You are God’s servants
Gifted with dreams and visions
Upon you rests the grace of God like flames of fire
Love and serve the Lord in the strength of the Spirit
May the deep peace of Christ be with you,
the strong arms of God sustain you
and the power of the Holy Spirit strengthen you
In every way
Amen
‘I would like to go, stupidly, towards the bodies that my anxiety has kept me from.’
– Guy Hocquenghem, ‘The Screwball Asses’
I will be content with nothing less that the total and complete destruct-
tion of my body. Now is not the time to be flippant, now is the time to be
sincere, and helpful, but I still say, ‘I like to sleep with people who could
break my ribs id they chose to’. It’s stupid because couldn’t anyone, phys-
ically? And wouldn’t they?
Smashed ceramic chips are like fingernails, kept clipped short
and ragged, scraping over your legs. No two chips are identical. Rough
snaggles, little knives. Obsessively clipped every day. I love forms that
take a long time to set. I love thinking about waiting for the grout to dry.
Thin cylinders, almost meeting in the corner of the room. At the same
time smooth, especially aesthetically, and rough, like a secret. I feel like
I’m visiting the clinic, and I’m into it.
I was clearing away the cups from tea and coffee after group.
There was a tea bag bound to a stirring stick, the string wound tightly
around. In sharing time he said, ‘If you can’t be a faggot, why be a man at
all?’ and honked, a nervous burst of laughter. When he was not speaking
I looked at him. His shoulders hung forward with many years of habit,
the same as mine. The things I love looking at are the things that are the
same as me, or spaces where I can see that I could be too; there but for
the grace of God go I. When he was speaking, I looked away. It’s just a
wrapper. A vessel.
I like to think about bending steel. To make something look like it
flutters but allow it to be still. Allow something so precious to evaporate
into the air. Less death wish, more stability. It’s good to have a role, you
whispered, handing me a tray of raw meat, not looking at me. ‘everybody
treats you like a boy until you say you are one’. The bruise becomes the
unmistakable centre of the long neck. The neck becomes negative and
the bruise positive. Like the neck exists only o support the bruise. Like
this vessel exists only to support what’s inside of it. To see your pulse in
light blue. To feel your heart beating in your skin. ‘These things we do,’
he says. ‘they never used to come naturally to me,’ Nothing even really
happens, but the interiority is so overpowering, so strong. The blood is
at the surface.
An excerpt from the stunning work of Spence Messih with Vincent Silk and many other artists are now on display as part of the UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Perspectives on art and feminism exhibition at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 15 Dec 2018-25 March 2018. Free entry. Check it out!
I don’t much like looking in mirrors. I find them critical, unkind and discomforting because the image there seems to confront me with all the things I am not: skinny enough, beautiful enough, skin imperfection-free, hair-free… the world tells me in a myriad of ways this is my truth. In fact, the capitalist economy relies on me believing this. The reflection I see seems so distorted – how am I to know myself as holy and whole? I’m not called to a deficit existence but one of abundance. Made by God and belonging to God. Cheryl Lawrie’s beautiful poem invites us to remember and re-member ourselves through the power of raw grace.
We are each of us made in the image of God. God knitted us together and we are made as we were intended to be. A special mention here to those LGBTIQ+ identifying whose personhood has experienced base-abnegation by the church, particularly throughout the recent plebiscite debacle. I would pray for your wounds but its really not you I think are broken. Please don’t ever doubt that you are wanted and loved.
In his book, Our God Is Undocumented, Ched Myers tells us to share communion in order to “Remember what has been dismembered. (p.200) Whenever you ingest this memory, said Jesus on the eve of his execution, you join yourselves to our historic struggle to make the broken body whole. It was, and is, both invitation and imperative, equally personal and political. If we refuse to heed it, we are doomed to drift forever on or be drowned by the tides of empire, refugees all.”
I don’t go to church or and belong to a community, in this way I am perhaps a refugee, but I enjoy regularly observing the ritual of communion by myself at home, 1) because I believe absolutely in this invitation to wholeness – for myself and others and 2) I frequently garnish my communion with cheese. I f**ken love cheese.
