On Being Flawsome

Church Street today is brought to you by the word ‘flawsome’ and by the number 40.

Jeanine and I are not with you on Sunday, August 27th. It was always part of our crafty, cunning plan to elope on this particular weekend and escape to be by ourselves. While you are reading this homily we are somewhere in Tasmania being ‘flawsome’.

All a bit cryptic? It might help if I offer a few reflections on the sacrament of marriage on this special weekend. It’s not every day you get a homily about marriage, but today it might be particularly appropriate.

There is an old saying that every woman marries a Romeo. A dazzling, charming, impeccably mannered gentleman only to discover much later on in life that she has actually married Falstaff. A bumbling, potbellied, burping, forgetful and hapless sod. Of course, to keep the balance equal I might say that every man marries … Well, I’ll leave you to fill in the rest of that bit.

In marriage, two people commit themselves for life and it is the happy couple that actually performs the sacrament. The priesty person is just there to offer the Church's blessing.

In this amazing service two people, in effect, write blank cheques to each other with their lives. Here is my life, my signature, you must write what you will .. and vice versa. Sometimes we scribble on another life, other times we tenderly doodle love hearts. Either way, writing this blank cheque is a brave, risky, daring and marvellous thing to do.

Sure there are the government bits, but we have all frequently been to homes where a couple isn’t strictly speaking ‘married’ but they are very much more together than couple x down the road who have all the bits of paper and whose names appear in the Church’s register and yet… Well, you know how it goes.

Over the course of a marriage, every wrinkle, every flaw, every annoying habit is discovered and held up to the glaring scrutiny of the other; sometimes with firm words being offered in critique. If you have been married a while you might be able to bring to mind a few examples of your own, or maybe you heard about some of these irregularities from over the back fence where couple z have loudly proclaimed that the toast was burnt, the bins not taken out and the dishes undried … again!

But here’s the lovely thing. This is the God bit. Over the years, woven through the tapestry of joys and disappointments, of hurts and pleasure, there is something else going in the tedium of the everyday humdrum where nothing much seems to be happening. And that something else is this.

To be loved for who you are when someone else has seen straight through you and knows your every quirk and flaw, gift and talent and especially those annoying little habits that you just can’t seem to shake no matter how hard you try. When that someone special loves you in spite of all these things and in the end, because of all these things, then you are transformed into the person you were always meant to be. Falstaff becomes Romeo after all and if I was to be balanced I would say the nasty stepsister becomes the beautiful princess.

And this is the really, really good bit. The celebratory bit. This unique and forgiving and ever-patient love is exactly the way that God loves you. We celebrate a God that sees straight through us. A God that knows every last wart and scurrilous secret. A God who delights in us and celebrates us, even when and especially when, we let Him down in catastrophic and spectacular ways. And this should give us the impetus and reason to send champagne corks to the ceiling and make us jive around the dance floor at the wedding reception in uninhibited ways.

Ah! But what of this word, ‘flawsome?’ The definition of flawsome according to the google dictionary is this.

Flawsome is an adjective and describes an individual who embraces their ‘flaws’ and knows that they are awesome regardless.

Got it? Flawsome … describes an individual who embraces their ‘flaws’ and knows that they are awesome regardless.

It is a rare and splendid thing when you find someone who can embrace not only your shiny bits but also your yucky stuff. It is a sublime thing when you understand your heavenly Father embraces your flaws and knows that you are awesome regardless.

But the key to all of this is when you know that you.. Yes YOU  dear reader, can embrace your flaws and know that you are awesome anyway. And the couple who over the years have embraced each other, their flaws and all, should know that they too are awesome as well.

May the one who blessed the married love at Cana by the overabundance of wine and by being in the midst of the celebration, bless you also. And may his Mother Mary who quietly,  unobtrusively,  but with potent effect made it all happen, pray for you and walk with you in your vocation to be fully flawsome.

A double shot of holy water

It was a giggly conversation. ‘Oh! Father … It’s been a stinker of a day. I think I better have a double shot of Holy Water.’

I think I replied ‘Great! Will there be chips with that?’

But for all the frivolity it did get me thinking. What would a double shot of holy water look like? What would it taste like and how would it affect you?

Here then is my speculation.

