Flying Friar

The friar is flying again. After a hectic week with last minute preparations complicated by a hard disk failure and needing to restore everything I'm catching the plane to Brisbane for a provincial chapter. And 5 days later returning to Korea.

After that it's the peace conference - www.topik2007.org - and my duties on the staff of that.

And two days after that finishes I depart Korea for 5 months overseas - mostly for my Franciscan study in Canterbury.

So if there is anyone still checking here occasionally for news or photos there might be - and as I get occasion in travels I will try to write.

The book I am reading at the moment: "Riding the gentled ox home" http://www.cloverdalebooks.com/CloverdaleBooks/RidingGentledOx.html
by a kiwi friend of mine, Graeme Webb. He explores the Buddhist ox-herding pictures from a Christian perspective. Buy it!

Country Life

These days the farmers are busy with harvesting the rice which has been ripening in full golden ears. Any flat surface, such as roads, is covered with freshly harvested rice drying in the daytime warmth. Last month, in late summer, early autumn, we had red peppers, also laid on the roads, drying in the hot dry air and farmers were planting crops of cabbage and radish. Soon, in early winter, these will be harvested and with the sauce made from the dried chillies and other ingredients made into the winter kimchi.

Other seasonal patterns surround us. As I write these words I am on the train into Seoul. Today it's full; autumn picnickers and mountain climbers and school groups on days out have taken all the seats. A crocodile line of elementary school students in identical black track pants, black and white striped tops and orange and yellow back packs has just taken over the aisle. Passengers sitting nearby are sharing snacks with the children. Those nearby me are very curious about what this foreigner with a laptop is writing about. In summer it was students during the summer vacation. The university students are busy with mid-semester exams this and next week so they are not to be seen. I'm pleased I made an advance reservation today, or else I would be standing for the 1 hour, 40 minute trip into Seoul.

Outbreak of Crime Strikes Village

The small village of Hudong-ri, partway between the friary and Gangchon station was a haven of peace until recently. It boasted a sign advertising that it had been a "crime-less village" since a particular date - I think in 1991. That sign has now been removed. What ghastly infamy has been committed? Perhaps the crime was nothing other than the illegal removal of the sign? But what if it was more? The village is inhabited by a few dozen very old farmers.

Or what if the sign merely meant that no crime had been reported - and that in reality, behind the doors of the farmers' rude dwellings, were daily committed scenes of wild depravity?

Will it be safe to pass through the mean street (there's only one) of Hudong-ri again?

Travels to North Korea - retrospect

Apart from the travelogue of the last three entries, what is really significant about such travel to Geumgangsan? Of course the scenery is spectacular. The hotel is comfortable (despite the absence of knives, see the previous entry) and really just like a South Korean tourist hotel. It's the bits in between which were most memorable for me. The bits we were not allowed to photograph. The drab, unpainted, open-window classrooms. The soldiers in their soviet-style hats in the guard posts at every junction. The farmers pretending not to see 10 bus-loads of waving South Koreans going down the road. The hotel compound, dropped in from the South, and as sealed off from the outside world as if a lunar base surrounded by vacuum.

Then the bizarre juxtapositions. Looking out the hotel window, where South Korean television is showing the news and South Korean beer is in the refrigerator, and seeing a squad of North Korean soldiers marching in formation.

The strange flashes of humour. This is communist water we are drinking. Those who fought the cold war would not approve of this. These people are communists. Recalling a time when that word alone was enough to send a shudder of fear down the spines of the "right" thinking.

Then to thinking, what do people here (i.e. the North) feel about opening up part of their fierce and proud independence to let us in with our American dollars? Is it a little like the "stately homes" of England, forced by financial circumstances to open up to the paying unwashed masses? If North Korea had a strong economy would they tolerate such tourism?

Of course we can say that all we are doing is seeing beautiful, and indeed the most renowned, scenery in all of Korea. But it's those parts in between the scenery and the hotel which are really the most fascinating. It feels strange, even voyeuristic, being this kind of tourist - pretending we are there only for the mountains, but with more than passing glances at the signs of a communist state in decline. As if visiting some ancient and decaying amusement park, where the interest is not so much in the rides but as in the crumbling edifice.

Travels to North Korea - day 3

Saturday August 11 is our final day here and it stops raining at last.

In the morning the passing mist reveals some of the mountains lit by the rising sun. This was a moment worth waiting through days of rain and cloud for.


