The True Gift of Christmas

Burr,burrr. . . . burr, burr . . .

It's 4am and I stagger sleepily toward the ringing phone. Who on earth could it be at this hour I wonder?

Hello? I inquire.

Xhoni? (John?)

est Belga! (It's Bella)
Mere Menges, (Good Morning) and


Gezuar Krishtlindje! (Merry Christmas)


It was our Albanian friend Bella ringing to wish us a Merry Christmas. I was wide awake now. It had been nearly four years since we had last seen her, but in those few waking seconds since I answered the phone the years between us had dissolved, The past had catapulted into the present and the miles that divided us erased.

It was as though we had never been separated.

Then it hit me, That's what Christmas is really about! It's about God eliminating the barriers.

Making all things just as they were when Man and God walked together in the garden. Catapulting the past into the present and erasing the miles that divided us.

That's the real gift of Christmas.

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Social Justice & Human rights

Perhaps the most significant thing to come out of the Annapolis conference last week is a story which, understandably, the western media have failed to focus on Olmert's after conference statement to Israeli media that did not even seek to disguise his deepest fears.

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished."

For almost 30 years now the (impossible) idea of a two state solution has failed, mainly because one state, Israel, would control all the resources, and now Israel is left exposing its true Apartheid like nature:

As in all international conflict the bottom line is always social justice and human rights.

Perhaps it's about time Israel showed it's neighbors the same sort of compassion God once showed them?

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No bad people, just bad choices

Once in a while you hear something. Probably a word or a phrase you've heard before but this time it comes like a shaft of light, a sonic boom, blowing away the cobwebs you hadn't even realised were cluttering your mind.

It was like that for me this morning when a friend was telling about a series of seminars he was involved in running for some men preparing for release from prison. 'What's that like', I asked, my mind flashing me images of scary villains with striped pajama type clothing, a black ball and chain, stubbly chins and facial scars.

"Oh, mainly nice people who've just made bad choices," he said with out a pause - then continued right on in to his story.

'The thing we are trying to get through to them' he said, 'is that even though they may have made bad choices in the past, they are only one decision away from putting all that behind them, if they want to.'

No bad people, only good people who have made bad choices. . . . . .

No bad people, only good people who have made bad choices!

It made me think how quick we are to label someone bad. To judge them, rather than their actions. To distance and disassociate ourselves from them because they're not like us.

But they are just like us. Good people. It's just that some of us have made better choices than others.

At least, for my sake, I hope that's the rationale God will adopt when he and I eventually meet up.

What do you think?

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So, what's in a name?

Anyone who has visited this site previously may notice that I've changed its name.

Why?

Well, when I began this particular blog, just one year ago, I was a full time trainee granddad, 'Home Alone' while Anthea completed personal commitments in the UK (where we had been living), and I got a new home together for us here in New Zealand and cared for our granddaughter while her mum worked.

Well, baby is now walking, the renovation complete, Anthea is home.

I am no longer alone and the name 'Home Alone' seems somehow redundant.

Anyway, looking back on recent postings it seems this blog has evolved (degenerated?) in to the ramblings of an elderly discontent rather than the benign reflections of a trainee granddad.

So, welcome to the Meldrew Factor.

For further explaination read he sidebar opposite.

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The Prying Game

Several days ago New Zealand police released details of the terrorist surveillance program that lead to the arrest and detention of a number of Maori activists under NZ's new anti terrorism laws.

Much of the emerging argument centers around weather or not the media have been overly selective in the information they published but the real issue is not that journalists may have conveniently paraphrased the report, but that this report exist at all.

The fact that more and more intrusive surveillance technology is available to our police should frighten rather than reassure us. Researchers at Georgetown University in 2002 developed what they called 'Gait recognition profiling'. This technique uses CCTV monitors (as seen in banks, railway stations, etc. in NZ) to map any individuals walking style, which is as unique apparently as their DNA profile, with out that persons knowledge or consent.

Coupled with existing face recognition capabilities this technology, potentially enables CCTV systems to identify any individual from a crowd, confirm their ID by matching to their 'Gait' profile and, again potentially, link to and access any other data held about the person under surveillance.

This is fine if we only use on in rare occasions to identify real terrorists.

The question is,

. . . . is that all it will be used for?

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No peace till there's justice

The lead story and editorial in todays Dominion Post confirmed that not only has New Zealand entered the arena of international terrorism, but that personal surveillance by phone tapping, bugging and cctv footage is now an acceptable police tool and part of our daily life.

Of course there is a necessity to fight fire with fire and the ends of national security, it can be argued, justify the means: that civil liberties must be weighed against internal security. Like most New Zealanders, I accept that argument, but what would it take to eliminate terrorism?

One thing that 'terrorists' everywhere have in common is that they are marginalised both socially and economically. They are, generally speaking, the have nots of our society: Syrians, Palestinians, Pakistanis, Gazans, Irish Catholics and now, Maori.

We can try our hardest to control terrorism by surveillance but history shows there will be no peace until we share our wealth and address the underlying issues of social justice and equity that are the breeding ground of discontent, rebellion and, latterly, terrorism.

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Insomnia

The wall calendar on my kitchen fridge reminds me that it's just 21 more BIG sleeps till Anthea returns. There is much I could write about the excitement I feel at the thought of her return, but this small poem I found today says it so much better.

When I am with you, we stay up all night,
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

Rumi. Persia (1207-1273)

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Home again!

The restoration work at St Barnabas is now complete.

The Bishop re consecrated the Church yesterday, and this morning Archbishop David Moxom presided over our first mass.

Great joy and celebration.

It may be a sad commentary on my rather dull life but I had the BEST time, ever!

