Reflections from the belly
Bless the Lord, ice and cold … (Canticle of Daniel)
We’ve just marked the winter solstice and, rather fittingly, we’ve had heavy rain, pounding hail, and a bitterly cold wind which cuts to the bone; and also rumours of koontapool (southern right whales) returning to the bay. So this week, you are invited to dwell in a song of praise which calls on rain, wind, frost, cold and even whales to bless the Lord. Continue reading “Canticle of Daniel | Slow reading | Bless the Lord, ice and cold”
The story of Abram points to a more just settlement, paving the way to Voice and Treaty. (Listen.)
Leave your country, your kin, and your ancestral home, you poverty-stricken Cornishfolk, for a land which I will show you. It’s the colony of South Australia, Burra to be precise; and it needs people like you to chop down trees and lay out farms and work the mines and subdue the earth. Continue reading “Genesis | Abram: Our ancestor-colonizer”
If you enter your place of worship then remember that your brother or sister has something against you, abandon your offering and go, be reconciled to your brother or sister. Make things right. Then and only then, come back and offer your gift to God. (Matthew 5:23-24)
I was absolutely sickened by the brutal, arrogant and downright ugly carving of a Jesus-branded message into an Indigenous sacred site on Mount Beerwah last week. (If you missed it, someone used a power tool to gouge “JESUS SAVES JUST ASK HIM” in letters up to an inch deep across the rockface.) Continue reading “Reconciliation Week | Before reconciliation”
They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone. They were afraid, because … (Mark 16:8)
Easter morning 2020. Pre-dawn, Peek Whurrong country. A group of women appears, walking; one carries a bag with liturgical supplies. One by one, cars roll up, park, and turn off their lights. Figures emerge, hard to see in the shadows. Voices are hushed as people pick their way towards the nature play area, flitting between shadows and trees. Continue reading “Place | Botanic Gardens | Peek Whurrong country”
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now … (Romans 8:22) + And straightaway the spirit drove him out into the wilderness. (Mark 1:12)
We often think of the wilderness like a modern day national park, that is, somewhere without people. But this is a colonial view. Whether it’s the Amorites, the Jebusites, the Perizzites or the many peoples of the Eastern Maar nation, saying any land is empty erases the Indigenous peoples who have always walked and tended the earth; it is an act of genocide; it forgets that even national parks have been violently emptied. Continue reading “Place | Industrial estate | Peek Whurrong country”
Those who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall soar on wings like eagles. (Isaiah 40:31)
I took myself up Mt Noorat, one of the many sleeping volcanoes dotted around the landscape. Perhaps you know this walk: the stroll past eucalyptus trees; the short stiff climb to the first lookout for a quick breather. Then the scramble up the next slope and over the stile, and a longer pause at the top to catch your breath and look to Terang, Mt Leura, the plains stretched out like a vast undulating blanket. Then the rolling walk around the rim, as peeping birds flit around the grassy slopes and the wind whistles and sings. Continue reading “Place | Mount Noorat | Kirrae Whurrung country”
A reflection for white settlers living on stolen land. (Listen.)
It’s tempting to reflect on the bones. The massacre site that is now a fast food restaurant just a couple of blocks from Sanctuary. The bones which still wash up from time to time on the beach near Peterborough. The babies’ bones buried six feet under at the missions. The bones which were scattered throughout the landscape, left to rot in every lake, valley and hollow, left lying in the paddocks to dry out in the sun. It’s tempting to focus on the bones: because our history and geography are studded with other people’s bones. Continue reading “Ezekiel | Dem dry colonial bones”
We are always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:10-11)
When my mum was disabled by MS, I lost count of the number of good Christian folk who demanded to know whether we had ‘tried prayer’ to cure her. Now that I have my own health wobbles, I sometimes find it hard not to blame myself. The pernicious thoughts sneak in: ‘Is this the result of unhealthy choices? Too much stress? A lack of prayer?’ Never for anyone else, mind; just for myself. Continue reading “Place | Scar tree | Djab Wurrung country”
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season; you open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. (Psalm 145:15-16)
When I drop my daughter at the stables, I look across the wetlands to the dunes. Between the weathered, flattened dunes are two perky dunes side by side. For all the world, they look like a young woman’s breasts. I prayer-dream a woman lying across the landscape. Her hair streams like kelp into the sea; her breasts rise among the dunes; her womb encompasses the fertility of the wetlands. Continue reading “Place | Kelly’s Swamp | Peek Whurrong country”
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. (Mark 1:9)
I am prayer-reading the story of Jesus’ baptism. Using the tools of lectio divina, I read it slowly once, twice, three times. Using my sacred imagination, I place myself in the crowd, watching; as a priest, coming down against this baptism; as John, holding people close as I plunge them into the river … Continue reading “Place | Panmure swimming holy | Kirrae Whurrung country”
Alison and the whale 