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It is quite a grey day so I write in yellow. I am contrary like that and also I want to honour the the field of dandelions I am sitting in. Nesting season is over and they have cut back the reeds so that we can see the water again – the stillness, shadows and reflections. I lie here and just be while the birds talk amongst themselves. Not in an exclusive way, just going about their day, as I am mine, near each other.
It has been a morning of following instincts… touch, walk, taste, stretch, lie and listen.
What joy is this?
More than I deserve I am sure but my heart is glad.
Maria and I share lunch at French Baguette – $5 rolls with salty pork, fresh herbs and chilli with dressing, you have to love the Footscray cheap eats. We talk about what is and what may be… she is gifted with dreams and visions. We might accept things need not be easy but we pray they might be not quite so hard… have to start somewhere but God we commit this process and the 3-monthly visa application renewal to You. Let there be security where there may be security and provision for our need – our dependence is in You, yes, and our trust and hope also.
Home to do some job applications with Mohammed. Yes, they came here for a new start. The reward for completing their English bridging programme is a New Start Allowance that requires 20 job applications a month. Today, in two hours, we did four. Mutually exhausting our capacity to explain and to understand. God, we commit this process also to Your keeping. It would be so much easier for him to have a day pushing trolleys or stacking shelves than maintaining a commitment to 20 applications in a month. May he find something soon Insha’Allah… as You will.
Three loads of laundry in from the line, then I head out with a ladder to pick the remaining apricots. They’re overripe but I hate to see them go entirely to the birds – especially when they are such a treat! I have par-boiled some for stewing – pie, crumble, with muesli… and made a big batch of jam resulting in 24 jars lined up on the counter. My impromptu jam-making catches the kitchen unawares and I realise I do not have the kilos of sugar required myself to commit to seeing the project through. Everyone raids their cupboards in our share house and we hit our 2 kilo target finishing off 8 packets of white, castor, soft brown, raw, demerara and even then emptying the sugar bowl.
We are all in this together. Everyone has something to give.
God, I am grateful for the abundance today and every day – that meets our need. This [January] is when we store up for times of hospitality and sharing to come.
Store us up. Store us up.
I wish, sometimes
those things, done – undone
those things, never attempted – tried
those things, dreamed – realised
I aspire to wholeness
in myself and all things
and I fail
I fail
I’m reminded of how little power
I have, how little control, how
little comprehension, how
little I am.
You are big.
You are big enough to hold me,
the done the dreamed and the
never-attempted.
I will never know wholeness
in myself
but I can know wholeness in You
and I am grateful for that.
I am grateful for You.
Amen
Talitha Fraser
You are the reason
for all that I am
You are the inspiration
and imagination that
makes the world new
You are the hope that
makes light where
light should not be but is
You are the grace that
heals our wholeness
filling and forming
You are the source
of such beauty it is our
hearts hurt and gladness
at the same time.
You are.
You are.
Talitha Fraser
listen to me
trying to explain myself
to You who knows me
through and through
I speak aloud,
can You hear me?
Yes, and I need to
hear myself
in the echoing silence
gun-gunh, a beat
gun-gunh, a hearts beat
gun-gunh, gun-gunh
you have to live into the answers
there are my ideas
then my reality
there are my intentions
then my reality
there are my ideals
then my reality
I live my life falling short
falling
I live my life
my short life
falling
I live.
Talitha Fraser
Christmas: A story about a Middle East family seeking refuge.
Tonight we will share together time singing carols and at contemplative stations that invite us to engage in reflection around and respond to this Christmas message. We will reflect on ideas of welcome, hospitality, divinity and explore those gifts extended to us in those advent ideas of hope, joy, peace and love in our troubled times.
Prayer stations are essentially several points of “focus” that invite you to encounter God in some way. You can spend all your time at one or make your way around several, or all of them, as you like – spending as much or as little time at each of them as you like. They are not in any special order.
This space is for silent, personal reflection. Each station generally has something to read and something to do that invites you to respond to what you have read, such as lighting a candle.
Using the charming children’s story by Mem Fox called Wombat Divine, we look at the roles that we are called to play in this Story we all participate in. What role can you play?
As we receive cards from distant friends and family, and our papers and social media are filled with what might be deemed bad news, it can be hard to know how to respond – let’s take a moment to hang those words, phrases and images that feel meaningful, for ourselves, our neighbours, our country, our world. What has been weighing on you lately?
At the set table we can “meet” some of those guests who show up in Luke’s narrative of the nativity – relatives, shepherds, angels… These guests are interspersed with images from the recent Beyond Borders photo exhibition documenting unique stories of asylum seekers and refugees. How do you respond to unexpected guests?
We come together for more carols by the nativity scene in the Chapel when there is an opportunity to make a gift in support of the work of the staff and patients at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, the only hospital serving the 1.4 million population of Palestinians living in the violence-devastated Gaza Strip. Hope where there is seemingly no hope. An image of a mother and her child in juxtaposition to the nativity.
Leunig
Today we shared lunch, laughs and beautiful food with people that we love. We gave everyone a gift hamper of love. The Yarrambat House Church community once again serving us a beautiful Christmas lunch.
prayer by Bron Hayward
The Joy Of Little Things
by Robert William Service
It’s good the great green earth to roam,
Where sights of awe the soul inspire;
But oh, it’s best, the coming home,
The crackle of one’s own hearth-fire!
You’ve hob-nobbed with the solemn Past;
You’ve seen the pageantry of kings;
Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last
The peace and rest of Little Things!
Perhaps you’re counted with the Great;
You strain and strive with mighty men;
Your hand is on the helm of State;
Colossus-like you stride .
.
.
and then
There comes a pause, a shining hour,
A dog that leaps, a hand that clings:
O Titan, turn from pomp and power;
Give all your heart to Little Things.
Go couch you childwise in the grass,
Believing it’s some jungle strange,
Where mighty monsters peer and pass,
Where beetles roam and spiders range.
‘Mid gloom and gleam of leaf and blade,
What dragons rasp their painted wings!
O magic world of shine and shade!
O beauty land of Little Things!
I sometimes wonder, after all,
Amid this tangled web of fate,
If what is great may not be small,
And what is small may not be great.
So wondering I go my way,
Yet in my heart contentment sings .
.
.
O may I ever see, I pray,
God’s grace and love in Little Things.
So give to me, I only beg,
A little roof to call my own,
A little cider in the keg,
A little meat upon the bone;
A little garden by the sea,
A little boat that dips and swings .
.
.
Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me,
O Lord of Life, just Little Things.
And we had a backyard concert with Mezz Coleman – harmony in our hearts and in our home…
itellyouarise 