School Chaplaincy

Maralyn Parker in the Telegraph (261109) raise some valid issues regarding chaplaincy in public schools and the funding of such by the taxpayer.

See Mrarlyn's comments at:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/public_schools_do_not_need_christian_chaplains/

Here is what I had to say in response in my email to her:

Maralyn

Thanks for charging up the debate. Looking at this thread and reading your comments I am aware that we view the world through our own biases and bring that too any debate particularly on issues such as religion.

As someone who has worked with young people for 30 years, and for much of that time in very difficult public schools, I suggest that a range of options are required if we are to safely navigate our children into adulthood. What we don’t need are zealots at play in the education system, and by zealots I mean those of all philosophical biases (including religion) who deem that there is only one solution to the situation at hand. There is not and to believe so is dangerous.

I have worked with chaplains, social workers, counsellors and youth workers who have been balanced, accepting and effective and I have worked with some in all those roles who were, to put it mildly, simply pushing their own particular biased ideologies.

I myself am a Christian but that does not limit me in whom I work with, whom I accept or how I work with others. As a Christian I am committed to life affirming acceptance of all regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and social status. I am not into proselytising. When I worked in schools (not as a paid chaplain by any organisation or government funding – voluntarily), I worked with one express purpose, to help young people to grow and become the person they discovered themselves to be. Not who I or any ideology or faith deemed them to be.

I also know that many chaplains have little or no education qualifications, but I also know many who do. I, for example, am completing my Masters this year and I would be advocating that all who work with young people have qualifications and extensive life experience to support through practice what they have learnt through study.

Philosophically I would not accept this grant money to work as a chaplain in a public school or for a chaplaincy organisation because both limit me to a set of outcomes which are not always in the best interest of the children, their parents, the staff and the schools. I have always negotiated my own arrangements with public schools through heads of school, staff rooms and P&C’s, and always to a positive outcome for all.

My negative comment to your comments is that you may be guilty of generalisation in terms of Christian chaplains and, perhaps, a blind spot to the biases of other disciplines, but as I said early, we all view the world through our biases.

So my comment is, if school chaplaincy in public schools is undertaken by people for the purpose of enhancing the life experience of others without a proselytising agenda, then it can add to the life of the school. But if it, and the other disciplines in the school are skewed by ulterior motives, then there is some danger afoot.

The King with Scars

If any of you are searching for job security, don't become a king or a queen. Although Queen Elizabeth of England is paid millions of dollars a year and has been a monarch for more than 50 years, she is an exception. Looking back over history, some historians estimate that the average length of a reign for a queen or a king is only 3½ to 4 years. And for the most part, royalty has had a violent, murderous history throughout the centuries. A little flick through the Old Testament for one will make it plain, being a King is no guarantee of a long life!

King’s rule by power and violence. They brook no opposition. They have others killed for simply being different. They conquer and kill for their own ends and have little compulsion in sending others to die on their behalf. And while kings in a royal sense are few and far between these days, the kings and queens of secular society, those we raise up through the democratic process differ little from their predecessors. They follow the type despite all their efforts to look different. The emperor indeed has no clothes.

Ironically, from the earliest days of the infant, persecuted church, the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth was given the title "King of Kings." In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is pictured as a king even before he was born. When the angel Gabriel informs Mary that she will bear a son named Jesus, he adds, "…the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." (Luke 1:32-33)
Later, the three Magi ask, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?" (Matthew 2:2)
In Mark's Gospel Jesus begins his public ministry by stating that "the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near." (1:15) The very core of Jesus' message is the coming of the kingdom of God.
As Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time, the people gather in the streets and see him as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Zechariah: "Behold your king is coming." (Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:5, John 12:15) The crowds shout with reckless abandon, "Blessed be the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Luke 19:38) Jesus purposely enters the city signaling a different kind of kingship. He insists on entering Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, a sign of reconciliation and peace.

