post-whatever

As it turns out,
every map has an artificial edge
prescribed by those
who define its scope;
who draw the thick black line,
however arbitrarily,
around the edges of the world.

But here, at the edge of the map,
where it tells me the road should end
by way of a thick black line,
i can see
quite clearly
that it doesn’t.

And to be sure,
I’ve taken the step;
I am proof that the road keeps going.

I check myself for grief,
prodding my heart and mind with inquisitive fingers
to inspect for bruises.
There are none;
just the feeling,
as i step off the edge
of the much-worn, grubby map,
that i am kissing
a much loved friend
goodbye…

So many conversations this week have been about the inadequacy of language – that it’s impossible to remove language from its context; that what i believe and love most dearly can never be communicated without the listener bringing their own context and definitions to the language i use. It’s meaning can only be guessed.

Which is only a problem if we write, or speak, to be understood by anyone else.

I was googling ‘post christian’ today, to see what there was out there, and i came across this post by Brian McLaren, with a song he wrote called Atheist. I know that i don’t get to make definitions of language, but it seems to me that not believing in the lord who converts by the sword doesn’t make you post christian [and certainly not an atheist] – it just makes you post-whatever-you-used-to-believe.

If I say I don’t believe in God, then I’m actually saying that I don’t believe in any God, not just the ones you don’t believe in either. It does both of our faiths a disservice if we equate them…

They call it a faith crisis
as though it were some kind of emergency
a disaster of catastrophic dimensions.

I wish there another word
that gave this moment
its rightful language of possibility
and hope
and freedom…

Apply Now: WCC Intership Programme 2010

The World Council of Churches (WCC) will welcome five young people (aged 18-30 years) to serve as interns in its Geneva offices from February 2010 to January 2011. Interns bring valuable experiences to the WCC at the same time as they undertake several modules of ecumenical learning.

The next 12 months’ internship period begins in February 2010. In Geneva, the interns will be assigned to one of the WCC working areas. They will carry out their tasks in cooperation with programme staff and under individualized supervision. During their stay in Geneva each intern is expected to plan an ecumenical project to implement in his or her home context when they return in February 2011.

The next generation of interns’ areas of work will be 1. International Ecumenical Peace Convocation; 2. youth and ecumenical formation; 3. visitors programme/media relations; 4. mission and evangelism; and 5. ecology and social justice.

Successful candidates are people committed to the ideals of the ecumenical movement, who will bring their energy, commitment and a fresh vision to their specific work assignment. Applicants must send, along with their application, background information about their church or Christian youth network that will help them in implementing their proposed ecumenical project.

Closing date for receiving applications for the five internships is 30 September 2009. As the ability to work in English is a necessary qualification, applications must be written in English.

More information on the WCC internship programme:
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3187

Information requests and applications should be sent to: wccinterns@gmail.com

Those aroung OZ… Please contact Sandy Boyce, sandyeboyce@gmail.com if you are interested in this opportunity, or know of someone who might be. Please pass on to people in your networks.

CCU Launch

We launched the new Culture and Context Unit yesterday, with champagne and cake…

We whipped some postcards together at the last minute, as a take-away for those who came to help us celebrate. We’re framing the work of the unit around the questions we’ll be exploring, rather than the answers we’ll be offering, so the front of the cards showed some of those.

On Tuesday we had our first staff meeting. I had no expectations of it, or really of the way we’ll work together as a team, but I came out of the meeting thinking that I couldn’t ask for better company to be doing this with. I think this is going to be fun.

AI Action - 10,000 Butterflies

?10,000 butterflies for ?comfort? women?

?

Dear Adrian,

A woman holds a butterfly in her hands

This is incredible! Earlier this month, we asked the Amnesty community to claim justice for survivors of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery system by sending a butterfly to our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

As of this morning, 4,664 unique butterflies are winging their way to the Prime Minister and thousands more have been amplified around the world on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

With this extraordinary show of support, we’re well on the way to achieving our target of 10,000 butterflies and another step towards to the Government motion we’re looking for. So, if you haven’t yet created your butterfly, please do so right away and help us reach our target:

Create your butterfly and claim justice for the courageous survivors of wartime sexual slavery

Up to 200,000 women and girls endured repeated rapes and beatings in ‘comfort stations’ throughout the Asia Pacific, including Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and many of the Pacific Islands during World War II. Following decades of denials and dodging responsibility, the remaining survivors are still waiting for an official apology from the Japanese Government.

