On the Newness of the Year: A New Year's Wish.

I’ve recently started thinking about building a new door into my house, one that would lead directly out to the garden, so that neither I nor my elderly dog would have to climb the ramp to the back deck. This may never come to pass, due to lack of finances, but it touches off ideas about doors and gateways, entrances and exits, New Years and old ones.

            The Roman god Janus, who gave his name to January, was of course the god of beginnings as well as of gates. He held the key to the past as well as the future. He not only governed the gate, he was the gate, through which everyone passed into wise or dangerous times. So he was two-faced, naturally. So important was the gate, that Janus was invoked before all other gods, because what comes at the beginning is the first and thus most honoured,

            When we pass the gate of the New Year, do we really get a brand new year without any mistakes in it? What can we carry over the threshold? A lot seems to come with us. Egyptian Christians have appealed to the world that on this 31 December 2013 they’ll be attacked by their compatriots, bringing violence and destruction across the line from old year to new. That they can know the date is chilling; others have known the date before them and the world has done nothing to help. Should we feel pity and fear, as Aristotle said of tragedy, at the turning of each year? Instead of celebrating it with fireworks and champagne? Is the year ever new?

            In spite of danger and decline, people still are inspired to set New Year’s resolutions and try to carry them out. Why do we make so many mistakes, anyway?

Generally because we’re either half asleep, not paying proper attention, or full of expectations about our own alertness: probably both at the same time. We lack a clear assessment of our limitations. Our limitations travel with us, into the New Year for sure, and Proust seemed to believe that our mistakes and limitations defined our character: hence their repetitive nature.

            What chance do we have of realising our dreams, reaching our goals, slowing down, finding the love of our life, seeing the world, making a difference, or any of a hundred other designs and resolutions, in the New Year? Will we have time to take up painting and poetry for pleasure, like Noel Coward (in the midst of writing and performing in hit shows and films all year long)? Can we beget a dynasty? Will we put our financial house in order, mend the roof, forgive our enemies and move on? All of this is in process, and we do the best we can with it, taking our faults and failings with us as part of the ballast.

            Another one who, like Janus, not only controlled the gate, but is the gate, is Jesus, who in John’s Gospel spoke these words: “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” In contrast to those who steal, kill and destroy, Jesus carries across the threshold life, abundant life. All of our dreams, resolutions, emotions, ambitions, limitations and devotions amount to this: they are life. May you have, in the New Year, abundant life.

On Christmas: Families and Forgiveness

Christmas is a joyous occasion. Everyone agrees upon it, but when Christmas is separated from its sacred meaning, it can become a time of doubt and dread. I sometimes attended a bereavement support group, and I found there the single most frightening day of the year was Christmas Day. It’s not only the missing partner, child or parent — though that’s fearful enough when all the world’s apparently celebrating family closeness — but also the expectation of ‘getting over it’ and having a happy day with the special need to make everything all right for any children who may be present.

            Recovering alcoholics report the same phenomenon. Long previous planning is recommended as to where, when and how the temptation to drink at Christmas may be forestalled. Depression, suicide attempts, mental illnesses crowd hospitals along with road accidents compliments of the season. Domestic violence spirals up off the thermometer in the Christmas season, just when support services are winding down for the long holiday break, and any money received with the intention that it be spent to tide people over may all have been spent on Christmas — Christmas as a reward for a year of hardship and struggle — making the post-Christmas period one of poverty and regret for many.

            Insofar as Christmas is really about family, it’s important to realise the family being celebrated isn’t our own dear and binding human families, but the Holy Family, a unique and sacred situation. (The actual feast day is the Sunday following Christmas.) Our families, as we know too well, are comprised of persons like ourselves, short-tempered, full of mistakes and catastrophes, resolute in disagreements, grieving, ill, angry, tearful, sometimes funny, sometimes unwholesome and only part of the time glorious in achievement and astonishing in beauty.

            The Holy Family comprises a Blessed, dedicated, and loving Mother, who meditates in her heart and stores up signs of divine favour; a most wonderful Child, whose titles have preceded him into a world longing for salvation; a just and honourable Father (or as we would say today, stepfather), Joseph, who protects both Mother and Child within his respected family, and this identification will last into the adulthood of Jesus. Luke 3:23 at Jesus’ Baptism reports that ‘he was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli’: what this means is that for every social purpose Jesus was the son of Joseph — as what is reported, supposed or believed of a person or family in that culture represents the truth about them — and this parenthetical statement (it was thought) is critically important because it is followed immediately by the genealogy of Joseph.

            Now if partners, stepfathers, and indeed biological fathers as well as every one in charge of a child would take the approach of Saint Joseph and protect that child as one of his or her own, the lesson of the Holy Family would have been truly learned. There’s a gap between what we know of the Holy Family and what we see in the present world, and this gap results from a lack of religious knowledge and commitment and a high expectation of secular success. The gap brings us face to face with the fact that Christmas isn’t really about family at all.

            What is brought into the world, manifested, incarnated, by the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem? What causes us to celebrate our salvation at this time: surely Easter is the right time for it? Yes, the King is born, and a great prophet arises. Yes, the child is laid in a manger, but not through poverty: poverty doesn’t get to be distinguished in this way. Joseph’s family is in the stable because of the press of people arriving for purposes of taxation by the Roman Empire, the same that will kill the child in due course. Yes, the shepherds and the magi respond to signs and wonders, angels singing, a star walking with a lantern through heaven. Something extraordinary has indeed taken place.

