On Irreplaceable

Everyone has someone who is irreplaceable. In one sense, all of us are, and to God all are surely known. But in terms of daily life, all of us are hanging by a thread.

            Who do you depend on? How would you replace this person? If you were unable to act for yourself, who would act for you? How much depth is there in that list?

            Ideally, all families would be large, devoted, and free of trouble. If instead it seems the Buddha was right, and suffering, especially in the forms of old age, sickness, and death, is pervasive, the possibility of losing the irreplaceable is ever present.

            Children are irreplaceable to parents. The parent mourns the child: in past centuries it was common, leading to the idea the world is a vale of tears. Often it is. Can we be irreplaceable to someone, not living merely for our own concerns?

            I regret spending so little time being reliable, attentive, protective to those outside my circle, so little time seeing what’s actually going on. The Shire of Yarra Ranges community services say they have 3000 frail people on their books for home assistance. Who is irreplaceable? Who’s irreplaceable to you?

On Past Photographs

Last night I dreamed about my photographs from art school. In the morning I gathered enough energy to go downstairs and look around for them. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I found others, that I’d forgotten, that had an important effect on my aesthetic. There was the time a roll of film got misdeveloped, producing curtainlike sheets of light. My teacher thought it fascinating; I thought it bizarre. When I printed them out, they were fascinating. There were portraits, and genre scenes at the school. The passage of time: remembering images floating up through the chemicals, and how they’ve changed by now.

            When I got to choose a major project, I decided to photograph Mont Albert Road. The school was in Box Hill, and that road is notable for beautiful trees and autumn colours. The buildings were changing. I caught it in the 1990s. And much has changed.

            What I do now owes a lot to what I did then. I was looking for the Mont Albert photographs: no doubt I’ll find them. I find them in the pictures I take today. If you take a photo on the street, you document a moment in the flow of unceasing time. The light, the relationship to beauty, the evidence of where and when. Then chemical; now digital: always changing.

On Remission

After the first flare of statin induced illness that afflicted me in 2011, I was told I was in remission. That lasted only four or five months. I was put onto another course of medication that terminated in 2014, and I was walking, standing, sitting freely for four or five months. The time spent on the medication which (albeit with serious side effects) contained the muscle inflammation, was in its own way a kind of remission. Now they’re giving me chemo, and I’m not in remission with this yet.

            Remission is the good time between the bad times. What did I do with my remission? I finished my MA thesis and got my degree. I worked, and helped put the Carmelite Library catalogue online. I learned to play the Venetian Gondola Songs. I read the lesson at St. Peter’s Eastern Hill and volunteered in St. Peter’s Bookroom.  I homed a lovely rescue dog who spent two happy years with me. I was able to get around and photograph the beautiful city in its many layers of meanings.

            Remission also refers to forgiveness: of sins, debts, guilts. Mark’s Jesus says: ‘Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven?’ or to say, ‘Stand up, take your mat, and walk?’ And for this they glorified God.

On Philemon

Several people in the online course I’m taking question how an officer on Hadrian’s wall can address his slave as ‘brother.’ Paul’s letter to Philemon treats of just this situation. Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, has been assisting Paul in his prison in Rome. Paul is returning Onesimus to his master, calling the slave his 'child' to whom Paul has become a 'father'. He’s tempted to keep Onesimus with him, to help him during his 'imprisonment for the gospel,’ in place of Philemon himself. Note how Paul positions himself as also a father to Philemon in this rhetoric. He wants Onesimus freed as a good deed which is voluntary: a good son, like Philemon, would seek to obey his father's wishes by his own volition, not as 'something forced.’ Willing obedience is honourable. The result will be that Onesimus is no longer a slave, but a 'beloved brother.' Paul expresses his expectation that Philemon will 'do even more than I say' for Onesimus. Note that brothers are sons of the same father, so this title will have reference to Paul as patron.

            The Letter to Philemon is the shortest book in the Bible, but one of the most fascinating stories.

On Old Ideas

One of my library tasks lately has been to check the shelves and add catalogue records to books that don’t have them, so the Cataloguer can create order in the collection and computer records can be kept. Fascinating stuff turns up, some seriously old, some quite quaint, some useful still and some passed on, of interest mainly to historians.  

            Conference papers, acts of meetings, journalistic experiments, dogmatic themes. Explications of everything. Investigations, determinations, arguments. Some books with a beat-up appearance call up the passage of time: Science and Faith in the 21st Century, for example, wakes me to the fact that the 21st century is already 15 years old. How did that happen?

            What strikes me is how current these ideas seemed at the time. I can remember the themes of 1986, although not the catechism on papal teachings of 1908. The latest, newest, things, though often based on the oldest. I give you surrogacy, and Hagar.

             So, too, today’s ideas, the good and the bad. Some ideas, very old, still keep their force. Forgiveness of sins. Reverence towards creation. Active mercy. Reading the signs of the times. We need to read the signs of our own times, and that means now.

On Numbers

I was called in to work suddenly and had to get a key. To get the key, I needed a number. More than one number: I found I didn’t have the phone numbers of several people I had to contact. Many people don’t list their numbers anywhere. Eventually, with the number, I got the key.

            Numbers are everywhere; whenever you count, you need numbers. Much is constructed with them. They’re either with us, or sometimes without us. Think of the hairs of our heads that are numbered or the sands of the seas unnumbered. Who does the counting?

            Some things are important to count, yet uncountable. You may count your friends, or perhaps your enemies, but the count says nothing about value. One friend may be a key: uncountable. One enemy may be more grievous than all the counted rest.

            Our years are said to be counted, somewhere, and the psalmist appeals for our days to be numbered. Of course they’re numbered, only we don’t know what number is on them. Today the exequies for a friend, Robbie Bates, are being performed. Many are counted as mourners. Why number the days, before we fly? The psalmist says: to apply our hearts to wisdom.

On Theological Education

I spent eleven years in a theological school, studying part-time. Years flowed past so when I thought back on it, it seemed much shorter. What’s left when a course like this begins to fade into the past?

            It changed my viewpoint. I learned there are many ways to address a question, from the understanding of Christ Himself, to ecclesiastical history to Gospel contexts. I learned many paths of study.

            I retained less Greek than I would have liked. I never fully mastered my computer. But I found a church community and a place in the continuum of Christianity. I met remarkable people, students and teachers alike.

            Things keep coming back to you. Layers of prayer: from antique liturgical forms to cries from the heart. Biblical stories, coming fresh in your face today in both private and public events. Spiritual examples recalled without warning.

            An Ignatian spiritual director taught me to ask: ‘Where is the love?’ If you’re widowed, or otherwise bereaved, this is a question that appears every day, for the answer isn’t immediately obvious. It becomes a spiritual practice.

            For someone who does not become clergy, theological study still gives a direction for life. A gift to be given.