The Results Are In....

Well, the waiting for the 2007 academic year is over, as the results for Second Semester dropped softly (but significantly) into my mailbox today.

All in all, I didn't do too badly. High Distinctions for Triune God and Gospel of Mark, and a Credit (which was only a couple of points off a Distinction) for Faith & Learning.

Must say I was rather pleased with these results for two reasons. Firstly, Semester One was a lot more difficult than I expected; my brain seemed annoyingly sluggish for some reason, and my overall results were solid, if a little disappointing. Secondly, Semester Two was complicated by another round of surgery on my left eye, coupled with the distraction of going through the selection process for applicants to the ordained ministry of the Uniting Church.

I think the difference was that I actually managed to be prepared for a change. I chose my assignment topics early and got stuck into the necessary research without delay. Thus, even though I was laid up for a couple of weeks by the surgery, I had copious notes awaiting me once I was able to get back to work, and writing the essays turned out to be nothing like the nightmare I expected.

You know what - all that guff my teachers and lecturers have been telling me over the years about being disciplined and committed was actually true! Who would have thunk it?

Anyhoo, I reckon I've got bragging rights for this semester...let's just hope my newly found commitment to discipline doesn't disappear over the summer!

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: An intellectual is a man who takes more words than is necessary to say more than he knows. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

An Electoral Reflection

Last night I watched John Howard concede defeat in the Australian Federal election with more dignity and integrity than has characterised most of his time in office.

I have no desire to gloat over a fallen man, however, I am convinced that history will record Howard as the most mediocre individual ever to have been Prime Minister of this country. Which is not to say that his influence and impact on Australia have not been enormous; just that, in my view, Howard's influence on this nation has been almost entirely negative.

Howard's one, shining moment when he acted with genuine integrity occurred early in his Prime Ministership, when he introduced some sanity into the nation's firearms legislation in the wake of the dreadful Port Arthur shootings. Howard did so in the face of bitter protest and opposition from the right-wing of his own support base, and he is to be credited with standing up to the loony shooters fringe and acting in the national interest.

For the rest of his term in office, however, it was a steady downward decline.

Howard has always peddled the "honest John" label that attached itself to him early in his political career. And yet honesty was conspicuously and frequently absent when it came to Howard's decision-making; he much preferred a dissimulation or obfuscation that engendered political capital, as opposed to acting with true statesmanship. Granted, he is not the only politician who has done this, nor was he the only member of his Government who did this; but as the Prime Minister, he set the tone and established the pattern. The reasons for entering the Iraq War and the Howard Government's allegations that refugees threw their children overboard are just two of the more conspicuous examples of dishonesty; and yet in these and other cases, Howard has denied all responsibility, blaming others for supposedly providing defective information, or no information at all. And yet, while it was politically advantageous for him to do so, Howard readily latched onto these lies to entrench his own power.

Howard's dishonesty went further than this. There was, of course, the notorious "never, ever" GST; however, even worse than this was the glib "core and non-core promises" excuse bandied out to the electorate as to why he hadn't kept his election promises; apparently, some of Howard's promises ranked higher on the "I intend to keep" scale than others (not that the electorate was told this, or given the rankings, before an election). Now, Howard is not the only politician to have broken a promise; but the absurd and insulting justification he produced for his dishonesty pointed toward the sinister manipulation of language that would characterise both his government and his approach to realpolitik. This was the Government that changed "refugees" to "unlawful arrivals"; "soldiers" to "enemy combatants"; "dissenters" to "un-Australian". This was the Government that deemed a whole raft of workplace conditions and entitlements to be "non-allowable" in industrial awards, and then had the temerity to attach the phrase "Workchoices" to its punitive industrial legislation. This is the Government - and the Prime Minister - who routinely demonised select groups of people for its own purposes, while at the same time prattling on about "mateship" and "Australian values".

And it is this last that is the defining characteristic of the Howard Government, and of Howard's legacy to Australia: fear. For Howard has manipulated both the underlying racism within Australian society, as well as our habitual insularity and sense of superiority, to secure his own place in politics. When the Hansonite movement threatened to undermine Howard's power-base among conservative, racist whites, Howard not only didn't oppose Hanson directly, he appropriated most of Hanson's policies, especially with respect to Aboriginal Australians and refugees. Hanson's disappearance from politics was not due to any integrity on Howard's part, but was a consequence of Howard's cynical, blatant usurpation of Hanson's power-base. In the wake of 9/11 and the Bali bombings, instead of choosing to comfort the traumatised and offer a platform of hope and engagement, Howard chose to invoke "fortress Australia" and stoke up the fires of mistrust and suspicion. The Howard government's willingness to participate in the unlawful detention of Australian citizens by a foreign power, without trial and subject to every violation of due process imaginable, speaks to the depths to which it was prepared to descend in the pursuit of power.

Australia has been a dark place in the bit-over-a-decade in which Howard has been in power. We are a nation obsessed with material consumption and plunging further and further into personal debt in its pursuit. We claim to be an open and egalitarian society, yet we are suspicious of difference and demand that "others" conform to our "values" and norms. We claim to be fighting on the side of freedom and humanity, yet we have willingly acquiesced in the perpetration of an illegal war, with all the ghastly consequences - including the fostering of new generations of violent extremists - which doing so involves. We claim to be an optimistic and cheerful people, and yet we brood over threats from within and without, and scan the stock reports for signs of impending disaster. We claim to be a nation of anti-establishment larrikins who think for themselves; and yet we have cravenly kowtowed and grovelled to whoever we have thought might offer us security and a few dollars more.

And at the centre of this darkness has stood the figure of John Howard, Prime Minister. Not that I'm suggesting Howard has woven some sort of fiendishly clever web in which he has imposed a dystopic society without us realising the fact. Rather, Howard has been the quintessential expression of our collective weakness; when we needed leadership and statesmanship, we got politicking and manipulation. When we needed courage and hope, we got fear and loathing. When we needed genuine egalitarianism and compassion, we got demonising and finger-pointing. We are to blame for what we are; but Howard, as Prime Minister, is to blame for not trying to make us see what Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature", for not trying to make us be bigger than the sum of who we are. Howard is to blame for allowing us to wallow in our self-absorption, instead of lifting our eyes to new lights.

What Australia needs now more than anything else is hope and vision. I hope this new government can at least be the starting point for this; otherwise, we're in a lot of trouble.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Of all lives, the political life always ends in failure. (Enoch Powell)

My Other Blog

Now that my Dearly Beloved and I are formally candidates to the ordained ministry of the Uniting Church in Australia, and because we are starting to get many more opportunities to preach sermons, lead worship services, and do other associated activities, I have decided to start another blog dedicated to sharing my sermons, prayers, and reflections on faith.

The new blog is called The Still Circle.

But don't worry! I won't be climbing off the Comfy Couch any time soon - I'll still be ranting about all sorts of stuff from the serious to the silly on these pages; it's just that matters of faith will now have their own dedicated site.

I'll begin the new blog with the most recent sermon I preached on Luke 21:5-19, and will also add a couple of recent reflections that have already appeared on this blog. However, as time goes on, I'll add more and more new stuff.

So, there you go - something new. Once you've had fun bouncing around on the Comfy Couch, you can pop over to the Still Circle for some calming down and spiritual centering.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

The Fall of Rome

The chorus to the James Reyne song Fall of Rome concludes with the following couplet:

Everybody says I can't stay home
Still thinking about the Fall of Rome.

Well, everybody might say that I can't do so, but staying home and thinking about the Fall of Rome is exactly what I've been doing in recent times. And my thinking has been prompted by an excellent book, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History by Peter Heather (Pan Books, London, 2006).

Heather's book is subtitled A New History because he takes issue with the view, inherited from a long line of historians starting with Edward Gibbon, that the Roman state collapsed under the weight of moral and political corruption generated by over-prosperity arising from the Empire's conquests and sheer, over-weening power. While Heather does not deny that internal factors - the limitations of an agrarian, pre-modern economy; the constraints imposed by primitive communications; the tendency toward civil strife inherent in any change of leadership in an authoritarian state; and the inability of the imperial tax system to respond to increased fiscal demands beyond a certain limit - were weaknesses that made the Empire vulnerable to collapse, he argues that these factors alone, individually and severally, were not sufficient to cause the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Afterall, Heather argues, the Roman Empire survived in the Eastern Mediterranean for another 1000 years, even though it suffered from the same internal weaknesses.

