If a picture is worth a thousand words, what would this pictures words be??
This shot taken on a street in Melbourne, on the street are great cafes, a bakery and restaurants.
It is also home to one of the few funeral parlours in the ‘inner’ City precinct.
It has a history of funeral services for people of means, criminals, famous people and of the granddaughter of some friends.
The place was packed, I was there as a mark of respect for the grandparents. It was so packed many had to stand out in the street, which is where I stood.
I had no official part to play, no words of comfort to offer, no antidotes and I shed no tears, I just observed others grieving and ‘coming to terms’ with death and dying.
I went and purchased small packets of tissues to hand to people and to place a hand on the shoulder of strangers.
I was reminded of the line in a song, everybody gets a chance to be a nobody.
I like being a nobody.
So Easter celebrations are over.
So whats different today after ‘Formal Easter Celebrations’ have ended?
POPUP is an informal get together of people, who have faith communities, but sometimes like to to discuss, vent, encourage, be encouraged and heard in a different setting.
Today three of us spent one and a half hours drinking coffee/hot chocolate and discussing matters of faith and personal stuff.
We are quite different, rather than look for differences we share what we have in common and challenge and are challenged to think and rethink what we believe and why.
It is always good to listen and be heard, and to go away knowing we love and care for each other.
One person who is a regular, has recently moved back with partner and family after a time of separation,another is a single dad coping with all the stuff of life and who hangs out with ‘dangerous’ people, then there is me, who struggles to make sense of doubt and faith.
Together we travel this road we call ‘our faith journey’, and together discover the importance of life before death!!
It’s a mixed group, crazy group, and its sinners and saints together making sense of life
Its all quiet now, the stocking is empty too
I think Ive got the post Christmas blues.
The food has been eaten, the waste has been thrown out too
I think Ive got the post Christmas blues
There is an emptiness now, I don’t know what to do
I’m sure Ive got the post Christmas blues
I wonder if Joy, Love, Hope and Peace will disappear now I have the post Christmas blues??
Hi Fred how are you today?
I’m busier than a one legged man in a bum kicking contest!!
Being busy, it seems to me, has become a badge of honour over the years.
Growing up in a farming community describing someone as a ‘hard worker,’ was seen as a good thing, even if the reality was that same person was bad tempered and sometimes violent.
I find myself some days falling into the same trap, making myself busy as if to justify my own existence and self worth.
I had time to reflect on this recently as I ‘loitered’ with intent on the Melbourne Streets.
As I wandered around one of the usual locations watching the world go by
that troubled feeling that I was not ‘doing’ anything engulfed me.
Continuing to wander and watch, catching peoples eyes and smiling, I noticed a elderly lady, who was sitting not far from me.
She caught my eye because she looked at peace with the world.
I noticed after sometime she was struggling to get up from the seat.
I wandered over and asked if she would like a hand. She agreed and after I helped her up, I went back to loitering and watching.
The struggle of ‘doing’ and ‘being’ was again foremost on my mind, when a bloke, approached me.
He was no stranger, we had chatted only weeks earlier, when he reminded me we had met at his cousins funeral some eight years earlier, which I had conducted.
Battle scared from living rough, he was on for a chat, so we did.
After a while he thanked me for the time spent with him, and he hugged me.
This man was homeless and alienated from his family through drug abuse and violence was grateful for the time spent with him, reminded me again, that ‘being’ is a good thing/
As we parted company we agreed that next time we met we would have a meal together.
I returned to where I was ‘loitering’ vowing to never underestimate the value of ‘being’.
Have just returned from four days away with sisters and brothers from all over Australia and some from the UK.
Bruce Cockburn, a Canadian musician a favourite of mine has a song called ‘
The Trouble with Normal, from an album of the same name.
One of the lines goes, “It’ll all go back to normal if we put our nation first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
Another, Person in the street shrugs — “Security comes first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
“Okay, watch that step as you climb onto my bandwagon….again”
I was reading the Bible the other day, yes I do read it occasionally despite what some people think, and I found a bit I’d never seen before…
There’s this bit in the Bible called the Gospel of St. Matthew, it’s full of great things, stories and sayings and stuff. It’s split into chapters and the chapters are split into verses. In one of those ‘chapters’, 22 actually, at verse 37 and 39 there is this great bit that seems to have been edited in many Bibles. The first part seems to be there but some Bibles don’t seem to have the second bit. The whole thing says…
Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
I meet lots of nice Christian people who seem to have Bibles with only the first part. Lots of loving God and Jesus and stuff and that where it ends – they miss out on the next bit, it looks like it’s been cut out of their Gospels and that’s very sad because it’s a commandment. This commandment that is ‘like’ the first one and the first one is ‘the greatest commandment’. So that second, missing one is also an important commandment – ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ We can’t ignore that it, yet so many seem to or at least choose who they think their neighbour is.
I get emails from people and it surprises me how many are from ‘Christians’ who tell me I’m wrong for, and I’ll quote one for you, “caring for the rag heads and fags bcoz Gods sending them to hell.” So that second part doesn’t count then – those ‘people’ aren’t your neighbours, is that’s it?
I get so frustrated – why can’t people see this? – It’s not rocket science – WE CANNOT PICK WHO JESUS TELLS US TO LOVE, we don’t get to make that decision.
