As good as it gets

There are some things that are simply, priceless. There are exchanges between friends that give away just how well and how how intimately you know each other. This is as good as it gets.

The barrage of comments that were to follow my post dedicated to Aikee reminded me of just that. Distance I quickly discovered, has little power to diminish a sense of connectedness to each other - as long as we keep sharing, holding hope, and celebrating each others lives as friends on a journey, and allowing our hearts to be united by One Spirit.

And in many ways, Aikee's absence is the herald of a new season in all of our lives as well. It forces us out of our comfort zones to step out in faith, opens our eyes to appreciate those who have been quietly serving us from the sidelines, teaches us to make room in our hearts, reach out and embrace others into our lives, and draws us each to new listening points.

In the midst of it all, we see beauty rise from the ashes, and we are surprised by joy as we see the first fruits of our labour - the disciplines that we have so painstakingly helped each other cultivate day by day now gives us the strength to stand firm in unfamiliar territory.

Aikee, stand firm and hold on tight to hope. We're all on this journey with you.

The Religious Write

Ah, what a welcome surprise. Religion editor for The Age, Barney Zwartz, has joined the fray with theage.com.au’s Blog Central. He's started a new blog: The Religious Write.

An Age journalist for 26 years, and religion editor for five, he has a degree in theology and is part-way towards a doctorate in moral philosophy.

While covering an investigative piece on faith and the media last year, I had the privilege of hearing Zwartz guest speak at a Religious Education AGM and later interviewing him.

As journalist and theologian, I wonder if many people find this an uneasy mix. But the contradictions, I feel,has more to do with rhetoric and popular assumption than a genuine divide between the two.

If media’s role is a mirror that reflects the various fragments of society at its worst and best, then a journalist-theologian is the best person to walk the tenuous line of faith in the context of reality.

G.K. Chesterton was a journalist himself, who infamously observed that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but rather, that it has been found difficult and left untried.

It’s far easier to keep our religious activities separate from our daily lives, our jobs. Zwartz is a brave man. To allow his faith to be tested in a world of chaos, confusion and suffering – and at the end of it, to ask, "Is God really good?"

Aikee

"Hey, I just got out of the airport. I feel quite sad and it feels different. Missing you all, this is aikee signing out."

My eyes watered as this text came through. I sat limp in front of the keyboard, and stared blindly at the monitor, trying to hold back my tears on the first day of my official move to the newsroom.

I left work early, and the long drive into the city was a heartbreaking flashback of poignant moments and tender memories.

The ache was too much to bear at the thought of driving by Crema. My usual pit-stop after the battles of my day. My hiding place and safe refuge where I am confident and secure in the kind of love that is strong enough to cover a multitude of sin. Where judgement and condemnation have had little room to thrive in an atmosphere permeated with hope and grace. Together, we dealt with the complexities of family. Juggling work and play, roles and responsibilities, our strengths and all our weaknesses.

I grieved today. That there would be no Aikee to greet me with his megawatt smile and warm embrace. That there would be no more silly banter between "Katrina and Arthur" and the crossword puzzles he so loved to play. That I could no longer help him with his sentence flows or keep tabs on his spiritual growth.

I didn't quite expect his absence would make my world fall apart this way. I don't think I realised just how much strength and joy he brought me in the face of my trials, challenges and hardship. He was supportive ally, armour bearer, brother and friend.

Etched deep into my consciousness are the mixed bag of emotions that were on display as we reminisced, ate, sang and danced at his farewell on Saturday. The cappuccinos and lattes that the whole group of us had sitting in the cold outside the European on Sunday. The moments where we threw aside all propriety, hugged, linked arms, squeezed and held on to each others' hands. The airport scene: tears, tissues, final words, photos and brave fronts. The sombre silent drive home, broken only by the sniffling of noses, deep breaths and discreet tears that ran down our cheeks.

I cried my way to Crema. I cried my way home. I cried as I crawled under the sheets and tried to sleep. I'm crying even as I speak. And I will take my time to grieve.

