Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17; Mark 12:38-44

The American trade unionist George Meany once said that economics was the one profession where a person could gain great eminence without ever being right. A more caustic observation is that capitalism is “survival of the fattest”.  These wry observations may seem especially relevant right now, not only because of the havoc wreaked on millions of people around the world by the global economic crisis; but because the taxpayer-funded handouts to some of the corporations chiefly responsible for the crisis have been justified on the grounds that they were too big to be allowed to fail.  No economist or financial expert predicted the crash; and it seems that, despite some notable casualties, the fattest have not merely been allowed to survive, but have largely escaped the consequences of their actions.

Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Mark 10:46-52

I don’t know if any of you saw the program Foreign Correspondent a couple of weeks ago on the ABC – but those of you who did may recall that it concerned an Australian journalist who had recently returned from Sumatra, where he had been filming the dreadful aftermath of the earthquakes in that region.  But what made this episode special, more than just another story about horrendous suffering and destruction, was a single, brief image of hope; the kind of hope that is unique to faith.

Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Mark 10:17-31

A couple of years ago, the renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough was being interviewed by Andrew Denton.  Denton raised the issue of Attenborough’s agnosticism, and in explaining why he found it difficult to believe in God, Attenborough made the following revelation:

I frequently receive letters from people saying, in effect, “You’ve travelled around the world, you’ve seen all the marvels of nature, how could you not believe in a loving God who created the world”.  I reply to these letters by asking their authors to picture an eight year old child sitting by a river in Africa.  That child is guilty of nothing more than the usual childhood foolishness.  And yet there is a worm burrowing under that child’s eyelid, a worm that can only exist by burrowing under the eyelids of children, and it will cause that child to go blind and live out their life in disfigurement and pain.  How can you tell me that a loving God created that worm to do that to a child?

Mark 9: 30-37

One of the ironies of being a mature age theology student is that I find myself doing something normally associated with students of a much younger age: I study by day, and work a couple of nights a week at the local petrol station in order to make a contribution to the household finances.  My appreciation of the irony is deepened by the fact that most of my work colleagues are actually young people paying their way through university; but I am also keenly aware that there is something humbling in the fact that I switch between the sometimes lofty and abstract world of theology to the mundane, occasionally gritty, reality of work.

New Norcia Poems

PRESCRIPT: Recently, my wife Sandy and I were part of a group of theology students who travelled to the little town of New Norcia, Western Australia, to spend a week with the monks of the Benedictine Abbey there, sharing their lives as they sang the seven Offices of the day, as well as working on assignments and projects for our theological studies.  This was a blessed and grace-filled time, enabling us all to tap into the rich and ancient traditions of Benedictine spirituality, undergirt as they are by the Rule of Benedict, which provides a shape and a purpose for the monks’ lives.  Part of the students’ assessment criteria was the compilation of a journal; not a blow-by-blow account of the week spent at the Abbey, but a reflection upon the experience itself, its impact and meaning.  For my journal, I composed a series of short poems (with introductions) as a kind of impressionistic survey of my thoughts and feelings.  Now that the journals have been assessed, I feel I can now properly post my poems here to share with others.  I don’t make any claims for their quality as poems; but I have they will provide an insight into my own experience.

***

Mark 7: 24-37

The American historian, Shelby Foote, is perhaps best known as the pre-eminent historian of the American Civil War, that terrible conflict fought between 1861 and 1865 between the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy, and which resulted in the abolition of slavery in North America.  Foote wrote three seminal books on the subject, and of the many colourful characters who inhabit the pages of his work, Foote later declared that the two who were most difficult to speak of were also the two most famous:  on the one hand, the great Confederate general Robert E Lee; and, on the other, the revered US President, Abraham Lincoln.

Mark 6:1-13; 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

All or nothing.

If there’s an overall principle by which the media is apparently guided, this appears to be it.  Either we’re drowning in a sea of facts and figures; or else were starving in a drought of silence.  Indeed, it mostly seems that while one or two stories grab all the headlines, other matters, equally or even more important, receive little attention.

Luke 24: 44-53; Acts 1: 15-17, 21-26

One morning, a couple of weeks ago, as I was walking down the busy main road that leads from my home to the local train station, a large black dog bounded up to me and began to enthusiastically make my acquaintance. He looked like a cross between a black Retriever and a Doberman, and despite his size, I could tell that he was still a pup – a pup astray in the chaos of the morning rush hour traffic.

Collisions with God

The great 12th Century Persian mystic and poet, Shamsuddin Muhammad Hafiz wrote the following short poem, of which I am very fond:

God
and I have become
like two giant fat people living
in a tiny
boat.
We
keep bumping into
each other
and
laughing.

I am very fond of this poem because it is one to which I can relate.  God and I have been bumping into one another for all of my life.  Or, to be truthful, I have been trying my best to avoid God; but God, like some persistent, divine dodgem car, has always ensured we were on a collision course.

And I think that that’s why I am today a candidate to the ordained ministry; I am the fissionable remains of constantly being impacted by God.  And yet I still feel as though I’m living on a tiny boat (even if I don’t quite deserve the description of a “giant fat person”!), bumping into God at unexpected moments.  And sometimes I’m tossed overboard, into the bracing waters of grace; but always I scramble back on board again, for I have discovered that even if the encounters are occassionally bruising (and why should Jacob at Peniel have had all the fun?), without them I am simply not whole.

Who would have thought it possible?

1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

In the past couple of weeks, many of you may have read or heard in the media the story of the nine-year-old Brazilian girl who was recently discovered to be pregnant with twins – a pregnancy that allegedly resulted from sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather.  Those of you who have been following this story will know that the girl’s mother authorised doctors to terminate the pregnancy, with the result that the local Catholic archbishop has pronounced excommunication on both the mother and the medical personnel involved in the termination.