Still Thinking -Peace in Jerusalem

In 2007 I had a three month sabbatically with one month spent in Israel. In Jerusalem I stayed at St George’s College in East Jerusalem.  On the afternoon when I arrived I was given a tour of the campus by the College Chaplain.  After the tour I asked him about walking around the old city.  Was it safe?  Could I do it by myself?  Are there any places I should, or more importantly, should not go?  His answer was simple, “Walk out the front gate of the college, turn right and about three hundred metres down Salahadeen Street you will see Herod’s Gate.  Walk through the gate and then just get lost in the city!”  While to a newcomer that was a bit frightening nevertheless, I took his advice and got lost in the Old City.

In fact, it would be difficult to get lost in the Old City of Jerusalem.  Walled on all sides it has eight entrance gates (one is bricked up for theological reasons) and is an area of about a square kilometre.  I don’t think you really can get lost – as distinct from not knowing where you are – because the old city is a maze of never ending streets, lanes, stairways and footpaths.  And if you show any sign of not knowing where you are there is always a helpful local willing to take to one of the sacred sites - at a price of course.

Many will know that the old city is divided into four quarters – Christian, Armenian, Jewish and Moslem.  One can wander freely between the quarters and while there are not clear boundaries between the quarters they are each distinct in their own way.   Now while it maybe difficult get lost physically in Jerusalem, it is certainly possible to get lost in the sheer diversity and complexity of the place.  To the outsider everyone seems to get along well together, but as our lecturer and guide Rev Dr Kamal Farah said, “In Jerusalem we do not live together we merely co-exist.” I suppose this is the technical meaning of the word tolerate.  The three dominant religious faiths in Jerusalem presently tolerate each other.

Now while the old city is about many things the two that strike the tourist or pilgrim are commerce and sacred religious places.  From the stalls that line the narrow streets traders will sell you anything if you can haggle with them to arrive at the right price – a skill I discovered I didn’t have.  But it doesn’t take long in this city to get lost in the profundity of its religious significance.  Much has been written about the importance of Jerusalem to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  Each religion claims a sacred connection to Jerusalem.  Each faith feels a God give right to be here, in Jerusalem.  It was a remarkable experience to in one day, visit the Western (Wailing) Wall; the Dome of the Rock; and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Each of these places sacred to its tradition and yet each has at some time in its history been occupied by at least one of the other faiths.  While the city is central to religious faith and pilgrimage, war and conflict over these sacred places has always been present in Jerusalem.

Two of our guest speakers during the course, one a Palestinian Christian, the other a Jewish educator used the same illustration about visiting Jerusalem. They both said, “After someone has been in Jerusalem for a couple of days they feel they could write a book; after a week perhaps a chapter; after a month a sentence and after a year they struggle to find a word.”  And I know what that is word.   I suspect we all know what that word is.  It is Al-Salaam, in Arabic Shalom, in Hebrew, Pax in Christian Latin and Peace is English.  All traditions see peace as more than the absence of conflict, more than mere tolerance and co-existence.  Peace in Christianity, Islam and Judaism is the restoration to wholeness - completeness.  The very experience of prosperity both physically and spiritually, but most importantly not just for me or for my tribe but for all people.

It was the Catholic theologian Hans Küng who said, “There will be peace on earth when there is peace among the world religions."  This Christmas 2011, let us prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, peace between religions and peace in our world.

Christopher

Still Thinking – Christmas in Australia

I had ten Christmases in Canada and only one was a white Christmas. We lived in Hamilton Ontario which is at the southern tip of Lake Ontario and the area doesn’t get as much snow as parts further north. On average the snow would arrive in our neighbourhood in late November, then melt by early December and not return until early January.  So white Christmases were few and far between.

