When you feel all alone

And the world has turned its back on you

Give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart

I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you

It’s hard to find relief and people can be so cold

When darkness is upon your door and you feel like you can’t take anymore

Let me be the one you call

If you jump I’ll break your fall

Lift you up and fly away with you into the night

If you need to fall apart

I can mend a broken heart

If you need to crash then crash and burn

You’re not alone

When you feel all alone

And a loyal friend is hard to find

You’re caught in a one way street

With the monsters in your head

When hopes and dreams are far away and

You feel like you can’t face the day

Let me be the one you call

If you jump I’ll break your fall

Lift you up and fly away with you into the night

If you need to fall apart

I can mend a broken heart

If you need to crash then crash and burn

You’re not alone

‘Cause there has always been heartache and pain

And when it’s over you’ll breathe again

You’ll breath again

When you feel all alone

And the world has turned its back on you

Give me a moment please

To tame your wild wild heart

Let me be the one you call

If you jump I’ll break your fall

Lift you up and fly away with you into the night

If you need to fall apart

I can mend a broken heart

If you need to crash then crash and burn

You’re not alone

I only wish I could mend a broken heart, Brian.

Although Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me, I will not cast out”, he also said: “Sin no more.”

The Bible says: we must repent, that Jesus alone saves, and that those who indulge in sexual sin or who worship idols or commit adultery or are male prostitutes or practise homosexuality or are thieves or greedy people or drunkards or are abusive or cheat people – none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God – and that some of us were once like that. It doesn’t say: “Christians may continue sinning.”

If the church accepts practicing homosexuals as members or ministers, it discounts the Bible. Yet the June and July issues of TMA seem to endorse that discount, and disallow Adam and Eve as history. And yes, Adam and Eve are relevant here. Let atheist Frank Zindler explain:

“Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity.”

The current TMA Faith/Science Interface series tends to accept Zindler’s starting assumption. And if we assume that the start of the Bible is not true, isn’t it logical to deny sin and accept homosexual practice? But if the Bible is true, shouldn’t we eject practicing homosexuals from the church?

So I challenge TMA readers to refute Zindler – either with or without defending Genesis 1-11 as real history. Those who defend Genesis as history will probably be accused of scientific nonsense, while those who do not will be accused of theological gobbledygook.

Peter Newland

Mitcham

I was concerned about the letter for a number of reasons. The chief reason is because I remember what I was like at 14, what I was like at 30. I would have been cut to the quick by the letter, and it’s appearance in The Melbourne Anglican would have lent it legitimacy and support. I was concerned enough to write this, which I put here because it will probably not appear in TMA:

I read Peter Newland’s letter to the editor (TMA, August 2010) with some interest, and not a little disquiet. I preface my comments with the observation that I heartily agree with the sentiments expressed in Bishop John Wilson’s letter – let’s concentrate on the Gospel, and building up the church.

I suspect that Mr Newland’s letter does little to accomplish either of those aims, and I’d further suggest that TMA’s publication of the letter actually works against those aims. Mr Newland may believe and express whatever views he likes, but I question the wisdom of publishing them.

Mr Newland began his letter by quoting a long list of groups who, according to his reading, would not inherit the kingdom of God. He ended by proposing the ejection of gay people from the church. He began by being inclusive, and ended by kicking gay people, and ignoring the sins of others.

My concern with the publication of this letter is that it perpetuates the view that the kicking of gay people is fine, and all part of reasonable debate. Would the letter have been run if it proposed the ejection of alcoholics? Or adulterers? I doubt it. We behave pastorally to those people. Why not gay people?

The Anglican Church has not reached a view on how it lives with the presence of gay people. It has not reached a view on how it allows those people to live out their vocation as people of God. We are in a time of respectful listening and dialogue. Mr Newland may speak, and I will respectfully hear him. I would ask, though, that both he and TMA use appropriate respect and restraint at this time. Let us have more light, and less heat.

She would like to be elected “… to bring balance to senate” because the major parties don’t “talk about the issues that affect Australian families and children.”

Wendy obviously believes that she is speaking something her potential constituents want to hear when she makes comments like these, which appeared on her Twitter stream (they were later deleted):

Australia would never recover from legalising gay marriage. Those who advocate this are not thinking of the dramatic consequences.

