Australia Day / Invasion Day

Yesterday, we began with the following acknowledgement written several years ago by Rev. Dr. Jason John and I:

Acknowledgement of Land
Before we were born
and before our ancestors
who came to this country were born;
before Jesus, even before Abraham,
a people lived here.
In this place - the Kaurna people.
In this one nation we call Australia -
more than three-hundred nations of people
lived in intimate relationship with God and the land.
We remember with gratitude the Kaurna people,
the traditional custodians
of the land on which we now gather.
We pay our respects to their Tribal Elders,
past present and future
for they hold the memories,
the living culture
and the hopes of Indigenous Australians.

Then this video (a compilation from a variety of sources - with apologies to anyone whose copyright I've unknowingly breached)

Followed by:

Tomorrow we celebrate Australia Day.
It is the day when all Australians
are encouraged to celebrate our nationhood.
But it’s not a celebration for everyone.
The actual date is not the anniversary of Federation
as many may think.
That anniversary is January 1st.
January 26th commemorates the landing of the first fleet in Port Jackson...
The arrival of the first white people
and the beginning of the destruction of Indigenous culture.
Last year, the Prime Minister made the long awaited apology
to the Stolen Generation.
It was a significant turning point in Australia’s history...
but it does not and must not end there.
However you choose to spend the day tomorrow,
keep in mind the need for each of us
to continue to pray for and work towards
a nation and community
marked by genuine understanding,
honesty and hope for all.

"backblog"

The following are the 3 posts I put on 'myspace' when I first started this blogging thing and before I decided to shift to here:

January 8, 2009 – Thursday
now what...
So... I suggested to Andrew (our website guru) that it might be good to have a blog. When I actually THOUGHT about it, I realised that meant I'd have to put stuff on it. Consequently, I didn't mention it again.

BUT... Andrew did!

I'm thinking I'll put occasional bits of liturgy, the odd sermon (and they are) or two and maybe even a few drawings or photos. It won't be a regular daily or weekly blog... more of a 'wheneverly.'

Thanks for your help Andrew... I'll buy you a beer when your braces come off and you're old enough to drink it!

January 11, 2009 – Sunday
Surviving Technology
Everything was good to go for this morning's service... at least... that's what I THOUGHT!

First, the photocopier decided to have a baby instead of copying the newsletter on to the back of the Order of Service. Nevermind... we can cope with that.

Then, early in the service, after a somewhat profound introduction to our prayers for Israel and Palestine which was to be a 4 minute movie of photos from various news sites with a moody, minor key background piece from Bach that Graham was to play... the screen was BLANK!

The movie was playing on the computer but not through the projector.

We tried various things to fix the problem and people were incredibly patient but, it just wasn't going to happen. In addition, I managed to mess things up SO well that NOTHING played! Our entire service - songs, images etc. - was jammed.

So... I reshuffled things and we went straight into the Bible Reading - hoping everything would be sorted by the time I finished that... NOPE.

Then Graham suggested we sing the one song we planned that was actually in the old hymn books. A handful of people rushed out to grab piles of books and we were underway. Then, halfway throught the first verse of would have been our third song, Andrew got the technology going again. WHEW!

By about now, I had NO idea where we were up to so I launched into the message - which wasn't actually a sermon as such but an introduction to the Gospel of Mark. No technology required... although I did have an image that could have been useful.

Then, someone noted that we'd missed the children's bit. There were 3 little boys present. Matthew - who hasn't yet learned to speak - Mitchell and Lachlan who are barely understandable. Anyway, we had a nice chat about story-telling and being excited and a purple hippo with green spots doing water ballet in the pool and then more conversation about swimming and so on. It wasn't really about Jesus (as Kid's talks usually are) but about telling stories and being excited like the author of Mark seemed to be.

We sang another song.

About then I realised it was getting late.We'd kind of done everything except the offering and 2 more songs. You can't really have 3 songs one after another. So, we sang the one I had planned to go with the prayers, while we made our offering. Then we presented the offering, had a blessing and got the heck out of there!

WHEW!

The really lovely thing is that the dear people at Church of The Trinity - and even the visitors - said it was just fine... and lots of other positive things.

As I was going out to my car to go home - I caught myself smiling. I really love these people. They are so open and forgiving and happy for things to "just happen" as is so often the case.They've been a gift and blessing to me - moreso than they'll ever know! I hope we'll continue to be a blessing to one another for a long time.

(One of these days, I'll put a nutshell version of my story on here and you might see why and how this little group of people is such an amazing gift.)

I'll pop some of the liturgy etc. from today in my next post. You never know... somebody might find it useful.But not right now. Right now I need a glass of wine and little lay down!

January 11, 2009 – Sunday
Prayers for Israel & Palestine

Call to Worship & Gathering Prayer
When creation suffers,
our God suffers with it.
When humanity destroys itself
in senseless violence
or cruel indifference
to the suffering of others,
our God weeps.
When people gather to worship and pray,
our God waits.
Our God waits for our attention
to the pain of others.
Our God waits for a response
more worshipful than words.
Dare we meet with this God today?
Do we have the courage to worship
knowing that, in so doing,
our God may ask more of us
than we have the courage to give?

Suffering, weeping, waiting God,
God whose name is love,
help us to worship you today. Amen


Prayers of the people

There has been conflict in the holy land for as long as history.

Personally, I find the politics confusing and the aggressive working out of those politics anger making and terribly sad.

Every day we read or hear of the latest attacks, the growing number of dead and injured, the blame-game about who started this latest round, the history behind it and so on... to the point where it’s difficult to know whether anyone is right or wrong.

But the thing is, there are better ways to work this out.

Violence begets violence and it’s often the innocent who pay.

I was shocked to discover that there is no safe space in the Gaza Strip. In that small, overpopulated strip of land, there is nowhere to hide. There are no bomb shelters and the borders are closed. Civilians in the Gaza strip have no place to flee.

I was even more horrified to learn that more than one-third of the Palestinians killed so far are children.

By today – into the third week of the conflict – that probably means close to 300 children have died. And then there are the missing...

If there are around 3500 injured, how many of those are children?

And what of the injuries medicine cannot fix? The loss of innocence... the mental, spiritual and emotional legacy of prolonged terror... What of them?

How do we respond to this?

How do we pray?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I wanted to create a prayer that would help us respond to the reality of this situation, so I went looking for images and stories. The more I saw, the less able I was to find words to pray.

There were so many photos of children... injured... terrified... dead...

There are no words.

In the end, I pieced together some of these images. They are dreadful and they are confronting. You may want to turn away but... I hope you will not.

We need to see this.
The world needs to see this
–and the world needs to respond.

As we watch this together,
know that our God weeps
and let us pray that,
even as we weep with God,
peace may come.

Let us pray...