Coming from the southern hemisphere I was often asked is we celebrated Christmas in our winter, in July.  Canadians found it difficult to imagine Christmas lights, decorations and roast turkeys happening in the summer.  When I told them that our shopping centres (malls) were decorated with fake snow (cotton wool) reindeers and overweight and overdressed Santas and that even the tree we decorate was not native to Australia but imported from north climes, they were bemused –as some us are today.  I tried to redeem our southern hemisphere summer Christmas celebration by telling them that we do have “shrimp on the barbie” (prawns) cold meats and salads often served outside on Christmas Day and that sometimes Santa even arrives on a surfboard!

When I have thought about our Christmas traditions, I realize that almost of them come from the northern hemisphere and perhaps the only local Christmas custom we have is Carol’s by Candlelight which has to be outside, on a warm summer evening to be successful.  Christmas traditions generally are a melting pot of historical-cultural-religious, symbols, customs and traditions that are transported one culture and one country to another and that’s probably a good thing.

Christmas celebrations imported from elsewhere are part of a larger question about Christianity in Australia.  In the 1970s, when I was a theological student it was popular to talk about an emerging “Gumleaf Theology” which was an attempt to indigenize the unique expression of Christian faith in this corner of our world.  It has never really succeeded.  Our love firstly, of all things British and European and more recently all things American, has seen the flow of traditions, customs and ideas move in one direction.  Nevertheless, I suspect the key to having meaningful sacred customs and traditions is to not just adopt them, but rather we adapt them to the local needs and conditions.  The playwright William Somerset Maugham said, “Tradition is a guide and not a jailer,” and even a religious traditionalist like T.S.Eliot wrote “A tradition without intelligence is not worth having.”

Of course what’s most important is to revisit the original story of the nativity and draw from it those meanings, images and symbols that resinate with our experience of Christian faith on our continent.  Remember the environment surrounding Jesus’ birth in Palestine was closer to Australia conditions than it was to northern Europe or Scandinavia.  And we Australians should know something about sheep and shepherds albeit a little less romanticised than most Christmas scenes. However, what is significant is to remind ourselves and our culture that this baby was born in a humble state, attended by those who loved and honoured him and that he grew to be a man beyond measure, whose life and teaching transformed the ancient world and can transform both our culture and the human heart.  But for that to happen we must take seriously this Holy and sacred story of God with us, revealed in this small human life and celebrated every year at Christmastime.

Christopher

Still Thinking -The Logistics of Santa's Delivery Service

Two scientists, Joel Potischman and Bruce Handy have computed a speed and payload performance criteria for Santa's sleigh. In case you think I am just making this up the “official” website is listed below.* Their calculations are as follows:

The Number of Destinations

• ·       Humans in the world: 6 billion. (this was computed some years ago.)
• ·       Children, under 18 years of age: 2 billion.
• ·       Children whose parents are Christian: 33%.
• ·       Maximum number of children who might receive gifts: 667 million.
• ·       Average number of children per household: 3.5.
• ·       Number of destinations where Santa might deliver presents: 189 million.  However, there are 33 million Eastern Orthodox children which Santa would handle on his second trip on January 5^th. The Eastern Orthodox Church doesn’t follow the Gregorian calendar; the current gap between the calendars is 12 days.

Total number of destinations where Santa delivers gifts: 156 million.

The Time it Takes

Santa cannot arrive until the children are asleep. Suggesting that he starts to distribute gifts in each time zone at 9pm local time and as long as the entire job is finished before the children wake up in the last zone, assuming that the children sleep for 7 hours, he has 31 hours to finish his deliveries.

This means he has to visit 1,398 homes per second. Which gives him 715 microseconds in which to decelerate the sleigh, land on the roof, walk to the chimney, slide down the chimney, distribute the presents and retrace his steps. However, there are some adjustments if one considers that:

·       Santa's competitor Befana distributes gifts in Italy.

·       Santa distributes some gifts on Boxing Day to poor children in some countries.

·       Santa distributes some gifts in bulk quantities, children's hospitals etc. before Christmas.

·       Sinter Klass distributes some gifts on December 5 to children in Belgium, Germany and Holland.

Which reduces the number to 1,000 households per second.