Indeed, according to Heather, the late Roman Empire, far from being an ungainly edifice perched precipitously on the edge of inevitable disintegration, was in robust good health, internal weaknesses notwithstanding. It had survived the military crises of the 3rd Century AD more or less intact, had contained the threat of the rising Persian (Sassanian) Empire in the East, and was firmly in control of the territories it had ruled since the days of Augustus. And yet, in a mere matter of a decade, from 468-475AD, the Roman Empire in the West completely collapsed. Why?

Heather places the blame squarely on external sources. He argues that these sources did not act in isolation from the aforementioned internal sources, but neither did they merely exacerbate or speed up those internal weaknesses. On the contrary, the external sources, reaching back centuries before the final collapse, were primarily responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. The internal factors only become critical in response to the external sources; had those external factors never developed, the internal causes would have remained dormant, or taken centuries longer to become meaningful.

And what were these external factors? Heather identifies two major culprits: the Huns; and the Romans themselves.

Concerning the Huns, Heather identifies the rise and collapse of the Hunnic Empire as setting in train a series of events that were ultimately to lead to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The emergence of the Huns as a new power north of the Danube in the period 350-375AD caused massive displacement among the peoples living in these regions, especially the Goths and other Germanic peoples such as the Vandals (who were also accompanied by smaller, allied and vassal groups, such as the Suevi and the Alans). But what made these displacements unique when compared to earlier population movements was that they generated a nascent sense of nationhood among the refugees; the hardships suffered at the hands of the Huns, as well as the necessity for a unified response in the face of their overwhelming military power, drove home the advantages of acting and existing en bloc as opposed to operating in tribal and clan units. Thus, gifted barbarian leaders, through a mixture of persuasion, conquest, and the ready submission of potential rival groups, forged coherent national groupings where had previously existed, at best, loose confederations.

The significance of this was that, unlike previous occasions when eastern invaders drove barbarian peoples up against the boundaries of the Roman Empire, the Romans were faced not with a few hundred or a few thousand refugees, but tens of thousands, a suitable proportion of whom were armed fighting men. In the short term, the Romans were able to prevail militarily over such groups; however, whereas previously they had been able to enslave or absorb the civilian population and draft the fighting men into the field army, the new national groupings were far too large to be facilitated by such tactics; and their new-found nationalism meant they would resist any attempt to scatter and absorb their numbers into the Empire's wider population. Thus, the Romans were effectively obliged to settle such groups within the Empire in autonomous or semi-autonomous enclaves, allowing them to live as unified communities in return for payments of tribute and military assistance.

To begin with, these settlements presented a benefit to the Empire. They solved the problem of migrating nations placing pressure on the frontier; they were a source of additional military manpower; they were confined to discrete regions and were thus militarily controllable; and they were a much need source of additional tax revenue. However, as more and more such groups sought entry to the Empire, the land resources available to satisfy the demands of these new groups grew ever scarcer, leading to an increase in conflict, both between the Romans and the newcomers, and between the different barbarian peoples themselves. This conflict resulted in some groups seeking to annexe parts of the Empire exclusively, while other groups sought to expand the size of their enclaves at the expense of others. For example, the Goths settled in south-western Gaul gradually began to increase their dominion, while the Vandals annexed the whole of Spain, eventually moving on to conquer the rich North African provinces. The net effect of this conflict was that vast areas of revenue-producing land were lost to the Roman Empire, undermining the tax base and the Empire's capacity to maintain its armies and resist further invasions.

However, what is most striking about Heather's book is that he sees the collapse of the Hunnic Empire as equally, if not more, significant than its emergence. At first glance this appears anti-intuitive, and yet further analysis reveals that it makes perfect sense. The powerful Hunnic military machine was based on a core of Hunnic fighters supplemented by the fighting-men of conquered peoples - much the same arrangement as that which the Mongols would use to such devastating effect a thousand years later. In order to maintain this machine, perpetual warfare and conquest was necessary, both in order to replace losses and to ensure the control of the Hunnic minority over their conquered subjects. The net effect of this was that the Hunnic Empire, while itself a threat to Rome, also helped contain the threat which the numerous other barbarian peoples also represented; their submission to the Huns neutralised their capacity to threaten the Empire.

However, when the Hunnic Empire collapsed after the death of Attila in 453AD, it released the bonds that tied the subject people to their Hunnic masters; the Huns were overthrown, and the newly-freed subject peoples began to struggle against one another for the resources previously controlled by the erstwhile Hunnic overlords. The inevitable result was that the losers of this brutal contest for survival inevitably sought refuge in the Empire, contributing to and exacerbating the tensions and difficulties created by the settlement of the earlier Germanic nation groups within the Empire. These later arrivals - Rugi, Herules, Burgundians, Sciri, Alemanni, and another group of Goths known as the Ostrogoths ("Eastern Goths") - all competed with one another for land within the Empire, and for positions of influence within the imperial administration that would ensure their success. The result was, after 454AD, a series of largely ineffectual Emperors who ruled at the behest of various barbarian warlords. Combined with the loss of revenue producing lands in Gaul, Spain and North Africa, the weakness of the central administration persuaded many of the rich provincial landowners to throw in their lot with the new barbarian kings, thus providing them with the nucleus of an effective bureaucracy, while further denuding the Empire of talent and sources of income.

The consequence was that the Roman Empire in the West did not so much "fall" as faded away. As central authority weakened and the flow of resources from the centre to the provinces failed, the infrastructure of Roman society gradually whithered away, reverting to village and small town based agrarianism. In the more central regions, barbarian kingdom replaced the Roman imperium; these new kingdoms continued to admire Roman systems of law and governance, resulting in the emergence of what would one day become the feudal bureaucracy of the medieval period, and also ensuring that Latin would transmute over time into the Romance languages of French, Spanish, Italian, Provencal, etc. Of course, the imperial authorities did attempt to fight back, and frequently gained short-term success; but their efforts were constrained by the inability of the Eastern Empire to provide sustained, large-scale support owing to its own military commitments on the ever-dangerous Persian frontier. And when the last attempt to recapture the rich provinces of North Africa in 468AD collapsed in ignominious failure, the writing was on the wall; the deposition of the last Roman Emperor in 475AD was not so much a coup as a formal acknowledgement of the prevailing state of affairs.

But what about that other external source, the Romans themselves? How is this possible? It is in arguing that the Romans themselves created the external sources of their own extinction that Heather provides his most original - and, given the state of affairs in the world today - his most perceptive analysis.

Heather's proposition is simple: through centuries of economic, political, and military contact, the Roman Empire demonstrated to the barbarian peoples along its frontiers the benefits of creating and preserving a unified national grouping. Centuries of trade between the tribes and the Empire lead to increased material wealth, creating economic and social elites among the barbarian nations that had not previously existed. Likewise, the coherent command and authority structure of the Empire's civil and military institutions was better able to respond to crises than the loose confederacy of the barbarians that was usually reliant on the individual charisma of a strong leader, and which was susceptible to being undermined by the rivalry and mutual hostility of the tribal and clan groupings. Further, the frequent punitive military expeditions that were part and parcel of the Empire's policy of dealing with, and ensuring the compliance of, the barbarian tribes ultimately resulted in those tribes developing both an intensified sense of their own identity (and the spirit of independence that goes with this) as well as a desire to create more coherent social and political structures that could better preserve the nation-group.

In other words, it was precisely because of the dangers - military raids, invasions, enslavement, and conscription into the Roman army - as well as the opportunities - enrichment, attainment of political legitimacy, access to material goods and weapons - which the proximity of the Empire afforded that set in motion, over a number of centuries, processes that were to transform the barbarian peoples of the Rhine-Danube frontier from loose tribal and clan confederations locked in ongoing rivalry and warfare to solidified national groupings conscious of their particular identity and prepared to act in its preservation. This process then "collided" with the shock caused by the rise of the Hunnic Empire: national identity was strenghtened as some groups sought to preserve themselves by fleeing into the Roman Empire and setting up enclaves, or as they watched for an opportunity to throw off Hunnic dominion at the least sign of the collapse of the Huns' power. The slow process of socio-political evolution created by Roman-barbarian contact was vastly accelerated by the intrusion of the Huns into Western Europe: and the consequence was a desire for political independence and control of resources that ultimately brought down the Roman state.

