace cover and fill him.’
‘Finally!’ Mike says.
With encouraging Amens, the prayer ends and Mike stands up, gazes around and with a big smile says, ‘That was great, and it was all true, all true. Look, I’m getting my goosebumps back, look at them all on my arms.’
Just another day at the church with no walls… PH
Names changed, true story. Creative non-fiction, Christian style…
utterance 