This morning Father John returned to what I think is one of his favourite themes - Catholic social justice. Emerging first with Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum in 1891, social justice encompasses applying Church teachings to socio-political and economic issues, with the view to upholding human dignity and addressing problems around poverty and vulnerability.

To listen to the media, one would think that the Catholic Church and other Christian Churches were in terminal decline, were narrowly focussed on issues like abortion and were at best peripheral to any discussion on a fairer society. You would have to be blind to not notice the manner in which Christians have taken up much of the slack in welfare. To be honest, they may well do a better job than Government agencies (I certainly thought this when I worked at Anglicare) because there is much more face to face contact and an earnest engagement. Workers also have an urgent faith reason for helping those in need. 

I think I first heard about Rerum Novarum in my undergrad days, when history lecturers                      consigned it to the reactionary bin. It certainly was intended as a riposte to Marxism, but within              the encyclical is a blueprint for helping those disadvantaged by the Industrial Revolution,                      especially those exploited by greedy bosses or those who lost their jobs during industrial                          modernisation. It supports trade unionism amongst other things.

We are now entering a new phase - the Information Revolution, and it promises to be similar two-        edged sword. New jobs will emerge and old jobs will disappear. There will be winners and losers.

And as ever, greed is and will be a major factor. 

 

 I was looking for some Spring poems to celebrate the arrival of that happy season in a few days. I found many, as you might expect, but they were all about the coming of Spring in the Northern hemishere, in April.

'When that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath pereced to the roote,'

wrote Chaucer in the 1300's.

'When proud-pied April dressed in all his trim,' opined The Bard some centuries later.

'Calmly we walk through this April's day,' was the opening line of a Delmore Schwartz poem.

There are many more I could cite. Problem is, April is the autumn in Australia, my favourite season. I did, however, find one by Australian writer C.J Dennis,

' Spring surely must be near. High over head

The kind blue heavens bend to timbers tall,'

No mention of the month, but the location is definitely south of the equator. He goes on to talk about gold and silver wattles and the bushman's axe, so Australia is a safe bet. 

I have written quite a few poems about autumn, but precious few about Spring. If I had to say why, I think I would say that the 'season of mellow fruitfulness' suits my temperament better and that Spring is, after all, a little haughty. But I will write one soon, when September comes.

 I find myself still unable to answer the question, 'Are things around the world worse today than a generation ago?' There is a perception, which I largely share, that the world seems more chaotic, more warlike and significantly more doomed than at any time in the past. But this might not be true.

When Krakatoa exploded in 1883, the telegraph ensured news went around the world in a few hours. Of course, from there it might have taken another 24 hours to get into print, the principle source of information for most people. Today, it would be covered instantly and everywhere with a plethora of experts and pundits giving real-time commentary, for better or worse.

By contrast, news of Lincoln's assassination took two weeks to reach Europe by ship. This was only 20 years before Krakatoa. If we keep going further back, then news necessarily travelled over distances at the speed of a horse (prior to the invention of rail) or sailing ship or on foot. News from many places possibly never made it anywhere at all. Nor was it bound to be accurate or even true.

Jump forward to the present day. We can access real-time news at any time and anywhere. It is sent almost concurrently with the event itself, often as it is actually occurring. The smart phone is the telegraph, train, plane, ship, telephone and satellite all rolled into one. To have one in your hand is unprecedented in human history. Dozens of different news sources send instant updates, together with notifications, to hundreds of millions of people daily. Information is relentless and omnipresent.

So I am left with the opening question. Are things worse then ever or is our perception of them the issue.

What do you think?

Moo Choir will be singing again at this weekends Blackheath Choir Festival. Our surprise inclusion happened because a Sydney choir had to withdraw from this Friday night's session on the main stage. Late notice, yes, but a truncated version of our choir will be ready for action come tomorrow night.

I found the program at the Festival's webpage and amended it to include Moo in the appropriate slot to publish on our FB page. Should you like what you see it will be difficult to get tickets at the door - it's is usually sold out. But please try here instead.

https://blackheathchoirfestival.org/2025-program-tickets/

In his book Forgive and Forget (1984), theologian and author Lewis B. Smedes, wrote, 'To forgive is to set the prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." At first this might seem like one of those aphorisms that pop up from time to time on social media posts to create feel-good or 'aha' moments.

