David Cantwell Homilist 24-25 July 2010
One particular person cannot speak on behalf of everybody’s personal spiritual creed. Once we try and draw a box around ourselves and state “That is what St Mary’s in Exile believes!” we run the very real risk of excluding new insights and new ways to experience our shared journey.
David Cantwell
My name is David Cantwell and I have been a member of this community since 1987.
I feel I have come full circle given my first real encounter with Peter Kennedy was at our rented flat in the late 80’s. We had invited him over for dinner as Trish and I had become engaged and in true Catholic tradition, we invited the priest over for dinner.
Peter consistently kept saying to us, “Why get married?” and “It will never last?” clearly attempting to sow the seeds of doubt in our minds. I took great joy in April of this year when we celebrated our 20 wedding anniversary. Peter’s response was simply “She’s a patient woman he replied!”
As we know, Catholic priests are always right !!!
But I still have the wedding photos with Peter adorned in vestments. I am considering if these could now be sold for fundraising.
It is also a miracle that he ever allowed me in front of a microphone given Peter seemed to have little faith in my ability. You see I did not impress Peter with my photography skills in 1989 when he asked me to come and take photos of his newly completed retreat centre at Numinbah Valley. I failed miserably in that assigned task and he never forgot it. Maybe it was something to do with Peter last piece of advice before I retired for bed. “If a snake crawls over you in the middle of the night, don’t move and he might not bite you!” Being a produce of the city and having never spent a night outside of secure urban accommodation, I didn’t get much sleep, and consequently it showed in the results of my photos.
Peter’s lack of confidence in me continued. After 10 years at St Mary’s I had rarely stood behind a mike until the mass in which Sophia was Baptised in 1999, being some 12 years later. I told him I could sing and I wanted to sing at my daughters Baptism.
He had his doubts. The morning of the mass in October 1999, Peter rushed over, grabbed the mass sheet, assuming that I had hijacked the music for the day and was about to lower the boom on any liturgical dissention (ironic hey?) when he realised that Joan had given it the OK… Shows you the power that ex nuns still have..
But still he was nervous. After the mass finally he had changed his tune. Reference to the Cantor being a “Cant – well” indicated that I had finally won his acceptance. It only took 12 years. So standing in front of you today, I do feel I have turned the corner.
This community is fundamentally unique. Trish and I have often talked about where we would go if St Mary’s in Exile ceased to be. My daughter Sophia thought that a Sunday morning bike riding would be a good alternative.
Whilst I concurred, I certainly would miss the interaction with so many wonderful people and the tremendous joy I get personally from sharing the gift of music. I could not however see myself returning to a mainstream Catholic Parish again. I might consider it only if sometime in the future a Lesbian Pope was elected as that would be a strong indication that the Church would have fundamentally changed for the better. I won’t hold my breath.
My upbringing was one of a typical habitual Catholic. The 6 kids, mum and dad went to mass every Sunday, rain or shine. We sat in the same seats. We arrived 1 minute before kick off and left once the priest genuflected but before the last verse to avoid the car park traffic and be first in line at the local hot bread kitchen. That way we spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to us. Consequently, we didn’t really know too many people even after 25 years in the same parish. Extracting the uncomfortable dress shoes and clothes when we got home was the only pleasant part of the whole morning.
I left my parish of 25 years when I left home for the first time in my early 20’s. A mutual friend was involved in a old inner city parish near South Brisbane. Michael Fitzpatrick along with Dean Hamilton lit a flame in this fledgling inner city church community that still burns brightly today. Dean had a voice of such perfect tone and pitch that word quickly spread. I had had enough of badly played organs and poorly sung hymns. At St Mary’s there was a grand piano. The music was contemporary without being garish. There was a sense of joy with the musicians unlike anything I had experienced in my previous parish.
But if we came for the music, we stayed for the liturgy. Unlike the liturgy that resembled the dregs of a sucked mango seed, Peter and subsequently Terry spoke with passion and authority. Not authority derived from their status as “priests” but from their own life examples and experiences. We journeyed with Peter during his time as a prison chaplain and the challenging environment that he engaged with every week. Through Karyn Walsh, Micah was born out of this community adding practical witness to the gospel messages. My daughter Sophia’s name was chosen after one of Peter’s homilies on the feminie concept of God I remembered all those years ago.
Even in the early 90’s, the liturgy at St Mary’s was different. We dropped the creed. Thank God for that. I could still recite it in my sleep complete with every single mumble and inflection of a habitual Catholic. At the time I was not even aware the creed was written in 325CE well before the concept of a round earth, a solar system and universe were understood.
