Endings

I recently wrote the following in relation to a service closure at my workplace.  Thought I'd share

Great Spirit,

Who resides in the land, the stars and the people,

We give thanks for this building which has provided the shelter and the location of our Family Centre.

We give thanks for all its spaces

Play spaces

Work spaces

Talking spaces

Food spaces

Eating spaces

Group spaces

Administration spaces

Outdoor spaces

Parking spaces

For all that has been inspiring and challenging, resolved and unresolved, growing and nurturing in this place we give thanks.

May the hospitality of this place be a welcome to new tenants and new service users alike in the days, months and years to come.

What is...Grace?

Recently a seminarian friend of mine emailed from Rome requesting my take on what grace is for a 'Theology of Grace' unit he is currently undertaking.  His lecturer asked the students to seek a Catholic and non-Catholic perspective.  I think I just qualified for the non-Catholic gig!  Anyway I really appreciated the request and found it valuable to revisit how I understand this old concept of Grace.  I responded in two ways the first you'll notice is more spontaneous and experiential and the second more analytic and academic in tone.  This reminded me how we can respond to spiritual notions from different internal spaces e.g. head and heart...both have value in putting language to the spiritual life.

GRACE PART 1
Grace is…



a word that points to relationship with the Presence that innervates every living and non-living thing.


knowing that the reality of Jesus and God is not a fantasy.


finding one’s home in the Sacred present moment


knowing you are loved despite your failings and self-centredness


knowing you can love despite your failings and self-centredness


awareness that there is life beyond death


a sense of connection to the Australian bush


sitting by a seaside on granite rock and feeling the presence of the divine in the waves and the wind


the blessing of children who sleep safely


the embrace of a child


the chuckle of an infant


good food and drink


the deep silence in one’s heart


the deep silence in the land that captures the heart


knowing that enough is enough


true solitude


lovemaking


the deep joy to be found in simple things that surprise by their ordinariness


finding God’s presence in unexpected places


knowing that even hard feelings can be a call from God back to the centre


experiencing the world through touch, smell, taste, sight and sound


friendships that endure


intimacy that endures


discovering the gift of compassion for oneself and the whole world


discovering that Jesus and God are Compassion and Silence and in reality no separation is possible


discovering that prayer and Scripture can lead to silence


looking on the world with fresh eyes


both grief and laughter


GRACE PART 2


Grace may be conceived of as God’s initiative in relating to and loving human persons…



With the following characteristics:


• Salvific and liberating - saving and freeing us from our limited selves. Expands our consciousness to renew or remember relationship with the divine at the ground of all being and existence…the classic lifting out of the mire (e.g. Psalm 40)


• Mystical – mysterious, amazing, beyond comprehension like the great hymn hints at. Grace leads to communion/union with God or is in fact an experience of communion/union.


• Embodied/Incarnated – experienced in the body and the world


• Freely available and unmediated – Anyone at any moment can experience grace – ie receive the sacrament of the present moment – (e.g. Francis de Sales and Quaker writers)


• Christological – in the sense that the receptivity to grace is “built into” every human person. This receptivity is a gift of the Risen Christ who resides in every human heart. Quakers call this ‘That of God’.

 
Thanks for having a read....I'll leave you with that lovely question from Quaker George Fox:  And what canst thou say....about Grace?


PS Picture by my daughter.

The Marks of Men

For some time now I have been reflecting on what symbols men seem to use in expressing their masculinity.  I live in a city with a fairly blue collar history, still surrounded by lots of coal mining, port activity and industry.  Without pidgeon-holing and overgeneralising how men express their identities it seems to me that there are three marks of maleness that are often turned to by ordinary young Australian men.

muscles...

fast cars and motorcycles...

tats (tattoos)


Some men seem to manage all three, kind of a like a masculine formula for getting ahead.   Now then I'm not into getting judgemental here.   I have trained in gyms for nearly 20 years now so I get the attraction and thrill of building muscles and strength.   Fast cars and cycles...well from what I can see a lot of money often goes on meticulous maintenance, care and repair... that and everyone certainly knows when a big V8 is around.  How could you be missed when your car dominates the sound waves?   I also have to admit to being absolutely fascinated by tattoos and what they speak to in the soul of both men and women. Around Newcastle every second bloke seems to have a tat.  While all of this is understandable and captures a spirit of adventure and risk, to a certain degree, I'm left wondering whether we can all go a bit deeper.  Later we may also want to investigate links with anecdotal increased use of steroids and deaths in car accidents and how power, prestige and wealth can also be prioritised by men.

