Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because my eyes have grown dim and my perception has been dulled over the years, but I fail to see and be inspired by great and illustrious leaders.

Maybe I am expecting just a little too much, or maybe they don’t get the attention they deserve and so I miss being uplifted by what they have to say.

It’s easier to look back in time and see awesome people and read their words. But I wonder what future generations will say of us. Who will they look back to for wisdom and perception? Whose words will they read and pass on to others?

The trick is, I suspect, that the heroes of yesterday would not have thought of themselves as anything special. They were just everyday common people, getting on with their daily life and going about their humdrum business.

So what if… we are the heroes of 2022? What if the words you write and the phrases you speak will in time be gazed upon with wonder and awe? Is it not possible that folk will look back at us in 30 or 50 or 100 years and say such things like….

“Wow, look at the terrible times they lived in. Look at how ghastly it all was and look at how they just got up each morning and carried on and got with it. Look at the random acts of kindness and the way people really did want to stay in touch. Check out the inventive fun things they did to distract themselves from the morbid climate of the pandemic.

What strength of character. What resilience, what stamina!

What if we are in the midst of this because Himself knew that we are the heroes we have been waiting for? --

14/8/22 homily

In praise of the God who never sleeps.

Time is a wibbly wobbly old thing. I’m actually typing this week's reflection before Jeanine and I go on our adventure but it will magically and mysteriously pop up while we are in New York. At least that is the plan and that is what the computer confidently says it will do for me.

Before they left in 2020, Jacky and David kindly organised a thing called a Google nest. If you ask it nicely it can play your favourite song, set the alarm and tell you a joke.

But the most important thing it does is allow us to have a video/sound/screen conversation with our New York family. It’s been an odd experience. It’s like Jacky & David are kind of there, but not there. It’s been a slippery old time because while it is our Thursday morning it is their Wednesday night. So while Jeanine and I are in our morning glad rags having just finished breakfast with the sun coming up, Jacky and David are winding down at the end of a long hard day, sipping wine and getting ready for dinner

As the months have flicked away daylight, savings at both ends have played their tricks and the seasons have also warped our minds. So while it has been blitheringly hot here in the summer they have shown us the torrential and relentless snow outside. Minus something or other is the order of their day. Then of course when it is dark and frigid in Hamilton, as it has been, big blue skies and humid on the streets of Manhattan. It’s all a bit peculiar and very wibbly wobbly. I’ve never actually managed to get my head around it. Instead, I’ve just accepted whatever the climate happens to be, when it happens to be.

This brings us to this space of 5 weeks when you and I are in different time zones. I can’t be with you at the altar and over the cuppa and in your homes etc. While this will be a good thing in the long run, in the short term it is a wrench. It would be grand if I could just duck back home to Hamilton for the weekends.

A thought came to me in the middle of the night (Eastern Standard time) which helped, and my thought was this. That while it is night time and I am snoring under the air conditioner in New York you will be gathered around the altar in daylight trying to stay warm. Being the prayerful pilgrim people I have come to know, I will rest securely knowing that your support continues. And vice versa. When you are safely tucked up in your bed and I am at an altar somewhere in New York I will certainly be thinking of you and praying for you.

As that splendid hymn put it:

As o’er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.

The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren ’neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high

So our loving God is everywhere including Manhattan, Hamilton and every place in between. But He is also the God of all time and in all time and there is no time zone and no moment where He is absent. There is no millisecond where God is not present and active and loving.

God does not suffer from jet lag, or knock-off for 10 minutes at 10:30 am each morning for a smoko. Nor does he take annual leave, Long service leave, personal leave, parental leave, sick leave, compassionate leave, maternity leave, or family leave; even though with His heavy workload he would be more than entitled to do so.

Nor does God have 40 winks, a snooze, a siesta or a cat nap. We worship, love and give thanks that our God is the one who never sleeps. When you’re God you don’t need to sleep.

So even though you and I are on other sides of this very precious little planet we are always one in God. We are still united in a way that is both incomprehensible, mysterious and lovely.

And no matter which time zone we are in, or what we are up to, or whether we are awake or asleep, God is inseparable from us both and always watching over us.