And yet so many Christians think we can. I’ve seen lists that ‘Christians’ have written of people that God hates – everything from authors who write about children who go to magic school to people who watch films about kids who go to magic school to people that listen to rock music to people who read C.S. Lewis (yeah that one made me laugh too). If you put enough of these lists together you can see that God hates everyone and, therefore, so should we!
Yet I see that little verse in that Matthew Gospel thingy that says, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
Let’s narrow the whole thing down to the street on which I live – I don’t get to choose who my next door neighbour is – I’d like to but I don’t get to. I’d like Hallé Berry but, like I said, I don’t get to make that choice. So my next door neighbour is whoever ends up living in the house next to me – it could be a horrible, rich, white Christian family or it could be a nice, poor Muslim family or, well my point is it could be anyone – even you.
And here’s the steps for that bandwagon – climb up and join me as we look BIG PICTURE again –
Guess what – Jesus says that we should ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’ – WHOEVER that neighbour is! The ‘rag head’ or the ‘fag’, or any other of 10,000 derogatory terms you can use, do not let you escape the fact that Jesus has told you that they are your neighbour and you are commanded, COMMANDED, to love them like you do yourself.
Tough isn’t it! No one said it would be easy.
(with the sound suppressed, semi-automatic pistol of the Spirit. Yours for under $2,000)
I will draw my Texas blog to a close – in its own way Texas was as brilliant as Denver. Where Denver was hands on, feet dirty, get in there and do it Texas was very different. And I expected it to be.
I went there to learn social media stuff and wow did I have a brilliant teacher – Pastor David Hansen (as well as being an amazing pastoral minister (you should see the way the people in the church love him), an amazing host (with his lovely wife Megan), a very handsome man (have you seen the pictures? he reminds me of a movie star or at least someone I know I’ve seen before) – on top of all that he is also a social media guru.
A lot of my Texas time was taken up sitting in front of computers doing ‘stuff’. Twitter and Facebook are no longer mysteries to me – podcasting, pfft I can do it in my sleep now – and twitter chats – I’ve seen how the best moderates them (from an armchair, with a beer!).
But being a geek wasn’t all I did. There are just one or two little experiences I want to share before I move on –
Lunch with Bishop Mike –
The ELCA (The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) has bishops. I had lunch with one and his family. I would just like to say thank you to Bishop Mike for taking time out of his sabbatical to come and eat TexMex with me. We had a great chat and to hear of the work and how the ELCA orders things makes our Gymanfa look very small. (I know it is but this reminded me of how small.) Bishop Mike has been quite outspoken on the situation in Gaza and we had a great discussion about balancing personal and professional social media posts. I learnt a lot (and not just how to load a taco). Thank you.
Another visit to a Christian book barn.
WOW – these places scare me – piousness and poison under the same roof. A man cannot serve two masters – its either God or money well in this place God was served a lot – every transaction was something about God but he was not the master there, this was a Christian money printing factory. I might be wrong but isn’t “Clean hands and a pure heart” hand sanitiser going a bit far?? What about “the spark plugs Jesus would use”?
Some of the books would be funny if they weren’t serious titles – “God and Guns” was probably my favourite but there were plenty of others.
Bad breath? Jesus mints will drive out the demons of halitosis.
God bless my gun cabinet.
A prayer to God for peace, for America and for the Marine Corps.
It was endless – I was glad when we left and went to the gun store!
I had heard a lot about the gun culture in the States – the right to bear arms (but not to arm bears – it would be fairer if they did). I was intrigued to see it for myself and where better than the local, family run, gun shoppe.
If the Christian book store was bad I don’t know what this was. It was a temple to gun metal, and it was a very scary temple.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time around firearms, I know what they can do and I think I can use one safely. This place wasn’t a gun store though, it was an arsenal. You can get pink shotguns for your little girl; semi-automatic rifles to go ‘hunting’ with; as much ammo as you could carry; shoulder holsters; ankle holsters; gun vests; cartridge making machines – everything the wanna be gun nut could want; but the worse thing (or the best thing, depending on your point of view) was the pistol with military grade suppressor (silencer).
Why would you ever need one? I cannot think of a legal situation that would require a pistol with a silencer. I can sort of see why you would need a semi-automatic rifle with sub-sonic, hollow point bullets – if a huge bear was running at me, all teeth and claws and menace I’d probably be glad of one, (I still think they should arm the bears to make the fight fairer though) but a silenced semi-automatic pistol.
WHY?
Not for personal protection – I’d want every criminal to know I had a gun so I wouldn’t silence it. Not for hunting – its useless as a hunting pistol and still makes enough noise to scare off any game. Not at the local gun club – you all wear ear protectors. I cannot for the life of me see why.
I fell in love with parts of America and with parts of the American church but there are certain things that make me glad I’m coming home to Oz – and military grade, noise suppressed, semi-automatic pistols for under $2,000 is one of them. Makes me shudder to think of it.
I was sad to leave the Lone Star State. I made good friends there, I saw how two wonderful churches (Spirit of Joy! (don’t leave out the exclamation mark) and Grace Lutheran) and how two truly wonderful pastors work, I met loads of wonderful people of God who are doing amazing work in his name, even a couple of decent presbyterians. But Texas really is another America though – a wild, weird and wonderful place full of strange people, spaceships, gun shops and Jeezus.
Onward to Baltimore…..