What's the point of praying for Ukraine?

Throughout history, through all manner of disasters, Christians have prayed. People of other faiths do the same, and people of no faith but plenty of good will send positive thoughts out into the universe.

Is this irrational-seeming behaviour simply wishful thinking?

At the moment, like countless others, I am praying for Ukraine many times a day, as I am for the flood ravaged parts of our country. And I continue to pray about global warming, better treatment for refugees, justice for our First Peoples, for an end to the patriarchy that continues to blight human history.

Nick Cave famously sang that he didn’t believe in an interventionist God; in some ways I agree. I don’t think God intervenes in the world and our lives in a crude, mechanistic way; protecting some and smiting others. Nor do I think that God pulls strings for favourites, or that prayer works as a kind of manipulation of the Divine Creator and Lover of us all. How prayer ‘works’ is a mystery, just as God is.

I am convinced, however that there is an unstintingly loving power at the heart of the universe. And it is my experience, and the experience of many other faithful people, that every time I pray, something shifts, as though I can access a tiny part of that loving power.

Two examples from my own life. First: when I pray for situations of conflict in which I am embroiled, something in me softens. Second: my husband and one of our adult children have debilitating illnesses. I pray for them constantly, without expecting a ‘miracle’ cure. (Although there are miracles aplenty in my view – from modern medicine to the remarkable people around us that sustain us in the darker times.) I know that when I pray regularly, I manage to cope with more grace and endurance. I meet others in similar situations, and I perceive the incredible courage, humour and resilience in the vast community of the ill and those who care for them. I see more clearly the abundant beauty that I miss when I am not in the habit of praying. Sometimes, an opportunity to do something practical in the area I am praying about may even present itself.

When I am in the habit of praying, I become a slightly clearer channel of God’s love, able to contribute better to all that is good in the world. When I pray, in some small way, God’s spirit is more easily able to work in and through me.

As a Christian who believes that somehow the creator God became a person in Jesus of Nazareth, my prayers are not simply a wistful sending out of good vibes, effective as that may be. In my experience, prayer allows me to tap into a boundless resource of grace and love that is vastly bigger than I am.

So I will keep praying for Ukraine, and the climate crisis, and the refugees. Because when anyone prays in love, from the heart, something changes.

This was published in the April issue of The Melbourne Anglican

Like trees, planted by the water

A recent reading from the Common Lectionary used by Christian worshippers the world around was a sublime passage from the prophet Jeremiah. Chapter 17 verses 7-8 reads:

Blessed are those who trust in God, whose trust is God.

They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green;

In the year of drought, it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

We need to draw from the boundless and unstinting resources of God’s love and grace if we are not to become cynical, disillusioned or just plain exhausted. Jesus put it another way in his encounter with the woman at the well – ‘I am the living water with which you shall never thirst’. To which she pragmatically replied, ‘I have no bucket and the well is deep.’

So what are our buckets? What are the ways we can drink of the living water, send our roots into the stream of divine grace? Because, let’s be honest, the way of Jesus is not easy and at times it is profoundly counter-cultural. And life itself is fraught with suffering. But Christians have been given a variety of buckets with which to draw from that deep well.

Study of the Bible is a complex but rewarding source of revelation and a time-honoured way of aligning ourselves to God’s purposes.

Another is weekly worship with fellow travellers. The reading of the stories out loud, the corporate prayer, the preaching of the word that rarely fails to touch me, the majesty of the music: worship is a practice that provides the anchor and arrow for my week.

There are others: meeting with fellow believers to share life and talk about the God stuff, reading theology or devotional books.

My preferred bucket, my mainspring of resilience and strength, has been the practice of contemplative prayer or Christian meditation. Sitting in silence, in a group sometimes, but more often by myself, breathing steadily and saying a prayer word over and over has sustained me through decades.

We are blessed to have a multitude of buckets, because sometimes one becomes a struggle. Recently, my meditation practice of a lifetime has been a burden. It has been so hard to sit and be silent and dwell with God, and doing it seems more dry and pointless than ever before.

During this fallow time, my two worship communities – my congregation and the tiny chapel group at work, have reminded me why I am a Christian. The richness of the stories had fed me. Music has moved me. The companionship of my fellow-pilgrims has given me strength. My meditation practice will continue and the delight will return, but right now, worship is what is feeding me, and that’s okay. We have so many disciplines with which to deepen our faith, sustain our hope and increase our love. Let’s make use of them, so that we can be like trees, planted by water.

This was published in the March issue of The Melbourne Anglican

Botox zoom boom

Last week, I learnt that there’s a ‘Zoom Boom’ effect, driving more people to turn to cosmetic treatments.

In an article in The Age about ‘Injectables’ (22/02/22), journalist Antoinette Lattouf referred to a modest experiment undertaken for ABC documentary Catalyst. All ten participants – male and female - said it was looking at themselves in daily video calls over the last two years that led them to botox.

I get this. Video conferencing, about which we all complain but without which many of us would no longer have jobs or catch ups with friends and family, has forced us to gaze upon ourselves in a way we never had to before. And yep, it’s confronting; like hearing your voice on tape, only worse. Do I really look that ancient/weary/lined/fed up?

I had my own confronting moment a few years back when I was wandering around one of the charming little city arcades, as I used to on pre-COVID lunchbreaks. An arrestingly handsome young man accosted me with the line, ‘You have such beautiful skin!’

‘Thanks’ I said, somewhat bemused but mildly chuffed, and kept walking. There was more to come, however. ‘But I could really help with those wrinkles,’ he said earnestly. ‘And the bags under your eyes.’

