the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner
Ever wanted to travel the ancient Roman roads, working out the cheapest or swiftest journey by foot, donkey or trireme? What’s the most efficient route from Eleutheropolis to Olisipo? Which time of the year favors a sail across the briny? Look no further than ORBIS. You can travel back in time and set up your own travel agency!
This article touches on a huge source of anxiety among refugees on bridging visas and living in communities such as ours. A High Court challenge is a flickering sign of hope that our Kafka-like systems will find an inch of redress. The toxic political polarisation that soaks our our waking moments, however, will take something more.
Sorry Day commemorations in Wellington Square, Perth, were significant but low key this morning. The usual annual crowd of 3000, comprising school children and business folk, is not as accessible on a chilly Saturday morning. Even so, about 100 folk gathered at the Sorry Pole listened to speeches from Sorry Day leaders, Noongar Elder Ben Taylor, and WA Govermor Malcom McCusker. Traditional dance and a cleansing smoking ceremony accompanied the planting of the “sea of hands” by all present. Coffee and hot dogs completed the occasion.
A letter in today’s paper asks, “Why keep saying sorry? Isn’t once enough?” It is important for our nation’s healing to keep remembering the Prime Minister’s apology to our indigenous people’s for the harmful policies that all but destroyed them as a culture and a people. Many still live with the legacy of the disintegration of family and identity, revealed in over-representation in prisons, poor health and reduced educational opportunities. To say sorry is not to keep on begging forgiveness, but to express the desire to work together in building adequate redress. Saying sorry moves beyond self indulgence in regret and remorse to the frank acknowledgement that things are not good and we want to act to make them better.
“Sorry” is what grammaticians might describe as a “past continuous” concept – the action begins at a point in history and continues on. It does not rest until redress is complete, and there are 50 plus recommendations from the Sir Ronald Wilson “Bringing Them Home” report to parliament that are yet to be implemented.
No, I haven’t abandoned this blog. Just a tad busy lately. I’ll be back soon – I promise!
I find this article and the accompanying comments moving and disturbing on so many levels. Lamentation, sackcloth and ashes for a country that seems to have lost its soul seems to be the only fitting response.
Why is this the theme of the 2012 Church Camp weekend May 18-20?
Collect your camp registration form this weekend.
No answer there, but come to camp and find out.
A wealthy sheikh decides on a visionary project that would be of benefit to his people (not to mention front door access to his favourite British sport). Having already built a dam for irrigation, he would now like to stock it with salmon for fly fishing. Money is no obstacle, only the initial stubbornness of a narrowly fixated scientist who is maneuvered into heading the project by a government desperate for a good news story from the Middle East. Throw in a dying marriage, an attractive entrepreneur, and a hint of the current debate between faith and science – mix with the peculiar British penchant for understated comedy, and we have 90 minutes of great entertainment and good story telling. I enjoyed it immensely.
Sorry – can never hear the “peacemakers” beatitude quite the same again after Monty Python.
Unless I hear it in a translation from the Aramaic text. Here it is:
Healed are those who bear the fruit of sympathy and safety for all,
they shall hasten the coming of God’s new creation.
(Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons and daughters of God)
In my public harangues I have often drawn a distinction between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy, it seems to me, while exhibiting compassion for another, has tended to stand back and not get too involved – a bit like Lucy’s “I love mankind” sentiment. “Empathy” is much more focused and particular, revealing some costly identification with another person – hence Lucy’s follow through “It’s people I can’t stand!”
In the context of peacemaking, “bearing the fruit of sympathy” might be the appropriate stance. A peacemaker serves best when, assessing the whole picture, is able to bring all parties to the negotiating table. An effective arbitrator needs to be one step removed in order to create the space where reconciliation can be restored. It would not be possible to exhibit empathy for either or both parties without projection or transference/counter-transference issues muddying the waters.
The translation from Aramaic seems to bring greater clarity to the peacemaker’s role.
Time to consider another Beatitude from the syntax of Jesus’own native language:
Happy are they whose passion radiates with deep abiding purpose,
they shall envision the furthest extent of life’s wealth.
(Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God)
Again, a translation of this Beatitude from the Aramaic text calls forth fresh vision.
Many of my ilk equate purity of heart with Puritanism – the less said the better – especially with our Down Under larrikin ethos.
The “pure in heart” terminology gets little airing because of the layers of acquired negative cultural accretion.
But “passion radiating with deep abiding purpose?” That’s different. Yet it is the same.
We might call it single-mindedness, yet it transcends mind – even soul and heart – and embraces the interests of all. It is not a single mindedness born of stubbornness, but of having considered all matters from every conceivable perspective. Empathy and compassion are involved. It is in sync with the preceding beatitudes.
This is a state that eclipses our cultural peculiarities.
…was aborted. It was intended for another site. Sorry!
