Tag: life

Isaiah | A vision for the City of Manningham

Isaiah’s vision of the city of joy, shared at the induction of Rev Con Apokis. (Listen here.)

A city of joy, its people a delight: this is what God promises through the prophet Isaiah. It sounds wonderful! So, what are the elements of this joyful city? First, says Isaiah, health and wellbeing. No child will die young; no senior die prematurely (Isaiah 65:20). And we can imagine it. In this city, the air is clean, and the soil and waters, too. There are no coal-fired power stations; no rampaging wildfires; no unprecedented floods. No children or elders are struggling for breath through air yellow with smog; no one is sick from forever chemicals because these are forever banned; no one is collapsing from extreme heat.

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Luke | Resurrection now!

Resurrection life starts today! A little something from the archives, refreshed for a new context. (Listen here.)

If you’re a fan of Bon Iver, perhaps you know he takes his stage name from the greeting shared in the quirky tv show, Northern Exposure. Bon hiver! Good winter! In the show, a young urban Jewish doctor is sent to small town Alaska to pay off his medical tuition. There he encounters all sorts of eccentric inhabitants, including Maggie. Maggie’s a bush pilot whose boyfriends have all died in bizarre ways. Steve was hit by lightning. Harry ate tainted potato salad. Bruce had a fishing accident. Glen took a wrong turn into a missile test range. Dave froze to death on a glacier. Then Rick is killed by a falling satellite: and Maggie is somehow blamed.

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Psalms | Even the hard pathways overflow with abundance

A meditation on rivers and soil and economies of gift and abundance. (Listen here.) For the record, I preached this, said Amen, then there was a great long rumble of rolling thunder followed by beautiful, softening rain. We at MUC took this as the earth’s Amen; you can draw your own conclusions.

Back in the 1800’s, a vast swamp and river basin in Toronto were covered over. The wetlands were buried eight metres deep in dirt and gravel so that the city could expand. In the 1920’s, the river itself was re-routed into a concrete channel, so its path could be fixed and the area even more heavily industrialised. Factories poured their waste into the river; raw sewage was also directed there. The river became so polluted that it was declared dead. On several occasions, it caught on fire.

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Prayer | God of both memory and forgetting

It’s Dementia Action Week. Amidst all the events, information sessions and activities, I wrote this little prayer for Manningham Uniting Church. It was distributed through their monthly magazine, which this month is focused on memory.

God of both memory and forgetting,
you remember us tenderly yet you forget our sins.
Help us do likewise.
Help us recall the good, the joyful, the just.
Help us bear our pain and loss.
Help us forget all hurt.
And when we cannot remember even ourselves,
remember us, God. Remember us.
Hold us firmly in your love.
For you have written our names in a memory book,
and claimed us as your own.

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John | The communion of breath

The breath-wind-spirit of God is an invitation to deep communion. (Listen here.)

One thing I learned from my middle child is this: horses greet one another by exchanging breath. Some time later I met Poppy. She gently leaned her muzzle against my forehead. We breathed once, twice, three times, and my whole being filled with an awareness of the goodness of fresh grass and clean hay and the exuberant muscular joy of galloping over a hillside. It was one of the more powerful experiences I have had of communion.

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Luke | All things new

Resurrection life is elusive and disruptive—and changes everything. (Listen here.)

Christ is risen! Alleluia! And have a chocolate egg. For weeks, we’ve being seeing displays of cute little bunnies, colourful eggs and images of a European spring. After a long hard winter, when all has been dark and dormant, it’s time to celebrate the resurrection. For the goddess Eostre has returned to the earth once more, bringing with her the dawn, the light, and the new life. And she is why the days are lengthening, the bunnies are hopping, the eggs are hatching and we’re all gathered here today. Alleluia! It’s Easter! Praise Eostre!

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John | The relational god

Life in the gospel according to John: what is it? Here’s my take for a second-gen Vietnamese-Australian congregation living in a secular age. (Watch on YouTube here.)

You’ve all seen them. Maybe there’s one in a house you know, or maybe at a place you like to eat pho. Maybe it’s on a shop counter, or in the corner of an office. Wherever it is, it’s a little shrine. What’s on it can vary. Sometimes it’s oranges, but at Tet, or the lunar New Year, it’s the five fruits. Usually there’s incense, often jasmine tea. There may be flowers, even an oil lamp. Perhaps a Buddha or a crucifix. And, of course, there’s the photographs of ancestors who are being remembered and honoured at these altars.

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Job | On suffering and shimmering joy

Suffering is indiscriminate, but then again, so is joy. (Listen here).

There is a story in the gospel according to John which begins like this: Jesus was walking along when he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ These days, we’re not quite so quick to blame people for being differently abled or ill. And yet when my mother, Ruth, had multiple sclerosis, I lost count of the number of people who became frustrated, even angry, with her.

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Genesis | Abraham and the teacher trees

An invitation to connect with the earth. (Listen here).

Down by the river, on a gentle bend, there is a quiet spot. You can rest there awhile and listen to the water rippling. If you turn your gaze to the sky, you will see branches. They corkscrew around, twisting and turning, bending and bowing in response to each other so that every leaf on every branch has its own space. No tree is crowding another, for they are crown-shy.

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