And then as the events unfold in Jerusalem, leading up to Jesus' horrific and torturous crucifixion, He is either hailed or mocked as a king. In the final hours of Jesus' life on earth, we witness his famous interrogation by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. The interrogation is a classic:
"Are you the king of the Jews?" Pilate asks Jesus.
Jesus answers with a counter question, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?"
In John's Gospel, Pilate seems to be the one being interrogated and on trial.
Pilate pushes:
"What have you done?"
Jesus:
"My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Judeans. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here."
Pilate must have been both confused and infuriated! True, Jesus and his followers did not seem a threat to the Roman Empire. But who is in control here?
Again, Pilate pushes his questioning, probably thinking that he has Jesus trapped in his words:
"So, you are a king?"
Jesus answered:
"You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

It must have been obvious to Pilate that either Jesus of Nazareth was crazy, or He, Jesus, was unlike any king he had ever known. The truth is that Jesus was and is to this day a unique king, who reigns over a unique kingdom.
First, Jesus is the servant king. Jesus was not and is not a king who rules through raw power, greed and manipulation at the expense of others. He did not conscript any army to dominate the minds and hearts of people by force. He lived and modeled a far different style of leadership in life among His people.
In Luke 4 Jesus himself says: 18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus' reign as king is revealed in humility, self-emptying and service to others. According to the world's standards, Jesus is a very strange king, one who serves, heals, and uplifts His followers.
Second, and amazingly, Jesus is the servant king with scars. Charles Colson, says it like this: "All the kings and queens I have known in history sent their people out to die for them. I only know one king who decided to die for his people."
In a reading from the Celtic Daily Prayer, we have this simple but profound question and answer:
"Question: What are the only human-made things in heaven? 

Answer: The wounds in the hands, feet and side of Christ."

One of the most fascinating facts about the New Testament story of Jesus is that after his resurrection he is revealed with his scars. When his disciples doubt who he is, he shows them the scars in his hands, feet, and side. Those scars are five signs of the most compelling love the world has ever known-complete, self-emptying, utter love for all of us. In other words, God the Father chooses to reveal Jesus in a perfect, resurrected body with the healed, gruesome wounds from the crucifixion. To this day, we still know Jesus by his scars.

For the stunned and frightened disciples and now for us, we remember how his wounds and sacrifice have forever transformed that hideous and torturous method of capital punishment, the cross. As Christians, every time we witness a baptism, receive the Lord's Supper, wear a cross, celebrate the resurrection of a dear one at a funeral service, we remember his scars and the hope that they bring us.

St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, "We always carry in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body."
Jesus is the servant king with scars, and He is alive, scars and all!

(John 18:33-37 Christ the King)
(Apologies to: Bishop Ronald Warren, Day 1, 2006.)

St Judes Randwick

Jude 1-3, 17-25 – Sunday 25th October 2009 St Jude’s Randwick – Gods Space

Today is our patronal festival – St Jude’s Day. Actually St Jude’s day is the 28th but I’m sure he isn’t quibbling abut us being a couple of days early, after many years of being the ‘Forgotten Saint’, I am sure he is just happy to be remembered.

It must have been a difficult time for Jude Thaddeus, what with having the same name as Judas Iscariot and all. People got confused about whether he was the same person or not so didn‘t venerate him for many centuries. It was only if you were really desperate did you actually pray in his name. It was like; when all else fails go to St Jude. He was the Saint of last resort – the last chance saint.

In his letter St Jude implores Christians to hang on in the face of apostasy, heretical teachings and immoral practices. While he had wanted to write about salvation, he in fact was forced, by the prevailing attitude of some believers, to write about the breakdown of belief as he saw it and its impact on believers. It was desperate times. If Christians were to maintain their faith they were going to face great opposition. It was desperate times and often looked like a lost cause. Hence St Jude being called the ‘Saint of Lost or Hopeless Causes.”

Hopeless causes, hopeless cases. How easy it is to use the label hopeless, perhaps for your self, for some situation in your life; perhaps about someone else, perhaps about some situation. What does it feel like to feel hopeless, to be perceived as hopeless, to live in that dark space of recognition where you are only seen for not being seen and forgotten?

In the late 1920’s St Jude was seen as the Saint of choice for second-generation immigrant women in America. They had come to the land of opportunity with their parents, received an education and looked out on what appeared as an endless feast of opportunities. Yet they were caught between the possibilities education and economic freedom had brought them and the strict cultural and patriarchal traditions of their aging immigrant parents. Many were trapped in the space-in-between, just like many women of that era here in Australia were. St Jude, via a shrine to him in Chicago, allowed them to come together through letter writing and newsletters to share their sense of hopelessness and to help redefine their future. The saint of lost causes was their gathering point as they sought to create a better future for women.

While hopelessness is not a description of something but a space or a place in which we live and have our being, so is hope. Either one can become the space which contains us, while at the very same time, we contain it within us. It is what it signifies.

