An abundance of sky

 In the early 80s when we were newly married, we lived in flats (as they were then referred to) on the ground or first floor. We have recently moved out of our rambling weatherboard family home and, after 36 years, we are back in what is now called an apartment, this time, four storeys up.

It is immensely liberating to have jettisoned most of our stuff, in the process of which we have rediscovered lost treasures, and worked out what it is we are happy to be lumbered with for however many years we have left. I expected our new home to be poky, but it feels spacious and uncluttered.

Another surprise is the sense of sky. A garden is a joy, but on ground level, you are hemmed in by other houses, blocks of flats, electricity lines. Up high, there is an abundance, an extravagance of sky. It’s breathtaking.

Our widows look west and east, so we see both Mount Macedon and the Dandenongs, we catch both the rising and the setting of the sun, and how spectacular it often is, even in the city. There are new buildings going up around us, and our view is already not what it was, but even so, my eyes are constantly drawn to the ever changing, never-the-same-thing-twice light show up above. In inner northern Melbourne, which I love but which is sadly devoid of green, it reminds me that there is this vast natural playground that is free to look at, no matter what concrete jungle I inhabit. When I fail to notice the sky, I miss the combination of cloud and light and moisture that will never be repeated.

There is something about looking up that is transformative. When I do this for even a minute, it puts the concerns I worry about endlessly into perspective.

The Psalmist put it well: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”

These days we no longer think of the Deity as being ‘up there’. But I know that one of the things I treasure about sky gazing is the fact that it makes me dwell on the Divine Creator who is also the Divine Lover, who is not confined to some far away realm but is within and around us. The joy of looking up and thinking of the Creator God, for me, is remembering that the God who made the heavens became an ordinary person. Who left for us the Holy Spirit, so that we could have God inside us forever, around and within both us and everyone we meet. All this passes through my mind each time I look at the sky, my new rediscovery in our new abode, and gives me renewed perspective, consolation and joy.

This was published in the May issue of The Melbourne Anglican

Reuse, reduce, recyling ahead of our time

My older sister and I have both recently moved out of the homes where we raised our kids. She told me that she was doing well until she found a large box of pencils that wouldn’t fit into the sharpener she had. She couldn’t bear to throw them out, so she bought a bigger sharpener for 95c, fixed the pencils and donated them to the local kindergarten. To her chagrin, the next drawer she was sorting turned up a bigger pencil sharpener. ‘That’s 95c I’ve wasted, and something else to find a home for,’ she wailed.

We both fell about laughing; this could just as easily have been a story about me. When it comes to other people or causes we deem worthy, we are generous with time and money. When it comes to spending on ourselves, however, we find it hard to buy so much as a cup of coffee. We squeeze the last drop out of toothpaste and moisturiser, save scraps of paper to write shopping lists on. An uncle had a workshop full of jars, one of which was labelled ‘pieces of string too short to be of any possible use’.

We never lacked shelter, good food or books, but our household was impecunious. We grew up on the mission field, where, compared to many around us, in the India of the 60s, we felt wealthy, but only ever wore hand-me-down clothes. When we moved to Melbourne in the early 70s, we began to realise just how tight things were. Mum bought an ancient car; one time it needed a $7 repair job, and she simply didn’t have the money. We moved from house to house, accommodated by long-suffering relatives.

Generations of clergy on both sides of our family simply had to be prudent with money and possessions. I still have wooden coat hangers that have my grandmother’s name and address written on them. Mum mended and dad fixed, nothing was thrown away. We washed, rinsed and hung our plastic bags out to dry to reuse until they fell apart.

I used to be slightly embarrassed by my family’s penny-pinching ways, surrounded as I was by wealthier friends who did things very differently.  But not any longer. There are words for the practice of looking after what you’ve been given. In church communities it’s called good stewardship; elsewhere it’s known as sustainability. In a country where 6000kg of clothing are dumped in landfill every ten minutes, I think we have long been ahead of our time.

Don't just do something, sit there!

Years ago, our youngest gave me a card that I have treasured ever since. It shows a woman, sitting in a yellow armchair, on a wooden deck overhanging a river. She wears what looks like a crimson dressing gown and her hands cradle a mug. She gazes into the middle distance, to where the foliage of early autumn (pretty much this time of year) borders a still river.

Whenever I look at this picture, I experience a deep yearning. Recently, my spiritual director asked me what deep resting might look like for me. Immediately, I thought of that picture. The woman is not reading. She’s now knitting. She’s not working on a damn computer. She’s probably not even praying. She’s simply looking into the middle distance, staring into space. I want to be her.

‘What I long to do,’ I told my spiritual director, ‘is to sit and not read or even meditation but simply sit and do absolutely nothing’.

Simply sitting is utterly counter-cultural, which is why it is incredibly hard to do; harder than ever in a place and time where it feels as through every precious empty minute is filled with the drinking in of whatever it is people have on their devices – information, news, entertainment, games, kitten videos. It is so rare to see someone, even on public transport, simply gazing vacantly out the window.

For so much of my life, I have prided myself on usefully filling every spare moment of my day. Between scheduled tasks I would squeeze in something worthwhile – ringing a sick friend, cleaning a toilet, running to the shop for supplies. This was partly a matter of survival in a household of six, four of whom were heavily dependent on the two adults in the arrangement. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity to sit, savouring a cup of tea and staring.