The Distance Travelled:

Assuming that Antarctica is uninhabited and ignoring inland lakes, the total inhabited land on earth is about 79.3 million square miles.  If the destinations are evenly distributed over the available land, the average distance between destinations is 0.71 miles. So the total distance travelled is 111 million miles – a little further than the distance from the earth to the sun!

Potischman and Handy estimated that at a speed of 650 miles a second, air resistance would cause the lead reindeer to absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. We are not familiar with the effects of such a high energy loading. However, most probably the reindeer would be turned into charcoal in seconds, without magical protection that is.

So visiting 1,000 homes per second at the average speed of 3.6 million miles an hour he could reach the moon in 4 minutes. In terms of payload the sleigh would carry about 500,000 tons of cargo, many times the weight of the Queen Mary, which is about 100 million cubic feet of cargo, equivalent to 4,500 homes.

There are two logical explanations for these incredible figures. First, Santa Claus does not exist. Some adults believe this, but most young children don’t. Or Santa Claus has magical powers, which is obvious because he can see from his location at the North Pole, when children are sleeping and when they are awake and whether they are bad or good.  Also it is reported he can travel up a chimney simply by rubbing the side of his nose.

*Adapted from Joel Potischman & Bruce Handy, "Is there a Santa Claus," at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk

 Christopher

Still Thinking – The Reason for the Season

In the ancient world it was not common to celebrate a person’s birthday.  It was more common to celebrate the death of famous or significant people.  It may seem strange to us but early Christians did not celebrate the birth of Jesus.  They had the narrative of his birth, particular from the Gospel Luke written around 85AD, but the early church fathers Origen (d.255), St. Irenaeus (d. 202), and Tertullian (d. 220) do not include Christmas or its date on their lists of feasts and celebrations.

While there was interest in the early church about the date of Jesus’ birth there was no celebration of it.  The  church father, Clement of Alexandria (150-215) tells us that certain theologians had claimed to have determined not only the year of the Jesus' birth but also the day; that it took place in the 28^th year of Augustus and on the 25^th day of Pachon (May 20^th) . He also added that others said that he was born on the 24^th or 25^th of Pharmuthi (April 19^th or 20^th)

Some modern scholars, using the details given in the Bible, suggest that Jesus' birthday was likely before October or after March.  So, although we don't know when Jesus was born, it seems quite unlikely that it was on December 25^th.  So how did December 25^th? The most likely explanation is that as the Rome Empire became Christian there was a movement by the Bishops of the church to “Christianize” the pagan celebrations.  So, in order to eclipse the winter solstice celebration of the sun god Mithras in the middle of the 4^th Century after Jesus' death, the newly converted Emperor Constantine declared December 25^th to be the official birthday of Jesus.

Within a few years, the altars of the temples of Mithra had been destroyed and the temples were quickly rededicated to the activities of the Church of Rome. So the winter solstice, which was perhaps the greatest celebration known to the ancient world, was transformed into a celebration of Jesus as the light of world and the one who overcame the darkness.

Over the centuries the celebration of Christmas has waxed and waned depending on the theologies and doctrines of the different wings of the Christian Church.  In the 17^th Century the emerging Free Church which included Separatists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Puritans, condemned the celebration of Christmas because its cultural pagan origins overshadowed the true biblical meaning of Jesus’ birth.  During this period, the English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas entirely, replacing it with a day of fasting and considering it, "a popish festival with no biblical justification", and a time of wasteful and immoral behaviour.  The army were even sent to raid homes and confiscate any cooked meat.  I wonder what they would think of our Christmas Celebrations today.

There has been a move in the modern church to emphasise the true meaning of Christmas.  I think the recent recovery of the celebration of Advent is a healthy corrective to some of our consumerist aspects of Christmas, while not retreating into pietism or “Scroogeism.”  It is interesting that one of the great social reformers of the 19^th Century, Charles Dickens highlighted Christmas as both a time of festivities with a reflection on the moral and social values in his book A Christmas Carol. 

