St Mary's

I pay my respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders, our First Nations People. Specifically I remember Queensland Elders, including Sam Watson and thank him for his support in my sharing with you today. On this Mothers’ Day, we also honour the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander mothers and grandmothers, many of whom continue to weep.

It was in 2010, a month after our son-in-law had died. I had retired from my principalship at Lourdes Hill. I knew that I still needed to work for a whole range of reasons, but I was literally drifting.

I was asked by one of the most inspiring women I know, Aboriginal Ngugi woman Cindy Shannon to take temporary work with the Qld Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Foundation – QATSIF which had only started operation the year before. The Foundation, set up by the Qld Labour Government had commenced operations with a vision to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander families by providing scholarships for Years 11 and 12 students in Queensland secondary schools. It was hoped that  these scholarships would encourage more young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to complete Year 12 and put themselves in a position of being able to access further tertiary or work opportunities.

The second round of Years 11 and 12 scholarship applications  were being submitted by schools  and there was no one in the office. I said I would get “QATSIF over the hump.” With the help of a young Uni student, we were able to process submissions, enable them to be assessed by the predominantly Indigenous  QATSIF Board, set up agreements with schools and roll out the scholarship program. It was a small fledgling program.

Three years and 1,500 scholarships later in over 140 secondary schools in Queensland, I am still with QATSIF. And so is the Uni student. We have run a very lean office to enable more money for scholarships.

I walked into our liturgy last week and saw the Union notice board displaying “Stolen Wages Room 4.” I have such mixed emotions about the issue. From the 1890s until the 1970s the Queensland Government controlled the wages and savings of Aboriginal Queenslanders who worked under the ‘Protection Acts ‘. Some workers lived on settlements and missions and their wages were paid in rations, shelter and some cash. Other workers were sent to work for employers and their wages were paid into a savings account held by the government.

The past practice of Governments and employers withdrawing wages from Aboriginal people was wrong, demeaning and disempowering.  The fact that the Beattie and Bligh Government put money aside to try to make some form of compensation was  way overdue. The process commenced in 2002.  How some money was paid to claimants was complex and there are many old people still in great pain.  The QATSIF Foundation was set up by the Labour Governments to be funded by the interest on unclaimed funds from this money the Government had set aside.  I was torn in working for an organisation that seemed in the first instance to be at odds with the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people… There were two things that have influenced me to stay working with QATSIF:

1. I know that my work with the students in these schools has resulted in better outcomes for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.. I have been able to work with others in creating the QATSIF Story so that our scholarship recipients as well as non-Indigenous young Queenslanders can learn about this sad and shameful history of our State and indeed the whole of Australia.
2. I know that nothing was to be gained by saying “I won’t work with this organisation tainted by such a shameful history,” because if I did not do the work, someone else would and I knew that maybe the way I went about the work might make a difference. Let  me take you into some of my experiences:

• Secondary schools as far north as Thursday Island, West at Mt Isa and Longreach and Cunnamulla and all the way down the Queensland cost, we now have 140 secondary schools with students on QATSIF scholarships. Our schools are in the State Education System, Independent Sector and Catholic Sector. What really saddens me is how much schools are now relying on QATSIF support because funding for previous education support programs from Government and education systems has decreased significantly and unjustly.
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  Claudia Moodoonuthi

  I can introduce you to Claudia Moodoonuthi, a young Bentick Island woman who left school last year. Her school Clayfield College helped her through Link Up to  find her mother and staff from the school actually took her out the other side of Mt Isa to meet her mother. I am going to ask Marg if we can perhaps share her wonderful story in a St Mary’s Matters. Claudia is now doing Art at Griffith Uni and is a recognised national and international artist and it was with the QATSIF scholarship that she first enrolled in a photography course. This then led her in Year 11 to picking up a paintbrush for the first time.

• I can introduce you to Chinchilla HS students who had not been to Brisbane and who begged their teacher to bring them down for our New Scholarships Recipients Breakfast in February. The teacher said she would if they were up and ready by 2.45am. They were and here they are.
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  Nykeea Raymond

  I can introduce you to Nykeea Raymond is the first female Indigenous student to hold a School Captain position at Longreach State High School. Nykeea only came to the school at the beginning of 2012 and never considered running for School Captain until she went on Leadership Camp at Emu Gully. There she shone like a bright star as her outgoing personality helped the group come together. She not only participated in all the activities but always led them, and came up with workable solutions that were often the ones which got the job done. Nykeea decided that she would like to have an influence over students at school and applied for the position. She won this comfortably, with major support coming from students. Nykeea has already demonstrated her leadership skills by working with a group of indigenous girls who were having issues. How great that a QATSIF scholarship supports Nykeea

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  Emily Foster

  I can introduce you to Emily Foster from Mary Mackillop College who creates her own songs. She wrote a wonderful song called Tapsticks. It is about her grandmother returning home after being forcibly removed….called by the sound of the tapsticks.This is what Emily said about her song:

Well, My Mum was taken for a little bit and she wrote about missing her mum and so forth, and I didn’t know my nan went through the same thing! So my mums uncle gave my mum some notes my nan left behind and mum gave them to me! I was reading through how she felt and what she went through and yeah, I wrote a song, Sadly those notes are lost, because we keep moving houses.

We will reflect with Emily’s song after communion.

