Hi to every body out there.
I just want to share the exciting news – RedShoes (aka Glenn Loughrey) is going to be ordained as a priest; yes that’s right, after all the drama of the last 5 years it’s finally going to happen.
The Bishop of Grafton has agreed to ordain me as a priest in the Grafton Cathedral on Saturday 5th December at 10am. All are invited to be there to share this auspicious occasion with Gaye and I.
Over the last 6 weeks I have had to struggle with leaving the wonderful people of St Jude’s @ Randwick who have allowed me the space to be myself, with uprooting Gaye one more time (19 moves in 30 years!) and taking her away from the Sydney Philharmonia Festival Chorus and her beloved Opera House and much more.
Yet I could not continue to put God off seeing I was called to be a priest when I was 12, I think his patience was running out and he made an offer I couldn’t refuse. We both feel at peace with the decision to be priested and to move out of the Big Smoke.
I thank everybody for their support and prayers over the years and look forward to having it continue as I take on this new challenge.
Saturday 19 September 2009
Thursday 17 September 2009
Celia Lashlie @ South Sydney High
On Tuesday evening I went to hear Celia Lashlie, author of 'He'll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men' speak. I had read the book and wanted to hear her in person as I wondered how she would speak the truths regarding mums she rights about publicly. Would she revert to a politically correct position or would she really say out loud what she says in her book?
What a speaker and what honesty. I wonder if I spoke the same way to a room full predominantly of mothers would I have been listened to or lynched? I fear the second. She spoke about the role mothers play in the lives of their boys, the need to understand the communication differences between men an women and particularly teen boys, teen boys pragmatism (only doing what affects them personally), the physiological changes and their impacts and the modeling of relationships between fathers and mothers.
She talked about the need for mothers to step back out of the lives of their boys and fathers to step up, the importance of being a parent and not a friend and that much later in life they will be your friend but now you are a parent, about not doing for them what they can do for themselves and so much more.
She also highlighted the traits we men bring to the relationship with our wives which are similarly to the behaviour of our boys and how that infuriates our wives but also the way women communicate infuriates us the way it does our children.
There was a lot of laughter but laughter sourced in the identification with the story, with the way we are and the way we experience life within our family. If you haven't read the book read it or purchase the cd of her talk off her website http://www.celialashlie.co.nz/live.html. I will have copies of the CD available next month.
And if you ever hear she is speaking in Sydney or wherever you are, do yourself a favour go and see her. You won't regret it.
What a speaker and what honesty. I wonder if I spoke the same way to a room full predominantly of mothers would I have been listened to or lynched? I fear the second. She spoke about the role mothers play in the lives of their boys, the need to understand the communication differences between men an women and particularly teen boys, teen boys pragmatism (only doing what affects them personally), the physiological changes and their impacts and the modeling of relationships between fathers and mothers.
She talked about the need for mothers to step back out of the lives of their boys and fathers to step up, the importance of being a parent and not a friend and that much later in life they will be your friend but now you are a parent, about not doing for them what they can do for themselves and so much more.
She also highlighted the traits we men bring to the relationship with our wives which are similarly to the behaviour of our boys and how that infuriates our wives but also the way women communicate infuriates us the way it does our children.
There was a lot of laughter but laughter sourced in the identification with the story, with the way we are and the way we experience life within our family. If you haven't read the book read it or purchase the cd of her talk off her website http://www.celialashlie.co.nz/live.html. I will have copies of the CD available next month.
And if you ever hear she is speaking in Sydney or wherever you are, do yourself a favour go and see her. You won't regret it.
Tuesday 1 September 2009
Violence - The Biff Goes On.
In the Melbourne age today Dr Jerry Rosenfield, frustrated by the consequences of violence he sees in his patients 'comments' on street violence ''Is it a problem with education? A lack of respect … Are they divorced from spiritual connections, are they not getting adequate education about how to behave in school and from their parents?'' (''Young men's mindlessness starts at home: surgeon'', The Age, 31/8).
http://www.theage.com.au/national/young-mens-mindlessness-starts-at-home-surgeon-20090830-f3ye.html.
If we add it to the responses from those involved in the Mullimbinby incident we begin to get a picture of a generation who externalises and not internalises the reasons for bad things happening. A young man involved in the Mullimbimby incident says words to the effect, it's no-ones fault it just happened. And the parents blame the school for not dealing with it.