But really, it is far deeper than that. Forgiveness is a difficult thing to do, both emotionally and psychologically. Even when you have decided intellectually to forgive someone for a hurt inflicted, it remains difficult at the level of the emotions, because we have abiding memories of whatever events or actions hurt us in the first place. It is easy to say 'I forgive' and mean it, then to find yourself, some short time later, stewing over a random memory.

Smedes rightly links this to the notion of being a captive, or prisoner, to the our initial unforgiveness and the  subsequent struggle with letting go for good. Once you see yourself as a prisoner of your own thoughts and feelings, the task of forgiving and forgetting becomes a doubly urgent matter. No only is it right to forgive but is it is good for us too, unfettering us from a world of unhealthy emotions and pointless, repetitive cognitions.

The quotation in the opening paragraph, or a slight variant of it, is often attributed to Corrie Ten Boom. I could find no actual written connection in her books with the statement, though I am sure she would agree wholeheartedly with it. After all, she had to forgive a former prison guard at the camp where she was interned in WW2, one who was particularly cruel to her sister.

Hard to do, but as the Lord noted, most necessary.

 Ann and I plan to go to Thailand at the end of the year, ostensibly to catch up with relatives. Ann's mum lives in Phetchabun in the northern-centre of the country, about four hours due north of Bangkok. The details of the trip are still in the works and may well remain so until we arrive.

I say that this is a plan (though we do have the plane tickets) because so much in the past 18 months has proved to be unpredictable. Sickness, death, drug-related issues, more sickness, court hearings and the like have been the lot of our family since March of 2024, so understandably, any potential trip is approached with a  humble and somewhat contrite attitude. Some things are certain, though human affairs are fraught with change and uncertainty.

But I digress. Ann's mum, Mrs Kunakhum, is in her mid-80's and lives most of time alone, though occasionally with relatives.. Our visit, I hope, can ensure she catches up with all her medical appointments and gets to have a few day trips into the nearby countryside. We'll take her to as many cafes and restaurants as she wants and show her the best time possible.

Maybe Ann and I will get a few days in Bangkok with a side trip to Hua Hin to the south-west. It is hard to say and I am relaxed about whatever eventuates, though I'd rather it was not unpleasant. Let it be a time, if necessary, 'unrecommended by event'.

 I completed Episode 55 of 'Writers from the Vault' yesterday with very little drama. Sometimes things go wrong in the recording process, with software settings mystifyingly changing by themselves, birds, cars and power tools intruding, or just my own incompetence creating problems for me.

But yesterday went smoothly, though it far is from a perfect program. There are little reading errors here and there (I only fix major ones) and hindsight often suggests a better order of material for the program or different materials altogether. But as I say to hindsight, 'you're not doing the work, are you?' and moreover, looking in the rear view mirror is pretty easy. So there!

I do have favourites that crop up from time to time - poets like Philip Larkin, Christina Rossetti and Thomas Hardy, for example, and I also find myself gravitating towards my undergrad days when drifting out at sea. On the whole, I think I have given a decent coverage to 'the vault', for want of a better expression, trying wherever I can to balance men and women writers. It is less easy with minorities who had no voice in the past and I certainly don't want to patronise by including texts that are just not up to scratch. Yes, there are standards and some writing is not as good as other writing, often by a long shot. I shouldn't have to say that, it is so obvious, but there is a contemporary body of opinion that argues....

At the end of Episode 55, I had enough space left over to include a short poem, such as a sonnet. The night before I had read a devotional work by Rossetti and was taken by the ease with which she wrote in this form. I wasn't sure whether to include it in the program, it being very religious. Then I thought, 'why not?'- people read Donne and Hopkins and others too. So here it is, reprinted for you. I think she is a wonderful poet.

