Father Bob

Time

31.12.08

Time flies ….. time and tide wait for no man/woman ….. seize the day ….. take your time ….. time is the measurement of before and after.

There are probably endless combinations and permutations involving the word “time”.

New Year is all about time – time spent, gainfully or not, during the past 12 months - time available to be spent, please God and the “gods” over the coming 12 months.

Christmas suits me better because it’s bigger than time. It’s before, during and after time. That’s big.

Christmas is all about the never ending story of humanity’s place in the evolution of Wisdom.

Christmas reminds me of the possibility of the annual rebirth of commonsense for the common good.

Hard on the heels of Christmas comes a much more primitive festival of inevitability, the memorial of “auld lang syne … should old acquaintance be forgot.”

At the end of the Edinburgh Tattoo, that well known annual showing of Scotland’s memories, hopes and aspirations, a lone piper mounts the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle and plays a “lament” for hopes dashed and equally importantly, great expectations for the future.

Before that poignant solo performance the  massed bands of pipes and drums march off the magnificent parade ground playing a bitter sweet anthem “Black Bear” to accompany the military contingent back to barracks, back home, in fact, for soldiers everywhere.

To me, New Year is like that return to barracks, between midnight ’08 and sunrise ’09.

We battled through ’08. No need to regurgitate that 12 months. Let the media do that. Soldiers don’t have to leave the battlefield, retire to the safety and hospitality of the barracks and start, immediately discussing the previous days, weeks or months in the desert, jungle or trenches.

They need time to lick their wounds. So do we. We’ve got from midnight ’08 til sunrise ’09.

My dog, Franklin, knows these things by instinct. As soon as the bagpipes start the return to the barracks “Black Bear”, Franklin, the black dog, will growl quietly for a while, then burst into full howl!

What does Franklin feel that you and I don’t? Maybe that’s why so many of us drink so much on New Year’s Eve.

Maybe we’ve lost, with so many other instincts, the sixth sense of loss and great expectation that only a primitive, subliminal growl and howl can adequately express.

I am going to change the lettering on the magnetic board outside our church from “one star inn – vacancy” (Christmas) to “invest here ’09 – stocks are up”. (New Year and beyond: to where no one has gone before.)

R.J.M.

The proof of the pudding

Spare a thought this Christmas for those who, like the families and friends of Chris and Tyler, will this year have one empty chair at the table.

Chris was 20 and Tyler 15. Chris died in a car accident. Tyler died in a confrontation with police.

Their deaths were public events and felt by untold numbers of people through, not only so called mainstream media, but, especially for younger people, via IT media.

That’s how close we all are these days. We cry and laugh together. We watch each others antics, for better or worse.

We alert each other to imminent danger and swap funny stories to brighten up our lives of quiet desperation.

The downside is we’re swamped with negative information making sadness contagious.

The upside is we’re deluged also with positive clues to improvement making contagious feelings of well being.

Christmas is well marketed as a “pudding”, all bits and pieces – for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

The proof of the pudding is not in the eating but how you feel four hours afterwards!

Get yourself into the right frame of mind before Christmas so there’ll be long and lasting after effects leading up to Easter for us churchgoers and, the start of the footy season for “sportualists”.

I’ve put up a trite sign on our street level message board: The best gifts come wrapped in people. The next one will be deep and meaningful:  We are the message we have been waiting for.

Before Tyler confronted police in his local park he stopped to pat a dog walked by a young couple.

They said later: “If only…..” More of us have to work at rendering redundant “If only…..” and seize the moment.

We need to move beyond the random act of kindness to the collective ready response.

A civil society is needed to run parallel to our preferred model of democratic public service departments.

Neighbourhoods need local elders who can deploy empathetic locals, the equivalent of a public service crisis assessment team, in the case of a local predicament like Tyler v Police.

It’s the only mature and fair go each party deserves.

Happy Christmas and New Year!

 

R.J.M.

