[ hold :: this space ]

i mentioned in an earlier post that we’re curating a basement space for christmas this year. just to clarify, the space is open to everyone, but I’m not putting details up here because we want to keep track of who’s coming - and we want to send you an invitation in the mail! please email if you’d like one - and if you’ve already emailed, the invitation’s on its way…

And of course, if you’re wanting to be part of creating these spaces, let me know. A group of us meet once a month to have a drink together, and plan the spaces, and there’s always space for another around the table. We’re taking the spaces into another direction next year which is going to be brilliant…

but not so much anymore:

retail king slams ‘no-hoper’ charity

Jessica Butcher, who works near me in the office here, is coordinating a remarkable inter-faith project for March 2009, involving a visit from Indonesian Christian and Muslim leaders to Australia. The trip will involve 14 Indonesians, who, along with 14 Australians, will travel through parts of Victoria and Tasmania, offering opportunities for conversations with local communities and a model for dialogue between people of different faiths and cultures.

The trip also includes two retreats - one in Merricks on the Mornington Peninsula [March 6-9] and the other at Acacia in Halls Gap [March 13-15]. I’m involved in creating sacred spaces for the latter, which I’m really looking forward to. The retreats will be open to registrations, so set the dates aside now.

It’s hard to imagine a more important relationship for the Australian church and community to develop at the moment - both our relationship with Indonesia, and our conversations with Muslims. This is a great chance to be involved in something that could have a long term effect on the way we understand ourselves and each other.

Jess can be contacted at jessica.butcher@victas.uca.org.au

Just a warning that there are a few behind-the-scenes changes happening with the blog that are preceding some bigger front-of-house changes… apologies if things like rss feeds do something weird…

I had coffee yesterday with Phil McCredden who is the new director of Forge Victoria. Our relationship with Forge has always been pretty rocky, so our conversation yesterday was an attempt to find a way to work together differently - thanks to Phil for initiating it. Forge Victoria are reconfiguring themselves at the moment, and it’s going to be an interesting couple of years coming up. It feels very healthy - I walked away from the meeting thinking the space I’m working in is a little less lonely, which was an unexpected outcome!

Phil blogs here. He and Dan, his wife, used to blog at signposts, which was an extraordinary phenomena in the australian religious blogosphere. The new blog is quite different in focus, and will be really interesting reading.

[for a space in Benalla in a couple of weeks... we're going to explore waiting through the characters in the advent story... this will need work if we're going to use it - i like the idea more than the execution]

what was it like for you, god,
when you were waiting for your child to be born?

did you like awake at night
overawed by the miracle of life,
overwhelmed by what was to come?

did you wonder if you were up to the task -
if you’d know what to do
when he ran away
when he was cheeky or outright rude
when he defied authority

or did you think no child of yours would ever dare behave that way?

did you practice conversations, plan the wisdom you would share?
did you wonder if you’d let him think differently to you?
did you pray for the strength to let him teach you too?

did you despair at the pain your child would be born into
and grieve the limits of your protection?

did the world become infinitely more precious
and overwhelmingly fearsome
all at once?

did you worry you might not love him?
did you wonder how you would be able to ever let him go?

did it change you, god, this waiting?
how are you different because of this birth?

i’ve been invited to be part of steering group for an exhibition on Women in the Torah, to be held at the Jewish Museum late next year. I’m really enjoying being part of a conversation with people from another faith, in an environment where i’m the guest, not the host; where mine is the minority perspective.

Rebecca, who is curating the exhibition, talked about a conversation she had with Rachel, a Muslim, who is also going to be part of the steering group, about the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, and her discomfort with the way the story plays out for Hagar. Rachel’s reply was that it’s not how the story is understood by Muslims, that from their perspective, what happens to Hagar is a necessary part of the divine plan. Hagar exits stage left from the Judeo-Christian story, and ends up centre stage in a whole new story of faith.

I wrote here once before about those in our stories of faith who are abandoned by the side of the road. I think i need to rewrite that…

In a few weeks time we’re beginning some work with women in Dame Phyllis Frost Prison, exploring some of the stories from the bible that will have particular resonance for them… the rape of Tamar, Lot’s daughters, Hagar’s story, Dinah’s story… These are characters who have largely been left abandoned by the side of faith’s road. i hope we can find the faith they might take centre-stage in…

Three of the four men who wrote the psalms that were part of the collection of Hold This Space liturgies published by Proost are back in prison, after short periods on the outside. The men were part of the Marlborough Unit at Port Phillip Prison, the unit which houses those who are intellectually disabled or have acute psych conditions.