It is not death, O Christ, to die for thee

It is not death, O Christ, to die for thee:

Nor is that silence of a silent land

Which speaks Thy praise so all may understand:

Darkness of death makes Thy dear lovers see

Thyself Who Wast and Art and Art to be;

Thyself, more lovely than the lovely band

Of saints who worship Thee on either hand,

Loving and loved thro' all eternity,

Death is not death, and therefore do I hope:

Nor silence silence; and I therefore sing

A very humble hopeful quiet psalm,

A handful of sun-courting heliotrope,

Of myrrh a bundle, and a little balm.

 It's exactly two months since I bought a new car. On the 6th June ( a memorable date) we journeyed to Penrith Mazda, handed over our trusty Hyundai i30 and drove away with a new CX 3.

The latter is not a new new car by any means. The actual car I left with was brand new, but the model has been around since 2016, with one minor facelift and a number of technology tweaks in between times.

Buying a car that is essentially a product of nine or ten years ago is no bother to me at all. In fact, the criticisms levelled at the CX 3 by car journalists as weaknesses were, in my estimation, points in its favour.

Engine and gearbox a little old fashioned - read reliable and durable. No touchscreen whilst driving - read safety oriented. In the latter case, Mazda has a proprietary navigation wheel just beside the driver's left hand, which I have no problem using to navigate through the audio/navigation system. It's a little idiosyncratic, but so too am I.

Sure, it has less leg room for giants in the back, and the boot is quite small relatively speaking, but being built on the Mazda 2 chassis means there are a few limitations, if you have long-legged folk, or oodles of goods to cart about. We don't. If you do, the Mazda CX 5 might be a better fit for you.

Other odd criticisms include an alleged underwhelming engine performance (only true if you're lined up with Formula 1 cars at the lights), a jumpiness on the highway cycle (nonsense!) and a general old fashioned look about the interior, which is purely a matter of taste. I find that most modern interiors, with 50 inch displays and all manner of frivolous getup, to be too busy, way too distracting and likely to age very quickly.

The CX 3 has been very popular in Australia for a decade now. Comments I read at motoring sites by owners tend to reflect what I already think. A good car, reliable, fun to drive, worth owning. I am only two months in, but so far, so good.

 Almost 50 years ago I travelled by myself to Europe for a term break holiday. Replete with backpack and an anorak, I sent a few months taking a fairly well-worn route to the south, then back to the middle and western fringes of the continent. It was a great challenge because backpacking and training about Europe was still a relatively new phenomenon and to be honest, I wasn't exactly the back-packing type. But lugging something around on your back seemed preferable (and far more hip) than carrying old fashioned suitcases. Or so I thought.

I wasn't that keen on dormitories either, but my first few stops were inevitable youth hostels. If I could get into a pension for about the same price, I did. But I digress. One one occasion I was in a male dormitory in either Dijon or Lyon and the conversation turned to religion. As the lights went out, someone made a fairly disparaging remark, so I piped up (very politely) to put a good word in for God. Out of the darkness droned a voice, 'The God box is over there', by which I understood, that the conversation was over. I went to sleep.

People who are not of faith (if I can put it that way) invariably have an opinion about God (supposing they are not atheists) which usually sounds a little like this. If there is a God (quite a qualifier!), then he is not interested in human affairs, does not really care what people get up to, has no real power to intervene anyway and usually doesn't answer prayer (though occasionally might). Alternately, he is kind of a cosmic ATM, not unlike Father Christmas, who doesn't really care about wrongdoing(sin), especially my wrongdoing. He is a benign old duffer. In this reading, most folks really are practical atheists, since they live their lives without any reference to God, though they doubtless have opinions. These opinions are framed, in the main, to get them off the hook.

If you're a Christian then you will know straight away that this view of God is a fantasy, bearing no resemblance to the God of the Bible. Mostly it is wishful thinking, because nobody wants to face judgement (this we must all do) and back-of-the-mind doubts about an eternity spent somewhere unpleasant are, well, discomforting to say the least. You can add to that the fact that a Christian life, while joyful at times, is also difficult. It is an effort to stay the course and the world has many seductions and temptations.

Still, I applaud anyone who is thinking higher thoughts, contemplating the metaphysical. It is, at least, a start. Oh, and the 'God box', whatever that might be, is right under your nose.