I'm in a different place: a phrase we often use to say that something important has changed, often for the better. I'm thinking about being somewhere different, literally. For some of us, that's a common experience, if travel is a part of our life-style. For others, it is quite rare. I've recently spent some time in another country and I've been reflecting upon the experience: 'different', and yet also there is so much in common.

I have heard many stories lately of community groups,, but especially church groups, that have split, or left the wider community or denomination to which they belonged. Or in one situation the denomination has kicked out several groups on the basis of disagreements over a policy (they would say adherence to what they believe are biblical teachings). And that's my specific interest here.

The demolition of buildings is an everyday experience it seems. In our suburb, and it seems all over the country, there is a building boom: but in so many instances what we notice first is the demolition. Homes where, over perhaps a hundred years, a family began, grew, and moved out in the wider world, to be replaced by another generation, or more—and then in a matter of minutes, all that living, sharing, learning, struggle and joy, is torn down.

The word ‘present’ has two important meanings. One means ‘now’, the current time and situation. The other means ‘gift’, something given to us or to another. I am increasingly convinced that the two meanings are deeply inter-related. The present time is a great gift. Indeed, I have come to think that it is all we have. To receive what is, what is now, and that…

One of the people we studied in my recent course of biographies was Wayne Oates. Wayne Oates was born in 1917 and died in 1999. He lived his whole life in the USA. He had a very difficult childhood: he was abandoned by his father as a small child, and was brought up by his sister and grandmother, while his mother went to work in a cotton mill.

On Sunday I preached at the Collins Street Baptist Church, on the theme ‘What are we doing in the upper room?’ I was encouraged by many who found these words helpful in relating an ancient story to our own situation today ... The text of the sermon is here: Collins Street April 27, 2025

I’m sure I’m like so many others, wondering  just what is going on in the world.  Apart from those who imagine D J Trump is their messiah, what can a person of faith (of any faith) do or say about this.Even more challenging, how might we pray in this time. For what might we pray? I do not think of or practice the sort of prayers that have been described as a ‘shopping list’.

I very nearly broke my rule and gave up reading this book half-way through. I am glad I didn’t, because it offers valuable challenges for reflection. Stone Yard Devotional is pitched as a novel, by Charlotte Wood, but it’s many other things as well. It’s like a journal, of someone on a long search for self, as well as cryptic insights into rural and religious life in the years of Covid restrictions.

It’s a glorious, warm day and I am glad to ride a few waves in the local surf beach. Those who know some of my personal history may marvel, with me, that 15 years on from our tsunami experience, and now in my mid-seventies, I am still wading into the water with my body board and catching the better waves to ride into shore.

On holidays: a week spent in a different place, and different in so many ways. A week in which I did not see a news bulletin or newspaper once, but enjoyed food with family, sporting events, outings, and rest. And time for some contemplation on the nature and meaning of life. We stayed in an area very close to the Queensland - New South Wales border, where the beach and a massive river shape the entire region.

We were delighted by the Australian musical My Brilliant Career—based on the original book by Miles Franklin (1901) and then a book and lyrics by Sheridan Harbridge and Dean Bryant. Bryant also wrote the music, with Matthew Frank. The production is astonishing, telling the story of an ambitious but very poor young woman, Sybylla, intent upon a career as an artist, even though she has no opportunities and cannot even define for herself what it is she will do in this ‘brilliant career’.

Our car park behaviour gives it all away. It is said to be a season of peace and joy, but it doesn’t look at all like that in the car park, or on the roads in general. I’ve just been to the shopping centre, where a long tailback of cars, many with horns blaring, was the simple outcome of one elderly man trying to manoeuvre his car out of a parking spot, while giving way to another driver, who did not understand his intention.