If you strayed into this section and your concentration span is limited to 5-minute 'sound-bites', get out before it's too late, and your anointed grey matter kicks in!  Our intention is not to have you agree with everything expressed here, but to stir you to reflect on things significant.

The summary topics are bundled thematically for ease of access and hyperlinked to a range of articles under each topic.

Note that we have reworked the layout by including on a separate webpage the serious side of our popular Friday Food 'n' Therapy - go there for a summary of some of the articles that have drawn a wide response - currently there is an extensive commentary there on Avatar, Fantasy, Fiction Addiction and the Real World.

Cleansing the Heavenlies

In 2000, while staying in Harare at the Lifeline base, I idly picked up a book from their library titled, "Cleansing the Heavenlies".  Blow me down, it was written by a Harare resident, Mark Roser!  He covers an issue I had never systematically thought about, nor really studied.  Worse still, I couldn't recall reading any other author on it - namely, the eviction of Satan from the Third Heaven (the place of  God's throne-room presence) out into the Second and First heavens (he calls them "heavenlies", as in heavenly places/realms).  He lived only 3km from our hosts, so we spent some valuable time with him before bringing 10 of his books back to Australia with us to challenge others!

Here's a quote that set me to reviewing my positional thinking on warfare.  Christ's ascension brought about Satan's dismissal from heaven, whereas the Church displaces him in the heavenlies - p157;  The ascension of Christ and empowerment of the Church have forced Satan and his legions into a defensive posture.  One of the greatest mistakes many in the Church have made is to conclude that the intensification of evil and demonic activity in the world is the result of Satan's offensive strategy.  In reality, it is the sign of increasingly desperate defensive manoeuvres by an enemy who knows he is defeated and running out of time - p165.

This emphasis threw fresh light on the "seated us with Christ in heavenly realms" statements of Ephesians (1:3  1:20  2:6  3:10  6:12).  It also puts proper emphasis on Jesus' statement, "NOW the prince of this world will be driven out" (John 12:31).  And it helps explain why the Church is always in trouble!

Like many Christians I know, I had Job's "accuser before God" scenario still functioning today as Satan goes before the throne of God to accuse us.  I hadn't considered how such a defiling presence could be reconciled with Christ's cleansing the Heavenlies with His powerful blood sacrifice.  This lines up with Neil Anderson's material on self-condemnation through ignorance of our inherited position, seated with Christ in heavenly realms....

Mark Roser's email is utmost@pci.co.zw and his website is www.uttermost.org.  May I recommend his book to rattle your theological cage!  It's hard to get a hold of.  Contact Mark direct.

Richard Rohr summary by Rowland Croucher

Summary of Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: the Gift of Contemplative Prayer (Crossroad 2003).  Each decade it seems I read a book I wish I’d written. This is one: a brilliant collection of spiritual wisdom. Here I take the liberty of summarizing the essence of the book, with these few comments as preamble:

1. Richard Rohr is probably America’s (the world’s?) most sought-after teacher of Spirituality and Spiritual Direction. He has both an amazing verbal fluency and breadth of wisdom. He’s the founder/director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque New Mexico. (Look it up in Google and purchase some of his tapes/CDs – easy listening! Well, the teaching style is easy on the ears but the prophetic emphasis might be hard!).

2. Richard is a Franciscan, a ‘post Vatican 2’ Catholic who is critical of both liberal and conservative theological assumptions. He believes (unlike many Protestants) that God was not dead before the 15th century, and also (unlike many Evangelicals/ Fundamentalists) that spiritual wisdom may also be found in some non-Christian sources (though he is critical of many of the presuppositions of Zen, New Age spirituality etc. as well).

3. Prayer in the teaching of Jesus (and of Richard) is more about being than technique. It’s about your life, rather than how you put words together (as in adoration, confession, supplication etc. – there’s less than one page here on the components of verbal praying).

4. And how you live authentically depends on your embracing emptiness, vulnerability, non-success, descent-rather-than-ascent, letting-go rather than acquiring (‘affluenza’).

5. It’s best to read this book slowly: the text is broken up into small 2-3 page chunks.

6. Richard Rohr is, in my view, ‘on target’ as a modern prophet: you’ll find many more of his articles on the JMM website.

Walking the Third Way – comments on Richard Rohr’s material via Bruce Pederson

The religion of Jesus is about attachment, falling in love, risking pain, suffering (which is better than a theory about Jesus paying a debt to an alienated God, who needs to be talked into loving us).  So Christianity is not about Zen-like detachment.  Jesus’ passionate union with the Father drives him back to the pain of the city.  Without attachment, there is no risk, no passion, no compassion, no social justice.

The tension between attachment and detachment is ‘the Third Way’, the middle way between fight and flight (‘everything is beautiful’), the contemplative stance, the way of wisdom.

Liberals are into ‘fight’ – ‘fix it and change it’;  conservatives, flight – denying the massive institutional evils.

Liberals deny the vertical arm of the cross (transcendence);  conservatives the horizontal (breadth and inclusivity).