            The late John Taverner, on being asked if he prayed, replied that the only proper prayer for a human being to make was this one: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, because I am a sinner.’ And that’s the bottom line.

            My own view is that what is incarnated with the birth of Jesus is the forgiveness of sins. ‘Who is this, who even forgives sins?’ It’s a truth of religion that Jesus died for our sins, and that process begins with his birth. The bereaved may reflect on their feelings of guilt for both the things that should not have been done and the things we left undone to our sorrow as the beloved has died and it’s too late to do them now. Who is this, who even forgives sins? Luke 7:36-50 describes a woman whose sins ‘which were many, have been forgiven’ and for this reason ‘she has shown great love’. There we have the cause of the adoration surrounding Christmas. Those who think they need no forgiveness have actually got it wrong. ‘The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little’. Yes, it’s right to love the little Lord Jesus, asleep in the manger: for our sins, which are many, can be forgiven through the mercy of God. Perhaps we can even learn to forgive ourselves, given time. For those who understand the great love incarnated at Christmas see that mercy dwells among us through the favour of God. Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

On the Christmas Card List.

I’ve been writing Christmas cards.  I wonder how long this custom will last, given internet cards with singing, dancing and flashing lights appearing on our screens.  At present, the two methods seem to coexist, with some preferring the old and some the new.

            The Christmas card list, however, is likely to endure. I find it dismaying to see each year how the list has diminished, due to deaths, divorces, transfers: moves from job to job and house to house (and country to country) and simply dropping off the tree. This can pose problems for the Christmas card writer. Where not enough care was taken last year to record the correct address (some unreadable ones scratched out so many times or so whited over that X-rays couldn’t decipher them) there’s no recourse but to wait for the addressee to send a card and hope they’ve printed a return address on the back.

            Did we write down all the kid’s names?  Have we got the right partner (how embarrassing to greet the one a couple of times prior to this coupling) and are we sending merry wishes to someone recently bereaved? If you only hear from someone once a year, a lot can happen since you last touched noses.

            Then there’s deciding which card to send. Do we buy a box of mixed cards and toss them around? Do we support charities, so a few cents of our greetings attend upon good causes? Do we want classy cards for artistic friends, sentimental cards for family valuables, funny cards for those who, presumably, need cheering up? Religious cards, for those who like religious texts?

            Do we send cards to friends of other religious? I find that “Peace on Earth” is acceptable in most circumstances. And sometimes I’ll get “Merry Christmas” in return, even when the recipient is a Buddhist. That’s a kindly thought, much appreciated, in the presence of universal illusion.

            Indeed, while the Christmas card may well be about Christmas — whatever interpretation we may place on Christmas, from red reindeer on upwards — the Christmas card list is really about New Year.  Or perhaps the transition from Old Year to New. To have a time when we examine our relationships, even in this fragmentary way, to see how many have lasted through months, years, or decades. To see what has gone by the board, and why: left that job, didn’t get in touch, no longer live here, haven’t heard in years, can’t stand the new spouse, it was ages ago, don’t want to go there.

            What do you want to carry into the New Year? What can you afford to carry: mentally, emotionally, spiritually? Are some people on the list bad for you, or are they just absent? What about absence in general? When, where, and to whom do you wish to be absent yourself?

            Absent is the opposite of Advent, it seems to me, writing this on Gaudete Sunday, everyone dressed in rose. Advent is about presence, divine presence that will never leave the list, if list there be. Our names are engraved in our unimaginable billions in the divine mind, never to fall off or out of sight. And as we move from Old Year to New, we take with us the titles of our Saviour recited in the antiphons of Advent: O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord) … right through to O Emmanuel (God is with us). Therefore we may rejoice.

On Road Work: Time and Travel.

I spent a lot of time on the road last week, with extra commuting and extra heavy traffic. Somehow I never compute the red lights into time taken to get anywhere, and while I allow the finding of parking a good slice, I usually forget next the walking to where I’m going. I admit to dodgy time management. Then there are uninvited and unwarned events like the fire truck flashing lights and sirens just as you’re about to enter the freeway tunnel, or everybody’s favourite: road work.

            I discovered on Monday that road work has even extended to the parking lot at the pool. Who’d be a road? Everybody walking, cycling, driving over the surface, wearing off the sheen. Road work gets posted whether or not there’s a maintenance vehicle or worker in sight. And since you never know when works begin or where they are, a blank area needs to be entered into the time travel equation for this too. I confess, alas, I fail to do it.

            What are the works of the road? Something to make it more solid, or cleaner —free of overhanging branches, dips, and oily surfaces— or less dangerous: filling potholes and painting guidelines. Sometimes deeper construction, where water gets under the road and collapses it. Sometimes less tragic, where accidents left wreckage on the road.

            How many roads are there? The road we drive on, walk beside, ride over, when we think about it, is an object, clearly of the physical world. But are there not also metaphysical roads? I saw one such road recently, at a performance, given in a church, of Handel’s Messiah.

            The audience had enjoyed an intermission, and now streamed into the church, displaying their differing gestures, heights, colours, costumes, glances, and casting of the eyes, hands, heads, and shoulders as they walked with one another, flowing past like figures in a film, on the other side of the baptismal font where I had stepped aside for a moment to observe. Everything became silent for me as I watched. I knew many of these people, what they had been and were now, and I saw them moving through time, on a road past the baptismal font, on a Way.

