Dear Inner Circle,

Walking through the café yesterday I saw a man spot me and raise his hand high. His rather lovely face lit up because someone had told him I was too busy to come down and have lunch with him. I was too busy but suddenly my agenda evaporated. It’s funny how an authentic meeting between two people just melts away everything else. In my social work days I was a fanatic for a system of analysis called, “transactional analysis”. For quite some time, every encounter I had with people was analysed according to this system that imposed a framework of meaning onto every act of communication. At the time I didn’t see it, but it caused me to develop a language that was not really human. It caused me to be more interested in finding meaning than finding the person in front of me. I was a problem solver in those days. My naïve religious outlook back then was that Jesus must have been a social worker too. In due course I could see that Jesus was nothing like a social worker and no matter how you analyse his encounter with the woman at the well, he simply broke all the rules. He’d certainly not get a job in any agency I know of. Anyway, this lovely face lit up as he bought me lunch. With great ceremony he handed me $20, telling me that it was a debt he owed me. I had no memory of any debt. He explained that he was robbed at an ATM about a month ago and I lent him $20 to get him through that weekend. I know this man just lives on a small allowance that the public trustee provides and so I said, “But there is no need for you to buy me lunch.” His reply was, “But that’s what friends do”. Lunch was a celebration of many good things.

So our High Court ruled yesterday that our government does not commit an illegal act when it keeps people in detention overseas. I have some understanding of the complexities facing our government when it comes to controlling our borders, I’m just bewildered and wondering what happened to the Australia I...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

In an unusual week, I’m writing this note from Adelaide. The next few days we’ll spend catching up with my dear old Mum. Visiting a dementia ward is a difficult exercise. I can’t help but think that modern science is making us all live too long. In Mum’s ward, few people want to be there. Most want to live in a life now long gone and only dimly remembered. One dear old lady who is 105 in Mum’s place said to me once, “Growing old is not for wimps”. Another lovely old lady in her nineties is a bit inclined to find male visitors attractive and she will confidentially tell them, “I’m going to have your baby.”   Although Mum doesn’t remember who I am, if you put her in front of a piano, she can play beautifully and sing all the words to the songs she loved years ago. It will be sad when that skill is lost too. The little frail frame is still my Mum. She’s still gentle and kind. She still has a tone of voice that belonged to my Mum. She still looks around her and finds plenty to love even if it all feels unfamiliar to her. I will treasure our time this week even though it will reaffirm my sense that there are much worse things in life than death. There is a time to go and when Mum’s time comes, I’ll celebrate an awesome life and celebrate a long-awaited release.

After conducting a wedding on Monday, I jumped onto a plane to Melbourne and from there drove to the Murray Shire just over the river from Echuca. For some years now I’ve been an Australia Day ambassador which means I travel to a rural community and share in their celebrations for Australia Day. It’s an honour and a joy to enter into the life of a place that is so different from Kings Cross and The Wayside Chapel. A few hundred people gathered in a beautiful park in the land of the Yorta Yorta people. As I was speaking a massive truck drove past and a pig on board made such a loud squeal that it shocked me for a moment. Someone yelled out, “I bet you...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

Walking past our front door just a few minutes ago, a woman put her arms out, inviting me to embrace her. I put my arms around the woman and a rat crawled up her back and stood on her shoulder with it’s gaze fixed on me. Saint Frances talked to the animals and on occasions, so do I, but I suspect our message is not the same. I was shocked to the point of being unable to move my arms. I wanted to flick this rat on the nose and say, “That is for the plague of 1349!” but alas I was paralysed and it looked like an animal with no sense of history.

January has been crazy. Actually, every January is nuts. It could be that over-spending, over-eating and over-drinking is bad for your sanity but for whatever reason, we seem to work at full speed at this time of year. I pay tribute to all of our amazing teams but particularly to our Community Services Centre teams in Kings Cross and Bondi, to our fabulous Twilight team, and with special mention of our Aboriginal Project team who do an awesome job in the most demanding context, all year, every year but especially in January.

Keep reading here.

Dear Inner Circle,

OK, who stole 2015? This is my last note for the year as next Thursday will be Christmas Eve and Wayside will be running on adrenaline by then as we gear up for our street party. Perhaps it’s a feature of old age or perhaps it’s a characteristic of having fun, but time appears to accelerate. Get a bit of a feel for the year we’ve had by checking out our recent Annual Report.