Heather demonstrates this thesis by comparing the fallout of the Hunnic invasion with that of the Sarmatian invasion of the 1st century AD. The Sarmatians, Iranian-speaking nomads from the central Asian steppes, overran much of Europe north of the Rhine-Danube frontier just as the Roman Empire was forming itself after the collapse of the Republic. The consequence was a tide of movement against the Empire's boundaries as various barbarian peoples sought refuge from the Sarmatian conquest. However, at this time, the barbarians were divided into many small tribes and clan groupings; their social structure was loose and undefined; their technological attainment had scarcely advanced beyond the early Iron Age; and they appeared at the various frontier posts in small groupings that were managed with relative - though not always complete - ease by the Romans. The upshot was a set of circumstances in which the Romans held all the power: in return for providing shelter, the tribesmen of fighting age had to agree to conscription into the Roman army, while the civilian population was settled in a manner convenient to the Romans. Consequently, the result was absorption of the population and neutralisation of any threat. By contrast, the Hunnic invasion, as we have seen, resulted in the migration of whole population groups conscious of the national identity and determined to preserve it; such groups were not able to be divided and absorbed, but were able to bargain from a position of power, forcing the Romans to allow settlement on generous - if initially controlled - terms. And when the circumstances allowed as the Roman state broke down under the pressure of the building external forces, these enclaves expanded into powerful successor kingdoms to the Roman state.

Thus, Heather skilfully weaves a dual narrative of the rise and fall of the Hunnic Empire, combined with the centuries-long consequence of Roman-barbarian contact, as the primary causes of the fall of the Roman Empire. But what is its relevance for today? Simply, this relevance is to be found in the very final paragraph of this fine, absorbing book: a paragraph that warns the American Empire may, like the Roman, be laying the groundwork for its own destruction. It reads:

There is, I suspect, an inbuilt tendency for the kind of dominance exercised by empires to generate an inverse reaction whereby the dominated, in the end, are able to throw off their chains. The Roman Empire had sown the seeds of its own destruction, therefore, not because of internal weaknesses that had evolved over the centuries, nor because of new ones evolved, but as a consequence of its relationship with the Germanic world. Just as the Sassanians were able to reorganise Near Eastern society so as to throw off Roman domination, Germanic society achieved the same in the west, when its collision with Hunnic power precipitated the process much more quickly than would otherwise have been the case. The west Roman state fell not because of the weight of its own "stupendous fabric", but because its Germanic neighbours had responded to its power in ways that the Romans could never have foreseen. There is in all this a pleasing denouement. By virtue of its unbounded aggression, Roman imperialism was responsible for its own destruction. (p.459)

It's an analysis that certainly gives you pause for thought.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Who does not learn from the past is doomed to repeat it. (George Santayana)

Mmmmmmmm, Nigella (incoherent Homeresque gurgling)...

I've just watched the first installment of Nigella Lawson's latest cooking series, Nigella Feasts.

In the last week, I've read a few previews of this series, and I have to say they've focused on everything but the food. Comment has been made about Ms Lawson's physique, her manner in front of the camera, even the supposed hints of socio-economic elitism which her selection of ingredients and demeanor betray. These comments boil down to two basic categories: Nigella as porn and Nigella as snob.

The porn breaks down into two further sub-categories: gastronomic, and Nigella herself. Regarding the former, the observation seems to be that Lawson's use of food is somehow sexually suggestive. The way she kneads dough, for example, or the language she uses to describe ingredients, is said to be more about titillation than it is about cooking. Concerning the latter, Ms Lawson is routinely described as "buxom", "bosomy", "busty", "voluptuous", and so on and so forth. The suggestion seems to be that her body shape is somehow deliberate, a self-created pose whose sole function is to inflame passions and arouse lust.

Now, don't get me wrong. Nigella Lawson is indeed coquettish, and the way she glances strategically at the camera and employs double entendres does carry more than a hint of sexual suggestion. But let's face it: by the standards of most "reality" TV and what passes for "general" entertainment these days, Lawson is positively tame. Indeed, she seems to hark back to an earlier time of "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" that has its origins in the music hall tradition of Victorian England. Sure, I cringe at some aspects of Lawson's on-camera performance; sometimes the banter is a tad too obvious. But I can't help thinking that the reason why so many people seem to find her so captivating is that, if Lawson is indeed suggestive, it's precisely because she uses the power of suggestion to enthrall, as opposed to rubbing our faces in anything explicit. In other words, it's because she hints at something other than food creates the electric charge many react against; if she were to stand at her cooking station naked, she'd simply be dismissed - I doubt she'd raise an eyebrow (or anything else).

So, contrary to what most of the reviewers would have you believe, Ms Lawson isn't some gastro-nymphomaniac who overwhelms you with sexual electricity; on the contrary, it's precisely because she's so subtle (by relative standards) that she captures attention. It's because she stands in such stark contrast to the blatant exhibitionism of pop culture that she is noticed; quite apart from being one of the stew of "notice me" celebrities, she is, in fact, the (even if not complete) opposite.

Concerning the issue of snobbery, the allegation appears to be that Nigella is essentially a phoney: a silver-spooned private-school girl who is attempting to manufacture a "common person" identity which she patently lacks - indeed, which she would probably scorn in her private life. In other words, it's all a crock: Ms Lawson might appear on our TV screens, but she wouldn't be seen dead watching television with any one of us.

First, the disclaimer: I know next to nothing about Ms Lawson's life, background, and socio-economic circumstances. So I have no idea if she is actually a snob, or actually does possess what is called the "common touch". I have no doubt that she enjoys a more than financially secure lifestyle as a consequence of the success of her television series and their spin-off cookbooks. But I'm sure the same could be said of Jamie Oliver - and no-one seems to be suggesting that he's a phoney. Perhaps it's just Lawson's admittedly plummy accent that attracts the opprobrium; unlike Oliver, who says "pukka" a lot and speaks with an accent that, in my humble opinion, makes him sound like a severely mentally retarded five year old. Or maybe it's because Ms Lawson makes no attempt to be anything other than who she is that ticks people off; maybe she was expected to develop a "persona", a character that people could identify with (or which would make them feel less self-conscious).

So it could be that her "crime" is just to have exercised some integrity. I mean, she's no more plummy than the Two Fat Ladies, but nobody accused either of them of snobbery (possibly because they were old and eccentric, and therefore easily patronised). Mind you, if Lawson started saying "pukka" and ran programs for homeless kids who wanted to be chefs, I'm sure she'd also be accused of hypocrisy. Maybe this is just a "no-win" for her; damned if she does, damned if she doesn't.

So what's all this to me? Well, yes, it's because I am an unashamed fan of Ms Lawson. And no, it's not just because I think she's hot. My Dearly Beloved happens to think Ainslie Herriot is sex on a stick, but she'd bristle at any suggestion that was the only reason why she watches him. Hell, I like watching Ainslie myself - and for the same reason why I like Nigella. Because both have an unabashed enthusiasm for food. In this age of eating disorders and image consciousness, both have an almost visceral approach to food and eating that runs counter to the prevailing mood of pop culture. And it's because they're so counter-cultural that I like both Nigella and Ainslie: they like food, and they're not ashamed of the fact.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'll keep watching Nigella. I don't know about the porn, or about the snobbery; what keeps me coming back to Nigella is not the suggestive remarks or the raised eyebrows, but the fact that she enjoys food for it's own sake. She enjoys food because it looks good, tastes great, and sod the calories. That's good enough for me.

And besides - she's a babe...

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Sex is something that's allowed in Scotland only when Rangers beat Celtic. (Ronnie Barker)

The Heat Is On!

Because I've been studying full-time this year, my Dearly Beloved has borne the brunt of maintaining the family finances. Accordingly, and in order to make my contribution to the co-nuptial coffers, I have just managed to score a job as a console operator at a local service station.

No, I'm not going to tell you the location, the name of the company, or what shifts I'll be working. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't trust you that much. So don't even ask!

Anyhoo, I've just completed a week's intensive training. Who would have thought there was so much to learn? But believe me, the information overload was phenomenal: Trade Practices Act, Occupational Health and Safety Act, Food Safety Act, as well as all the various safety procedures, money handling and security protocols, and company policies. It really was overwhelming. And then, of course, there's the console itself: authorising the petrol pumps and processing the sales transactions (and, just to make everything even more complicated, being aware of all the discounts, special offers, and product promotions that go with the job!).

Last Friday was my first day on the job. I was only on a shortened shift, but it was nerve-wracking, trying to process transactions without making too many mistakes, and all the while maintaining my professional cool. And, of course, there's always someone who asks you something you don't know or haven't learned yet, or who requires a transaction that you haven't been introduced to while you bed down the basics. Luckily, the manager and a more experienced staff member were on hand for most of the shift, so they were able to correct my stuff ups and give me plenty of useful pointers. Still, by the time I got home, my legs felt like jelly, and I was thinking: what have I let myself in for?