A double shot of holy water would look alluring. It would be something that would be gentle on the eye, and unusual in colour. It’s not something you tend to see a lot of but it would sit comfortably with all those expensive looking bottles of various hues on the very top shelf of a chic wine bar.

Your eye would easily pass over it as just another expensive beverage that would make your credit card squeal in fear.

Holiness presents itself in the everyday, the innocuous and the easily missed. And yes there is a cost to holiness. Quite a considerable one actually.

What would it taste like? I imagine that there would be a little sweetness to begin with. The flavour of ‘mango’ on the palate and then something richer and more fulsome as you began to get the full measure of what you were now assimilating into yourself.

Then a fiery burning trail all the way down that would change your countenance and heat your toes. Steam might even come out of your ears. It would not just be a taste sensation … it would be more like an ‘experience’.

Those of us who regularly imbibe know both the pain and the pleasure and it leaves us saying just one thing. ‘Another double shot of Holy water… and yes… there will be chips with that.’

Of Scraps

There are several characters for the budding preacher to play with today.

There is of course Jesus himself who has chosen to go to the region of Tyre and Sidon. This area is traditionally thought of as the land of the Gentiles. The community outside the realm of salvation.

There are the disciples who don’t exactly come up smelling of roses. ‘Just give her what she wants because she keeps on shouting after us.’

In other words, they really don’t give a mandarin about the woman or her daughter. Their own peace and serenity is all they care about.

The lead role is claimed by the Canaanite woman and there is the briefest cameo appearance by her daughter who is plagued or oppressed by a demon.

At best, Jesus and his dialogue with this leading lady seem condescending. At worst, He is brutal and heartless.

His initial response is to ignore her.

‘But he did not answer her at all’.

Undaunted, the woman persists and The Master responds with

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Undaunted, and this time adopting the posture of humility and kneeling, the woman tries again.

But she came and knelt before him, saying,

‘Lord, help me.’

 only to be met with

“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Undaunted, she responds to this brutal rebuff

“Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Then and only then, Jesus grants her request.

And there is a lesson here about pestering and persisting in prayer and there is a lesson about the least likely folk having their petitions answered. There is a really good homily that contrasts the disciples' reaction who just want the quick fix, over and against the woman’s persistence. And all of those are very good homilies and they are right and we need to be reminded of these things.

But aside from her tenacity, there are some other things that make her the star of the show.

First of all, remember that she is not asking for herself. She comes before The Lord on behalf of her daughter. This is a child who she loves very much. Mum will do whatever it takes to try and get healing and wholeness for her offspring.

We are offered a minimal amount of information about the lass. We don’t know how long she has been suffering, we don’t know if she has siblings, we don’t know the symptoms of her possession, and we don’t even know her name.  But,… we do know one very important thing, perhaps the only thing that really matters and that is that the daughter is loved so very much.

Another thing that is outstanding about the Canaanite woman, is that she knows just how dependent she is on the Master. She only has her scraps of faith to offer.

Watch again this little interplay.

Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

At no point does she deny that she is an outsider, a gentile. She does not say ‘Well that was a bit harsh. How dare you?’

She comes to Him exactly as she is. No pretensions, no delusions, not even a shred of self-pity or righteousness.  She approaches Him knowing who she is and just as importantly, she knows who HE is.

Her attitude and heart stand in direct contrast to The scribes and Pharisees, who have been offered the good things from the Master's table and chose to turn up their noses at the fare that was theirs for the taking.

And so, and this might sound a little odd, but it is the woman’s scraps that make her beautiful. Her integrity makes her the star of the show. In her emptiness, she is filled by the morsels of the Master which are more than enough.

And perhaps you and I might reflect on this when we come to the altar and hold out empty hands today. Our hands, have nothing whatsoever in them. We bring our nothingness, our desolation and once again you and I are fed with the scraps from the table. Deep inside we know that it is enough. The scraps are more than enough for they are… Him.

The Canaanite woman reminds of another mother who was filled with Him. We should let her have the last word today.

Mary said

‘My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich empty away.

My Grandmother’s Tears

It was one of those podcast things that I was listening to in the car. The interview was called  ‘The Bookbinder's Luck’ and it was with Dominic Riley.

Part of the interview went like this.

A woman brought her bible in to be repaired and Dominic patiently explained the process of reparation.