Eventually, we become so used to this state of affairs that we don’t even notice that is how we operate. WE become addicted to action and to ‘just checking’ whatever vital-seeming thing it is we are checking on – facebook, the weather app, news from our kids, news from the world, the latest must-listen-to podcast. And we lose the ability to not do anything.

I know, however, from past experience that I run myself ragged with constant doing and taking in, and that sooner or later I utterly lack grace and energy. And that sitting doing nothing is the cure for this.

The fact that I am not even meditating is telling. I know that when I am idle I am as surrounded and swamped by God’s unstinting love, every bit as much as when I am engaged in some more obviously worthy activity. Sitting doing nothing reminds me of this fact, the fact of grace.

In my life, I have been graced by interactions with those very rare people who don’t appear busy. There is a spaciousness about the air around them that is a gift to all those they encounter. I long to be like that.

This was published in the April edition of The Melbourne Anglican

Reading Mark in one hit

There wasn’t a lot to do on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of lockdown 3. So my beloved and I decided (as you do) to read the Gospel of Mark, right through, at one sitting.

We’d been meaning to do this ever since the year of Mark started in the Common Lectionary, here was the perfect opportunity. We’d planned to read it aloud, chapter by chapter, taking it in turns. We both love reading aloud and being read to; it reminds us of years of story times with now our grown-up kids. But then we heard that you could watch and listen to English actor David Suchet, of Hercules Poirot fame, doing the deed, go to woah, on the internet.

Suchet does the reading in one hit (with only one sip of water!) from the pulpit in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. And what a magnificent performer he is.

The impact, though, was less to do with superlative delivery and more to do with the fact that I had never read one Gospel right through. I have been steeped in the Gospels all my life, but in dribs and drabs – readings at Church, personal devotions. Not reading it right through like a story you just can’t put down.

I was struck by a few things I hadn’t noticed before.

The Markan Jesus is, frankly, cranky a lot of the time. Gentle Jesus meek and mild is largely absent. He rants at the powerful a lot and he is forever expressing exasperation at the slowness of his followers. The only times he is obviously tender is with those in need or on the margins. (In the case of the Syro-Phonenican woman, who fits squarely into this category, it took her pluck and humour to release his compassion.)

A great number of the stories I know so well are related as happening between the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and Jesus’ death. I have long visualised most of Jesus’ public ministry as being before the events of Palm Sunday – a long three years of healings and teachings and wanderings and then a quick transition from the palm procession to Calvary to the resurrection to the Ascension. Not so in Mark.

I knew Mark used the word immediately a lot; people in Mark are also often astonished or amazed. It’s a breathless kind of story, as though the author is trying to get everything down before he forgets. It’s incredibly dramatic.

I was reminded, too, of Mark’s abrupt and ambiguous conclusion, if you don’t include the coda after verse 8 of the final chapter, which was probably added later. I have always loved this about Mark. It isn’t a neatly wrapped up, theologically reflected upon ending but rather one full of questions and wondering and wonder. Some religious people are addicted to certainty, but life is uncertain and Mark’s account is honest about that.

Listening to Mark out loud took two hours. This life-long Bible reader can recommend it.

This was published in the March edition of The Melbourne Anglican.

Lockdown wedding

Lockdown 3. My main man and I emerged blearily from an enchanted few hours at the NGV’s Triennial Exhibition last Friday, blissfully unaware of what was happening in the world. We switched on our phones to 14 what’s app messages from our daughters about the new, snap lockdown. Panic stations – two of our closest family friends were getting married the following day.

Not any more they weren’t. The directives were abundantly clear –weddings ‘not permitted unless end of life or other exceptional reason’.

Somehow, our mates pulled off what seemed an impossible feat – they brought the wedding forward 24 hours and celebrant, venue, caterers, florist, photographers, DJ, everyone bar a couple of guests, came to the party. Literally.

An abundance of goodwill surrounds most weddings; this one felt extra-special, happening, as it did, in the teeth of renewed lockdown and against what seemed like impossible odds. From disappointment to delight, we were swept up in relief and joy and celebration.

I’ve been reminded over and over, these last 12 months, of human ingenuity. People conjure remarkable solutions out of dire situations and make them work. Our friends fast forwarding a wedding in three hours was one example; you will have others. 

It still surprises me that so many – including technological dolts like myself - have become adept at ways of connecting, communicating, supporting, meeting and working that would normally have taken us months to learn. It is extraordinary that a viable COVID vaccine has been produced so quickly.

Quite apart from these technological and scientific breakthroughs, there are other discoveries. That physical neighbours are not only important, but a life line, and ordinary kindness is a powerful force. That colleagues can support each other even when they are not physically together. That parents are endlessly resourceful and patient. That being able to walk in fresh air is a mighty privilege and sometimes all you need to keep sane. That travel and eating out are luxuries we should never take for granted.

We have no idea what our new normal will look like next week, next year, in ten years. If I could wish for one thing to emerge from the COVID experience, it would be that we harness our resilience and ingenuity to tackle the problems that are even more daunting than COVID – poverty, racism, domestic violence, war and environmental degradation – in the years ahead. From a family wedding to videoconferencing to a vaccine, we’ve shown that when we really want to, we can move mountains.