Good Friday

Am I a stone and not a sheep
 That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross,
 To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
 Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
 Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
 Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
 A horror of great darkness at broad noon—
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
 But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
 Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

Christina Rossetti

After a couple of wisely considered delays in launch, Artemis 2 has finally set off on its mission to orbit the moon and return. I watched the launch and subsequent NASA press conference this morning.

It's exciting that a manned crew are returning to our only lunar friend after a 50 year hiatus. The Apollo missions of that time were extraordinary, full of risk and courage and achievement. Technology has moved on but the rocket itself seems eerily similar in many respects to the Saturn 5 - humans perched atop a massive load of burning fuel.

The orbital path of Artemis is also very interesting and I republish a NASA diagram below. I look forward to reading articles about the mission on 'What's in Space 'in coming broadcasts. May God keep them safe, both outbound and inbound.

When people pass away they (or their earthly remains) go to cemeteries for burial or interment, for the most part. The condition of their memorials, whatever form they take, is largely in the remit of their families. 

Yesterday I went to the Eastern Suburbs Memorial Garden at Matraville (which is a long hike from Hazelbrook) to visit my mum. Her garden bed, which is a rose garden, hosts the memorial tablets of four family members and one family friend. There are long stories to tell about all of them, though this is not the time.

A few years ago we had the tablets of two grandparents remade as they had crumbled. My mum's, being only 15 months old, is shiny and new and made of far sturdier materials than the older versions, though what they will all look like in 60 years remains to be seen. For as long as I have breath I will visit regularly to polish and clean the plinths and weed the general area. The staff there seem to do a pretty good job too.

It is sad to see tablets that are uncared for, some now impossible to read, or having missing or lose plaques. I have a mind to take some super glue next time and repair a few of them, for surely they are worthy of more respect than this. I wonder if the neglect they now experience was once also the way they left the world - lonely, largely unknown.

I miss my mum, our daily phone conversations, her sharp memories of the past. I have a place to go to chat and pray - that at least, is a blessing. The gardens themselves are not far from the sea - Botany Bay on one side, and the Tasman on the other. Hence this small poem.

One Sea-Side Grave

Unmindful of the roses,
Unmindful of the thorn,
A reaper tired reposes
Among his gathered corn:
So might I, till the morn!


Cold as the cold Decembers,
Past as the days that set,
While only one remembers
And all the rest forget, -
But one remembers yet.

Christina Rossetti

Before I began 'Writer's from the Vault' (or 'What's in Space', for that matter), I had a short stint reading articles from 'The New Statesman' for 2rph. There was no time for anything but newsworthy items of one sort or another - many, in fact, could not be read - and there was certainly no space at all for the lifestyle feature writers who inhabited the last few pages of every edition.

It seemed a shame because these lighter pieces were often very well written and might have complemented the more serious front-end articles in a balanced program, has it not been impossible due to time constraints. Thirty minutes a week can be a tyranny.

So when I began Writers I thought it might be prudent to include one or two of these pieces, now and then. This decision was not taken lightly because the program was aimed at more historical literature, principally though not exclusively from the old Western Canon. The New Statesman writers were very contemporary indeed, though there subjects (based on personal experience) were often universal.

For the most part, it has worked out well. There is no problem bumping up a Shakespearean sonnet with Jane Austin, with Dorothy Parker with, with, say Pippa Bailey. None at all.

 My CX 3 reached its 10,000 km milestone today so I think an interim review is warranted. This is not a car I bought for it's up-to-date features, sophisticated sound and navigation system, sporty performance or head-turning good looks. Being a car first released ten years ago, it is unlikely to compete at the top level in any of these categories with more recent arrivals.

And yet it does compare favourably on these metrics because it does well enough in each category and on top of that, is a nice car to drive and has a fabulous reliability record. It still looks good ten years later and remains in production. So something is going right for this make and this model.

This might sound like a recipe for motoring mediocrity, but nobody, save the wealthy aficionados on Top Gear (who scorn reliability in favour of pure performance) wants a car that breaks down when most needed, that is difficult to get parts for and obscenely expensive to repair. I would note also that some of the brutalist designs for new SUVs are frankly appalling, lumbering shoeboxes with too much tech for their own good.