Children in homosexual relationships are subject to emotional abuse. Legitimising gay marriages is like legalizing child abuse.

Gay marriage = kids with no mothers or no fathers, parent-less generation; uncontrollable depression & suicide. Is that the Aust we want?

All have a right to be homosexual, But no right to dictate to mainstream Australia or to change laws to suit their narrow agenda.

Someone has to talk about issues that affect Australian families and children. The major parties are not. I want to bring balance to senate.

Strange that I can be called a bigot for standing up for values that many people believe in yet others can deride my beliefs and that’s ok.

I’m not hurling abuse at homosexuals. I treat every person with respect. But we all have the right to stand firmly on principles.

So.

I agree that Wendy should be able to put her position. We live in a democracy, there is an election on, and she can say what she likes. But she has to wear the heat for making such obviously misguided, uninformed and offensive comments. She may genuinely believe them, and if she does, well, she does.

What she writes is wrong, and it is hurtful. Her very tone is unpleasant and belittling. Family First maintains that it is a party influenced by Judaeo-Christian values – one of those values is telling the truth and keeping a guard on the tongue.

Wendy is an example of a candidate who should never be preselected. Her speech is intemperate, and her behaviour unbecoming of someone who aspires to leadership.

What I would urge is this – do not vote Family First. Put them as your last preference. In Australia they will get funding if you put them in as your first preference, even if they don’t get elected. Do not give them a first preference. Put them last.

I also think that political parties should be willing to own up when they make mistakes. She should not have been allowed to remove the comments from her Twitter feed. If she believes them, she should stand by them.

Read more on The Age’s website.

(Sze Chuen Jar Gai)

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 500g chicken thigh or breast
• 4 tablespoons cornflour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp five spice powder
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 2 tsp Chinese wine or dry sherry
• Extra 1/4 tsp five spice powder
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 1 tbsp cold water
• 1/2 cup oil
• 15 dried red chillies, seeded
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp ginger, finely chopped
• 4 spring onions, chopped into 3cm lengths

Method

1. Bone chicken breasts. Cut meat into bite-size pieces. Mix cornflour, salt, and five spice powder, and toss chicken pieces to dust.
2. Mix stock, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, vineger, wine, five spice powder, and pepper together.
3. Mix cornflour and cold water.
4. Heat oil very hot. Add 1/3 of the chicken pieces, and fry on high heat to brown all over. Repeat until all chicken is cooked, draining each batch on absorbent paper.
5. Pour off all but 2 tbs. of oil. Add chillies, garlic, and ginger, and stir fry until garlic is golden. Add spring onions and toss for a few seconds. Add stock mixture and bring to a boil. Stir cornflour mixture and add; stir until thickened. Add chicken and toss to heat through.

18 25 minute topics on six audio CDs with written guide

Through this course, explore a powerful four-fold ancient pattern found throughout life, Christian worship and many revered spiritual exercises. This pattern appears to underlie the choice of four gospels and their sequencing into the three-year Sunday reading cycles. The four gospels, when read through this lens, move beyond being separate accounts of Jesus to become a seamless spiritual guide for daily life.

In this course, the words of scripture that we know so well come alive in fresh and enriching ways. Each gospel is explored as the answer to one of life’s four great questions, matched to the particular spiritual dilemma of the early Christian community for which that gospel was originally written.

Follow renown Catholic educator Dr. Shaia on a path to an enriching understanding of the Bible’s most frequently read books as well as a deeper spiritual connection to the Church’s traditional seasons.

With this order, your will receive, free of charge, a detailed written guide on CD. The written guide, included on a special CD, includes outlines for each topic, review questions and suggested readings for further study and will arrive with your audio CDs. Using this CD, you are allowed to print and up to 7 copies of your guide. Simply insert the CD into any computer to access the file.