Our awesome mission, to create community with no ‘us and them’, has set a path for our feet and the more we’ve moved toward our destiny, the more others have jumped alongside, contributing what they can and watching the impossible unfold in front of us. It’s not in the realm of ideas that our mission unfolds. I think it was Kierkegaard who said you can only “understand” your life backwards but you can only “live” your life going forwards. Our mission has lived this year in teaching people with mental health issues to surf down at Bondi; it's lived in moments of celebration when one of our visitors gets off the streets; it's lived in acting classes, in choirs, in music jams, in celebrations of countless things. It’s lived in the life of our little café, a place of meeting or refuge, of conversations or of no words at all.

Keep reading here.

Dear Inner Circle,

Gosh it’s the maddest time of year. It’s a time of year that seems to amplify the best and the worst. One fellow called me aside this morning and told me a story of how his son found him after looking for years. You’d think this was going to be a happy story but tears flowed freely down his face. “Isn’t this good news?” I asked. “Look at me,” he said, “Is this anything worthy of finding?” He was undone by shame because he was living on the street. “My dear brother, I promise you that this kid of yours cares only that you love him. Love matters more than riches, more than status, more than anything. Just love your boy, find the good in him and he’ll find the good in you.”

An eight-year-old girl walked in yesterday with some care packages that she’d made for rough sleepers. Think about that for a minute. Another 10-year-old has called on some  of his young friends and put together 200 care packages for people sleeping rough at Christmas time. Every time we turn on the television we only get bleak news but I remind you that there are some fine people in the world and some unbelievable kids. If you’re at our Christmas Day service on the street at 10.30am, I’m going to call some of these kids up front so you can see them and we’ll honour them.

Keep reading here.

Dear Inner Circle,

Normally bright and positive, I saw a young fellow lying flat on our café floor yesterday. Several times our staff or volunteers asked him to get up and sit at a table, as they should. In the afternoon I saw him sitting alone, his facial expression was deeply distressed. He explained to me that a few days ago, he had several ribs broken while he was, “assisting police with their enquiries”. It’s not hard to imagine him being cheeky with police. This young man was in dreadful pain. He’s sleeping rough and there is nowhere for him to straighten out to rest. He’s had a couple of nights sleeping in a friend’s car but its been impossible to be comfortable. Years ago I came off a motorbike and broke all my ribs down one side. The memory of that agony revisited me. I remember living in fear that I would cough or worse, sneeze. I remember trying to turn in bed and I had a comfortable bed. I had Robyn to help me move and feed me. I invited the man to the fourth floor where one of our meeting rooms has a large lounge. I worked from that room for an hour and a half to give him some rest. He went out like a light and I felt dreadful waking him when I had to go to my next appointment. As I lowered myself to bed last night, my poor brother was on my mind and in my heart.

Most of life’s precious moments come as an interruption in our effort to achieve something else. I admit to almost running through our café at times in the hope I can move from A to B. Ducking and weaving toward my office a giant of a man called, “Rev”. Almost reluctantly I turned to look up into the face of this big bruiser who only wanted to hug me. I embraced him and he said to his mates, “I can’t believe the Rev gave me a hug”. A woman just 6 feet away and not with this group of men stepped over and said, “Can you hug me too Father?” As I put my arms around her, she said, “I’ve been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer.” She put her head on my shoulder...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

It's funny how when a new little person comes into your life, you don’t have to redistribute your reservoir of love but rather your heart enlarges and you discover reserves of love you never dreamed about. This week Liz, who has worked with Wayside in a most effective way as our Partnerships Manager, brought in her new baby, Juliette. There is suddenly more to Liz now. There is more to us now too. My heart has also enlarged to include a little boy named Flynn. He’s only four weeks old but he and I were deep in discussion last week. He began to make a little expression of discomfort and so his three-year-old big sister walked up close to me and said in a confidential manner, “He doesn’t like you!”

When I conduct a wedding, I usually try to evaporate briskly and discretely after the ceremony. Often, however, I get caught by people who want to thank me for the ceremony or simply say, “hi”. I think weddings are beautiful, sacred things but can also be quite fun. After an enjoyable ceremony last week I was soon in a huddle with people. An immaculately groomed elderly man shook my hand and said, “I used to be a devout Christian and now I’m agnostic”. I said, “I bet you’re a nicer man as an agnostic than as a devout believer”. It wasn’t what he expected me to say. “Well,” I said, responding to his shocked expression, “real faith has a large dose of ’not knowing’. If ‘devout believer’ means that you were part of a ‘God franchise’ then God, you, me and the world are better served by your agnosticism.” The pursuit of certainty and especially the illusory possession of certainty works against our humanity. In recent days my social media is full of people spitting chips about religion. Lots of people revert to a kind of ‘my little pony’ type philosophy, leaping to the nearest piano to sing, “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try…” But we’re all being damaged not so much by people...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