The 2 great strengths of this community were the music and the liturgy. I was particularly concerned when we relocated, that the music would not survive or not be as good as it was. It was not an easy task. We had many different views on how to proceed.
Whilst this space is comfortable and ideal for us, it comes to us only through the generosity of key people in the Union movement. It is also never designed for music and is acoustically challenging to say the least. We could virtually get away without mikes in the old church, where as in this space we need a lot of equipment to replicate the sound. The community bought the sound equipment we now use from its own funds. After some teething issues, we seem to have that under control now albeit we sometimes can blast people who sit too close to the speakers.
Like many in this community I have read a lot of banned books over the past few years. You know a book will be insightful and challenging if it’s on the Catholic Church’s banned list. One of those authors was John Shelby Spong.
I had the great privilege and honour to meet Bishop Spong in 2007. My connections with my employer the Anglican Church allowed me to gain a rare insight to one of the most influential progressive theologians of the last hundred years.
Spong enable me to read a Gospel story without having a sense of embarrassment. I no longer had to believe they were literally true. And unless you believe that 2,000 years ago the law of physics changed enough to allow dead people to rise, for angels to appear, to a human to walk on water etc… then accepting a literal interpretation of the gospels requires you to suspend your disbelief and become beholden to blind faith.
Spong speaks of a Jesus not a man of literal miracles but as one who was so in tune with his real life that his earthly life that death did not matter to him. He refers to this understanding of God as the “Ground of our Being”. Not an elsewhere God, but one “that is all and in all”.
With these new insights I can no longer tolerate the beatings of Orthodoxy Morons…
Greta Vosper captured this beautifully in her book “With or without God” as TAWOGFAT – “The authoritive word of God for all time”. It is phonetically so close to the word “Hog Fat” that I had to smile. But it sums up the ridiculous notion that the Bible is the “Word of God”, no if’s and not but’s. So therefore, if you question the bible you question God. Catholics had the catechism in lieu of the bible as the church did not want the laity to own or read the bible – that was the church’s job. I had throughout my Catholic upbringing been fed TAWOGFAT all my life. Only in the last 10 yeas have I cut out the TAWOGFAT in my spiritual diet and I feel much better for it.
In late January of this year, I had her book with me when I was sitting on the veranda looking out to the ocean at Maroochydore. I love watching the waves especially if I have a drink in my hand.
I watched the waves. I can see them. They have shape and form. They have a limited life, and once they break on the shore, they merge back into the ocean from which they came. No two waves are ever the same. We have traditionally seen Jesus (and ourselves) as the wave. I think Jesus realised he was the ocean. The concept of this one life was revealed to me by watching those waves on that particular summer’s day. We are the ocean, not the wave. “I am all and in all”.
Modern progressive theology does not see the gospels as TAWOGFAT, but a collection of stories, poems and tribal propaganda that has been cobbled together to form various versions of the book called the bible. They are limited by the time and culture in which they were written. It was some 70 years before the first gospel was written. They are works of men, not literal truth.
For example, our Gospel today, we see the apostles suggesting that they could bring fire down to smite the Samaritans. Early follows would have recognised that fire was a power assigned to Elijah one of the great Jewish prophets. The writer was painting a picture of Jesus as the new Elijah and those hearing this story would have recognised it as such.
Peter and Terry had the courage to speak out against the dogma of the Catholic Church that blinds us to the beauty and rich message of the gospels. We paid for it by ultimately being removed from our church, but from this pain we now have freedom.
We are free from dogma, the power structures that maintain them and the Church’s intractable attitude towards woman. With all of the horrible stories of ritualised sexual abuse against children that has been covered up for decades it is an embarrassing time to be a Catholic. And let’s not forget the recently announced “crime” of ordaining a woman priest placed on the same level of seriousness as child rape.
I note that those that were so quick to see fault in our community’s liturgy have been notably silent on these issues. The Church’s reputation is now about as bad as BP’s image as a “green” oil producer.
The changes and freedoms we have are becoming more and more self evident. In any mainstream Catholic Church, I and many community members would not be able to deliver the Homily. I would not have been inspired by Mary Fletcher’s homily on Mary Mackillop. I would not have shed a tear when Mary Peace told us of her journey with cancer. As women, their homilies are not permitted.
Many of us are have come to, or are coming to the conclusion that we don’t need the Church to get into heaven. It’s no longer a place for the chosen. I am not sure it’s even a place. And the Church’s role in our salvation? Well, if we never “fell from grace, then we have no need to be “saved”.
Hence the church is sort of out of a job.
And lets not forget “guilt”, the gift that just keeps on giving for generations.
