PUBLIC SPACE

I HAVE read an excellent book on Church/State relations, by Os Guinness called The Case For Civility ( http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061353437/The_Case_for_Civility/index.aspx) , in which he argues for the need for the culture to have a place for discussion that is neither sacred space nor naked space. Guinness argues that both the religious right and the secular anti-religious left have got it wrong. He is arguing that the American founding fathers got it right and that their views are being distorted by current players in this age-long debate.
Guinness is speaking specifically to the U.S. situation but what he has to say is relevant for Australia and how we deal creatively with similar issues. Living in an inner city area with many African people of Islamic faith, I am interested in how we can find a common space for sharing our insights, our experiences, in a way that is respectful of difference and that looks for ways of contributing to the common good.
We need more discussion about the whole question of how we can be unashamedly disciples of Christ in a multi cultural society. For me this means holding a deep and basic respect for those who see things differently from the way I do. Last year we had in the Carlton community a second forum sponsored jointly by our Uniting Church minister and the Imam of the Horn of Africa settlers in the area, seeking to build stronger bridges of understanding. This seems to me to be a faithful way of following Jesus.
In Matthew 28:16-20 is it legitimate to say that Jesus is encouraging us to be about the task of making learners? [ discipuli was the word we learned in Year 8 Latin, meaning learners.] Is it too much to say that we are called to be fellow learners with the rest of humankind, sharing what we have learned and being open to the fact that this gracious God we know in Christ is actually also at work in the lives of all of God's creation?
I keep in the front of my Bible a prayer I stumbled upon some year ago, written by a wise minister: "God of understanding and giver of unity, teach me to know how to stand for truth yet never to damage those who disagree with my current interpretation of truth."
I guess that some would see my approach as compromising, weak, lacking in Christian conviction....but I am inclined to think that we are being drawn this way because we are responding to Jesus, his life and death and resurrection and the main emphasis of his teaching.
On a related point, I have just received a most moving document by Uri Avnery, former Knesset member and now a strong supporter of the Israelis and Palestinians who hold hands together to resist the aggressive behaviour of the political leaders in the Middle East.

MARGARET'S DRAWINGS

In 1997, Peter Sanders, a Uniting Church chaplain, initiated a celebration of creativity in the Presbytery of Yarra Valley, where we were both working. We published a book of poems by people in the Presbytery, and Peter asked Margaret to provide some illustrations. Here are some of them.

SOME EARLY WORK

Margaret has always loved drawing and painting. Although it is only in more recent years that she has taken her painting more systematically and seriously, there are glimpses of her talent and interest in all sorts of books and paper from earlier years. Here is a drawing of our hallstand at Paterson Street, probably done in the seventies or eighties.

MARGARET'S LATEST PAINTING

A vase of irises captured Marg's attention some years ago. A photograph was taken. Several years later Marg has painted that vase of irises in watercolour.

FIFTY YEARS ON

FIFTY YEARS ON

[This is a work of fiction]


It was in 1959 that we last met, sharing the leadership of a Boy’s Camp for a church group we belonged to. In those hours after we had the youngsters bedded down [in those days we actually expected them to do what we told them], he and I had often chatted in the cookhouse about our hopes for our lives, our understanding of faith, our serious desire ‘to know the will of God’ and to be faithful disciples. of Christ.

So, it was with some enthusiasm and not a little uncertainty about what we would still have in common when I accepted his invitation to lunch in a local restaurant just before Christmas.

After the normal exchanges where we each assured the other that we didn’t look a day older, we launched into a genuine and more honest sharing of our experiences, taking it in turns to contribute as we moved through the swinging sixties to the years of marriage, children, changing jobs, and on to the later stages of our careers, the directions our children had taken and how we were coping with the years of retirement

Four hours later the staff of the place were giving hints that they closed at 4.30, so we began to wind down and make plans to meet again..