Please help us take away hunger

With a big thanks to Tina Aitken and thatworks:

Four days a week locals congregate at the South Melbourne market to purchase gourmet delicacies. Four days a week another group of locals gather just down the road, at the Emerald Hill Mission House, where the Father Bob Maguire Foundation provides them with a meal, maybe some cordial, and company. For others, the Hopemobile takes the meals to the streets.

 

There is a huge disparity in living standards for residents of the City of Port Phillip – poverty is a major problem that is only worsening in the current economic climate. While Father Bob, the charismatic namesake of the Foundation, and his team of volunteers work tirelessly to support the impoverished and homeless, they do need the support of their community.

Local advertising agency thatworks saw an opportunity to raise awareness for this cause by utilising their building site adjacent to the market. The team created a thought-provoking billboard for the foundation and gathered together sponsors to make it a reality. Project builders Built provided support by erecting a new hoarding and display experts Visual Solutions and Slipstream Signs produced
and installed the skins at the site. A fictitious streetscape opposite the market at 143 Cecil Street now draws attention to the important issue of poverty and homelessness in our community.

The Father Bob Maguire Foundation aims to provide basic support to everyone who needs it, but needs your help. Businesses and residents are encouraged to support this important initiative by offering financial support. Donations can be made at fatherbob.com.au or businesses can call 9696 0644.

Please help us take away hunger.

How far to go

It’s hard to know how far to go at Christmas – as a church, I mean.

We have a big, hulking, granite, neo-gothic building as centrepiece of our .9 of an acre precinct.

I say “hulking” because there’s something unsaid, understated by this building. It lacks a spire or tower.

There’s a truncated, wooden “chicken coop” where a spire or tower should be.

It seems the catholics ran out of money after the gold rush. Our parish church is an unfinished symphony. Don’t panic – I’m not launching an appeal for the million dollars it would take to build the tower.

In fact, I don’t know, after 100 years, whether you’d get permission. You know, the streetscape and all that.

Spires and towers by the way, were landmarks so people could find the church, see it from a distance.

The poor could see at a glance where to head for material assistance. “See the tower, mate? Go there and they’ll help you” What a good advertisement for the productivity of Jesus’ gospel.

Had I lots of disposable income and many artistic friends, I’d give the neighbourhood a Christmas present by wrapping a big white bow around the church building.

What a statement of intent, we’re here for you  - accept this building for your use in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, as a sign of our commitment to the neighbourhood.

We’re glad and proud, too, this weekend to acknowledge the election of parishioner Frank O’Connor as Mayor of the City of Port Phillip. May he and Ann be sure that we support them in their arduous vocation/mission as civic leaders.

Again, we acknowledge Peter, Joan Logan and family, who, together, served their ward with distinction.

Anyway, we’re not going to wrap the church even though it would look good by webcam on the screens of our virtual parishioners, John Cindric in Uganda and Gerry Ryan in Cambodia, to mention just two.

We have got a golden star over the church door. It lights up after dark as a reminder to passers by of the star of Bethlehem, an invitation to outsiders to feel at home with us/provide a home for us.

Lots of angels of our better nature (good elves if you’re allergic to religious Christmas) are turning up, unannounced, with tinned food, toys, hams, puddings and cakes.

Logistically stretched, as we are, we’ll try to give this treasure trove away asap. If, however, you can identity some excluded or ignored people, bring a box, fill up and distribute at your discretion.

Thanks to people, feeling the pinch themselves, who still share what they have with others. We know and honour you who give glory to God in the lowest.

R.J.M.

Creativity and Christmas

Around about now there’s a rush of offers by good people to do a bit of comfort giving to complete strangers.

These are the angels of our better nature. They’re like Christmas. It and they are upon you, all of a sudden, as if by surprise!

Yes, we knew that Christmas ’08 was coming from Boxing Day ’07. It happens every year…..Christmas is dead! Long live Christmas!

As a kid I delivered newspapers in the Prahran area. A week before Christmas the newsagent issued printed cards for us to deliver with the newspaper.