Aunty Ruth Hegarty on the right

I can introduce you to Elder, Aunty Ruth Hegarty,the author of three great books:

• Hegarty, Ruth,  1999. Is That You Ruthie?  Brisbane: University of Queensland Press
• Hegarty, Ruth, 2003. Bittersweet Journey. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press
• Hegarty, Ruth, 2011. Jack’s Story: The Life and Times of a Cherbourg Dormitory Boy as told to Ruth Hegarty. Taigum: Yubuna Munya
• Aunty Ruth lives at Zillmere and had been on the original Stolen Wages Committee fighting for the return of all the allocated funds to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Last year, she accepted the role of Patron of QATSIF saying:

I am pleased to accept the position of Patron of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Foundation

As a member of the “Stolen Wages” our fight for justice (though not completely successful), and challenge to government fell on deaf ears. The loss of wages created considerable stress for our Elders who felt they had been robbed, considering the years spent in employment  and sometimes far away from families.  To be denied  their full entitlement was a great insult.

In support of all unclaimed monies, I believe the move to set up the Foundation by Government  is a way of making sure our children benefit and achieve greatness in  higher education of which we, the Elders,  were deprived.

If this (QATSIF) benefits the future of emerging Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers and Sporting Men & Women, the outlook is promising.  I am an avid believer in the power of education plus the importance of learning from Elders who bring knowledge of Country, Culture and Community

I have learned so much in my work:

·        I am reminded that if there are gaps in education of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander students, they can be highly intelligent but victims of gaps in their learning that can easily make schools and education systems think they can’t learn and consign them to ESL or Learning Support classes that don’t suit their learning.

·     That it only takes one staff member in a school who engages with a child to motivate that child to succeed. Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander students are quick to identify the one staff member who believes in them and in whom they can trust – this applies to all children really.

·         That more Aboriginal parents now often find a voice in their school community because their son or daughter has a  QATSIF Scholarship and they can be more at ease within the school circle because our scholarships demand that schools consult the parents.

·       Students can and do appreciate the injustices of the past in relation to stolen wages and many of them say that their ancestors are like spirits walking with them through school and they don’t want to let them down

·      I am in a privileged position of having been my whole life in education, now able to walk with these young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and their parents in not only the Catholic but the State and Independent schools and to see the dedication and commitment in so many especially with poor and in some cases disgraceful levels of resourcing.

·    It is hard for Aboriginal people today to make progress when it seems that Governments can take advantage of their own varying views, dissent and fragmentation in Aboriginal communities. The Katter Party have recently joined the Council of Unions in calling on the State Government to hand over all of the funds to Aboriginal and State Islander people but it is not a simple issue. It seems to  make for good publicity though.

·         Real outcomes will come about in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education when schools have the opportunity to work with and across Government Departments to address issues of Housing and health and to overcome the corrosive poverty which can destroy any educational advantage that may be possible.

Our small office regularly takes calls from anyone who may have googled “Aboriginal” and QATSIF seems to come up. The calls that I most love are the many we receive from the grandmothers worried about their grandchildren’s education. I can often hear the grandmothers crying for their children and grandchildren and tirelessly exploring every avenue to have the young ones access the best in education. On this Mothers’ Day, many continue to weep

I am left with deep deep questions:

1. Why is that an Ed Queensland teacher in country Qld is personally paying the bus fare for an eager young Aboriginal Year 10 student to get to school because in the family there is no money left for the bus fare? Thank God she is.
2.  Why is it that so many of our teachers are personally providing  for a child to start the day learning with food in their stomach? Thank God they are.
3.  Why is that most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who become teachers quickly move into higher paid office jobs and never get to teach?
4.  Why is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Education Counsellors have been appointed to schools to liaise with Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander families but in the case of two Logan high schools with almost 3000 students between them the Community Education Counsellor is paid to work at one school for one day per fortnight and at the other school for 3 days per fortnight….and this person is the most significant port of call for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander students?

What I fear most is that this current State Government will not discern through Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander eyes what might be best for the future. I have learned that we must pay respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to the point of asking and keep on asking for their wisdom….and there are many voices  to whom we must listen.  I fear that this current Government may take what it sees as its large mandate to govern as permission to make decisions not  based on listening to the pain and the quiet wisdom of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders. Like Jesus did in today’s gospel, let Governments and we who elect them go to the outskirts and the margins.  Let Governments, and we who elect them, recognise that maybe the message of Ascension Day is that power from on high has already been bestowed on our First Nations Peoples and that Aboriginal history demands that the Spirit, the Spirit of the Dream must speak….and we must listen

My hope is that philanthropy and  corporate funding will replace the current funding for our scholarships. I hope this QATSIF scholarship program soon to open up its 5^th round of scholarships  will outgrow any potential political interference especially from cash strapped governments and that Aboriginal people will experience a sense of justice in regard to their Stolen Wages. I conclude though  giving voice to one of our QATSIF scholarship students:

Flavien Broome – Alexandra Hills State High School:

QATSIF is great. QATSIF has taken the worry out of my school life and made my educational goals easier to achieve. Mum and I don’t have to worry about the expenses associated with education like uniforms, school fees and excursions. I would never have had the school laptop without this scholarship and now I’m just like everyone else. I also do a Certificate III in Business and work in the city one day a week. QATSIF helps to get me there each week and I hope this traineeship will turn into a job after I graduate with a QCE. The QATSIF kids from my school also get to go to Indigenous dance and theatre productions at QPAC is it’s a real chance to connect with my culture that I never had before.