In a sense it says something about this church of St Jude here in Randwick Sydney. This church began its worship only 60 short years after the first free settlers came to our shores. Australia was a hostile environment populated by people with great courage and hope but also with, a similar level of trepidation. Building a church, any church would have been daunting but to build this church with its symbolic and metaphorical implications could have been deemed a hopeless cause, yet one full of hope.

Over the last few weeks, as I have contemplated my time here at St Jude’s, I have spent time sitting outside and inside the church building, walking the grounds, wandering the graveyard. In doing so I have thought a lot about the importance of space and place in medieval spirituality, the actual birth place of this building and its design.

19th century Victorian Gothic church architecture had its roots in, and mimicked, medieval church design, particularly that of the 13th century onwards.
Instead of the previous dark and dim churches, we begin to see churches rising high above the ground incorporating great space and inviting light in through spacious windows, often full of stain glass which provided a kaleidoscope of colours across the floors and walls of the building. It seemed to defy the experience of events such as the Black Plague and a desire to fill the space between hell and heaven, which was, in medieval cosmology, the space between what was beneath and what was above, with light and hope.

The medieval church building signified the transcendent presence of a God who contained the world and, at the same time, the church contained or confined that very same God within its walls. The building towered across the skyline speaking of the nature and presence of God in its boldness, its strength and its audacity. It was visible and heard. Bells spoke out of the presence of God amongst them and there was no doubt where he was. He was in the Church.

Across the road from here is boxing gym to which I go 2 or 3 times a week. Inside people punch and kick bags, sometimes they punch and kick each other. The lady who is one of the owners tho, can’t wait for Tuesday nights. Why? Because amongst the mayhem of her gym she listens to the bells being played here, at St Jude’s. It signifies for her the presence of God in Randwick and reminds her of who she is and who he is.

Within the walls of that medieval church you could encounter the transcendent God for he was immanent, present therein. The space inside formed by the high roofs, exposed beams and the progression of west to east spoke of the space that was the cosmos outside, a space which could overwhelm you with its sheer dimensions and mystery. Within the walls of the Church the design spoke of that same distance and closeness of God, that he is both contained by and contains us. That space became the place and the place, the space in which God dwelt.

It seems to me that as I have met in worship here, watched people who have lived in the shade of this church come after many years of absence for a funeral or a baptism, who have walked across the precinct or through the graveyard, that St Jude’s is God’s habitation in Randwick.

I regularly watch a middle aged couple push the lady’s elderly mother past this church, sometimes, if the church is open, they come in; other times they just sit outside as she looks at the church or touches the sandstone walls. For her this is a place of healing and hope, a place where God says I will be with you always and she takes that feeling with her as she faces another week relying on the care of others.

May I suggest, for each of us, that St Jude’s is the place that gathers God and we his people, bringing us into alignment and awareness of each other, and is the place where each holds the other in their soul.

We may look around from where we stand and wish many more of those who live in the vicinity were worshipping with us each day, yet there is a sense that they do. St Jude’s is the signifier of God, the representational space for those who walk past or live near, and in that sense becomes the place of faith for them. It is not just a heritage building or precinct or graveyard; it is not just a traditional worship space or liturgical practice, it’s not just an Anglican church; it is much more than that.

It is the presence of God within our lives, all our lives, even when those lives may seem hopeless or outside our walls. May it always be so and in the words of St Jude himself:

24Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, 25to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Typical Man

Is the following story typically male or what?

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An elderly man who went out to fetch a morning newspaper ended up driving nearly 400 miles after getting lost and taking a wrong turn onto a major Australian highway, police said on Wednesday. The man, 81-year-old Eric Steward, eventually stopped and asked for directions after driving for nine hours, from the New South Wales country town of Yass to Geelong in the southern Victoria state.

Steward, who did not know where he was, eventually approached a policeman at a petrol station and asked for help late Wednesday.

"This little old man came up to me saying he was lost. He handed me his mobile and asked if I could speak to his wife," said Victorian Police Senior Constable Clayton Smith.

Steward, who was reunited with his family on Wednesday, said he took the wrong turn and just kept on going.

"I just went out on the road to have a drive, a nice peaceful drive," he told reporters, adding he did not need a satellite navigation device as he'd only been lost once.

Doesn't everybody take 9 hours to get the paper?

No need for a GPS when all you want is a nice quiet drive!