Seems my 'Viaje Interior' had bought me full circle. I'm Home.

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Eid Mubarak

Asalam Alaykum Eid Mubaruk.The greeting is similar to the one we used at the beginning of Ramadan, though Eid Mubaruk heralds the feast of Eid ul-Fitr or Id-Ul-Fitr which marks the official end of the month of Ramadan.

Made it! :-))

Eid celebrates the compassion and forgiveness of Allah and is a time of great family celebration, a little like Easter and Christmas rolled into one. On a spiritual level it is also a time to receive and and extend forgiveness one to another.To mirror our relationship with Allah to brothers and sisters.

For me Ramadan has been a significant part of my own personal pilgrimage and has enriched my understanding and experience of God greatly.


But will I become a Muslim, you may ask? The answer is no.


Much as I love Allah (God/Yahweh) my God wears a suit not a salwar kameez,

He has a western world view, like mine

and He understands the subtlties and sensitivities of my pampered western nature: And I'm comfortable with that arrangement.

I can love Him by any name, but I can only worship Him in he way that is most natural for me.

I suppose we all ultimately create God in our own likeness, depending on weather our world view is eastern or western, but it's good to know the commonality we have in God, and to carry a bit of that as part of our individual God experience.


I have tried to express it this way;


If I wasn't a catholic,
I might have been . . . a pastor in a black pentecostal church,
praying for the sick and casting out demons.

. . . . . . If I wasn't a catholic.

If I wasn't a catholic,
I might have been . . . a high church Anglican,
rejoicing in sung pastoral liturgies and red robed choirs,
clouded in a sea of incense.

. . . . . . If I wasn't a catholic.

If I wasn't a catholic,
I might have been . . . a Tibetan Buddhist
contemplating my Ying and my Yang,
and the meaning of life,
or a fat Muslim cleric with more than one wife.

. . . . . . but I'm not,

I'm just a homogenized (monogamous?) blend
of all of the whole jolly lot


Eid Mubaruk. wa'salam

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Poems

It must be all the lack of food during Ramadan but I felt overcome to write a poem or two today.
They are my first so no serious critical comments, please.

The first is mildly religious. its called . . . .

Church

I went to church last Sunday,

though I'll never forget the Brukner Motet,
and Bach's Toccata in E sounded magic to me,

I can't remember a word the preacher said,

Who me, Shallow? . . . .

John Mullis October 2007


the second is my recollection of a night safari we did on Africa last year looking for Leopards. which we found . . .

The Leopard

The hot night air tore at my skin
as our jeep sped silently through the Serengeti.

The starless sky pierced only by the sweeping beam of our powerful spot light,
restlessly searching for eyes in the night.

Suddenly, they were there.

Her sleek outline silhouetted briefly in the beam,
Majestic, graceful, elegant, serene -

and way too cool to let on
she knew we were watching.

No struggle, no kill, just the chase and the thrill.

then she was gone again,

light beams flash like huge Jedi swords,
fighting to pick out her image . . . . in vain.

It reminded me of my teenage years.

Skin tight Levi's and hair Brylcreamed down,
Posing and posturing, for some girl down the town.

me pretending I hadn't seen her,

and her, way too cool to let on
she knew I was watching.

No struggle, no kill, just the chase and the thrill.

John Mullis - October 2007

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Fasting & Feasting

Ramadan is a time for prayer and fasting . . .

But in the evening it's a time for feasting!

Ifaar is celebrated at sun set when the days fast is broken and just prior to Isha, the evening prayer.

Here are some wonderful middle eastern recipes posted by one of the people in our group. If you want more mouth watering examples of Ramadan food check out Sara's blog site

Sep 26, 2007 (yesterday)
"Kunafa"
from Sara's Blog by Sara



Kunafa means a lot to Arab people, a special dessert, to be served everyday in Ramadan after breakfast. You can have them crunchy and round or soft and flat, there's actually lots and lots of shapes and sizes. Of course, Kunafa is served with a cup of tea with or without cream/milk. It is absolutely a must-have in any Ramadan visit to relatives or friends.



You buy the dough from the supermarket and mix it with some corn oil very well and spread it at the bottom of a oiled cake pan, in the middle you add a mixture of walnuts, raisins, coconut shreds mixed with sugar. Then, you add the top layer of kunafa dough and press down on it well. Now you can put it on the stove and keep checking the bottom layer until it's golden yellow and flip the cake pan over making the top layer at the bottom and wait till it turns golden yellow.

Of course, before all that you make the honey by mixing 2 ups of sugar with almost one cup of water and leave them on the stove to boil and thicken and voila! your kunafa's honey is ready.Add a cup of honey to the kunafa and leave it for a while, then ur kunafa is ready to be served with a cup of tea. LOL... Yummy!!


Sep 15, 2007 11:58 PM
Ramadan Secrets
from Sara's Blog by Sara

Now you're in on the most secret ingredient of Ramadan... LOL

It's called "Amar El-Deen" it's made of apricot fruit that has been hardened, gelatinized and sweetened. It is used a lot as a juice served with breakfast and Ramadan dessert just like Jelly. Decorate your dish with yummy raisins, coconut, crushed almonds and a sprinkle of cinnamon.




In order to serve this wonderful juice u need to soak a packet for 6 hours in a jug in water until it softens and vigorously stir it every few hours making a nice thick cup of Amar El-Deen. It's really sweet and healthy after fasting because your blood sugar drops during ur fast. This juice with its sugar content and fruit helps boost ur blood sugar a bit and gives u that extra energy to help clear the tables. LOL

Yesterday at the Masjid (Mosque) during the taraweeh prayer, the Imam finished the third section of the Qura'an which means Surat Al-Baqara has ended and 'Al-Emran has begun... Simply wonderful! I actually love praying in the Masjid's garden, they open it for prayers during Ramadan only and Eid. Just when you think the weather is getting a little hot, Allah sends a quiet cold breeze to help us through...
Subhan Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful...
اللهم إنك عفو تحب العفو فعفو عنا

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What shape is your God box?