And to:

My professional journey as an educator in Catholic Education was indeed rich in experience and opportunities but now in this unexpected journey with QATSIF I realise how limited I was by a seemingly narrow Catholic view of the world.

My spiritual journey is indeed richer for this experience and while the negotiations about unpaid Stolen Wages are out of my hands,  I  can continue to work with schools and young Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Queenslanders, that the legacy of the sacred toil of their ancestors can drive them towards education – education that will encourage  a  passion for justice  and in Oodgeroo’s words, “a glad tomorrow.”

May we all be one infused with the Spirit in the great Temple of our land and in the hearts of our First Nations peoples.

“Gowrie Boys” Shine“Gowrie Boys – Brotherhood” from St Teresa’s College Abergowrie in 2011 won the Urban Youth Category Award at the  Australian Indigenous Hip Hop and R&B Music Awards and demonstrate  what QATSIF Scholarship Recipients can achieve. Through the QATSIF network, Mangu who starts in the video applied for a Bond University scholarships and is now there in his second year doing his Law Degree.

When I say the words hope, inspire, lead I wonder who or what you think of?

Hi everyone, my name is Loretta Crombie and I was first introduced to St Mary’s when my parents became part of the congregation in 1998. Since then, I have had exposure to a variety of intellectually stimulating debates and discussions that have stemmed from St Marys.

Last week, in Amanda’s touching homily, we heard about the atrocities against women in Afgahnistan. Following on from that, the readings tonight have been based on how people going through adversity need help and hope to carry on.

Among us, there are amazing people, courageous people, who are not any different from you or me genetically, but who have the courage to speak up and take action against injustice.

To give food to those who are hungry,

To give drink to those who are thirsty

To invite in the homeless and welcome strangers
To give hope to those who cannot see what tomorrow could bring.

These people naturally become leaders and through their leadership, can inspire hope for others to carry on. They have the power of creating a snowball effect in a community.

Leymah Gbowee (author of the first reading) is an example of one of those people.

Leymah Gbowee has talked and written about the acts against women that she witnessed in her country of Liberia. As a girl she was subjected to war from the age of 17 onwards. She talks about how it was not until she was 30 that she had the courage to do something about that war. But together, with other women, she inspired a country of women in Liberia to take action against the terrible atrocities that were occurring in their country. Through peaceful demonstrations, they were successful in getting Charles Taylor, the dictator during 1997- 2003 removed from power and having the first female prime minister elected.  In 2012 Leymah was named one of the Noble peace prize winners and today she continues to demand human and women’s rights and the end of corruption in Liberia.

Leaders who inspire can be anyone of us. Look at those who helped this community through the trials over the recent years. Terry, Peter, Karen, Ted, our fantastic choir … small acts can make a big difference to community moral.

In Tanzania, in a country that is thought of as a great safari holiday destination, there is ongoing poverty and persecution of females, and/or as a consequence, children.

Esta, Nai, and Salim

I say as a consequence, because whilst a common Tanzanian proverb says ‘there is no guardian for a child like a mother’, when woman are subjected to so much violence and there are no social structures to support them, their ability to support or protect their children is dramatically decreased.

Out of a total population of 45 million people:[1]

• 54% of the community believes wife beating is justified and
• 75% of all children in Tanzania are victims of physical violence
• 30% of girls and 13 % of boys will experience at least one incident of sexual violence during childhood
• an additional 25 % of girls and nearly 30 % of boys are subjected to emotional violence before the age of 18 and
• 15% of girls are still subjected to female genital mutilation

Whilst these stats have improved dramatically over the last ten years, unfortunately the changes are predominately in the main cities. However the rural communities are not improving at the same rate.

As an example, in a recent visit to Tanzania, I met with some psychologists I had previously worked with when I was volunteering in Tanzania in 2009. They shared with me the despair they feel when, on a daily basis, they meets young girls who are being sexually abused by someone within their family.

Despite them being strong feminists, they have come to accept that currently, in Arusha and the surrounding areas, there is limited practical sense in trying to develop a safety plan and encouraging women to leave their husbands like we do here in Australia (even for the sake of their children’s safety). She has witnessed too many women being forced to return home due to:

1. 1.       The complete lack of social services to support women,
2. 2.       Community beliefs regarding women being the property of their husbands and
3. 3.       The very real impact of these women having no income to support themselves if they leave their husbands.

Loretta & Shona from foodwateshelter assist women in Tanzania to lead better lives.

Foodwatershelter is an organisation that I was introduced to through St Marys in 2008, when another inspiring leader, Shona Arneil, came to speak about a project she and four other Australian women had decided to develop, alongside inspirational leaders within Tanzania.

In 2009, Food Water Shelter became a reality. Food Waters Shelter built accommodation, a community health clinic and education facilities within the Sinon village. Today the organisation provides:

1. accommodation to 7 families,
2. health services to over 150 community members,
3. education services to over 75 children and
4. social welfare support to 100 vulnerable woman, children and families from the Sinon community.

This is due to the fantastic support from this community in the past and others throughout Australia.

The women I have met through this organization are again, amazing, inspirational examples of women who are not necessarily what their neighbours would consider heros, but women who have taken leaps of courage to stand up for justice and what is right.

An example I would like to share with you tonight is that of Sarah.

Sarah is a mother of four from Sinon and was introduced to foodwatershelter in 2008.