At the front door this morning, a woman stopped me and asked, “Have you got time to speak with me?” Unthinkingly, I opened my eyes wide and said, “I wouldn’t say I have time but let’s sit here and talk for a bit.” Soon I’d forgotten that people were waiting for me because the beautiful face locked with mine. She knew she had my attention and she poured out something that she said she’d been hanging onto for some time. “I want to thank you for loving us. I saw you on the tele just recently and I just knew I had to find you and thank you for loving us. You probably don’t think we’re religious but lots of us pray for you. We think of you as our father. I think of you as “Dad”. Tell me that you’re doing OK because if you need anything, I have friends and we’ll do anything to protect you and help you.” Imagine if I’d have missed this moment by being too busy! What an amazing outpouring of love and what a gush of affection. I thanked her for the love and said, “You are a wonderful lady”. She opened her eyes wide and said, “Oh, I wouldn’t say I was a lady”.

An extraordinary success story sat in my office this week. He was dux of his various schools and prefect or captain. He’d won various university medals. He has studied in the best schools around the world and would be considered a world leader in his field. There ought to be a stronger word than “focus” for the manner in which this person sets goals and then achieves them, no matter the cost of the commitment. It was an honour and inspiring for me to sit with such towering intellect. He came to see me because, “I don’t know who I am” and “everything seems so empty and a waste.” I was not shocked. The only source of information about ourselves comes from others. None of us invented anything about ourselves. We wouldn’t even have the power of speech if we weren’t first spoken to by someone else. If you only relate to competitors, it...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

Kings Cross is a great community. I decided this week to walk up to the main drag and write this note from a spot near the fountain. Already I’ve been stopped by numerous people. One was a dear old lady who looks to be at least mid-seventies, with a high mileage face and looking a bit the worse for wear even at this hour, but nevertheless with a kindness in her face. She’s a short little lady whose hair has been set in a way that would remain still in a cyclone. She looks like she’s spent all her life telling someone off and giving lectures about how the world was once perfectly ordered when the world was a tougher place. Oddly, she knew who I was and asked, “Do you drink carver, farver?” It’s a funny question I know. “Makes you sleep like a baby” she said.

Directly across the road is a woman plying her trade. Quite a large girl with almost everything on show. It looks like she’s wearing a blond wig and she has large sunglasses on, making it clear that it’s the body that’s for sale rather than the person. This mind/body schism works for men and women in the sex trade, and for most of us at the moment of death, but generally we find it problematic to divide psyche and body. She’s just been joined by a rival or mate who is working the same spot just near me. The second young woman is known to me. She has a trim body and the dress she’s wearing is her method of keeping potential customers' attention away from the face and the person. This second woman is intelligent and comes from a good home. She has an addiction and this work is her only real option for funding her habit. There is nothing easy about earning a living in this way.

Keep reading here.

My heart sank yesterday when I read of a man who was put off a bus because he wouldn’t or couldn’t speak English. Ignorance and fear abound. Speaking English is the most multicultural act possible. To speak racism in English must the contradiction of the century.

Still in English there is evidence of the ancient Celtic tongues. Irish, Scottish and Welsh languages all survive to some extent in today’s spoken English. The most unwelcome invasions of the Vikings who eventually settled in England added greatly to the culture and the spoken word. The old Norse words such as "bug, bull, wing, dirt, dregs, muck, mire, rotten, bark, call, blunder, choose, crawl, clip, want, whirl, ball, bag, knot, cake, link, sly, ugly, weak, fellow, guest, kid, lad, anger, awe and happy”. These and many more are proof that our language was invaded and then enriched by the Vikings. To spend any time in England is to be puzzled by how many accents exist and how many locations, quite close to one another, have their own distinctive accent. Around York, the language of the Vikings remains strong in spoken English.

Nearly half of all English words are French. You can’t speak English without affirming an amalgam of cultures. As French was the official language in London for about 300 years, it is no surprise that the languages merged. There isn’t an area of life or interest that you can speak in English without inadvertently speaking French. “Government, peasant, bailiff, council, mayor, minister, parliament, mass, dame, duke, prince, sir, infantry, army, pistol, squad, platoon, surveillance, rendezvous, siege, terrain, camouflage, morale, money, commerce, finance, tax, plebiscite, state, federal, bureaucracy, constitution, justice, jury, attorney, court and case” Need I go on? We can’t speak English without asserting a cultural amalgam with the French people.

You can’t speak English without thinking Greek. The only way to understand Western culture is to understand...[read more]