Houston we have a problem and we need more than ground control to fix it.These are the things I talk about at Bloke's breakfast and in the parenting seminars I run at St Jude's Randwick. I have being doing this stuff for some 20+ years and the problem hasn't changed, what has changed is how we parent (noticed on Sunshine Channel 7 this morning a section on how to negotiate your 2 year old to eat vegetables for example), parents want to be friends to their children (they need to be liked by their children), parents encourage the externalisation, discipline is an old fashioned word and parents, in seeking their kids to be friends, help them to grow up way before their heads are ready for it and much more.
Jerry Rosenfield is on the money and asks the questions we are afraid to answer, and while I agree with Dr Carr-Greg that how we deal with alcohol needs review we are only masking the problem if we stay at that level (the same with law enforcement and court responses). It is to be noted that the other recent violent situation in a NSW school did not involve alcohol.
Michael goes on to say that the ‘risk factors for violence also reside within the individual, their peers and the community’. I agree. Individual sin (old fashioned word for thinking I am the centre of the world) is grown in the fertile ground of community that focuses on individualisation, blame and instant gratification.
It is not what goes in that is the problem, although it may make the problem worse, but what resides with in us and is expressed that is the problem. Its seems to me after some 30 years of working with young men in particular, that the issue has to do with anger, frustration and lack of mentoring in how to handle a range of issues impacting on men, and young men in particular in ways that work for men. It has to do with how we parent, how we fail to allow young men to take risk in positive ways, how we offer or do not offer them opportunities to be valued and valuable in society, how we as parents try and make life safe and protect them from the consequences of their actions and much more.
A debate is needed as to what constitutes common sense parenting, what are the roles of experts and statistics, what is my responsibility in life,what is the role of parents – friends or those with the responsibility to train their children how to live in society with respect for themselves and for others. It is a debate we need but won’t get as those of us old enough to take part are part of the problem – we drive too fast, drink too much, give the finger to the car which cuts us off and more – all in the presence of our children, and then wonder why we get what we get.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/young-mens-mindlessness-starts-at-home-surgeon-20090830-f3ye.html.
If we add it to the responses from those involved in the Mullimbinby incident we begin to get a picture of a generation who externalises and not internalises the reasons for bad things happening. A young man involved in the Mullimbimby incident says words to the effect, it's no-ones fault it just happened. And the parents blame the school for not dealing with it.
Houston we have a problem and we need more than ground control to fix it.These are the things I talk about at Bloke's breakfast and in the parenting seminars I run at St Jude's Randwick. I have being doing this stuff for some 20+ years and the problem hasn't changed, what has changed is how we parent (noticed on Sunshine Channel 7 this morning a section on how to negotiate your 2 year old to eat vegetables for example), parents want to be friends to their children (they need to be liked by their children), parents encourage the externalisation, discipline is an old fashioned word and parents, in seeking their kids to be friends, help them to grow up way before their heads are ready for it and much more.
Jerry Rosenfield is on the money and asks the questions we are afraid to answer, and while I agree with Dr Carr-Greg that how we deal with alcohol needs review we are only masking the problem if we stay at that level (the same with law enforcement and court responses). It is to be noted that the other recent violent situation in a NSW school did not involve alcohol.
Michael goes on to say that the ‘risk factors for violence also reside within the individual, their peers and the community’. I agree. Individual sin (old fashioned word for thinking I am the centre of the world) is grown in the fertile ground of community that focuses on individualisation, blame and instant gratification.
It is not what goes in that is the problem, although it may make the problem worse, but what resides with in us and is expressed that is the problem. Its seems to me after some 30 years of working with young men in particular, that the issue has to do with anger, frustration and lack of mentoring in how to handle a range of issues impacting on men, and young men in particular in ways that work for men. It has to do with how we parent, how we fail to allow young men to take risk in positive ways, how we offer or do not offer them opportunities to be valued and valuable in society, how we as parents try and make life safe and protect them from the consequences of their actions and much more.
A debate is needed as to what constitutes common sense parenting, what are the roles of experts and statistics, what is my responsibility in life,what is the role of parents – friends or those with the responsibility to train their children how to live in society with respect for themselves and for others. It is a debate we need but won’t get as those of us old enough to take part are part of the problem – we drive too fast, drink too much, give the finger to the car which cuts us off and more – all in the presence of our children, and then wonder why we get what we get.
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