[ hold :: this space ]

I’ve written an opinion piece for today’s Sunday Age… it’s on the search for messiah’s, and other such christmassy things…

I’ve written a piece for today’s paper on elections, hope and Pandora’s box.

I’m still on holidays, back on Tuesday…

I’ve written an opinion piece for today’s Age. It’s on the Lord’s Prayer being said at the beginning of the day in Federal Parliament.

I don’t choose topics for opinion pieces - the editor rings with an idea and we throw it around for a bit. if i can get vaguely interested in it after a couple of minute’s conversation then i figure i’ll be able to get enough energy up over the following 36 hours until the deadline, to cope with going to bed at 1 am and getting up at 5 to get the thing done [they always seem to want something in those weeks when every moment of every day is already scheduled]… i love it though; i love being forced to think about an issue that i’d otherwise not care about, to watch my own opinions change as i’m writing it…

Jonny was interviewed on ABC Radio National’s Religion Report, and it went to air this morning… It can be listened to or downloaded here

this is beautiful.

i’ve written an opinion piece for the Age today, about women in leadership and the culture of the church.

i’ve written for the Age today - it’s just a faith column, so it’s not online, but the text goes like this:

Is it just me, or is everything going to pot? I’ve been stuck in a fog of despair, anger and hopelessness about the state of the world lately, which seems to get thicker with each newspaper headline I read. I don’t know that I need any more evidence to believe that this is indeed the darkest moment in history.

I’m relieved that people in every age have wondered that - maybe the world’s not sliding into some immanent abyss - but I’m also realising, perhaps for the first time, that it’s not becoming a better place. I had no idea how much of me was depending on that to be true.

At some point over the last few weeks, while finding my way through this fog, I realised that I was holding onto a remnant of an old faith in an all-powerful God who would be able to fix everything and make it right. It was like I driving in this fog with my headlights on high beam. The space just in front of me was lit up like a false daylight, but it was impossible to see anything else. The light made navigating rather dangerous. The only way to get through safely was to turn the headlights off, get out of the car and just walk.

Curiously, with the lights of an abandoned faith switched off it’s possible to see the landscape of the world I’m walking through in a whole new way: strangely fragile, but all the more beautiful, remarkable and precious for being so.

The faith that’s come to me now [unbidden, and sometimes unwanted] is very different. It’s faith in something weak and fragile. Christianity, the faith that formed me, has an awkward, embarrassed relationship with weakness. It’s often explained away the weakness of Jesus, as shown on the cross, as a choice by God used to actually demonstrate God’s power. The faith I hold now bears no resemblance to power: it’s in a fragile love, a weak force, a stirring, an invitation which has been in the world since life first was born within chaos, but whose survival is by no means assured.

Do I believe there is a God who created the world? I don’t think so. Do I believe there is a force – fragile, vulnerable, weak and yet still relentless – that sometimes causes peace to be born out of despair, and life out of chaos? That’s the faith that comes to me unbidden.

I wish I were as convinced as I sound in that last paragraph. It’s not that I doubt – I’ve never been more sure of what I (don’t) believe than now. It’s that I’d rather not believe in this fragile God, because i really wish there was a more certain, more foolproof way. But in reality, the only hope I’ve experienced comes from not believing that there is someone or thing that holds the world, and has it under control; but rather that there is whisper of invitation - that seems to come from within life itself – that calls me to seek a way that’s powerless and fragile, and to find the hope that can only be born there.

over the last couple of years i’ve written pretty regularly for the Age, which is one of melbourne’s daily newspapers - it started as writing articles for the faith column, turned into some feature articles over christmas and easter, and now involves some opinion pieces in the editorial section. i love writing for the paper. it pushes me as much as working in the prisons does. i love the interaction with readers afterwards - people who email and tell me their story… people who want to disagree, and who will email to start a conversation about that. i had over 100 responses to one recent article - the conversations which ensued derailed my life for a week.

the circumstances by which the opportunity to write came about were quite random, and they don’t matter except to say that i was approached as an individual, not as someone who works with the uniting church. the writing isn’t part of my job, or this project.

The church has had a mixed relationship with the media - most of our interaction is defensive, or, at best, issues based. i’ve had countless conversations with people who want to warn me about how ‘the media’ are not the nice people they seem to be, that i need to be careful, that at heart they’re ‘out to get me’. which is ironic: having foolishly googled my name after that same recent article, the harsh, cruel and unfairly personal reactions were from those on christian forums and on denominational websites.

one thing those forums do get right is that my writing doesn’t express traditional christian doctrine… it’s not bounded by orthodoxy, and i have stated a few times that i’m not convinced by the creeds or some of the other traditional beliefs. and for this reason, we decided this week that my byline in future articles will simply be ‘cheryl lawrie is a melbourne writer’, rather than ‘cheryl lawrie works with an alternative worship project in the uniting church’.

it sounds small, but it took a lot of conversation to come to that point, and it does feel like we lose something in the change. but it will remove the temptation for people to dismiss the uniting church based on disagreements with the thoughts i write.

a few people have asked recently why i don’t see myself as part of the emerging church. It’s for a similar reason. it’s not because of a disagreement with the emerging church, it’s because the emerging church claims very strongly its place within orthodoxy and traditional theology. that’s not where i find my home. i find i have to wriggle and squeeze my theology into a virtually unrecognisable shape in order to fit into the credal statements - even with feminist and liberal critiques and interpretations. they don’t fit the same space as my faith.

i’m not saying this to be controversial. i’m saying it because i want to honour those who read what i write, and then have the courage to email me [a complete stranger] to tell me they too are dipping their feet in the edge of this vast and endless sea, that they’re not sure where it will take them either, and that they’re looking for company as they search for something beyond what they’ve been told is the truth they have to believe.

[At some point the church will, quite fairly, make the call that as this is a project of the uniting church, it really needs to hold to the traditional doctrines and creeds of the church. And i'll cheerfully hand over the privilege of working within it to another... and keep creating sacred spaces myself, because i don't do this because i'm paid to. Until that time, the space between now and then stretches out as pure gift...]

the bit of the paper i’ve loved most this weekend is michael leunig’s column in yesterday’s edition: looking for loki in all the wrong places.

i’ve a piece in the Age today - a faith column about the making of the holy city. Faith columns don’t seem to go online at the moment - here it is as a pdf: the-age-holy-city.pdf

back to the long weekend…

i spent a fairly intense and chaotic 45 minutes being interviewed by father bob maguire yesterday afternoon for his podcast. if you’re not from australia, father bob is a larger than life catholic priest from port melbourne who says it like he thinks it… He’s known for his tv series with john safran called speaking in tongues, and for many other things. the results of the conversation have been distilled into a five minute spot, and can be found here. i haven’t listened to it…

i had much more fun than i imagined i would [i thought it would be more terrifying than fun] but we had lots of points of connection… and in fact have hatched a wee plan… which i’m not allowed to talk about yet…