So it's with just a little trepidation that I'm approaching the summer of work lying ahead of me. Of course, I'm hoping this job survives longer than the Summer and continues into next year, but right now it all seems a little daunting. Afterall, when I stopped working full-time, I was leaving a job that was completely familiar to me, in an environment well within my comfort zone. This is all alien territory.

I'm just looking forward to the day when something in my head goes click and it all becomes second nature. But until then, prepare for more tales of woe...

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Employment: death without the dignity. (Brendan Behan)

My Dearly Beloved Speaks!

On the weekend, my Dearly Beloved preaced the sermon at our local Uniting Church congregation. And what a fantastic job she did, too! Using multimedia, a sense of humour, and some pecant observations, she turned the familiar tale of Zacchaeus up his tree into a challenging and thoughtful exploration of friendship, and what the friendship of the divine means for humankind.

She's posted an account on her blog - I urge you to take a look, it will be well worth your while.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Where is God Taking Me?

Last night, I watched the final installment of the wonderful television series The Abbey, which was featured on the ABC's Compass program.

One of the things I have found fascinating about the show is how the five women who were chosen to live in the Abbey and experience the daily life of the nuns - ordered according to the Rule of St Benedict - adjusted to the discipline of monastic life. Most people, I suspect, believe that living in a monastery is easy, that it involves little more than saying a few prayers, doing a few chores, and basically having a lot of leisure time to laze around and do very little. But the reality is quite different: as the nuns kept reminding the women (and the audience), the rhythm of daily life is governed by the seven daily prayer and worship sessions (which begin at 4:30am!), around which the various jobs of the self-sufficient abbey must be completed. In other words, the life of the nuns is one of work suffused with prayer and contemplation. It amounts to a very full day, seven days a week; and the women discovered for themselves how difficult it actually is.

Another interesting aspect was the amount of silence which the women had to keep - not only at night (the "Great Silence") but also during many parts of the day. This is something which the Rule insists upon in order that the individual might develop the capacity to really listen; listen to the secrets of their true self, to what their life experience is saying to them, to what God is saying to them. Some of the women were actively searching for God; others were either dubious about God, or didn't see God as relevant. But the silence forced them to be open to the possibility of God, and to the fact that God might actually be speaking to them. And that was very confronting for them, because they were used to a world of noise, to the sound of their own and others' voices. It was not simply the amount of silence that troubled them, but its depth, and what it was revealing.

But there is also another reason why this aspect of silence engaged me. This reason resides in the fact that silence, for me, has never been a troubling or confronting experience. On the contrary, I have always found silence deeply comforting and refreshing; it is in silence, and stillness, in the almost physical quietude of the "dark, sacred night" (to quote from the song What A Wonderful World) that I have most deeply and powerfully experienced the presence of God. So, unlike these women, silence for me has never been a problem; what I have flinched from is crowd and noise and the absence of quiet.

Which isn't to say that I'm anti-social. Rather, that I've never been very good at "working a room" or introducing myself to strangers, or just thrusting myself into a conversation. Nor am I very good at "small talk"; a conversation I can sustain until the cows come home, but ask me to talk about the weather, and I'm lost. You could also say that I'm not an "events" kind of person: my idea of a good night out is a sharing a meal and a drink and chatting with a couple of friends in a snug pub or nice restaurant. Likewise, I prefer entertaining a few friends at home and cooking them dinner than going to a club or a loud party.

Yes, there is an element of shyness involved, but it's also part of my nature to prefer calm and convivial events rather than a roisterous "bash". I was even like this as a teenager (much to my mother's exasperation!). But in light of The Abbey and observing the women's difficulty with silence, I am prompted to reflect on my difficulty with noise, especially in the context my candidacy to the ordained ministry.

Will my preference for silence, for small, quiet events, sometimes even solitude, interfere with my pastoral duties and responsibilities? Will my natural reserve, containing as it does an element of shyness, prevent me from being open and welcoming to people? Will my difficulty with "small talk" stop me from engaging with others?

I don't think so. Afterall, I've managed to make friends with many people, partly off my own bat and partly through association with others. Moreover, my work in the union movement was intensely pastoral, requiring me to engage with people and enter into their suffering. And when it comes to functions, I've always managed to find a way to break the ice, however awkwardly. So I don't think my natural inclinations will cripple my capacity to be sociable.

But it will be a struggle, and a struggle for my whole life. I am conscious of that fact, even as I am conscious of the difference between difficulty and debilitation. But the point is not so much how I will deal with situations I find confronting but the fact that God is seemingly taking me into places and situations in which will have to square up to these confrontations. You see, as I was watching The Abbey, it occurred to me how many times I have told people that, had I been born in another time and place, I would almost certainly have ended up in a religious community. Moreover, this is a prospect that I still find deeply compelling: the notion that, at the end of my life, when I have done all there is to do in the world, I could spend the last years of my existence with God.

But I dare say that will never eventuate, even as I know it will always remain an attractive possibility. Because I think the point is that my life is not meant to be comfortable, that faith is not about letting me escape from the world, but enter into it. Not that I think any of the sisters in the Benedictine monastery that was featured in The Abbey are inadequate types who cannot cope with the world; on the contrary, I think they are performing a profound service in which they offer a radical alternative to the materialism and self-absorption of the present cultural climate. What I mean is that I suspect, for me, entering a religious community would in many respects be the "easy option", it would represent a retreat from the life of the world I find so often confronting and challenging. And, for me, I think that is the point of the ordained ministry; it's about not letting me get away with the "easy option", with taking the line of least resistance.

Recently, in another post, I wrote this about myself:

I don't think God wants me to be happy; I think God wants me to be fully human, to be what I truly am. I think God wants to take me out of my comfort zone of complacency and familiarity, so that I can grow up, and love, and be loved. And in order to do that, I need to heed the call of vocation which God has been issuing to me my whole life long.

And I think therein lies the reason why God is leading me down this path. Jacob wrestled with God all night and ended up with a limp and a dislocated hip; he was renamed Israel, which apparently means "he struggles with God". And that is what faith is; not an easy assurance, but a struggle, a wrestling match from which we come away both bruised and blessed. It bruises us because it confronts and challenges us deeply, with the most powerful and painful aspects of our existence; but it also blesses us because from that suffering arises a richness and depth of being that would not otherwise be possible.

I suspect I will be both bruised and blessed along my journey. I don't look forward to the bruises; but I will try and see beyond them to the blessings.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Easy street never leads anywhere. (Anonymous)

Eureka Street Article

A bit over a month ago, the editor of Eureka Street, an e-journal published by the Australian Jesuits, asked me to write an article about the union movement and the forthcoming election. The timing of the request wasn't exactly great, given I was struggling to get assignments submitted on time and still recovering from eye surgery, but since Eureka Street pay for articles and I really need the money, I agreed to the request. Also, my vanity in seeing my name attached to a published piece played its part!

So here is the link. Hope you enjoy!

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Authors are people who are easy enough to get along with - if you're fond of children. (Michael Joseph)

A Taste of Things to Come

Yesterday, my Dearly Beloved and I (along with Sue, our fellow newby candidate) went along to the Uniting Church Theological Hall in Melbourne for a "New Candidates Day" to get a taste of what life will be like once we commence our candidates' study and formation in 2008. It was also the last day of the teaching year for the existing candidates, so we were also able to get an insight into a day in the life of the Hall.

In a sense, we had already been welcomed to the Hall by the Uniting Church Candidates Association (which glories in the acronym UCCA). All the new candidates had been sent a lovely card welcoming us to the community of candidates and faculty, and each card featured a beautiful photograph taken by one of the existing candidates (another Sue) during her travels in the Holy Land.

It was nice to receive the warm and generous welcomes of the existing candidates. But it was also instructive to read the exhortations that we enjoy our last summer of freedom - a reminder that next summer we will be on our first field placement in another congregation, quite possibly in a rural area. So that was both exciting in the sense of having something to look forward to, but also slightly intimidating, in that the weight and seriousness of the vocation we are undertaking started to manifest itself.

So, feeling a little like children on their first day at school, my Dearly Beloved and I turned up at Hall - and were immediately greeted and made welcome by all. I was especially touched and humbled to see my friend Caro, whose father recently passed away, there to greet us and share the day. It was a powerful indicator of the grace and spirit that is required to undertake and sustain ordained ministry.

