Monthly Archives: October 2021

Do faith and politics mix?

21 Thursday Oct 2021

Posted by in Personal

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Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

I responded to a version of this question a day or two ago. I would prefer to rephrase it “How do faith and politics mix?” It is being asked of our current Prime Minister and addressed this morning in an article by a previous one.

Most of my three years in retirement has seen me more active politically, out of necessity, as part of a badly regulated and collapsed retirement housing scheme. Together, with over 100 affected households, I have been writing, phoning and pressing the flesh with politicians from both sides of the political divide. Within my cohort, my function as a pastor has not been to the fore, but noted and occasionally drawn on. Yesterday a primary goal was reached, the launch in Federal Parliament of a powerfully appointed Senate Inquiry into the conditions surrounding the housing collapse that includes a focus on the role of the regulator.

Debate, discussion and strategising within the group has been rigorous, intense, and sometimes divisive, as one would expect amongst peers who are stressed, ill and cheated. As a survivor of decades of occasional ructions within faith communities, I trust I was able to bring a calming influence. Some insights into the manipulation and chicanery of the political machine also helped in matters of discernment and consultation with our joint leadership headed by seasoned campaigner and consumer advocate Denise Brailey, who fondly calls us her “generals.”

My answer to the question was “by applying the law of love to the law of the jungle.” It has to begin at a very personal level, and it is captured well in a prayer that came into my feed this morning and that I shared on social media:

May the Christ who walks on wounded feet,
walk with you to the end of your road;
May the Christ who serves with wounded hands,
teach you to serve each other;
May the Christ who loves with a wounded heart,
help you to love each other;
When you go out, may you see the face of Jesus in
everyone you meet, and may everyone you meet
see the face of Jesus in you. Amen

Whatever one’s faith stance, it will appear in our politics, for we have to live in community and how we live and think and act is our “policy.” The extent of self and other awareness we bring to life reveals how our politics and our faith function together.

Standing on the shoulders of those gone before

18 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by in autobiography, Spirituality

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Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

Responding to prompts to begin writing down my memoirs, I’ve begun to gather the scattered anecdotes of my forebears’ pedigrees. After all, I carry something of their influence and makeup in my very bones. As I rummage through boxes of diagrams, letters, photos and reference works, what I have been discovering is a theme that was initially unsettling, but now strangely reassuring – the uncanny ability to turn wine into water, or gold into rubble!

One family line emerged from a failed banker at the height of the lucrative Industrial Revolution. Another neglected to patent a device common to flushing toilet systems today (O the irony that would today delight old college colleagues who, after pranking me, had dubbed me with the lasting nickname “Flush!”). Currently we are campaigning and trying to extricate ourselves from a collapsed retirement housing scheme that has become a national scandal.

Is there such a thing as a tribal curse? Are we doomed to play this morose minor key of failure from generation to generation? Framing is so important when assessing such influences.

My line might not be good at business, but we certainly know something about resilience. We know how to make nurturing compost from the dross and ashes of failure. The doomed banking line was the direct cause of the rise of an influential clergyman, a prolific writer whose works are republished over 120 years posthumously to this day. The Australian line of the plumbing enterprise is broad in variety and contribution to the wider community. Dig deeper, and you will find that the traits of generosity, hospitality, and positivity rise above the urge to accumulate. This hidden gold seam runs through all the ancestral stories of my line.

This is why I am reassured, for these are values that my wife and I hold dear, and that will see us through our current housing crisis. It seems to be in our DNA!