Yes, I like the CX 3. I don't mind the slightly tired dash nor the eccentric sound system. I don't want any more bells and whistles to nag at me. It is a good car, probably the best I have ever owned.

There is little doubt in my mind that this autumn, or at least the March bookend of it, is different to previous iterations. Sure the leaves are turning, all at the steady rate nature has decreed, but the weather is muggier, warmer and wetter than before. March is usually dry, sunny and has cooler evenings, even when the day is very warm.

There have also been some very odd electrical storms, accompanied by dramatic downpours and exceedingly strong winds. Some have compared it to a small cyclone, coming and going within the space of 15 or 20 minutes. I was caught up in one yesterday afternoon when I took a short walk to the park adjacent Hazelbrook Station. Dark clouds suddenly rolled in, vigorous sheets of lightning flashed, and enormous booms of thunder sounded, all as if emerging from nowhere. A minute or two later and I was fully emersed in a fast-moving storm. I got home saturated but safe. The sun appeared a few minutes later, as if to say, 'if you'd only waited a moment longer!'

I know that we are in a period of climate change - the science is in and keeps coming in - but those who want to do something about it are largely outnumbered by those who don't care or habitually deny the facts of the matter. What's to be done?

I would like a return of that 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' something of the 'winnowing wind' and the 'sweet kernel' too. Keats might have written about a different autumn, had he been living a hundred years from now.

It strikes me as axiomatic that President Trump is a poor war-time leader and pretty awful the rest of the time too. Before embarking on the Iran fiasco, he was advised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and US intelligence, both of which had spent decades exploring this very conflict, not to go ahead with a solely air-based campaign.

There are some good reasons for this. No strategic air campaign in history, not one, has defeated an adversary. The US and Israel have certainly inflicted huge damage on Iranian 'assets' and the like, but the regime, which has deep roots, is intact and showing no signs of going anywhere. Almost daily Trump issues one toothless directive after another. Imagine Churchill declaring victory over the Third Reich following the evacuation of Dunkirk, or Roosevelt announcing the imminent defeat of Japan after Midway.

These were serious people who took their jobs seriously indeed, which the incumbent in the White House clearly does not. If the United States wants to genuinely win the war, which at a minimum involves changing the regime and capturing all of the enriched uranium, then an invasion force of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, supported by tanks, artillery and all the necessary equipment and support required for such a campaign will have to be launched. That will take months to assemble and enormous political will.

Trump's idea of victory, which changes by the day and appears to bear no relationship to reality, may have to do for now. But the hard bit, the really hard bit, is getting the Iranians to quit. In asymmetric terms, they are in the driver's seat.

I completed Episode 70 of Writers from the Vault yesterday. Notwithstanding that the entire enterprise features 35 hours of my waffling on, it is nevertheless an achievement to have come so far. As a fortnightly radio program, I had expected to to get to the one year mark, perhaps the two year, but now as the end of year three hoves into view, I remain astonished at my persistence.

I love it when I discover, or rediscover a poet I have forgotten about. Yesterday's program opened with two poems by Elizabeth Jennings, whose work I recall reading somewhat tangentially about forty years ago. What a find she is! She is regarded as a bit of a traditionalist, less an innovator, using the kind of simpler metre and rhyme that was the hallmark of poets like Larkin, Amis and Gunn.

Here is her little masterpiece, One Flesh.

Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere - it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.

Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do it is like a confession
Of having little feeling - or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.

Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, bets were placed in the prediction markets last week over just when the attack on Iran would begin. To be clear, people were betting on when a war would commence and therefore betting on when civilians would start dying. Yes, betting.

Folks have been talking about how 'the days are evil' since Paul first wrote to the Ephesians, and doubtless before that too. Every generation, or at least those people who care to think about it, has seen its own time as being especially bad. Wars, rumours of wars, famines, plagues, natural disasters and the like will always generate pessimistic assessments, especially if one in the the midst of something awful.

But I think the current age is a special case for the award of the most evil of times. Not just because one can place a bet on death and dying, nor the capacity to destroy all life on Earth, nor the rapacious greed that consigns many to poverty and others to obscene luxury, not even the destruction of the natural environment, nor the multitude of wars and real potential for others, not just these things. There is also a decline in human morality, of distinctions between right and wrong, of verities that, even though they were broken, nevertheless informed whole societies.