“We can repair the pages, invisibly with Japanese paper, we can resow and bind the cover and when we get to the front cover itself, I can remove these stains.”

At this, the woman slammed her hand down on the counter. She was so angry with me and I didn’t know why.

And she said

“I don’t want you to touch those stains.

This is my grandmother’s book.

She died in the camps.

My mother survived and those are my grandmother’s tears.”

A few things to draw out of this very poignant and touching story.

Our bookbinder Dominic learnt on that day to ask a simple question.

‘Do these stains mean anything to you?’

It’s not hard and it doesn’t cost anything, but sensitivity and wisdom are a necessity. Always ask and be prepared to listen.

Secondly, what looks like a mess and might well be perceived as something to hide away and/or be discarded, can actually be priceless. Like the grandmother’s tears, it could be irreplaceable.

Finally, tears are an ethereal gift. They are authentic and beautiful. In the case of the family bible, they are all that the grandmother could offer her descendants. They came without cost, they are intimate and profoundly personal. Sometimes in life, they are all we have to offer. From the grandmother’s perspective, it may not have seemed like a lot, but from her family’s perspective… Those stains continue to be the symbol of overflowing and unending love.

Families Huh?

Today's first reading is absolutely stonkering. It’s not just stonkering in its content but chiefly because of its authenticity. It is about a family who makes the most understandable and repeatable mistakes. The story is also about the consequences of those mistakes and the pain that must follow and must be felt.

Israel is the Dad of this not-so-happy family. He has several sons from different wives but there is one son who in the language of the classics, is ‘the son of his old age’ Israel loved this boy, Joseph, more than the others.

In understandable naivety, he displays His biased affection to one and all in the outward symbol of a tailored made coat. It’s a real fashion statement.

So the first glitch in this family is Israel’s unabashed and flagrant favouritism. This is dangerous territory for any parent and the hidden wisdom is that you just don’t go there. You just don’t. It can only end in tears.

Every time Joseph slips into this colourful garment you can imagine how it rankles with his siblings.

Further, in the verses that are omitted in the lectionary Joseph has two dreams where his brothers and father all bow down to him. Now rather than keep these dreams discreetly to himself and save any jealousy and family squabbles, Joseph proudly tells his brothers and father all about them.

This is not a good career move for Joseph.

But there’s more! When you read the lesson carefully you discover that far from being the junior apprentice trainee farm hand, Joseph the youngest son, is actually the foreman. The supervisor. So in verse 14, when Israel sends Joseph to find his brothers and the flock,

“Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.”,

he’s not sending Jospeh as the lacky with freshly cut sandwiches, a skin of wine and to bathe his brothers feet. Dad has sent Joseph as the 2IC to check up on his brothers and make sure that they are doing their job right. To make sure that the key performance indicators are all OK and productivity is ticking over as it should.

The brothers spot Joseph from a long way off and the air is thick, humid and rancid with jealousy and retaliation. I’m sure none of these sorts of things ever happened in any of your families, but you can see what is unfolding here.

“The brothers saw Jospeh in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other.“Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

I do understand their animosity… truly… but to do away with Joseph is not exactly going to help the situation. It might make them feel better, but the long term wisdom of this plan is to say the least questionable. That’s me dressing it up and trying to be polite and demur.

The violence in the next few verses is difficult to read. They rip his coat from him, the symbol of his fathers’ favour, and throw him in a cistern, a large bottle-shaped cutout in the earth in which seasonal rains would collect water for use in dry seasons.

And then they sit down to eat their food. The cold-heartedness of this act shows how little they care for their brother and it’s left to Reuben to try and save the day. Which he does … sort of.

It’s hard to say if it gets better or worse for Joseph; his brothers spot a chance to profit and get rid of him. They sell him to some cash converters for 20 pieces of silver and send him off to Egypt, in their minds, never to see him again.

Families Huh?

And it doesn’t matter if it's our own nuclear family, our Parish family, our diocesan family, the Victorian State family, our national family of Australia or our Planet earth family.

We are all accountable to Our heavenly Father. We are all accountable  to ourselves. We are all responsible for each other and for ourselves and that is a weighty, heartwarming, undeserved and rich vocation.

One more thing to draw out of this story. Perhaps the most important thing.