The Psalmist put it for far more eloquently than I and their words conclude this homily for you today… or… whatever day it is… was… will be.

Psalm 121

1  I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?

2  My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3  He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

4  indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5  The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

6  the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7  The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8  the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore

The idea for this reflection came from someone much wiser, astute and perceptive.

They pointed out that life is a bit like a bowl of ice cream. Chocolate with chocolate chips would be my preference.

With a bowl of ice cream, you have two choices.

First, you can just look at it and let it dissolve into a slithery, gooey mess. And sadly there are those who consciously or subconsciously make this choice. Their reason might be that it all just ends anyway. We’re only here for a little while, the ice cream only lasts a while, so we might as well just let it melt away; or as one clever person said ‘Lie down, pull the blankets over our head and wait for the inevitable end.’

Now it is indisputable that it all does end. Nothing except heaven is forever, but the other thing you can do with a bowl of ice cream is ravish it. You pick out a spoon from the cutlery draw, maybe pour a special liquid over the top of the ice cream and begin. Try to savour it bit by bit. Make the experience pleasurable and long-lasting.

I can arrive at no other conclusion than this is what we are supposed to do with ice cream and this is most certainly what we are supposed to do with our lives.

That we do have a finite period of time but that should also be the imperative for making the most of our life here on earth.

While he was accused of being a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, The Master clearly danced and laughed and made sure that every last bit of life’s ice cream was relished. And if it’s good enough for Him …

3 cheers for Fr. Scott, Fr. Robert and you.

Over the next 5 weeks, Jeanine and I will be going on quite an adventure. We will go to places we have never been to before and in fact, if we are brutally honest, never quite actually planned to go to in the first place.

And I imagine that will be exhilarating, tiring, surprising and a whole bunch of other words that I don’t know right now because the adventure actually hasn’t begun so how could I describe it?

But… what about you? Well, you too are in for a special adventure. During these next 5 weeks, you will be competently and wonderfully cared for in ways that have not begun yet.

Fr. Robert is a gregarious, easy-going, affable kind of guy. Retired… well sort of, as he doesn’t have a parish to call his own. But he is probably just as busy now as he has ever been. Certainly, the distances are longer for him as he travels the length and breadth of the diocese filling in for recalcitrant clergy who skive off on holidays and for those parishes that sadly don’t have a priest at the moment.

It's a vital ministry and he accomplishes it with flair and good humour.

It’s not an easy gig. He knows a precious few of your names. And you might think that every parish is identical and you just slot straight in. If only it were that easy. Every parish has its own quirky ways and its own peculiarities. It's fun bits and its tricky bits. It’s the job of Fr. Robert to fit right in and simply get on with it.

You have already had some experience with him and I know that you will grow to enjoy him more and more over the next little while.

Your job is simply to love him to bits. To enjoy him and support him and laugh with him and answer the 689 questions that will make his life easier and which in turn will make your life happier.

This next little while is a golden opportunity for you. A rare chance to minister to the priest. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. At the end of 5 weeks, you can say to him ‘Thank you it’s been wonderful. Thank you for what you have done for Jeanine and Fr. David and most especially Thank you for what you have done for us.’

And even if he has made the odd understandable blunder you can still wave him goodbye with a smile knowing that the regular lunatic is on a plane on his way back to you and it will be a few months at least before you have to see Fr. Robert again.

But what I suspect will happen is that you will grow to love him more than you do today, simply because Fr. Robert is that sort of priest and gentleman.

And if he wants to begin his homilies by doing a little liturgical dance (I’d really like to see that) then you should encourage him and maybe give him a few pointers about his choreography and forward on a little film clip to Australia’s got talent for their serious consideration.

So all you have to do is just love him to bits.

And of Fr. Scott. Fr. Scott is available in case of emergency and if the worst happens you should never hesitate to get in touch at your earliest convenience. He will make sure that you are well looked after in your darkest hour. In fact this is one of Fr. Scotts greatest gifts. He competently and pastorally looks after one of the largest and most demanding parishes in the diocese and it is nothing for him to have 3 funerals a week, every week. Layered on top of that he is also the Archdeacon and Vicar General.

So most of his ministry is quite rightly hidden from us and the sensitivities and intricacies we will never know about. Nor should we.