Topic Titles

• Gospel Study: Integrating Critical Thought and Devout Prayer
• A New Lens on the Gospels
• The Third Foundation and an Overview of the Four Gospel Journey
• Gospel of Matthew: Antioch (70s First Century)
• Gospel of Matthew: The Great Mountain and the Question of Facing Change
• Gospel of Matthew: Birth, Passion, Resurrection
• Gospel of Mark: Rome (60s First Century)
• Gospel of Mark: The Stormy Sea and the Question of Moving through Suffering
• Gospel of Mark: Opening, Passion, Ressurection
• Gospel of John: Ephesus (90s First Century)
• Gospel of John: The Glorious Garden and the Question of Receiving Joy
• Gospel of John: Prologue, Passion, Resurrection
• Gospel of Luke: From Antioch (80s First Century)
• Gospel of Luke: The Road of Riches and the Question of Maturing in Service
• Gospel of Luke: Birth, Passion, Resurrection
• A Pattern of Grace Underneath All Tradition and Practice
• Eucharist, The Church Day, The Liturgical Year, Rite of Initiation, Ignatian Exercises, Interior Castle
• The Eight Essential and Continuing Practices of Quadratos

CS Lewis wrote a powerful (and searingly true) book about grief following the death of his wife, Joy.

In it he wrote:

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. (A Grief Observed)

And also…

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand. (A Grief Observed)

Dom’s events in Australia will address three primary questions….

1) What does it mean that, before Jesus ever existed, there was already a human being in that Mediterranean world whose titles were Divine, Son of God, God Incarnate, and God from God?

2) What is the difference in content when Caesar and Christ are both proclaimed as “Saviour of the World”–if we have only one world, why two Saviours?

3) Finally, and climactically, is the God of the Christian Bible violent or non-violent? And, if both, do we conflate those twin visions or–and how–do we decide between them?

John Dominic Crossan was born in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, in 1934. He was educated in Ireland and the United States, received a Doctorate of Divinity from Maynooth College, Ireland, in 1959, and did post-doctoral research at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome from 1959 to 1961 and at the École Biblique in Jerusalem from 1965 to 1967. He was a member of a thirteenth-century Roman Catholic religious order, the Servites (Ordo Servorum Mariae), from 1950 to 1969 and an ordained priest from 1957 to 1969. He joined DePaul University, Chicago, in 1969 and remained there until 1995. He is now a Professor Emeritus in its Department of Religious Studies.

He was Co-Chair of the Jesus Seminar from 1985 to 1996 as it met in twice-annual meetings to debate the historicity of the life of Jesus in the gospels. He was Chair of the Parables Seminar in 1972-76, Editor of Semeia. An Experimental Journal for Biblical Criticism in 1980-86, and Chair of the Historical Jesus Section in 1993-1998, within the Society of Biblical Literature, an international scholarly association for biblical study based in the United States.

He has received awards for scholarly excellence from the American Academy of Religion in 1989, DePaul University in 1991 and 1995, and an honorary doctorate from Stetson University, DeLand, FL, in 2003.

Marcus Borg and Dom Crossan have co-authored a series of books with HarperOne, San Francisco: “The Last Week: A Day by Day Account of Jesus’s Final Week in Jerusalem” (2006); “The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach about the Birth of Jesus” (2007); and “The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary behind the Church’s Conservative Icon” (2009).

Dom’s newest book “The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer” will be released in September 2010.

In Melbourne he will deliver a series of three day lectures and one major evening lecture. The details are as follows:

Day Lectures: Rydges on Swanston – 701 Swanston Street Carlton, VICTORIA 3053

Tuesday, August 31: Theme: The World of Jesus & Paul

Lecture 1 (10:30-12:00pm) Jewish Covenantal Justice
Lecture 2 (1:00-2:30pm) Roman Imperial Theology
Lecture 3 (3:00-4:30pm) The Power of Parable

Wednesday, September 1: Theme: Jesus & the Kingdom of God

Lecture 4 (10:30-12:00pm) The Life of Jesus
Lecture 5 (1:00-2:30pm) The Death of Jesus
Lecture 6 3:00-4:30pm) The Resurrection of Jesus

Thursday, September 2: Theme: Paul & the Lordship of Christ

Lecture 7 (10:30-12:00pm) Luke & the Life of Paul
Lecture 8 (1:00-2:30pm) Justice & the God of Paul
Lecture 9 (3:00-4:30pm) Gender & the Legacy of Paul

Major Evening Lecture: Arrow on Swanston – 488 Swanston Street, Carlton, VICTORIA 3053

Friday, September 3:

Public Lecture: 7:30pm “Divine Violence in the Christian Bible.”

