Jennie begins her address, today with an assertion of social commentator, Hugh MacKay's - in his book - The Way We Are - "that we are not as well equipped as previous generations to deal with sustained challenge". In probing and testing this assertion, Jennie takes a contemporary snapshot of the way we are, commencing with the bushfires of 2019-2020 and the Covid-19 Lockdowns that followed. Jenny draws on the strength and spirituality of poetry emanating from The Effective Living Centre of the Uniting Church, Wayville to help in her evaluation of how we Australians are faring. Are we wilting at the external and internal challenges Australians - young, old and in-between - are now facing? Listen on!
Expanding Horizons
The Way We Are
Jennie begins her address, today with an assertion of social commentator, Hugh MacKay's - in his book - The Way We Are - "that we are not as well equipped as previous generations to deal with sustained challenge". In probing and testing this assertion, Jennie takes a contemporary snapshot of the way we are, commencing with the bushfires of 2019-2020 and the Covid-19 Lockdowns that followed. Jenny draws on the strength and spirituality of poetry emanating from The Effective Living Centre of the Uniting Church, Wayville to help in her evaluation of how we Australians are faring. Are we wilting at the external and internal challenges Australians - young, old and in-between - are now facing? Listen on!
- Duration:
- 21m
- Broadcast on:
- 14 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[Music] You're listening to Expanding Horizons, the podcast of the Unitarian Church of South Australia, a home of progressive spirituality and free religious thought and action since 1854. The views expressed in these podcasts are those of the speaker and are not intended to represent the position of the church itself or of the worldwide Unitarian Universalist movement. For more information visit UnitarianSA.org.au [Music] This chalice is for the living, the becoming. This chalice is for losing the script of your life, the chapters about who you are and other people's stories. This chalice is for the lost GPS that was supposed to show you how to get where they expected you to go. This chalice is for skipping the directions, coloring outside the lines, painting not by number but by silence, by wild abandoned, with a brush you made yourself from a light deep inside, startling, vivid, a new voice that already knows you. In May I attended a retreat run by the Melbourne Fellowship of Unitarians in Gippsland. This group have thrived. One of their activities has been an annual retreat and this year was the first time they invited other Australian and New Zealand Unitarians to attend. Now Paula from Canberra and I were the only takers but we had a wonderful time. The accommodation is brilliant, it's the old hospital in lock in Gippsland, it's very well heated and bright. The theme was the search of meaning and the programme included discussions, meditation, walk, film, exercises, a shared Sunday service. We each had a room and you could retreat to that and nap whenever you chose. The Melbourne group did the catering and visitors were just asked to do something simple like by a bottle of wine for Saturday night dinner. Next year invitations will again be open to other Unitarians around the country and I would urge you to consider going. The group is very friendly and the experience of being in a wider community is inspiring and I expect our minister Chris Hannah will return energised and inspired from his holiday and also his meeting with the Unitarians in Prague which is by the way where we get our cellist tradition from but came from the time of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia when Unitarians were smuggling Jews out of Czechoslovakia. We acknowledge that we are on Ghana lands, lands that were never formally ceded by the Ghana people to European settlers. We acknowledge that colonial practice trampled over their control and management of their own lives and that that disadvantage persists to this day. We commit ourselves to respecting and honouring Ghana leaders past and present and hope that the future brings resolution and improvement to the lives of indigenous people across the continent here. I would like today's service to be reflective and at that end I have punctuated it with poetry sourced from Poets Corner which has been a forum held in the effective living centre in Waveau, a dynamic part of the uniting church. Sean Gilbert is my pick for the opening of our time of wintery reflection. Blue deep. Stepping just beyond the fluorescent lit room a call of nature bidding me into dark and cold the heavens abruptly appeared broad with infinite scope pulsing shimmering by radiant wonder. The clarity of star and crescent moon was so startling and shocking a rain washed sky pristine blue deep and ever hopeful arching over all things artificial or bleached by lesser lights in which world to stride now. [Music] In what sense is poetry a form of prayer? We often have a poem in place of stories for all ages in our service but it is only occasionally offered in the liturgies of most churches. As a form of attentiveness as an instance of what a liveness to what is poets and poetry readers become priests of the imagination. Poetry invites us to inhabit our world with greater compassion authenticity encourage poems invite us to inhabit that world that we might