As with most queries for which I have no answer, I try and pray my way through and that went a little something like this…
As I reflected on my culturally and societally-imposed, as-is, identity I found myself focusing on those imperfections – the scars, the stains, the marks… it felt powerful to name those things that sit at the centre – fear, longing, doubt, insecurity, hunger, desire, hope… I juxtaposed this with some bible text to explore how it might reframe some of that thinking and was pleasantly surprised by the strength of the invitation to raw grace. I remember and am re-membered.
I’ve had a bit of a go at packaging this up as a DIY reflection activity… get in touch if you want to be a guinea-pig. The beauty of the invitation to the communion table is not being limited to a plus-one.
Let me leave you with a psalm by New Zealand author Joy Cowley by way of benediction:
Dear God,
I need to see myself
as you see me.
My own vision is fragmented.
I try to divide up my life
and reject those parts of me
I consider to be weak.
I waste time and energy
in the battle of self against self
and Lord, I always end up the loser.
Dear God,
help me to see myself
as you see me.
I forget that you made me just as I am
and that you delight in your creation.
You do not ask me to be strong;
you simply ask me to be yours.
You do not expect me to reject my weakness,
merely to surrender it to your healing touch.
Dear God,
when I can see myself
as you see me,
then I will understand
that this frail, tender, fearful, aching, singing
half-empty, shining, shadowed person
is a whole being made especially by you
for your love.
This image is likely a familiar one, it was my Facebook homepage banner for more than a year. This symbolic little house is actually made up of something I dumpster-dived. I think it’s meant to be the tip-top piece of a garden climbing frame to train plants over and it’s wound all around with stray bits of remnant wool from the Footscray Salvos Winter Warmth crafternoon projects.
This little prayer receptacle came about initially because housing conversations are always ones of potential and possibility, fears and hopes, needs and dreams – my own and those of others. It’s hard to hold “space” for all those conversations in your head and your heart, especially over time. It occurred to me that a gift of faith is having the comfort (and discomfort) of verses such as this in Philippians 4:6-7 “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds…” I’m not always that good at praying regularly but the prospect of somewhere to ‘hold’ all that felt too much to ‘hold’ was a powerful one and a visible manifestation in the world of putting down what I carried was a very helpful, and healthy, for my less visible inner world.
Over the last year, this little house has been a receptacle and companion for prayers public and private, communal and individual, at home and away, morning and night… prayers over grace, dinner, stories, stones, and tears…
It has borne witness to the ending of the community house at Droop St and the journey of finding home for Hawo and Omar and their children Falis, Istanbul, Yehye, Hibo, Dihabo and also for ourselves: Maria and Eddy, Bron and myself relocating within Footscray to a five bedroom house and soon joined by Tekitah.
The latter of us were in our new place for perhaps 3 months before we discovered (through a planning permit notice getting hammered up in our front yard) that we would need to move again and, just like that, a shadow was cast over our sense of security and place. How do you develop attachment in a place you will not stay? How do you put down roots? All those conversations and yes – prayer… about people, place, priorities… community and commitments, calling and capacity…
We know a golden moment of deep-abiding joy when Maria gets news of residency. She will not need now to fear being separated from her son or leaving their life here. But there had been a kind of equilibrium to the status quo that was removed with the “asylum seeker” status and somehow, in short order, you become ineligible for many of the support systems you have solely relied on for the duration of that long road home. After filling in the same identical form fortnightly and monthly over so many years there are now new ones – Centrelink, ID, healthcare/concession cards, housing applications, job applications…
The most recent move sees Tekitah, Maria, Eddy and I in a cosy 3-bedroom on a busy Footscray road. I unpacked the little house along with everything else and it has sat waiting for its moment… I had some idea of “unpacking” the desperate wisps and slips of papery prayer into the layers of our new compost bin. Turning crap to good purpose is good theology. How can what’ we experience, for better or for worse, serve us going forward in material and immaterial ways… in substantive and transubstantiated ways? I wanted to mark the end of the season that has been. Honoring it but saying clearly:
We are done. We are home.