Bookings here.

From The Australian.

LAST Friday the Prime Minister again restated his commitment to do more on mental health, calling it the “next cab off the rank”.

While some more argue that there are a lot of cabs parked at the Rudd government’s rank, we in mental health have yet to see any cab at all yet, let alone a driver with any idea of where we are going.

On December 7 last year, aptly while speaking at the John Curtin School of Medicine in Canberra, Kevin Rudd provided the first detailed response to the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission report, what the government termed the Bennett commission because it was chaired by Christine Bennett.

The Prime Minister said that “a lack of early identification and intervention forces people suffering from acute mental illness to turn to hospitals . . . as their only option for help”.

He was correct in identifying that systemic problem.

He went on to ask: “Why is it that mental health problems are so often picked up by police and drug workers, not our health services? This is the problem today, but it will become a greater problem in the future.”

The reality is that mental health services across Australia remain in crisis. The damning statistics are that every day on average:

• About 330 Australians present to emergency departments with serious mental illnesses, only to be turned away, with less than one in 15 referred to any other service.
• More than 1200 Australians are refused admission to a public or private psychiatric unit.
• At least seven people die of suicide in Australia (whereas road accidents account for less than four deaths a day), with more than one-third involving people discharged too early and/or without care following hospitalisation.
• Another 180 Australians attempt suicide (one every eight minutes), and of these 84 are hospitalised.

Annually, mental illness:

• Costs the Australian economy an estimated $30 billion.
• Accounts for more disability than any other cause.
• Is the third highest burden of disease, after cancer and cardio-vascular diseases.
• Receives 6 per cent of healthcare funding, while representing at least 13 per cent of the healthcare burden.

If the PM needs advice on what he needs to have in his mental health reform cab, then here’s the advice he has had trouble outlining. First, we must prevent another generation of young Australians developing chronic mental health problems because they have little or no access to services.

There is strong evidence for the effectiveness of collaborative, youth-oriented services, such as Headspace, and the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre pioneered by Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry.

Yet we will have only 40 per cent of the necessary capacity for Headspace by 2013-14 and EPPIC has received only token funding from the Rudd government. To truly build these programs, an additional investment of $250 million a year is required.

Second, let’s expand prevention as well as early intervention programs for children’s mental health.

The parents of every child with a learning or developmental disorder should have access to effective services, yet even wealthy families living in Sydney or Melbourne struggle to access them.

Too often these children develop more severe problems and are removed from schooling, cutting short careers, and lives, before they have truly begun.

Third, it’s time to properly invest in suicide prevention.

Take the number of young Australians killed in road accidents and double it: still more lives are ended prematurely by mental ill-health; it is the leading killer of Australians under 44.

But, across Australia, lifesaving suicide prevention services are starved for funds.

About $100m would expand these crucial services and we should concentrate on suicide hot spots such as The Gap in Sydney, where just last week the NSW government passed on an opportunity to fund suicide prevention.

Fourth, $20m would fund effective e-health programs. For high-prevalence disorders such as anxiety, there’s solid evidence that e-health programs reach a huge number of people in a very cost effective way.

Australia was a world leader in this a decade ago, and the internet is only going to become more important as a source of information and support – but now we’re backsliding.

Fifth, 60 per cent of our homeless have severe mental health problems. That’s about 63,000 people, and they need housing and support services.

These people are not lost causes. With help they can regain employment and their lives.

There are some great programs across the country, including the Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative in NSW, but your chances of getting a place are about the same as those of winning the lottery.

These are targeted, sensible investments that are ready to go; and they’re popular. A poll released by GetUp! last weekend found that 83 per cent of Australians would be in favour of investing $500m in mental health immediately.

So, what’s stopping the Rudd government?

The Prime Minister has told us that fixing mental health care in Australia will be the “next cab off the rank”.

But we’re still not sure what that cab looks like: is it a rickshaw or a Commodore? Mr Rudd, we’ve got the cab, tell us when it’s going to take off.

John Mendoza resigned as chairman of the National Advisory Council on Mental Health last week. He is adjunct professor of health science at the University of the Sunshine Coast and adjunct associate professor of medicine at the University of Sydney.

