I’m writing this just as Premier Andrews is announcing that our 5-day lockdown is over. Our new COVID ‘normal’ was interrupted by a different kind of COVID normal – an outbreak that needed to be contained. I suspect that these 2 things together will be our new normal for the foreseeable future. It does pose…
Having publicly announced my intention to retire around July this year, the implications of that decision are kicking in already. Some of them have been brought to my attention by others who have retired already from vocations that had consumed their head and their heart. I am grateful for their input. Their insights have been…
My good friend Larry and I spent a good part of last Monday standing on a small jetty on a bend in the Maribyrnong River at Essendon. Actually, we weren’t just standing. We were having a go at what is strangely named Plein air painting. This form of painting was developed by a French artist…
As you know I have been on a few weeks leave. I took the opportunity to visit Victoria; spending a few days in different places. Ocean. Lakes. Forests. Rivers. Mountains. Beaches. We certainly live in a beautifully diverse land and it was great spending time appreciating it. But two images, in particular, have embedded themselves…
At the top of my favourite Christmas song list sits John Lennon’s ‘War is Over’. So this is Christmas And what have you done? Another year over And a new one just begun I’ll tell you why it’s my number 1 shortly. I quite like some of the traditional Carols: my favourite carol being In…
What a privilege and opportunity to speak with someone from another culture. Our conversations began over six months ago, and we have been in contact ever since. Ryon, whom you will meet in this morning’s worship, is a teacher in the Black Pearl Network’s English-speaking program. She and fourteen other teachers are involved in teaching…
If our encounter with a Coronavirus and an exhausting period of lockdown has taught us anything, it would have to be what it feels like to sit with a deep longing and learning how to patiently and sometimes impatiently wait for it to be satisfied. A longing to see and hug family. A longing to…
We are almost there – all being well, the St Kilda Uniting Church will gather in the building at 163 Chapel St on Sunday 13th December. That may sound like an odd way to describe returning to the building which for over 140 years has stood on the corner of Chapel and Carlisle and been…
One of my favourite TV shows was an Australian original concept – myth busters. It first went to air on SBS in 2003. I really liked the idea of taking a popular myth and subjecting it to some rigorous scientific and at times rather crazy testing. It was science and it was entertaining. But there…
I’ve been searching my vocabulary for words that might describe the past week in the post-election USA. Words like relieved, followed by disturbed, and mixed in with a fair bit of stunned, just about sums it up. If it wasn’t so serious it would be farcical. And what has disturbed me more than anything has…