He persuaded me into his little shop, but I wasn’t there long. He picked the wrong person – a woman who has never applied anything to her skin apart from moisturiser. I told him, to his utter incredulity, that I was not fussed about my wrinkles, in fact, I was quite fond of them. They tell my story – not just the affectionately termed ‘laughter lines’ but also my frown lines, my pain and stress lines. It’s all part of the rich life I’ve led, the unique person I am. They render me instantly recognisable, they are an important part of me. To quote my favourite singer-songwriters, the Indigo Girls, ‘And every line a lesson learned upon your beautiful face’.

And natural human faces are eloquent. Lattouf’s article went on to quote research suggesting that use of ‘injectables’ not only renders us less able to convey feelings non-verbally, but also affects our ability to read the facial expressions of others. I want to keep seeing the fascinating play of emotions on human faces old, young and in-between. We all know good communication is core to successful interactions, from work places to marriages. Let’s allow our ageing, mobile, expressive visages to help us with this. Zoom be blowed – enjoy the drama of faces of every kind, playing out their stories, maybe even your own.

The wow factor

My 15-month old granddaughter talks a lot. Most of it isn’t in any recognisable language, although we often get the drift. She does have a few intelligible words and phrases though: the ‘uh-oh’ that littlies seem to pick up early, ‘hi’ and ‘bye’, accompanied by a cheery wave, a long drawn out ‘helllllooooo’ with a tone that goes up and down and up again.

My favourite of her expressions, however, is ‘Oh, wow!’

The two words are inevitably said together, breathed out in a tone of wonder, of holy awe. The first time she saw the beach with its ocean, stretching out all golden and blue and dazzling, indeed every time she saw the beach over our summer holiday – ‘Oh, wow!’ In the morning, when she came into our bedroom on her grandfather’s hip, as he ferried in my first cup of tea, opening the curtains to eucalypts and sky – ‘Oh, wow!’

Through her eyes, I re-perceive this world and all its glory and surprise. I have started prompting myself to say ‘Oh, wow!’, if only in my head: at my first sight of the waves, on waking in the morning to another day of life and love and beauty, at each provision of good food that graces my table three times a day, at every gathering of loved ones.

Jesus understood that we can learn from the littlest and the least. In Mark 10, 15, he is quoted as saying, ‘Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it’.

I like to think I can see something of what he meant when I accompany little Bonnie through her life, attempting to view the world as she does. I hope she never stops reacting with ‘Oh, wow!’ to wonders both natural and human. To the glory of sunset, beach and forest, to the warmth of meeting around an open fire with family.

I also hope she learns to say, ‘Oh wow!’ to the injustices of the world as she grows older and encounters them. ‘Oh wow!’ to our leaders’ short sightedness about the climate crisis, to our treatment of refugees, about the fact that so much of the world has precious little clean water, about the gap in life expectancy and incarceration between the First and Second Peoples of this land.

‘Oh, wow!’ – an appropriate response to all manner of what life dishes up.

I heard tell of a new worshipper who, when handed the communion bread with the familiar and beloved words, ‘This is the body of Christ, broken for you,’ gave the unorthodox but perfectly appropriate response, ‘Wow!’ Christians are not spared any kind of human suffering, but we do have cause for wonder and rejoicing. Through all the insecurities and failings, the stumblings and disappointments that are our lot, we know we are loved by the Creator of the Universe and can be part of that loving Creator’s great endeavour. ‘Oh wow!’ indeed.

This was published in the February issue of The Melbourne Anglican

In the swim

This time of year, swimming tends feature in the news, its joys and its terrors: the delights of family beach holidays and their dark shadow side – the number of people who drown every summer in our girt-by-sea, pool-bedecked nation.

I applaud the way swimming is part of the curriculum in Australian schools, the availability of lessons at the local baths, where we trooped dutifully when our kids were tiny, the Nippers programs that further inoculate littlies from drowning.

My primary years were spent in India in the 60s, where there were no such opportunities. I was aware of one swimming pool in the city of three million where we lived; male and female swimming times were segregated and mum, my sister and I had the place to ourselves when we went for a cooling dip. I’ve no idea what proportion of the Sub-Continent’s population can swim these days; back then, it was an unusual skill.

I learnt to swim in the Anglesea River on a rare trip to Australia at the age of five but had no practice worth speaking of, no regular waterside holidays until we moved to Melbourne to live in year 8. It was not a happy time. I was awkward and out of place, had no familiarity with the lingo, the clothes, what was cool for girls on the cusp of teenager-hood.

My peers, naturally, had been in and out of water as long as they could walk. I weaselled my way out of PE lessons involving swimming any way I could, and I have never caught up.

As an adult, however, I learned to love it. If there is a body of natural water around, I’m in – oceans, rivers, lakes and streams, even the dams on my daughter’s property, which aren’t, strictly speaking, natural, but they certainly aren’t chlorinated.

At my beloved beach, I swim morning and evening, although ‘swim’ might be stretching the truth a little. I have a healthy respect for the waves and I know my limitations; I barely go deeper than my waist. I am always tentative in water, never adventurous or bold. Despite that, I have a ball. I jump and frolic, splash and float, dive through breaking waves and bob to the top of unbroken ones. I cannot stop grinning. I adore it. It is the activity that makes me most carefree. Late adopter I may be, and I won’t win any medals or adulation, but despite her slow start, this sexagenarian gets in touch with her inner child in water in a way she rarely does elsewhere.