Well I could go on. And you might like to make a bet that I am wrong, though I think you might lose your money.

The joint Israeli-US attack on Iran yesterday is a colossal risk. Ideally, the regime in Iran will fall, following a battering on the battlefield and a popular uprising, and, in the fullness of time, a new moderate government will be formed. The Iran of the past 50 years, one which sponsored terrorist organisations, demanded an end to the State of Israel and repressed its own people is one which will not be missed.

On the other hand, a situation like that which emerged after the Iraq war earlier this century could create huge instability and regional wars that could go on for decades. This is another possibility. 

All manner of scenarios are possible, some leaning towards greater stability and peace, others away from it. I hope for the best, of course. 

 Another World Cup will be shortly upon us, with Australia qualifying for the 5th straight time. When I was younger and full to the brim of football madness, the game was still in its relative infancy compared to today. It also laboured by comparison to the three other football codes that were already entrenched. White Anglo-Saxon Australia found it hard to connect with the 'ethnic' nature of the game, especially as the post-war migration boom from Europe meant juggling names like Sydney Croatia, Pan Hellenic and Yugal-Prague. I throw the last one in because one of my old teachers played for the reserve team.

Qualifying for that first World Cup in 1974 (16 teams) was an extraordinary achievement in hindsight. The players were all part-timers who had day jobs to keep them afloat. Yet here they were in Germany, mixing it with the likes of Beckenbauer and Cruyff. Today's teams is composed of professionals who play all over the world. We have fewer players in the top tiers of competition (relative to the 2006 Socceroos) but enough depth and skill to make a fist of most encounters. We are competitive.

The North American World Cup this year has 48 teams competing. That is a big expansion on what used to be. Personally, I think a maximum of 32 was quite enough, but FIFA wants to up the participation rate. Increasing the number by so many may well dilute the overall quality. The World Cup should be about the very best, even if that means Australia misses out sometimes.

Much is made in certain circles of the notion that we live in a post-Christian world, particularly where it touches upon Western nations. Looking around, I realise that this has probably been the case since the 1960's and 1970's, when the first wave of 'liberations' occurred. Little by little societies have been weened off Christian values, and the application of those values. They have been replaced in the main by a cultural shift that has been aided science and technology. The contraceptive pill is a case in point.

Even so, a long sunset lingered in which secularism was practised but a generation and a half, still remembering their childhood education, maintained a veneer of  adherence. Lip service was paid, if you like. The Church was still seen as an important institution, even if the pews were filled with 'God-bothering fuddy duddy's.

It is not until Christian content is challenged, or folks raise objections to faith-based material, no matter how innocuous, that your realise how far things have gone. Apparently some members of my choir have objected to an arrangement of Psalm 23 ('The Lord is my Shepherd'). It's hard to imagine a more uplifting and comforting passage of writing in Scripture, but there you are. I fear this is but the thin end of the wedge. If kindly choristers are finding reason to baulk at Christianity, where might things be leading.

As always, be careful what you wish for.

Pride, arrogance and boastfulness get very bad press in The Bible. Pride, of course, almost always precedes a fall of some kind. Sometimes it is a huge fall. We see many examples of this in the modern world - people so puffed up with their own sense of self-importance or superiority that a reckoning of sorts is due. It may not happen for a while, but come it will.

This is not to demean the kind of pride that is proportionate to a personal achievement. The quiet pride that speaks of a job well done or the way a child is performing in some field. It doesn't shout itself out and it is in no way arrogant. I'm sure that you can tell the difference.

The opposite of (bad) pride in Scripture is humility. This is a word and concept that is entirely alien to modernity. It was once a virtue and still is a virtue. Sadly even the notion of there being such a thing as virtue has almost disappeared. The humble person can be a mighty achiever and will dodge attention and accolades if at all possible. They will be quick to point out the contribution of others and only too glad to step back into the shadows.

I have been guilty of pride (particularly intellectual) in the past and I have to scold myself whenever it arises. It is my deepest hope that in whatever time the Lord grants me in this life, I can reduce it to a number approaching zero. 

From Psalm 51.