Advent, with its focus on our commitment to hope, love, peace and joy, woven from the stories of John the Baptizers, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, give us a clearer sense of the “reason for the season.”  It is also a time of personal and collective reflection on faith and how a commitment to the one born in a stable is lived out in my life and within the world around me.

Christopher

Still Thinking – the Gift of Opportunity

Two weeks ago I attended the St Catherine’s School Valedictory Ceremony in my capacity as the board member representing Toorak Uniting Church. It was a bright and inspiring event.  The graduating girls received prizes for their achievements in academic, social and community activities.  The speaker for the night was Tamara Cannon who was an old girl of St Cath’s and had ten years ago established the Lille Fro Foundation* to sponsor Tibetan children and give them the opportunity to go to school. Tamara up to that point had been a corporate lawyer having graduated from St Cath’s in 1991. In promoting Tamara’s visit, the school’s newsletter gave some background:

Up to this point, Tamara’s career had been very successful, but mostly conventional, until she was sent on assignment in Asia. Tamara took a side trip to climb to Everest Base Camp in Nepal, and when travelling through Himalayan, Ladakh India, she met a little girl living in destitute circumstances. Like many children in her village, this child had never been to school. Tamara decided to pay for her education, board and expenses.

On the night of the ceremony, Tamara spoke to the girls and their parents, about her conviction of how important it is to demonstrate care and compassion to those in need and the difference that a relatively small amount of money can make in the lives of these children, their families and the villages they live in.  The foundation sponsors over 100 children and has also built five green houses in remote areas of Tibet, helping to feed whole villages.  As part of our Toorak OP Shop Distribution for 2011, TUC will give $5,000 to Tamara’s Lille Fro Foundation and St John’s Anglican will also give $5,000.

It was Albert Einstein who said, “All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.”  I don’t think we can ever underestimate the gift of an opportunity and its impact on a person.  In my life I can think of at least six people who didn’t give me money or advice, but gave me an opportunity to learn and even to fail; to lead or share something of myself with others and that made all the difference in my life. 

I don’t think it is true that opportunity only knocks once. What the saying means of course is that we should take advantage of the opportunities that come to us and not be too timid or cowardly about embracing new opportunities.  However, they do keep coming and while we may regret missing a good opportunity, a positive and open outlook on life means we will recognize the next possibility that comes into our lives.

Opportunity Shops are places where people can find a bargain.  They are important places where clothing and other items are recycled and reused and where the price of purchases can be kept low through generous donations and the hard work of volunteers.  TUC makes a strong contribution to our Op Shop in Toorak and can be proud of the fact that the money raised is providing opportunities for people with needs in Melbourne and in the world beyond. 

*http://www.lillefro.com.au/home

Christopher

Still Thinking –Self Love

When I was in grade seven at the Upper Mt Gravatt primary school I ran for the position of Class Captain. If I remember correctly there were at least two others in the class who were competing for the top job. I recall a conversation I had with our teacher just before the election.  Somehow we got to talking about who I would vote for, “I’m voting for Marjorie Fleming, “I said.  “So why Christopher,” said the teacher, “would anyone want to vote for you, if you are not willing to vote for yourself?”  It was an early lesson in the dangers of false humility and the courage to value and trust one’s self.

I think we in the Christian tradition have had an uneasy relationship with the notion of self-love or even self-esteem.  I recall someone saying that they were taught in Sunday School that you could remember what the word JOY meant by memorizing; Jesus first, Others second and You last.  While the intent was to develop respect for God and humility towards others, it can create in many people a devaluing of themselves and the inability to really embrace the gift of their life which is precious and unique.

Jesus is asked by a religious lawyer, reported in Matthew 22:36-39, “Teacher which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  His answer moved them away from the legalism of the Ten Commandments and the religious and ceremonial laws, to the heart of faith and life.  He replied, “You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”  Much has been made of this passage and what it says about loving one’s self.  It’s clear from the context that it is not about egoism, arrogance or self-aggrandizement.  In fact, it is quite the opposite. The passage reminds us that the measure of how we treat our neighbour is drawn for the way we see and treat ourselves.

