So runs the Maori proverb in “Native Wisdom for White Minds”
But how many times have I encountered wise heads on young shoulders and immature heads that have long years?
Calculating Seventy Times Seven?
- Image via Wikipedia
Some folk are fond of saying that the teachings of Jesus are impossible to live.
“How often should I forgive – seven times?” asked Peter (no doubt believing himself to be typically magnanimous)
“Pffft!”, replies Jesus, “not seven. Try seventy times seven!”
This was yesterday’s lection, and Ben Smith, our guest speaker, sought to relate it to his report on our local inter-church Food Bank by pointing to the stance of compassion that underpins the Gospel. That is, if one’s basic stance to life is one of compassion, the ability to forgive is a by-product. Other fruits are empathy, selflessness, community, mutual dignity, humility.
Yesterday was also 9/11 and it’s here that “seventy times seven” arises as a a significant challenge. Does 490 cover the initial 3000 and the 100s of 1000s that followed?
I’m sure Jesus wasn’t suggesting his disciples might carry around an abacus so they could stop when 490 was reached. My guess is he was believing they would be so practiced in forgiving that the momentum would keep carrying them forward!
Naive? Some folk find such teachings so naive they actually work!
Here’s a Melbourne aboriginal artist putting 70 x 7 to the test. I wonder how it will work out? Preview: Seventy Times Seven – Local News – News – General – Melbourne Weekly.
9/11 reflections
We haven’t mentioned it much today, but it’s there in the background.
We all know precisely where we were and what we were doing when the planes hit the towers.
We know that the world with which we are most familiar – the privileged, secure world of unquestioned entitlement – took a turn towards a deep and dangerous angst.
We are aware that, in the backlash, 100s of 1000s of people have lost their lives in the wake of the 3000.
The horror of the fall of the towers seems personal. Why?
Is it six degrees of separation?
It seems everyone knows someone who was touched by a personal loss.
I watched a TV interview of an old acquaintance who barely escaped with his life.
Ten years on it is evident that the emotion is still raw, as acts of heroism and kindness are recalled.
He spoke not of anger, but profound sadness.
Does 9/11 stand out because dedicated and focused evil intent succeeded in seeking arbitrary destruction of the innocent and unaware?
Yet evil intent, varying in degrees of focus and ambition, slaughters thousands each day.
And the cycle continues.
Does 9/11 hold a mirror before us?
And we are horrified at what we see?
Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy
Recycling light
We seem to be going through the energy saver light bulbs a bit more quickly than I anticipated. Luckily our local IKEA takes them for recycling. Can’t complain though, especially looking at how, McGyver like, this community addresses its lighting problem.
Asylum seekers: What was really said …
In all fairness, I should follow up yesterday’s post with this: Asylum seekers: Andrew Metcalfe’s controversial remarks | Crikey.
Doesn’t alter the fact that we need to go back to the drawing board for fair treatment of those who reach our shores claiming asylum. The secrecy and criminilisation that is current needs to be swept away and a more transparent and “accountable to the public” system put in place. And dare I say compassionate?
Are there Dinosaurs in DOIC?
Remnants of the White Australia era seem to lurk in the labyrinthine corridors of Immigration & Citizenship – and they are advising our politicians!
Let’s hope that the PM listens to Senator Brown and gives them the old heave-ho!
Then maybe our politicians, desperate for sound advice, will heed those with some runs on the board: Asylum seekers and refugees | ACOSS.
That’s all!
Crossing places
Back from retreat. Reflecting still on the ramifications of chaos theory, entropy of closed systems, and the ‘strange attractor‘ in evolutionary transition. So much sync with the Christian story! Ably led by Margaret Silf.
Here’s something I wrote on “crossing places”
My rope bridge came to mind even before it was mentioned
I hate even thinking about it
yet consider it I must for it has come to the rescue many a time before today.
As a child I played with rope
trying it this way and that
little realising that I was learning its swing, its knots,
and breaking suppleness into the stiffness of newness.