In 2008, Sarah was escaping domestic violence from her husband. The domestic violence had hit such an extreme level that, eldest son, aged 9, was found battered and close to death down by the town river. The community elders decided to implement an informal restraining order (of sorts) and told the husband he was not permitted within the community.

Sarah was lucky. Not many women are usually supported in such a way, and, as mentioned earlier, not many women are usually able to financially sustain themselves without a husband either.

Luckily, in Sarah’s case, she was able to gain the help of fws, who provided accommodation for the family, pay for all the children’s education and health care needs and provided Sarah with a job.

Sarah has still suffered terribly from post traumatic stress. Mental health issues are never easy to deal with, however in Tanzania, mental health is highly stigmatised, making it even harder for those coping with mental health issues. But Sarah has still continued to push forward. She has utilised a micro finance program to purchase her own land and, on the weekend is often found with her four children, harvesting crops and planting new ones.

This year she announced that she wants to go back to school. She only made it to grade five and wants to now go on to finish school and then study to become a teacher. When I asked her why she wanted to become a teacher, she said that through assisting the food water shelter teaching staff, she felt a responsibility to help more children get an education. She has also said that she is at a stage where she feels that she wants to give back to the community, so she will be working alongside a caretaker to provide a home to two more orphans who we will be supporting through food water shelter.

From a woman in 2008 who was considered so vulnerable, today Sarah is living a life that can bring hope to single women, those escaping domestic violence and those battling with their mental health.

Her story may not be glamorous, she may never be even considered for noble peace prize winner, but what I love about witnessing Sarah’s journey is that through seeking help and holding onto hope, she has given she children a different life, and her story has the capacity to help create a snowball effect for other women in similar situations in her community to eventually believe that they could do something similar.

Having witnessed the impacts of this work, I have become inspired to join the board of fws and I continue to work with the Tanzania staff to develop their social welfare programs in the community.

This is only one story of many within fws and fws is only one of many organisations internationally that are working to support increased access to human rights. I would strongly encourage you to support these organisations in any small way you can think of.

I would like to end with a Tanzanian saying kidogo kidogo kidogo inakuwa mengi…..Little by little, a little becomes a lot..

Thank you.

Afghanistan is a landlocked country of rugged mountainous beauty, with bitterly cold winters, and blisteringly hot summers. A land with a rich history of poetry (writing poems is considered the province of every person, not an elite group) and a rich and diverse music tradition due to being situated at the confluence of many trade routes. Some Afghan music is heavily influenced by the classical music of Northern India and there is also the folk music of groups like the Tajiks and Hazaras on traditional instruments. Kabul musician Soosan Firooz has been described as Afghanistan’s first female rapper.

From the perspective of one neighbourhood in Herat (AlJazeera.com)

Afghanistan is also one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. In the 1960s, during the reign of the more progressive king Zahir Shah, and during the Russian occupation in the 1970s, Afghan women actively pursued careers as politicians, judges, doctors, teachers and university professors. Women went without the veil more frequently. However, patriarchal attitudes run very deep in Afghan society; the 1960s was the time when men began flinging acid at unveiled women.

Despite women’s relative freedoms during this period, literacy rates were low, child marriage was common, and there were high levels of maternal mortality and domestic violence (round 87% of all women are affected by domestic violence issues). Child marriage and domestic violence remain areas of huge concern, despite the fact that the legal age for marriage in Afghanistan is 16 for girls and 18 for boys. Infant and maternal mortality rates remain among the highest in the world, particularly in rural and remote areas.

When the Taliban arrived in 1996, after decades of war induced destruction, many Afghans welcomed the newcomers, hoping for a new era of peace and stability. However, much worse was to come. The horrors women experienced under Taliban rule are well documented. In particular, life was harsh for ethnic minorities like the Hazaras, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to Pakistan and Iran, where more than 3 million Afghans remain to this day. No ethnic groups have been spared in the bloodshed and devastation however.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the occupation by forces of the ISAF, or NATO led International Security Assistance Force, life has improved to a certain extent for women in Afghanistan, particularly in urban areas. From fewer than 1 million children attending school in 2001, almost none girls, now around 7 million children attend school, 37% of these girls. 40 % of voters in the 2010 elections were women, as were 27% of parliamentarians elected.

But these hard won gains, could so easily be lost. Since 2006, Taliban insurgents have increasingly attacked schools. According to data from Amnesty International, from March to December 2010, 74 schools were closed down after bombings, arson, rocket attacks and students being poisoned. According to the Afghan Ministry of Education, in 2010 34% of schools remained closed in Helmand province and 61% in Zabul for security reasons.

Women who run health and other development NGOs are constantly threatened and base their headquarters in private and undisclosed premises. A common form of intimidation is night letters. Which are pinned to trees, or the doors of mosques or houses These letters often threaten supposed international “spies” or government sympathisers, one example being the night letters before the elections threatening those found with indelible ink on a finger (this prevented double voting) with having that finger cut off.

March against violence toward women (REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail)

Many women in public life (or men supporting women’s rights) have been killed since 2006. The head of women’s police in Kandahar, Malalai Karkar (who led a team of 10 policewomen dealing with cases of domestic violence) was shot dead in 2008. Two women officials leading up the Ministry of Women’s Affairs Hanifa Safi and Najia Sadiqi were killed in 2012. Teachers, journalists, health workers and lawyers have also been targeted. Of real concern is the fact that the Afghan government is currently negotiating with the US government and Taliban officials, and is showing a worrying tendency to pander to Taliban demands where it comes to women’s rights.