I voted Labor in the last Federal election (actually, Greens with preferences to the ALP), as I generally do. I did so hoping that a change of government would return the compassionate heart to Australian politics. I was horrified by the cynical maltreatment or neglect of refugees, the aged, mentally ill, the sick, the poor, the environment. I felt the Liberal / National coalition government had run social capital down into the ground, and, moreover, nearly succeeded in creating an expectation that even the most powerless and disenfranchised would be able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and ‘get on with life’.

I’m not sorry I voted Labor, as I truly believe that if John Howard had been returned to Government we would be suffering under even more horrifying policies. That’s what Tony Abbott represents for me – John Howard conservatism writ large.

However – the Labor Party’s Government, under Kevin Rudd’s leadership, has failed in so many ways that it is difficult for me to hold my head up.

One particular failure, highlighted by the resignation of John Mendoza, is delivering on promises about properly funding mental health care. It seems to be sufficient, in Mr Rudd’s mind, to make promises, as if they actually amounted to something other than vague intentions. As if they would actually make people well. The funding hasn’t come, and in fact, strategies that were working well, such as Medicare funded visits to psychiatric social workers and occupational therapists, have been gutted, presumably to save some money.

Mr Rudd’s government is behaving just as John Howard’s did. Perhaps it is the way all governments behave, I don’t know. If it is, we have really got a problem, and need to work for change in our political and social institutions.

I wrote a letter to Senator Kim Carr today, asking for him to make representations about this. Here’s what I said:

I am writing to urge you to take all actions within your power to work for more funding and resourcing for the mental health sector.

I am a 41 year old man, who, in 2005 was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder. This is a disorder which, because I am able to afford access to a private psychiatrist, is well managed with drugs and psychotherapy.

However, in 2005 my 32 year old brother Brian committed suicide when he was overcome by despair. He was unable to access mental health services because he lived in the country, and they simply were not available. One day he began to give things away – clothes, CDs, books, DVDs, little things. Not enough to arouse any attention. The next morning he got up, left his wife and three children, and hanged himself. He was found by workmates. His suicide has scarred my mother and father, his wife and children, his workmates, my two brothers, the community in which he lived, and it has scarred me.

I miss my brother. Each day I think about him. Sometimes, when I see something or hear something, or watch a particular TV program I think “Gee, Brian would like that”. But, Senator Carr, Brian is no longer here. I can’t share it with him. Not only have we been robbed of him, but so has the world.

Funding for mental health would make such a difference to the lives of so many. I realise that the mentally ill are rarely visible, and if they are, are frequently not photogenic. But we are people, with needs, rights and potential just like anyone else. To neglect us so cynically, to promise again and again to help, yet fail to deliver, is cruel in the extreme.

I urge you to do something to act, Senator Carr. Please – because I don’t want others to have to deal daily with the things I am forced to confront.

The Gospel reading for the Sunday just past was Luke 8:26-39:

So they arrived in the region of the Gerasenes, across the lake from Galilee. As Jesus was climbing out of the boat, a man who was possessed by demons came out to meet him. For a long time he had been homeless and naked, living in a cemetery outside the town.

As soon as he saw Jesus, he shrieked and fell down in front of him. Then he screamed, “Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Please, I beg you, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had already commanded the evil spirit to come out of him. This spirit had often taken control of the man. Even when he was placed under guard and put in chains and shackles, he simply broke them and rushed out into the wilderness, completely under the demon’s power.

Jesus demanded, “What is your name?”

“Legion,” he replied, for he was filled with many demons. The demons kept begging Jesus not to send them into the bottomless pit.

There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby, and the demons begged him to let them enter into the pigs.

So Jesus gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the entire herd plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned.

When the herdsmen saw it, they fled to the nearby town and the surrounding countryside, spreading the news as they ran. People rushed out to see what had happened. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, and they saw the man who had been freed from the demons. He was sitting at Jesus’ feet, fully clothed and perfectly sane, and they were all afraid. Then those who had seen what happened told the others how the demon-possessed man had been healed. And all the people in the region of the Gerasenes begged Jesus to go away and leave them alone, for a great wave of fear swept over them.