After a brief but moving morning prayer service, the new candidates spent the morning going through various items of "housework" - an introduction to the hall, the ordination requirements, the formation process, etc. Then we broke for morning tea, during which time we discovered how strong the sense of community is at the Hall, as candidates and faculty mingled and talked and shared a cuppa and some food. After morning tea, the new candidates joined the existing candidates and observed presentations that were being made as part of their assessment for a subject entitled "Mission and Evangelism". I don't know about my Dearly Beloved or Sue, but I was impressed with - and a little intimidated by! -the quality of the presentations, and the obvious amount of work that had gone into them. It was an indicator of the standards we will need to achieve as candidates in the future!

Lunch was again a communal affair, consisting of a delicious soup and savoury bread, followed by fresh fruit. During lunch, the new candidates were also given a briefing by the Candidates Association about life at Hall from the candidates' perspective, as well as some of the relevant issues which form the basis of ongoing dialogue with the faculty. We were also informed that there are a number of committees on which students sit that are integral to the life of the Hall and its relations with the United Faculty of Theology, of which it is a constituent member - and, later that afternoon, I was approached and asked if I would like to be a member of one such committee; UCCA works fast!

After lunch, an interesting forum on being an ordained minister and relating to the media was conducted by the Synod's media officer. This was followed by a wonderful Eucharist service, featuring sung responses and a powerful sermon delivered by a guest Lutheran pastor. Then the day concluded with drinks and nibbles, again involving the whole faculty and candidates.

So - an informative, intense, encouraging, uplifting, intimidating, compelling, engaging day. As my Dearly Beloved said later, it was a day that made you realise for the first time the fact that our vocation to ordained ministry is no longer somewhere in the future - it's now a present reality. And that reality is both filled with expectation and hope - and is also a little scary. But what impressed me most about the day was the intense atmosphere of community: the love and support and encouragement were almost palpable. Whatever the difficulties and struggles of the journey ahead, I know my Dearly Beloved and I won't be walking the road alone; we are part of a community now, and that precious gift is valuable beyond estimation.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Virtue shuns ease as a companion - it demands a rough and thorny road. (Michel de Montaigne)

How Do I Follow THAT?!?

I have something of a dilemma.

I have now received back all my assignments for this semester, and although the mark for one was a little disappointing (high Credit), by some miracle of cosmic proportions I have managed to score High Distinctions for the other two.

Now, I know that HD's are every students dream and aspiration - the Everest, as it were, of the academic scale of achievement. And, believe me, it's not that I'm not grateful, it's just that...well, how do I follow a result like this?

Let me put it this way: over the course of a three year degree, one assumes one will gradually acquire more skills and knowledge, and, through the rigour of the academic process, lift one's work from a first year to a third year level of competence. Which means you expect to start with relatively modest scores and gradually build your way up to something more impressive.

I know, I know - there are always the favoured few who through talent and/or dedication, achieve top marks right from the off. But as Bruce Springsteen would say: get it straight now, mister - hey, buddy, that ain't me. I'm not an academic genius. My results are what you would call solid, not spectacular. So where in the heck do I come off achieving not one, but two HD results for my assignments?

Of course, this outcome doesn't mean that my final mark for the semester will be a HD in the two subjects concerned. I still have to get past the exams, and perform in said exams at a sufficient level to sustain the HD rating. And, in an ironic kind of way, that's the dilemma - because I can only go downhill from here!

Have I peaked too soon? Is the universe playing one of its cruel jokes, raising my hopes only to dash them on the rocks of the mediocrity I know are lurking beneath?

I know what you're thinking: I should be grateful and take the mark for what it is. And I do. It's just that...well, it's just that I now run the risk of every assignment I do being an anti-climax at best, a disappointment at worst! And, no, I'm not being paranoid or hypersensitive. I'm just feeling a little bit confronted at present...

It could be worse - I know it could be worse. But, gee, you know: two HDs...

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Failure is anyone seen on a bus after the age of thirty. (Nicholas Ray)

The Reason Why

On the weekend, a friend asked me: "This ministry thing - it's a bit of a turnaround for you, isn't it? I mean, when I first met you, you were kinda anti the whole God thing."

I knew what she was saying - and I knew why she was saying it. It's the same question that many people have asked me - that I have asked myself. Why do I want to enter the ordained ministry? What's it about, this sense of vocation? Is it a sudden thing - or if not, why haven't we known about it? Why have you been keeping it a secret?

Well, let me state two things right at the beginning: one, I haven't been keeping anything a secret; and, two, I didn't receive a visitation: no lights in the sky, no heavenly choirs, no commands from above. What has been happening to me is a process, and for a long part of that process, I didn't know I had a call to ordained ministry; didn't know, or didn't want to know. A call from God is something you can suppress just as easily as an unpleasant memory; but part of the process of response, just as part of the process of confronting our inner demons, involves facing that which we would prefer to deny.

I'm not going to give you my life history: how I grew up in the Catholic church; how I became alienated from Catholicism in my late teens; how I spent my twenties convinced that there was no place inside a faith community for me, that I was, in effect, an exile; how I began the healing process firstly through my discovery of Stoic philosophy, and secondly through my work in the union movement; how I gradually came to realise the possibilities for faith and faith community and how this was realised through my relationship with my Dearly Beloved. All of that would take far too long, and quite a bit of it's not for public consumption, anyway. Suffice to say, it's the background.

The bottom line is that God has always been a presence in my life. When I say "presence", I don't mean physically - although I do mean it literally. I have always felt God particularly strongly in silence, in the still darkness of the night, and in the astonishing grandeur and complexity of the cosmos; perhaps that's why I've always felt drawn most strongly to the meditative and contemplative aspects of faith. Perhaps the best way I can describe it is that God has always stood at my left shoulder: not looking over my shoulder, checking up on what I was doing, or whispering in my ear; just there, sometimes a comfort, but more often than not a burden. Something I tried to shrug off, but it just wouldn't let me go.

And the key to understanding what I'm talking about lies in that word burden. Faith for me is not a release, it's not something that makes my life easier; but that's the point. Faith is not meant to be some glib, smug assurance of our rightness or our righteousness; it's not meant to confirm our prejudices or pander to our ego. It's meant to be something that challenges us, that we wrestle with and struggle for, that forces us to walk paths clouded by uncertainty and doubt and fear. Faith is something that's meant to take us out of our comfort zones, that drags us into the world and forces us to live, to have the wholeness and fullness of life in all its abundance: the good, the bad, the indifferent.

And it was all that struggling that I did in my teens and twenties and early thirties that has lead me to this place; because I think I was wrestling with God, with the presence of God that I didn't want to acknowledge, that I tried to buck or ignore, that I wanted so much to be gone so I could maintain my anger and hurt and disappointment at the church. And what pissed me off more than anything was God's sheer persistence, the fact that God wouldn't go away; not demanding, not cajoling, not judging - just standing there at my left shoulder, reminding me of God's presence. No matter how I rationalised or justified, or tried to have a bet either way, God just stayed put.

Way back when I started this blog, I wrote about C S Lewis and his book The Problem of Pain. What I didn't say at the time was that, powerful though this book was for me, even more striking was his "spiritual autobiography" Surprised By Joy. In it, Lewis describes his own difficult, conflicted, wrenching journey of faith; how he tried to be an atheist and couldn't convince himself; how he tried to equivocate and theoretically agree that while there might be a God, that God really didn't have much to do with being or existence; and how, having tried to avoid the issue and construct his own reality, he was left with no choice except to conclude that God not only existed, but as was an actually presence - a reality - in his life.

I know that some sections of the Christian community have tried to turn Lewis into some kind of evangelical hero: the atheist turned convert who became one of the most powerful apologists for Christianity. But the truth, it seems to me, is much simpler: Lewis was an intensely human person who struggled for much of his life with faith, and with the possibility of God, and whose faith was not a "road to Damascus" experience but a process in which the continual presence of God acted like a kind of slow wearing away, grinding down all his evasions and avoidances until he was unable to do anything other than face that truth by which he was confronted.

I don't want to put myself in the same class as C S Lewis, but the story he tells in Surprised By Joy is one that resonates to the core of my being. I was never an atheist, but I did go through the hurtful, damaging process of alienation; and for years afterwards, I did try to console myself with intellectualising my anger with God and the church. Until, ultimately, one day, I could no longer defend my prevarications, not even to myself. Much though I didn't want to, I had to submit; that is, I had to be honest with myself and face that calling I had tried to hide from for most of my life, but which had eventually uncovered my hiding place and exposed me to the light of day.

