Part of the site at Port Arthur includes a restoration of what is known as the “Separate Prison”, a place of particular brutality and deprivation during its operation. Here men were essentially denied their humanity, forced to work in silence, deprived of inter-personal contact of any real sort, forced to wear masks when outside their cells.  The idea was to confront the convict with their own broken-ness and force some kind of change to occur.

My kids, as we walked around the restored ruins of the separate prison, were incredulous. “How could they think this would work?” they would ask. “How could anybody be so cruel?”

We didn’t defend the choices made in those days, just observed that then, as now, people were working with what they new, what information was at hand. At that moment in time, taking away the individual humanity seemed to be an approach that might lead to restoration.

The prison has now been restored to tell a different story, the story of the men who were held there, broken there, lived and died there. Now, 150 years later, there is a sense in which humanity is being returned to this unspeakably inhumane place.

See these words for example, from a photographic installation telling the stories of the prisoners:

In this place, where their names were taken from them, we name them again.

Those are powerful words, and a powerful statement. They in some small way restore something to those who had everything taken away.

It’s a difficult time in our national story, the time of the convicts. It’s a time when so many had their names taken away.

And it parallels another difficult part of our story, when indigenous Australians likewise had their names taken, had their humanity denied, were cast as incomplete, inhuman, and unimportant.

And that is a story that generations on we still struggle to right.

In our day, in our communities, who are the others whose names are taken away?

Is it the poor, living below the poverty line, and powerless?

Is it the person living with disability, the essence of their humanity not seen by those around them?

Who else?

It strikes me that part of the purpose of God for the church is to return names to those who have been stripped bare. At the same time as we have to acknowledge that at times we have been complicit, so we have to continue to honour, to name, to respect, to humanise.

Who can you honour by returning their name?

And so last weekend, with a day to spare and not much time left to explore Tasmania, we loaded the troops and headed north-west to check out the glorious sights of Table Cape tulip farms. It’s a couple of weeks after the famed Wynyard Tulip Festival, but we guessed there would still be plenty of colour around.

There is no arguing that it’s a spectacular scene, row upon row, wild with colour, bright against the rich red soil.

The thing is, as we got up close with the tulips, we noticed all is not as it seems from a distance.

In the neat, uniform rows, gaps appear.  In the blanket of tulips, we notice that the flowers are actually not spread evenly, and not every plant bears the bright petals.

And in this picture of health and vitality, some of the individual flowers are not quite so healthy, the petals damaged by wind and rain, flowers starting to break down as they pass their prime.

There are pockets, of course, where this isn’t the case, where row upon row of late-blooming varieties are perfect.

But for the most part, look closely, and the signs are there that the spring is nearly done, that the cycle of life continues, and the health that is obvious from a distance is in fact starting to fade.

The astute gardener (which I most definitely am not!) will know that there is no point in trying to prolong the life of the flower. Now is not the time for fertiliser to try and get the flower to bloom again. The tulip’s flower is best removed as soon as it starts to fade, allowing the tulip to put all its energy into the bulb, and ensure a healthy tulip in the next growing season.

There’s no avoiding the life-cycle of the tulip, only value in recognising which part of the cycle it is in, working with the seasons, caring for the plant, flower or bulb as fits.

Sometimes that means it’s time to remove the flower from the plant, at another time to remove the bulb from the ground altogether, and later still to replant, to fertilise and water in preparation for a new growing season.

As I wandered among the rows, entranced by the variety, the beauty, and noticing the life-stage of most of the plants, I couldn’t help wondering if sometimes the same is true for our communities and churches.

There are times when we are in our prime, when things look great (and they are), and there are times when we need to recognise the fading light, or the time for renewal, for storing energy, for putting down roots and for rebirth.

Where is your community in its life cycle? What care does it need right now?

The Uniting Church’s Justice and International Mission Unit (JIM) sees the Convention as one of the most important events on its 2012 calendar, representing an opportunity for collective communication between you, the social justice and international mission contacts in your congregations, Presbytery, the wider community, and with the JIM Unit itself.