This time last year we spent a month in a small lakeside town a few miles south of Kathmandu. It was a quiet town but like most quiet towns, Pokhara had its share of drama. The most significant, during our stay, concerned several young Hindu girls who had to be taken to the local hospital after swooning and fainting as the result of an intense religious experience during a school retreat.

Nothing unusual about that, you might say, and you'd be right.

Young girls have been fainting and swooning for just about as long as God has been revealing Him/Herself to mankind. My point is that no matter what our cultural background or social world view is, if we are genuinely looking for God, He will reveal Himself to us, no matter in what context we interpret or perceive Him.

This has certainly been my experience in sharing Ramadan with my Muslim brothers and sisters this year. To my delight I've discovered God where I least expected to find him.

A friend who worked as a radio broadcaster in the days when it was call "The Wireless" said that radio is its own wardrobe mistress. By this he meant that because the medium was non visual, each listener was forced to imagine for themselves how each of the characters looked, thereby making each character unique to each listener.

If this is so, then why couldn't the same parallel be used to describe God, whom many of us have experienced, but none of us has seen.

Could it be that we simply interpret God as either Christian, Jewish Muslim etc according to our own cultural predisposition?

David du Plessis, a respected Pentecostal world leader and advisor to Pope John Paul II's Ecumenical Council in the 1980s was sent to Madgegoria to report on the sighting by several young children of the Virgin Mary.

In his report David said that whilst he personally had no paradigm to understand or interpret their religious experience in the terms they used, he had no doubt whatsoever that they had all had an intense personal encounter with the Living God, and quoted Jesus' own words

"By their fruits shall you know them".

Perhaps God is more interested in the fact that we respond to His initiative rather than the shape of the box we put Him in.

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Pickles, cheese, lettuce, onion and tomatoes.

Today is the end of the first week of Ramadan, and if there's one thing I learned so far, it's that Islam is a very uncluttered religious code.

Simply expressed there is one God, the God of Abraham, Isac and Jacob (same as Christianity and Judaism), Mohamed is/was His prophet and the the Muslim (believers) job is simply to worship Allah and live according to His word.

No complicated dogma, formula or theological premises, just 'Trust and Obey, as the old Christian Evangelical Hymn says.

And in it's simplicity there is beauty.

Like Christianity, Islam has made a major contribution to architecture, literature, art and astronomy and these are perhaps the world's best guarded secrets. The absolute breathtaking splendor of Khiva, Bukhara, Samarqand and Tashkent, which we were privileged to visit last year, are the equal of the ancient wonders of Egypt or the majesty of Rome, but unspoilt by commercial exploitation or physical decay. No ruins!

And all build & kept in perfect repair, simply to glorify God.

As I see it, our faiths are a bit like a hamburger, actually.

When you remove all the pickles, cheese, lettuce, onion and tomato, what's left is the bun and the pattie: and no matter what else you add, unless you have the bun and the pattie, you don't have a hamburger!

From where I stand today, the essence of our shared belief is God, and His word, the bun and the pattie of each of our faiths.

Anything else is just pickles, cheese, lettuce, onion and tomatoes.

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Seek first the Kingdom of God

This year I'm sharing a spiritual journey along with more than a billion others, as together we pray and fast for the Muslim month of Ramadan, the 9th month in the Islamic calendar.

Like Advent, Ramadan is a time of introspection. A time to focus on myself and God and my relationship with Him.

To check my progress on the plan He has for my life, and to put this relationship FIRST, above all other demands that my worldly life style would place as distractions from that purpose: the many distractions that, unless I stop and examine then, I scarcely realise have crowded Him out.

And this takes some doing!

Esentially the demands of Ramadan are simple, fasting during daylight hours, observing works of mercy and praying 5 times each day. Apart from the fasting, pretty basic Religion 101 stuff.

However, changing your daily routine to to make sure this actually happens requires planning and commitment.

It means,for example; cooking breakfast (ready to be heated next morning) before I go to bed, making sure my alarm is set so I wake in time to pray and eat before sun rise, planing my morning prayer BEFORE baby arrives at 7:00am, ordering daily activities in order to fit in other prayer & study times and watching I don't break my fast accidentally, like licking the spoon or tasting babies vegetables, making sure I have a well balanced evening meal ready for sundown!

Because I don't understand the Arabic prayers I need to plan my prayer regime as well. For me using the Christian Monastic Office is the easiest. The 5 daily set prayers, psalms, reading and intercessions seems to fit well. But it all takes forethought.

And most of all, time to reflect and listen to what God is saying to me.

All things we should all do every day: but how easliy and subtly life helps us put God on the back burner.

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Ramadan Kareem?

Ramadan Kareem? - Pretty much Happy Ramadan in Arabic. It's a traditional greeting and extends a wish that the person you are addressing will feel happy & strengthened by their fast.

Well this has been my first day of my first Ramadan and I have been privilege to share it with a small on-line group who have keep in touch with what they have been doing, and why. So it's been a great vantage point and enabled me to share in it from the inside, so as to speak.

The day begins with early morning prayer and a hefty breakfast before sunrise. As the Quran requires that you neither eat nor drink between sun rise and sun set it's important to get the blood sugar off to a good start and fuel up for the long day ahead.

Then it's pretty much business as usual till sunset.