In the motion picture Shadowlands, C S Lewis (played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins) asks the question: does God want us to suffer? And then he asks a second question: what if the answer to the first question is "yes"? Then he concludes by saying:

You see, I don't think God wants us to be happy. It's not that God wants us to be unhappy - it's just that our happiness has nothing to do with it. We imagine that our childish toys will bring us all the happiness there is, and that the walls of our nursery circumscribe the limits of the world. But something must drive us out of our nursery, and into the world of others - and that something is suffering. What God wants is for us to grow up, to leave the nursery, to love and to be loved. We are like blocks of stone, and the blosws from the sculptor's chisel that strikes us so hard that we can scarcely bear the pain, are nonetheless what make us perfect.

I don't think God wants me to be happy; I think God wants me to be fully human, to be what I truly am. I think God wants to take me out of my comfort zone of complacency and familiarity, so that I can grow up, and love, and be loved. And in order to do that, I need to heed the call of vocation which God has been issuing to me my whole life long.

When I first started telling people I knew about the fact that I would be following my vocation, someone jokingly asked me, "Does that mean we can't swear or tell dirty jokes around you?", to which I flippantly replied, "Shit, no!". Another person said: "Does this mean you've "found God"?", to which I again flippantly replied, "Hardly; if God's got any brains, I'll be the last person who finds him." And I was keen to tell people - only half jokingly - that I hadn't suddenly acquired a saintliness or a sanctity that I hadn't previously possessed. But beneath the flippancy was a desire to assure people that I hadn't changed; I was still me, it was just that I was going to be more fully me - more properly me - than I had been up until that time.

So there you have it: that's the reason why. Does God talk to me (ie: do I hear voices in my head?). No, I don't. And I don't have visions, either. Because when it comes to communication, God's dialogue with me has been one of proximity, not conversation. And at last - at long last - I've finally started to listen.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love", and look on things if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. (C S Lewis)

I Suppose It Had To Happen...

Well, after a protracted "phoney campaign", the PM finally visited the Governor-General to inform His Excellency that he should dissolve the Parliament and call an election for November 24th.

Forgive me if I sound cynical, but once again we're going to be launched into a contest between a Liberal Party that's about as "liberal" as a Southern Baptist Convention, and a Labor Party that wouldn't recognise the expression "working class" if it bit them on their collective arse!


At least the media will be happy, gleefully press-ganging the political main-players every day for the next six weeks in their never-ending quest for the gaff-of-the-day. Meanwhile, Messrs Howard and Rudd will be insisting that they're as different from one another as chalk and cheese, while at the same time maintaining that the other lot are copying their ideas!


Lord preserve us, but this next little while is going to be a joy to live through. Don't get me wrong, I'm gagging for a change of government: as far as I'm concerned, John Howard will go down in history as the most mediocre person to have ever been Prime Minister of this country. Which tells you something about how abysmal the Opposition has been in the last ten years - and how short sighted the voting population of this nation. And, no, it's not because they've been voting conservative, it's the reasons why: fear, ignorance, bigotry, selfishness. I reckon Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah would have been having something to say to us over this last decade or so...

Anyhoo, we might as well settle in for what's undoubtedly going to be a "fun" ride characterised by oodles of pork-barrelling, blithely delivered assurances about the costings on all those election promises, and accusations of bad faith, incompetence, inexperience, shady dealings and general character assassination. Ain't democracy wonderful???

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Of course democracy's no fair. And a good thing, too. Give the likes of Baldrick the vote and we'll be back to cavorting Druids, death by stoning, and dung for dinner. (Edmund Blackadder)

A Tight Squeeze!

It has been a heck of a week here at Comfy Couch Central!

The cause of all this excitement has been the dreaded malaise known as assignment deadlineitis!

Every semester, I begin by saying that this time I'll be organised: I'll study properly, I'll get stuck into the research for the assignments early, I won't leave anything until the last moment.

And this semester, I did - I actually did! I had two of my three assignments properly researched, with oodles of notes. And I was on the verge of getting stuck into the third - when the retina in my left eye decided it was a great time to detach again. Which in turn necessitated surgery, which also necessitated a week lying immobilised on my left side, which finally necessitated getting used to reading and writing with one eye. And then, just as a semblance of normality was returning, I came down with a chest infection - the result of which was another three weeks out of action!

Which, of course, meant all my planning - and good intentions! - went down the drain. I had to swallow my pride and ask my lecturers for extensions - which they all gladly provided with ready grace and concern for my welfare. They even asked if I needed longer than I asked for! Stupidly, I decided not to take advantage of their generosity, confident that I could get the work done in time.

WRONG! Well, almost. The deadline was this week - Friday, to be precise. And I had two of the three assignments unfinished. Well, I managed to knock over one by Tuesday, and today I've (miracle!) managed to complete the second.

Phew! It was a stretch! But I can also tell you this much: I sure appreciate the generosity and understanding of my lecturers, and their readiness to give me every possible assistance. It makes one hell of a difference to your confidence!

So here's a vote of thanks to my lecturers - I hope what I've produced justifies their generosity!

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Teachers open the door; you must enter by yourself. (Chinese proverb)

The True Power of Magic

In the last few weeks, I have been reading Ursula Le Guin's wonderful Earthsea Trilogy (it's now a sextet, but that's another story). This has partly been as a result of my improving eye sight after my surgery, and partly as a means of taking my mind off assignments and deadlines. But mostly it was prompted by the fact that, as part of the Selection Conference weekend when my Dearly Beloved and I had to convince the Uniting Church's Victorian-Tasmanian Synod Committee of our call to ordained ministry, we had to give a presentation of something about which we were passionate (outside church and faith).

I gave a presentation on my passion for literature and reading, and in particular, my love of writing. I did this by tracing my earliest experience with books at the local library, through my expanding repertoire of fiction and non-fiction - until I read a novel that awoke in me my talent for writing. And that book was The Tombs of Atuan, second in the Earthsea trilogy.

So it was in a mood of sentimental reminiscence that I started reading the original trilogy all over again. And once more I recalled the characters whose stories had touched me when I first read them all those many years ago, and on every occasion since. Ged, the main character, powerful and willful, possessed of great talent and deep power; his master Ogion the Silent, grave and silent, compassionate and without anger; Estarriol, Ged's wise and humble friend; Tenar, once Priestess of the Old Powers of Atuan, bringer of the Rune of Peace; and Lebannen, Prince of Enlad, the long-lost King whose destiny it is to travel with Ged across the dark lands of death in order to heal the broken Kingdom of Earthsea.

And I also read again the many passages by which I had been moved and remembered across the years: Ged taking leave from his master Ogion; Ged learning harsh lessons about power and its limitations when he tames the dragon Yevaud but cannot save a dying child; Ged receiving his faithful boat Lookfar from a poor fisherman, and in return healing the fisherman of the cataracts that were blinding him; the companionship of Ged and Estarriol as they face what they believe is certain death; Tenar being taken from her parents to serve in the Tombs of Atuan; Tenar and Ged escaping from the Tombs; Ged and Lebannen as they journey together to stop a great evil that is consuming the earth.

As I said, it was The Tombs of Atuan that woke in me my talent of writing. But it was the first novel, A Wizard of Earthsea, that I always treasured as a young adult; partly because I identified strongly with the main character, Ged, but also because I loved the character Ogion. He seemed to me to be the model of what it was to be wise: grave, silent, compassionate, without anger or vanity, possessed of a wry sense of humour, someone who acted only out of necessity, never in haste, never for reasons of self-aggrandisement or promotion, but because it was needful and just. These are not characteristics which I possess: but they remain a goal toward which I strive.

