From time to time, we hear of the emergence of new cults.  Every new cult hinges on a promise – the promise of a better life, a new life.  As we know some cults can entertain some very bizarre notions.  I recall one in which all the members died, willingly, inspired by a retired music professor who promised his followers that they would rise to a higher level.  They died believing that somehow their deaths would connect them to a UFO which was travelling in a comet’s wake. It sounds tragically bizarre, and indeed it is.  But the story had a poignancy, breaking as it did on an Easter weekend.  These people had sacrificed their lives…

Having not been married very long, some young friends of mine Karl and Cindy had been trying to have a family but without success.  After extensive testing, they discovered that they had issues with fertility, and that it was unlikely that they were going to be able to have children.  Naturally, they were bitterly disappointed.  The future for which they had longed suddenly seemed changed forever, and the future presented as an enormous unresolved question. Questions about themselves as individuals, questions about their relationship, questions about the meaning of their life together inevitably swamped them, and it has been a very difficult period for them both personally and in their partnership. However, the…

As the ancient philosophers understood, there is an innate restlessness in the human spirit, an essential nomadic quality, that sets us on a journey into an infinite horizon. We are those who reach out beyond ourselves to something other, to something more. We search for love; we search for identity; we search for wholeness. Indeed, the very first question that Jesus puts to his disciples when they encounter him is, “What are you looking for?” (John 1:35).  However, just as the Gospel begins with a question, so, too, does the Gospel end with a question.  It is the question that is at the heart of the account of the Resurrection of…

Even though the DVD industry now is a very large one, it is curious that it has never made the cinema redundant.  Cinemas are as popular as ever. Rather than stay at home and watch a film, there is still something that entices us to go out and see it in a cinema.  Perhaps it is because the visual and sound effect on the big screen makes for a different experience than our home theatre. However, the director, George Miller, explains that one of the reasons why cinemas are frequented is because we have forgotten the need of people to gather and listen to a story.  Cinemas, he says, are the covert cathedrals…

Sometimes a throw away line strikes us to the 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, “Nothing perfect is every 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 myself and others.  A few words changed what I thought about beauty and what I thought about perfection.  I have not thought about either beauty or perfection…

Today throughout the world marches for peace are held.  Palm Sunday has become a day on which rallies for peace are staged in many of the cities of the world.  It leads us to ask what is it about this day that speaks of peace, of the hope for peace?  Though many who march for peace may not be Christian, and even though a number of people take part in the walks for a mixture of political motivation, nonetheless it would seem that the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem has something in it that speaks of the possibility of peace.  How is this so? Perhaps we see the answer in the stress in…

The American actor Alan Alda wrote a wonderful biography, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned. The title of the book is taken from an incident in Alda’s youth, when he lost his pet dog, Rhapsody, to some leftover Chinese food that his family had brought home one night. So inconsolable was the young Alan that, at the burial of the dog, his father suggested they have the dog stuffed so that he might always be a part of Alan’s life. They took the dog off to a taxidermist to achieve this end. Some weeks later, when the task had been achieved, they went to collect the stuffed dog…

I recall a colleague of mine dying of cancer.  I remember the day when the prognosis came through:  the cancer had already spread to his liver and to his lymph nodes.  He was given about 6 months to live.  It was devastating news for us all. Well, Tom didn’t have six months.  In the end, he only had four.  But it was four months that Tom lived.  He struggled with his fears about pain.  He dealt with his grief for what he was losing. He had always been a very independent person but now he was learning to allow others to be there for him, but he found the process of accepting his powerlessness the most difficult.  And most…

There is a story about an American philosopher who went to Japan for a conference on religion.  He overheard another American delegate speaking to a Shinto priest.  “We’ve now been to a good many of your ceremonies,” said the delegate, ‘and have seen quite a few of your shrines.  But I don’t get your ideology; I don’t get your theology.”  The Japanese paused as though in deep thought and then slowly shook his head.  “We don’t have an ideology”, he said.  ‘We don’t have a theology.  We dance!” Perhaps we have forgotten that Christianity, itself, began as a dance.  There was no ideology, no comprehensive philosophy.  Rather there was a series of extraordinary gestures in the life of Jesus…