The day is peppered with occasions of prayer. There are the 5 daily prayer times (Salah) which are formal prayers said in the home, or where ever, and there are spontaneous (D'ua) petitions and alms giving or Zakah.


Breaking of the fast happens at sun set when the whole community gather at the mosque (masjid) for evening prayers (Isha) and a communal meal called Iftar.

This is as much a social as a spiritual occasion with feasting and praying going on till late.

What struck me was the sense of excitement (passion even) with which everyone embraced a month which would demand so much of them physically and emotionally, but which they wouldn't miss for the world. Their expectations of personal renewal are high. Many even make lists of things they want to achieve (spiritually & emotionally) during Ramadan. I even read on the BBC web site that people from the remote hill provinces in Kashmir have moved into more populated areas just to be involved.

I'm no stranger to religious festivals, meetings etc but I've never struck such a sense of excitement or such a ready willingness to embrace personal hardship

. . . . . . just for the love of God.

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Autumn is a time to make ready

It's autumn in Albania now and our friends are working long hours to bring in the last of the summer crops and prepare for the cold winter days ahead.

Hay stacks are being covered, tobacco leaves and the last of the seasons capsicums have been cut and hung out to dry on the wire fences, fermenting grapes distilled into Raki and figs, apples, summer fruit & vegetables preserved.

Autumn is a very busy time.

Village men make sure the animal barns are warm and dry then scour the hillsides with their donkeys in search of fire wood so the family can cook and keep warm.

It's a very different picture from the one we are used to in an industrialized world where summer days are carefree holiday times. In an agricultural economy summer & autumn are times when we need to think ahead and work hard to be ready for the dormant winter months when work will no longer be possible.

I was reminded of this scene today by friends with whom I am sharing this internal voyage on-line. It's an inter-faith experience focusing on Ramadan, the 9th month of the Islamic calendar and has a harvest time theme unlike Lent, which is full of spring images.

The autumnal timing of Ramadan is in many ways more like Advent and this, mixed with my memories of Albania, provides a strong imagery for my own internal voyage, my viaje interior. Like the wise virgins who needed to make sure they had enough oil for their lamps to last till the bridegroom arrived, we must work now, in the autumn, to prepare our hearts and order our lives so that we too will be ready for Him.

I'll continue to blog my journey over these next few weeks, but if you wish to join us you can use this link.You can share in the reflections by recording your comments, if you wish, or just slip in & out anonymously and unnoticed. Either way you'd be very welcome.

Asalam Alayakom (Peace be with you)

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Being in Unity

As someone who was at the forefront of the ecumenical movement in New Zealand for almost 20 years, one of my guiding scripture was Psalm 133 in which the Psalmist clearly says that God's blessing of eternal life is for those who dwell in unity.

This year. as part of my own personal pilgrimage, I am making an on-line inter-faith journey through the month of Ramadan. It's an informal format, responsibility for providing the reflective input lies with fellow blogger Yosra and these reflections, along with remarks and comments from readers, like myself, create a virtual support group format.

But what, you might well ask, would a Christian have in common with a Muslim?

Well, apart from cultural differences, quite a lot actually. Obviously our understanding of the Trinity and therefore the Divinity of Jesus are areas where we differ but hay, Judaism shares those same concerns about us too, and many Christians would identify quite strongly with Israel.

Otherwise all three monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism & Islam) would see them selves in unity on all other important issues and this is supported by ongoing dialogue at the highest level.

That is, we all believe in the one God and we all share the same (Hebrew) Scriptures.

But more importantly, at grass roots level, we all love God and want to deepen our relationship with Him and with one another.

. . . . and that's a lot to share in common.

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Building a new identity

For many years I has a poster on my study wall. It showed a rag doll caught between the huge wooden rollers of an old fashioned washing mangle Beneath it the caption read,

'The truth will set you free, but first, it will make you miserable!'

The image was a great sauce of consolation and hope to me as I struggled to get my life together back then and the rag doll and I shared many adventures over the years.

I'd all but forgotten her, and her depressingly jaundiced view of life, till today as I tried out day one of living outside my old identity. I knew she was right, and that truth was the one thing that would allow me to move on, but what is truth and do we really have to do the misery bit again?

Afraid so John . . . . .

Alright then, where do we start? What's here beneath the ego that I Can use? Let's see, hmmmm transparency, haven't seen that in a while . . . (last used 10 September 1992.)

OK, lets start rebuilding with that. At least we'll all be able to see what's going on then.

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Becoming who I already am

I closed my past posting by saying,

"Maybe the next big journey should be the one the Spanish call un Viaje Interior, a journey inside. The road least traveled, the spiritual voyage of faith we are invited to undertake each Lent that leads to the discovery of God within."


Well it's not lent, but it is Ramadan . . . so I decided to follow my own counsel. It was wonderful. Just me and God, then . . .

"To be what you want to be, you must give up being what you are.Yusef Islam (formaly Cat Stevens . . . .

"We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are," Max DePree.

And the words of Jesus, 'If you want to find your life, you must lose it.'

Party Pooppers!

So.

What do I want to be?

The words bounced like thunder around the mountains of my mind. Despite all the self awareness courses I had been on I had no idea, in that moment, what I wanted to be, or what I needed to stop being in order to become it. All I wanted was some warm fuzzy time with God. To give him the benefit of my undivided attention for a while. Is that too much to ask God?

Like it or not, my viaje interior has started to kick in - and I didn't like it.

Was there anything holding me back? I searched my mind. My first thought was of the memory of my youngest daughter who died of natural causes just 4 days before her 20th birthday. She is in my every thought, still, so was God going to ask me to leave her memory behind as I moved on?