Fr. Scott will make sure that you are cared for gently and tenderly as a Father loves his children. As The Father loves you.

Jeanine and I leave knowing that you will be richly blessed by these two fine priests. But we also know that you will keep the day-to-day machinery of the parish ticking over smoothly and effectively. You are very good at this and I probably don’t tell you as often as I should. Your outstanding ministry is some of the finest I have had the privilege to encounter and enjoy.

I am delighted that not only will Jeanine and I have an incredible time, but I am also very pleased that you also will have a marvellous adventure with Fr. Scott, Fr. Robert and perhaps most of all, amongst yourselves.

We are looking forward not only to going but also to coming back to you again. And while we might be 16,905 km away (yes I really did look it up on the computer thingy) there in that other dimension we will be as close as we are now and will be in the future. Three cheers for Fr. Scott, for Fr. Robert but most especially for you.

The parable of the pots of jam

One of the very good things about holidays is that you see things with fresh eyes when you get back. This happened to me recently and what I saw upon my return was many pots of jam.

I was surprised at how many levels I operate on and all within the space of a few days. It would be easy to assume that I am now referring to the different centres in our parish. But it's not just that. It goes quite a bit deeper.

In the space of any given day, I can be an administrator, dishwasher, speaker, carer, priest, husband, father, listener, vacuum wielder and friend. The conversations are very bendy. Sometimes I know not where things have come from and where they are going. Was I really this busy before I left? And was it always this complex and whizzy? Well yes, but the cathartic therapy of the holiday had massaged this out of my memory.

So the parable of Pots of jam I found to be a helpful image. Each pot is different and unique. Each pot is constantly changing ever so slightly. Each pot is absolutely unique and priceless. Each pot is to be relished and enjoyed.

The trick I suspect is to be totally caught up in the ‘jar’ that you are enjoying and not thinking about the next jar that you know you will have to be sampling within the hour. This isn’t easy, but I will be the best jam sampler and digester if I treat each jar with the dignity and respect it demands. So breathe deeply Fr. David, open the jar, put a sensible-sized sample on your spoon and let the flavours play over your palette. Nothing less is needed. Nothing less will do.

Homily for 31st July

It had been a most un-pretty day. A priestly colleague had died in tragic circumstances and so come the time when I sat down to pray about it all at evening prayer,  I was completely gazumped. And then I remembered this prayer.

Come Holy Spirit kindle in our hearts the fire of your love.
Grant for our hallowing, thoughts that pass into words,
words that pass into deeds, deeds that pass into love and
love that passes into life everlasting you our God forever and ever
Amen.

This prayer speaks of the transformation and flow of life from thoughts to words, to deeds to love, and then ultimately onto heaven. We are forever transforming our thoughts into words, our words into deeds. Our deeds are supposed to transform us and others into love and therefore ultimately into the new life of heaven.

But on this most un-pretty day, I knew that my words were shot to pieces. There were no words. Sure, I knew how the process was supposed to go. I’ve been living it a lovely long time now, but on this un-pretty day when there was just me and Him at the end of the day, I was stuck firmly at square 1. With my rambly mostly bumpy thoughts. Yep, that’s as far as I could get. There was a lot to think about and process. Family, medical people, a bishop, and the countless lives this priest touched and healed, embraced and loved. It was like chucking a filthy great rock into a small pool of water. The water erupted and the ripples and consequences spread out exponentially so that nothing and no one remained placid and undisturbed. All were ruffled and disquieted and those closest to the epicentre of this death can never be quite the same again.

Offering the broken hearts of these people was hard work and I am not confident I did it effectively or properly. There was bound to be someone that I overlooked and forgot, but ultimately God never forgets and sees all and knows all.

I then read the office, the psalms, the readings, the Lord’s prayer, the canticles, you know how it goes. As I closed the last book and put it aside it did not feel like the Holy Spirit had kindled anything much. My thoughts were still very random and helter-skelter; an incoherent and disorderly pile of dusty rubble. I was not up to the bit about thoughts becoming words and it is only through the compiling of this little homily that I was able to get to that point some days later.

At the time I was just up to the ‘thoughts’ bit. Not the words.

