Last year I watched my father die. Like many Parkinsons patients he died not from Parkinsons but from the pneumonia brought on by the disease. Parkinsons impacted his ability to swallow, meaning he inhaled small pieces of food and mucous, which developed into aspirated pneumonia. I looked on...
Myths About Poverty. Myth #3 – Teach a Man to Fish and He’ll Eat for a Lifetime
When I first started to engage seriously with global poverty I was taken with this proverb: [quote]Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.[/quote] I think it captivated me because it held out the promise of sustainable solutions to...
When Mandela was a Terrorist and Justice Had Nothing to Do with Jesus. How I Came to See Jesus as a Champion of Justice. Jesus and Justice #1
When I was growing up Nelson Mandela was seen by many in my faith community as a terrorist who belonged in prison, the election of the Hawke government was declared by a key figure in my church to be God’s judgement on the nation, and justice had very little to do with Jesus. The Jesus I knew...
Myths About Poverty. Myth #2 – ‘The poor are always with you.’ Jesus said there’s not much we can do to end poverty
Do you think it possible that we could see a world where extreme poverty is the rare exception and sufficiency for all the rule? Many people say no. They imagine the world today is much the same as the world of fifty years ago – a wealthy, industrialised group of countries with growing...
Myths About Poverty. Myth #1 – People are Poor Because They’re Lazy
Over the years I have heard many myths about poverty spoken as if they were truth. One of of the most common is that people are poor because they’re lazy. A few years back the World Bank conducted a study of the experiences of people in developing countries who had escaped extreme poverty.It...
David’s Ark, Jesus and Polar Bears
David Attenborough today named the ten endangered species he would take onto a modern ark. He overlooked the well known endangered animals – tigers, polar bears, gorillas – for lesser known but equally spectacular ones. Two that strike me as quite amazing are the Olm Salamander and the...
A Wonderful Prayer
May God bless you with discomfort At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, So that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with...
Men, Boys and Boats. On the Importance of Man-Time
At 4.00am the surface of Jervis Bay is flat like glass, bounded by a thick blanket of stars, a rocky shoreline and a darkness just beginning to be punctured by the emerging dawn. Everything is quiet, accentuating the voices of my fishing companions and the click-clack of trailers reversing down a...
“Wives, submit to your husbands”. Why We Mistakenly Assume This is God’s Word to Us Today
The New Testament calls wives to submit to their husbands. What precisely did they mean by this and does this remain God's call for us today?
You are a Force for Good
A few years back the BBC ran a program where they asked leading international figures to identify the defining moment of their lives. One of the interviewees was Desmond Tutu. He took us back to a day when he was just nine years old, to when he was a young black boy living under South...