otherwise not know. We're not constrained to be high-minded or upbeat and inspirational we can express doubts fears disillusionment the downs as well as the ups. Let's look at Russell Talbot's God Shopping. This was inspired by a major redevelopment of a large Adelaide suburban shopping centre to include a 500 seat evangelical church to be built above the retail complex. Now here's the poem. Good news now I can pick up my physical needs and my spiritual needs all in the one trip perfect for a busy lifestyle butter milk salvital cleaning products then pop upstairs for a bit of salvital and sin cleansing. I was a bit put off when they combined Holy Communion with the leading offering triathm as you buy samples this yogurt is my blood and it's also very nutritious and 99% fat free. I'm okay with it now besides I'm sure they would have had chicken tonight rather than bread if it had been around then anyway yeah good news. Now when the hawkers come pedaling door to door religion I just tell I'm sorry I did my shopping yesterday and there's nothing else I need thanks anyway good grief and then it occurred to me that sure enough there is now above the Pasadena Shopping Centre on five ash drive a church you know that's super duper food land it outstrips even frugal in choice in exotica well a bit of googling revealed this church opened in 2012 which was the year after this poem was written because this poem was written when the advertisement I think for that was happening it's a homegrown evangelical church with a website that's not very up to date there's a child mining five dollar an hour service a couple of days a week advertised on the notice board at the foot of the stairs it hasn't made it to the website so it's basically a sunday service fundamentalist church it doesn't offer the option of ducking upstairs for salvation after buying salvital or any of the other options nor was there any mention of non-vegan but tastier communion options this poem is in fact a production of the imagination in pessimistic mode you know fundamentalism on the rise the world is going to the dogs trump is coming back social media conspiracy theories the retreat from science into flat earth as ice wall jet trails particles and vaccines to track our movements or hold on is this the way we are are we really that daft that element certainly exists but it's a subset not the mainstream let's have a more objective look at ourselves in the first quarter of the 21st century it started with a bang the millennium bug didn't disable the world's computers and d rarely economy we had the Sydney Olympics now that was a blast and the economy did pretty well too and too well something starts with the sea folks have you got the word for me covid that's it well done that was the word i was after well technically actually our run of bad luck began just before covid with the unprecedented sustained bushfire season of 2019 to 20 and the floods and the medias unprecedented use of the word unprecedented politicians like that word too because unprecedented implies the inability to foresee and take preventative measures well that deals with accountability quite nicely doesn't it the covid pandemic with its infections brought us wave after wave of lockdowns mask wearing physical distancing home schooling working remotely a massive increase in social isolation plus of course the covid related deaths there were 21 000 and by late last year Australia had the highest rate of death per capita from covid well the highest reported rate anyway some some countries don't do reporting now this was accompanied by persistent impatient talk of getting back to normal which huma k our country's leading psychologist regards as a sign of flagging resilience a sign that we are not as well equipped as previous generations to deal with sustained challenge now if you think of my parents generation that they were dubbed the lucky generation is they were born in the depression and they grew up and was stood world war two and then the influx of refugees which were required to build the nation but they basically got richer and richer as they got older and older and their kids had great opportunities so that's more the norm whereas we've had this sustained period of prosperity hence this hankering after getting back to normal normal the normal isn't quite normal when you consider what pre covid normal was really why would you want to go back apart from the airfares we were already becoming more lonely anxious depressed medicated sleep deprived gambling addicted and more economically unequal still fighting old battles over ethnicity gender religion and politics but becoming suckier about disagreements placing stricter boundaries about what you can say what is acceptable while still failing to address growing poverty and homelessness another poem conspiracy of silence by Margaret Calder our barriers of silence are wall as strong as bars beating against us conspiracy of silence can a slow agonizing death when we know of oppression and injustice why do we remain silent do we fear that by speaking out by breaking the barrier we too will be shunned untouchable i want to say i want to say i always speak out loudly but sometimes i fear i don't in the past quarter of a century we have as a nation disgraced ourselves by violating human rights by detaining refugees offshore denying permanent residency and work permits we've eroded public education pouring billions