Aikee, more than you think, you've left a lasting mark, a legacy. You are dearly missed.

Dear God,

Give comfort and peace to we who are separated from loved ones. May the ache in our hearts be the strengthening of our hearts. May our longing bring resolve to our lives, conviction and purity to our love. Teach us to embrace our sadness lest it turn to despair. Transform our yearning into wisdom. Let our hearts grow fonder.

Amen.

[Adapted from Leunig's book of common prayers, When I talk to you]

The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins' book and documentary The God Delusion has generated quite a lot of talk on both sides of the fence.

To me, the validity of Dawkins' assertions are inconsequential. But the conversations that arise from that are definitely worth a read. The substance of our faith comes as we ask the question: What does it mean to be human?

Coverage from theage.com.au:
Heaven-sent for the non-believers
The Root of All Evil - The Virus of Faith
Compass: The Root of All Evil
Fundamentalism, religious or secular, gets us nowhere
With God on side

Sister Poh?

Never in my life have I ever felt the need - or ever had the daring - to contemplate the possibilities of a monastic life. Until now. And it certainly does tear me up, frighten me, and keep me up at night thinking.

Singlehood is quite a different creature from monastry. Monastic living calls to focus the uncollected pieces of our lives. It is the setting aside of our devotion, attention and affections. It is not a waiting game, an interim or holding bay until something happens.

Done right, it is not an avenue of escape from life's cruel taunts, or a hiding place where we curl to lick our wounds, detach and disengage. It calls us to be present, to consciousness, to bear arms and face head on the wars that wage on inside us.

It doesn't stop us from feeling. Quite the contrary, it sets us free to feel, and challenges us to hold our mixed emotions and dubious intentions trial before the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.

It is a crucible where disciplines are formed and carved into stone.

It is a classroom of faith, where we learn that God is enough for us, that His grace is sufficient for us - that more than anything else, it is hope that animates our lives and give us reason to keep persisting.

Gurgles and giggles

The feel of this blog has taken a very different direction and tone of late. A lot more personal, and a lot less mindful of the going ons of the world beyond my own bubble of existence.

This isn't the first time I've tried my hand at blogging, but Pilgrim's Progress has in rather inexplicable ways captured my imagination. Like a baby that gurgles in surprise and giggles at the joy of finding something new.

To my delight, I am finding this space slowly forming and filling: to reflect my interests and tastes, to research, reflect and ruminate. To find my voice as a writer as I pen my thoughts to paper and in the more modern modus operandi - allow my fingers free reign over the typepad.

Gleefully, I've found fellow pilgrims on the journey. Some who are far off whose only connection I can speak of is the Spirit of God that is working in all and through all, confirming the same message. Others who are near enough to allow me the privilege of sharing common meals together, and seeing in real time occassions and events that make their way through to online portals as powerful and tender listening points.

And perhaps most unexpectedly, I never thought about the ripples I would create in my wake. The realisation that there is an audience brings a rush of warmth to every writer. Vocational discernment has been for me a painstaking process of discovering - and a constant stepping out in faith no less, albeit in baby steps, against the odds of my cultural and educational background.

Every reader reads for a different reason.

For pilgrims who are leading the way for me, these posts mark the milestones of my progress. For others who are journeying alongside me, these posts are a patchwork and tapestry that tell the story of how God is working all our lives out for good.

Still for others I am mother hen: nesting, hatching and nursing. Running round the pen clucking and flapping my wings in a flurry of excitement mingled with chaos, gathering my chicks with everything I've got, as far and as fast as my scratchy and tawny feet would allow me.

And there have been an odd few who have stumbled in quite by accident.

Chesterton was perceptive when he said that Christianity has not been tried but found wanting. Rather, it has been found difficult and left untried. His words have informed a large part of my life. The work of sticking my nose into other people's affairs as a journalist is in every way a daily wrestle with the One whom I call Yahweh. Can I reliably depend upon the Biblical story as the metanarrative to story after story of tragedy, bloodshed, corruption, crime and injustice?