            Life is very similar, only rather more noisy most of the time. As all these people flow past you, a river of ever-changing beings, you can reflect on what each one has been and how they have been, both towards you and in the face of their transitions and tragedies, their hopes fulfilled or fallen by the wayside. You can contemplate their illusions and resources, their losses and gains, as if they were your own. One thing is certain: everything is in motion.

            What are the works of the road? Moments like this are one of them. Stepping aside to reflect. Taking time to regard the close connection between birth and death, as the Buddha did. Considering the relationship between faith and salvation, as the Gospels do. Viewing our fellows, both those we know and those we’ve never seen before and won’t again see, with charity and compassion. For we must be in love and charity with our neighbours before we reach our destination. To attain this is the work of the road. And it will slow you down.

On Keys: Material and Metaphysical.

Last week was the week of keys at my place. It started when I locked myself out. Cold morning: I’d thought I wouldn’t need a jacket; I’d only be out a few minutes with one of the dogs while the other dog went for his walk. It never crossed my mind to take a key for a short time. Then the dog walker came back, put the dog in the back yard and locked the door as she left. I didn’t wake up to this until I tried to get in.

            So here I was shivering: I was able to get to the front garden but not into the house. Fortunately I had the mobile, and a text to the dog walker sorted out the key, which now lives in my pocket forevermore. But that was just the beginning.

            Someone else forgot a key on Sunday. This key turned out to be locked in the boot of her car, along with music she needed to sing at a concert immediately. A kindly partner travelled to rescue her music and keys so she could sing. These are physical keys: the kind I was urged to get cut so a copy could be left with  neighbours. Who has the key? Who can open the door? Do you need a key to get into your workplace? What about keys you need to open doors for others?

            Then there are electronic or digital keys, far too many of them in this sceptical and dubious age. Your computer passwords and your PINS are keys, and you find that without them you’re persona non grata. One of these keys also failed for me this week, one of the passwords, which required a visit from the computer repairer, who fortunately restored access. I couldn’t have done it on my own. There isn’t much arguing, explanation or complaint possible with electronic keys.

            I wonder about metaphysical keys. Peter is famously given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, though these might be metaphorical rather than metaphysical keys, or maybe both. These keys unlock the treasure-houses of the Kingdom: Peter is made free to give of God’s treasures as perhaps Pope Francis would hope to do today. The angel in the book of Revelation bears a key to lock up the dragon (or serpent): the devil. The binding and loosing power of Peter also has this quality of restraining what is harmful and giving freedom to what is restrained. Keys: protection (to lock) and release (to unlock).

            There may be magical keys (the Key of Solomon, a textbook which is different to the Wisdom of Solomon the Queen of the South travelled so far to hear) and musical keys, of course, and keys to codes and maps, and keys to life from the Egyptian ankh to DNA, which is itself a code. Anyone who reads the Wisdom of Solomon will recognise, alas, many politicians and polluters among us who ‘make use of creation’ and oppress the poor, not sparing the widow or regarding the grey hairs of the aged. They believe that might makes right, and that everything weak is also useless.

            How different is Wisdom, the key to creation: all things being created so that they might exist. What a simple and profound idea. Wisdom is described as ‘a breath of the power of God’ in these lovely verses: “There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from all anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all … because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things … and she orders all things well.’

On Taking Care: Accidents and Angels.

A young man I know had a motorbike accident last Sunday: head on collision with another bike, week in hospital, lots of broken bones, repeated surgery, and a worrying amnesia (although he remembered his parent’s phone number). Can’t remember the accident, can walk around, wants to go back to work right now, in spite of broken right arm, smashed eye socket: gave his girlfriend such a fright she wrote off her car two days later as she backed out into a busy road. The brain has received a shock.

            This story is repeated all the time, as insurance companies know. They levy high rates for young people. knowing older people are safer on the road. Take fewer risks. Take more care. But then, how much care do we take walking on our feet? Should pedestrians need licenses to cross the road? What about the footpath? Lurking skateboards, mad cyclists, leaping dogs? Vehicles as we brashly cross against the lights? In the middle of the road? Uneven pavements, slick wet surfaces? Why should we have to take such care?

            Then there’s the home accident. This week also I went into the backyard to call my dogs in for the night. As I was ascending the ramp, one dog shot up behind me so fast he passed between my knees and brought me down onto my knees. I had my hands on both rails and so fell onto the ramp with less force and the dog himself broke my fall. I crawled around until I found the step and levered myself up on my feet, so I could help the other dog, who was so shocked by all this he couldn’t get himself up the step.

            My guardian angel works overtime, it seems, and I’m not helping, being so careless. I turned my back on this dog, a witless beast. I knew he likes to rush about. Our knowledge about risks in many circumstances doesn’t translate to our behaviour. Where young men think they’re immortal, older people know we’re mortal and still don’t process the information.

            Why should we take care? It’s only us, isn’t it? Or is it the world, and we’re part of it? Do we have a fictional cinematic impression of floating freedom as if the world is a friend? Are we not sinners? No, I mean seriously. Refusal to understand limitations — which may be moral as well as physical — misplaced confidence, especially in our own wisdom, power or authority, refusal to ask for help or guidance. An impression of ourselves as persons too gifted to take care.

            Don’t we stand in need of mercy? And receive it so often. I could have fractured bones, slipped a retina, passed out with only two dogs for company; my friend could have broken his neck. Where’s the sin in this? you ask. Aside from grief caused to others, there’s the damage to one of God’s creatures — oneself — and then the idea we’re too good to be on a level with other creatures, being careful.