I went to sleep heavy hearted.

Then out of the blue this morning He showed me a burning bush. He began to show me how, in returning to my old life here in NZ, I had tried to pick up the mantle of my old reputation - and this was chaining me to a past which, though very rewarding, was none the less, past.

To move on all I needed to stop being was 'Mr Got it all together'. Simple!

For the first time I felt myself peeping under the covers of my own ego

But now I'm 'Mr Got it all, but not sure how to put it together. Oh well, back to the viaje. Maybe I should throw in a little fasting this time, just to make sure!

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un Viaje Interior

I can't remember the exact date it happened, but it was some time in July 1995 that we decided to take an adult 'Gap Year.' To abandon our orderly timetabled lifestyle and celebrate millennium year with a full 12 months traveling.

An overland Odyssey of discovery through south east Asia, the sub continent, the middle east and finally, wintering over somewhere on the west coast of Ireland in a small fishing village: any fishing village.

Because an Odyssey is not something you can timetable very precisely, planning gave way to spontaneity and we began to see our lives in small rather than large bytes of time. A day here, a week or two there, several weeks to make our way down from Istanbul to Jerusalem then, sometime in the Autumn, to head for Ireland, etc. etc. We had never lived like this before. It was vaguely irresponsible but very exciting.

Then, as is the way with Odysseys, one year rolled over in to two, two became four and then, before we knew it, seven years had elapsed and our life style had become permanently transitory, spontaneous and subject to sudden change. Over the course of those seven years we lived at 9 different addresses in four different countries, spent 18 months traveling and visited over 50 different nations.

The exception had become the rule and short term ruled us absolutely.

Now that we have decided to re settle in New Zealand, part of us feels we should revert to our previously well ordered long term outlook on life, like everyone else, while the rest of us wonders if we can - or even want to anymore?

Maybe the next big journey should be the one the Spanish call un Viaje Interior, a journey inside. The road least traveled, the spiritual voyage of faith we are invited to undertake each Lent that leads to the discovery of God within.

Now thats a journey that required flexibility, an openness to radical change and a readiness to embrace the unknown!

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Bush warns of dangers in withdrawing from Iraq

Because of the very remote areas we travelled through last year we were almost totally cut off from international news for almost seven months. For many of us this meant going cold turkey from something we had fed on daily (even hourly) almost all our lives. So on the rear occasions when a CNN or a BBC connection was available, we sat transfixed around the TV to scare and horrify our selves once more.

However, back now in a western civilisation, the international soap opera called World News, invades and bombards us from every angle. So much so that its easy to suffer from News Fatigue. To just mentally skim the headline without giving a second thought for the human story that always lies beneath.

This week it's the 'will we won't we pull out of Iraq and if so, when' episode. Beneath all the political pros and cons I discovered this letter. It was written by an Iraqi woman called Shahla who escaped from Baghdad in 2003 to live & study in Boston. Her letter was published in the National Catholic Reporter and is well worth reading.

Use this link to read her letter.

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Living in the past

The neatly sewn monogram on her yellow Polo Shirt announced to me, and any one else who cared to look, that she was Kylie, Assistant Manager at the local swimming complex. It was my first visit.

'Senior please Kylie', I said, - almost proud of the fact I'd reached that magic age where every thing's half price again. 'Oh yes', she questioned? 'My dad looks way older than you, and he's only 56! 'Mind you', she added, he is 50 kg over weight, a couch potato, and wouldn't come to the pool if his life depended on it.' 'Well, perhaps it might,' I replied with a smile as I ratted through the change in my jeans pocket for the $3.50 cost of a senior entrance. We're now the chattiest of friends, but her comments made me wonder, what constitutes old, and how come it doesn't always equate to age?

When I was first married I was 22 (yes, really) I was very much the trendy young man about town: 'Avengers' style 3 piece hand tailored suites, winkle picker shoes, a tailored 'car-coat' and always a colored silk handkerchief in my jacket pocket. My musical tastes were current. I went to all the right parties and to use the urban jargon of the day, I was very much 'in the grove!'

Ten years and 5 children later I found it impossible to button the suit jacket, I'd long since discarded the waist coat, the silk handkerchief had been mangled in the wash and the winkle pickers were past their best. We occasionally still got together for a 60's revival evening and a chat about how great it was back then, but the 2am feed for the little one meant the evenings finished early and the 'grove' I so proudly once occupied was now beginning to look more like a grave.

Like so many of our generation, we had built a demographic wall around our fading youth, shut ourselves off from outside stimulation and were struggling to rise our children in post war cultural vaccum which wasn't appropriate for the 80's and which only increased the hight of the wall. I knew very well where Kiley's dad was: lost for ever in the timeless 60's with no hope of ever being found.

Yes, they were 'good old days,' they always will be, but they're past. You can't live there and the only difference between a grove and a grave is the depth.

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Getting in touch with Charlie

'Why do you blog', a friend asked me yesterday. We were talking about creating a web presence for him and, so naturally, he wanted to know what blogging was all about.

I've been blogging regularly now for nearly 5 years (publicly and privately) and for almost 20 years, journaling as well, so coming up with an answer wasn't too hard.

'Well'. I said, 'I think the best way to explain it is to tell you a story. It's about a man called Edgar Bergan. Edger is probably best known as the father of the actress Candice Bergan, but in the 1930-40's he hosted one of the most popular radio shows in America. It was a very simply format. Edgar was a ventriloquist and the program was just him dialogging with his dummy, a character he called Charlie McCarthy.