of dollars into private schools we've participated in the ill conceived and disastrous evasion of Iraq we have poured half a billion dollars into extending the Australian war memorial instead of addressing the hardships endured by veterans PTSD homelessness or gambling addiction relations with First Nations people are still fought the 2023 referendum was hopelessly politicized one can only hope that the referendum result might be a catalyst to accelerate the process of reconciliation but despite all this we still see acts of kindness in our communities every day we still understand community and need for each other our obligation to live in harmony to live in interesting times as the Chinese put it has been a lot of human beings since forever peace and prosperity are only ever transitory and as humor k points out in his book the way we are we don't necessarily thrive on it adversity sometimes brings out our better qualities the hymn we are about to sing celebrates how the human spirit can prevail through difficult times how can i keep from singing was written in the year in which newly freed slaves could vote for the first time in the u.s. general ulysses grant was elected in 1868 conservative benjamin israeli became the prime minister of britain in february and resigned in december that sort of rings a bell doesn't it with modern times the author of our hymn was philip laurie a baptist minister the quakers thought it was their hymn peat seager loved it it's been adapted by enya and it's a concert favorite of our adeléd chamber singers which you see on the screen there let's stand and sing it now so to recap despite being a more fragmented divided and less cohesive society than we were in the 1950s saying we are also less male supremacist and more accepting of diversity we're also becoming more mindful curious and reactive to alarming trends like addiction to social media the rise of individualism fake news fake wisdom and so on when we come up against the burning issues of climate change artificial intelligence whatever it is what we need to do each time is to take a step back and not buy into instant opinion trading we are herd animals we thrive on connection not isolation if we want our kids to live in a better world not a tribal virtual one we need to strengthen ties in our own localities first one very visible aspect of life in the suburbs today is seeing fathers out with their kids over the weekend there are far more dads giving their wives a break and remember when i was a kid more dads out enjoying their kids personal encounters matter encounters with friends relations and strangers and acquaintances a wounded society can heal itself when enough of us choose to live differently it's time to hone our listening skills if we want a more peaceful world joining a peace march is one way to go but making peace with your neighbors your family and your colleagues is more effective if you're shocked by the fact that 32 percent of Australian adults report feeling lonely or appalled when somebody has discovered dead weeks after their demise have a think about your own street or town or suburb first if you're worried by sexual abuse and bullying speak up and keep speaking up ignore the red herrings and facile comments people make about britany Higgins for example recognize when the media are making a meal of a case too further a political agenda the big issue was not payouts to one person it's the culture and acting without restraint or decency the culture that currently murders a woman a week is a deeply damaged culture you have a small circle of influence it begins with sons and nephews it begins with daughters and nieces we help them to develop affection and respect for each other rather than succumbing to commercially driven sexism and the same thing goes with the case of Fatima payment the big issue is not breaking labor rules or revving up anti-Semitism the big issue is establishing a ceasefire in Gaza and working toward a time in which Israelis and Palestinians will be able to live side by side within their own states with their own freedoms and liberties a harmonious society here depends on us finding common ground accepting differences but focusing on common ground we live in one world joining the dots is the great game i will end this address with a poem after which we'll sing our final hymn and the poem is by Andrew Hallwood what if what if the gum tree complained as bark peeled off its trunk or if the young bird bemoaned the effortless loss of its immature feathers or the caterpillar refused to enter the chrysalis so it could become a butterfly or if the snake was content that the skin too small or the hermit crab was unwilling to leave the home it's outgrown or the chick was so comfortable it never broke the shell to find the new world waiting the world as we know it would not exist if not for the unassuming courage in all of nature so why would this same encouraging force for transformation not help me become the person i came to be you we hope you've enjoyed this expanding horizons podcast these podcasts are the intellectual property of the presenter they can be used only with the express permission and appropriate acknowledgement of the presenter this permission can be obtained by emailing admin at unitariansa.org.au please feel free to leave a comment or visit us on facebook or twitter by searching sa unitarians or by visiting our website at unitariansa.org.au [Music]