World Environment Day 2006

The members of the Eastern Region Environment Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne have been busy little bees. To-day is World Environment Day and yesterday at church at St Thom’s at Upper Gully we received a handy little brochure on Water Saving. While Melbourne is not the driest part of the dry continent, its residents are quite water conscious and have constant reminders to vigilance so the Water Saving brochure was a contribution to the whole civic water saving ethos. The brochure explains to us as follows:

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Most of Australia is classed as arid or semi-arid, with 80% of the continent receiving less than 600 millimetres, and 50% receiving less than 300 millimetres, per year.

Of all the water on Earth, only 3% is fresh. Less than a third of 1% is available to humans. The rest is frozen in glaciers, polar ice caps or deep within the Earth, beyond our reach.

Water is one of the most important natural resources we have. It is essential to our existence.

Since 1900, global water consumption has risen 10 fold. UNESCO has predicted that by 2020 water shortage will be a serious problem world wide.

As Christians, we are called to care for, and to share with all, the creation given by God. It is therefore a responsibility of the Church to show leadership in sustainable water management. Action is therefore being taken to raise the awareness of members of the Eastern Region of the Melbourne Anglican Diocese to this responsibility and to encourage an engagement in, and an acceptance of, the challenge concerning water usage by the Church itself and by Church members.

REFLECTION

As a people of faith we have before us the Great Commandment,

“To love God, to love neighbour and to love self”.

The environment is our neighbour, sustaining us, nurturing us and teaching us about ourselves and about that which is different to ourselves.

The land, the water, the air, all that is vegetable and all that is animal and mineral become very intimate neighbours calling each of us to learn more about how we relate to them.

The commandment calls us into a relationship with our living world.

We mutually receive and have reciprocal responsibilities back to all aspects of the Earth’s created order.

We have been offered a time to heal both ourselves and our environment by using this received and share knowledge, we are enabled to hand on our wisdom to those generations yet to be born and also to honour all those who have made this journey before us.

Loving God we thank you for this world of wonder and delight.
You have given it to us to care for, so that all your creatures may enjoy its bounty.

Seasons of the Soul: Pentecost

To-day is the celebration of Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian church.

Happy Birthday, Church!

PENTECOST BLESSING

Deep warmth of joy and love be yours,

Bright light of sight and life be yours,

Rich glow of fruits and growth be yours;

Fire of the Spirit burn within you

Fire of the Spirit burn within you.

Energy of God fill you and dwell in you,

Life of God inspire and renew you,

Breeze of God revive and disturb you;

Wind of the Spirit blow through you

Wind of the Spirit blow through you.

Life giving presence of God stir you

Unseen power of God strengthen you

Wellspring of truth cleanse you and lead you.

The Spirit encourage and guide you,

Creative voice of God direct you

And kindle adventure within you;

Wild Goose cheer you and call you on

Wild Goose cheer you and call you on.

by Craufur Murray

From Pocket Celtic Prayers compiled by Martin Wallace

Keep me burning......

To keep a lamp burning

we have to keep

putting oil in it.

- Mother Teresa

Locusts and ancient wisdom

Miss Eagle does not wish to give offence to those of other beliefs and none. However, recently Miss Eagle was discussing a rather traumatic incident affecting a friend and wrote this. She thought afterwards that this might be of interest to others who may be living through troubled times and so decided to publish it here.

Miss Eagle is a good mate of the 8th century prophets. Loves 'em to bits - even when they're cranky and hard to live with. In the Tanakh (the Old Testament), Joel Chapter 1 is all about what the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten and what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. Now isn't that a picture to cheer you up! Sheer yuck! But then comes Chapter 2 and I just love verses 25-27. It is all about restoration and it makes Miss Eagle's spine tingle with excitement, dear Reader:

So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
The crawling locust, the consuming locust, And the chewing locust,
My great army which I sent among you.
You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
And praise the name of the Lord your God
Who has dealt wondrously with you;
And My people shall never be put to shame.
Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
And that I am the Lord your God
And there is no other.
My people shall never be put to shame.