So you might ask, what can we do here in Australia to show our support for these courageous and determined girls and women? In 2012, the Australian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Afghanistan pledging around $1 billion in aid to be administered by AusAid over 5 years to 2017. Amnesty International Australia is currently running a campaign calling on our government to direct a sizable proportion of this money to women’s issues.

With troop withdrawal happening in the imminent future, AIA is particularly keen for all political parties to be reminded of our obligation as a nation to protect the rights of Afghan women in this election year.

The hub of the campaign is a petition which can be signed online on the Amnesty International
Australia website. AIA hopes to receive at least 60 000 signatures on this petition by August 2013,
when it will be presented to the Australian parliament.

Over the next months, members of Amnesty International Australia will be meeting with the Government to discuss these key areas of concern.

1. Engagement: the Australian Government can influence the Afghan Government to ensure women have a place at the reconciliation talks with the Taliban, and protection and continued political strengthening of women’s rights. It is imperative that women are adequately represented at any peace councils and in the provincial tribal peace councils or jirgas. Only 9 women were included out of 70 at the High Peace Council of Afghanistan (established 2010), which includes prominent members of the Taliban.

2. Military assistance: ensuring that training to Afghan Government security forces includes a gender component.

3. Development: AIA wants to see a significant proportion of the MoU aid money going to technical assistance, such as providing gender advisors, programs to strengthen women’s rights and the protection and capacity building of women human rights defenders and women generally.

The women of Afghanistan celebrate the modest steps forward they have seen over the last 12 years. However, they are very concerned that these gains not be lost with the withdrawal of the international forces over the next few years. The actions and attitudes of both tribal warlords and extreme exponents of Sharia Law pose a threat to the women of Afghanistan. The issues in this deeply patriarchal, war torn society are immensely complex. Afghan women must lead the way forward for true hope and peace to prevail in the future.

Recently, I met a woman who has recently returned from a visit back to her family in Afghanistan in Kunduz province. Adela spoke of seeing many widowed and single women begging in the streets, desperate to feed their families. She wants to go back to Kunduz and other parts of Afghanistan with a group of fellow Afghans now living in Australia to hold community forums in villages asking people what type of employment projects they would like to set up to provide for their families. If and anyone here would like to hear Adela speak and to offer support for her project, she is happy to speak to groups of interested people, feel free to email/phone me on the below contacts.

Amanda Rosenfeld
0434 557 925
n.quoll@gmail.com

Sources

Don’t Trade Away Women’s Rights Amnesty International UK 2011

Afghan Women’s Rights Toolkit 1 website)

Amnesty 10 Years Report on Human Rights in Afghanistan (AIA website)

http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/afghanistan-women-violence-rural-human-rights-balkh

http://awwproject.org/2013/04/exchange-for-a-cow/

Amnesty International Australia 2013 (Amnesty International Australia)

For just a moment, can you imagine Philip saying to Jesus: ‘hey listen mate, show us the Father, and we’re all gonna be satisfied’.  You see, Jesus has been talking about his Father so much that a little bit of impatience is setting in.  But what a response he gets ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father……….I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these”.  What did this mean for Philip?  What does it mean for me, and all of us?

It’s powerful for me in realising that God is within each of us.  I’m not God;  you’re not God; but together we all show to each other the reality of god’s love.  My relationship with others is possibly the most tangible dimension of who God is to me, of what God means in my life – God becomes real to me through a person or groups of people, but boy, I have to work so hard at it – I tend to be a bit of a loner – I could easily become a hermit – I’m good by myself.

As a fairly timid child from a large family, a shy and unconfident teenager, a struggling student, I found peace and quiet in my mid-teens from something I was able to excel in – distance running.  Over time, this became a very spiritual experience for me – all that time spent running on beaches, roads, golf courses and the Caulfield racetrack became prayer-time, a form of meditation, developing repetitive mantras in time with my footsteps.  I spent so much time alone, and loved every moment of it – but I wondered what life had in store for me – what was I really meant to be doing?   I knew a few Franciscan Friars and was thinking about maybe joining the Order or going to Papua New Guinea as a Lay Missionary.  And then I hurt my back at work and required surgery – I was laid up for a fair amount of time.

A few days after my 21^st birthday I joined the Franciscan Order – the life I sought at that time was a contemplative one.   However, my time as a Friar was short-lived – recurring spinal problems meant two very long stints in the spinal unit at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and even longer periods of recuperation at my parents home.  I remained determined to get back on top.

If I can now fast-forward to a bit more than four years ago when I gave up work to care and assist my wife, Christine as she battled, then died two years ago from cancer – it was during this time that I began to wonder if maybe I could assist patients in some way.  So, last year I enrolled and completed the first stage of the pastoral care course which is run by the Queensland Institute of Clinical Pastoral Education.

I am now the Ward Chaplain for the Oncology Ward at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, and it is this that I want to talk to you about today.  I have chosen to be a non-denominational Chaplain.  I am so conscious speaking with you this morning as  in our community we have a number of people who are cancer patients – I am also aware that we have a number of nurses, doctors and pastoral carers and other health professionals among us – so, what I have to say is coming from the perspective of a relatively new kid on the block.