These questions coupled with Chesterton's assertions have consistently trained my eyes to think outside the box. It has done me well, adding to my person substance and a robustness to my faith. But in my preoccupation, I have also on occassion failed to look inward, and seek out answers to the questions I have about my own life.

The series of misfortunes I have suffered of late, some have been lamentably funny. It's the stuff of soaps and dramas, many have said. That may be true, but they cannot be discounted. the question I must ponder is: what is God seeking to do in my life right here right now? My bubble of existence and the chaos and wars that rage on inside matter just as much as the conflict and wars that are taking place elsewhere in the world.

Forming and filling. This pilgrim is a work in progress. Watch this space grow and look at the writing on the wall: commentaries and discussions, poetry and prose.

To Steve

I feel like I have a lot of explaining to do. My previous posts have generated quite a lot of reaction in recent weeks.

The most frequently asked questions of late: Are you okay? How are you doing, really?

A friend of mine recently remarked that it takes great emotional upheaval for one to write in poetry and prose.

I can't help but agree.

Nonetheless, the human body is a curious thing, and it has a way of shutting down some faculties in a bid to cut damage and conserve its fast depleting resources. It's been such a week. A series of lamentably funny but unfortunate events.

A bad bout of food poisoining that literally and figuratively drained all colour from my face and emptied the life out of me. Confined to bed, it would've been the perfect time to reflect upon the state of my inner being and the myriad of events that have ruffled my feathers of late. But I was quite unprepared for the aches and pains coursing through my body: the swollen tummy, a throbbing head that was as heavy as lead, limp limbs, and a world that was spinning faster than my slow mind could comprehend.

Against the doctor's orders, I was back at work on day 2. And it was hardly an easy ride. First with a flat tire and on day 3 an engine that stubbornly refused to start. And to top it all off, I tipped a whole tray of mini chocolate mousse cups onto the floor. The rich chocolate batter of which I had so painstakingly whipped up only minutes earlier. Needless to say, they never made it to the table for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea on day 4.

But it took one act of undeserved grace out of the abundance of one man's heart to put an end to my fast downward spiral. I was angry and bitter, but one man made everything better. A man who first gave to me. Nevermind that my abandoned broken car was obstructing his driveway while I rushed to work in another vehicle. He changed the tire for me when I came home that evening. He pumped on my accelerator to start my car the following morning.

This man gave unto me first, when I had little reserve in me to give. And his generosity has sparked fresh faith and hope in me again, and inspired me to love others from a wellspring of life that has been unplugged from within.

I know there is still much that is gnawing at my inner being, and the time will come where I must broker peace amdist the conflict and contradictions that is my life right now. A new season is pressing in, and the time is near where I shall do the math and count the cost of monastic living. I sense the still small voice calling above the clutter and noise, and time shall wait for no man as the wheat grows amongst the tares.

But for now, I'm thankful and grateful. To Steve, who first served me, and saved me from my sin: who reminded me of what it means to be human, and ejected me so unexpectedly from the game of shame, blame, strife and slavery - of anger, bitterness and futility.

To Steve. Thank you.

Shipwreck

Another week has flown by in a flurry. A mixed bag of tears, pain, setbacks, bewilderment, healings and triumphs that makes days stretch into weeks and weeks feel like months.

My feet haven't taken me places I don't usually go. It has been largely the same: office, crema, church, home. But my heart has treaded waters this week, sunk low and swum far - hit hidden rocks and washed up onto foreign shores.

I've looked at my bruised elbows and gritty hands. But wanderers who are tired and spent really can't give a damn. They collapse. In no man's land.

I've lost my scent. I'm not sure how to get back to base camp. My lids are too heavy, there's no more frenzy, no more neural hyperactivity.

But while I sleep, may He reach down to soothe me and mend me. And when I awake, may my eyes be bright enough to catch a glimpse of a new reality.