So Jesus returned to the boat and left, crossing back to the other side of the lake. The man who had been freed from the demons begged to go with him. But Jesus sent him home, saying, “No, go back to your family, and tell them everything God has done for you.” So he went all through the town proclaiming the great things Jesus had done for him.

The man in this story probably suffered from a mental illness, and because he was trouble he was chained up outside the city. Did he choose to live outside the city among the unclean dead? Did others drive him away and make him seek refuge with the dead, who, like him had little claim to humanity. His life is lonely, pitiful and empty.

The surprising thing about this man, though, is that it isn’t he who fails to recognise Jesus. He knows who he is, and what he represents – the loving, healing, renewing, challenging and rule-breaking God.

?What is your name?? Jesus asks. The question creates a little ripple of quiet in the middle of this frantic and noisy story. The man has been shouting; the narrator has been telling, in lurid detail, the awful methods of restraint that have been used on him, and his terrifying response to them; and into this clamour, Jesus speaks. The question treats the man like a human being for the first time in who knows how many years. He has been unclothed, alone, tied up and beaten like a mad dog. Did he once have a name?

But although he cannot now remember what those who once loved him used to call him, Jesus? question marks the turning point in the story. Now Jesus is in command, restoring the human image to this man, as he is to restore it to the whole of humankind.

Why are the local people afraid? Why do they look at the calm, clothed man and beg Jesus to leave? It cannot just be that they are afraid for their livestock. Something about Jesus and his action terrifies them. Perhaps they liked having the mad man there at the outskirts of the village, making them feel sane and in control of their lives. Perhaps they realize that to recognize Jesus is to be on the path to inevitable change. The ?mad? man was desperate enough to welcome change, however drastic, but these ?sane? people are comfortable with their illusion of life, and they do not want it challenged.

Perhaps we’re like that, too.

The miners’ fight against the new tax is an attack on our democracy.

Plutocracy, n., 1. The rule of wealth or of the wealthy. 2. A government or state in which the wealthy class rules.

SO HERE’S the situation. A small group of obscenely rich people are acting in concert to bring down an elected government that wants to tax super profits. They want to install a new government sympathetic to their interests.

The war over the government’s proposed tax on the super profits of mining companies is revealing the ugly truth of Australia’s modern parliamentary system. It is not so much the $100 million war chest and the ruthless exercise of power by the mining companies that is shocking, but the attitude of outraged entitlement they project.

The mining industry has always believed it should receive special treatment, but the boom of recent years has seen its assumption of a privileged place reach sublime levels. Having governments fawn over them has inflated the egos of the magnates to the point where the normal constraints of propriety no longer prevent them from saying in public what they say to each other in private.

One of the most telling vignettes in this sordid debate was Andrew Forrest’s expression of wounded bewilderment that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer no longer return his calls. Well, they won’t return my calls either.

It’s the sense of entitlement of the militant rich that sticks in the average craw. Yet in Australia today, mining billionaires expect that they only need to pick up the phone to get our most senior politicians to jump. So accustomed are the mining magnates to getting their own way that they are genuinely dismayed when the government, deciding for once to represent the collective interest, acts against the miners’ commercial interests.

So the dispute over the super profits tax is a defining moment in Australia’s democratic history, because here we see in its starkest form a conflict between the raw power of capital and the public interest.

The mining industry has been basking in its own success since its brilliantly successful campaign to defeat the introduction of an emissions trading system. It was an exercise in political thuggery rarely seen in this country. No remorse was felt over the direct thwarting of the popular will embodied in a government that won an election in which both main parties promised an emissions trading scheme.

And why would you have qualms if you are convinced that you know better what is in the national interest, and have no respect for democracy?

What has happened to Australia over the past three or four decades so that now many side with the mega-rich against a government attempting to obtain a fairer share of their vast wealth to distribute to the rest of the nation? Some have been gulled by the disingenuous claims of the mining industry that they are responsible for jobs and prosperity, even though the industry is responsible for only 1 per cent of employment.

There was something grotesque about watching Australia’s second richest person, Gina Rinehart with assets of $4.75 billion, and the fourth richest, Andrew Forrest with assets of $4.24 billion, pumping the air at an anti-tax rally and demanding justice.