So often our human response to the suffering of someone we love or to overwhelming tragedy is to ask why? How can this have happened to such a good person?  What did she/he do wrong?  Why, God?  Sometimes we question God – where is God in suffering? – why does God let it happen?

But if God was to blame for the suffering of some people and not others, wouldn’t it be the case that God plays favourites with some and not others?

For those who may have seen the Compass series 12 months ago on Hospital Chaplaincy, Di Roach, a chaplain at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney said:  ‘I don’t have the answers, but the cry of these people needs to be heard, to have someone witness their cry – to stand and hear their outrage and not wither away, to stand there and not leave them – to stay the course with them’.

How often do we hear that suffering and illness is God’s will?  What about some sayings of ‘offer it up – remember that Jesus died on the Cross for us’ -  and that popular one ‘God only sends the biggest crosses to those who can bear them’.

Well,  I believe that these statements are crook theology!

Yes, sure, it does all seem so unfair – I suppose I am now becoming more aware of the unpredictability of life, of how catastrophe can happen to anyone at any time.  I think that God’s role is not to save us from catastrophes, but that God suffers alongside us.  The Australian Jesuit Richard Leonard in his book ‘Where the Hell is God’ told his mother on the day after his sister Tracey became a quadriplegic:  ‘If anyone can prove to me that God sat in heaven last night and thought ‘I need another quadriplegic – Tracey will do’ – that if this is God’s active will – then I’m leaving the priesthood, the Jesuits and the Church’.  And he went on ‘I think that God is as devastated as we are right now that a generous selfless girl, who went all over the world looking after the poor is now the poorest person we know – God is not standing outside our pain, but is our companion within it, holding us in God’s arms, and sharing in our grief and pain’.  I think that it is important not to glorify suffering – it is true that it can lead us to deeper maturity and wisdom, but it can crush the human spirit.

So, where do I see myself in this role as chaplain?  Again, the passage from John’s gospel – ‘you will also do the works that I do’.   Out of that I am thinking that to a patient who is so ill and vulnerable, and to their loved ones, that the Chaplain becomes somewhat the God-person to them in their absolute vulnerability – and isn’t that the challenge, the invitation, in John’s gospel?  To do the things that Jesus does’- at this stage, I’m only trying!

And in mentioning catastrophe – There is a young woman in her early 30s who I have visited each week in another part of the hospital – she has had both legs removed just below the knees, one arm removed just below the elbow, and with her ‘good’ arm, her fingers and thumb have been removed – and she has other internal damage  – all through septicaemia.  How fair is her lot in life?

When I first came across her in November, only a few days after her operations, she was full of hope – I struggled – she is still full of hope – and I’m recovering.

My role is to sit with, to sit beside, to listen – occasionally, people are so angry that they lash out at nurses and doctors and pastoral carers – and sometimes patients will see a pastoral carer as just a religious nutter and just tell you to f— off or piss off – it has happened to me a couple of times, but not in the Oncology Ward – others are just so depressed with their illnesses that they are not able to communicate – sometimes I sit with a patient or family and say nothing.  The presence of a pastoral person seems to comfort them, and remind them that they are neither alone nor forgotten during this difficult time.

On Holy Thursday I spent about four hours with a patient and her grieving family, particularly her husband.  And then, after Mass and coffee on Easter Sunday morning,  I called in to the Hospital to visit her as she had been so much on my mind – unfortunately, I missed her by a few hours – she had passed away -  but I was in the position of being able to just hang around with a couple of the nursing staff – I didn’t say anything but just listened – these extraordinary people, these nurses – they are the ones who minister through physical touch.  Patients dying in Oncology is common, but it does affect the nursing staff, so to be with them at this time after a patient has passed was significant.

In the Oncology Ward,  some of the more advanced or more serious cancer patients know they are going to die soon – a young mother with terminal cancer who can’t talk to her husband about her illness – I know they have a deep, loving relationship- I’ve been at the bedside with both of them – their love shines, but the husband is a quiet and gentle man and just cannot face talking about it – his feelings are a brick wall – both their families live overseas – they have some friends but not deep friendships – and then she tells me ‘and my daughter is only 6 years old’ – she is crying out for someone close who she can talk to.  Sometimes, patients are more open with someone outside the family.

Thankfully, my past has stood me in good stead – time alone,  meditation and prayer, long periods of hospitalisation and recuperation myself, and three years caring for Christine.  Over the last few months I am beginning to recognise that my grief over her death is changing and that there is a kind of stillness coming about.

When I pray, it’s an instinct – a searching for somewhere for the prayers to go – it’s an instinct of sending off an emotion, a plea to the Creator, a lament – I don’t ask for a miraculous healing for the patient,  – I am asking for strength for the patient and their loved ones, and myself, to deal with this crisis – I can recall being like this in the three years leading up to Christine’s death – a resigned willingness to co-operate with nature and a terminal illness.

In this morning’s gospel Philip is impatient to see the Father – what does God look like?  I think we have all wondered this.   At times we hear the phrase ‘seeing the face of God’ when we die.  What does that mean?

Maybe we might consider that the face of God might be the face of the person we are sitting beside right now, in this community, on the bus, at the football, the marginalised, people with mental illness, and, for me, the terminally ill who I visit each day in the Oncology Ward at the PA –  I think that this is what I am trying to discover.  Why wait until we die to see the face of God, when God is all around us in the present.