The card said, “Christmas comes but once a year. Don’t forget the paperboy” – short, sharp and to the point. Effective, too, bringing in the only unbudgeted disposable income of the year.

That seems to be the spirit of the real Christmas. It survives economic ups and downs. It makes the point – short and sharp – every year. Religious and financial institutions may have to cut costs this Christmas. Santas are looking for jobs. They may reposition, reinvent themselves as Easter bunnies or elves!

But, the real Christmas spirit will simmer away beneath the surface of hi-tech and global oriented human activities.

All rituals have to be personalised and personified to be of any use to humans, individually and collectively.

I’ve been banging on about this for almost 50 years. Besides part time involvement in infotainment and social activism, I am, principally, a catholic parish priest, the conductor of the catholic ritual orchestra i.e. daily Mass for a few, weekend Mass for many, baptisms, funerals and weddings for many more.

I know from long practice, that ritual is an essential activity for human beings well-being and welfare. (I know as a practitioner, that there is good ritual and bad ritual. That’s a given.)

All the founders of religious movements have encouraged disciples to “domesticate” rituals, usually presided over by clerical specialists in specialised places like temples, cathedrals, mosques, synagogues and ashrams,

That’s what, I believe, Australians have done with Christmas – and I congratulate them for that spiritual insight.

But, beware, a domesticated Christmas means the ordinary citizen has the obligation to become Christmas for others.

Christmas rituals in churches are, unavoidably, all about “glory to God in the highest” as, allegedly, sung by the angels.

Christmas for you at home is, equally unavoidably, about “glory to God in the lowest”.

Precision rules in church rituals, even at Carols by Candlelight.

Chaos rules at the domestic level. However, chaos can be creative. Each of us needs to be a creative, happy Christmas avatar.

Decide now, 3 weeks out to be a creative Christmas contributor. (Catholics have a 4 week “new year” period, called Advent “in-house”, to train for the big creatively chaotic couple of days.)

Don’t forget the paperboy! Don’t forget the myriad other goods and  service providers who make your day.

R.J.M.

The www of wisdom, worship and work

This weekend is Catholic New Year. The “in house” name is Advent. There are four weeks of it peaking at Christmas.

It’s a chance to look back to December 2007, see what the following months were all about, assess the profits and losses, preferably spiritual/moral, and get ready for action ’08 / ’09.

What the world needs now is a bunch of citizens signed up members of the global institute of spiritual technology. There should be, also, a regional version and a local version.

Traces already abound of both long lost and recently displaced centres of spiritual/religious inspiration. The planet is littered with ruins of temples, churches, shrines. Tourists visit and wonder at lost spiritual energies. Locals, as in Bali, thank their gods that the scent of religion/spirituality lingers on.

Another description for the institute would be the www.www, “the worldwide web of wisdom, worship and work”.

After such an apparently disastrous year for economic rationalists, Catholic New Year should be promising for economic “relationalists”, those who are spiritually fit enough to make do with less so others may have more.

The four weeks of Advent (Catholic New Year) are needed as the antidote to the Western virus of consumerism. This Christmas shop locally. I know lots of South Melbourne small businesses doing it hard. Landlords keep raising rents. Local businesses bring colour to suburbs, country towns and inner-urban areas such as ours.

Council elections are being held, also, in our state of Victoria. We’re blessed here in this 150 year old parish, to have two men, Peter and Frank, Frank and Peter (must avoid preferences!) standing for the Port Phillip Council seat at the centre of our parish.

We can’t avoid thinking global these days new and old media make sure of that. We need, however, to act local. Take an interest in one another. Reality TV has its fascination. Utube has, too, but to a much larger extent.

Raw reality, as available, every minute, everyday, is far more available at the local level than any other.

Sometimes people catch a glimpse of me, on TV or in newspapers, and my social activist workers and email saying they want to help.

I now know I need to redirect these generous enquirers to their own neighbourhood for voluntary engagement in their local scene. There’s always and everywhere local people, excluded/ignored who need reassurance that the neighbourhood is for them as well as for everyone else.

