becoming a blessed imp - through tensions, edges, playfulness and order
I was born - a few decades back in the 20th century - just as the Western world really began to rock and roll, challenging received authority and thereby discovering liberation, chaos, and backlash. My life has been caught up in these postmodern tensions and divides ever since. For how today do we experience 'shalom', and find genuine (inner and outer) peace, unity with diversity, and freedom with social & ecological harmony?
My life began on 'the roof of England', in the northern hills of County Durham (England's poorest but most canny county) and I have rejoiced to live and/or work in many places on the edge of things ever since. For it is in the borderlands that differences can be raw but also rich: surprisingly redeeming if not fully resolved. Today I live in Sydney, on the traditional land of the Gadigal peoples, whose ancestors, elders & spirit I honour. It has been a meeting place of peoples, trade and ideas for countless generations. It is now a growing and increasingly diverse hub of many cultures, hopes and dreams. It faces new challenges, particularly of sustainability, like our world at large. For how, with all of creation, do we live on this fragile crowding planet with joy? Like the gorgeous Australian bird the rainbow lorikeet, we are called to bring fresh life, colour and transformation.
My formal work is as a priest, but - like the best of any mature form of faith - it is not a trip on a narrow boat on a fixed canal with many locks. Rather, for me, it is a gracious open place to be: sailing and surfing with everyone who seeks to sound the sea of life and explore a little of the mysterious ocean of our existence. I rejoice therefore in my relationships with both the churched and those of other faith or none, with the confident and the quizzical, the orthodox and the rebel, the saintly and the rakish. Indeed, when I was younger, I spent much time in the great cathedral city of Lincoln, near where I was brought up. That city's great symbol is the Lincoln Imp, found today in the cathedral's Angel Choir, emblem of its gorgeous little football club, and about whom there are many stories. At the heart of the legend however is the transformation of evil into good and the coming together of dynamic playfulness and ordered truth and beauty. Playfulness can become destructive mischief and ordered truth and beauty can become confinement. Entwined in grace they are hallowed and hallowing. Maybe that is part of what John Bunyan meant in my favourite hymn. For life is not about being a hobgoblin or too pious, To be a pilgrim is to become a blessed imp, simul justus et peccator.
My life began on 'the roof of England', in the northern hills of County Durham (England's poorest but most canny county) and I have rejoiced to live and/or work in many places on the edge of things ever since. For it is in the borderlands that differences can be raw but also rich: surprisingly redeeming if not fully resolved. Today I live in Sydney, on the traditional land of the Gadigal peoples, whose ancestors, elders & spirit I honour. It has been a meeting place of peoples, trade and ideas for countless generations. It is now a growing and increasingly diverse hub of many cultures, hopes and dreams. It faces new challenges, particularly of sustainability, like our world at large. For how, with all of creation, do we live on this fragile crowding planet with joy? Like the gorgeous Australian bird the rainbow lorikeet, we are called to bring fresh life, colour and transformation.
My formal work is as a priest, but - like the best of any mature form of faith - it is not a trip on a narrow boat on a fixed canal with many locks. Rather, for me, it is a gracious open place to be: sailing and surfing with everyone who seeks to sound the sea of life and explore a little of the mysterious ocean of our existence. I rejoice therefore in my relationships with both the churched and those of other faith or none, with the confident and the quizzical, the orthodox and the rebel, the saintly and the rakish. Indeed, when I was younger, I spent much time in the great cathedral city of Lincoln, near where I was brought up. That city's great symbol is the Lincoln Imp, found today in the cathedral's Angel Choir, emblem of its gorgeous little football club, and about whom there are many stories. At the heart of the legend however is the transformation of evil into good and the coming together of dynamic playfulness and ordered truth and beauty. Playfulness can become destructive mischief and ordered truth and beauty can become confinement. Entwined in grace they are hallowed and hallowing. Maybe that is part of what John Bunyan meant in my favourite hymn. For life is not about being a hobgoblin or too pious, To be a pilgrim is to become a blessed imp, simul justus et peccator.