Richard's Ramblings

A friend, a few years (not many) younger than I am, thought that I might like to be coached in Millennial patois, the better to be on fleek (you see what I mean) with KUC’s yoot. She’s Lutheran, so reading theol stuff in a funny language comes naturally to her. Here’s a snap from Exodus 32:  “As he approached the camp and saw the big golden beefpupper and everyone being so basic, Moses was shook and couldn’t even. He yeeted the tablets he was holding at the foot of the mountain. It was a big mood”. And John 3:16: “For God so stanned the world, that he cancelled his best boi, that whosoever” (ed note - ‘whosoever’ looks like baby boomer has crept into the text, better get a form critic onto it) is his mutual should not be ghosted, but be lit AF.” Now this raises two important points. One is that we do, indeed, need to recognise that the way we “do church”, the language we use, the hierarchy we either aspire to or to which we’re too obsequious, our failure to cherish the n...

I’ve driven three and a half thousand kilometres in four and a half days this week, going down to Cedar Creek to supervise packing and furniture uplift, and come back home. (It still looks funny, when I write “home” to mean Cavill Avenue. It confirms that we’re here, together, not shuttling up and down Queensland).  Much of the driving was at night, overnight, even, on the way back.  So this morning, driving first to Aitkenvale Macca’s for Ministry Network, then to the gym, my eyes swept Mill Drive and Charles Street  from side to side on the lookout for kangaroos hopping out from between parked cars and wheelie bins. Forty eight solid hours of Queensland country driving does that to you, it’ll take me a week or so to come back in my mind to suburban streets. The point is, I’m safe home, by the grace of God and His guarding angels (they work overtime when I’m on the road).  But my mind is still on the Gregory Developmental between Clermont and Charters Towers (a...

Do you ever go into a room, it might be your kitchen or a bedroom, and then think to yourself,  “ Why have I come into this room? ”  I do, and it used to worry me. I asked my GP, is this an early sign of dementia? He assured me that everyone does it, him included, it ’ s because we have so much on our minds at once that we lose track of one particular strand of what we ’ re doing, or supposed to be doing.  “ Nothing to worry about ” . Another manifestation of this mental multi-tasking overload, for me at least, is when I ’ m driving on a familiar route. But if my destination isn ’ t the usual one for that route, when I come to a t-junction, or traffic light, or roundabout, and I have to decide which way to go, I have think hard  “ Where am I going? ”  before I make the direction decision. In John 14 ( “ In my Father ’ s house are many mansions ..  “ ), Jesus tells his disciples that they know the way to the place which he has prepared for them. But Tho...

I was at a Prayer Breakfast this morning with members of the Queensland Parliament which is meeting in Townsville, who identify as Christian.  It was held at the delightfully situated Fish Inn at the bottom of Jezzine Barracks Hill on the Strand. From the restaurant, diners look straight over the Rock Pool to Maggie * . A couple of helicopters were buzzing around, with Surf Lifesaver inflatables and a larger rescue vessel manoeuvring beneath them. It was an exercise, not a real emergency. We churchy folk sometimes view our evangelisation efforts (or “Mission”, as is the buzzword du jour) like that, darting around in the ocean of life looking for lost souls to save. And if we think that we haven’t met our mission KPIs (measured by new bottoms on pews divided by outreach activities), we become disheartened and conclude that we’re doing it all wrong at best, or are unprofitable servants at worst.  But an Anglican priest friend recently quoted Anne Lamott in this very context...