The Monastic Life

Thus begins
My slow start
Of a quiet contemplation
The monastic life
The need to marry myself to Christ

Live life full, live it well
Live to learn, learn to love
Leave the damned life
Chasing my own tail, burrowing
Down every fruitless trail

Not that I thought
I’d ever find me walking
Down this dusty less trodden road
But it is a well-worn sojourn no less
By pilgrims in distress

Foolish Games

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth has popularised the topic of climate change for some time now. Few I believe, who have watched the movie and subsequently followed the media’s coverage of environmental experts’ visions of doom and gloom, would genuinely dismiss the prospects of a world hell-bent on destruction.

But for the most part, I wonder if these prophecies of impending doom loom only as a hazy prospect that would require an immense amount of creativity and imagination to conjure up in our everyday realities.

The truth is, the cacophony of voices coming from scientists, environmentalists, and alike will be treated in the same manner as people like you and me do to the drone of passing traffic outside our windows.

In short, we are selfish, ignorant and bigoted. The rest of the world can perish for all we care as long as the bubbles we live in aren’t broken.

We shall ignore these calls to consciousness as long as our cars are still being washed, our gardens and nurseries are still flowering, and golf courses, footy fields and tennis courts are still playable.

As long as pools and spas are still full and we can find relief from the unbearable heat. As long as water still flows freely from our showerheads and taps at our command. As long as industries and organisations can still carry on business as usual.

Despite Melbourne’s water storage level hitting the trigger for stage 4 water restrictions, which include a ban on all outside watering for homes, public gardens and lawns and sporting grounds, as well as stringent conditions for washing cars and filling or adding to residential and commercial pools and spas, the Government has decided to maintain stage 3a restrictions.

“Playing safe on water is no longer an option,” The Age observes in their editorial.

“Extremes abound. Water shortage is not just Melbourne's problem and is, in fact, far worse outside of it. The widening disparity between this city of brown grass and withering trees and a state ravaged by the effects of a long, worsening drought that will take years to assuage is more than physical: livelihoods, sometimes even lives, are under threat, as those who work on and for the land wait in vain for the rain. In Melbourne, it affects gardens; elsewhere, it affects generations.”

No man is an island. To think we can keep building our own fortresses and indulging in our own pleasures while the rest of the world goes to hell. We would be fools to think so.

Related links from The Age:

• Playing safe is no longer an option
• Climate change: shock findings for Victorians

Eight Feet Underneath

Do I dare look down beneath my feet
Uncover what’s buried eight feet underneath
My heart stutters, slurs, it skips a beat
Loose the soil, dig and shovel, I must dig deep
Excavate until I reluctantly reach
Dust and ashes, sticks and stones
Those old, fragile and brittle bones

I’ve shaken my shadows
Shattered the silence with my endless pleas
I’ve awakened the dead
Confronted the ghosts that have no teeth
I must persist
I am determined to seek
I shall find His peace

Over the Weekend

Like a drunkard in a stupor
I stumbled out of bed
My eyelids still heavy
From the dark cloud hanging and looming
Over my muddied head

Over a swelling river
Torrents team and rage
Splashing spilling spitting
The heart screams foul
Artless to stop the haemorrhage

Today there is no room
For politics, war and senseless killings
I have no strength
To tell another tale pen another story
These are burdens too heavy to carry

Nations and Leaders

Yet as he goes, it seems to me that the biggest gap between Blair and many of us who have watched him for years is the same gap we first noticed at university. It's the fact of his committed Christianity, and the mystery (to me) of how that affects his self-certainty. Because what I really want to know is whether, today, he has long dark nights of sleeplessness, agonising about Iraq and all who died, and still die, there.

Is he morally tormented? How does he cope? Perhaps it's like the recent television film about him, in which Robert Lindsay, who played Blair, is tormented by flashbacks and visions of bloodied children. Or perhaps he simply compartmentalises it all, rationalises it, prays — and is forgiven?

- Jackie Ashley, “Tony the Enigma”, theage.com.au

For the full article of Jackie Ashley on Tony Blair, click here.

