Ever have some odd quirky thing from years ago that sticks in your mind that you can’t get rid of, no matter how hard you try? One of mine is a segment from a Rem and Stimpy cartoon – inevitably triggered when I hear the word “joy”. Perhaps because I have been in so manyContinue reading “Advent Reflection: Joy, anticipated and celebrated”
Author Archives: wonderingpilgrim
Film Review: The Ides of March
Free spirit that I am, I took some time out for a cinema fix after a busy week. Mrs WP was otherwise occupied, so it was a lone choice, and it boiled down to either The Iron Lady or The Ides of March. What a dilemma! Both portray political dramas and the machinations behind the scenesContinue reading “Film Review: The Ides of March”
Advent Reflection: Peace – not absence of conflict
It may strike one as absurd that a day given to reflecting on peace revolves around that fiery wild figure that stormed out of the Judaean desert preaching repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins. John the Baptist seems an incongruous figure for what we imagine to be peace – serene narcosis wrapped inContinue reading “Advent Reflection: Peace – not absence of conflict”
Don’t Dis My Ability!
As International Day of People with Disability is marked today, this slogan resonated. Pretty well most of my life, folk with a “disabilty” have been part of my close circles – family, friends, community groups – ranging through developmental disorders, cerebral palsy, schizophrenia, autism and many other labels that tend to isolate fellow human beings as “special.”Continue reading “Don’t Dis My Ability!”
“How would gays get on in your church?”
It was a simple question. I gave a simple answer – “The same as anybody else,” I replied. There was a question behind the question, however. As the topic of same-sex marriage rises to be the star turn at this weekend’s Australian Labor Party conference, anxious attention from both the anti and pro camps testsContinue reading ““How would gays get on in your church?””
Advent Reflection: Hope, not optimism
Pollyanna gets a bit of stick these days. The name of the main character from Eleanor H Porter’s work of classical children’s fiction has become an epithet for anyone deemed to be unrealistically optimistic. In the novel made even more well known by Walt Disney’s cinema version in 1960, Pollyanna invents “the glad game.” NoContinue reading “Advent Reflection: Hope, not optimism”
Stories from the Canning Stock Route
So runs the sub-title of a stunning Aboriginal Art exhibition that is now on tour from the National Museum of Australia. Of course, the Canning Stock Route has had its dominant “whitefella” story told many times. We claim it as the toughest, remotest and (at 1850km) longest historic stock route in the world. Around theContinue reading “Stories from the Canning Stock Route”
Peace is possible
It’s one of those days of convergence again. I finalised an article for the local community paper – “200 words on what Christmas means to you as a local clergy person.” I rattled something off under the title that headlines this piece. Then I left to share lunch at Parliament House with about twenty folk,Continue reading “Peace is possible”
Reconciliation Journey through Mooro Country
Mooro country is that part of the Noongar country that follows a string of lakes through the western and northern suburbs of Perth and beyond to the Moore River. This afternoon a group of us met with the Northern Suburbs Reconciliation Group and took a bus tour through some of this wetland area, visiting placesContinue reading “Reconciliation Journey through Mooro Country”
Praising our one talent hero!
I like the contention that the servant who buried his one talent and got shafted by the boss might just be the hero of the story – not the goody two shoes (x2) who doubled their much more generous offerings. The proposition catches us on the back foot (like a good parable is supposed toContinue reading “Praising our one talent hero!”
Wondering Pilgrim 