the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner
Primal love ignited the cosmos
And it could not be contained
Elusive in its fecundity
Far beyond all that can be sustained.
Yet once upon our timeline
A young girl burst into songful mirth
Primal love found concentration
and became a human birth.
(c) Dennis Ryle December 2024
Who dares speak of joy
In this world so full of woe?
When downcast eyes and heavy hearts
Question why it is so.
Why spell out this defiant word
In the face of life so dreary?
Don’t you see the tear-stained face
and the shoulders stooped so weary?
The prophet calls for peace and faith,
The apostle for robust trust,
The baptiser lays out a brand new path,
And we catch a glint amongst the dust.
For in the darkness, there’s a spark,
A flicker of a brighter dawn,
While hope, though fragile, never fades,
And joy’s rebirth is gently drawn.
(c) Dennis Ryle December 2024
While thirteen-year-olds riot on Rottnest
and Middle East regimes fall
Assassins smile and CEOs hide away
Prophets amplify their call.
Prepare the way! Get ready!
Straighten things up and clear the road!
If it’s peace you want, then roll up your sleeves
And do the work, share the load.
For peace within requires an altered mind
And a disposition to forgiveness
Peace without requires a critical mass
Of such who dispense such witness.
Advent peace the prophets bring
Malachi and John, the one who baptises
Not for the faint hearted, this peace of old
But One is coming who Shalom comprises!
(c) Dennis Ryle December 2024
Political fortunes shift and sway
Abroad and at home we dodge their spray
Except that’s impossible, for come what may
They affect how we live from day to day.
Something anew has risen its head
A phrase of combat that fills one with dread
Fresh from a lexicon of conflict abroad
Familiar, however, for we’ve wielded its sword.
Lawfare – the bitter charge is hurled from each side
The “law of the jungle” would better describe
Not only the conflict of Titans unleashed
But effects on the people remaining unreached
‘Tis the season of hope – can such survive?
For Advent calls forth a spirit to thrive
On One who comes to sort out the mess
Ancient Law of Shalom arriving to bless
So this first week of Advent calls all to hope
With images of peace expanding our scope
The Law of the Jungle must yield its domain
The Law of Love is here to remain.
Dennis Ryle (c) December 2024
Fifty years ago, tonight, I knelt alongside my colleagues as elders of the Federal Conference of Churches of Christ in Australia stepped forward. They laid hands upon us, ordaining us as ministers. This sacred moment marked the climax of four years of rigorous study, formation, and discernment within our live-in community.
I honed my skills in Victoria as a trainee minister in two suburban churches and one rural church. Following graduation and ordination, I served congregations across South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, and Western Australia. In retirement, I remain actively engaged in ministry.
Today’s moment will pass with little fanfare, just a quiet toast with close friends during an impromptu weekend retreat. In Churches of Christ, we embrace mutual ministry and the priesthood of all believers. Our history, while celebrating entrepreneurial, pastoral, and innovative leadership, shuns the notion of a clergy class that separates the shepherd from the flock.
Some have remarked that our baptism is our ordination.
Yet today feels special—it is a thin moment. I am remembering the faces of countless individuals, young and old, from all walks of life, with whom I have shared significant moments of deep engagement in life’s struggles and opportunities. Each face is unique, each story distinct. Many of them are now beyond the veil, part of that great cloud of witnesses.
Fifty years ago, kneeling on that platform, I recall asking myself in trepidation, “What have I done? What now?”
Fifty years on, today, I savour the same question with gratitude, awe and a remaining reserve of expectancy.
James Baillie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Waking up to the day that marks the middle of my seventies, the muse beckons me to a brief thematic review of each decade – its wound and its gift. So here goes!
Decade one sees a fawn emerge
Timidly testing boundaries
Seeking safe borders
Decade two summons brittle courage
Trading safety for adventure
Finally discovering a set course
Decade three packs so much in
Equipped, wedded, and set loose
To see what makes this man
Decade four lights the fire that refines
Battles fought and skirmishes won
Revealing wounds that heal
Decade five changes landscape
A vineyard to tend
Its wine rich and flavorsome
Decade six calls forth a reluctant chief
Steering tribes through daunting change
While ever seeking one’s own stability
Decade seven sees broken shards
Releasing exotic bouquets
Bringing endings that are yet beginnings
Decade eight is not what it might seem.
Service ended that yet begins
Still in the fray of battle
Each decade has its four gospel paths
Winding change, suffering, union and service
Christ’s Celtic knot!
I saw it online
Therefore, it must be worthy
According to who?
I’m conflicted – ever vigilant and vexed by the great tide of false and harmful content washing over mainstream and social media and alarmed by current legislative efforts to curb it.
It is always problematic when freedom of speech is undermined by censorship. The current bill before the Federal Parliament aims to regulate not just factual content but also opinion. Who sets the criteria?