Advent is a four-week spiritual get fit course. We’ll need to be more than human this Christmas to fit the never ending story retold this time each year, not only in the affluent west but, also, wherever God is invited to humble him/her self to become one of us.

Christmas gifts should be symbolic, sacramental as if we all shared a holy communion at least once a year.

R.J.M.

Back to basics

I caught myself on radio last weekend saying the churches should meet and pool their resources to help the poor.

Within a minute, a caller rang in to suggest the churches burn the seats that take up so much space and fill up with beds – a spin on Peter Garrett’s “the beds are burning” to the seats are burning!

Before global issues take over our minds and hearts completely, surely we can muster enough interest and energy to think and act local.

After 35 years in this neighbourhood, I still long for the day when catholics, protestants and Anglicans, at least, would meet regularly to see, judge and act on local social justice issues like clothing, food, accommodation, education, health and advocacy for locals in danger of “warehousing”/compulsory confinement to a penal or health centre. I’m reminded of this glaring “black hole” in ecumenism (younger readers may need to google this 60’s concept) whenever I’m interacting at the church house front door with a socially challenged person looking for ten bucks.

Here I am, sole occupier of real estate worth millions, telling a beggar I haven’t got $10! And, believe me, enough times to be concerned, that’s what I have to say.

That’s just the urgent, regular, bottom end of the ready response to poverty that some modern secular saint or ombudsman needs to address.

The bigger problems of meaninglessness, including no jobs/occupation and lack of generous and attractive public housing could be best faced off by local people of organised religion teaming up with local people of unorganised spirituality.

Lots of gatherings are happening in Australia where “do unto others as you would have done to you” is the proposed basic binding principle.

Good stuff advocated by Karen Armstrong in her book “The Great Transformation”.

Yes, yes, says I. BUT, can we local organised religionists, reduced in numbers, admittedly, for Christmas, this year or next at the latest, please not only talk about/sing about the poor but actually give ourselves to the poor.

This is what’s supposed to validate religion in the eyes of both God and humanity. Religion claims to be the vessel that provides, providentially, safe passage for a divine humanity/human divinity through the creative chaos of our mutual never ending story.

That’s what Christmas is all about. Local churches should try to be inclusive this Christmas. Bunnings need not be the only saving place!

Local churches can’t help being preachy and churchy. That’s the way we are. But, we could use our real estate to advertise peace, joy and happiness in other than preachy and churchy ways.

Back to basics, perhaps. If we’re not going to burn the pews, we could, at least, have a couple of people on duty armed with food and travel vouchers and a Blackberry linked to Infochange’s latest data on available social services.

And, of course, ready access to 000 in case Hannibal Lecter comes looking for Christmas lunch. More likely, Jesus, Mary and Joseph will come looking for room at the inn.  

R.J.M.

Pyriamids, Socks and Capitalism

God and goodness go together, says I. Not so, say many others. They feel out of it at Christmas. The “festive season”, as it’s known in many countries, still evokes memories of God and religion.
Carols are sung, many about Jesus, son of God, angels and shepherds likely and unlikely messengers of God.

Give me a break, say those many who classify themselves as areligious. This festive season let’s practice goodness but without God. Just do it, I say. Don’t fall into the same trap as us religious folk. We worship regularly and talk/pray about helping others, even “walking with” them, but turn those gospel imperatives into fine, seasonal sentiments safely left behind in church and transformed into more acceptable practices like carrying for “kith and kin” not “Kath and Kim”!

They’ve just uncovered another pyramid, in Egypt, dating back to 3000 before the Christian era. Built by slaves to glorify a pharaoh, his family and mates.

It’s a reminder that we humans have always struggled with the practice of living together. We’ve shifted between tribalism and nationalism and back to tribalism so often as to bear closer scrutiny.

There was a brawl last week among monks of different branches of Christianity right in the heart of Israel, the temple, Jerusalem.

The Israeli police stepped in. Religious civility is the only strong and safe antidote to civil religion. Once religion succumbs to the blandishments of the nationalists, the temple curtain is torn in two and God leaves the Temple to its own devices, inevitably disastrous for the Temple.

