Everyone carries secrets. Not necessarily the kind that titillate, but the ordinary, everyday ones that rise to trouble us like a recurring virus. The pain of regret, of knowing that our lives are not perfect, not even close but sometimes a chaotic mix of halfway rational choices and haphazard mistakes. Knowing that this life may […]
on rainbows, chaos, Prof Dawkins and the tail end of an elephant
like rainbows that never reach the pot of gold there’s a kind of beauty in the unrealised the unfinished, the chaotic omnipotent god (the one Prof Dawkins fights with good on him but it’s limited, like only seeing an elephant from the tail end) as I was saying, omnipotent god might feel frustrated in that […]
Absent God
Absent God missing in action, always guardian of open space blankness in my life. Sad? Perhaps but more than this the blankness is for me a symbol of what God might be rather than what God is not. There’s never been a time, God when I’ve felt your presence the kind of presence, people talk […]
Unmixed attention: the lifeblood of professional spiritual care
The conversation had rippled and sparkled. My doctor friend and I juggled theological ideas as they tumbled out and into the space between us. But as he got up to leave my heart sank. ‘Oh no’, I thought, ‘after all that he’s going to say he’ll pray for me.’ I’m ultra sensitive, you could say […]
Hospital Chaplains too Christian for Nones?
She sat beside the bed, tears brimming. ‘Mum’s dying.’ ‘Yes.’ We sat in silence for a bit. ‘I’ve lost my faith.’ ‘Uh huh.’ ‘When my friend died.’ ‘Mm.’ We held hands and Mum’s too, wondering in our own ways, about God and faith and people dying and what the universe meant, if anything. As we […]
Supping Sam Hunt Sober
Last time I saw Sam Hunt perform I was drunk in a pub in Wellington. We all were, him too most likely. It was what you did at those gigs where poetry and plonk were like riding a bicycle for two. As he says, we all had pain to be soothed. Decades later I wondered […]
on rape, stagnant pools and echoes in the void
no matter how much we protest about rape (haven’t women been experiencing this forever, remember Dinah in Genesis and when we thought our marching might take back the night) no matter how many rape laws are drafted, enacted people imprisoned, diagnosed, decried somewhere deep within culture, psyche, being, (I throw these terms around because we […]
Knights in common
Professor Sir Mason Durie is a seasoned presenter. One slide with three points and he had the standing room only crowd in his hand at Vaughan Park Anglican Retreat Centre. We were a willing audience having gathered to hear his lecture in honour of the Rt Rev’d Sir Paul Reeves, former Governor General and Archbishop […]
Public prayer connects beyond belief
I’ve been thinking about the most wonderful keyhole in the world as debates about public prayer have been on the agenda of city council meetings in Bideford, England, and Whanganui, New Zealand. To look through this keyhole you have to go to Rome and walk up the Aventine Hill until you get to the front […]
No consciousness without pain
Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who had suffered a great loss. There’s nothing novel about that. Most of us have the experience at some point or another of staggering about life, arms wrapped around grief, loss or pain. My work life is full of these stories. As a result, I treasure the dark […]