Now, however, its is the final book in the trilogy, The Farthest Shore, which has captured my allegiance. That's because it's the most philosophical of the three, the most contemplative; it is a meditation in life and living, of the joys and sorrows of being, of the pleasures and consequences of existence. And in particular, it's an exposition on power, on the use and abuse of power; and on how power is rarely what we imagine it to be. And there are some truly amazing passages, thoughtful and powerful in their insight:

"When I was young I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are." (Chapter Three)

There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty. (Chapter Three)

"Only one thing can resist an evil-hearted man. And that is another man. In our shame is our glory. Only our spirit, which is capable of evil, is capable of overcoming it." (Chapter Three)

"Do you see...how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter, the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown the circuit of the stars responds, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done...But we, in so far as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility." (Chapter Four)

"This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence, There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss." (Chapter Eight)

"To refuse death is to refuse life." (Chapter Eight)

"The traitor, the self, the self that cries I want to live, let the world rot so long as I can live! The little traitor soul in us, in the dark, like the spider in the box. He talks to all of us. But only some understand him." (Chapter Nine)

"Only what is mortal bears life...Only in death is there rebirth. The Balance is not a stillness. It is a movement - an eternal becoming." (Chapter Nine)

"What is a good man? Is a good man one who would not do evil, who would not open a door to darkness, who has no darkness in him? Look again...Look a little farther." (Chapter Nine)

"You stand on the borders of possibility, in the shadowland, in the realm of dream, and you hear the voice saying Come. As I once did. But I am old. I have made my choices. I have done what I must do. I stand in daylight facing my own death. And I know that there is only one power worth having. And that is the power, not to take, but to accept. Not to have, but to give." (Chapter Nine)

"You fear them because you fear death, and rightly: for death is terrible, and must be feared...And life is also a terrible thing...and must be feared and praised." (Chapter Eleven)

"Look at the land; look about you. This is your kingdom, the kingdom of life. This is your immortality. Look at the hills, the mortal hills. They do not endure forever. The hills with the living grass on them, and the streams with water running...In all the world, in all the worlds, in all the immensity of time, there is no other like each of those streams, rising cold out of the earth where no eye sees it, running through the sunlight and the darkness to the sea. Deep are the springs of being, deeper than life, than death..." (Chapter Eleven)

"I have given my love to what is worthy of love. Is that not the kingdom, and the unperishing spring?" (Chapter Eleven)

"A living body suffers pain...a living body grows old; it dies. Death is the price we pay for our life, and for all life." (Chapter Twelve)

As one critic wrote of Le Guin's work: "If you've had enough of Harry Potter-style kid wizardry, Le Guin offers a powerful tonic. These tales are intense, moving, engaging, and best of all, character driven. Le Guin knows people, wizards or not."

I couldn't put it better myself. And that's why I'll always love this trilogy.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky. (Ursula Le Guin)

Time For Revenge?

Thanks to Caro, I took the Nerd Test and have emerged as a self-revealed High Nerd!

This is how I scored...





Now, if only I can figure out who to wreck my nerdish vengence upon...

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Genius is the capacity for evading hard work. (Elbert Hubbard)

I Know I'm Bookish, But...

You can blame this one on Caro...although I'm actually quite pleased with the result, as this is one of my favourite books of all time...

You're To Kill a Mockingbird!

by Harper Lee

Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have
changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you've
also taken a significant amount of flack. But you've had the admirable guts to
persevere. There's a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you,
but you're pretty sure it's worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you
whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

And Now For Something a Little Less Serious...

You Are a Blue Crayon

Your world is colored in calm, understated, deep colors. You are a loyal person, and the truest friend anyone could hope to find. On the inside, you tend to be emotional and even a bit moody. However, you know that people depend on you. So you put on a strong front. Your color wheel opposite is orange. Orange people may be opinionated, but you feel they lack the depth to truly understand what they're saying.

What Color Crayon Are You?

You Are 72% Good

You are a good person. You do the best you can to be ethical, fair, and moral. And as you know, being a good person means making hard decisions... and following them through. If you're confronted with an ethical dilemma, you will usually do the right thing. Of course you do slip up. No one's perfect. But you do your best to correct your missteps. You are also probably: incredibly honest, especially with yourself Right now you are on track to being: A respected leader To be a better person: Be kind to someone who is not very kind to you

How Good Are You?

You Are a Haunted House

You are a deeply complicated and sometimes deeply disturbed person. You can't help but be attracted to the dark side of life - even when it's pretty gruesome. In relationships, you are honest and real. So real that it's definitely a little scary. You don't fake it or play along just to get along. And people either respect this... or deeply resent it Your life is thoughtful, deep, and even philosophical at times. You see the world as it is. You don't sugar coat anything. Facing and fighting your fears is important to you. You believe that too much of life is whitewashed. You're not too morbid... you just believe that you can't enjoy life without exorcising a few demons first! At your best, you are brave, intense, and fearless. Not only do you face the abyss head on - you challenge your friends to do the same. At your worst, you are depressed and morose. If you're not careful, your thoughts take over your mind... and they aren't pretty!

What Carnival Ride Are You?

You Are Sunrise

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts. All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.

What Time Of Day Are You?

You Are a Centaur

In general, you are a very cautious and reserved person. However, you are also warm hearted, and you enjoy helping others in practical ways. You are a great teacher, and you are really good at helping people get their lives in order. You are very intuitive, and you go with your gut. You make good decisions easily.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

A Question of Trust

Who do you trust?”

With this slogan, John Howard propelled the Coalition to victory at the last election. When the Coalition also achieved the rare feat of gaining control of the Senate, Howard assured Australians that he would not abuse the power that had been placed in his hands.

But as another election approaches, it seems the Coalition has been hoisted on the petard of its own sloganeering. And the hoisting has come from a most unexpected direction: industrial relations.

The introduction, in 2006, of the Workchoices legislation - the Howard government’s blueprint for industrial reform - was always bound to be controversial. But instead of the anticipated campaign of industrial protest, which could be relied on to generate temporary attention before fading away, the union movement has responded with a clever media assault that has both resonated with the public and left the government wrong-footed. Not even big business’ deep pockets have been able to reverse the contribution which industrial relations has made to the Howard government’s slide in the polls.

Trust is at the heart of the industrial relations debate. When John Howard promised not to abuse his Senate majority, he was building on the covenant he had constructed with the Australian “mainstream” at earlier elections: loyalty at the ballot-box in exchange for protection of “mainstream” interests. Had he limited the scope of Workchoices to sidelining the union movement, he could arguably have escaped any perception of broken promises; but by enacting legislation that has so completely skewed the employment relationship in favour of employers, he has betrayed his own covenant.

The union movement has seized upon this breach to drive home the message that, under Workchoices, everyone is vulnerable. Their method is simple and effective: real-life case-histories narrated by the individuals concerned, chronicling the loss of conditions and jobs as employers take advantage of Workchoices to refashion the industrial landscape.

The government and business response has been expensive and ineffective. Lavishly produced commercials depicting mythologically happy workplaces cannot match the gritty realism of rural workers standing in the middle of arid landscape saying: “Out here, jobs aren’t that easy to find.” Unions know it is easier to play on fears than it is to build up hopes - this, afterall, is the same formula that has ensured John Howard’s repeated electoral success. But when a sense of betrayal is added to fear, slick commercialism serves only to reinforce the point the union movement has been making to anyone who‘ll listen: the Howard government cannot be trusted.

It is clear from the latest government-business offensive that the lessons of 2006 have not been learned. A new batch of commercials have been produced insisting employment conditions are protected as a matter of “fact”; that the effect of Workchoices has been an equal prosperity for employers and employees; and warning against thuggish union officials armed with industrial power. But what the Howard government and its business allies have failed to realise is that, in an atmosphere of distrust, such claims appear only as propaganda; by asserting so fervently that all is well under Workchoices, they in fact beg the question of whether or not this is actually the case.

Especially when every instance of workers having their conditions stripped or losing their jobs receives widespread media attention. And when studies by reputable academic institutions repeatedly demonstrate that the net effect of individual contracts is to cause a reduction in conditions, commercials insisting that the contrary is “fact” simply appear dishonest.

Had the Howard government been more discerning, it might have run commercials admitting its mistakes and pointing to initiatives such as the “fairness test” as proof it was committed to creating a balanced system. As a strategy, this involves some risk; but Howard’s hopes for re-election rest on re-establishing the trust of the “mainstream”. A display of humility might just have done so.

However, it’s unlikely such honesty will be forthcoming. John Howard’s determination to re-shape the Australian economy in the neo-liberal mould will admit of no mistakes. In the meantime, the “mainstream” on which Howard has built his political support has lost its trust in him - not least because the harsh reality of life under Workchoices belies the chimeral promises of the government’s media campaign.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: A politician is someone who believes you don't have to fool the people all the time - just during election campaigns. (Stanley Davis)

The Envelope Please...

Yesterday afternoon, as I was coming home from another day at uni, I turned the corner into my street, and as I strolled toward home, saw the postie pulling away from my letterbox, having stuffed a fistful of mail into the box.

Now I wonder, I thought, could that be....?

I was expecting a letter. Indeed, I was expecting two letters, one for myself, the other for my Dearly Beloved. They were advices from the Uniting Church in Australia's Victorian-Tasmanian Synod telling us whether or not we had been affirmed as candidates to the ordained ministry.

I'll be honest with you here: I had been sweating on this letter. And the reason was that I frankly thought it would be bad news: the answer would be, well, if not no exactly, then not yet. I was expecting the Synod to say that while they recognised I had a genuine call to ministry, I needed to further develop the graces and giftings by which that call was accompanied, and re-apply for affirmation at a later date.