Well, it seems that one day, one of the shows writers called to Edgar's hotel room to deliver the script for that evenings show. As he was about to knock on the door, he overheard Edgar sharing his deepest personal problems with someone else who was in the room with him. Being sensitive to the moment, the script writer waited outside for a convenient moment to enter. When Edgar had finished his story, the writer heard the other person in the room reply. To his astonishment, Edgar's counselor was none other than Charlie, his ventriloquist dummy. When all the talking was over the writer knocked, entered and delivered the script. 'It's none of my business Mr Bergan', said the writer, 'but how come you took counsel from Charlie? He's just a wooden dummy, actually Edger - he's you.'

'I know,' said Bergan, 'I know, but when ever Charlie speaks to me, I never know what he is going to say, and often what he does say astounds me with it's brilliance.'


You see, I said to my friend, it's like that when I write. It helps me get in touch with the Charlie that's in all of us. With out getting too spiritual, I said, It's a wisdom and a perspective God plants within each of us. Some people call it 'free writing,' just starting off and seeing where it leads. For me, blogging's the best way to unlock that wisdom both for myself and others. It helps clarify my thinking, it puts me in touch with my higher self so I can see a fresh perspective on my own life,

but best of all -

. . . . . it's cheaper than therapy!

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Say aaah

You know, it's what the doctor makes you say when you have a mouth full of finger and wooden spatula!

But did you know that the aaah sound has much more profound, even spiritual connotations, at least according to Dr Wayne W Dyer, well known author of such 'self help' books as 'Your Erroneous Zones', 'Pulling Your Own Strings' and the one I'm currently reading, 'Manifest your Destiny'

According to the good doctor, it's the one sound that is common to God, no matter what you call him: Yahweh, Buddha, Allah, 'Krishah, Brama, Siddah, etc. etc., all stem from the aaah sound.

It's also the cry of a new born baby as it draws it's first breath, and is the only sound humans can make effortessly by simply breathing out, and without moving the lips, tongue, jaw or teeth.

According to Dr Wayne aaah is not only the sound of creation, but it also happens to be the sound of joy and delight Aaah, the sound that accompanies the act of procreation, (think about it), the primary vowel sound and the first phonetic letter of the alphabet!

Interstingly in Hebrew, as you may know, the vowels are not written into the word but left for the reader to fill in as the words are spoken out. However, as it is forbidden in Jewish culture to speak the name of God, the name of Yahweh (written yhwh) is simply said as an exhaled breath, aaah!, implying that God is as essential to life as breathing and as prayer itself.

This is the sound we need to make to connect with God, says Dyer, ideally as a mantra and ideally at dawn!

Hhmmm, can't be too haaard, I'll let you know how I get on!

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Will the real me stand up please,

I see it happening in my 10 month old granddaughter, Sujin. The development of an individual personality. A set of cultural practices and norms she is taking onboard that will equip her socially as she grows toward adulthood. Like a jigsaw that is slowly coming together; her mothers smile, her father's quiet gentleness, her own growing sense of self awareness and importance with in the family, etc,etc.When she was born hers was a world that's borders were largely closed to us. At first we couldn't laugh together or communicate joy or sadness or personal need, or anything. She was Gods creation, born for eternity, but like a tourist from another planet who knew nothing of our culture or our ways.

I know from our own recent travels through Central Asia and across the Tibetan Plateau how totally out of it you can feel. You don't know the language, you have no idea what food to eat. You don't know the social norms and you can't even find your way to the bathroom! Its a feeling of total dependency and helplessness. Like that of a baby. And yet to survive, you need to build your own persona, a social identiikit, a construct through which you can relate to the world around you, even though your visit there may be only for a limited time. So it was for us as travelers, and If you have any belied in life after death, so it is for each one of us on planet earth. We are born with a unique (eternal) and individual personality onto which we must weld one that's more temporal and useful for the culture in which we must survive.

So which is our real (true self) identity?

The one we were born with (and will probably return to when we die), or the one we develop during our comparatively short time here? The identity which for want of a better term we call our ego, or by comparison, false self.

It's a question I have been struggling with over the past several months as I've cared for Sujin and observed this process unfolding before me. And its a question a fellow blogger from Stockholm has mentioned to me only to day. Talking of this process in her own life she says, 'It is an ongoing struggle of becoming more and more of our true selves'.

Though it's a blinding revelation to me this concept of true self / false self is not a discovery I can claim as unique. As I Google the phrase I see that religious and philosophical scholars have been using the term and discussing this paradox for years. So who am I to try to clarify the issue.

For me these are important considerations though as I work through the personal issues of my new lifestyle. So for myself, and possibly my fellow blogger, it's more a question of how to hold both of these identities, the true and the false self in some sort of healthy tension. How to know our real eternal value as a child of God/Allah/Yahweh with out believing too much, the publicity of our own burgeouning ego.

And I used to think life would become less complicated the older I became!

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More to Islam than an Arab pot of gold

One of the biggest debates in New Zealand at the moment, if not the biggest, centers around the possible sale of the Auckland International Airport. In recent days a very generous take over offer has been received from Dubai Aerospace Enterprises for $NZ 2.6 billion. The rationale in recommending shareholders reject the offer would, it seems, be based not so much on economic or commercial considerations as the price offered is considered a generous one, as on political expediencies and prejudice.

In an interview with local media today, visiting British MP George Galloway simply poses the question, 'why sell to anyone?' I think his reasoning makes good sense and also challenges us to look closely at what may be a growing sense of Islamophobia on our part.

The link below is to a short video recording of his intweview with the NZ Dominion Post News Paper this morning. It's well worth the 3-4 minutes it will take to listen to it.

>>George Galloway discusses Islam in NZ

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The Meldrew Factor

I think there's a bit of the Meldrew in all of us, well in me anyway. It's probably why I identify so easily with his character in the TV series One Foot in the Grave.

