“When we hide discrimination under the guise of ‘religious freedom,’ we make a mockery of human rights.” – DaShanne Stokes – There’s been a lot of talk around our fair isle about preserving ‘religious rights’ and ‘religious freedom’ in the last few months. The fear is palpable and has been used to keep campaigns alive…Continue reading Have Your Cake And Eat It Too: Protecting Our Religious Rights!
Maybe You Are Asking The Wrong Questions?
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” – Primo Levi (Holocaust Survivor) – Primo Levi did not consider himself a hero for surviving Auschwitz. Like other survivors, he had seen and experienced…Continue reading Maybe You Are Asking The Wrong Questions?
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” – Patrick Rothfuss – Stories: they shape our world, they change our world, they are our world. We all live our lives to the rhythm…Continue reading The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Acid Rain? Clean Up Your Life
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” – Wendell Berry – Just a few weeks ago my partner and I paused on our hike and admired the…Continue reading Acid Rain? Clean Up Your Life
Oh The Places You Will Go … And The Places You Must Leave …
“Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.” Brennan Manning I remember walking through the doors of a house we had built in semi-rural Melbourne. It was a home that in years ahead would be the place where many friends and family members would gather – a place…Continue reading Oh The Places You Will Go … And The Places You Must Leave …
Apartheid and the Ideas about God that Upheld It
This is a blog post from 2 years ago. As I travel Germany and am confronted by the many monuments that remember the holocaust and persecuted minorities, I am again aware of the fundamental role that dominant religions often play in oppressive regimes. May we never forget. I still remember the feeling of stifling hot air hitting…Continue reading Apartheid and the Ideas about God that Upheld It
Let’s Talk about Shame
It’s only taken me several decades to work out what a powerful motivator shame has been in my life. As an idealist and dreamer, the need to make things right has so often been driven by an exhausting sense of shame. Psychologist Michael Lewis calls shame the ‘quintessential human emotion’. In many ways, shame…Continue reading Let’s Talk about Shame
A Letter to My Heart
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller It was a remarkable experience to observe my heart on the echocardiographer’s screen. A tiny benefit of having a sudden onset of heart palpitations and the myriad of tests…Continue reading A Letter to My Heart
A very brief Introduction to Christian Fundamentalism
“There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.” – Bart D. Ehrman This is a REPOST of a blog I wrote a couple of years ago … most fitting at this time of Australian religious and political discussions! There is a danger in assuming that every Christian belief and practice that we adhere to…Continue reading A very brief Introduction to Christian Fundamentalism
The Shepherd’s Psalm
Whether you are a person of faith or not, it is highly likely that at some stage in your life, perhaps at a wedding, christening or funeral, you would have heard the famous Psalm 23: The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,…Continue reading The Shepherd’s Psalm