We take these things for granted at SMX but that is the reality. Some in the community may feel uncomfortable with changes to the way we gather around the table for communion. But this is not a community to attend if you wish to feel comfortable.
We grow spiritually when we challenge others and ourselves. Not in a pious or arrogant way, but in a way that repeats that long held St Mary’s mantra that “everybody is invited and nobody is turned away”.
One of the problems during our separation was responding to the proposition that “if you break the rules, then you’re out”. It is difficult to respond with a 10 second sound bite because the issue is just so much deeper. You need to firstly establish if the rules are just and if the rules are true to the message of the gospel. You cannot do that in a dumbed down media debate without falling into the trap of defining what it is we collectively believe.
To do so, frankly I think would be an insult to everybody present. One particular person cannot speak on behalf of everybody’s personal spiritual creed. Once we try and draw a box around ourselves and state “That is what St Mary’s in Exile believes!” we run the very real risk of excluding new insights and new ways to experience our shared journey.
I am comfortable with a consultative approach to liturgy that has been taken which is one of trial (and sometimes) error. As we move as a community in any particular direction, it will require a process of continual reassessment. What is not good is removed until all you are left with is beauty. If we think we will ever achieve this then we have already failed. We must constantly critically assess our collective offering to avoid becoming the very thing we left – institutionalised and resistant to change.
My own concept of prayer has changed. I no longer look to an external parental figure for divine freebees but see prayer as a way of tapping into that seldom used area of our inner self. Prayer can connect us with this one’s real life and unite us in a way that seems almost transcendent. But we need to stop partitioning a mythical father figure who will grants us this and grant us that. The way we pray also needs to mature.
Finally, given that music is such a large part of my St Mary’s experience, I would like to share with you one of only a handful of songs I have ever written. This is a feat in itself because as the very talented women whom I sing with will tell you, I can’t read music very well at all and often drive them to distraction with my totally lack of technical skills.
I hope this song strikes a chord for you all…
We are the Ocean
Copyright David M Cantwell 2010
Capo 4th fret D G D A
Wake up to our real life
To that which divides us
Throw out the message of fear
It’s the message of “oneness”
Is that which unites us
The one that we’ve waited to hear
The Spirit’s within us
It never really left us
So what do we have to fear?
When anger and violence
Are replaced with kindness
The need for rules disappears
Chorus
G D A
We are the ocean
We’re not the wave
We are the spirit
We’ve no need to be saved
The Ground of our Being
Now that worth believing
The rest can just fade away
No longer is heaven
A place for the chosen
When the wonder of life is “today”
Wake up to the feeling
That life is unceasing
The body is just an illusion
Love is the answer
When hatred and anger
Just keep us apart and in fear
Chorus
G D A
We are the ocean
We’re not the wave
We are the spirit
We’ve no need to be saved
Now that we’ve started
We have now departed
From power, rules and exclusion
We’re do we take this?
It’s something we can’t miss
When we gather as one here today
Let keep what is sacred
Throw out what is hatred
It’s a freedom now in our hands
Reach out with love now
Awakened and strong now
Our “real” life is here now today!
Chorus
G D A
We are the ocean
We’re not the wave
We are the spirit
We’ve no need to be saved
We are the ocean
We’re not the wave
We are the spirit
We’ve no need to be saved
23/07/2010 at 8:47 pm Permalink
My mum loves this quote!
26/07/2010 at 11:05 am Permalink
Well done, David. I wished I had been there to hear both your homily and your song!
27/07/2010 at 4:25 am Permalink
Bravo David for sharing with us your own journey at St Marys in Exile and the transformation it brought to your Christian’s faith . I could not be present when you gave the homily so I deeply appreciated reading it on the web. I thank Peter for challenging you so many times, to our benefit it brought great results. Your involvement with the choir and the choir itself have been part of my delights at St Marys. Though I can no longer attend the Community’s celebrations, the melodies, the ensemble, the talents, the passion, the choice of hymns,songs, the music are still with me today. The bulletin and web site are surely among my favourites. Thank you David.
29/07/2010 at 1:57 pm Permalink
I’d like to add some musings on points that David has raised. Regarding the laws of physics not allowing for literal miracles. Given that physicists describe our universe as being made up of 4% ‘ordinary matter’ – the stuff we can see, taste, smell, and measure with X-rays, radio waves and other gismos, 22% of ‘dark matter’ – stuff that physicists hypothesis MUST exist but is invisible because they can’t see or measure it. Then there is the massive 74% of ‘dark energy’ – the force that is causing the universe to expand and thereby defying the laws of physics that predict the gravitational pull of the universe on itself should be causing it to contract.