Breakfast is provided by the hotel. The Korean food is good but I settle on the comfort of Western: cornflakes, toast and jam. Coffee is not provided. (That's later and in the hotel lobby at two dollars a cup). There's nothing to spread the jam on the toast. I ask for a knife. (In Korean and in English and with my best miming). The waiter looks frightened and scuttles off. A second waiter comes. I repeat my request. The same response. A third one appears. He returns, 5 minutes later, with a knife. My Korean table-mates told me they had already tried to get a knife but were told to use their spoon instead. What's going on?


We quickly check out and depart on the final climb. Our bus is once again No. 1 in the convey. It helps that we have a high official in the Hyundai Asan company with us. About ten other buses follow us up a narrow mountain road with hairpin bends. The driver is good and very careful. (He is not South Korean but Chinese ethnic Korean). We continue walking up the road and see the damaged bridges on the path; concrete slabs pushed metres out of position by the force of the water and culverts blocked by boulders. Our track is also an overflow from the river, so once again it's wet feet.


Now we are once again in a situation remarkably similar to South Korean hiking. Too many people (about 10 bus loads) pushing past each other up and down narrow paths. There was a spectacular rock at the end of our course, except that it was covered in people.


Some of the wildlife!


After returning there's time for a quick lunch (neng-myeon - the cold noodle soup - a staple dish of the North). One of my favourites.



Group photo outside the restaurant where we had lunch - photo shooting is organised here - just stand on the white line!


Our buses line up in convoy order for the trip back across to the South. The hotel staff are lined up outside the hotel to wave us off. "Ready, one, two, three - WAVE" in a wonderfully spontaneous display.

The soldiers do not wave.

Soon we are back in the south, where although the soldiers do not wave either, they do look a lot friendlier.

We get our mobile phones back. How could we all have survived for so long without? The absence of silly phone talk is one of the good things in the North. Perhaps it's not so bad after all!

Travels to North Korea - day 2

This is yet another day of rain. Our planned hiking course has to be abandoned. Floods a few days previously have washed out a lot of bridges and roads. (The news of this emerges into the western media somewhat later on August 14 - e.g. BBC News.) Instead we do a shorter course in the morning, walking up a mountain valley anxiously crossing rather dodgy looking bridges over a torrential stream. The track is also a watercourse and it's impossible to keep our feet dry. If the weather had been better we could have reached Guryong Waterfall - one of the most impressive waterfalls and a tourist "must-see" but we had to be content with the mountain torrent and other waterfalls.



One of the features of North Korea is the adulation accorded the Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung and his son and successor, the Dear Leader, Comrade Kim Jong-Il. As we walked through the forest we passed a number of plaques recording the teachings of Kim Il-sung. There is a prolific industry in creating these plaques and in calligraphic carving into stone.



This was the first occasion we had to mix with our North Korean tour guides. One came and asked me in English if I spoke any of the North Korean language. Only a little of the South language I replied. (The language of South and North is the same but 50 years of separation and of ideological differences have created substantial variation). He asked me where I was from, I told him New Zealand and he replied that he was from Gangwon Province, North Korea. I also live in Gangwon Province I told him - the part of the Province in the South. (Our province is divided by the DMZ). It was a strange point of connection.


We then saw the re-construction site of the Shingyesa Temple. The original temple here, dating from 519 was destroyed in the Korean War, but is now being rebuilt with South Korean finance. Geumgansan is important in Korean Buddhist history and has many Buddhist sites, some still extant.


After walking round the temple construction site, our shoes, which had been wet but clean are now muddy as well.

We continue to Samilpo - a seaside lake - with a rather tatty concrete pavillion. The rock faces around are again inscribed, "Long Life to the Great Leader". The interesting thing about the travel is getting from one place to another by bus. We are not allowed to take photos along the way because we have to pass outside our special tourist-only areas and (almost) mix with the locals. Well - at least we can look from the bus and see the ubiquitous soldiers with their red flags ready to stop anything untoward. We also see propaganda billboards, villages and schools. Buildings are universally dull concrete with fading paint. Schools have small holes for windows but no glass. The local farmers ignore us completely.


Later that afternoon we see the harbour where South Korean tourism to the North began. The bus ride over the DMZ was not available then so everyone had to come in and out by ship and stay in a "floating hotel" moored in the harbour.

We finish in a luxuriously appointed spa enjoying a variety of indoor and outdoor hot and cold pools, a walk through a jade pebble pool and different saunas. After spending the day getting wetter and dirtier it was a relief to enjoy getting wet and clean.