In the headiness of youth I one day swung it wide
and some divine being caught the end and tied it.
I crossed many gorges and rivers, taking companions with me.
Then there was the night someone in panic threatened to bomb my bridge.
“Career” he called it.
I said he could do what he liked with my career,
but only God could remove my rope, my vocation.
Another from unconfronted pain
set white ants loose on the wooden trestles.
Others sought to shore up the timbers
even when I pointed to the rope.
The timbers failed
but my rope was in place
and we all made it to the other side
where new beginnings beckoned.
The rope is always there – in my rucksack
– right now way down underneath the other things.
I have to unpack everything before pulling it out, neatly coiled
ready to be stretched out, tied to something,
and the loose end thrown across to – what?
I have to trust again that some angel on the hidden side will hold it,
and catch me as I practice my clumsy aerial acrobatics.
God I hate heights!
But with the resources of wit and wisdom honed by previous use
I swing like Charlotte on her web
not knowing where the rope is attached
for it disappears into the mist.
I simply trust that the angel is not a demon
that the destination heralds a new beginning
and not a final ending.
Exploring destinations beyond
Imagine living in West Berlin during the time of the separation of East and West Germany – half a city full of bright lights and high commercial activity walled off to its other half and the surrounding countryside. Bus and train routes come to an abrupt halt at the borders. The destinations displayed on the board are beyond but out of reach. To resident and casual visitor, they are unknown and mysterious.
This is one of the pictures painted by Margaret Silf, who lived in West Berlin for three years during this period. Of course, the image provokes thoughts of the kinds of walls that we erect in our inner worlds that prevent us from reaching destinations beyond. When the Berlin wall came down, how attainable were the places beyond? Did the destruction of physical barriers lower psychological walls? How long does it take for new freedoms to be realised?
What might happen when we actually travel to those destinations beyond?
Blogged in advance because I’m now secluded in retreat under the leadership of Margaret Silf.
Retreat to advance…
Yep, I’m off to cool my heels for a few days at the local monastery.
Contemplative author, Margaret Silf, is leading a retreat around the theme of “transformation.” It seems to sync with some of my daydreaming of late, particularly following discussions on committees and commissions that, confronted with the need for change, are tempted to tinker around the edges – or even change their nomenclature.
Hence committees become “action groups”, convenors become “team leaders” and so it goes… but the same old structures and methods remain.
Organisational behaviour seems to be going through a time of angst that reflects the mood of our times. There is a yearning for change that will unleash life, creativity and compassion – real community – but a fear that that too much is risked if we abandon familiar ways and stances, even though they crumble.
So it does one good to retreat – stand on a hill and survey the whole battlefield, identify purposeful objectives – then advance.
Celebrating Forest Sunday
Sustainable September is a Western Australian initiative designed to focus the community across a spectrum of social, environmental and economic actions. It coincides nicely with the the Season of Creation on the church calendar, marked particularly by the Uniting Church in Australia, and which began in 2000 and coincided unknowingly with a parallel season called the Time of Creation being developed by the European Christian Environmental Network.
Why all this fuss about the environment? Along with other concerned world citizens, many Christians have been waking to their mandate as stewards or carers of the planet. Regardless of faith stance, aware people know that the human species is well equipped to modify and manage natural environments. Greed and the lust for control have revealed what happens when the task is poorly managed or even dismissed. For Christians, contemplative action leads to a healing of the wounds of creation.
So today is Forests Sunday, followed (in Australia) by Land, Wilderness/Outback, and River Sundays. Other countries will vary the names of the Sundays according to the environmental concerns of their regions.
Today’s reflective focus on forests invites us to dwell on the sheer gift of being able to walk among trees, observe the life that is sustained, and cherish the artifacts that find their source in our forests sufficiently to ensure the sustainability of old growth forest through a concentration of the use of well managed plantation timber. While mindful of the great legislative challenges of deforestation in other countries, there is sufficient challenge in our own to ensure a striving for proper balance.
Wondering Pilgrim 