As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet ‘There is more to heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ 96% more according to the physicists.
Ghandi once described the great religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as being like the digits on a hand and the palm of the hand representing God. Though each digit is separate and different, when traced from fingertip down, they trace a line to the palm of the hand. So too all religions lead to God.
Within each of these religions there exist the elements of mysticism and religious observance/belief, the biblical Martha and Mary. To state that God ‘is all and in all’ is to recognise that God exists in each of these aspects. To cut oneself off from the wisdom of other religions or elements of your own religion, through intolerance generated from some new insight is, to use your analogy of the ocean, to cut oneself off from the ocean. To become the wave that ends up filling a rock pool. To become what SMX was trying to grow away from.
As a regular member of St Mary’s Community, your comment about ‘a consultative approach to liturgy’ comes as news to me and doesn’t reflect my experience or that of the many other members I know.
05/08/2010 at 2:46 pm Permalink
On ‘a consultative approach to liturgy’:
Liturgy expresses beliefs. Since there is no unifying set of beliefs for this community (other than being anti anything resembling a Catholic belief), a liturgy-by-consultation is bound to end up being vague, incoherent and wishy-washy. Sounding high minded, but expressing nothing very much.
Can I suggest a suitable prayer? ‘God, whoever or whatever you may be, or not be, please send us some new ideas so that we might stop obsessing over what Catholics believe, and start to define ourselves through who we are now, not what we once were.’
06/08/2010 at 10:29 am Permalink
Yes, well all that’s true Perry, and Peter Kennedy would happily say mass in a tent. But we’re talking about people’s lives here – 30 years in fact of St Mary’s history – at the old St Mary’s there is an emphasis on our church history, and the last 30 years are part of our history, worts and all. The break-away group could call themselves “St Mary’s Bananas” or “Micah Church” or whatever, for all I care, but they good, and sincere, and decent people, and their members are always welcome in our church to visit and say hi as they would make us welcome in theirs. That is what the Christian gospel is about – hospitality. These divisions and fights mean little in the grand scheme of centuries, this is 2010 – we’ve seen enough divisions and fights throughout church history, and there is a need for above all compassion and love in the recent St Mary’s story – for values we all hold dear and pray every week in the Lord’s Prayer at mass “Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…”. Forgiveness, acceptance, love, tolerance of difference. If the Catholic church seems to fail a little at times to do this, then it is up to all of us to show those Christian values.
06/08/2010 at 12:06 pm Permalink
Tim, as an outsider I don’t see this in terms of a religious fight. This is, as you say, 2010 and people are free to believe in any religious creed or none at all.
I have no doubt that the SMX folk are all good, decent, well meaning people. All I have tried to do is help them get their thinking straight. They will invariably say how great it is to have freed themselves from the Catholic Church, and gone on their Journey. Yet, if I were I bookmaker I would give good odds that in the next week or two a guest speaker will feel the need to select some Catholic doctrine and explain yet again how stupid or childish it would be to believe it – as if his or her audience still remained to be convinced.
You don’t get very far on a journey if you are facing backwards, looking at the place you have come from.
06/08/2010 at 3:46 pm Permalink
And that’s the whole point ‘Perry’.. you are, we are led to believe an ‘outsider’.
Those who support the excellent organisation Micah, such as myself and David Cantwell, we are not outsiders. We are heavily involved in both the St Mary’s churches, and are we are the ones who are left to pick up the pieces after the dramatic events on 2008/09. In David’s case, a permanent building has to be found for a new community, many members of which are retirees, and older folk, for whom leaving their church where they had lived their lives over many years – well no human being doesn’t see the sadness in that – this is not a time for doctrinal lectures.
For me at the old church, I am supporting a struggling and small congregation which is rebuilding, and wants to continue Catholic traditions, but also preserve an historic church site for not just Catholics but for our wider community, as part of Brisbane’s heritage. Imagine if St Mary’s DID close, and those who had left had no St Mary’s to return to just to visit in future years… But if as you say, you are an outsider, perhaps this doesn’t concern you, and it should if you want to write regularly on this blog, you involve yourself in this community.
06/08/2010 at 10:22 pm Permalink
Tim, it seems to me that the ‘doctrinal lecturing’ has generally come from the SMX guest speakers, often delivered with the opinion that anyone believing said doctrine, from the pope down, is stupid, delusional, childish or moronic (I think all these pejoratives have been used in recent weeks). I know that you have said you are not too fussed about doctrine, so maybe this just washes over you, but surely it is not unreasonable for someone, even an outsider, to want to respond.
