Dear Inner Circle,

Botanic names have always hit my ears as unintelligible noise. My admiration for gardening guru Costa Georgiadis is profound and yet my brain seems to anticipate any utterance of botanic names with an attitude of, “Caution: this is going to be unintelligible.” To my horror last week at our Sunday gathering, our text likened life to a garden in which there were both fine plants and vigorous weeds. In the metaphor, the weeds aren’t necessarily other people but patterns of behaviour that threaten the health of good plants, stealing the nutrients from the soil.

Finally, the hour had come for me to learn and use some botanic names. I discovered that the weeds referred to in our text have names. “Now see what you made me do” is a common weed. In the years when I was a prison chaplain, I think I saw evidence of this weed every day. This weed thrives when a good plant fears it is destined to fail but cannot and will not face its fear. Instead it looks for an opportunity to fail when there is a lesser plant around that can be blamed for the failure. Another common weed is, “Ah ha! I got you!” This pattern of behaviour causes healthy plants to be fixated on the wrong doing of others. Imagine being short changed by five dollars and then working this wrong doing into every conversation for years to come. This plant can irritate an otherwise healthy plant or it can grow strong and eventually choke a good plant to death. Another common weed is named, “I was only trying to help”. This weed does its work when someone really tries to impose their will on another but never admits their bald desire to impose their will. When there is push back or rebellion, the act of power is confused and camouflaged because, “I was only trying to help”. Another weed we see a lot is called, “Courthouse”. This weed is evidenced when in relationships we have a “judge” an “accused” and a “prosecutor”. I was called once to a home where a man...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,
A successful businessman sat with me this week in an act of great courage. He has a gnawing worry that he’s losing the love of his life and everything he’s trying seems to make it worse. There’s been holidays and expensive gifts and dinners. There’s been difficult discussions that seem to heal nothing. There is no evidence of a competing love anywhere. There is plenty of consummation but not much giving going on. You cannot take what can only be given. Forcing love; reminding a partner of their obligations can only fuel resentment. While there is a lot of consummation happening, there is little contemplation. 80% of the joy of anything is in the contemplation of it rather than the consummation. I asked the man what would happen if he ate food in the same way as he sought intimacy with his partner. Woofing down food as if there will be none for the next few days, would rob the act of eating of its joy and context. Imagine that I had been away for some time and upon my return, Robyn had cooked my favourite meal and taken extra care to set a pretty table with flowers. Imagine if I walked in and got that meal down as quickly as I could. I wouldn’t particularly enjoy the food and I wouldn’t see the real gift that Robyn had made.

An impressive businesswoman this week told me how her life was unravelling. She has a loving husband and a healthy family and yet her business has parked itself in a difficult spot. This woman is really a professional problem-solver and it hurts to admit that the advice she would offer to others at such a time, appears to be flimsy at best. She’s been through scrapes before and found a way through and perhaps this is just another passing phase. The issue seems to be an accumulative emotional burden, “a weariness with life”, as my mother would call it. This woman heard me speak at a public forum where I explained how life does and should ebb and flow between highs and lows; between daytime and night time;...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

On Tuesday I had to duck out for an appointment and in the middle of the footpath, two blocks from here, I saw a fellow very clearly under the influence of some substance. I knew him by sight but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken. I crouched down next to him, hoping to engage in some way. “It’s got me Rev". Without thought I said, “Step one might be to call this thing by its real name”. Although we exchanged these syllables, there was really no conversation. The “it” that had him should be called severance or alienation. Eventually, I walked away a bit disappointed that I’d sounded so judgmental. The world is full of good people who use drugs. Humanity, for as long as history has been recorded, has used substances for various purposes. I guess there has always been some who fall into addiction. Addiction seems to develop when someone latches onto one good and calls it the whole good. In this way, I’ve seen fitness fanatics forfeit life and I’ve seen religious fanatics forfeit life in just the same way as a heroin addict. The problem isn’t in the substance but in what’s missing. Generally, addicts lack a balance of friendships, exercise, relaxation, play, learning, hobbies, sleep, religion or philosophy. It seems to me that the good of life is multiple and a good life is a whole life, with a balance of all these things.

Few announcements come with more relief than when I can tell you at this time of year that we reached our goal for our Winter Appeal. Every year we set our goal, and I think as the leader and someone of some faith, I ought to be pumping up our troops like a football coach, saying, “Come on people, we can do this!” The truth is that I’m the one on the team who is most intimidated by the task and quietly whisper under my breath, “Only a miracle.” So I pay tribute to our donors. Some of our donors are wealthy. I don’t think I’d met any wealthy people before I started work at Wayside. The...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

A university student, who was such an achiever that a “high distinction” was her minimum expectation, used to regularly help out our marketing team for a few years. No matter the task we gave her, the quality of her work exceeded anything we hoped to receive. A couple of years ago, she sat in my office, despondent because although a career as a brilliant lawyer was assured, she felt like life had been postponed or even missed. She decided to take a couple of years away from a singular focus on academia and took a job overseas. She threw herself into law in a third world country whose history and legal complexities are dazzling, depressing even. Her goal was not just to encounter the world but to make space in her life for people. She sat in my office this week and I didn’t say much because I was awestruck. The one thing I said multiple times was, “There is so much more of you now". She joked that she’d put on weight, but even that was a lovely observation because she used to be hauntingly skinny. I was witness to a transformation and it would catch the breath of anyone who had eyes to see. I’m sure her parents are awestruck too. For an hour this week, I think I knew the wonder that they must have known when they first met their baby and before they gave her a name.

This is NAIDOC Week which is always big in the Wayside calendar. Every day this week has a special event of some kind. Our Aboriginal community have put on an art show and our hall buzzed when they opened it with love to our community. The buzz level then increased considerably yesterday when a celebratory lunch was held in Kings Cross. Today there will be another lunch celebration at Bondi and on Friday a special football match held in Redfern. NAIDOC Week has nearly a hundred years of history. It’s a week where we celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements, and we recognise the importance of all of this for every person who...[read more]