'You do not want sacrifices, 

or I would offer them;

you are not pleased with burnt offerings,

My sacrifice is a humble spirit, O God;

you will not reject a humble and repentant heart.'

This morning I recorded another episode of 'Writers from the Vault' for 2RPH. Number 67. It was difficult to get motivated, given the circumstances, but I got through it without too much trouble.

It's important to keep doing things that are worthwhile when you feel sad. There are obvious psychological benefits, but in my case, the things I do for the station go out to people with sight impairment who cannot access printed material. I can't afford the luxury of indulging my feelings when others are relying upon me and the many volunteers at 2RPH on a daily basis.

Today's 30 minute program included poems by R.S. Thomas and Amy Lowell, an extract from a gothic horror novel called The Beetle, a feature by TNS writer Tracey Thorn, a short narrative from a 1927 edition of The New Yorker, a monologue from the Spanish playwright Gregorio Martinez Sierra and a book review. It's a mix of things, like all my episodes, to keep people listening for half an hour. Something for the ears and the mind. To pass the time.

But it is only God's Grace that keeps me going. My prayers are not in vain, I know, though His Will is hard to discern.

'For now we see though a glass, darkly; but then, face to face.'  1 Cor.13:12

On a lighter note (for surely there must be some!) my coffee machine of 17 years, a Gaggia Classic, has finally expired. It has been though four boilers. Earlier this week, the power unit failed and my regular repairer said he wasn't dealing with Gaggia machines anymore.

I decided, reluctantly, to buy a new Classic. The price has gone up but the new unit comes with a superior brass boiler ( the others being aluminium) and colours other than stainless steel. I chose green. It's basically the same manual operation. They are great coffee machines.

My old machine has gone into storage. I hadn't the heart to throw it out. But here is the new one.

 The past couple of years have been been a difficult time for my family. I can't think of another time like it. I would be easy to throw my arms up in despair and curl into a ball, and the Lord knows I have done some crying and a lot of praying.

A friend wrote to me last night that praying was the best way when multiple hardships occur, because God is the 'most able.' Prayer is the best way at anytime really, because if God is the most able to help, then why go elsewhere. I have to give up my desire to control and surrender it all to the Lord. That doesn't mean doing nothing - prayer can often be a spur to action - but letting go of the relentless struggle. 

So that is what I'm doing. Sceptics might call it leaning on a crutch. Call it what you like. It works, often with the most extraordinary and inexplicable results. Sceptics will call the outcomes 'coincidences.' If only they knew!

 Waiting was once a common state of being. Folks waited through the seasons (which imposed their own weathery logic), waited for the rain to come, for the seedlings to sprout up, for news from the big city about a new king, a war, the approach of a plague. You get the picture. You waited because that was how it was and had always been, across the generations.

The Industrial Revolution changed the rhythms of life for many people, in the same way that it has radically altered ways of being through the Information Revolution in the present age. People don't like to wait and, moreover, don't have to wait, because gratification is almost instantly available. You can order and pay with a click and if you don't have the money, you still buy and pay later.

But waiting is actually a good thing - both instructive in teaching patience and as a lesson in the follies of haste. I see this in myself. Once I get a plan or good idea in my head, I want to get on with doing it as soon as possible. 

Currently, I would like to sell this house and move. I have been thinking about it for a few years, but sickness intervened two years ago to put a stop to any plans. That was a good thing (not the sickness, but the delay) because I had a lot of unfinished business to deal with in my family. I was getting ahead of myself, wrapped up in plans that were far too advanced for my own good. As a Christian, I realize that I had left God out of the equation - not necessarily in prayer ( I pray about everything) but in an abiding trust and a patience to wait. It's always wise to be prudent and diligent, but not to rush off ahead of a clear pathway set by the Lord.

This time around, I am far more cautious, far more prayerful and much more accepting that God's plans are the best irrespective of how it all actually turns out. I do take steps and have paid attention to opening and closing doors more closely. Still waiting is hard. When I start to get into that compulsive forward rush, I have to rein myself in. Pray. Surrender. Wait. Repeat.

Today is Australia Day and many families and individuals will be out celebrating - whether at a beach or a river or a dam, a picnic ground, a backyard, or even at one of the many events organised by local councils and community groups. My wife and JJ have  gone down to Glenbrook for the annual AD celebration.