            Are accidents our fault? By definition, they befall. No: events are the consequences of earlier events. As those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell were not worse sinners than others: they were only in the wrong place at the wrong time. As to why one is saved from catastrophe while another is not, I find it comforting to reflect on Psalm 131: ‘O Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.’ Oh, good, I’m spared the need to know all about everything! NRSV has ‘too marvellous for me’. However the world works, it’s marvellous and complicated and also often dire.

            However, if we do not amend our ways, both individually and collectively, and employ more gentleness and care, we may become the cause of later events. Then we’ll be called upon to repent, to seek more protection for ourselves, for others, even for the marvellous world we inhabit: such is condition of our forgiveness.

On Invisibility

I remember the moment I realised I was becoming invisible, some years ago now: I had gone to the counter at a café to give in my order, and some young men came up beside me and captured the staff’s attention. This was a gentle surprise to me, though perhaps reasonable that young men be more noticeable than older women in most circumstances. Recently I began to think about invisibility again: when we are overlooked, or sitting by ourselves in a new place, or when what we do goes unregarded. A friend recently asked me to pray for her injured partner, saying, “Since I don’t go to church, I don’t have a right to pray, but you can.” Here the idea of invisibility to the church becomes invisibility to God.

            There can be pain in invisibility, but also advantages. Myths, folk tales and literature sparkle with stories of magic rings and cloaks of invisibility. As a street photographer, my invisibility allows me to appear just an insignificant tourist with a simple digital camera, where someone with heavy gear might be questioned or challenged. And people who think they’re being photographed may be frozen or awkward: the invisible camera can capture their real image. Nature photographers, after all, sit in blinds in hopes the wildlife won’t see them.

            Missing things are also invisible, it seems: the keys, the glasses, the timepiece. The notes on the page when the light shines in your eyes: since the piano teacher got a new light shining over my shoulder onto the page instead, the formerly invisible notes can be seen and so played. Then there are invisible thoughts, the thoughts we don’t see ourselves thinking. I have a lot of these thoughts around the anniversaries of deaths — marked in past centuries with family religious services — that cast a gloom over me days before, until I remember what the coming date recalls.

            Invisibility also has its dangers. The future, for example, is invisible, and the ancients believed it disrespectful to second-guess the intentions of God, hence in the Bible fortune-tellers, necromancers, and seers are generally in bad repute. The future itself came upon people from behind, and overtook them: a very different perception from the vista of a future spreading out before us today. Nevertheless our vista is filled with invisible events, both sinister and unexpectedly brilliant, and like the notes on the piano score, we won’t know them until we see them.

            Fortune-tellers are of course different from prophets, whose vision of the future is directed to rulers and their peoples, with the speech or voice given to prophecy by God. (God’s voice, or more accurately the echo of God’s voice — since human ears can’t hear divine speech — was called ‘the daughter of a voice’ and was spoken by an invisible speaker, as for example at Jesus’ Baptism and Transfiguration.) While the fortune-teller seeks to know, the prophet does know and what he or she does know is what you must do. In the canonical prophets, what you must do is most often called justice, although mercy is another requirement and these are not expected to be invisible.

            Invisibility can lead most usefully to humility. Humility is the natural state of humanity before the divine. The seeing should come from ourselves towards those rendered invisible by injustice and lack of mercy, and I fear that all too many examples will come to our minds, both now and in the future.

On Haste: All Soul's Day

Learning music is painfully slow for me. Even reading music is slow. When I can read the notes, I can play them, but I would classify myself as a really bad reader. The piano teacher yesterday stopped me: “Don’t beat yourself up for being a bad reader. You’re reading, and you’re playing: the eyes are reading the notes and the brain is sending them to the hands, only not fast enough. So slow down, until you reach the point where the eyes can read and the brain interpret and get the notes to the hands in time.” Slow down.

            This is so frustrating. Learning anything proceeds in such an incremental way, not to say a glacial pace, with what we learned yesterday so often having to be learned again today: in music, in sport, in life. And my instinct when confronted with problems is to try to solve them immediately, to restore some stability and resolve some discord. Most problems, alas, don’t solve so fast.

            The Latin proverb Festina Lente expresses the ideal balance between haste and accomplishment: “make haste slowly.” I’ve often felt that many of my troubles in life come from not having consistent energy. Either I run around full of ginger, or I collapse with fatigue. I suspect this comes of making haste until I hit a brick wall, so to speak. Since I’ve reached such an advanced age I would seem to be a slow learner, not to have worked this out years ago.

            How do we spend our years? Sometimes they seem to be spending me. Where do we go in such haste? Does it matter if it takes two years to learn this piece, or two weeks? Probably a concert pianist has nothing more important to do, but a lot of other things are claiming my attention every day. What are we called upon to be, and how much haste does this require?

            All Soul’s Day. All out of time. I think of so many I have known, beginning with my family: father, mother, brother, uncle, aunt — all when I was so young — mothers-in-law (two of them), father-in-law (only one in my time), brother-in-law, sister-in-law — quite recently, following quickly one after another — then my own husband, concluding their generation: and dear young Rachel, laid in her grave by a killer. And the extended family, cousins, colleagues and friends. And enemies, too.There is now no need of haste.

            Festina Lente. Where are you going in such haste? Slow down. Take your time. It’s all the time you have.

On Notes: Taking and Giving

I recently had the opportunity to review a book I read six months ago; I took it off the shelf prepared to read it again. Then to my surprise I found an envelope inside, covered in notes! A moment of pleasure and relief. What is it about taking notes that seems to be so helpful?