Was I a failure? Was my prayer only a C minus or 68 per cent? You always get a pass with prayer just for trying.

I think not and crave your patience as I reflect a little more. I reason thus.

Is not the struggle of a maelstrom of chaotic thoughts a valid form of prayer in and of itself? What if the Holy Spirit had come and kindled these thoughts, the fact that my incoherent babbling was offered, was that not an authentic and legitimate offering of prayer?

My thoughts had turned into words and my words would transform, maybe not straight away, maybe not in a cool, clinical, logical well thought form, beautifully structured with footnotes and illustrated with colour pictures and clever rhyming couplets.

My words would turn into deeds but it just may take a bit of time to know what the appropriate deeds might be so that they may be tinged and imbued with the Master’s love.

Love would be found in God’s way, in God’s actions, in God’s time. He’s the Saviour of the Universe.

Heaven would come to meet us, to meet my Colleague and perhaps my meandering mind. The grappling and the tangling is how the whole process scrunches along. This is what made the cogs turn and clunk. Perhaps on that first evening prayer when once again it was just me and Him, I was in fact surrounded by angels and archangels and we had already gone straight from thoughts to life everlasting without really knowing it. Perhaps it was a very pretty day after all and I could not see it at the time.

Now I offer you this little reflection because I know you to be enjoyable human beings and that means that you too will find yourself having an un-pretty day from time to time. Something in this interminable homily might be of some use but know above all that you are never alone in your un-pretty day. Know that the mere offering of helter-skelter thoughts and especially the traditional Fr. David shaking of the fist, is one of the finest forms of prayer and love that was somehow tragically overlooked and not inserted into our prayer book.

Perhaps also the prayer I started with might be helpful for you one day. There is no copyright and it would be a good way to wrap up this homily.

Come Holy Spirit kindle in our hearts the fire of your love,
Grant for our hallowing thoughts that pass into words,
words that pass into deeds, deeds that pass into love and
love that passes into life everlasting you our God.
Amen.

Time to fess up. I am a first-generation Australian. Yep, my dad was a pom and came to this land as a teenager.

This confession should not come as a complete surprise. Most of us would only have to go back three or four generations to discover that we are relatively fresh to this land.

I was reminded of this when gazing at a picture of some migrants arriving on a ship. There are seven people in the photo. One is waving ecstatically. A young child has a calm look on his face, wondering what all the fuss is about. Two others who are possibly a couple, have that look on their face that screams “What have we come to?” There is an old man in tears. Whether his tears are for the joy of arriving or the nostalgia of what has been left behind is difficult to say, but the droplets are authentic and honest.

When I look at this motley crew I am inspired. They have come from what was known and sure to a place where everything is unknown and unsure. This new land has a different climate, a different currency, and a different way of doing things. For some of the pilgrims, there was the added complexity of a different language to struggle with.

We owe a lot to these courageous adventurers. We would not be the people we are today without their very bold decision to travel halfway around this precious planet of ours and start afresh. It was a huge gamble and for some, it did not pay off. Our predecessors have entrusted us with a rich heritage founded on hard work. This leaves just one question to be answered. What am I entrusting to the future generations that will come after me?

This prayer business…

Today, the disciples have glimpsed something. They are aware that John the Baptist has taught his disciples to pray. Now they are watching their own Rabbi / Teacher / Master / Guru praying in a certain place and decide that this prayer thing is actually a bit of all right.  They want to know how to do it.

But they have the courtesy to wait until Jesus has finished praying before they ask the ‘how to’ question. Clearly in the disciples eyes, this is a serious, intimate, important and enjoyable experience. You don’t interrupt  someone when they are in the middle of their prayers.

So they do the only logical thing and ask.

‘One of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’.’

Jesus’ response can be divided into at least two chunks.

First he gives his disciples a prayer to pray. A formula. A collection of words. We now call it the Lord’s prayer for obvious reasons and it is said at every Eucharist, at every morning prayer and at every evening prayer. It is also offered every time we take communion to the housebound, the hospital and the nursing home and a lot of times that happen every day.

The Lords prayer covers most bases.