The prophets were not deconstructed persons throwing rocks from outside Judaism.  They know the real purpose of the law: their radicalism puts them outside the other two camps.  They are not self-serving ‘conservatives’ but part of the great Tradition (not traditionalism, the ‘dead faith of the living’).  They use symbols and metaphors to help us see the spiritual and the transcendent.

Prophets see in themselves good and bad (it’s not ‘over there’).  The divine image honours the good in both myself and my would-be opponent.  We do not inflict pain on another in the Divine image, but hold the pain in ourselves.  We too are complicit in the evil of the world.  Before enlightenment, all fear, judgment and criticism is in the second person – ‘you are’.  After enlightenment, we join Jesus on the cross – ‘we are’….

There is something of how I feel about constantly returning to Zimbabwe and Mozambique in this expression – the idea that through attachment comes pain, empathy, suffering, going without, etc.  Making plans to return is becoming increasingly difficult.  Our prior arrangements structure does not operate like it once did.  Everything is so difficult now; and yet we cannot just withdraw.  That is “attachment”.  Paul’s heart-moving statements make more sense nowadays.

Citizenship Speech 2008, using Augustine's dictum

“In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity”.

Every year, on Australia Day (Jan 26), we celebrate in Aussie our nationhood.  Part of every local Council's activities is a citizenship ceremony at which new arrivals, who have fulfilled the criteria, are welcomed as "Australians" and receive their citizenship.  Brian has spoken, alongside the politicians and Mayor, at this for many years.  Here's a summary of his 2008 address.

The cultural values gap between our personal original culture and the host culture of Australia (or ANY host country) is almost always wider than the host people realise.  Great sensitivity is required all-round for harmony to grow.

St Augustine said (originally to the Christian community, but it is equally applicable to any community being formed from people coming from differing backgrounds), “  In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity”.

1.   Necessary things – UNITY!!  In those fundamental elements that hold a society together – rule of law, respect for others, importance of truth and oath making, separation of powers (into political – three levels in Australia [Federal, State, and Local], judicial, bureaucratic, ecclesiastical, etc – and thus avoiding dictatorship trends, etc).  A common understanding of the fundamental elements and respect for them is essential for a society like Australia to survive and prosper.

2.   Doubtful things – LIBERTY!!  In dress codes (e.g.. the British and their ties!), food tastes, choices in music, sports, how families and friendship networks relate (after my wife’s mother died, we rented her house next door to Sudanese refugees – their view of gardening is very different from ours!).  TOLERANCE!!

3.   In all things – CHARITY!!  Sometimes called brotherly love, this is an attitude of good intentions.  Christians are commanded by Jesus to see all mankind as part of God’s precious creation and not to discriminate by devaluing their essential worth.  Jesus (a Jew) shocked and offended his Jewish contemporaries by often going outside of His own community and doing good, driving out evil spirits, and healing the sick, among people of ethnic and cultural backgrounds different from His own.  It was one of the main reasons the religious leaders organised His murder.

We have used a simple illustration before of what happens if there is not a common understanding on fundamentals.  Like the rules of the road.  We are trained from birth in Australia to KEEP LEFT!!  (Look Right, Look Left, Look Right!!).  Years ago while on a sabbatical in Canada, I nearly wiped my wife and I out by forgetting where I was and driving out of a gas station looking right instead of left!  Old ways remain automatic choice unless you deliberately concentrate on changing your habit patterns to conform.

In some countries and cultures it’s a free-for-all on the footpaths, etc.  The result is there is little flow; people have to push and shove to go forward, and it is so much harder to make progress.  This is a simple illustration that a common respect and obedience to a set of basic values makes life flow more effectively for everyone!

I have said before that I hope our Government agencies in the future put more time and effort into this part of the welcoming of new citizens into the Australian society, and explain in simple terms WHY common understanding, respect for, and obedience to these things is advantageous to everyone…  Overall, society functions better and that benefits everyone.

Lastly, the way forward really comes from the next generation.  They want to adapt more than us oldies!  I was 21 when I came to Australia, and can identify with a true story from the book, Us Aussies.  A soccer match from 35 years ago is recounted, in which a primary school teacher in an outer Perth suburb organised a match between her class and a team from the Vietnamese boat-people camp nearby, as a means of bridging the cultural gap between the children.

As she separated the two teams, a little boy behind her spoke up in a broad Aussie accent, “Miss, are you going to organise it so US AUSSIES are going to play those VIETS?"  She turned around to tell him off for his prejudicial remark.... and found herself looking down at a Vietnamese boy, whose parents and family had been part of a boat-load of Vietnamese refugees who had arrived a few years earlier!  Yes, how quickly the young assimilate!

I say this not just for the benefit of those receiving their Australian citizenship today, but to every single one of us here – regardless of who we are and what we represent - SES, Council, Church, Scouts, Politics, Volunteer groups, etc, etc.  We are all involved!

It’s true!  The previous waves of immigration help the next wave assimilate into the host culture….  It’s gradual, but acts like grease on a squeaky axle!  And the host culture continues to evolve too....  Let’s all do everything we can to help the next wave assimilate, so we can all look one another in the eye and say, “US AUSSIES!” as our national identity continues to unfold and redefine itself.