You and I know how the story of Joseph ends.

Joseph rises through the ranks of the Egyptian hierarchy and in turn he has authority over his brothers without them realising it. Joseph forgives, weeps openly all over his brothers and all is forgiven. At last, all is right with the world and the church of God is finally sorted out. Well maybe not the Church of God bit.

You and I look back on this story through the lens of hindsight. But when Joseph was in the cistern fearing for his life, with a bunch of very furious brothers calmly eating their lunch above him, it must have seemed as though all was irretrievably lost. That the situation was hope less.

So the message I offer for your encouragement is that even when you are in the cistern of despair and gloom, the Almighty still has a very important job for you to do. You are vital to His plan and while it might take some time… the cistern might actually be your empty tomb.

It’s not about the cuppa

“I got your letter, thanks Fr. David. I appreciate you writing so quickly. Come for tea and buns on Tuesday at 2:30 pm”.

So feeling pretty chuffed with myself for my super efficiency and knowing that the tea and buns were going to be of very fine quality, I  gleefully trotted around at the appointed hour and rang the doorbell. A big smile on my face and my heart bursting with pride.

‘Fr. David. How kind of you to come.’ The tea was poured, the chocolate muffins produced and all was right with the world. Or so I thought.

“Now about your letter…” and so it began. It transpired that my correspondent was not only disappointed with what I had written but the way it was written. They proceeded in the nicest but clearest way to point out exactly where I had gone heinously wrong.

It’s a simple easy mistake for the naive priest to make and I should have read the signs more carefully. That would have saved me from choking on my English breakfast tea.

But it works in other ways as well. Sometimes you are asked for a cuppa and something far more pleasant ensues. A compliment or a request that is easily fulfilled.

And then there are the times when over the cuppa the relationship is just simply strengthened, renewed and enjoyed. There doesn’t always have to be an item for general business. It might just be about the fellowship, the relationship.

It's not about the cuppa… what’s in the cup. Good heavens it’s not even about the chocolate chip muffins or the caramel slice. It is about problems being resolved, friendships being enhanced and decisions being made. Ways forward are plotted.

It’s never about the cuppa. It was never about the cuppa. It’s always something much more.

What’s a furlough?

Most of you will know that I have a close family member who works with computers and does things I will never understand. This family member is incredibly bright but never smarmy or pretentious.

At the end of the first year of COVID, the firm he worked for did something wise and very astute. They said to their very hard-working employees that as COVID had been such a wretched time for everyone in so many different ways, on so many different levels, they should have a week off. The company was quite strict about it.

No one is to log on or do any work. They are to stay away from their screens and just relax. Have some family time if they have a family. Sleep and snore, eat and drink, cuddle your special people and just forget all about the company for a week. The company called it a weeks furlough. I call it brilliant. Of course, in the short term, it might have cost the company a few bucks, but in the long term? When all these happy campers got back to their screens on Monday morning…they were enthused and energised. Their loyalty to the company went through the penthouse ceiling and all their very clever shiny friends got to hear about it and wanted to come and work for this company as well.

It was such a success that the company also did it the next year and may well continue to do it into the future.

In today's gospel, I strongly suspect that Our Lord is also looking for a furlough. A space. He has heard about cousin John the Baptist’s death and he withdraws in a boat to a deserted place by himself.

However, while he does make it to the lonely campsite his cunning plan to have some quiet time to mourn and to reflect is thwarted.

The crowds hear about it and follow him on foot from the neighbouring towns. It seems that The Master just can’t catch a break. There is no furlough for him.  He is always “logged on”.

Being the compassionate teacher of course he heals and probably teaches as well. Evening comes and the disciples can see how tired their rabbi is and how hungry the crowds are.

‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’

On the surface of it, the Master's retort seems very grumpy.

‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’

Did he know the miracle that was about to unfold? Did he want the disciples to understand that they in fact were the solution to the problem, or was He just saying… No sorry guys, I’m all done here. You sort this out.’

As always, we weren’t there to catch the tone of voice, facial expression and body language.

And like the lonely place they are in, with nothing around, the disciples have to confess their poverty. Bless them, they are honest if not a little ill-prepared for the hike and The Master's request.

‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’

Well, we all know what happened next. Jesus multiplies the paltry provisions and the thousands go away with leftovers for a picnic lunch for the next day. 12 baskets full to be exact. If you look closely there is an echo of the eucharist in this miracle where Jesus does the fourfold action that we still do at the altar today. The food is taken, blessed, broken and distributed.

A couple of things struck me about this story and the week of furlough. Clergy have a furlough as well. We call it retreat. It’s a little more structured than the cyber furlough but it is a delicious week of silence, prayer and meditation. Nothing happens. Nothing … and yet at the deeper level, the level where it really matters, everything is happening. The Bishop, like the CEO of the company, is quite right to be very strict about his clergy keeping retreat, for he knows what will be best for the diocese, for his clergy, for the parishes and ultimately for God’s glory.

That’s not the most important thing I want to offer though. The most important thing I draw your attention to is the lonely place and meagre pickings.

Frequently it is in the solitude, the places and times when we are honest about just how much we need Him… in that lonely place when we ache for him, when we have no one else to turn to, then He fills us in ways and in places that we could never have imagined.

Part of the message of the miracle is the overabundance of the 12 baskets, the superfluity of what is left over. He is more than we could ever have hoped for, expected, needed or wanted.

It is in the most barren and deserted solitude that the Master does some of his finest work. All we have to do is offer our deficiencies, our loneliness and our poverty to be transformed. Then we discover that there are actually thousands around us and not only will we eat our fill, but there is always more left over.

Anticipation is part of the joy

A kazillion years ago, when I was a youngster, I wasn’t very good at waiting for Christmass. It seemed to take forever to get here and then it was swiftly gone.

The ache and yearning leading up to this great feast was unbearable. I just wished that it was already here.

It was the same with birthdays and Easter. As children, we didn’t have much practice in doing this waiting business.

But something happens as you get older. You get lots more practice at waiting. Waiting to marry, waiting to get into the doctor, waiting for your favourite TV program.

And in the discipline of learning how to wait, we gradually realise that the sense of anticipation is part of the whole deal. Waiting does not have to be a terrible grind but can actually be rather exhilarating and gleeful.

At some point, the arrival of the Christmass decorations, the tree and the carols did not make the wait more tedious, but actually gave an edge of excitement as the tension gradually rose and I started counting down the 'sleeps'.

I don’t exactly know when waiting stopped being a drag and became a thrill, but now I look forward to Advent. (the four-week season of preparation for Christmass) I understand that the waiting, the preparation and the anticipation are part of the whole celebration. The lead up is not just something to be endured. It does not have to be stultifying and tedious. Expectation can actually be a delicious time that can elate and charm us.

It’s all a bit like the time you spend waiting at the airport for a flight. Does the time in the departure lounge grind you down or does it wind you up with anticipation for what is to come? The choice is yours!

Of Hiddenness

Today's Parables and the story of Jesus’ thwarted ministry are all about hiddenness.

• Parable 1 is all about the treasure which lies dormant and hidden in a field until the prospector finds it. Apparently by accident. The treasure is so fantastic that he hides it again, sells everything, absolutely everything, and buys the field. To everyone else, apart from the man, the treasure is hidden. No one else sees it or has any knowledge of it.
• Parable 2 is the Pearl merchant. Here we have someone just going about their daily business when all of a sudden he finds an absolute stonker of a pearl. He also sells everything in order to obtain this one solitary pearl. But for the first part of this little story it also is hidden from him. He hasn’t seen it until the right time.

Then we skip down to the part where Jesus is not honoured in his hometown.

And there is even more hiddenness going on here. In fact, there are lashings of concealment. The locals see the humanity bit, the familiar bit, the Jesus they knew from days of yore.

“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us?

They are amazed at his wisdom but can’t work out how the familiar home lad got to be so clever. It just doesn’t make sense.

He began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed.
“Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?”
Where then did this man get all these things?”

How does the apprentice carpenter get to be so enlightened and powerful?

The memories and familiarity of the Jesus lad mask the divine son of God. And this is a tragedy. For they miss out on their life being changed in marvellous and beautiful ways.

And just as the lucky prospector and pearl merchant had their lives changed because they saw what was right before them, so the parishioners at Jesus’ home synagogue fail to see past the mask of the familiar and continue in their same old way.

