On Christmas Eve at 11pm I sat with a small, raggle taggle group,  
in a bluestone church, at the foot of the housing commission flats in Carlton
I was exhausted.
The day had been full of small children brimming with their own excitements and anxiety.
I was exhausted.
The day had been filled with preparations
and shopping
and cleaning
and a simmering resentment….that this Christmas, all my ‘work’ seemed to be focused on the brush pan
and the spider web and the cornflakes, wet upon the floor.
So at 11pm I went to church. Hoping, I think for anonymity and epiphany and maybe
a vision or two.

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I have been thinking a lot lately about journeys.

The journey of Mary and Joseph towards Bethlehem.

The journey of my 5 year old as she leaves kindergarten and prepares for school.

The journey of friends who have lost parents,

Who have now become orphaned as adult’s

the journey that we have traveled as a nation this year,

no star to guide us, no wise men to be seen

Thinking about journeys.

What’s your road looking like right now?

Is the path ahead clear and starlit?

Are there shadows in the dusk?

Last week we gathered at chalice for a wee, pre christmas service

And we sat, around an empty cradle and we waited for love to be born….

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Last week in our Lacuna service we climbed a mountain.

We climbed a transfiguration mountain….

Its such a simple story, four friends tramping up a hill when all of a sudden

one of them gets a little bit ahead and then bam, just like that

‘His face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white.

What an image, what a vision, what a gift to see things as they truly are,

to see what Thomas Merton would call the thisness of a thing.

Many of us would, I imagine, assume that in order to see such a sight,

to witness a ‘Transfiguration’ we would have to be particularly noble,

or holy

or good.

Maybe, we imagine, that we would need to have sat in  deep meditation

for many years

or fasted for months on end

or lived a life seeking God,

but such imaginings do not match what is revealed to us

in the  transfiguration story

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If you are like me and every time you hear the terms:

faceless men

or going forward

or great big new tax

or back on track

or action plan

or any of the other endless mantra’s being siren – sung into our psyches

over these last few weeks

then you would be conscious of the rising rage that burns

snake like

in the gut

and the sense deep within that a spell is being cast over you

and that if you are not vigilant

and you do not

‘stay awake’

then you will lose your sense of what is

real

and what is not

and find yourself drifting along into the voting ballot and ticking the box

of whoever managed to spin their web the thickest in your mind.

Last week the Uniting Church has called on politicians running for election

to share their vision for Australia and not to limit their discussions

to cheap populism and slogans.

President of the Uniting Church, Rev Alistair Macrae believes that

Australians are eager to hear messages of hope for the future

and has expressed his disappointment

at the tone and quality of political debate thus far.

“I’m hearing plenty of sound-bites but no real substance.

Australians are looking to our politicians to display real leadership

and talk honestly about their vision for our country.

Instead we’re seeing cheap political point-scoring that’s not connected

to any substantial vision for our future.’

We dismiss the power of language at our peril.

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Nothing changes, nothing stays the same….

Permanence and impermanence and two great traditions speak the same truth

in different forms.

From the Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh we are reminded that

‘we can never bath twice in the same river’

and in Ecclesiastes we discover that  ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.

The water in the river is still water; the body is still getting wet….

Last night I dreamt that I was standing in a doorway of my mothers house.

Standing in the doorway looking into the kitchen.

Standing in the doorway with my sister and we were watching our 5 small children

running,

running in a filmic slow motion kind of way

round and around the old family table

and in the dream I was thinking that these children are not my children

(your children are not children)

they are  my mothers and that she has birthed them some 30 years on

and I felt a weird jealousy that they had taken our place,

my sister and mine.

for this table was our table, this joyous abandon, our game.

this mother- our mother.

‘A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever’

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An elder (in Greek,  [presbyteros]; see Presbyter) in Christianity is a person valued for their wisdom who accordingly holds a particular position of responsibility in a Christian group. However, elders exist throughout world cultures.