If the community doesn’t welcome ‘outside’ opinion, or only when it is in syrupy agreement with Peter and Terry, might I respectfully suggest that the website be changed to make this clear.
06/08/2010 at 11:16 pm Permalink
Perry, my previous response refers to the people involved in BOTH camps, those who have either stayed with the Catholic church, or left the church to form a community called SMX which has no permanent residence. More importantly, my response refers to the human story of those people, which is not an enitrely happy story, in fact there’s an element of sadness in that story.
Your continued headlong persuit of doctrinal policing over human compassion is not only highly inappropriate, it is not a Christian response. You entirely fail in your contributions to this website to understand the human issues involved in this split, people who have given their lives to the Catholic church, and let this go. History is replete with splits from the Catholic church – we are all aware there are doctrinal issues – we are not ignorant of history, and I am not unaccepting of church authority.
What I do not accept is your complete lack of compassion in your arguments, and understanding of the human story involved, hence why your contribution to this website takes on the guise of farce. Such posturing on your part can simply not be taken seriously.
08/08/2010 at 9:13 pm Permalink
Tim, most people at some time in their lives will reassess some beliefs and arrive at others. Of course this can be traumatic especially if the previous beliefs were long held and strongly held. Consider the priest whose strong beliefs once led him to a lifetime commitment to difficult vows. But really – and I know you will think this harsh and uncaring – really, all you can do is to follow where your new convictions lead you. By all accounts this is a strong and supportive group where everyone reports that they are very happy to be free at last from under the yoke of Catholicism.
Sectarian animosity ought to be a thing of the past. There is a period of, usually, less than one hour a week set aside for communal Catholic worship. That leaves 167 hours where people of all persuasions should be able to knock about amicably in their daily lives.
09/08/2010 at 8:53 pm Permalink
Well I have stayed right out of this for a few weeks now as both of you are doing a sterling job of raising the debate up a notch or three…
Good prayer “Perry”, we might just use that next week, without the bit about obsessing about Catholic believe as that would be counterproductive.
But seriously I really don’t think that many at SMX hold any grudge, worry about who is at the old church etc etc… I certainly have a great deal of respect for Tim and his musical talents and I rejoice that he has found a place at St Mary’s Church.
I just know that at the moment I and others are happy to gather at the TLC each week. Whatever the future holds, so be it, but for the moment we are enjoying where we are.
11/08/2010 at 10:52 pm Permalink
There is a sense with these church communities where people attend on a weekly basis that even after just a year (and I’ve played music at about 100 masses in that time) that you have journeyed some considerable distance. I’ve met people from the old St Mary’s who say SMX should not have the “St Mary’s” in their name – I wasn’t certain about that at first either, but as time goes on, I tend to agree with that less – there could be 100 St Mary’s – there is St Mary’s Kangaroo Point Anglican Church, a St Mary’s cathedral in Sydney.. and ‘Mary’ used in a multitude of instances in the Australian church, why not simply another St Mary’s? People have joined SMX since 2009 who did not attend the old church.
The ‘exile’ part is still strange to me – I wasn’t exiled, along with others who stayed at the old church. But i’ve come to see ‘exile’ in a positive way – I’m a musician, I’m creative, and musicians often are eccentric characters – St Mary’s under Kennedy came to be full of eccentrics, but my goodness, that’s nothing unique to any church!
Though here’s the thing for me – there is a conservatism to any religious community I’ve found, be it Catholic, Anglican, Pentacostal.. including members who may be Labor suporters, National Party Supporters, Greens… whoever.. because the nature of the conservatism in these communities is you build friendships, and that’s what you attempt to conserve over time – as much as the rituals and beliefs – faith, these bonds with people.
A church without a positive long-term plan tho – it reminds me a little of that scene at the end of the the 1987 movie Babette’s Feast, where a pious Christian community has seemingly by accident enjoyed a rare and sumptous feast, and a little too much wine, and are out dancing under the stars, and come to realise they have grown old.
In 2004 I came to the conclusion that this positive vision was for a community to be formed under the umbrella of Micah – not St Mary’s – but I am not the one to make that call – it is for Micah and SMX.
12/08/2010 at 7:30 pm Permalink
Have to add a postscript – I was like David there in the 1980s, played piano, trumpet, synth for many masses with Dean Hamilton, went down to Numenbah, and so on, and yet i don’t remember talking to you David till 2006 after 9am mass to talk about St Mary’s music. That is actually a large issue in the whole St Mary’s/SMX story, and actually any church really with different worship services, or large numbers at worship services, even moderate numbers – often people can go to the same church and have little to do with each other, yet have a shared history. Just one of those oddities of church communities.