For those of you who need me to 'draw you a picture' us Meldrews' are frustrated and discontented with society. We're between 40 and 60,we're fed-up with politics, and the government in general. We aren't very positive about the future, and have particular worries about public services. Another fear is our financial future, as pensions funds seem to be dwindling. We're sick of all the talk about global warming, we're tired of reality television and we're fed up with watching sanitized news broadcasts.

Oh, you too? Well welcome to the club!

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The Transatlantic Cultural Gap

I suppose our nearest 'brush' with the UK Celebrity Culture was the fact that we lived just a few doors from where the once famous Spice Girl, Posh, and the now famous Victoria Beckham used to live


Despite her mega stardom in the UK ,it seems her mana failed to follower her across the Atlantic where her promotional Reality TV special 'Victoria Beckham comes to America was described by the critic from the New York Post as; 'an orgy of self-indulgence so out of whack with, er, reality. Going on (in love of course) she described Mrs Beckham as "relentlessly self-promoting" and "vapid and condescending" The LA Times was more sympathetic, saying only of her 60 minute TV Show that well, she 'got her 15 minute of fame' Which ever way you look at it, it seems the program did not find favour with the Yanks.

On a kinder note, I think our old neighbour just misjudged the enormous cultural gap that exists between the two countries. Despite speaking the same language and sharing a similar historical perspective, what works in one culture does not automatically translate to the other.

As Winston Churchill said of Anglo/US. relationships, 'two great nations separated by one common language'.

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Ships that pass in the night

In former times she would have been called a 'White Russian', a political opponent of the Bolshevik revolution. Her father almost certainly was. He escaped with his family to America on forged documents in the days after the Second World War, and today, nearly 70 years later that heritage still defines her.

'I came here to New Zealand nearly 35 years ago' she said, as she handed me a coffee: her strong northern European accent still clearly discernible 'It's black with sugar', 'I don't buy milk.' 'Once my family's background became known to the FBI, life there was just impossible. There could be no future for us any more. But here, no body knows. Here, nobody cares'. Her words hung there suspended in the cold morning air.

We'd met just a few minutes earlier. She had walked up her drive to collect the morning paper, right where my car had stalled a moment before following an unsuccessful crash start. 'You'll need the double A service man.' she said, ' here, have a read of the paper while I go down to the house and call him for you. You can use my membership, they'll never know she assured me' Thanks, I said, and she vanished back into the mist from which she had just mysteriously appeared.

She returned and we waited there, together in the early morning mist, waiting for the 'double a' serviceman as she called him. Standing there looking out over the harbor, sipping our coffees, discussing the world news headlines and exchanging our life stories - like people who had known each other for years.

Then just as quickly as we met, she melted back into the morning mist and, thanks to the double a man, I was able to continue on my journey, and she hers.

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Things I've learned from being a Granddad

Read books that you enjoy...

Do whatever you want whenever you want...

Play with simple things...

Look for affection when you need it...

Get serious once in a while...

Forget about diets...

Show some affection

Get angry once in a while...

Change your look...

Be happy, above all,
regardless what your challenges may be.

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Turning back the clock - pt II

I discovered this French song a few months ago. Its author Tina Arina, says of it, "This is not a political song and it’s not about a political subject. It’s a metaphor - like a poem. It’s a woman saying ... I was once beautiful and now I’m in ruins, I’m destroyed."

Je m'appelle Baghdad
I have lived so happily in my palaces of black gold and precious stones.
The Tigris flowed, on crystal paved roads a thousand Caliphs jostled to dance with me.
They called me the city full of grace, God how time goes by.
They called me the capital of enlightenment, God now everything is lost.

My name is Baghdad and I have fallen under the fire of armored tanks
My name is Baghdad, disfigured princess.

Shehaeazad, has forgotten me, has forgotten me.

I live in my land like a poor beggar, under the bulldozer the spirits haunt me.
I mourn my ravaged beauty over the smoldering stones,
It's my soul they are assassinating.

They called me the capital of enlightenment, God now everything is lost.
My tales of a thousand and one nights no longer interests anyone,
they have destroyed everything.

My name is Baghdad and I have fallen under the fire of armored tanks.
My name is Baghdad, disfigured princess.
Sheherazad, has forgotten me, has forgotten me.

Tina Arina- 2006

For those of us in mid-life (like me) this song also speaks about the temptation to try and turn back the clock. About yearnng, in vain, for a past that, though glorious, no longer exists rather than learning to delight in the present, that is with us forever?'

In many ways its the same dilemma hinted at in my last blog.

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Turning back the clock

Because of the winter weather I've had a bit more time on my hands than usual. Youjae (babies dad) is a painter and if the temperature falls too low the paint won't key, and if it's too damp, it won't dry. The last two weeks have been a combination of both factors, so he's become an honorary Grandparent and taken over much of Sujins routine. This leaves me free to, well - free, which as you will see from my last few postings, has given me time to catch up on world news.

Perhaps the most interesting story I've unearthed this week, as it was not a lead story anywhere, concerned Pope Benedict. As you may recall he managed, single handed to put the Church off-side with the entire Muslim world very early in his pontificate. He did however, God bless him, have the grace to
apologise (saying he was misunderstood) but this week, as he left his Vatican office for a two week summer holiday in the Italian mountains, he dropped another series of clangers. These however were much better than the Muslim one. In one or two short statements he managed to estrange himself from Catholics, Protestants, the Jewish community and 'liberal Catholic feminists' (I use the term in jest): Not bad for a weeks work.