The Great Divide

For those who follow Iraq from afar, the daily stories of sectarian slaughter are perplexing. Why are the Shi'ites and Sunnis fighting? Why now?
- Bobby Ghosh, Why They Hate Each Other

If you've always wanted to get your head around the confusion and conflict that is the Middle East, this is one of the best I've read so far.

Time Magazine's Baghdad correspondent Bobby Ghosh paints some broad brushstrokes that takes readers through the history of the struggle within Islam.

It's simple to read, intuitive and easy to understand and it will give you some perspective on the escalating sectarian violence dominating the Middle East we read or hear about in the news daily.

As Ghosh so eloquently puts it, "It is the product of centuries of social, political and economic inequality, imposed by repression and prejudice and frequently reinforced by bloodshed. The hatred is not principally about religion."

But I shan't steal his thunder. Click through here.

(I've provided the link for the online version, although Time's March 5, 2007 edition - a 9-page hardcopy spread complete with break-out boxes, maps and haunting photography is definitely worth getting your hands on if you get a chance.)

Playing Games

Speak about playing games.

This news story brings it to a new level, where a California college student opened fire in an apartment during a dispute over a video game console. It left one man dead and two others wounded.

Tarzans of the Concrete Jungle

Then God will reach into the north and destroy Assyria. He will waste Nineveh, leave her dry and treeless as a desert. The ghost town of a city, the haunt of wild animals, Nineveh will be home to raccoons and coyotes — they'll bed down in its ruins. Owls will hoot in the windows, ravens will croak in the doorways — all that fancy woodwork now a perch for birds.

Can this be the famous Fun City that had it made, that boasted, "I'm the Number-One City! I'm King of the Mountain!" So why is the place deserted, a lair for wild animals? Passersby hardly give it a look; they dismiss it with a gesture.

- Zephania 2:13-15 The Message

I did a reading of the book of Zephaniah with a couple of friends just yesterday, and it yielded some quite astonishing findings: God is very concerned about People, yes, but He is just as concerned about Places.

And that got us thinking, and talking. About the different towns and cities that people all around the world inhabit. And the power that places have in supporting life.

Which, of course, begs the question: Just what kind of life do they support?

The ideologies, philosophies, habits and practices that emerge from whole towns and cities have the power to shape a nation - and its people's future.

We need no more reminding that the divide between nature and nurture is an artificial one, and even the best of people can have their potential squandered and squeezed into pulp in squalid, dismal and nefarious environments.

Where would I raise my child if I had all the world to choose?An urban concrete jungle of skyscrapers, billboards and flashing neon lights?

I'm not so sure.

Coincidentally, I noted John Grimmond's observation in The Economist, which would befuddle most tarzans of the concrete jungle.

In an article titled The World Goes to Town, Grimmond said, "Whether you think the human story begins in a garden in Mesopotamia known as Eden, or more prosaically on the savannahs of present-day east Africa, it is clear that Homo sapiens did not start life as an urban creature."

With broad brushstrokes, he surveyed the history of how "the world went to town" - and how the town has since changed the world.

Urbanisation has changed the way we communicate with one another, and the way various communities are formed and built.

Many of society's ills seem to come from within as much as they have come from without. And the full effects and reactions to these stresses, cracks and fractures of a postmodern, or a post-postmodern generation, we are still discovering.

But as the parable of the wise and foolish servant serves as a useful caveat: whither shall I plant my seed?

To read the full article of John Grimmond's The World Goes to Town, click here.

The writing's on the wall

Terrorism nurtures terrorism. Some have taken heart that the death has been reported of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Even if the death is confirmed, it is too early to gauge the benefits. Masri was reportedly killed in a gunfight between warring militant factions. By extension then who is in control? Not who, but what: the gun and the bomb. The Americans have adopted another more primitive method of control in the face of this anarchy. The wall. Now walls have two main purposes. 1) To keep in people and animals. 2) To keep out people and animals. Walls can be military fortifications or metaphors. In some cases, the fortification can become the metaphor. For instance in Iraq.

- Warwick McFadyen, theage.com.au

An opinion piece from The Age I thought was pretty well-written. It makes for good reflection material on the "world level". Full article here.