Christmas is a chance to promote religious civility. Jesus of Nazareth is the strong and safe antidote to nationalist “gods”. But even Jesus is in danger of being kidnapped by sectarians who are often nationalists.

I, personally think Jesus is safer with holy secularists than with unholy sectarians.

I think that’s the beauty of Christmas. God gets down and dirty “away in a manger”. God consulted, first, after Mary and Joseph, with blue collar workers. As the child was heard to mangle the carol words, “while shepherds washed their socks by night.”!

Nationalism cops it again with “we three kings from Orient are” – three astrologers, for God’s sake, of Iranian (Persian) and pre-Abrahamic religious background led by a natural phenomenon to take part in the Great Transformation.

Capitalism, curse or blessing as it may be, covers Christmas in as much “ordure” as there was in that stable.

You can either rummage around in the muck and find a pearl of great value or you can recoil from the offensive trappings and miss out on a jackpot.

It’ll be easier to find the “pearl”, good people, doing good things for a good reason, this Christmas because capitalism is having a hard time of it.

Don’t miss the chance this Christmas of finding goodness/godness. Capitalism will soon be back with its mischievous elves, consumerism and waste.

R.J.M.

Street Report #27 - Am officially broke

The following is a report from one of our key volunteers after years of selfless service AND there's no relief for the Father Bob Maguire Foundation in sight. A strategic withdrawal from the streets and lanes is on the cards. No one's fault. Everyone's fault. rjm.

"Really busy night tonight. What can I say. Judy was present and she can report if she wishes. Top night.
 
P.S. Am officially broke as of writing this email. Have stopped buying fags for people and have given out my last $35 not asking for any just reporting a fact.
 
Probably won't be in tomorrow as off to see three people in two different prisons. Then I will see what to do."

Change

“Change” was the keynote of Barack Obama’s campaign. Change is like the air we breathe. Occasionally someone has to draw our attention to it.

Change needs to be managed, not discovered only. We’ve been bombarded by reports of global change. That’s what the media and its local equivalent gossip, does best.

Have you noticed how good the Americans are at the art of the great speech for the grand occasion. It’s not just the movies! They do it in real life.

Australians seem to have settled for the laconic or wry humour to couch deep feelings for a grand occasion. There’s a story in that somewhere.

This last week I’ve been to several rites of passage as celebrant – funerals, weddings, christenings. I also attended a 200 person gathering of Rugby League people, a fund raiser for past players finding life hard and young men talented at rugby but short on cash to support themselves.

In its own way, the Men of League dinner was a ritual. Old timers told stories which gave attendees a chance to participate vicariously and release feelings of empathy.  All rituals aim at that, (including church rituals).

There was a chance to change, for the better, attitudes to sport as more than a game, rather a way of life. I even coined a word, “sportuality”, for the occasion. I don’t know if it did much for my cause!

So, away we go again looking to promote the local alongside the global. Obama insists on the power of the local. He refers constantly to members of the voiceless majority – workers, parents, college kids – who construct, daily and selflessly, the United Local Communities of America.

I have a dream that Australians will espouse the founding parents’ idea of a commonwealth of common people with commonsense all working together for the common good.

Obama readily acknowledged the part played by the $ contribution of his silent majority of supporters.

In my case, 150 years of $ support from local parishioners, most of them for most of that time working class people, build two churches, three schools, a grand hall and large residences for priests, brothers and sisters. Add to that two residential and occupational facilities (orphanages as they were previously called for boys and girls).

How’s that for “putting in”! All those facilities were needed for the way we were, not the way we are.

What we need now is an entrepreneur or two who survey the .9 of an acre left on our books and create, like Aussies do so well, ways and means of making places and spaces on our .9 of an acre productive of the $ absolutely necessary for bringing relief to the broken-hearted of the neighbourhood

Obama’s “Yes, we can”. Yours and my “Yes, we shall”.

R.J.M.