“O Little Town of Bethlehem” has always been a must-be-sung Xmas Carol, ever since it was written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal Priest from Philadelphia. However, the sweet, lilting melody and the serenity of the town as painted by the lyrics are in harsh contradict to the history of Bethlehem. Going back some 1300 years before Christ, up to the very present, Bethlehem has...
February 2019 “Clothes make a man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” So wrote Mark Twain, echoing the proverb listed by Erasmus some 400 years ago. How then would Mark Twain view members of the Catholic Hierarchy based on the clothes they wear? What sort of man wears a cassock-dress, a mitre (embroidered, high-pitched hat), a scarlet...
Written after the People Power movement in the Philippines removed Ferdinand Marcos as President and ended a long period of Martial Law The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to cast aside our ancient prejudices and build the future This reflection is a personal sharing of my own journey as I have been confronted by life and death, suffering and resurrection, hope and despair...
July 7, 2020 Eric Bogle sings, in his iconic ballad “Now I’m Easy”:I married a fine girl when I was twentyBut she died in giving birth when she was thirtyNo Flying Doctors then, just a gentle old black ginBut it’s nearly over now, and now I’m easy. Eric Bogle’s use of the term “gentle old black gin” evokes the solace gifted by an older woman who shares his trauma and grief over the loss in...
Written in 1985. Faith and theology had been cracked open by the reality of peoples’ lives. We sought to discover and express a spirituality arising from the struggle of those seeking justice and their “true place in the world” We walk, crawl, stumble,grope in our little caves, within our prison walls believingour illusions to be the truth of lifeWe are so sure, so secure, so...
May 31, 2020 Reflections on a Global Pandemic I have imaginary conversations with our Toyota Kluger vehicle. These conversations changed in early March. From asking “Where are we going?” Kluger asked “Where the bloody hell are you?” Which was a surprise because it never dawned on me that Kluger had any consciousness of Lara Bingle and the then Tourism Minster boss, Scott Morrison. However, I did...
May 16, 2020 A conversation with Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia Well, Scott, no. It is not quite like that. There are plenty of people who try like hell to get ahead, who work like blazes to assist their family, and do so for a long, long time. But they do not actually get a go. It may be because they are born on the wrong side of the street, or the wrong side of town or the wrong...
March 6, 2020 A Statue of Jesus There is a statue of The Sacred Heart in our home, a classic Catholic image of the person of Jesus Christ. This was given to me as the Religion prize when I finished primary school in 1959 at St Brigid’s Sisters of Mercy Catholic School in Howlong, a small rural hamlet then, on the banks of the Murray River some 20 kms down the road from Albury in NSW. When our...
Written February 2020 while visiting family and friends in the Philippines. I had just heard that Bong was dead. He did not die simply, he was shot. At close range. In a supposedly secure house. An assassination. The military will not release his body until someone authoritatively identifies him as Bong Bellen of Bacacay in the Province of Albay with a two-million-peso bounty on his head. Bong...
In the time of Martial Law in the Philippines, the Governor of Metro Manila Imelda Marcos sought to “clean up” the metropolis, often through forced evictions of squatter areas. But there were other means also … The kids flew their kites– tattered, ragged, made of scraps –on our street after their fireOur street because theirs was no moreTheir fire for it swallowed all they...