There’s an interesting episode in the Gospels where a woman brings a jar of expensive perfume, cracks it open and pours it upon Jesus. His followers, who have caught his concern for those living in poverty, grow indignant, protesting to the woman that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to those who were struggling. Jesus stops them, telling them that this woman has done a...
Last week I was reminded of a delightful anecdote from Dr Paul Brand, the medico who did revolutionary work on leprosy. Brand, who grew up in India, was sent to boarding school in England at the age of nine. When he was fourteen he received a telegram telling him that his father had died. The young Brand was heartbroken. A few weeks later a letter arrived that had been written by his father just...
Rain falling onto a tin roof. It is the only sound i can hear. Thousands of drops of the most precious liquid to be found on the earth, flung from the heavens, their descent temporarily interrupted by sheets of inclined colorbond down which they slide, before falling, falling again until, with a dull thud, they are consumed by a hungry earth. I am on the verandah of a rambling farmhouse with...
I’m on the train travelling from Sydney home to Newcastle. The sun is shining as we pass over a shimmering Hawkesbury river. The music of Mumford and Sons plays through my headphones. And I can’t help but feel it’s good to be alive. There are some significant challenges in my life right now, challenges that have engulfed me in swirling emotion and uncertainty. Nonetheless, as I...