Another group of Australians will be having 'Invasion Day' events - marches and gatherings to protest the aligning of a national day with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. While it was not strictly speaking a planned military invasion, it might just have well have been for the indigenous population. The consequences have been largely identical.

I have a foot in either camp, knowing that Australians have precious few national days already, outside of Anzac Day, but also that January 26 cannot but have a profoundly negative meaning for Aboriginal people. My preference would be to find another day to celebrate Australia Day. That in itself is a fraught task, for how many days are free from any taint?

In this respect I am in the minority, for a recent poll showed that 70% of Australians don't want the date to change. That is a strong majority indeed.

For now, I think we are all big enough to live with the tension that arises from these two positions, opposed as they are, but also informing each other. Let it be peaceful and respectful. Who knows, perhaps one day there will be a convergence by mutual agreement.

 I was in Thailand when the Bondi massacre occurred. The local TV networks in Thailand, already busy with the floods in the south and a border war with Cambodia, covered the atrocity fairly comprehensively. I supplemented this with direct internet-mediated news from Australia, but once I had the facts of the case, I largely stopped following the onrushing news cycle. The repetition and overabundance of reporting was too much. At some point, you need to step out, else you may be drawn into a maudlin scrolling of every tidbit. Despite my well-known sympathies with Israel and the Jewish people, I needed time-out on this event until I got back home.

Yesterday, in events somehow related to that awful incident last year, the Liberal and National Parties at Federal level exploded and the coalition between them, dissolved. This may only be temporary but it is nevertheless an almighty shot in the foot. At a time when the Federal Labor Government was vulnerable thanks to the lukewarm performance of the Prime Minister over the past two months (on multiple fronts), the Opposition chose to implode. It is a head-scratcher, I tell you. If one had a circular firing squad on hand, it couldn't do worse.

Ibis

Ordinarily, you see 
them on bins, beaks

like deep spoons,

bent like 

whimsical derricks-

and for their sins-

they awkwardly dip

into somebody's waste.

Surgeons, they 

tenderly incise:

part tissue and bone, but

Rarely do so in haste.

From a height

they ply the

mouldering scraps,

smashed chips and

prawn heads,

a Parson's nose -

what a prize!

they are,

bin chickens, it seems,

almost by design.

But today

I saw an Ibis

in a mad storm,

Striding fevered puddles

Like a ballet star.

To the pleasure, no doubt, of many readers, I have had very little to say over the past two months. December I was in Thailand, refusing to type onto a tiny screen. January I have been getting practical things done about the house - painting and repairs and such like. There was also the matter of dealing with the fallout from the stolen phone incident in Bangkok, the first time I have been successfully pickpocketed. Credit cards needed cancelling and many services updated with new information. Smart phones can be a colossal hassle at times. Their sheer capacity is both a strength and a weakness.

Thailand is a hot place, even in what they call 'winter' over there. The end of year is certainly a better time to go weather-wise, though there are many more tourists about. You can get a decent walk in in the early morning and evening, when the temperature is reasonable and the sun is down. Middle of the day is out of the question. The heat and humidity is a significant drain.

I think if I had to name a couple of highlights were the towns of Hua Hin and Phetchaburi. The former has some lovely beaches, a few notable temples and two royal summer palaces. The latter is less touristed but also boasts some wonderful temples and a more authentic Thai experience, if river walks and markets are anything to go by.

 Happy New Year to one and all!

Back from a month in Thailand, I see that this blog was poorly treated in December. With the exception of one new poem(written in Thailand but published upon return) I made no entries. There is a simple reason - I find it hard to type into the blog page on a small phone keyboard and really couldn't be bothered doing so.

I took plenty of photos and had a lot to write about upon my return but alas, my phone was stolen last Friday night at the busy Chit Lom station in the Siam shopping district. I don't know if the pics can ever be recovered.

Ann's mum also broke her hip, meaning we were forced to cancel a trip to the north in exchange for long waits in hospital wards for a fortnight. But it's just as well we were in situ at the time, because someone had to pay the medical bills and render daily assistance. She is doing very well now after surgery, which is a blessing indeed.

I will try to give a Cook's Tour of what we did, without sounding like a travelogue in the near future.