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of the elder.

I have been thinking a lot about the gift

of the elder

and I have been thinking about gaps in air

gaps carved into oxygen where once women and men of times gone by

stood and sang and wept and prayed

I have been thinking

about

death

We have just recently said goodbye to Jean Parker

She was our elder (amongst many other things) and her ashes have been thrown

into the wild Kilkunda seas

and now we stand

back here in this old bluestone church

with an empty space

in the air.

The first time I heard the term elder I thought that it was something to do with

someone

very old

but then I discovered that it was more to do with someone called to be

spiritual companion,

a pastoral friend,

a wise one who maybe  took the time to smile

wryly

at you

over a cup of tea after a particularly torrid church council meeting,

or who would come to visit after the birth of a baby with warm things knitted

or who would be there when everyone else had trundled home,

locking the old wooden doors and sweeping the porch.

Who would tell me (as minister) that ‘so and so’ wasn’t doing so well and maybe now

would be a good time to

stop

and pray.

Here at Northcote, Jean was our only elder and so now we are,

in a way,

orphaned, spinning in space

(lo I will not leave you orphaned)

we are…………………………………………………………………………………………adrift.

Jean was not just our technical elder though, she was also a knitter

of people

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‘We should beware of those politicians who claim to pursue the public cause but who simply exploit instincts. Fighting against xenophobia must be a priority for us all.’

 UN High Commission for Refugees Geneva October 2001

I feel like Icarus

falling

Icarus after the moment of pride

I feel like Icarus because I am watching ‘our’ Julia make speeches about the

‘right kind of migrants’

and because I am hearing her blow her dog whistle so loud that even those

who wanted her to be her best cant fail to turn around in shock

I feel like Icarus

Falling

Because I was so proud of her for simply being

a woman

Look I said to my little girls:

‘look’

As her red head bobbed behind the dark flank of men

‘look

that’s our new prime minister’

‘What’s a prime minister’ asks the 5 year old

‘Its like the queen’

I tell her

‘except better’

And now I am falling

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Last Sunday we were blessed to experience the joyful sounds of Carl and Penny  

from Pot’n Kettle

when they sang and played at our Music for the Soul service.

In perpartion for this I had a chat with Carl over the phone and found myself thinking

about lilies and presence

and truth….

And I also began thinking about how there are two phrases,

which appear over and over and over again

within the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian gospels.

The first, which appears in the Hebrew scriptures is ‘Do not be afraid’

which is not surprising when you consider that there were a lot of scary stories about

floods and wild winging angels

and angry old creator gods parting oceans for fleeing slaves.

And the second phrase that appears over and over is in the gospels and it is this

‘Stay Awake’

or Wake up!

Or in other words be present to this moment here and now.

When I spoke with Carl about the music that he and Penny create

he spoke of how it’s all about being in ‘the moment’

and about truth

and about presence

presence to whatever is inside us as individuals and as community

be it worry or fear or hope or joy…

In both the contemporary readings and the reading from the gospel of Matthew about

‘considering the lilies in the fields’

there is a theme of being awake

awake to the wonder of a window as yellow as butter

and awake to a child being scooped up into waiting arms

awake to the birds of the air

and awake to the whisper from the hills.

But being awake

As we all know

Is hard

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I held my hand a Sea urchin and was asked, recently, to reflect on my ministry.

So

Sea urchin

Landing on sand

Complete and open and empty

A small channel of wonder

Washed forth from mountainous wave

When I was accepted as a candidate I stood on a Victorian coastline bitten cliff beach and felt that I

unlike the urchin

would shatter into a thousand pieces

so shot thru was I with god

so charged with glory

but I didn’t

break

and now

these many years on I am washed smooth

and all my sharp shiny fear long since smoothed away

I can break bread now

Without trembling

And Christ and I walk hand in hand

He, ever within and without and around and all I need to do is call

Now the fear is of other darkness…

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