I think that it wasn’t because Jesus was incapable of miracles, He just knew it would be ineffective, as their unbelief would not change and it would not make a difference in their lives.

The familiar not only masks what is right before them but also stomps all over their full potential as followers of the Master and also the joy with which he longs to fill their lives.

So it is, that the familiar, the humdrum, the boring, the tedious and the everyday camouflage and cloak the divine. It is in and through the menial and the monotonous that God reveals himself.

And it works this way in the consecrated bread and wine that we received week in, week out in this church building. And it certainly works in every encounter that we are privileged to enjoy throughout the week. We might think that we are just having another conversation with old so and so who can be a bit of a whinge-bag and we know exactly what they’re going to say because we have known them for umpteen years and we know their siblings and we knew their parents and… sound familiar?

But we are challenged to see beyond the veneer of the familiar. To unleash the potential joys and delights, the life-changing things that might happen to us if we saw the precious pearl the treasure right before us.

This would open up all sorts of life-changing possibilities?!

And it's not just in our physical, people encounters. Letters and emails also have the potential to change us. A phone call can be infinitely precious. A muttered prayer can alter us irreversibly without us even realising it.

The Master accomplished many great miracles in his little ministry here on earth. Part of it I am sure is that he let others know out loud and unashamedly, just how marvellous they are, how spectacular they are. How infinitely precious they are in the sight of God.

What would happen if we also did the same thing?

A true story to finish with.

We’re quietly robing for an ordination service, so there are lots of priestly people about. In bounded one fine fellow, happy and joyous. He smirks, looks around the room and without any hesitation or any planning says for everyone to hear

“Gosh, these are some of the loveliest faces I know”

It changed my life. I can still see his face and I can still hear him saying it.

He saw the treasure. He knew all about the precious pearl. It was right before him and he let everyone know about it.

And sometimes I think,  if he could see it and he could speak it… what stops me?

And what would happen if, at the end of this homily, I did not finish with

“In the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit Amen.”

What might happen if I just simply looked around at you all and said

“These are some of the loveliest faces I know.”

It doesn’t matter what you believe… or does it?

The trailer for the film looked great. Lots of fast-moving action and ‘how are they ever going to get out of this’ type of agility. There were lashings of special effects, impossibly gorgeous people and the rugged strong jawline of a masculine hero. Hec, what’s not to like?

But it was none of this glitz that snagged my attention. Instead, it was the tagline from one of the heroes.

‘It doesn’t matter what you believe, but it’s how hard you believe it.’

Now spoken in a subtle, seductive voice, when you’re enthralled by the good guy overcoming the gruesome forces against him and winning the heart of the fair maiden at the end, this tagline actually sounds very plausible.

There is a part of you that wants to adopt it as your own life rule.

But take away the raw emotion of the film and look at it in the cool light of day and you will discover that the motto is fundamentally flawed.

‘It doesn’t matter what you believe’… Really?! If I believed that it was OK to take a sledgehammer to my neighbour's mower because they insisted on using it at unsociable hours… or if I believed that it was OK to pilfer the odd Turkish delight from the supermarket, or I believed that it was OK to have 8 1/2 cheeky chardonnays and then drive down the main street on a crowded Friday afternoon…

What we believe inevitably spills over into our actions, which must affect ourselves and others. We are all responsible for each other and it does matter what we believe. It matters very much. However, that didn’t stop me from enjoying the film and having a large fix of escapism just for the afternoon.

The less said the better

These words are an echo from a childhood memory that I can barely recall. Certainly, the context and place are lost to me now. But, I can still hear my mother saying, rather firmly as I recall… ‘And as for that other matter, the less said the better’! At the time it made no sense to me at all but then as a child, these adult ‘sayings’ probably weren’t meant to. But this phrase and a few others have stayed with me over the years. I wish now that I could recall the salacious story that went with the words of wisdom.

Many years later, my training Rector echoed my mother's words when we had been to a rather weighty pastoral encounter. It was a cautionary reminder that sometimes it’s best to ‘forget’ what you have heard and not say anything unless asked. In those days I had the luxury of a training rector and I could always kick it upstairs to him. ‘You better go and talk to the rector about that. He’s in charge’

Sometimes you do truly, honestly forget. Other times you try to tuck it away and try really hard to not remember.