Now, I have to say I have had this experience a few times in my life. In one case, the restoration was specific: item for item. And so unexpected. And when these things happen in life they prepare you and undergird you for the next time. The locust attacks are rather cyclical in this life - and, it seems, we will never rid ourselves of them entirely. They come out of left field, consume all before them, and we are powerless to prevent them. So I am a great believer in restoration and a goodly, godly dose of Joel Chapter 2. I find that God never wastes anything. And he ties up all the loose ends ever so neatly at the back of the tapesties which are our lives.

Our deepest fear....

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Taken from the 1994 Inaugural Speech of Nelson Mandela

Prayer and friendship

So many female blogs avoid discussion of matters that are avoided by society at a polite dinner table: politics, religion, sex and death. Now that's OK as long as we remember that we live in a real world in which not everything is as neat, beautiful, ordered, and creative as our blogs suggest. In fact, we ought to remember the reality checks where we look at the needs of others, where we consider people who are far from us and outside our circle of friends and acquantainces. There are people who are marginalised in our society - and through no fault of their own. Two things that can face all of us with a bit of a shock are the marginalising effects of severe and/or prolonged illness and the ageing process.

Many of us enter the world of Ms Robyn through her blog daily parcels tied up with string. Ms Robyn majors in the beautiful and good but has also let us into corners of her life which haven't always been the best. In fact, Miss Eagle has been stunned, at times, by her honesty and her disclosure. Here is a generous spirit.

Her spirit has been challenged in the last 48 hours or so as you will see if, dear Reader, you visit her blog. She has stepped out into a spiritual realm with a blog devoted to prayer for those with needs. She has been hurt by those she considered friends. She has been supported by many, many more. Ms Robyn is in the field but she is wounded.

Miss Eagle is of the persuasion which believes we are spiritual beings with body, mind, and emotions attached. Now she is a big girl - in more ways than one - and knows that there are others in the world who don't see things this way. Miss Eagle's friends include a range of atheists and agnostics. Miss Eagle also knows there are people who fence their spiritual values in with some rather heavy dogma and certainties. She knows the capacity that they have to hurt people by hitting them over the head with sacred books and sureties.

One thing about blogs is that they can be completely ignored. Those who don't find Our world wrapped in prayer and love to their taste can ignore it. You don't go to the blog - and you can be sure the blog won't come to you. Prayer for the sick whether it is in the form of kind thoughts and positive energies, meditation or In Jesus Name, Amen is a form of concern and love for someone other than ourselves. All the great faiths of the world commend such age-old love and concern. Those who ignore such a practice, if only they could know, are impoverished.

And for you, Ms Robyn, I have found this poem:

The Best of Friends

© Jill Wolf

When friendships undergo a test

It's often found old friends are best;

The sampler on the parlour wall

Has these few lines which say it all;

The best of friends can change a frown

Into a smile when you feel down.

The best of friends will understand

Your little trials and lend a hand.

The best of friends will always share

Your secret dreams because they care.

The best of friends, worth more than gold,

Give all the love a heart can hold.

Resurrexit! He is risen!

He is Risen by He Qi, China

Anyone who makes a person laugh
Opens heaven to him.
Anyone who is patient with another
Gives him future.
Anyone who accepts a person
As he himself is accepted by Christ
Loosens his tongue for life’s hymn of praise
Let us go out from our customs and our habits
And learn to hope from the Bible.
Let us go out
And cross the frontiers
So that we may infect life with hope.
Let us ignore the barriers,
And look only to the One who breaks them down.
He is risen.
Jesus is risen indeed.
Blessed be the Lord for ever and ever.