The very questions that Peter Kennedy posed in his homily on Good Friday, and Brian O’Hanlon’s homily last week are looming larger in my mind – Who am I?  What am I here for, and what will happen to me when I die?

I cannot answer who am I – I know something about my identity, my thoughts, my likes, my dislikes  -  but that’s not who I am. Maybe I’m commencing to get a glimpse of what I’m here for, now that I’m dipping my toe in the difficult world of illness and despair. But as for what is going to happen to me when I die.  I’d like to know the date on which I die and what it will be that causes my death – I want to know how much time I’ve got  -  you see, for most of my working career I’ve been a strategic financial planner – I’ve worked and planned in the future  -  my working in pastoral care is the antithesis of my past – the past has gone, the future hasn’t arrived – there is just the present moment.

As Brian O’Hanlon said last week, the Kingdom of God is an experience rather than a place – I think we are already living that experience of the Kingdom of God – we are already living our eternal life which began billions of years ago, during which time the human person evolved.

My role as a chaplain is about providing spiritual care  -  care of the inner self, the life force, the inner feelings of a person.  First and foremost it is care for the patient, and will often mean providing comfort for the  patient’s loved ones particularly at times of severe illness or when death approaches, or immediately after death  - being a crucial support at a time of intense vulnerability – it is not a time for proselytizing – patients and their families are already vulnerable, so they don’t need a God-botherer hovering about them.

It is amazing how patients and their families get through these tragic times – Di Roach says ‘it is because of loving relationships around them – they find meaning in love – it is love, care and affection that is the most important thing for them’.

Finally, I can tell you that I feel so privileged to be with these people as they walk through their dark valley – when I sit with these people I am truly slap bang in the middle of holy ground.   Suffering makes us all introspective, and we start to ask the meaning of life questions – what is the purpose of life?  Where is God in this deep place of life and death?  Who is their God at this time?

My name is Brian O’Hanlon, and Angela, my wife and I coordinate the St Mary’s ‘Understanding Meditation gatherings’.

In recent homilies there has been the theme of connecting to the true self/real self, the ‘I am’. This homily continues that theme.

In this homily I am going to explore the experience of meditation towards the knowing of spirituality- What is it like as the ‘I am’ presents – but let me start at the beginning. So why take up meditation at all, because you can get by without it – well indulge me for a short time while I outline a few propositions. Meditation seems to be natural to human beings, at least natural in the sense that the practice arose independently in many different parts of the world – in ancient India, China, in the mystical traditions of Islam and Judaism, in the Eastern Orthodox church (indeed they expect to be defied in this lifetime), and there is a potted history in the Western Christian tradition through the Desert Fathers, St John of the Cross, Mister Eckhart, the Cloud of Unknowing, St Ignatius, the Benedictine and Trappist monks and many other mystics and teachers, all telling us that the way to experience God is to empty and quiet the mind. Modern knowledge also informs us that meditation is natural.

Mindfulness meditation is the awareness that arises through PAYING ATTENTION on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally. Paying attention leads to neurogenesis-brain plasticity which practically translates into: improved memory, improved creativity/ efficiency, improved resilience/flexibility, improved problem
solving skills, better relationships, calms the body, creates happiness and inner peace, lowers stress and the list goes on.

Thomas Keating a Trappist monk proposes that our life experience, our personal history is full of EGO, chasing security, power, control, affection, and approval, and as one moves into adulthood with this baggage of possessive attitudes towards one self and others, then such attitudes can only possibly cause conflict in the world. The real problem according to Keating is that we live with seven billion other people who have the same problem – no wonder there are social problems, he exclaims. That’s why, he says, to take a determination not to contribute to this messiness of the world by adding our own false self project to it, is one of the greatest gifts you could give to
humanity. If enough people do it then society will be transformed. According to Laurence Freeman, leader of the world community of Christian meditation, the recovery of the contemplative tradition is a source of renewal for Christianity – out of the church’s chronic crisis a contemplative Christianity will join other faiths as a mediator of compassionate action and healing wisdom in the world.

More specifically Freeman points out, meditation as a form of prayer is not so much concerned with our relationship to God, as with our union with God. The Kingdom of God is an experience not a place. The Chinese call it chi, the Indians prana, Dave Tomlinson, the author of Re-Enchanting Christianity put it this way – in the Jewish tradition it is known as ‘ruach’; prayer is about making connection with the ‘spirit of life’, the life force in all created beings. In a way there is nothing particularly historic about life force – it is simply an energy present everywhere in the universe, a fundamental force which pervades all air space and matter. It seems to be at the core of everything, a kind of underlying ocean of energy from which the universe has arisen. Is this what the quantum physicists are chasing; zero point energy everywhere in the universe, or the dark energy of cosmology, or in the teaching of our tradition the Holy Spirit who Jesus has given us; a non-physical force. The indigenous people of this country seem to know of this life force in their stories and dreaming.

Jesus, I believe, knew of this life force so well and he loved it so much, that to influence those of his day he called it Abba father. Normally our senses are switched off to it. However in spiritual experiences this life force becomes an obvious reality. The expression of our life energy within as it vibrates with the life energy of all that is around us. For Freeman the most important aspect of meditation of connecting with this life force, is that it is utterly simple – a quietening of the mind (and body) – the joy and peace beyond understanding is what happens.