Hope for Change features a diverse range of speakers and a diversity of experience to the question of how to bring hope for change to the communities we work with. The keynote speaker is Pastor Berlin Guerrero – a human rights activist from the Philippines recently been granted refugee status in Australia following death threats against him.  Panel members & workshop leaders will be Laura Sykes; Colin Gurteen & Janine Romaszko; Joanna Wierenga and Jeff Wild. More details about each of these people is on the Convention flyer and registration form.

The Convention also represents an opportunity for you to help shape the work of the JIM Unit to be more effective in supporting your activities in social justice and international mission. It allows you the opportunity to help decide which important issues should be brought to the 2013 Synod (the gathering of the Uniting Church in Victoria and Tasmania).

If you are able to come to the Convention, complete and return the registration form by Monday 17^th September to allow us to plan for the Convention and to finalise the numbers for catering purposes. Please return the registration form to:

Shortly we will have to decide which of the proposed workshops will run on the day, a decision which is highly dependent on the number of participants and their preferences for workshops. The sooner you can register with your workshop preference the sooner we can confirm with workshop presenters that their workshops will be proceeding.

If you have any questions or need further information about the Convention please contact Jill Ruzbacky on 9251 5266 or by email

We hope to see you at the Convention on 22 September.

The occasion was an semi-annual  gathering, a time of learning and community building.  This year’s theme was Abundance (taking John 10:10 as it’s core scripture – and either by coincidence, subconscious follow-on, or spirit-led promting, following on from a similar theme at this year’s Uniting Church national Assembly gathering).

Underpinning that theme however, was the shaping of the weekend as an exploration of creative arts, and the place of arts in faith, faith community and life generally.

The weekend drew just over 70 from around Tassie, and for the first time a significant proportion of families, with children of all ages joining in.  We played, and we created, and we ate, and shared, and talked and laughed.

And the sun shone, a warm late winter sun that gladdened many hearts.

The weekend included opportunity to be hands on, to work with gifted artists who made space for the rest of us to dabble, and explore our own giftedness. There were tile mosaics, Indian Rangoli, music, drama, hand-labyrinths and digital imaging.  And there in the midst of it all was Christina Rowntree gentle guiding, encouraging and drawing it all together.

Highlight for the weekend (apart from a riotous Saturday nigh playing a bespoke board game and some crazed theatre-sports antics) was the drawing of the weekend’s theme, and much of the output of the art workshops into creative, community led, hands-on worship.

For the UCA in Tasmania, the chance to build community, and to do so in the midst of an environment that encouraged creativity, was critical.

Resourcing imagination remains one of the great challenges for the church today. And this was a pretty nice way to do it.

You might have seen the results, his film clips have been played millions of times and used in all sorts of ways. Here’s probably the best known of them:

Now Matt is back in 2012 with a new film. And it’s different, subtly. And it’s worth noting the difference and seeing what it has to say to you.

Earlier clips featured Matt taking his dance to the world. In 2012 Matt goes and figures out what kind of dancing happens in each place he visits…..and then he joins in.

What do you make of it?  How can you figure out what’s going on out there, and then join in?

And beyond any story the clips tell us, enjoy them…because they are fun!  More of Matt’s story, plus all his films are available at his website.

We can see it in our treatment of governments right across the country. Any government, any flavour. There are ever shorter honeymoon periods after a government comes to power in a big election win, and then the downward spiral begins.  Soon enough it’s “the worst government ever” and the next election sees and entirely predictable change. And the cycle continues.

We can see it in the prevalence of bigotry, narrow-mindedness and bullying that infects our society (and sadly some of our churches).

We see it in public debate – for example the marriage discussion, environment & carbon reduction, asylum seekers.

The public discourse is vitriolic, violent.

The willingness to be teachable, to be open to the experiences or views of others almost non-existent.