With your help we’re striving to change this ? by petitioning Kevin Rudd to pass a motion to call the Japanese Government to account. Shamefully, we’re one of the few Allied nations yet to step up and do what’s right.

Please create your butterfly and urge Kevin Rudd to pass a motion supporting ‘comfort women’ survivors

By taking this one simple act, you’re part of Australia’s biggest effort yet to resolve a generations-old issue. Your unique butterfly ? the survivors’ chosen symbol of hope - is a cry for justice and a powerful gesture of solidarity for the survivors of one of the darkest episodes in human history.

It’s now or never. Thank you for standing up and reaching out.

Create your butterfly now or forward this email to at least two friends if you’ve done so already.

?

Hannah, Athena, Seb, Louise and the rest of the campaign team

Amnesty International Australia

PS: Thank you to those who’ve already created a butterfly and contributed to putting a butterfly in the sky above Parliament House. We raised all the funds we needed, and the stunt will happen on 11 August, weather permitting. Thanks to your generosity we’re now looking to redouble our efforts in the run up to 15 August (the anniversary of the end of WWII) to keep this issue high on the agenda for our politicians.

Create your butterfly now

awkwardly christian ? in the Age today

I wrote a faith piece for the Age today… [a friend from the UK emailed to say that he's read it online, but i can't see it there. i'll paste it below ].

I haven’t written for the paper for a few months – i’ve been writing for other things – but coming back to this feels really good. I think the Age is my favourite audience. The piece is a bit clunky, and quite possibly a bit too honest, but so be it…

Last Thursday I spent time with some of the men from Port Philip prison. I go into the prison a few times each year as part of my work, and while it?s a very transient population there are always a few men who I see each time I return. When I arrive they?ll come up alongside me and ask ?Do you remember me, miss??. And when I leave they?ll do the same. ?Don?t forget me, miss.?

Every visit to the prison converts me. I?m reminded that the assumptions by which I live my life outside are the product of privilege. What I so glibly think is achievable, for both humans and any God I can imagine is beyond hope inside. Sometimes love doesn?t conquer all. Sometimes justice doesn?t come. There are some places hope can?t exist.

It?s made me an awkward Christian ? bad company, I fear, in the circles of faith. If truth be known, by most definitions, I couldn?t be called a Christian. I?m not at all convinced by the being of God, though the event of God – the actions and transformations that have been traditionally attributed to God – entice me. But much as the label ?Christian? doesn?t fit, I?m loathe to give it up. It?s not for nostalgia, it?s certainly not because I?m superstitious, it?s not even because I have a need to belong or be part of a group. It?s because I need to be held to an expectation that is way beyond myself, and I?m compelled by the expectation that Christianity has of me: that I will live as though everyone can begin again, and that I will act as though the impossible might one day be true.

Christianity has often been confused with a moral framework, a divinely auspiced golden rule. But at the heart of Christianity there?s something much more radical than simply doing good to another in the hope that will be returned to us. There are some people it isn?t humanly possible to forgive, and some redemptions will always be too hard to contemplate. When I go inside the prison I?m confronted with those things that are beyond human resolution, and I have to make a choice about whether I will give up on someone, or if I?ll believe there is a story of grace and forgiveness that goes far beyond my feelings and responses to any individual. Christianity, with its ancient story of what brings life to our broken world, holds me to a commitment to treat the most dehumanised and the most despicable with grace and compassion. Even though I mostly fail at the task, it calls me to do what I can to re-member, to bring back into the world, those our society would rather forget.

I?m sure there are those who can live with such beliefs without faith, but I know I can?t. Calling myself Christian holds me to what I find impossible, irrational and unreasonable. It?s what makes me able to go back into prison, and to look the men there in the eye when they ask if I?ve remembered them. It means I can tell them that I?m trying the best I can.

morepraxis gathering program

So have a look at the program and think about your lightning talks. (oh and assume that the option of “whatever” runs through the morepraxis gathering)

As you can see we have…

2 options of worship ‘Justice singing styled’ and ‘Alt worship arty style’

The 3 processes of praxis Think Act Reflect - Led by Adrian ‘Age’Greenwood, Tess Keem and Joan Wright-Howie

Food gathers us and lightning talks spark into further chatting or play.

Dinner will have a speaker and kids campfire fun.

Cafe praxis will have coffee, tea, wine etc to purchase while we chat and listen to campers play music etc.

We finish with communion with plenty of time to get thing done back at home.