At the centre of ourselves, our interior places there may be some different markers for men to focus on. These marks might be invisible to other people, they aren't particularly showy or easily rewarded; not particularly loud or even concerned with supporting an 'identity' but certainly worth attending to.  An alternative trinity for men, though by no means confined to men, might be...
Silence...

Compassion...

Listening

In silence we become aware that what we put on show may not be all there is within us.  In recognising our compassionate heart we know we are part of the living reality of the suffering world/growing universe and in listening we spend time with voices other than our own....These are qualities found in Christianity and other religious perspectives and in particular in a spiritual life that might be influenced by monastic, quaker and /or a contemplative ethos.  These marks of the soul are not something we can arrange or build up but can be seen as already given.  The only thing to build up is our awareness of what is already happening...the gifts that have already been given...the 'identity' already given by the Holy One.  How might young Australian men be both adventurous and contemplative?  Who will encourage them on this journey with all that awareness of deeper layers entails?

Augustinian Martin Laird writes engagingly about these alternative realities in Into the Silent Land: A guide to the Christian practice of contemplation (2006).

"Precisely because our deepest identity, grounding the personality, is hidden with Christ in God and beyond the grasp of comprehension, the experience of this ground-identity that is one with God will register in our perception, if indeed it does register, as an experience of no particular thing, a great, flowing abyss, a depthless depth.  To those who know only the discursive mind this may seem a death-dealing terror or spinning vertigo.  But for those whose thinking mind has expanded into heart-mind, it is an encounter brimming over with with the flow of vast, open emptiness that is the ground of all.  This 'no thing,' this 'emptiness' is not an absence but a superabundance.  It is the fringe of love's cloak (Matt 9:20)."

Australian Constitutional Recognition for Aboriginal Peoples

Some of you may be aware that last year the government installed an expert panel to advise on the possibility of a referendum to change the Australian constitution to recognise the Aboriginal nations and people of Australia.  The panel is due to report back to the government in December this year with a proposal for a referendum question to be put to the Australian people in 2013.  You can find all the necessary information including a discussion paper at www.youmeunity.org.au Submissions to this panel can be made by anyone and are due by the end of the month.  It is clear that the Australian constitution is woefully and unacceptably out of date on this issue and in essence the constitution continues to enshrine the terra nullius perspective that dominated European thinking as they settled (or more accurately invaded) this country in the late 1800s and which has done so much damage culturally and environmentally to Aboriginal people and their lands.  It is absolutely essential that such a major national document as the constitutional, even if rarely referred to outside of legal circles, reflects reality. This is particularly so given that Aboriginal peoples have called for such changes on multiple occasions over many many years...  I suspect many Aboriginal peoples and communities have lost patience with the ongoing lack of recognition and the oppression this breeds.  Recognition is code for affirmation, something every single person needs as a basis to social justice and quality of life. 

In light of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008 and the increased use of Acknowledgement of Country by many sectors of the Australian population the constitution must now back this up more effectively.  I wonder whether a statement of recognition and rights could become a bit like acknowledgement of country accept at a national level for all the various Aboriginal nations.  This may be one further way of helping us to get in touch with the reality of Aboriginal presence in this land.  Or in other words rather than the implicit or actual terra nullius of the constitution we acknowledge that the land is filled with human -Aboriginal- presence and with the Great Spirit.  Importantly this Aboriginal presence is to be seen as being in relationship with the land something we recognise everytime we acknowledge the traditional owners of an area.  This may mean a letting go for white fellas but it may also be another little step (let's not get too carried away there is so much more to address!) in the healing of this land and it's peoples.