            Notes, of course, may be mere lists: shopping lists, appointments, the music teacher’s notes on which scales to practice this week. These are notes on things too frequently encountered to be worthy of memorising, because they’re going to change next time around. They might be long (the shopping) or succinct (the dentist). You don’t want to miss anything out, however, forgetting the eggs or the day of the week.

            Then there are study notes: since my book for review was neither my study nor my profession, I was surprised that I’d gone to the trouble to take notes. Study notes are usually about things we ought to remember but know quite well we can’t — at least not without a lot of revision — and even about knowing which things we ought to know. Sometimes also about where to find them. Study notes are typically about things that lack an emotional charge that might help us remember without notes.

            Some moments are easy to remember, like the time the guy blasted his horn and jammed his tank in front of me on St. Kilda Road, giving the finger as he did so. He was then stuck in traffic for the next ten minutes with the satisfaction of being in front of me instead of behind me, until he made it to the parking station that was his ardent destination. Remembering his rego number was instinctive, as such moments of hot resentment tend to stay with you, as do those when you let yourself down, or let other people down, and though you might like to forget them, you often don’t need notes to remind you of your mistakes.

            If note-taking is truly helpful, perhaps taking notes would serve to remind us of the good memories that tend to slip away if we don’t watch them. For some years I’ve kept what used to be called a Commoplace Book, a collection of quotations and references in this case on spiritual topics, all together in one place: notes on my readings. For example, this from Lao Tzu: “Act; don’t compete.” Or this, on discernment: “Obstacles, for Ignatius, were often a sign of the correctness of the undertaking … His conviction was that a great thing awakens contradiction.” (Lambert noted that). Or this, from the Commonplace Book of W. H. Auden (citing a Welsh poet): “Virginal exquisite queen, of long gentle thinking, the colour of breaking day on a deserted sea.” Such notes will surely help recall matters well to return to contemplation.

            Perhaps notes written at the end of the day could reawaken the appearance of grace, even of beauty, in our immediate past. It seems unbalanced to remember our anger, grief, or shame so readily and to forget so easily peace, inspiration, or comfort. God, after all, can forgive: how can we forget all the giving?

On Driving: Angels and Strangers.

I spend what feels like a lot of time driving the car. It may take me an hour or more to get to work, to church, to a party or an entertainment. This probably isn’t any longer than it takes most people, I know. Although driving is a skilled occupation, something about it doesn’t engage the whole mind, as perhaps it should. So what happens to the driving time?

            The time management issue arises when someone cuts you off rushing to be at the next red light before you. I’ve noted that all traffic appears to be slower on a Friday — odd, that, you’d think it would be faster, as people gallop home for the weekend — although it seems to be quicker and less complex than public transport. But driving does count as a waste of human time and the earth’s resources. And it carries its own decisions. How do you dress for driving? Not in the dust veils motorists once needed, but I’d prefer to avoid tight skirts or high heels for an hour behind the wheel.

            Some have pleasant experiences driving: the exhilaration of moving freely down country highways; the sense of independence and agency as I get myself from A to B all by myself after a period of illness when I couldn’t even get myself out of bed; the personal concert the radio or car music player will give a variety of folk with a real variety show of musical tastes: Brandenburgs to keep me awake (slow music hypnotises and the music for a massage will put you to sleep); heavy metal for the church organist; Broadway musicals for the lawyer; trumpet voluntaries for the carpenter; Eurovision for the priest. But in spite of this valuable listening time, a glance at one’s fellow commuters demonstrates all too clearly the charm and delight they find in their daily travel.

            Some of these joys are mechanical, such as driving with a flopping or scratching noise somewhere beneath the car. But more are caused by our own irritation at having to deal with so many companions on the road, with pushy elbows and blurting horns, with the risks posed by vertiginous pedestrians and other road hazards, including but not limited to cranes high in the air swinging over building sites enclosed in barricades and warnings.

            Does driving find out our failings? Do we have to be first at the light? What about our need to know what’s going on when traffic stops for ages, and we’re blocked by a matron in the civilian equivalent of an armoured personnel carrier from finding anything out? Is the need to engage with strangers getting on our nerves?

            Driving is a state of transition, a friend once said. As a widowed person, I’m in a permanent state of transition in any case, transition to an unknown destination. Would it be more relaxing or interesting driving around with company, or not? True enough, I might not trust another person’s driving, even in a taxi. The expressions ‘driving you crazy’ or ‘driving you wild’ may be sometimes accurate descriptions of what goes on behind the wheel, whereas ‘driving you peaceful’ never seems to come to pass.

            Driving is training for life, I think. It has constant change, moments of aggression, flickers of sweet acknowledgement, blockades, road works, delicate individuals in exposed positions, delays, surveillances, anxieties and rests. So our guardian angels are kept busy, as the only prayers we can offer while driving lie in our consideration and care for our neighbours on the road. And this is enough.

On Saying No: Noughts and Crosses

Sometimes, more rarely than the ideal, I find myself having to say No to someone, some project or responsibility. Some of these Nos have been draconian, and have earned me the disrespect of a number of those affected. Some were slight: easily forgiven. Some have left me with lingering regrets, some with self-congratulation. Some have seemed inevitable, as the task was just too big for my compass; some have required introspection and discernment. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could always spread joy and relief by saying Yes?

            Why do we find it so hard to say No? How do we feel when someone says No to us? How many Yeses does it take to fill a concert hall, for example, and how many does it take to keep a committee going? Do we sometimes prevent the solution to a problem by saying Yes in a situation actually requiring systematic restructure from the ground upwards, so that a communal burden can be effectively shared? Or so that bad design can be exposed and a whole new way of action be brought into being?