It is more about having a right perspective on my life and using that as the base from which I relate to others.  The love of self in this passage and generally throughout the ministry of Jesus is not about self-pandering or indulgence, it is as we often have heard, a commitment to treasure and value the other person, the presence of God and the gift of life within us.  You don’t need to be a psychologist to see that when you devalue your own life, you treat with less value the lives of those around you. I have found the writings of Donald Winnicot the paediatrician and psychoanalyst who developed the Object Relation Theory helpful is this context.  He wrote:

Only the true self can be creative and only the true self can feel real….the true self is a sense of being alive and real in one's mind and body, having feelings that are spontaneous and unforced. This experience of aliveness is what allows people to be genuinely close to others, and to be creative.

It‘s why it is so important for each of us to be on a journey toward wholeness because it is out of our own lives, out of our true selves, that we act toward God and others. It is not selfish to nurture the gift of life God has given us it is in fact, the most important thing we do each day.

Christopher

Still Thinking – God and Grapes

Last week I spent a few days at Tarrawarra Abbey in the Yarra Valley.  I can’t remember exactly how long I have been going to the Abbey, I think for about 16 years ever since I returned from Canada in the nineties. I was introduced to the monastery by Rev Peter Wiltshire the Chaplain at Wesley College.  He had been attending Tarrawarra for some time and invited me to come with him on a three day retreat. I fell in love with the place almost instantly.  

The monks who run the monastery are Cistercians sometimes called Trappists.  They have owned the property since the 1950s when the house (now the guest house for retreants like me) and the land were bought by the Catholic Church.  Presently, the thousand acres is used to run 400 head of Charolais and Red Angus cattle, their main financial support.  But running cattle is not the main game.

The brothers follow a practice of the daily office which means that they pray together using chanted psalms, readings, prayers and hymns seven times a day from 4am until 8pm in the evening, seven days a week. In between these times they do the many jobs associated with running a farm and living a communal life.

Over the years I have got to know several of the brothers. While as a guest I don’t eat or share in the brother’s lives, nevertheless, the guest master often spends the evening meal with the retreatants and shares with us his views of life, faith and topics of interest.  The monastery is in the centre of the Yarra Valley wine growing region and next to Tarrawarra Winery and Museum of Contemporary Art – there is no connection between the winery and the monastery.  However, when I mention to friends that I am going to Tarrawarra for a spiritual retreat there is often the response, “Oh yeah, that’s a place I would like to go for a retreat!” Perhaps we all feel that spiritual retreats should be in austere places and not among the vineyards.

Tarrawarra Abbey offers people a place where the “memory of God” is kept alive. I am often comforted by the idea that while I am about my work back in Melbourne, the brothers of Tarrawarra carry on their daily prayer without my help or my presence. Theirs is a commitment to a particular form of the Christian faith that while it may not be mine, I can appreciate its value and am grateful for the opportunity to drop into that life from time to time.

I am sure there are many different places that can draw us into deeper and more reflective ways of living our lives.  And while just getting away for a few days can be restorative, I think it is important for all of us to find a place where we are intentional about nurturing our inner life. I know that it is not popular to talk about disciplines in the modern world.  That’s not quite true we are obsessed with physical disciplines, but spiritual disciples seem to be too restrictive for our contemporary lifestyles. Perhaps it is preferable to talk of spiritual practices rather than disciplines.  Regardless of what we call it, I need the beauty and agony of life to be shaped, formed and reformed around the practices of the Christian faith.  Practicing celebration, communal prayer, meditation, study, reflection, silence contemplation, compassion and action provides us with a structure and purpose to our lives.

There is an old Buddhist story that goes like this:

A novice asks, “Master why must I mediate every day when you have told us that enlightenment does not come through our effort or hard work?” “Ah” says the Master, “We meditate so that we will be awake when enlightenment comes.”

For me the practice of a spiritual retreat is a way of staying awake so that I will recognize the true values in life and so that in the “everyday” world I am not lulled into sleep by the seductive voices of the crowd.

Christopher