One of the most patient people I’ve ever met has a habit of telling me everything they would say to all kinds of people if they had the courage. It’s a bit hilarious because there is little risk that she’ll actually dump on anyone because she is pathetically kind. Even so she always seems to live with the fear that her mouth will run out of control. This week she told me of someone who is habitually cranky even though they have wealth that is well out of the reach of most. She gave me a big dose of, “What she would have said”. I asked her, “How come you can say all of this stuff to me?” She replied, “You are like the inside of my car”. Her car is nothing flash but I trust that it’s a comfortable, safe place and so I expect I was given a compliment: I hope.
My daughter has become an official volunteer at Wayside. She stepped outside of her comfort zone and joined our Twilight Team this week. She spent her time manicuring nails. Most of her night was spent with a group of 14 year old girls. I’m so proud of our Twilight Team and I’m so proud of my daughter. We created this team only this year because we recognised that a whole new skill set and special level of patience was required at the end of the day, between 5pm and 8pm. At Twilight, those who’ve not found a bed for the night, aren’t going to find one. At Twilight, those who’ve spent the day fighting the medical system or bureaucracy in government and non government agencies, face the worst time of day. Social workers have gone home; agencies have closed and the world feels cold and empty. In this context we do some of our best work. Our people get along side. They encourage people to connect with one another. Activities such as music, painting, bingo, garden games, hand massages, make up sessions and the like become ways of bringing comfort and making connection. Maybe this doesn’t sound impressive but for me I could not be more awestruck if I was poised...[read more]
So much of what forms the foundations of Western society, comes to us from generations long since forgotten. Much of what forms our cultural bedrock has never been examined because it is indeed, the ground upon which all our judgement is exercised.
One of the most fundamental ideas passed to us through history is the idea that there is such thing as a single human being. Every part of our culture accepts that the basic human unit is the individual. Our education system teaches that individual effort will reward and bring advantages over those who are less able or less willing to learn. All of our law is based on the idea of the responsibility of the individual for their behavior. Our popular culture preaches the power of one at every opportunity. Most movies begin by revealing an injustice of some sort and then a story unfolds of how an individual saves the day, often with the assistance of that instrument most able to confirm this illusionary idea of the power of one; the gun. Even our attempts to heal social dysfunction mostly leave people more isolated in the process. We give people pills, pamphlets and programs and we form individuals as patients, clients and cases but “One” is lonely; it isn’t human.
To see the illusion and rethink the situation will cause us to look afresh at every aspect of our human arrangements. What if the fundamental number in the basic human unit is two? What if we are radically, hard wired as social beings? If the fundamental human unit is two, there is no human presence until there is community. The word, “I” could only ever at most describe, half of something.
An individual is only half human....[read more]
With a bit of luck, I thought my birthday might pass unnoticed this year. An astonishing outpouring of love lasted all day. Early in the morning on the phone I said to my granddaughter, (9 years old) “If I’m counting correctly, I think I’m turning 37 today”. She said, “Papa, if you count correctly you’ll find you’re turning 63 today”. “Gosh Georgie” I said, “You’ve become so smart I can’t trick you about anything anymore”. “Now you’ve said something right” she said.
At my age it is hard not to acknowledge the end is coming. This is so counter cultural that it’s difficult to discuss. I had people telling me all day how young I was and how a long life laid yet before me. People want duration, dependability and predictability. Our blindness on this matter does us no good. Life has a rhythm to it and we do better to go with the flow than fight it. I have never loved life more than I do today and yet the thought of the end comforts me and fills me with anticipation. I know its a bit primitive and naive to believe in heaven but when facing the end and with so little information, I’m happy with the primitive and the naive. I nurse a deep longing to throw my arms around my son again and this hope has loosened my grip on the many things we are inclined to hang on to, too tightly. I’ll love every minute between here and then but what a day that will be. I’m hoping there will be dancing at my funeral.... Read the rest of here.
Dear Inner Circle,
Not satisfied with the normal life-rhythm of love; its move from potential to actual to potential again; its move from intimacy to longing and back - a young woman told me just now about how she is strangling the bloke she loves. She wants to possess him. She wants him to be on call all the time. She wants him to be more predictable than a machine. She wants assurance, that he can’t give. No amount of control can change the nature of love; it is born and it dies and is born again. For this young woman however, the natural end of a loving event, threatens the end of love itself. I saw a learner driver the other day make a right turn and mount the footpath, knocking down a small tree. As I passed by, the driver was still so frozen to the steering wheel that I could see how she wasn’t in a good place to be moving and adapting and coping with all the shifts required in a task like driving. The young woman I just spoke about is in a similar spot. Stiffness and anxiety will not get her around the corner. Even if the woman could turn her partner into an object that could be controlled, the object wouldn’t be the man she loves but a shadow; a thing.
As I walked in this morning a short man, perhaps in his fifties rushed over and put his arms around me. I like this man. I could take him home. He told me that he’s sleeping rough again. Our team over the past year have done a brilliant job for this fellow finding accommodation but a couple of times, after achieving the impossible for him, the placement has broken down and he finds himself on the street again. I love this bloke. “It’s my anger” he said. I only know him as a sweet man but others have told me that he can fly into a rage. I had to leave him because I was due in a meeting but my heart is heavy for him and I’m keen to see him...[read more]
Dear Inner Circle,
Exactly one year ago I told you of a young woman who walked into Wayside and asked to see me. Her head was covered by a veil and she couldn’t look me in the face. Her speech was difficult because her whole body was shaking. She told me that she was in trouble. A lot of trouble! In order to escape a situation of unspeakable domestic violence, she had set fire to a home while her husband was asleep. The end result was serious damage to property, serious burns to a large percentage of her own body and an uninjured but insanely angry husband. Her world had crumbled to the extent that this drastic action seemed like more or less her only option. She would have been content to lose her life in the fire. She walked into Wayside on the day she was released from hospital; she had no plan and no where to go. I remember holding her in my arms as I said an ancient prayer and wondered if she would ever see better days.
This same woman walked into Wayside last night to show herself to me. I was struck dumb by this beautiful, vivacious, outgoing woman and I really struggled to believe it was the same woman that I met one year ago. She didn’t have to say a word for me to recognise a rare miracle before me. All evidence of burns on her face are gone and instead her eyes literally dance with life and speak without need of words. She is employed full time and she has a secure place to live. She visited yesterday only to show me how far she had come. She told me that the prayer I said a year ago was her turning point and she quoted it back to me. I get quite used to seeing people in the worst moment of their lives and it was a rare and beautiful moment for me to talk to this young woman and rejoice in a life recovered and discovered. Read on here