            I find it especially hard to say No to people’s expectations, and this may be the result of my own daring. I have a tendency to overestimate my strength. A few basic maxims are useful here, such as ‘You can’t be in two places at one time’ and ‘There’s only one of me’. One of my serious regrets may seem a small thing, but to my neighbour it was a real disappointment: the day I had to say I couldn’t drive her to a long promised dog show because I was so exhausted I could hardly get out of bed. My neighbour couldn’t drive, and she’d been training her dogs for ages. How could I let her down so? Such regrets are going to stay with me, for my neighbour died long ago.

            Composer Gustav Holst gave his daughter Imogen the advice to put her health and physical fitness before any other consideration — Imogen Holst became a composer, conductor, teacher, arts administrator, and the amanuensis of Benjamin Britten, so there were eventually many considerations — because you can only get the best out of yourself if you are in good condition, just as you can’t get the best music out of a broken-down piano: what’s needed, he said, is ‘a proper mechanism’. He felt this should come first, and he told his daughter to stop before she became tired. Now this is excellent advice. How often do we stop before we become tired?

            It’s a fact, attested in the Gospels, that Jesus said No. He said No to the Kingdoms of this world and to their glory. He said No in the first instance to the devil, the old tempter, but he said the same No to the people of Jerusalem who welcomed him as their King. He told Pilate that if he had been that worldly King, his followers would be fighting for him. Instead, he was lifted up on the cross prepared for him by the Roman authorities.

        There is in art a concept called ‘negative space’. This is the space between the shapes in a drawing, the silence between the notes in music, the emptiness at the centre of the wheel in the Tao. If we don’t take proper rest by saying No, we won’t be able to say Yes when occasions require it, often without warning, and so fulfil our obligation to be fully present for others. To get the best out of ourselves, we need a proper mechanism: we can’t drive ourselves to the brink by always saying Yes.

 

On Wishes: Wise and Well

I’ve had quite a few wishes in the last few years, including some that would obviously not come true, such as a wish that some things never had changed and that the past could be different. Sometimes such wishes take the form of regrets, but that would imply only my own inadequate actions and responses to events. Events in the past, of course, may be largely driven by others and well outside my influence. And some may be due entirely to fate.

            Myths and fairy tales from all over the world impress us with warnings against reckless wishes, everything from eternal life (no use without eternal youth) to endless riches (not too good if your daughter turns to gold). The magic box that turns the sea to salt was a favourite story from my childhood: the endlessly turning salt mill that gave of its essence too often (constantly), too fully (far too much for the land) and too unceasingly. So how can we come by an understanding of wise wishes: wishes that are wise for us to wish?

            A wish for company may lay us open to the complicating involvement of other people. A wish to be lovely or charming, when it comes true, may attract the wrong individuals. A wish for wealth can lead to the envy of friends, or to a feeling we don’t know what to do with it all: many lottery winners end by giving it all away by one means or another.

            Some of our wishes come true due to hard work and determination over many years. Sometimes these rewards rejoice us, and sometimes they don’t. The cost of arriving takes into account all the steps away from other portions: sometimes the family, sometimes the arts, or health, or travel, or seeing the world around us. Perhaps even our peace of mind. And sometimes a failure to arrive and reach our wished-for destination will be seen as a close escape.

            Wishes aren’t like prayers. A prayer must begin with a blessing, I find. Blessed is our God … and what can that God do? We can pray for help, for healing, for love or inspiration. And the answer will come on God’s terms. Do we know what wise wishes are? We might find to our surprise that we don’t want our wish to come true after all, that we are wishing instead for what we already have. We don’t have the skill or the mastery to foresee the many possible outcomes of our wishes. At all times, and in all places, a wise well-wishing is always to bless God.

           

On Ambition: Realising Our Dreams

The recent sudden unexpected death of a lovely young woman brought to mind the advice of the music professor when I was at university: he was speaking to a young cellist whose parents were concerned that she would never make a living as a musician. “They say I have to think about what I’m going to be when I finish my education,” she said. But all she wanted to do was play the cello. The professor told her: “Suppose you fall under a bus tomorrow: then it won’t be question of what you’re going to be, but of what you have been.” Music gave her joy, he said, it gave others joy to hear her play, where then was the harm in studying music?

            Ambition comes in many forms. Ignatius Loyola had military ambition: he wanted to win fame and glory on the battlefield. What he got was a severe wound that laid him up at home for a long time with nothing to read but the lives of the saints. Ignatius had to confront the idea that there is more than one kind of glory, and he could still win some of that, but not for himself. He changed his ambition, and spent the rest of his life seeking God’s glory.

            Maybe our youthful ambitions are the most valuable, as long as they lead to consistent action. As an adult student, I heartily wish I’d spent the hours of piano practice that were open to me with my earlier teachers. Even if I had the time and strength, the loss of those earlier hours would always set me back in what’s possible for me to learn now. Something called life tends to intervene. But even when it doesn’t, and skills have developed and careers brought to pass, all worldly enterprises fall apart eventually. What then are suitable ambitions when we’re older?

            The professor’s advice holds good at any age. It won’t be what we’re going to be, but what we have been. Some persons have had the ambition to build a church to stop a plague. Too many have wanted to kill all their enemies. Some who have wanted to win a million dollars have seriously regretted it when they did win.