Some how I didn’t get around to it yet, though I can’t say I knew…
This week Centrelink have cancelled Maria’s benefit and the vagaries of the hospitality industry see Tekitah looking for a new gig. We are given to know that our understanding of home and security remains a fragile one (and there are more forms to fill in).
So, our journey is not over yet. We know that the communities that work are communities of necessity and we need each other. We’re going to keep praying and telling stories and reflecting on what home is – personally and politically speaking – a bit of sacred and ordinary radical hospitality. Please know that you are welcome to join us here if you want to travel alongside.
The gorgeous Dusk Liney of Inspirit Creative recently ran a customised (pretty damn special) contemplative birthday for me down at Pipemakers Park. As she as gifted, so are we all. Please be encouraged to use this for your own reflections on 2017.
Wurundjeri Garden
Mosaic
This mosaic depicts Aboriginal life before European settlers arrived. Find a place around the mosaic to reflect on your own life this year. Create your own Mosaic/picture – using illustrations, colours or words – that reflects how you experienced 2017.
Capture the good, the bad, the ugly. What surprised you? What enlivened you? What challenged you? What were the unexpected gifts?
Fireplace
Before you leave the Wurundjeri Garden, if there is any part of this year that you would like to leave behind, make your way to the fireplace.
Take a piece of paper, put that image, word or feeling down on paper, and burn it.
Early Settlers Garden
Footprints
As you walk to the next station, pause and place your feet on the child’s footprints. Take a moment to be still and be present to your inner child.
Whisper to her what your heart yearns for her to hear.
One sided Table
So much of the year is spent preparing food for others. In this moment, come and sit at the table. Think about the hospitality that you show to others and imagine the ways in which you can show that same beautiful hospitality to yourself.
What would it be like for the Divine to prepare a table for you? What would feed your soul? How can you show that hospitality to your soul this year?
Take a walk over to the apple tree and think of an apple dish that captures that imagining. Write it on a sticker and place it on your clothes.
Pipeworkers Garden
Dry Garden
Take in the fig tree, the succulents and the drought resistant plants. Each of these plants have survived dry, hot, tough conditions. It is actually in this landscape of lacking that they grow.
Sit here and acknowledge the dry places in your life. Think about the qualities that have grown in you within the dry parts of this year. Write them on a post it and stick it to the dry plant captures that quality.
Grapevine Colonnade
Then walk under the pipe colonnade shaded by the grapevines. Allow the coolness and shade to wash over those dry places. As you come to the end, sit with the sun mosaic.
Ask God / the Divine / the Sun to shine on you this year, to shine you with light and warmth. Name the desires of your heart and lay them at the Sun as offering.
Picnic Circle
When you’re ready, come and find a place on the blankets and we’ll gather in a circle to reflect together.
pre-pare
clear the way
and the table
flatware
plenty to share
light a candle
set it there
against the dark
and speak of grace
Talitha Fraser
You are with me still.
Even though I have been removed, and my place does not recognise me. Even though I have filled my heart with stones. And my beloved says, I will wait a little while behind the curtain – no, I have waited too long. You are with me still. Though I scorched away the tears of return in the forced light of victory, your rebuke still comforts me, you signify yourself among the dangers. Saying, Use this fear to know me, fix this exile toward my return. Though I am unwept, it is your judgement parches me. Though my praises for you are under ban, it is the balance of your mercy. And you are with me still. Saying, Search this out, it is you who have hidden yourself. Saying, Clear me in your troubled heart. Saying, I will come to you. Saying, I am here. Though I add membrane to membrane against your light, and heap up cities on the husk of your rebuke, when the sun and the moon are shining in the other pan, and you advance me through the solitude by such a kind degree, and you create the world before my eyes, and the one who hides in self-disgrace cannot say Amen, O slow to anger, you are with me, you are with me still.
excerpt from Book of Mercy, Leonard Cohen
oily
insinuating
lie
clings
skin, pores
each breath
I cry
I pant
I pray
Love making, creating, playing, eating and sharing life
with this crew – in every season
itellyouarise 