The first word ‘Our’ should bolster and buoy us. Here is ‘our’ God referring to himself in a way that is intimate and connected. And the second word ‘Father’  is not an authoritative grumpy old man, but the father who never ever gives up on his children and who will care for, defend, protect and most of all enjoy his children as any good Dad does. And just as a good dad aches for his kids when they skin their knees and break their heart, so too does our heavenly Father, for he is our God of love and can do no other and be no other.

Also in the Lords Prayer there’s a bit about Gods will being done for clearly it isn’t always done, there is a bit about our language and Gods name, a bit about forgiveness, protection from evil and the polite petition for the earthly bread, heavenly bread and the stuff of life just to get us through the day.

There is a lot going on in this prayer and it is very easy to prattle through it without allowing the potency of each petition to work within us. A helpful little exercise might be to just focus on one phrase each time you say it and to chomp and digest it.

The Lords prayer is a good prayer to pray when you are stuck and you can’t think of the right words. It’s a good prayer to wrap up a conversation, or a visit or a meeting. It’s a good prayer because it works for us, it is deeply ingrained into us and it is a very good prayer simply because it is the one that Jesus taught us and gave us.

Interesting, that the bit we are so familiar with

‘For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours’ never actually appears in the bible. It’s just something we stitched on much later in time, probably in the early part of the 17th century.

OK so we have the words, now comes the tricky bit. The attitude; and here Jesus gives us a little parable about always being persistent and not giving up.

There’s this guy who is safely tucked up in bed having a good old snore. It is midnight after all. A mate of his comes banging on the door saying that a friend of his has arrived, the supermarket is shut and he has nothing to offer his very late guest. “Could you lend us three loaves of bread?”

It’s not a welcome intrusion and who would want to leave their warm bed and get out on such a chilly night when it’s clearly not your fault that your buddy doesn’t keep his pantry topped up.

Yet the knocking and request keeps on coming, so the message is pretty jolly clear. Do not give up if your prayers are not answered straight away, in the way and time that you had hoped. As the loving Father, God knows what we need and when we need it. He will only give us what is best for us. Hence the little phrase about the scorpion and the egg, a snake and a fish.

All of this I am sure is very familiar to you but we all need reminding of it, especially clergy.

Finally, here’s a little take home something I thought of just the other day.

We usually imagine ourselves as the guy on the doorstep banging noisily and yelling loudly, asking in the nicest possible way if God could just get his act together and do something about our predicament.

But what if we are the guy in the safe warm bed. Complacent, warm and lovely in our own little siesta.

What if there are people who knock on the door of our hearts and lives and ask and are persistent in their asking. Wouldn’t the imperative be for us to get up and do something. To offer daily bread and forgiveness. Perhaps then God’s will may be done and his kingdom will come on earth as it is heaven.

The tale of Miss Cindafred

Miss Cindafred lived in a parish many crow flights away and in a different age when dinosaurs and woolly mammoths ruled the earth.

Cindafred had been widowed young and had three burgeoning children. Her options were limited and she resolutely worked at least two jobs that I knew about. She was also frenetic in her work for the local parish. Once I foolishly made the suggestion that she might actually enjoy life a little bit more if she just slowed down a bit. My ‘wisdom’ was declined and I re-learnt that things are not always as they seem.

All this changed when her father died suddenly and unexpectedly. He had lived interstate and so there was a myriad of things to organise especially around the welfare of her children. But with the long distance to travel and the time away in a different albeit sad dimension, she had to do ‘enforced breathing’. She didn’t have to go to work for a couple of weeks. The children were competently and lovingly looked after by a good friend. And for a precious few weeks, it was as though CindaFred was in ICU on a ventilator. No one could get in to see her and someone else was doing the breathing for her. She didn’t have to do anything much, except let other people look after her.

Now while I was deeply sorry for Cindafred, something good came out of this and she came back to live life at a much more measured pace. This mortality business had rattled her and taught her a few things. In a sense, Cindafred came back as a new woman.

So ends my tale of Miss Cindafred who taught me that it is far better to breathe gently, slowly and in a measured way now than to find yourself in ‘ICU on a ventilator in the future.

Homily July 17.