I was walking next to someone today on the way into work who looked like he was only just holding his demons at bay, talking himself back into sanity with muttered entreaties. That could so easily be me, i thought, aware again that i felt i had much more in common with him than with the other professionals walking around us. i thought again about how much i dislike the phrase ‘except for the grace of god’, which i always think comes awfully close to being another version of prosperity gospel… i know i’ve not unravelled because i’ve had the money to get help when things could have gone either way; because i’ve had education and jobs that have given me confidence, resilience and options; because i’ve got people around me who are honest about their own fragility and who give me courage to understand my own… to say i have those things by the grace of god places the blame back on god for those who don’t.

If you get the link in all of this, the Port Phillip West Communal Justice Network is next meeting this friday morning at the Judy Lazarus Transition Centre. This meeting is to discuss with staff at the centre how we can work together to offer practical help and advocacy to prisoners in transition, and to begin formulating proposals for conversations with Corrections Victoria. Email if you want to know more.

i’m planning some sacred spaces for christmas at the moment, for a variety of contexts and ‘audiences’. today was my big day to make it happen - almost meeting free, working from home, a whole day to get inspired, and pull it together. It’s 3.30 and all i have is a dozen less ideas than i did at this time yesterday. luckily, i know it’s like this every christmas, so i’m not panicked. though maybe i need the panic. either that or gin.

and instead of being a place where we talk about these things, describe them so you don’t miss them when they happen, it would be nice if it was a place to encounter these things, so we go away different… so i started thinking about the wishlist, what i really wanted for christmas… in a space, and really, just in general…

light
a moment of knowing that this night is not all there is
and not all there will be

hope
an encounter with the kind of hope that captivates our imagination
so we can’t help but become more than who we thought we were,
and find ourselves living for something that is all at once
preposterous and impossible

peace
- world peace -
predictable, i guess, and unlikely
so perhaps a smaller moment would do
- just a sign that we want war to stop enough
to relinquish the satisfaction of the moral high ground
to give up our easy stereotypes and caricatures
of nations and people

[to know that any label
Israeli
or Palestinian
Iraqi
Muslim
Jew
Christian
witch
gay
straight
paedophile
murderer
evangelical
liberal
progressive
is never enough
to do justice to anyone

but i digress]

joy
to experience a moment it’s real,
when the theory becomes sacrament,
where we wonder what just happened then…

[That’s all i want for christmas

though i acknowledge
that i’d be happy to settle for less
like those earrings with the origami birds, a le creuset casserole, or the new augie march cd

and perhaps therein lies the problem…]

I’m back from holidays, which were very lovely and all too short… The time between getting back from the UK and going on leave was pretty relaxed, but that’s well and truly over now…

I spent the week in Adelaide, mostly hibernating and doing the family thing, but I did have dinner one night with Sarah and Michelle, who were both part of this year’s UK trip. Over the last few years Sarah has been organising Black Wood Jazz, which is ‘an alternative style ‘church’ space in which to enjoy live jazz and thought provoking stories and conversation’. She sent me through the following information about the next evening:

Kick off Christmas with an event that can be as kicked back, or stimulating as you make it. 6.00-8.30pm on 30 November 2008

BYO picnic, folding chairs, (and a table if you are that way inclined), cold drinks, friends, neighbours and good conversation to Christmas under the stars in the Blackwood Uniting Church carpark (At the Roundabout, 266 Main Road Blackwood, Adelaide).

Hot drinks available for gold coin donation.

Enjoy the smooth sounds of Daniel lee and Friends. Enjoy cool company – bring your own if you aren’t to sure about ours. We will unwrap some stories of hope too as the evening gives way to stars.

Donations will be collected to support Blackwood Jazz and the Christmas Bowl Appeal

And a couple of other Melbourne based things coming up:

We’re hosting a pre-christmas space in the basement on December 7. It’s invitation only, so let me know if you want to be invited!

I’m leading a workshop tomorrow on Psalms at the ‘Preaching in the Year of David and Mark’ conference. Hope to see some of you there.

NCYC is happening again in January. It’s not too late to register… Shane Claiborne is speaking, along with a host of others. I’m leading some electives and am involved in worship one evening [but don't let that stop you from registering...]. It should be a great week.