Dear Inner Circle,

More nourishing than a hot plate of food, more refreshing than a dip in the ocean on a sticky day, is a conversation whose theme is, “Wow! Look how far you’ve come!” Every week, perhaps most days, I have a conversation with someone where we look back in wonder in order to appreciate a life now opening up and beginning to bloom.

A gentle, sensitive fellow was sharing something of his present struggle. Unthinkable early damage in his life has left something like a parcel of infection, a bit like a boil that needs to be lanced every now and then. Like many, perhaps most, his radar was permanently on the lookout for wrongdoers. He has a need of enemies. Luckily, when you look for evil, it’s everywhere to be found. So a lifetime of refining his ability to judge and condemn is beginning to look like a wasted life. Many times now we’ve sat together to discover that people are just people. The only way you can hate a person is to take a snap shot and call it the whole movie. I’ve witnessed his need of enemies diminish in recent years and proportionately, I’ve seen him take up new interests, including a love of reading and history in particular. What a joy to be able to say, “Wow! Look how far you’ve come.”

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Dear Inner Circle,

Thank you so much for the outpouring of love and support in this past week. I try to respond to most of your emails but this week it was well north of six hundred emails and I need to be content to express my deepest gratitude here. We buried Mum in the same grave as Dad. At the moment of lowering the casket, I asked my siblings to sing an old hymn that we’d heard our parents sing together hundreds of times. When we were young, we sang pretty well together with strong harmonies. Last week we sounded a bit like someone was trying to drown kittens. It was a lovely, even powerful moment and my siblings will forgive me in just a few short years.

If you’ve ever attended our Sunday Church service in Kings Cross, you’ll be aware of a little lady up the front who we’ve lovingly named, Saint Interruptus. Our dear little saint died this week and we’re very sad to part with her. She’s been a regular at Wayside since 1967. She told me how previous ministers would be annoyed by her interruptions and at times, make her sit at the back of the chapel. In this past 12 years, Saint Interruptus and I had become something of a double act. I loved her and she loved me. I’ll have to rely on someone else in the community for Sunday interruptions. I’m pretty confident that our community won’t fail me.

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Dear Inner Circle,

An old lady died this week. She was born into an Australia that knew a lot about economic depression and next to nothing about government support. It was a world of hard work. As the eldest daughter in a large family, her lot was about raising younger children and endless domestic duties. Her education finished at primary school because there were many brothers and they needed to be fed and their clothes washed. An old wood stove seemed to perpetually burn with soup for strangers and a kettle constantly ready for a cup of tea. There was no entertainment in the house except for when the family sang together or laughed together. After the lady got married she was amazed at how her parents could suddenly afford some labour-saving devices like a washing machine.

The lady’s mother had agoraphobia before anyone knew the word and so as a little girl as young as seven years, she would toddle up to the bank to bring home wages for the men in her father’s joinery. Her mother was sharp, all the prices for timber and quotes for building jobs were at the top of her head. Her father was a big burley builder. She adored her father who once every night would walk into a room full of children that ought to be asleep and say a prayer. One night she asked her father to pray for their pet dog who had taken ill. The father hesitated and she knew that he thought perhaps prayers for dogs were not in order. He prayed for the dog.

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Dear Inner Circle,

Walking to the office this morning, a young bloke who had obviously slept on the footpath greeted me. I’ve known this fellow for a few months and I’ve never heard him complain about anything. If mental outlook was the only requirement for a satisfying life, this bloke would be Australian of the Year. “What have you got in front of you today, Rev?” he asked. “My diary is so full today it scares me,” I replied. “You can have the day off, Rev. I’m prepared to give that to you!” I love this bloke. We exchanged a hug but he looked mystified when I headed to the office anyway.

A woman walked into our front door yesterday to make a donation of $30. She told us that she’d been filling her car with petrol just a short time before and when she went to pay, the card she always uses was rejected. She tried another card but it was mysteriously rejected too. She began to get quite flustered because she had no cash and other customers were waiting to pay for their purchases and get on with their days. Not addressing anyone in particular, the woman explained that she was embarrassed but had no way of paying her bill. The fellow behind her in the line quickly established that the bill was for $30 and paid it himself. The woman thanked her rescuer and he dismissed his generous act by saying, “What goes around, comes around.” The woman went home and immediately found $30 and gave it to us so that we could pass on this blessing to someone who needed it more than she did. What a lovely moment!

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