Now I don’t have that advantage of a training Rector and I’ve learnt to mutter things like ‘Would you mind if I didn’t say anything?’. Or… ‘Now isn’t that interesting? I don’t seem to remember exactly what Great Uncle Kafoops said’.

Just as you can’t ‘unsee’ the things you see.. so you can’t ‘unsay’ things you hear. Once you say something audibly, out loud, for someone else to hear,… it’s out there. I relearn this all the time in this close-knit and caring community. You can always tell later, but sometimes … a lot of the time ‘The less said the better’.

A different voice. Satara Uthayakumaran

Since childhood, my liberal parents taught me that the pursuit of justice, human rights and compassion for the marginalised were all integrated with a loving divine being who created everyone equally. However, as I came to study analytical subjects such as English, history and ethics, and involved myself in human rights campaigns that dealt with real-life suffering rather than theoretical teachings, I started to question accepted truths, and scrutinise my understanding of “God”.

Despite the lockdown, I wasn’t alone. Rates of worship have been declining since the 1960s, with a reduction of more than a million Christians since the 2016 Census. Suddenly, I was one of them.

I’m not sure why, at such a stressful time in my life, I went from passive Anglican with 18 years of worship in the bag, to someone who tripped over the lack of logic in it all, increasingly smelling the stench of hypocrisy in light of more claims of abuse in the church

So, rather than bothering with English essays on whether a blue curtain was a metaphor for the downfall of humanity, I did what I thought made sense at the time and went to the highest order in the land to settle both my internal debate and the dinner-table squabbles with my family – which took place almost always after a long day of work. When your parents ask you to set the table for a cordial family dinner, they don’t suddenly expect to hear: “Sure, but does God really exist?”

I contacted two of the greatest referees on the question of God: the former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Head of the Episcopalian Church, Bishop Michael Curry – the latter best known for his riveting sermon at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Wedding.

Contacting two of the greatest theological thinkers seemed inconsequential at the time. After all, I had already contacted the Pope when I was 12 to ask why there were no female popes, given it was my dream job to head up the Vatican someday. Weirdly, I never received a response.

However, I did receive a reply from Bishop Curry, just a week after emailing him. He personally thanked me for my letter and for voicing my concerns. I could almost hear him, like a reassuring father figure, empathising that these questions afflicted most people of faith at some point in their life.

His advice was to ask myself: “What is the invitation God might be offering in the midst of this?” Although God doesn’t create the crisis, it doesn’t mean he is not reaching out in an unconventional way. He also sent me a copy of his book, all the way from New York to Sydney, which wrestles with some of the questions I asked. He then told me he would be praying for me and bestowed a blessing as I kept reflecting, thinking and discerning.

That, for me, was enough to reaffirm my faith – at least in humanity, if not theology. But then, the day after my graduation, I was having coffee with a friend in a local patisserie when I opened my emails and almost dropped my phone to see a reply from Rowan Williams. He also thanked me for my letter and reassured me these were the kinds of questions one should grapple with if they want to be both a person of faith and a contemporary thinker.

Among many, many other profound explanations, Dr Williams suggested that in an increasingly secular world, although churches are emptier, people continue to be baffled by natural phenomena, stopped in their tracks by something so strange, and exhilarated at unknown prospects. In his words, this was God continuing to make Himself known to humankind, albeit in subtler ways – or unconventional ways, as Bishop Curry put it. Further, people’s experiences of joy at a deeper level always have something to do with some letting go of our sense of self, or that sense of self that is important and in charge. For me, there was something quite euphoric in thinking about just letting go to become part of the magnitude of the universe, regardless of who had created it and who was in charge of it.

Just over three years ago, I never would have thought that a high school student from Sydney would be able to converse with two of the greatest theologians from the other side of the globe – nor would I have guessed the comfort their responses provided to a child on the cusp of adulthood, trying to make sense of her place in the world.

Even for those of us who don’t identify with religion, there are complexities within the universe that we all think about and struggle with. If those like Bishop Curry and Dr Williams are willing to engage with a 17-year-old from Sydney, then we should normalise having these conversations across age and profession, to enrich our understanding of our role in this vast expanse of space and magic.

So, I continue to believe. But I will also continue to question.