And the farmers in the villages we saw perhaps had to draw water by buckets from the river and had only the dimmest of lights at night.

Travels to North Korea - day 1

Thursday August 9th and I am about to have three days travel / sightseeing in North Korea. Ten years ago that statement would have been surprising since it was virtually impossible to do such a thing. However since 1998 Geumgangsan in North Korea has been available as a special tourist region for anyone.


We travel by bus from Seoul to Hwajinpo (in the far north-east of the South), where we complete our check-in. We surrender mobile phones and South Korean magazines and newspapers and are issued with a tourist pass to wear round our neck at all times. By now the rain is heavy and the previous patches of blue sky are completely left behind. After lunch we board our bus again and continue further north. We have free time so we stop to jump out of the bus and run through the rain to see the new Jejin railway station. (The next station after this is in North Korea). The station includes full facilities for immigration and quarantine checking. None of this has been used yet since the only train to run along this line was a single test run. Back in our bus we drive through rain, lashing more and more heavily, to the road border station where we complete departure checks.

Our bus and driver are now different. The bus is from the Geumgangsan tourist resort and the driver is a Korean Chinese. The tension mounts as we approach the DMZ. We wait at the gates on the south as the convoy of delivery trucks, fuel tankers, and construction machinery (all Hyundai) drive south. Running a hotel at Geumgangsan is like running one on the moon. Almost everything has to be trucked in and out. There's no reliable or sufficient electricity supply in the north so the daily convey includes diesel for the generators. The gates on the south remain open to let our convoy through to the north.

We are now in that 4 km wide strip, the Demilitarized Zone, across which some millions of soldiers point their guns to the enemy on the other side. But in between there is nothing except mine fields and an ecological paradise of undisturbed nature. Half way across we are now in the north side, and another 2 km is the guard post and gate and our first glimpse of North Korean soldier. Our tour leader encourages us to wave to him. The response here and every other time is a stone faced glare. What is he thinking I wonder?

We drive through a bizarre landscape of enormous granite boulders. Every hundred meters or so a solitary soldier stands on duty, immune to our waving. We now come to the northern side border check and go through the same procedure once again.

Back on the bus again it's only about 10 minutes before the Geumgangsan tourist complex and our hotel. We watch the acrobatic troupe perform. It's fast-paced, high-skilled, and there's not a moment when the performers drop their smiles. The banner unfurled part way through with the word "Hana" (One) and the shape of the Korean peninsula may be propaganda but it's all feel-good stuff.



The hotel is like a South Korean tourist hotel but with North Korean staff . The television channels available are South Korean only (the North uses a different system anyway). I had been looking forward to watching the Dear Leader and other propaganda forbidden in the south.

In the evening we eat dinner at a North Korean restaurant. The food is good, the liquor too although the decor rather dated.

And still it's raining.

The Blogger Returns

After three months of inactivity the Friar is back in blog-land. I've been busy developing the website for the Worldwide Anglican Peace Conference to be held in Seoul in November. After weeks of struggle with that I haven't had any interest in blogging as well. However I'm back adn will try to start again.
Firstly with the news of a recent trip to Geumgangsan in North Korea.

Legal at Last

Finally I am a legal driver of our van...
And also I can drive a
1. passenger car
2. High occupancy vehicle passenger capacity up to 15
3. Emergency vehicle with passenger capacity up to 12 (passenger & high occupancy vehicle only)
4. Loading capacity below 12t commercial vehicle
5. Construction machinery (road worthy fork lift under 3t)
6. Motorcycle

All of which will be very useful.

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

Today we heard the first cuckoo at the friary - the cuckoo normally wakes up around late spring - early summer. Other seasonal signs include the first snake - this one was on the road a few days ago and I think I drove over it. I think this week I will bring the fans out of storage.

I have also started (again) regular exercise at the local village hall which has a room equipped for that. Fortunately there is never anyone else there so I can lie down and rest on the bench press without anyone noticing.

Joint Security Area

Beautifully landscaped gardens and buildings constructed with no expense spared. Birds flying around. No visitors casually dropping in. It could be a luxury retreat were it not perhaps the main focal point for the division between North and South Korea.

The beautiful garden was the site of a shoot-out a number of years ago. The wild grasses not far away witnessed the "axe murder" incident. It's a place with its own strange rules and customs maintaining a careful balance of fear - a balance which a misunderstanding could tip over into conflict. It's not for no reason that visitors such as myself have to sign a waiver recognising that our safety can not be guaranteed in the event of "a hostile enemy act".