I left with a range of impressions and feelings: pleasure at renewing an old friendship, and a certain wistful envy at the way in which his life seemed to have been so successful in sharing his faith, nurturing his children into an authentic adult faith and impressed by the clarity of his commitment to Christ and his confidence that his local church and denomination were doing great things for God. I also noted how little he seemed to have been confronted with the dilemmas that I had faced over those years and I found myself wondering how my own journey might have developed if we had moved into an established eastern suburbs church and I had continued teaching in the private school system.

I’ve inherited my mother’s ability to rationalize, so it wasn’t long befor I found myself pondering upon the extraordinary range of beliefs and practices which can be found within any faith and how much richer we are because of this extraordinary diversity.

How then is it possible, I mused on my morning walk, for us to affirm this diversity yet still build and maintain bridges with one another when the differences seem so fundamental.

Indeed I want to go beyond the connections between people of the same faith and ask the same question about differences of faiths and cultures.

Why do we need to have us and them?

In our early days , it was us, the protestants and them the catholics.

It was even a matter of divisions in protestantism between us, the evangelicals and them the liberals who didn’t really seem to accept our view of the atonement and our respect for the Bible. At University we were the EU and they were the SCM. We barely knew one another and yet we were fellow disciples of Christ.

The excitement about the ecumenical movement with its drawing together of various denominations and beginning to talk with catholics was a step along the way, but it was still us, the Christians and them the other religions or those who had no religion at all.

There is now a growing focus on what is called the interfaith movement and it is time to ask where that may be heading.. At its best, I believe this is a very significant movement, particularly where it recognizes that in this global village people who care about justice and peace need to support one another and not let their particular religious faith become a hindrance to the pursuit of a more just and peaceful world.

Some take the view that one day there will be one great religion which embraces the best of all faiths . However I am much more drawn to he view that in interfaith matters we will always see some things in a different light and we will always express our theology differently but the very sharing our lives and faith more intimately carries the great promise of enriching our understanding of our own faith. For example , I have a friend who attended a series of lectures on Buddhist existentialism and who as a result dug deeper into his own understanding of his Christian faith and began with great profit to read Meister Eckhart’s reflections.

It helps sometimes, when we get caught up in the us and them mentality to ask if we believe God loves us more than them. Occasionally in the Hebrew scriptures we are left with the uncomfortable feeling that their God is on their side at the expense of the others. The God who sometimes features in the Psalms is attributed with characteristics that are not consistent with the God whom we encounter in Jesus. Is it so difficult to accept that God is still being revealed to humankind and that we would do better and be more in keeping with the spirit of Christ if we rejected the idea that God is more on our side than on their side, whoever they may be?

So, I’m looking forward to our next meeting at that local restaurant and I hope that together we may explore more deeply some of these issues that emerged at our December meeting.


Mac Nicoll

13/01/2009

A SIGNIFICANT DATE

Today is May 1, 2010

Twenty years ago , on May 1, 1990 I began my term as Yarra Valley Presbytery Minister.

Ten years ago, on May 1, 2000, I began life as a person retired from paid employment. To celebrate the occasion, Margaret and I drove to Yering Station, Yarra Glen, where we enjoyed a delightful lunch.

Today is May, 1, 2010 and we look back on a most enriching decade living as retirees in McIlwraith Street, Princes Hill and finding opportunities to do some new things and learn much about ourselves, the community and the world in which we belong.

In the weeks ahead we hope to tell and show some of our retirement experiences in this blog spot.

A MOST ENGAGING BOOK

I have just finished reading Marilynne Robinson's novel HOME. It is one of the finest novels I have read and I warmly recommend it to you.

Salley Vickers, whose work you may have read, says of HOME...."The heart of this utterly absorbing, precisely observed, marvellous novel is the fumblimg inadequacy of love, its inability to avert our terrible capacity to wound and maim, not even but especially, those nearest and dearest to us."
Another reviewer says "The beauty of HOME is that it does not offer the counterfeit currency of certainty but proffers the under-valued coin of hope."