The late English writer Daniel O’Leary once related a striking moment of epiphany narrated by the Irish mystic John Moriarty.  Moriarty was walking through muddy patches in the meadow near his Kerry home, wondering how those ‘hints of heaven’ could emerge from such a drab place.  “How could something so yellow as a buttercup come up out of soggy brown earth?” he asked.  “How could something so purple as an orchid and so perfect as a cowslip come out of it?  Where does the colour and perfection come from?”[1] As were the first disciples, we are surprised by the power of life when it appears, and often in the most unlikely of places and…

There is an old African parable about how best to catch a lion.  When looking for a lion never go hunting for it, says the parable.  The lion will always elude you.  To catch a lion it is necessary to stop still, to light a fire and to wait for the lion to find you.[1]  The parable is perhaps a good description of one of the important characteristics of a way of living which is the outcome of our affirmation of the Resurrection.  In our very affirmation that Jesus lives, like the African warrior, our task now is to live in a continuous expectancy, in ever increasing sensitivity, to the Divine Lion’s approach, watchful for…

Last night once again we lit the great candle of Easter that burns before us still this morning, and proclaimed Christ Risen.  We proclaimed how the power of his life shatters the confines of death, and radiates its possibility across time and space, so that we too, now, can encounter him, hear his voice, be touched by him, enjoy his friendship, and follow his invitation. Yet, how foolish we must look gathering here this day to proclaim Christ Risen! How foolish it must seem to the onlooker when they see us light a fire, light a candle, and sing Alleluia! What is happening here?  Is it all some elaborate fantasy? How serious…

Some years ago, I was introduced to the thought of the psychotherapist Ernesto Spinelli.  Spinelli had a keen sense of the inter-relatedness of human life – that our relationships with one another are the very stuff of existence.  He understood very well that we are our relationships, that we exist in relationship or not at all, and that we see everything in the world, especially ourselves, in light of those relationships.  It is our relationships that fashion our very sense of the world, and how we exist in the world. However, if this be the case, then an inevitable uncertainty about life begins to emerge because I can never fully know with complete…

Sometimes a throw away line strikes us to the very core of our hearts, and we remember it for the rest of our life.  Such was my own experience when I once heard an old shearer from outback Queensland remark in an interview with Caroline Jones, “Anything perfect is never beautiful.” It was a remarkable statement which in its very simplicity spoke of an unmistakable wisdom and humanity.  A statement of remarkable acceptance, it undid a certain instinct in me that at the time demanded perfection in both me and others.  Happily, that instinct has now long retreated into the background, in no small way helped by that shearer whose name I could…

In the mid 1990s, Arthur W. Frank published a landmark and fascinating study on people’s response to illness, entitled, The Wounded Storyteller. As a professor of sociology at the University of Calgary, Frank considered the various ways we respond to our illness, particularly the illnesses that are chronic in their character. He identified a number of responses that we make to our experience of such illness ranging from denial through to resignation – none of which were especially helpful in learning how to live in the fullest way in the face of our illness.  What he suggested as the most redemptive or transformative pathway was what he termed as being the wounded storyteller:…

One of the maxims that we learn in our life is that when we are in a hole we should stop digging.  It is remarkable, however, just how difficult a thing this is to learn.  From time to time we see the difficulty in the publicity surrounding a public figure who has got themselves into a hole and does not know when to stop digging.  We tend to cringe at such situations but all of us know, in some form or other, what it is to dig a hole for ourselves, or to paint ourselves into a corner.  It happens in our work life and it happens in our relationships.  We try to cover our…

I shall always remember my visit, now many years ago, to a young 21 year old woman dying of AIDS.  Jeanine’s life had been a broken one of childhood abuse, drug use and prostitution. Yet, in the midst of all this she could say just before she died: “I sit here dreaming that I would like to work with other people who have AIDS who are not as well as I am, and write more poetry. I try and treat each day as a precious gift. I want to write about my life because it is a good story . . .  I also dream of my three beautiful nieces who I…