To manage the effects of content explosion on the population, investment in training critical thinking and cultivating discernment skills is a more promising alternative to bureaucratic control of legislation.
I asked Artificial Intelligence (AI) to compose a ballad exploring the conundrum of St Valentine’s Day falling on Ash Wednesday. Both are on the Christian calendar. One is a feast; the other begins the Lenten fast.
It was fascinating to watch AI wrestle with a binary rather than a unified approach. AI is culturally conditioned to have love triumph over death – and of course, properly understood, this is a major Christian theme. So the ballad, unremarkably, had romantic love rein supreme, but was sloppily sentimental – without depth. We do like to race to triumph at the expense of proper engagement with what we find uncomfortable.
My AI engine sees romantic love as a stronger force than the penitence, self-reflection and acceptance of one’s mortality associated with Ash Wednesday. It showed a struggle between two polarised energies rather than complementary sides of the same coin. One side had to win.
Here we might reflect on the deeper Greek meaning of sensual Love (Eros) as a life-inducing energy and the defining reality of Death (Thanatos). Both are powerful forces.
Biblically we might see both these realities reflected in the Hebrew texts of the Song of Songs (Eros) and Ecclesiastes (Thanatos). Together, they brim with vital wisdom, giving full reign to the passions of live-giving fecundity and the restraints provided by a humble reception of life’s seasons.
So let’s educate AI and see what it comes up with!
Passion’s flame burns bright,
Mortality’s gentle touch,
Love blooms in the dusk.
There we go. St Valentine wears the ashes!
And Easter people, as did the original St Valentine, know that the journey goes on to Resurrection and beyond.
Many Christians worldwide are now preparing to observe the Season of Lent, beginning next week with Ash Wednesday and culminating in Holy Week, the days marking the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem and the events concluding with the triduum, that is Good Friday to Easter Sunday, the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus as Christ. This journey focuses on the great Christian themes of penitence, redemption, and atonement, and the rites of various Christian traditions provide the “pegs” as we move through this 40-day-plus journey.
In recent years my attention has been drawn to a parallel journey hidden deep within the Christian tradition beginning a few days before Lent and culminating at Pentecost, some fifty days beyond Easter celebrations. It is called “the Great Hundred Days,” commencing with the Feast of Transfiguration (this Sunday) and ending with the Feast of Pentecost. I am grateful to friend and author Alexander John Shaia for awakening me to this awareness.
Whereas Lent is marked by fasting, this journey is marked by feasting!
Its emphasis is on theosis, carried more familiarly to those in my tradition as the doctrines of sanctification or unification. While embracing the events of the better-known Lenten journey, its emphasis is on claiming through the Christ story the process of being transformed into the original blessedness of humanity being created in the image of God and, through Christ’s work, being enabled to work towards completing that image.
Both Lent and the Hundred Days help us enact the redemptive work of Christ in our living and in Creation.
When entering Lenten celebrations, I would usually remind congregations that we enter the season, not in defeat, but as an Easter people in whom the Easter story is already at work by God’s generous outpouring of beneficence and love. We are tempted to want to try to earn redemption through self-denial and self-negation, hence another phrase of mine, “Don’t ask yourself what you’re going to give up for Lent, ask yourself what you’re prepared to take on!” A Great Hundred Days orientation seems to reset the course.
I am reminded of the two prisoners looking out – one saw mud, the other stars. Perhaps the two journeys that are about to commence remind me of how those two prisoners that are sometimes within me jostle for perspective.
“Well, if you’re going to talk to me in that way with your insults and ultimatums, you’re going to find me a tough customer! I advise you to find your manners and then come back for a chat.” Does that sound non-confronting? Is there a better way? When I’m in conflict with someone, I can choose to answer them from a snarly, passive-aggressive stance or to reach down deeper to find a more gracious way of responding.
Richard Rohr’s words caught my eye:
In the world of grace and freedom, for a channel to be opened, it must flow forward, through, and toward something else—or the channel becomes blocked. The positive and appreciative response demands consciousness and choice—and freedom on our part.
In other words, if I feed negative feelings back by sound, sense or stance, the rift in the relationship will become more pronounced and escalated. Words and phrases will stick like velcro, blocking the channels of constructive communication.
If, on the other hand, I meet negativity by reaching down to where the rivers of grace and gratitude freely flow and respond from that place, our discourse has a greater chance of flowing towards a creative resolution. Teflon is smooth and non-stick, easing the flow.
So here’s a gauge by which I can measure the effectiveness of my arguments over things great or small. “I see you and acknowledge your frustration. There is an answer and I believe we can work together to find it – something that meets your desire and mine.”
Am I using velcro or teflon?
Wondering Pilgrim 