Not far from the Joint Security Area is Imjingak - one of the closest points to the North which visitors can freely visit. Here we can look at the railway (which a few years ago was extended to Dorasan Station) on which one day we might be able to travel through Russia to Europe or elsewhere in Asia. Imagine going by train from Seoul to Bangkok or Lhasa or Mumbai or London.


Flags and other items symbolise the heartfelt wish of so many for reunification.

The Red Light of Failure - again

Yes - once again the red light flashed and the voice in the dashboard told me to come back next week . I won't for a while. I think I'll give up driving here and take the bus.

The Red Light of Failure

And again the red light flashed and the disembodied voice from the dashboard told me to come back next week. I've got no idea why. This test is like playing a game when you don't know the rules and only know you've infringed one when you get disqualified. However they did produce an English guide to the test which does answer some of my questions.

I will try one more time. After that I decided it would be easier to get an International Driver's Permit from NZ since my NZ licence does permit me to drive 12 seater vehicles.

A further example of the gap between this ultra-rigorous artificial system and reality is in the taxi driver who drove me to the testing centre at 80km/h in a 60 zone, and then 120 in an 80 zone; who was unable to stop for a red light; and who was only able to avoid hitting the car in front when it stopped by making a sudden lane change without warning. This is nothing unusual of course. You study how to pass the test, you pass the test, and then you do what you want on the road.

Getting A "Driver's License" (sic) in Korea

Our old friary van was replaced with a newer one (on loan from Seoul Diocese for three years). Very nice. Except that the new van has 12 seats rather than the 9 in the old van, although it's about the same size vehicle. This means that my Korean "Driver's License" [yes - that's what the card calls itself - I know the spelling is wrong] is not the right type for the new van. (My existing licence I originally received on the basis of having a New Zealand "Driver Licence"). And so now I have to pass a Korean driver's test.

And I failed.

After more than 35 years driving I failed the "course test". I would say that was because I didn't understand all the instructions and I had never driven the kind of small truck used for the test. Anyway - halfway through a red light flashed and a voice from a speaker in the car told me I'd failed and to come back next week.

The test is not so much a test of driving skills as a test of how well you can pass the test. That's a similar concept to most tests and exams here. They test your ability with the test but not at the underlying concepts, skills or knowledge. That's why everyone goes to academies to study the technique of passing exams.

Part of the driver's licence test here is that you automatically fail the test if you cross the centre line. That shows that the test has no relevance to what drivers do after getting their licence because I haven't yet seen one driver in our country area who can stay on their own side of the road.

So tomorrow I get another go at this highly artificial construct of driving round a course with flashing lights in the car, beeping sounds, but hopefully not the red light of failure!

The Blogger Returns

About time too you might say. Well perhaps the half dozen of you who keep asking me when this blog will stop suggesting I'm still swanning round the world, probably in San Francisco. Since then the swanning round has continued (actually work and community commitments took me back to Australia after the USA) but now has ceased for about 6 months. So I'll be in Korea until the beginning of November before the next lot of travel.

So no more travelogues for a while. Who knows - I might write some reflections on life in Korea, here in the midst of the mountains and cherry blossoms.

San Francisco

Everyone takes photos here: the Golden Gate Bridge, the harbour, its islands, streets going up into foggy hills, cable cars. These were taken at dusk in Berkeley, looking across Oakland to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge across the bay.

The Lost Sons

Sermon preached on Sunday 18 March 2007 (Lent 4) at St Peter’s Eastern Hill, Melbourne

(Luke 15:1-3,11b-32)

Just when we’d got used to the gloom and doom of Lent along comes a party. We were all determined to be miserable, but there’s a party for the missing son. Joy does keep breaking in, no matter how much we try to keep it out.

First, let’s notice the context of this passage. If we look immediately previously in Luke 15 we find that Jesus is talking to the tax-gatherers and other sinners. The Pharisees and scribes (teachers of the law) are grumbling that, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke then relates the story of the shepherd who had lost one of his one hundred sheep and who abandoned the ninety-nine in search of the lost one; and then the story of the woman who had lost one of her ten silver coins. Having found what was lost, they called their friends to rejoice with them in joy that what had been lost was now found. Surely the shepherd might have thought it expedient to lose one sheep for the sake of the other ninety-nine who would be in danger while he went away. But Jesus rejects the way of exclusion, of making victims and scapegoats. He shows that the dispensable one has become indispensable in God’s eyes.