“The better part”

^{In the scene from today's Gospel Martha and Mary welcome Jesus to their home, but they seek to welcome him in two different ways. Martha seeks to please the Lord by doing various things for him. The Gospel doesn't specify exactly what she was doing, but I reckon she was probably putting on the lamb roast, peeling some spuds and opening up a good bottle of Hugh Hamilton red wine...}

^{Yet when Martha asks for Jesus' help in persuading her sister Mary to set the table and put the soup on, Martha receives what seems to be a mild rebuke.}

^{I don’t think Jesus was castigating Martha for her service. What he was saying to her, was that the polishing of the silver and the kneading of the bread wasn’t a reason to get worked up. There was something more important, something that Mary, who had chosen the "better part," realised and that Martha didn't.}

^{And what Mary recognised but Martha didn’t, was that Jesus had come to their home not to be fed…, but to feed.} 

^{The welcome Jesus seeks from us is (not our caviar and champagne, cognac and cigars) but rather he seeks out and craves our time, our friendship, our love, our open ears and our open hearts. Like his visit to Martha and Mary, he wants to come and make his home amongst us. He earnestly wants to live amongst us and to live within us. This is what he desires and wants more than anything else. Mary understood this and sat at Jesus' feet listening to him as if nothing in the whole wide world really mattered - because nothing in the rest of the world does matter as much as… HIm.}

^{Some very sketchy thoughts.}

^{First, our hospitality is toward Jesus. Each of us is called to welcome Christ into our homes, our physical homes and the spiritual abode of our hearts and souls. At this Eucharist … today,… Christ knocks on the door of each of our hearts and our homes. He wants to come in and enjoy us.}

^{The question is whether we, like Martha, are too caught up, anxious, and distracted by so many other less important things that we're welcoming into our minds and souls each day, that we no longer have the energy or space to invite him in. It's Christ, however, who ought to be invited in first.}

^{Like Martha, we are called to work hard serving others but we're supposed to do it with the spirit of Mary. That's why all our work is holy. We should aim to have Martha's hands and Mary's contemplative heart so that we won't be distracted by many other things. Both are important, both are vital. This will free us so that we can be focused on Jesus even when we are doing our vacuuming, our typing, our visiting, our praying, our washing the dishes, hanging out the washing, and our family life. Then we will understand that we are getting fed by him in action so that we might feed others; not just by our work, but with the One who is always working within us. That's the vocation of every Christian.}

^{Something else.}

^{One of the most important forms of service we can give to others is to help them to form the priorities that will bring them to lasting happiness, holiness and heaven. Jesus wants to send us as missionaries to show them by our witness and words how to choose the better part and make God the true priority of our life. We live in a century where there are so many modern distractions and anxieties. Each of us is called to work as hard as Martha in setting an eloquent, attractive example like Mary, the example of a life with Jesus at the centre.}

^{Today, at this eucharist we too, like Mary, have listened at Jesus' feet while he has fed us with his word. If we are very adventurous we will ask him to give us the courage to reorder the priorities of our life, and to base our lives on what he has reminded us of today. Jesus is the one thing necessary. Mary chose the better part. We can ask her to pray for us from before Jesus' feet in heaven for the grace to make the same choices today, tomorrow and each day going forward.}

^{Last thing}

^{I wonder if we understand how much we feed others?}

^And 

^{When we have been fed by another do we let them know that they have been Christ to us and fed us … Do we let them know what a joy it was and is to sit at their feet and engage with them. And just as Mary and Martha were forever changed by their pastoral visit; do we let our brothers and sisters know that we too, can never be the same again? All the time, every day we are, subtly, slowly, bit by bit changing people's lives just as surely as our lives are being changed.}

Fr. David’s Folly

Over the past 3 three years, I must have backed out of my garage hundreds of times. It's a comfortable fit but there isn’t mega room to spare.

However, the other morning all that went awry as I scraped the winged mirror on the right-hand side thus  ‘liberating’ the outer shell and the next layer inside. Fortuitously the light/indicator still worked and the mirror inside can still be adjusted.

Full marks and high distinction go to the local car people who took compassion on me and already have ordered what is needed. I then had to telephone the diocese as they own the car I relentlessly drive around in. Our local trusty Registra guy Peter, could not have been nicer and more understanding. All the while of course I felt more dreadful and cranky with myself.

