So – who are you going to vote for?

Elections are in the air. Campaigning has moved into high gear in the USA as Barak Obama and John McCain begin to slug it out. We go to the polls here in WA this Saturday. Will we vote for more of the same last eight years or take a gamble on a hastily revamped opposition? Or will we protest again by voting for a minority party or independent?

Should church leaders seek to influence how those within their orbit should vote? Political parties of all brands are recognising the significance of what they call the “Christian” vote. Note the singular – as if there is such a thing as the mono-morphous Christian vote. Certain parties and lobby groups appear to target church leaders in the hope they will use their influence, powers of persuasion and authority to help voters see political reform through their particular lens.

I wll not reveal how I intend to vote, nor seek to persuade another in any electoral direction. It behooves each individual to ensure they are well enough informed on the many issues that have a multiplicity of colours that apply in different ways to different parts of the community. As a preacher under the rule of the God who is fully revealed in the Way of Christ, I can hold up a prism that displays these colours, but it’s up to each voter to use their powers of reasoning and discernment to decide how these colours fall on the choices they make.  I can be no more directive than that. 

And why should any voter’s responsibility stop after the poll? Recent times have seen the growth of online grass-roots movements that seek to monitor the activities and decisions of those who represent us. Rather than list them here, for all have biases that could leave me exposed to charges of favouring either the left or the right, I will simply point out one, Open Australia, which simply provides a very direct means of accessing and monitoring the parliamentary speeches of your representative in both houses of Federal Parliament and giving their contact details.

There is plenty of scope for Kingdom oriented learners of Christ’s way to test their understanding and influence in dialogue with their parliamentary representatives – no matter which way the vote falls on Saturday.

The Enneagram – my take

I’ve just linked to Dave’s Enneagram Blog. Since the early 1980s I have been fascinated with the enneagram system, used primarily for identifying and exploring personality styles in both secular and Christian spiritual direction circles. There are many instruments out there for identifying temperament behaviour in vocational, management and therapeutic settings, some better known than others. The danger of all such instruments is the tendency to predetermine and reduce one’s likely behaviour – “Oh, I’m a (insert label) so I am doomed to act or behave in this way when this thing happens.”

What I like about the enneagram (which is also prone to being abused in this way) is it’s full dynamic. “Yes, when under stress I habitually use this coping strategy, but there are a number of options that are also open to me which, according to my choice, either enhance or diminish my growth and enjoyment.”

Exploring the enneagram system has certainly enhanced my capacity to understand how I and others tick, even helping us to work together more effectively. It is a strong aid in contemplative prayer, as each habitual coping pattern has it’s attendant traps and giftings, and the contemplative traditions are replete with experience in integrating all of these in our journey into the fullness of God (which, for the follower of Jesus’ way, is revealed most strongly through Christ’s example and presence).

Sustainable September

It being the first day of Spring, a PeaceChurch sojourner draws my attention to Sustainable September, a Western Australian initiative involving church and community groups.

Earlier discussion here revealed several correspondents who have reservations about climate change discussions. Whichever side of the debate we fall on, and whether we believe the cause of climate change is natural or human or some of both, careful stewardship of natural resources is part of the biblical shalom for which many on all sides of the discussion yearn.

 

So let me give three cheers to all who seek to be informed, discerning, and a friend of the Creation God has given.

Cryptic Crosswords

It’s hard to imagine that, around 4 weeks ago, I was languishing in Los Angeles International Air Terminal, waiting for a plane to begin the long journey home to Perth. A souvenir of the 9 hour wait sits on my desk, staring accusingly at me. It’s a book – The New York Times think outside the box crosswords. It is folded open to number 9 (out of 75) , which is half-done (I think that’s when my plane was called!) The first eight were completed with agonising mental gymnastics and a lot of help from the “solutions” pages.

Cryptic crosswords have never been my strength, and I stand in awe of those people I know who knock one out every day. All the skills of lateral thinking, deductive detective work, general knowledge and wordsmithing are called for – not to mention much patience. I know those who are more disciplined than I (or who don’t have access to a “solutions” page) will often leave a vexing clue and wake up the next morning with the answer. Such is often the right-hemisphered, subliminal and intutive process of arriving at the correct solution.

Never fear if you are logically determined and left-hemisphere dominated, however. Wikipedia suggests no less than fifteen different types of possibilities to explore in solving a clue. It helpfully advises, “In essence, a cryptic clue leads to its answer as long as you read it in the right way. What the clue appears to say when read normally (the surface reading) is almost never anything to do with the answer and is there as a distraction. The challenge is to find the way of reading the clue that leads to the solution.”

How like our normal conversations and every day relationships! Take the typical chaotic hour of fellowship following Sunday morning worship. Hundreds of conversations and interactions are taking place. Expressions, tones of voice, anecdotes, postures, gestures and groupings send out hundreds of clues about our dreams, disappointments, hopes, visions and desires. Often these are like cryptic crossword clues to one another, and the more aware go home to lunch pondering “Now what was that all about?” Sunday afternoon phone calls, emails and visits begin to unravel the clues and deeper meanings emerge amongst us.

This is the Spirit work of the church and it often transpires unseen and unremarked upon. Just thought I’d point it out!