Have we shifted into some crazy parallel universe where the obscenely rich complain of being victimised and call rallies where they protest that they can no longer have everything go their way?

What is absurd about the situation is not that the rich behave without conscience and continue to feel deprived as they sit atop mountains of wealth, but that we no longer laugh at them.

The top 25 mining magnates have seen their wealth increase by $9 billion over the last year alone. That is the amount that would be clawed back by the super profits tax.

Forrest, Rinehart, Palmer and the like are outraged because they cannot bear the thought that they will remain only as rich as they were last year. Of course, they cloak their greed in declarations about ”the national interest” and the workers they nobly employ, workers who would be sacked tomorrow without remorse if it were deemed commercially necessary.

So where is the public outrage at this unprecedented assertion of rapaciousness and the attempts by plutocrats to destroy Australian democracy?

Where is the trade union movement? After all, taxing to fund services for all working people is a fundamental labour principle and there is no tax more justified than an impost on the super profits of the mining industry. The threats of the plutocrats are a scandalous attack on working people, those who would benefit most from the distribution of tax revenue, yet the leaders of the trade union movement remain holed up in their offices.

Today we have an angry and powerful minority holding the country to ransom. The dark mutterings of Forrest and Palmer about the spread of communism in Australia are laughable for their paranoid absurdity. What we are in fact seeing is not an attack by the proletariat on the bourgeoisie, but the brutal assertion of power by the richest people in the country.

It’s enough to turn anyone into a Marxist.

I couldn’t agree more. The sight of these ultra-rich people working to undermine Australia’s democracy for their own benefit is very disconcerting. While I disagree with elements of the Government’s policy and their approach, I support their right to tax appropriately for the benefit of Australia.

A RAPID increase in lone person households will result in 1.7 million more Australians living by themselves in 20 years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has projected.

And couples without children are set to overtake the nuclear family as the most common family household within three years.

As the number of households reaches 11.8 million nationally in 2031, an increase of 4 million from 2006, lone person households will surge by 91 per cent.

Couples with children are the dominant family household now but by 2031, if trends are maintained, they will drop to 2.5 million as the number of couples living without children rises to 3.8 million.

”Mum, dad and the kids are down to one household in five. Over 50 years the shift has been quite profound,” said KPMG demographer Bernard Salt.

The rise in single-person households was being driven by an ageing population, said Mr Salt.

”These are not young, sexy singles … but sad, lonely old baby boomers. The widowed, separated and divorced.”

Mr Salt said he doubts whether Australian cities are ”ready for an army of single old people living in suburbia disconnected from the community”.

Sad and lonely…

We are a community in transition – there’s little doubt about that, and I’ve noticed the social changes Bernard Salt describes. We certainly see those in church. Which makes me wonder about the almost fanatical focus we have on the nuclear family. Not that we shouldn’t welcome, support and nurture families, but shouldn’t we also care for and include (and let them know they’re normal) those who don’t fit into the nice, neat nuclear family box?

Sad and lonely…

As I think about this I also reflect on the fact that I need to be able to reach out to those people, too, and show them care, love and support.

Last night Peter and I went to help some people who were in exactly this situation. Older, sick and in need. Pretty radical and immediate need at the time. One of the people died last night, leaving a partner alone, bereft and in some ways isolated. I think also of another person who has been widowed, and now feels cut adrift from a world which just wants to look past her.

How do we care for all?

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, recently released a response to +Rowan’s letter, setting out the Episcopal Church’s position. In part she wrote:

… the Spirit does seem to be saying to many within the Episcopal Church that gay and lesbian persons are God’s good creation, that an aspect of good creation is the possibility of lifelong, faithful partnership, and that such persons may indeed be good and healthy exemplars of gifted leadership within the Church, as baptized leaders and ordained ones. The Spirit also seems to be saying the same thing in other parts of the Anglican Communion, and among some of our Christian partners, including Lutheran churches in North America and Europe, the Old Catholic churches of Europe, and a number of others.

In a rare moment of moving quickly the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion has acted to punish the Episcopal Church (naughtiness by taking seriously the baptism of gay and lesbian people), and has indicated he has written to the other two ‘moratorium breaking’ provinces – the Anglican Church of Canada (potential naughtiness by taking seriously the baptism of gay and lesbian people) and the Province of the Southern Cone (invading and colonising other provinces). No mention of punishments for the churches of Kenya, Nigeria or Uganda, which have also invaded and colonised other provinces.