“How could I have done such a stupid little thing.” I said ‘Grrrr’ a lot and probably some other words that cannot and should not be repeated here.

Finally, my grumpiness subsided and the mirror looks like a bandaged, mangled thing to remind me of my folly.  But my foolishness is not just about the mirror that is askew. The worst bit of this ‘incident’ is the length of time I chose to hang onto my exasperation. I allowed this to bubble away inside me for several wasted hours. But that energy could have and should have been profitably diverted and used towards something far more profitable and fruitful. Now when I check out the dilapidated mirror I am reminded not just to reverse a little more carefully, but chiefly not to clasp onto things that I cannot change. To berate ourselves passionately and frequently is folly. Even more wasteful than the little dings that find us early in the morning in the garage.

Homily 10th of July “Our Liminal time”

Fun fact friends. Did you know that the word wait occurs no less than 129 times in the Bible? Yes, that’s right 129 times. As far back as Noah waiting for the dove to return from its reconnaissance trip at the end of the rainy season, right through to Revelation where the angels are given a nifty white robe and told to wait a little longer, our good book is full of people just sitting around waiting.

We wait especially when we are in what our bishop calls a liminal time. One thing has finished and another is yet to begin. A very vivid example is when a priest finishes one parish and is yet to begin another. It’s liminal for the priest, it is liminal for the parish that the priest is leaving and it is liminal for the parish that the priest is going to.

But this liminal waiting thing happens in all sorts of ways to all sorts of people. You and I experience this frequently with the different chapters in our lives.

When we wait for the alarm to go off, when we are waiting for the doctor or another appropriate guru to see us; or simply when we are waiting for mass to start or the bus to come.

Something is finishing and the next thing is not quite yet.

Whenever I read the parable of the good Samaritan I wonder whether The Master knew of such an incident or had heard about such a tragedy. Maybe Our Lord had seen neglect from the people who he expected to be supportive and they had failed him. Maybe he had seen a complete stranger or someone quite unexpected, step up and offer some fabulous pastoral care.

No matter the back story, it’s certainly a pertinent reminder that our Church community should always be first and foremost in caring for those who are less fortunate than ourselves and especially those who come to us from different places. The travellers and those who are vulnerable.

In the parable, Jesus tells us the gentleman who is mugged on his trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, has to wait for the right person to come along and help him. His liminal waiting is the period of time from when the thugs and bandits abandon him on the road, to the time when the Samaritan comes and does some first aid, making sure that he has a comfy room, a pot and a parma at the local.

No doubt it would have been quite an uncomfortable wait for our victim and further, it would have been an excruciating experience when the lawyer and the local parish priest passed by on the other side of the road.

Waiting is not easy, especially when our plans are torn to shreds by outside forces that we did not see coming and we could have had no way of preventing, plotting or seeing the consequences of the unforeseen.

I think about this a lot. Maybe I think about it a little too much but I reckon that we are very much in a liminal time. We are emerging as people, community and church from one thing but the next thing hasn’t quite happened yet. We are still trying to get our head around what has happened, whilst all the time trying to work out our new environment with its tricks, its joys and unforeseeable complexities.

And it is frighteningly easy to be so absorbed in these mind games, that we forget that it’s really OK just to wait in this liminal time. We might be brutalised like the guy on the side of the road. We might be wondering when on earth some help will come our way and how come the folk that we thought would be of some help, brutally ignore us. And isn’t it an extraordinary and lovely miracle that the person that we have always been suspicious of, was the person who cheerfully looked after our every need and the needs that we didn’t even know we had?

What if we turned it around and in our giddy, hurdy-gurdy, must always be frenetic world actually said… Waiting is cool, good and groovy. Liminal times are the place where we learn most. They make us stop and breathe which is always a positive. The liminal space and place might not always be comfortable but it can be fruitful.

Usually, when we hear this parable we might think about which of the three people we are. The priest, the lawyer of the Samaritan. Sounds like the start of a joke. But there is another possibility. What if we are the victim on the side of the road who is just patiently waiting? Is it not possible that we are them and if so how can we best use this time to God’s glory? How might we transform our piercings into proof of His love and our love of others?