            The professor thought it was good to do what gives joy. Beauty, harmony, love and attention give joy to others as well as oneself. Even in a small way, every day, we can build happiness within and around us through acts of beauty and mercy and kindness. We could have the ambition to reflect God’s glory through what we have been, rather than trailing regrets and lost causes behind us. Even if no one remembers, we have been part of the music, in the time of the music whose notes were sweet for as long as they lasted, sounding somewhere in the ear of God.

           

On Envy: The Worst of Vices.

I was listening to the radio as I drove home from work one night last week, and they were playing Handel’s Joseph and His Brethren. An aria struck me, where envy is described as ‘the worse of crimes’ because from it all others arise. I’ve known personally of someone who was prepared to murder for envy. It clearly leads to theft, deceit, false witness (a way of life in ancient courtrooms, and in some places testimony can still be bought and sold today), adultery, treachery, and greed. The final item will then lead to oppression of the poor, cheating in business, slave labour, and despoiling of both land and sea. Joseph’s brothers, of course, sold him into slavery out of envy. And the last of the Decalogue forbids it: do not covet anything that is your neighbour’s, because out of this all the other sins will appear.

            What do we envy?  Do I want a beautiful house, a beautiful car, or beautiful clothes? Do I want it enough to steal a car, for example? Why? Will I be more beautiful, or will my life be more beautiful? The person who was prepared to murder acquired a life in prison: that was envy’s reward. This is the secular answer.

            The spiritual answer might be more complex. Why envy at all? Every person is in a unique situation with all its faults and blessings. If I say that ‘other people’ have better health, for example, I forget that millions are dying every year around the world from malaria: the bite of one mosquito. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The rich have their sorrows as well as the poor, and some of these are not redeemable through money. The beautiful often carry their beauty as a burden, overwhelmed by the illusions of others.

            What we ourselves have is often as valuable as anything we might envy.  It can all be lost in a day, too. Do we envy what is present, what is past, or what is to come? Sitting in the pews at St. Peter’s Eastern Hill today, I heard a magnificent choir singing Arvo Pärt’s Beatitudes, and how could I envy the finest seat in the greatest opera house in the world?  I had my hearing: isn’t this enough?  And it all can be lost in a day. Life is too fragile for envy. Let us then bless God.

           

           

On Buildings: The Wear of Time.

I note that my church has awakened to a roof crisis. Yesterday was Stewardship Sunday, and among other facts that came to light, the vestry indicated how big loans had had to be taken to repair a heritage roof on a heritage building, and how dealing with the costs of maintaining historic buildings is a major item of expenditure, that needs to be identified in the ongoing budget. How often do we take account of the tendency of roofs to decay, and of other things to dismay with the inevitable wear and tear of time?

            I was reminded of a class I took in Anglican Studies when I was doing my theology degree: the lecturer advised his students to look first at the roof of any church where they were thinking of taking a clergy position. If the roof’s not sound, he said, you’ll spent all your time there raising funds to fix it, and getting nothing else done. Ironically, this professor soon found himself in England, raising seven million pounds for the roof of a venerable church in Oxford, many centuries old, a historic building if ever there was one. (I believe the writing of many grant applications formed part of this process, and the money, astonishingly, did appear).

            Even my own local house has a tendency to cost me every year on things like painting the fascia boards (wha...?) replacing weathered doors, fixing broken locks and rebuilding crumbling steps, not to mention installing guard rails and better access features due to the faults of my health. So while the building is subject to the onslaughts of time and weather, my body is also showing signs and symptoms. I won’t discuss my car, superstitiously, since it’s booked in for service this week and some major item always needs to be replaced.

            I’ve tended to run my finances on current expenses only, and I suspect this is what happened to the vestry before the roof enlightenment experience. The revelation has occurred that there’s actually less money in my banking for current expenses than I thought, given that more than you’d imagine has to be set aside to combat the depredations of time. Everything decays, as the Buddha says, not only buildings but health, relationships and even spiritual signs. Unless the worn parts are renewed, the eventual account is startling.

            How much time and concentration, then, needs to be set aside for renewal of our spiritual relationships? Do we still dream on, with an image of God formed in our childhood, drawing from a depleting source of energy and life? How much reading, spiritual conversation, liturgy and meditation do we need to do to increase our understanding and commitment to divine matters? How much more love of neighbour do we need to show forth, and in what form? Because mark my words, things are wearing out, and we don’t want the rain coming in.

On Horizons: The Junk View

 My brother has embarked on an operation that reaches most people sooner or later; he’s helping with the dismantling and sale of his late mother-in-law’s Boston house. They’ve allotted the clearance task a week. It can be done faster than this. I remember when he and I cleared out our mother’s apartment in one weekend. That was pretty drastic, too.

            My brother remarks that the biggest job will be clearing off the horizontal surfaces. “The horizontal surfaces are full of junk. Clutter all over. The junk on the horizontal surfaces is the stuff you want to look at all the time: photos, souvenirs, collections. It’s going to be painful because of the memories.” He points out that it won’t take long to clear out the closets: “Some things may be worth something and can be sold — we wouldn’t trust her sister, she’d just throw it all in the bin — but every cupboard, shelf and box is crammed to the top with junk; it’s going to take a week to get rid of it all.”

            I recall that in our mother’s apartment there were a lot of books, which were taken to the local library, and that brings me to my job at the Carmelite Library where my boss, Philip, collects libraries. Specifically, deceased estates may show forth magnificent volumes under threat from anxious lawyers and uninvolved heirs who threaten the tip to substantial and often valuable collections. (We don’t know how many of the dresses in the Boston closet may be designer items, a pity to destroy). But this, of course, leads to the problem of insufficient space to house all the library’s new treasures.