There are those who would point to the internet, and it’s inherent capacity to make every person an author, commentator, journalist as the root cause.

I’m increasingly coming to wonder about the roles, and the long-term implications of two other aspects of our society.

The first is advertising.  There is now a couple of generations of adults whose lives have been soaked 24/7 in advertising since the moment of their birth.  Don’t get me wrong, advertising has been around a long time – but not in anything like it’s present form. Our lounge rooms, roads, workplaces, telephones, televisions, radios deliver advertising directly and immediately to us, almost non stop.

And the main message of advertising? It boils down to “you should be dissatisfied with what you have”.  Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you drive, however you clean your clothes, you should be unhappy. You are not good enough. And if you buy “product X” you will be whole, or buy “product Y” and you will demonstrate you actually do love your kids/partner/dog/goldfish.

If we spent 20, 30, 40 years constantly being told “who you are isn’t good enough” do you think at some point we might come to believe it?

The cult of celebrity is only a slight variation on the same issue. There is a constant parade of people who only differ from you and I in that they can very effectively pretend to be someone else (isn’t that what acting is?), sing, or kick a ball/jump into a sandpit/run fast (choose your own sporting equivalent here) but are nonetheless presented to us as a role model, an identity to be aspired to, a voice to be listened to. The underlying message seems to me (intended or not) to be simple: “who you are isn’t good enough.”

The second issue, is our increasing addiction to media in the form of news, current affairs, and opinion.  News media thrives on an ever increasing rate of acceleration. The news cycle is shorter and shorter, the sound-bite more important than the reasoned opinion, and the need for conflict central to news and ratings.  Media seeks controversy and reports it.  Media generates controversy and reports on it. And when the controversy, the conflict dies? We move on to the next hot spot. Media fills our houses, our telephones, our laptops, our television screens…and our minds….with controversy and conflict.

Now there are two things to say here.

The first is that we get what we want.  We choose to watch television/read magazines/surf the net and we choose the content that we allow into our lounge rooms (that’s not so true about the signs plastered all over our roads/railway stations/sporting fields).  We reinforce the two issues above by our own actions every day.

When we stuck a “no junk mail” sticker on our letterbox at home, I grieved for my lost encounter with advertising.  I was actually sad that I didn’t get to read the latest Target/Myer/Kathmandu/Bob Jane T-Marts catalogue telling me how unsatisfactory my life is without their product.

When I choose my viewing/reading/surfing habits based on stories of conflict, when I drop my “opinion” into the voracious maw of a public comment section on my favourite website, when I buy into the adulation of celebrity……I get what I ask for.

The second is that we know (or ought to) there there is another way.  We proclaim a God who is love. A God who created us (however you understand that phrase), loves us, values us. A God who wants to say 24/7 “who you are IS enough, IS satisfactory, IS good.”

I don’t think there are simple answers, but for me at least it starts with wondering if we are growing a problem of our own making. And I need to think more about the influence of non-stop advertising and conflict-driven media in my own life, and those of my children.

I’m not advocating a “drop-out” approach, whereby we move to a shack in the mountains and cut ourselves off (mmmm….tempting!), but a need to intelligent, thoughtful and deliberate engagement in our culture.

And the willingness to sometimes say no.

No junk mail.

(And no, the irony that I’m posting a story offering strong opinion about opinionated media isn’t lost on me!)

It wasn’t the usual beach, river, country or mountain style camping spot – we headed straight for Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.

Picking up the idea from the 2006 movie “A Night at the Museum”, the QVMAG threw open their doors to kids and parents to come in and sleep-over, and discover just what happens overnight in Museums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVPKR3_HqEw

We kicked around the hands-on science exhibits, took in a preview of the upcoming Little Big Shots short film festival, sat spellbound in the planetarium touring the galaxy, took a torch-light tour through the dinosaur hall (turns out T-Rex is pretty spooky when its dark!) and finished off with bedtime stories in QVMAG’s Hooked on Books exhibit.