Jurgen Moltmann, The Power of the Powerless

Zhivago 2 - Mary Magdalene, a true apostle

Mary Magdalen by He Qi, China

Miss Eagle is always stunned at how people view Mary Magdalene - and the extremes of those views to the extent that one has to wonder if they are talking about the same person. What has always peeved Miss Eagle though is her own view that the capital 'C' church has been so easily dismissive of Mary. Mary was there with the twelve but is never considered an apostle.

Yet Mary, in womanly fashion, provided nurture and resources for the work of Jesus. She made so much so possible. But above all where Miss Eagle is peeved to the limit is that Mary Magdalene was the first bearer of the good news of the resurrection, yet for 2000 years the capital 'C' church - with only very recent exceptions - has forbidden women the preaching of the good news officially within the its services. For Miss Eagle, Mary Magdalene is a true Apostle. She resourced the ministry of Jesus. She was constant during his crucifixion and did not go to pieces or to flight like the majority of the male Apostles. She was there to discover the empty tomb. In fact, that's the thing. She was there. She was constant. She was there for the action and there to pick up the pieces. A truly female story. One that many men never get!

MARY MAGDALENE
II

Before the Festival comes the spring cleaning;
Away from the crowd,
With myrrh from a little pail
I wash your most pure feet.

I feel for the sandals and cannot find them.
I see nothing through my tears
And the strands of my hair
Cover my eyes like a veil.

I have planted your feet on the hem of my skirt, Jesus.
I have watered them with my tears, I have wound them round
With a string of beads from my neck,
I have cloaked them in my hair.

I see the future in detail
As though you had stopped it.
At this moment I am able to prophesy
With the foresight of a Sibyl.

To-morrow the veil of the temple will be torn,
We will huddle together in a little group, apart
And the earth will sway under our feet,
Perhaps out of pity for me.

The columns of the guards will re-form
And the horsemen will ride away.
Like a windspout in a storm, the cross above my head
Will strain towards the sky,

And I will fall at its feet,
Silent and dazed biting my lips.
Your arms will spread out to the ends of the cross
To embrace too many.

For whom in all the world
Is your embrace so wide,
For whom so much torment,
So much power?

In all the world
Are there so many souls?
So many lives?
So many villages, rivers and woods?

Those three days will pass
But they will push me down into such emptiness
That in the frightening interval
I shall grow up to the Resurrection.

From Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak translated from the Russian by Max Hayward and Manya Harari. The Harvill Press, London, 1996

Good Friday - a crucial meditation

...Misner walked away from the pulpit, to the rear wall of the church. There he stretched, reaching up until he was able to unhook the cross that hung there. He carried it then, past the empty choir stall, past the organ where Kate sat, the chair where Pulliam was, on to the podium and held it before him for all to see – if only they would. See what was certainly the first sign any human anywhere had made: the vertical line; the horizontal one. Even as children, they drew it with their fingers in snow, sand or mud; they laid it down as sticks in dirt; arranged it from bones on frozen tundra and broad savannas; as pebbles on riverbanks; scratched it on cave walls and outcroppings from Nome to South Africa. Algonquin and Laplanders, Zulu and Druids – all had a finger memory of this original mark. The circle was not first, nor was the parallel or the triangle. It was this mark, this, that lay underneath every other. This mark, rendered in the placement of facial features. This mark of a standing human figure poised to embrace. Remove it, as Pulliam had done, and Christianity was like any and every religion in the world: a population of supplicants begging respite from begrudging authority; harried believers ducking fate or dodging everyday evil; the weak negotiating a doomed trek through the wilderness; the sighted ripped of light and thrown into the perpetual dark of choicelessness. Without this sign, the believer’s life was confined to praising God and taking the hits. The praise was credit, the hits were interest due on a debt that could never be paid. Or, as Pulliam put it, no one knew when he had “graduated”. But with it, in the religion in which this sign was paramount and foundational, well life was a whole other matter.

from

Paradise by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Alfred A Knopf, NY, 1998, pp 145-147

Zhivago 1 - Remembrance, bread, wine, friends.