Why was I thinking this way? Not because I thought I'd had a particularly bad time at the Selection Conference, which had been held over the course of the weekend just passed. The questioning had been close and intensive, at times a little confronting, and the role-playing scenarios were conducted in the fish-bowl like atmosphere of constant scrutiny by the Selection Panel. But I thought I had more than held my own. Rather, as the weekend progressed, I developed the nagging suspicion that the Panel members thought that I needed more exposure to the wider Uniting Church, that as a prospective ministry candidate I was perhaps a little "under done"; there seemed a definite "theme" developing which underlay the questions I was being asked.

Mind you, I certainly understood why this might be the case. Compared to my Dearly Beloved, I have been a member of the Uniting Church for a relatively short period of time, having undergone my own journey of faith that involved growing up a Catholic, becoming alienated from Catholicism in my late teens, spending most of my twenties wrestling with matters of faith and church, before finally entering the Uniting Church in my thirties. Under these circumstances, the church were perfectly entitled to enquire about the depth of my faith and conviction, and whether or not I was truly responding to a call of God on my life, or if I was applying to candidate for other reasons.

And so I was given a good grilling by the Panel members. As I say, I was of the belief that I withstood the pressure and responded effectively; but whether this would be enough to overcome any misgivings was a completely open question. I came away from he conference completely unsure of what to think.

At least, that was the case in respect of myself; about my Dearly Beloved I had no doubts whatsoever. She performed brilliantly over the course the weekend, going from strength to strength. That she would be affirmed I had no doubts whatsoever.

So, as the postie zipped past me on his motorbike and I approached the letterbox, a small quiver of mingled hope and unease fluttered through my nervous system. Had I passed this final test of what had been a long and exhaustive process; or would I fall at the final hurdle? Or would I have to wait another 24 hours to learn my fate?

The letters from Synod were waiting in the letterbox. With fumbling fingers, I opened the envelope. Within the Express Post envelope was an ordinary mail envelope. I opened this second envelope and wrenched open the letter within.

It is with joy that we affirm your sense of call and acknowledge the gifts and graces you bring to ministry...

I had made it! The Synod had accepted my application! Woo-hoo!

I called my Dearly Beloved to convey the news to her, as well as the entirely expected result that she, too, had also been affirmed by the Selection Panel. Then a round of phone calls to family and friends, especially Jim and Ris who supported us through the weekend, and Ian and Margery who provided us with some much-needed time-out on Saturday night. And also to our local minister, Ian, who has been such a wonderful fount of support and grace through the application process.

Now that the euphoria has died, I realise that the hard work begins now. Three years (at least) of formation and training at Theological Hall, over and above my BTheol degree studies, as well as congregational placements and, ultimately, a year as an intern before I can be ordained. Moreover, I am deeply conscious of the trust and responsibility that has devolved upon me. But it will be wonderful having my Dearly Beloved with me at Hall; and with humility, hard work, and a little grace, this new beginning will lead to many wonderful and faith-affirming experiences.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: No man is so completely happy that something somewhere does not clash with his condition. It is the nature of human affairs to be fraught with anxiety; they never prosper perfectly, and they never remain constant. (Boethius)

What A Week!

This has been the week from hell.

As you will recall from my last missive, I had to undergo surgery on my left eye last Friday due to the fact that the retina in said eye decided right now would be a good time to detach - again. I've always said that the universe has a sense of humour, and that while we mightn't always see the humour in the gag, at least we could draw consolation from being the butt of cosmic jokes beyond our control. But seriously, folks, this time I'm going to complain to the gag writer!

The surgery itself went fine: accompanied by my Dearly Beloved, we bowled up to the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne at the appointed time. My last conscious thought as they put me under was that the anesthetic nurse's gloves smelled; the next thing I know, I was being encouraged to wake up and tilt my head to the left as far as I could. The significance of that last instruction will shortly become obvious.

As with the last time, the staff were superb. The nurses were compassionate and attentive, the surgery team were calm and encouraging, and the catering and ancillary staff were cheerful and considerate. Just one more demonstration of how incredibly fortunate we are in Australia to have a functioning public health system; and how we must guard this precious resource from being dismantled into an American-style health-care for the wealthy dysfunction.

Of course, retinal surgery is a fairly significant procedure, so I wasn't expecting to come out of the surgery without some discomfort. But, as I knew from last year's experience, this would quickly wear off, leaving me to deal with the more gruelling rigours of the recovery process itself. And this is why that instruction, as I emerged from he anesthetic fug, to tilt my head to the left became significant. Because, unlike last year, when I had to lie on my stomach for a week to aid the healing process, this time I had to lie on my left side. All the time. For a week. I couldn't lie on my back or my right side or my stomach; only on my left side, with just ten or so minutes every hour for the purposes of getting up and stretching my limbs and obtaining some relief.

Well, it was sheer agony. Lying on my stomach last year put a lot of pressure on my lower back, but that could be countered by stuffing a few pillows under my hips to flex my spine. This time, however, there was no relief, and the pain was spread over a series of pressure points: face, neck, shoulder, and hip. And all on the left side.

By the third day, my whole body was throbbing with pain. My face ached, my neck ached, my shoulders and hips ached: even my bones ached, throbbing with a deep seated pain that made me wonder if this was what it was like having leukemia or being a bone marrow doner. It got to the point when the only comfortable condition was unconsciousness - but even that was an elusive bliss, because the pain completely destroyed my sleep patterns, necessitating my retreat first to the sofa bed in the spare room; then, when that became unendurable because of its metal frame, the couch in the living room.

And to top it all off, I was suffering from caffeine withdrawal, owing to the fact that I hadn't had any coffee since the Saturday after the operation. Not that I drink much coffee as it is, but even a lifetime of moderate usage was enough to provoke crippling headaches to go along with all the other malaises as a consequence of my not imbibing. A compelling cause for reflection on the power of addiction!

All of this would have been bad enough were it not for the addition of the hours that just dragged past in empty procession. I couldn't read, couldn't watch TV, couldn't do anything to occupy my mind except listen to the radio and mark off the passage of time via program changes and hourly news updates. I practically colonised the lounge-room, with pillow, doona, and radio, the latter my only weapon for combating the empty desolation of enforced idleness. Thank heaven for Radio National is all I can say!

Not that this week has been a walk in the park for my Dearly Beloved. She was unwell herself over the weekend and at the beginning of the week; and since she is a secondary school teacher, the year is rapidly approaching the business end of the calendar, with final exams and all the pressures and anxieties of stressed students. To make matters worse, my chronic insomnia has played havoc with her own need for regular sleep.

Sooooo - here we are at the end of a pretty awful week, both exhausted, both not exactly in tip-top shape, and both of us having to face the Uniting Church Victorian-Tasmanian Synod Selection Conference for people applying to candidate to the ordained ministry. This is the apogee of a long process for both of us: the final stage of the church's discernment of our sense of call to ordained ministry. After this weekend, which is an intense series of interviews, presentations, and role plays, the Church will decide whether or not it discerns our call to ministry, and whether or not as a consequence it will accept our applications to candidate.

You'd think all this would be enough to terminally depress a person and put them off the whole project altogether. Except for the fact that my Dearly Beloved and I have had the terrific pastoral support and care of our minister, Ian, and of the North Ringwood Uniting Church community; we've had lots of encouragement and best wishes from friends, family, and acquaintances; and, most importantly, we'll have the support of our friends Ris and Jim at the Selection Conference, and also of Ian and Margery by way of a dinner debrief on Saturday night. All of these examples of care and support have buoyed our spirits; but most of all, we are committed to our respective and shared sense of vocation to serve in God's ministry, and we trust that God's ineffable presence in Christ and the Holy Spirit will help the Church discern our call.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Fortune has not yet turned her hatred against all your blessings. The storm has not yet broken upon you with too much violence. Your anchors are holding firm, and they permit you both comfort in the present, and hope in the future. (Boethius)

A Brief Interlude

I'm afraid I'm going to be off air for a short interlude.

Last weekend, the retina in my left eye decided it would be a good time to detach itself from the rest of the eye, necessitating my having to undergo surgery tomorrow. Mildly inconvenient, given my Dearly Beloved and I are scheduled to attend the Selection Conference of the Victorian-Tasmanian Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia the weekend after next - the final stage of our applications to candidate to the ordained ministry!

Who says the universe doesn't have a sense of humour?

While the operation itself is only a day procedure, I'll not only end up looking like I've gone ten rounds with Muhammad Ali, the restricted vision will militate against me being able to put up any posts for a while.

But fear not - normal service shall be resumed shortly. So I'll see you on the flip side once my own personal approximation of 20:20 vision has been restored.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. (Erasmus)