In Australia – silence, it seems. Sydney reports, with an air of triumphalism. Melbourne does the same. And those of us who are the subject of squabbling continue to suffer.

I wish the Episcopal Church would decide to invade and set up a colony here. I’d be there.

The following pictures are of birds affected by the oil spill.

I shake my head and weep at our self-centredness as a species.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori (Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church) wrote this in the Huffington Post:

The original peoples of the North American continent understand that we are all connected, and that harm to one part of the sacred circle of life harms the whole. Scientists, both the ecological and physical sorts, know the same reality, expressed in different terms. The Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) also charge human beings with care for the whole of creation, because it is God’s good gift to humanity. Another way of saying this is that we are all connected and there is no escape; our common future depends on how we care for the rest of the natural world, not just the square feet of soil we may call “our own.” We breathe the same air, our food comes from the same ground and seas, and the water we have to share cycles through the same airshed, watershed, and terra firma.

The still-unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is good evidence of the interconnectedness of the whole. It has its origins in this nation’s addiction to oil, uninhibited growth, and consumerism, as well as old-fashioned greed and what my tradition calls hubris and idolatry. Our collective sins are being visited on those who have had little or no part in them: birds, marine mammals, the tiny plants and animals that constitute the base of the vast food chain in the Gulf, and on which a major part of the seafood production of the United States depends. Our sins are being visited on the fishers of southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, who seek to feed their families with the proceeds of what they catch each day. Our sins will expose New Orleans and other coastal cities to the increased likelihood of devastating floods, as the marshes that constitute the shrinking margin of storm protection continue to disappear, fouled and killed by oil.

The oil that continues to vent from the sea floor has spread through hundreds of cubic miles of ocean, poisoning creatures of all sizes and forms, from birds, turtles, and whales to the shrimp, fish, oysters, and crabs that human beings so value, and the plankton, whose life supports the whole biological system — the very kind of creatures whose dead and decomposed tissues began the process of producing that oil so many millions of years ago.
We know, at least intellectually, that that oil is a limited resource, yet we continue to extract and use it at increasing rates and with apparently decreasing care. The great scandal of this disaster is the one related to all kinds of “commons,” resources held by the whole community. Like tropical forests in Madagascar and Brazil, and the gold and silver deposits of the American West, “commons” have in human history too often been greedily exploited by a few, with the aftermath left for others to deal with, or suffer with.

Yet the reality is that this disaster just may show us as a nation how interconnected we really are. The waste of this oil — both its unusability and the mess it is making — will be visited on all of us, for years and even generations to come. The hydrocarbons in those coastal marshes and at the base of the food chain leading to marketable seafood resources will taint us all, eventually. That oil is already frightening away vacationers who form the economic base for countless coastal communities, whose livelihoods have something to do with the economic health of this nation. The workers in those communities, even when they have employment, are some of the poorest among us. That oil will move beyond the immediate environs of a broken wellhead, spreading around the coasts of Florida and northward along the east coast of the U.S. That oil will foul the coastal marshes that also constitute a major nursery for coastal fauna, again a vital part of the food chain. That oil will further stress and poison the coral reefs of Florida, already much endangered from warming and ocean acidification. Those reefs have historically provided significant storm protection to the coastal communities behind them.

The dispersants that are being so wantonly deployed will have consequences we’re not yet cognizant of, and the experience of gold and silver mining in the West is instructive. The methods used in those old mining operations liberated plenty of arsenic, mercury, other heavy metals, left cyanide and acids, all of which have significant health effects on those who live in the immediate area of mines and tailings, as well as those who use water downstream and breathe downwind air.

There is no place to go “away” from these consequences; there is no ultimate escape on this planet. The effects at a distance may seem minor or tolerable, but the cumulative effect is not. We are all connected, we will all suffer the consequences of this tragic disaster in the Gulf, and we must wake up and put a stop to the kind of robber baron behavior we supposedly regulated out of existence a hundred years ago. Our lives, and the liveliness of the entire planet, depend on it.