At Jesus's last meal with His friends

he asked us to do what He did

and remember Him with bread, wine, and friends.

Miss Eagle fell in love with Boris Pasternak at the age of 17. She read his most famous work, Dr Zhivago - a wonderful novel whose prose reads like sheer poetry. This very Russian story covers the Russia of World War I and the Revolution. It is a novel of great spirituality reflecting the Orthodox beliefs that permeate, in spite of the efforts of Lenin and Stalin et alia, the world of eastern Europe. Tucked away in the back of the novel, under the title Zhivago's Poems, is a collection or cycle of 25 poems. Miss Eagle asks you to make yourself quiet and comfortable and take this poem from that cycle as a meditation for this day of remembrance, Holy Thursday.

GETHSEMANE
From Zhivago’s Poems

The turn of the road was lit
By the unconcerned shimmer of distant stars.
The road circled the Mount of Olives;
Beneath it flowed the Kedron.

The field tailed off
Into the Milky Way.
Grey-haired olive trees tried to walk the air
Into the distance.

Across the way was a vegetable garden.
Leaving his disciples outside the enclosure,
He said to them:
‘My soul is sorrowful unto death,
Stay here and watch with me.’

Unresisting he renounced
Like borrowed things
Omnipotence and the power to work miracles;
Now he was mortal like ourselves.

The night was a kingdom of annihilation,
Of non-being,
The whole world seemed uninhabited,
And only this garden
was a place for the living.

He gazed into the black abyss,
Empty, without beginning or end.
Sweating blood, he prayed to his Father
That this cup of death should pass him by.

Having tamed his agony with prayer
He went out through the garden gate.
There, overcome by drowsiness,
The disciples lay slumped in the grass.

He woke them: ‘God has granted you to live in my time,
And you loll about like this…
The hour of the Son of Man has
struck,
He will deliver himself into the
hands of sinners.’

Hardly had he spoken when from who knows where
A rabble of slaves and thieves appeared
With torches and knives
And in front of them Judas with his traitor’s kiss.

Peter resisted the murderers,
Struck off an ear with his sword.
‘Steel cannot decide a quarrel’, he heard:
‘Put back your sword in its scabbard.

‘Could not my Father send a host
Of winged legions to defend me?
Then no hair of my head would be touched,
The enemy would scatter and leave no trace.

‘But the book of life has reached the page
Which is the most precious of all holy things.
What has been written must be fulfilled.
Let it be so.
Amen.

‘You see, the passage of the centuries is like a parable
And catches fire on its way.
In the name of its terrible majesty
I shall go freely, through torment, down to the grave.

‘And on the third day I shall rise again.
Life rafts down a river, like a convoy of barges,
The centuries will float to me out of the darkness.
And I shall judge them.’

From Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak translated from the Russian by Max Hayward and Manya Harari. The Harvill Press, London, 1996

Nostalgia: thy name is me

Yes, I own up. Nostalgia is my constant companion. It has to be. I feel a misfit at this time with all its war and violence and greed and individualism and corruption. Where has all the idealism gone? So when Ms Robyn got nostalgic too about The Desiderata there was an "oh yes" in my heart and spirit and I had to blog it too.

I am willing

I discovered this poem over at the Sacred Ordinary. Fran had found it by googling the phrase I am willing. This is not only my own mantra - it describes much about me. I have found an illustration here. It is the work of Connie Bowen.

I Am Willing
copyrighted by Margaret Dubay Mikus

I am willingto change what doesn’t workfor me in my life.

I am willing to listenwith an open heart,without judging.

I am willing to plant seedsthat take a long time,if ever, to grow.

I am willing to feel and let go.

I am willing to make mistakes and learn from them.

I am willing to live in the present.

I am willing to forgive and forget in my heart.

I am willing to love as much as my endless spirit will allow.

I am willing to be seen in all my radiance.

I am willing to be fearless.

I am willing to be powerful
.
I am willing to be peaceful.