This is not just a matter of showing that God’s goodness and mercy are greater than ours. Human society often maintains its collective identity by excluding those who are different and making victims of them. Jesus by taking on in himself for all time the role of victim, of outsider, has by pure love triumphed over evil. In Christ there is no outsider, no one is excluded. The ways of exclusion are a sham. And when the lost is found, that’s reason enough for a party.

And now Luke continues with the parable we heard in today’s Gospel reading.

“There was a man who had two sons.” He also had substantial property. What does the younger son demand? A share of the property which will come to him.

Let’s look at the two words which have been translated as property in this story. They are not the usual words used in the New Testament. The first word is in the son’s request in verse 12. What he asks for is his share of the father’s ousia. This word means substance or being. The same word is used in verse 13 when the younger son squanders his ousia in that foreign land. The father generously gives of his “substance” to his son; a love and generosity which is boundless. The younger son squanders his substance in a foreign land—he loses himself. The other word used for property is bios, which means “life”, and that is in verse 12, when the father divides his bios among his sons and again in verse 30 when the elder brother complains that the younger one has devoured his father’s bios. This parable is more than a story about a father giving away his property. Something much deeper is going on, something which touches on our identity as God’s beloved children and sharers in God’s life.

The younger son has demanded his share of what he would normally inherit. When would he normally expect to receive that? Of course, it would be after his father’s death. That younger son is saying to his father, “you are as good as dead”. In the culture of that day, and in the ears of the first hearers of the story, everyone would be scandalised. Old age and parents were to be respected and obeyed. The father agrees, rather than rebuke his son, and this too is surely profoundly shocking. He divides up the property. Notice something here – we are so much used to think about the younger son that we often miss this – the property is divided up “among them”. The older son gets his share too.

And so we follow the familiar trajectory of the story. The younger son and his life of wild living. His eventual poverty and loneliness, his going out to feed the pigs (and what a shudder of horror that would have brought to those who first heard the story), his decision to return back to his father and his carefully rehearsed speech. His father watching and waiting for his son’s return, and then running out to greet him. Yet more scandal. Respectable gentlemen, rich landowners, those who wear long robes, don’t go out running to greet someone who has publicly insulted them. Ordinary decent folk might have given the son a thin-lipped, “quick, come inside and hope the neighbours haven’t seen you”, but this father is no ordinary parent. The son is restored to full family membership; the robe reserved for honoured guests and great occasions; the ring which is the sign of authority; and the shoes on his feet because slaves don’t wear shoes.

And as for this party the father throws? This is not going to be a quiet family-only dinner. It’s a grand gesture and once again we are stepping over the bounds of decent behaviour. The party is for everyone, neighbours, the whole village. It’s about the restoration of a lost relationship.

But now it’s another one who is lost and the shadowy elder brother steps onto the stage. Suspicious of the party, rather than entering, he calls a servant to ask what’s going on. He gets angry, and fuming outside the party, lost in his own rage, it’s now up to the father once again to take the initiative and go out in search of the lost, pleading with him. What proper, dignified and authoritarian father would be reduced to pleading? Why can’t he order? This father seems powerless against his elder son who has now become the rude, disrespectful one. Look at the way he heaps insult on insult. He says he’s always been working for his father like a slave, and that his father never gave him anything good. He can’t bring himself to call his brother by the word, “brother” but as, “this son of yours”.

This parable is in some ways deeply troubling for the church and for theologians. Is the younger son really sorry for his sins? Some have said that he is not. They say he is sorry that he’s hungry, and he’s really just trying to bargain his way back into getting a more regular supply of food. But he doesn’t express proper sorrow for his sin as sin. This is, as I said, deeply troubling for some theologians. They say that this young man is not a good example for us of how to go about repentance.

I think that their point is precisely the reason why this parable is for us. It’s real and it reflects human reality. In the words of the American Episcopalian priest, preacher and teacher, the Rev. Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor:

Those of us who have done unforgivable things in our lives—who have broken solemn vows, betrayed sacred trusts, who have hurt the people we love so badly that we have knocked the wind right out of them—we know what it is like to watch those people struggle for breath, while we wait for the words we so richly deserve: “Damn you to hell forever.” When those words do not come, however, when the people who have suffered because of us rise up on one elbow and say, “I’m forgiving you for that”—well, that is when true repentance usually begins—not before the pardon but after it. (from a sermon preached on 15 March, 1999 at Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tennessee)

In other words grace goes before repentance. Or rather, in the context of this parable, grace begins when we “come to our senses” and start to make the journey home. We haven’t got everything sorted out. Perhaps we’re not sure what really it is we’re sorry for. All we know is that we are seeking healing. People who are broken by sin and despair can’t be expected to express themselves in theological clarity. They know something is wrong, and they want to get things right again. That is the important point because it is then that grace begins the long work of casting God’s light into their lives, exposing what is broken and opening it for healing. Forgiveness is not something to be purchased, but a gift from a generous God.