Feature clip - Child Labour

Our friends over at justact thought we would enjoy this.
“The International Trade Union Confederation has produced a very short online video on the subject of child labour. Sounds boring, right? Wrong. Warning - you that you may not want to watch this (you could see this on a show like the Gruen Transfer).

We think some of you are going to love it and others will hate it.”

these are the random things filling my mind?

I keep coming back to this image from Gareth Holt, part of an exhibition of his work focussed on visualisations of statistics of social hierarchy. The only thing that’s missing in this image is the baggy green tracksuit pants worn by the men screwing nuts onto bolts in the work room at the prison…

Mark Vernon is my favourite writer / blogger at the moment. i loved this review he wrote for the Guardian of Robert Wright’s book, The Evolution of God. I ordered the book today, along with Karen Armstrong’s The case for God: What religion really believes. I wonder where this conversation is happening in australia – the really intelligent, post-christian, ’stretching at the raw edges of faith and theology without any need to defend the idea of God’ conversation… and i wonder, if i find it, if they’ll let me listen in…

It’s time to think about christmas! yes, already! the ‘between the spaces’ basement collective are gathering for a lazy, all things are possible, ‘let’s imagine what might happen in a summer solstice-y, christmassy kind of way’ drink in a couple of weeks… there’s always room for more at the table [which is in one of the booths at the back of the wesley anne in northcote], so if you’re interested in coming along for a drink, let me know.

And this one’s for the tired and cynical, who feel sick at the idea that christmas might ever come again…not just this year; ever. You’re not alone…

i wish i had the faith to search for a hint
already
that christmas might come this year

i wish i had the faith to pre-empt the shops with their bling and glitz,
to be the first to herald the promise
of a new beginning.

but i’m tired.
weary of preaching grace
and love
into places too dark for them to exist.

too sure that the promises we proclaim
each year
are too fragile to place another’s hope in

praying desperately to a god
i so long to believe
that my faith
in this love
will be born again…

solstice images

[dawn]

we had a few queries from people asking whether copies of the images we used at the solstice are up for sale… and now they are! I’ve put all the images into 2 low res pdfs here: solsticeweb and solsticeweb2 [about 4mb each], but if you’d like to see one in a higher res, let me know. The quality of the images is quite lovely… Mike and Blythe are remarkable photographers. i’ve labelled each of the images in the pdf, which would obviously not be in the final print…

The rectangular images are available in two sizes – approx 30 x 20 inch [A$50 each + p&h], and approx 22 x 16 inch [A$35 each + p&h]. The square images are available only in 20 x 20 inch size [A$35 each + p&h]. The prints are on photographic paper.

Anyway, if you’re interested, let me know by email or in the comments, and we can take things from there…

going back

Today’s task is to finish re-tagging and re-categorising every post on this blog… i’m half way through [i spent six hours on it yesterday / last night]… There is reason for the madness [a new blog / website that's about to launch]… but it’s one of those things that if you know how crappy a job it is, you just wouldn’t even begin…

it’s a weird ride, going through everything again. it’s funny being able to see the peaks and troughs… the moments of radical rethinking [i wonder, when i went to the UK in 2006, if i knew how pivotal that trip would be...]; the waves of feedback, resonance, criticism, attack, affirmation; the self absorption and introspection at moments [i'm so sorry for them!]; the cringe of embarrassment when i see ideas that never actually took off…

i think in my mind that so much of what has happened in this project is defined by what hasn’t happened – stalled attempts, things that just didn’t quite work, outright failures; the absolute fragility of everything we do. it’s been a bit of an eye opener to realise those things are in the minority, and how they almost always turned out to be the spark that created another possibility… the ideas that didn’t work took everything into another direction, where we wouldn’t have gone if they had.

i’m a little shocked that it was only two years ago? – july 2007 – that we launched into the communal justice project. i could swear it’s been ten years. i had no idea that we’d done so much in such a short time. i was feeling like we were failing at the whole thing… maybe not…

i’m much more cynical now than i was a few years ago, and my writing has a harder edge to it now…

and i love how names start appearing at different points… remembering where alliances and collaborations and relationships begin, and how they have changed everything.

the repeated pattern is that the new edges and directions haven’t come from strategy or planning; they’ve come from a lot of layered thinking, and then from the random connection or event or person that suddenly pulls the next dimension into being.

Yet it all feels a little wistful and sad, as i read through it… and for the life of me i can’t work out why…

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