            I look around my house at my own books, pictures, photographs and dear possessions, and I feel sad at their eventual fate. Things on the horizon point to a future destination: the junk on the horizontal surfaces is the clutter of the memories, loves, desires, and joys of your life. These objects are part of the unique you that ceases to be in the world. One hopes for a gentle hand to have some consideration, but the horizon lies at a distance, a distance from all we have valued, as we move into the past: a different world.

On Haste: Travelling the Road

Travelling down Punt Road on the way to work I heard the screams of an ambulance, and was luckily able to pull out of the far right lane to let it pass, its lights flashing fiercely. But it didn’t get far. Five or six vehicles shifted out of its way, but then it was blocked in on three sides by chunks of traffic, that was stopped at lights and unable to find spaces to allow it through. As the lights changed it would gain a little, only to be halted again a few cars later on.

            Was it going to or coming from an accident? By the time I reached the top of the hill at South Yarra I could see it below, still hindered, apparently heading for the hospital. Its back windows had been painted with an appeal for the paramedics’ pay rise, and I noticed that several times under our stop-go regime the opposite side of the street held no oncoming traffic, but the ambulance never was tempted to cross the double line.

            What is haste? How frustrating it must be, in a life or death situation, to be held up by road rules, and the frailty, bewilderment, and inflexibility of the general public behind the wheel of a car. Nothing seems to be happening fast enough.

            Slowness, it’s said, comes from God, and haste from the devil. Would taking the time to think have allowed some of this traffic to move aside, like a shoal of fish — even into a side street or a driveway — to make a way for this ambulance? Or was the lack of a collective mind and its values the holdup? Speed is a resource of time, but the scarce resource here was space.

            Both space and time belong to God: we only think we count them and allot them. Your resources are not your resources, although there are more of them than you may suppose. Sometimes they could well be combined with others to make a more godly path for those in need to travel.

On Gates: Locked Out

What do you do when your computer suddenly locks you out, and offers an arcane message with no way in again? The 'new' computerised world isn't all that new; it's been in place for at least 30 years.  That's the world where everything from blogging to banking is done online, and I remember the night the state government sent someone to our town demonstrating the wonders of the internet to us locals: I felt like an ancient alien in the presence of my first camera.
     Technology moves quick, superseding itself continually, and somehow, engaging with real life had a grip on priorities while IT went through several permutations  How did we become at once so ignorant and so dependent?
      When you get a computer, you don't have an object.  You've purchased a key, manipulated from elsewhere, and they can suddenly change the locks.  This has its benefits: when you don't have the key you must turn to your fellow human beings for help and support.  While you wait for repairs.
This prompts reflection.
     I got locked out of my computer. Who else gets locked out, of where? Clearly asylum seekers (refugees) often lack many keys to safe spaces.  Physical lockouts operate on disabilities: the world is full of spinning lights, steep stairs, narrow gates, and fine print.  There are social lockouts over superstitiously seen 'contagious sorrows' such as addictions, mental conditions and the victimhood following violent crimes (especially murder), since the idea that anything can happen to anyone affects our beliefs in the safety and sanctity of our own lives.  Shunning is lockout.
     So if you have a key, it would be kind and thoughtful to share it. I'm writing this blog at the library, while I await the new key, the restoration, the repairs.

On Fragmentation: Piecemeal Days

Buddhism tells us that all worldly enterprises end in sorrow, and Christianity notes the affinity of the world for the flesh (our mortality) and the devil (the prospect that things can go Very Badly Wrong, often without warning, at any given moment in time). What happens to the time in the meantime?

            What happened, for example, to a certain journal subscription that hummed along nicely for the Carmelite Library in 2006 and then suddenly disappeared — not in evidence for years (despite correspondence) — only to reappear outside our expectations (and without staff participation) in 2013? What happened to the intervening seven years? Did they fall through a hole in space?

            Indeed this question may apply to time in general. Overheard from the middle-aged daughter of a grandma wistfully fingering a baby’s cap — “for Nathan” — that lay in the basket on the footpath: “Mum, my Nathan is a grown man now. He doesn’t need a hat.” He takes up more space now, it seems. What has been displaced by the new shift in spaces?

            Laments from vestries, vicars and voters that churches no longer fill automatically on Sundays with persons regularly in attendance at their devotions seem to proceed from a view of time that dates to the era of the 9-5 job, the guaranteed pension, and the unbroken year. Fragmentation is about the two-or-three job individual posted any time 24/7 on an irregularly changing pattern. Time isn’t the only thing that shifts, either. The days when my mother-in-law, affectionately known as Old Grandma (though called Bess in her times) could be born near Ballarat and travel no farther than Mitcham in her lifetime, have been so fragmented that many persons spend almost more time overseas than at home, and this, again, on an irregularly changing pattern.

            The shape-shifter was a feared entity as early as Roman times. Something that appears to be something actually turns out to be something else. The shape of time is shifting. Perhaps this is why so many people say they want ‘spirituality’ instead of ‘religion’. Maybe there’s a need for something we can take with us, through an irregularly changing pattern of time and place: and space — where were those seven years — the magical duration of elf kidnappings? Maybe there needs to be something that fits into the disintegrating jigsaw puzzle the world is becoming: something to place in the spaces, something you can rely on in the fragmented moments of your life.