In other words atonement is about reconciliation, it’s not a transaction.

There is so much more in this parable for our reflection. Let me suggest something, based on Henri Nouwen’s book, The Return of the Prodigal Son: a story of homecoming. (And available from the St Peter’s Book Room!) He said that he first saw himself as the younger son, the one who had sinned and who returned to the father, back in his own home and held in the warm embrace of the father’s loving hands. He delighted in knowing those hands holding him firmly, and at the same time caressing him in a warm embrace. Next he came to see himself as the older son. Righteous, obedient, hardworking, reliable—but also lost to human spontaneity, and more than a little jealous of those who seemed to be having all the fun. This son needed also to come to the father’s loving embrace to be healed. Finally, and to his surprise, he came to see that the task of his life was to become like the father: generous, loving and a sign of God’s mercy. This was the real and final challenge for him—to be like that father who, having giving away his “substance”, had nothing left of himself to lose.

I suggest you do as Nouwen did and in reflecting on the parable see yourself in each of the sons. Recognise the need each of the sons has for healing and for knowing forgiveness. Then see yourself as the father—for we are all called to be signs of God’s love. And in considering the father, remember the words we heard in today’s epistle, “we are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5: 20). An ambassador goes out on behalf of another, and so too do we; we are the ones who go out on behalf of Christ. If people will come to know Christ’s love and welcome and forgiveness in this place, it will be through our own words and actions.

To the glory of God almighty:
the Father who searches for us
the Son who travels with us even to far-off lands
and the Spirit who is the life of our home-coming.

Christopher John SSF

flying friar

From the departure lounge at Newcastle Airport:

Yes - you are right. Blogging from a departure lounge is as pointless as those mobile phone conversations which go like, "Yes, I'm at the airport, yes, I've checked in, yes, I'm waiting to board the plane, yes, it's on time. yes, I'll call you when I get there."

Except I'm just enjoying this for the sake of doing it!

I'll be in Melbourne for the next six days, based at St Peter's Eastern Hills, where I'll be preaching on Sunday and generally just renewing our connections with the parish.
The parish is a

"place of soul-stirring liturgy, challenging preaching, fine music,
concern for issues of justice and peace - and it is a place of warm care

and welcome: a community gathered in the name of the Lord."

What a challenge to meet!

Return of the Lost Son

I'm preaching on this text this Sunday and it has been fascinating to explore some of what the web has to offer.

A thought-provoking sermon by the Rev'd Dr Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopalian priest, teacher, writer.

A collection of resources and links from the Girardian reflections on the lectionary website.

A sermon by Paul J. Nuechterlein, Delivered at Zion Lutheran Church - also from the Girardian reflections (If you haven't yet encountered the thought of René Girard and his mimetic theory you can learn more there - I find it a gives a whole new positive way of seeing Christ's death and resurrection in relation to the human desires for vengeance and exclusion.)

A sermon by Andrew Marr OSB from his community's website Seeking Peace - a Benedictine web site with articles on peace and spirituality.

Clip art from Crux Blanca (The Franciscans of the White Cross)

And finally a real old fashioned book with paper pages - Henri Nouwen's reflections on this parable and on Rembrandt's painting of it in the Hermitage Musuem, St Petersburg - it's the picture at the top of this posting.

There's also an immense amount of rubbish about this parable on the internet. Such as saying it's not really for Christians today because it doesn't illustrate true repentance. The young man just wanted to get back to somewhere there was dinner... You can find it all in Google.

I'll post my sermon next week.

awakening the dawn

⁷My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make melody.
⁸ Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn.
⁹I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
¹⁰For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
your faithfulness extends to the clouds. (from Psalm 57)

This week one of my duties at the hermitage is ringing the Angelus bell at dawn, midday and evening. I walk across in the darkness to the bell, pull the rope, 3, pause, 3, pause, 3, pause, 9. "The angel of the Lord brought tidings to Mary..." and calling to prayer not only the brothers, but a good part of the natural world around. Birds screech back at the bell. Cattle call out. "I will awaken the dawn."