And then we (all 40 of us) retired to our temporary digs in the museum’s conference room to snore the night away. It was quite a cacophony!

Naturally we were up early the next morning for more exploring and a great pancake breakky cooked by the Museum’s director.

For a dad and boy, it was a fun night out, a real adventure that won’t be quickly forgotten. And plenty of other mums, dads, sons and daughters would back me up on that one.

There were two things about QVMAG’s Night at the Museum that I reckon are worth noting.

First is that it’s a creative way to use a facility that might seem like it’s a one-use kind of place.  Nobody designed the building for camp-outs and sleep-overs. With a little imagination and re-use of the space, the QVMAG staff made it work beautifully.

And second, the event happened because one person pushed and pushed.  Our host was the director of educational services, but the idea, the energy, the inspiration came from one of her junior staff members.

It took one person to have one idea, and then a bunch of imagination and hard work to make it happen.

Who is the “one person” in your community?

What is the “one idea”?

How can you back them with imagination and hard work?

QVMAG’s Night at the Museum was a great night, and I hope it runs again. I have a feeling the other two junior members of the family will want to join in for a night of adventure and exploration; a night of imagination fueled fun.

One person, one idea.

One of my regular trips takes me down to Hobart, and whenever the opportunity is there I like to take the road less travelled. The delightfully named “Mud Walls Road” takes a left somewhere down past Oatlands and leads through the Coal Valley into Richmond.

Maybe I like the road because it twists and turns and is an enjoyable drive.

Maybe because the scenery is interesting.

Maybe because the Richmond Bakery is in that direction.

I can’t confirm or deny.

But the road itself is rough. Particularly the top end is long, long overdue for serious work, is filled with potholes, bumps and ruts that keep your attention and have resulted in a lower speed limit to improve driver safety.

It’s filled with the kinds of bumps you see coming (mostly). Mostly they’re avoidable, or at least you can brace yourself for the impact or slow down to minimise the consequences.

And cars have clever suspension, with springs and shock absorbers designed to absorb the worse of the vagaries of the Mud Walls Road without passing on the damage to the vehicle or its occupants.

Bumps we can see are like that.

Last night I was on another regular trip, the 8.40pm VB flight from Melbourne to Launceston. We were coming up out of Melbourne airport, the crew were preparing the food trolley for the very quick service offered on this short flight. I think I was on the edge of sleep after a long day.

All of sudden it was like the plane hit a jagged pothole, dropped and bounced.

There were little gasps all around, a few nervous jokes about bumps in the night as hands reached to tighten seatbelts.

The crew locked away the trolled, sat and harnessed in.

And we bounced and rocked away the night until somewhere out over Bass Strait when things settled down.

This was the kind of bump we don’t see coming.

The kind that catches us unawares, bounces us out of a state of stillness, unsettles us because it’s beyond our control.

And the kind that leaves us a little nervous about what else might come next, what other bumps that we can’t see might be lurking out there.

Life is like that isn’t it? Sometimes in church, sometimes in family, sometimes at work. Sometimes on a plane.

We have to deal with the bumps we can see, and the ones we can’t.

And what can we do about it?

Aircraft are designed to cope with turbulence like this. Wings made of steel have an astonishing capacity to flex and twist, absorbing the gusts and hammer-blows of unseen turbulence and protecting their occupants from an even worse shake/rattle/roll scenario.

Like a car has suspension, like an aircraft can flex and twist, like a sea-going vessel is designed to cut through rough water, so we ought to find ways to build flexibility, resilience and suspension into our community, family or personal life.

Habits of prayer, of reflection, of hospitality and community that form bonds that are strong, but flexible.

Ways of being in relationship with one another that enable us to deal with bumps in the road (whether we see them coming or not) without getting all shaken and stirred.

What are your springs? Your keel? Your flexible wings? How do you cope with the bumps?

sustain:if:able kiwi » @pentecost mission is for the geriatric.