Here's how it happened. Catholics, it seems, were upset by his approving, against the advice of his own Bishops, a return to the Latin (Tridentine Rite) mass, Protestants by him issuing a statement that Jesus Christ came not to save all, (the post Vatican II belief of the church) but simply, many, the pre 1960's position that only Catholics were saved, and Jews by the attitude the Good Friday Tridentine liturgy has to their involvement in Jesus death. Catholic women were quick too to notice the newly revised Roman Missal banning attributing any feminine characteristics/qualities to God either in the liturgy or in the choice of hymns.

Rolling back the clock on the Churches ecumenical and interfaith commitments is one thing, but the question in my mind is this. Will modern day First World Catholics, follow him back to model of church that denied their involvement as anything more than simply a passive audience to something set in a cultural climate of the 1940.s - 50's, or will this be the crack that will eventually split the dam?

As I heard it put earlier this week, 'nothing we can do will ever change the past, but everything we do will effect the future.

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Help - we've been robbed officer!

Wintertime, being as it is, means most of the family have gone north to soak up the summer sun leaving me (Home alone,again) to keep an eye on things.

So yesterday I decided to look in on Gina & Martins ailing Peace Lilly. Well, didn't I managed to set the burglar alarm off as I went in, you wouldn't believe the noise! I fully expected to be set upon by fierce neighbors wielding large sticks, or at least the local Khandallah policemen, truncheon in hand, flailing his way toward the door, but no। Just, 'turn that bloody noise down will ya'!!!!

Oh well, at least neighborhood watch is a good idea in principle!

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What about all the other Alan Johnstons?

BBC journalist, Alan Johnston is free from his 114 days of cruel captivity in Gaza and like the rest of the world, I rejoice in his long awaited release. However, in our shared euphoria, let's not forget there are still nearly 6 million stateless Palestinian men and women who, like A;an Johnston, are forced to live in equally cruel captivity. They are chained to poverty in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt or imprisoned behind the impenetrable walls of Gaza or the West bank.

Though some limited EU funding has now been released, Gaza's economic viability is still crippled by these viscous sanctions, their farm lands are denied adequate water for irrigation and their access to domestic sewage treatment is restricted to less than 80% of their need। Their only external border, at Rafah, is still closed for days, sometimes weeks on end, even to those requiring medical treatment in Egypt or returning to burry their dead in Gaza।

These are civilians entrapped in a humanitarian crisis of gigantic proportions, no one denies this, least of all Alan who risked his freedom and committed his life to reporting it. Yet the world watches and the world says nothing.

Alan Johnston was lucky. He not only got out of captivity, he got out of Gaza. Something those who are forced to live there can only dream of.

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Global Terrorism, is there a Christian response?

Until now, my stereotypical 'terrorist' has been someone on the outer fringes of our 'western society', working class, unemployed and probably poorly educated. However with recent events in London and Glasgow it seems that I need to redefine my paradigm to include,
professional, well educated - and probably everything in between as well.

So, has this Eastern (Muslim) abhorrence of everything Western (Christian) all just happened overnight? A result perhaps of 911 or the Iraq war, or is it's source further back in history? I don't pretend to know the answers, but it seems to me that Christian / Muslim tensions have been brewing for the last thousand years or so. Since well before Richard the Lionheart trundled off to the Crusades to re capture Jerusalem from the Infidels - as romanticized by Cicil B DeMilne and others.

Sir Steven Runciman, the leading western historian of the crusades for much of the 20th century, ended his history with a resounding condemnation:

"High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and greed.. the Holy War was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God".

Was Runciman right? Is terrorism as we know it today simply the fruits of seeds sown during numerous Crusades?

As I say, I don't know the answers but I do know Murphy's law says that what goes round, comes round and as a Christian I know that that there can be no progress in relationships of any sort with out contrition, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation, on both sides।

So, does that leave the reconciliation ball in our court?

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Call me cynical if you like

Don't get me wrong. I genuinely admire Tony Blair and hope that he will make a good envoy for peace in the middle east?

Call me cynical if you like though, but what happens to international oil prices when there is trouble in the middle east? Which two countries control the majority (if not all) of Iraqi oil? What would become of the international arms industry if he succeeded. How would the return of so many thousands of US soldiers impact a sagging US economy and does the West really want peace in the middle east, or is it all just so much political'spin'?

Well, I guess he'll make a much more acceptable envoy than George W, but it's still a little like sending Hitler to advocate for those in the concentration camps. Don't you think?

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How precious are the little things we take for granted.

It's Tuesday। Not usually my day off but Ciara & Youjae are having a family day with baby, so I take the opportunity and head for the country. Avoiding the main highway I trace a back mountain road (we call them hill roads) to the west coast beaches north of Wellington. I stop for a few moments at the roads highest point, 205 meters above the small township of Paekakariki, overlooking Kapiti Island just a few miles off-shore: the winter sun, filtered by high cumulus cloud casts a steely gray huge across the Tasman Sea, making its calm shiny waters mysterious and murky looking.

To my left I can clearly see the rugged outline of the the South Island and to my right, gray sanded west coast beaches stretch endlessly before me until they vanished into the distant nothingness of the horizon। Just looking down from the sheer cliff beneath my feet to the rocky coast immediately below gives me an uneasy churning deep in my stomach. It's been several years since I came this way and as I have forgotten this view more times than I care to remember, so this time I pause a little longer - to enjoy it.


What I don't know at this time is that in an hour or so, my dear aunt, Bea, will tell me of her increasing blindness, and her need to move to more supervised accommodation as her world closes daily around her.

A stark and sudden contrast to the endless vistas I enjoyed from the top of the Paekakariki hill road just a few minutes earlier. I will not forget it now.

He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Romeo (1.1.162)

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