So what is this sensation of quietening the mind? Through the practise of meditation i.e. once you have slowed down your own flickering/chatty mind to some degree you will begin to feel a pleasant sensation of inner well being with a sense of peace and freedom and flow of bliss. This experience can eventually slide from mild to moderate to intense depending on the unique constitution, personal history and regular practise of the mediator, usually moderate to intense takes a long time. With a quiet calm mind there is an increased freedom of the life force (now not used up by the mind), now available to our senses and body which for some provides an external perceptual shift, an openness – the world around us comes to life, everything around seems more real, more beautiful, colours seem brighter patterns and object stand out.

You can be awe struck by the beauty in your garden or in the sky – sunlight has a special quality – everything is filled with a sense of meaning and harmony, we have a powerful sense of inner well-being. We have an awareness of the life force in all, including ourself, so we are in union with this life force and all things – for those who generate very intense experiences; there is a sense of a radiant harmonious force. The ground of all being – the essential reality full of compassion and love. For others the experience is within their own being, again there are different intensities. There is inner well-being with peace and bliss. Also there could be a clearer sense of freedom, a sense of spaciousness – there is an identity shift to the knowing of self that has been with us all our lives, the knowing that you are present, it is the I am the witness that knows that I am having this life, my own life force. When our mind is clear, empty and silent we move beyond freedom and bliss and experience the oneness of all – not so much a oneness though perceptual shift but one with the external life force – the life force of our own knowing flows into the life energy of all – all is one, all is compassion and love. Short temporary experiences of any intensity of the outer perceptual or the inner life energy expression, are very common, we all know someone who could tell us about such experiences. Most likely some of you in this room have had such experiences. Permanent transformations into an intense blissful connectedness with All at this point in our (human) journey, are very rare – however recall Thomas Keating’s plea ‘to seek such peace and freedom is the greatest gift you could offer humanity’.

So to finish up I thought we might spend the last few minutes doing some of this – would you just sit comfortably in the chair, upright if you can or with the support of the back of the chair. Now the only task you have to do for a short time is to (don’t look at it) put your attention in your left hand, concentrate and sustain your attention in your left hand – notice how it becomes more alive, just as in the perceptual shift everything becomes more alive, perhaps warmer, energetic, marked out, clearer boundaries, stronger sensitive – your hand is more present – life force though attention gives your hand more presence. Second paying attention to your bodies breathing rhythm, just attend to the IN rhythm and the OUT rhythm that is the only task In-Out, no correct way, just the uniqueness of your pattern. If you are distracted off task, just acknowledge gently and come back on task IN-OUT, with enough practices the calmness, the stillness of mind and body will arise,

When we practise such utterly simple attention, as the Christian Mystics inform us, to empty and quiet the mind is to experience God-the life force, or to paraphrase Micah, with a quiet mind, one can act justly, love mercifully and walk humbly.

In Richard Rohr’s marvelous book, “IMMORTAL DIAMOND, the Search for our true self” (Richard for those who may not know is a Franciscan priest and author of many books).

He tells a story about a young couple putting their newborn in the nursery for the night. Their four year old son said to them “I want to talk to the baby!” They said “Yes, you can talk to him from now on,” but he pressed further saying “I want to talk to him now and by myself.”

Surprised and curious, they let the young boy into the nursery and cupped their ears to the door, wondering what he might be saying. This is what they reportedly heard their boy say to his baby brother.

Peter  Breen was a Wesleyan Methodist minister for 20 years – 11 years in Bundaberg, 7 years at Everton Hills and 2 years in Melbourne. He is the co-founder and Director of Jugglers Art Space in the Valley, Brisbane.

Peter usually attends the 5 o’clock liturgy with his wife Maeve (Mavis).

TWO BROTHERS, AND A STORY WITH NO ENDING

Lent 4C, 2013 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Just before coming to Brisbane I sat down and calculated it has been nearly 52 years since I left home. And as they say in the classics: a heck of a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then!

While I haven’t lived in the family home with mum and dad since then, my mother had a way of keeping in touch with her absent son.  She told me to send my washing home,  in a box, by bus, each week! And as an obedient first-born son, I complied with her wishes!

Much ink has been spilt over the story of the Prodigals. The story is one of the best known of all the biblical stories in our religious tradition.

It is certainly the longest in the Jesus tradition.  And it’s right up there with the stories of the Good Samaritan, and the imaginative nativity stories of Jesus…
All, I might add, told by the anonymous storyteller we call Luke.

One of the things I love about our St Mary’s liturgy is how the theme of “oneness of all” flows through the prayers and songs.  I find the words of the songs echo through my mind and spirit throughout the week.

A few weeks ago, I had an experienced that clarified for me the concept of the oneness of all.

I was visiting my 94-year-old mother in a public hospital and spent a considerable amount of time there over the week.

TRANSFIGURATION HOMILY (Luke 9, 28-36)

Jesus’ disciples frequently fail to understand what Jesus was on about.  They get it so wrong at times.  Peter in particular tends to put his foot in it and I suspect James only understood what following Jesus meant when he was executed in Jerusalem some 11 years later.

Together with Peter, James and John, Christ’s inner circle, his most spiritual disciples, Jesus went up the sacred mountain, which most likely was the almost 3000 metre high Mount Hermon, some 20 km away from Ceasarea Phillipi, a day’s walk.  Even if they went half way up the mountain, the climb would have been exhausting.  I tell you I valued my comfy bed recently after climbing 1400 metres up the Pyrenees at the beginning of my Pilgrimage.