I am willing to stand tall and walk gracefully.

I am willing to sing with my stunning, full voice.

I am willing to allow.

I am willing to let go.

I am willing to change.

I am willing to seeand be seen.

I am willing to hearand be heard.

I am willing to feel and be felt.

I am willing to heal and be healed.

I am willing to love and be loved.

I am willing to be fully human.

Ancient Wisdom - seasons of the soul 2

Thinking more upon the seasons, my thoughts turned to that beautiful song from The Seekers, Turn, Turn, Turn. It is based on a passage from the Tanakh to be found in Chapter 3 of a book of great and ancient wisdom called Ecclesiastes:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

The measure of success

“I believe that anyone can be successful in life,

regardless of natural talent

or the environment within which we live.

This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness

for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame,

but adhering to God’s standards

of truth, justice, humility, service,

compassion, forgiveness, and love.”

~ Jimmy Carter,in his book Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis

The Summons - an eternal call to a lived life

The song below comes from the Iona Community, centred on the island of Iona in Scotland. The song is sung to a traditional Scottish tune called, "Kelvin Grove". You can hear it here. One of the writers of the words is John Bell (pictured at right). Occasionally he pops up in Australia and he is worth listening to. He has a lyrical Gaelic voice: sings like a bird. The words are written as if spoken by Jesus to the individual. They would form a beautiful reflection for Lent.

THE SUMMONS
Sung to the traditional Scottish melody Kelvin Grove
From the Iona Community

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you come where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

Will you the blinded see, if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean, and do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean in you and you in me?

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around
Through my sight and touch and sound in you, and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I'll go where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

Text: John L. Bell and Graham Maule

We are saddened...

Stevie-Lee Weight, aged 15 (centre), Cassandra Manners, aged16 (right), Josephine Calvi aged 16 (left)

Read the beautiful article about Stevie-Lee here.

...because on Saturday night six young people in Mildura were killed. They were walking at the side of a country road, a car came around the corner, skidded in the gravel edges of the bitumen road. Five were killed instantly, the sixth died later in a hospital in Adelaide and two are in hospital seriously ill. Our Victorian government agonizes over its road toll. Victoria is a small but populous state but, even to me who comes from northern Australia, the toll seems horrendous. Although Queensland is so worried that it is at the moment in the middle of a summit with its community to try to find new ways to address the issue.

When young lives are taken, it is haunting for those left behind - particularly when young people are taken en masse instantly. Grief descends like a pall on the affected community. The grief of family and close friends - words are unable to describe. I think of their friends left behind. Grief is difficult for us all to articulate. How then do the young understand, work out, articulate their emotions? The funerals are yet to occur. I don't know these people or this community - but my love and concern and empathy go out to them. My heart aches for them.

My heart also aches for another family. An aboriginal family. A man who now carries a burden beyond comprehension and sits in a jail cell far away from his family and his community. I feel for his mother and his partner who don't understand how one they love is in this predicament. Above all, I am filled with love, compassion, and concern for two little children who are victims too. They were in the car with their father - a father who, perhaps, they may never know, at least in the way we understand fathers should be in relation to their children. What stories will they know about what happened last Saturday night? Will their father's burden become their burden as they grow to maturity?

Life is the ultimate creativity. The lives of all these children were fully of energy and promise - until Saturday night when the opposite of creativity - destruction - came upon them. Those who died will be remembered as ever young, ever beautiful. What happens with those who survive? Destruction leaves its scars - always. May our compassion for all of them be ongoing so that life can be creative and joyful for them once again.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year
! Everyone !
My wishes for 2006:
I wish for love and compassion; peace and creativity;
hope and support for one another; joy for life and joy in one another;
faith in ourselves and our Creator;
and
an understanding of ourselves in and of the wonderful creation that is our planet

Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to those of goodwill

I wish you all that which the angels breathed at the first Christmas

Peace and Goodwill to one and all