Apart from constitutional recognition there are important issues of constitutional racial equality and non-discrimination which you can find out more about at the website I mentioned above.  Many of us would love to see the country progress towards a treaty which would set a firm foundation and commitment and vision for right relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples.  My understanding is that the constitution can set the tone for this to occur by providing provision for agreement making.  However it is unclear at present in my mind whether the Australian population would be well informed enough and compassionate enough to begin to consider this possibility.  The expert panel I mentioned above have the unenviable task of discerning what is achievable in a referendum and not just what might be the best vision.  Failure at a referendum would be disastrous and demoralising for Aboriginal peoples and those who care about this issue.  It might be that the idea of a treaty does not yet have its time but all this work will reflect where we are up to as a nation whether we like it or not.  Patrick Dodson has a stirring address on the youmeunity website which you can find here on the topic of the imperative of reconciliation.

My workplace has started to consider what submission we would like to make.  I learnt in talking with my Aboriginal colleagues yesterday that there are a few attitudes and actions that should be included from their point of view in these considerations: a willingness to listen, consultation with Aboriginal peoples regarding any developments that will affect them and a commitment to keep going beyond constitutional changes to address issues like access to land and fair distribution of wealth etc. Gees we have a long way to go but this is another bit in the process. 

n.b. artwork by Richard Campbell (stations of the cross)

A Light with Us

It's been a while since I've posted something here but the time has come again.   In April our fourth child, Jonah was born much to our relief and delight after the loss of our third daughter Salome last year.  And so adjusting to this new relationship has occupied much of the last four months for the whole family. I'd like to offer this piece of poetic reflection that I wrote during a time of solitude yesterday. This captures a little of my experience of this new one who has entered our lives. 

First a few words about solitude... I'm aware that solitude is essential, if it wasn't already, for my emotional and spiritual equilibrium.  While the solitude of each of us is a reality that is always present, as per Eckhart, it can also require careful planning and negotiation with our loved ones to include at least some 'actual time apart' within the multiple demands of our contemporary lives.  Solitude is truly a womb to be drawn into where in we may realise our deep connections to what is seen and unseen and bring forth greater love in all our relationships.  It is also in the silence of our own solitude that a reality may dawn, something well expressed in liturgy  -   contained in the soul is the Son of God - and in the Quaker phrase - That of God in everyone. Our job is to get out of the way and let this reality shine...babies have this in spades...

A Light for Us
This Little One is waking up
He knows who is who now
He shows preference for touch
And tickles he delights in.

The baby chuckle is surely one of the most
Beautiful sounds in the whole world.
Infectious, his face lights up
He waits for my next move...

With wide open smiling expectation.
I delight in him...The simple play
Of the new relationship between Father and Son
Sets in train the motion of love...

Do you have a love heart in you? I ask him but already know
A Love heart exists in all.
How precious then that even through
My constraints and strains I see it afresh in him.

After being deprived of touch
I still take it for granted like water.
Each touch a bond
A binding of souls that already know...

Their place, together, alongside
For as many moments as life will grant
Don't let that be forgotten, not now
When so much Light is present.

Blessings, Matt

Afternoon promise, Morning opens

....NOW....

is the

Moment

  for you

to wake

from

     sleep

                       (Romans 13:11)

PS. suburban photos of Hibbertia scandens, a native creeper on side fence.

A Prayer for a Wise Heart

Great Creator Spirit,
May we journey with Christ in all things seeking soul friendship and pilgrimage along the way.

 May we enfold this given life in a soulful rhythm of prayer, work and rest.

May we practice sacred reading of Scripture and spiritual writings, art and science.

May we hold the whole world in Light and prayer, as we are held.

May we simplify life such that beauty, generosity and hospitality shine forth.

May we endow the earth with our love and gentle care.

May we, with wisdom and discernment, become a healing presence.

May we listen deeply in silence to the Spirit.

May we build a true communion of love with peoples of all faiths and spiritual traditions and of none.

May we spread peace, harmony and justice wherever the winds of the Spirit may blow us.
AMEN

 Adapted from the ten elements of the Way of Life of the Community of Aidan and Hilda