Book Review: There, Where the Pepper Grows

 Bem Le Hunte, There, Where the Pepper Grows, (HarperCollins, 2005) is a compelling read, tracing the story told by protagonist Benjamin, a Polish Jew who, fleeing Nazi occupation with wife and childhood sweetheart (circumstances of wartime survival inform us these are not the same person), ends up in Calcutta. Here, with attendant complications, they make their life together. Benjamin is well on in years as he tells his story; it is post 9/11, and his life experiences that embrace – up close and personal – the horrors of World War II, the partitioning of India and Pakistan and the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Centre well qualify him to reflect on the counter-balance of interfaith harmony at a grass-roots level. His story is not so fanciful when one considers that the author, born in Calcutta (Kolkata), bases her characters on real situations and events. It was the contemporary circumstance of Australia’s stance on mandatory detention for asylum seekers that prompted the writing of this story, however. In this context, it is a great compliment to India and a sobering rebuke to more well-off countries who, in recent times, have responded with fear driven mean-spiritedness when faced with refugees seeking a safe home.

Barton Stone rocks!

Some of you already know that each post here can have “tags” (single words describing the nature of the content – usually found at the end of each post). I’ve been a bit slack in the past, not bothering with them. Here, I find that I can take a tag, something like “Restoration Movement”, click it, and up pops a whole range of blog links on the same topic. Since revisiting Barton Stone territory I had the feeling that this 19th century church reformer and founder would have been quite at home in today’s “post-everything” environment – intelligent, unorthodox, passionate, forward-focused yet still able to link up with the more conventional and intellectually austere Campbell side of the movement for mutually beneficial outcomes. This tag I clicked on at least tells me I’m not the only one thinking this way about Stone’s contribution. Must start reading up a bit more about him.

Attachments

I got quite attached to my little Asus eee laptop while travelling. The size of a paperback book, it did everything I wanted – lots of photo storage, web, email, office suite – everything. Alas, it’s advantage is also a disadvantage – it’s small enough to steal and that’s what happened to it in the post church service chaos of last Sunday.

So I’ve been a bit grumpy as I’ve gone through the motions of filing police reports, pawn shop notifications and insurance claims.

Then I came across this story in Anthony de Mello’s The Prayer of the Frog (Anand Press, 1989), p92

The great buddhist saint Nagarjuna moved around naked except for a loin-cloth and, incongruously, a golden begging-bowl gifted to him by the king who was his disciple.

One night he was about to lie down to sleep among the ruins of an ancient monastery when he noticed a thief lurking behind one of the columns. “Here, take this,” said Nagarjuna, holding out the begging bowl. “that way you won’t disturb me once I have fallen asleep.”

The thief eagerly grabbed the bowl and made off – only to return next morning with the bowl and a request. He said, “When you gave away this bowl so freely last night, you made me feel very poor. Teach me how to acquire the riches that make this kind of light-hearted detachment possible.”

Don’t know that I would have passed my “golden bowl” over so easily, but I recall Jesus saying something very similar about the things we get attached to.

For another take, check out the discussion on this site on how to deal with thieves! It’s a lesson on “how not to market the church” to thieves or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps Nagarjuna can show us all a few things about how to follow our master!

New links

I’ve just updated some links in the sidebar to the left, mostly around the Stone-Campbell theme. I find I’m talking in terms of “Stone-Campbell” rather than “restoration movement” these days, as the latter term can be and often is misconstrued. As ever, it is a meeting with individuals who engage the challenges of their time with principles that are transferable from the age of the New Testament to their milieu, and which we can keep on discovering and applying to the unique challenges and opportunities of our own time, that pays dividends. This calls for flexibility rather than rigidity, and all too often (myself included) apologists for “restoration” have been trapped in structures and understanding of New Testament practices that have been brittle and unbending. Stone and Campbell seem to have been effective counterpoints to each other – with Stone’s emphasis on response to the movements of God’s Spirit and Campbell’s concern for doctrine, structure and correctness. Together, perhaps, both eclipse these characteristics with a focus on the unity of Christ’s church so that evangelistic endeavour might be effective.

Anyhow, the Disciples Historical Society link takes you to a range of interesting sources, articles and reflections that explore the Churches of Christ story, and the Great Communion site has lots of ideas on how to prepare for an event that promises significant opportunities for the world-wide Stone-Campbell spectrum of the church at large.

Does green have a dark side?

I occasionally post “sustainable energy” news clips to the PeaceChurch mailing list, particularly where the church in Australia is adding something to the debate. Responses are inevitably mixed – no less earlier this week when I posted the following:

Some 40 religious leaders (including Churches of Christ, as well as leaders from Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Baha’i faiths) sent a letter to the Fed Government “calling for immediate and decisive action on climate change”(8.8.08)It coincided with a visit to Australia by Pacific church leaders who are deeply concerned about the effects of climate change on the region. The letter can be seen at http://mediaroom.victas.uca.org.au/?p=330

Some of the feedback (with permission from all sources) can be found in the comments section on this post. You may like to continue the discussion there, remembering that light is more illuminating than heat – which, given the topic, sounds like a terrible pun!