Seize the Day!

It was October last year that I found myself sitting in Dr Zac’s consulting room. I’d had some chest twinges a couple of weeks earlier and gone through a bout of tests only to learn that my heart was just fine — No issues around cholesterol or blocked arteries. Turned out the most likely reason for the twinges was the chest cold I had.

My GP suggested one last test: “Just to put my mind at ease", an echocardiogram to better see the heart and its arteries.

And that’s where they noticed that though my heart was just fine, my aorta was enlarged. The aorta is the large artery coming out of the heart supplying oxygenated blood the rest of the body. An enlarged aorta often sends no symptom, it slowly enlarges over the years until one day; often during heavy exercise or lifting, it bursts — and then there’s a problem.Without immediate attention, you can die very quickly. It’s often a genetic issue, rather than lifestyle, so there’s no obvious reason to look out for it.

That's where I met Dr Zac, a cardiologist, who confirmed that my aorta was indeed dangerously enlarged and would need surgery to repair it.

As we concluded our consultation Dr Zac said that it is often just the providence of God that it’s noticed and that if I was a believer, I should thank God! If I hadn’t experienced, (totally unrelated) twinges and followed them up with the extra tests I might never have found out till too late! 

I've since had the requisite surgery and am on the way to full recovery. I'll reference that in future posts.

It’s an odd feeling to learn how precarious life is.“It’s like you’ve got a ticking time-bomb in there, don’t lift anything heavy, do strenuous exercise or increase your stress levels,” as one physician put it.

It makes you realise that none of us know what’s just round the corner and how uncertain life can be. One person get’s hit by a runaway car, another person get’s missed.

I notice American Senator Lindsay Graham just recently died of the same condition. I got diagnosed in time, but he didn’t.

James 4:14 (MSG) observes: “You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing … make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”

To seize each day and live it fully, in the moment, as a gift, is how we are to live — not fretting about what the future may bring — “Carpe Diem—Seize the day!”

Mother Teresa put it: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today!”

Jesus said: “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:34 (NLT)

Patricia Fleming, an American poet and retired psychiatric social worker wrote a poem worth pondering:

The Peace of Wild Things 

 Live in the moment,

Just take it all in.

Pay attention to everything,

Right there and right then.

Don't let your mind wander

To what's coming next.

Cherish this moment

And give it your best.

Don't let tomorrow

Make you rush through today,

Or too many great moments

Will just go to waste.

And the person you're with,

In that moment you share,

Give them all of your focus;

Be totally there.

Laugh till it hurts,

Let the tears drop.

Fill up each moment

With all that you've got.

Don't miss the details;

The lesson is there.

Don't get complacent;

Stay sharp and aware.

It can take but a moment

To change your life's path.

And once it ticks by,

There is no going back.

In just 60 seconds,

You may make a new friend.

Find your true love,

Or see a life start or end.

You become who you are

In those moments you live.

And the growth's not in taking

But in how much you give.

Life is just moments,

So precious and few.

Whether valued or squandered,

It's all up to you!

Pastors, Poets, Prophets or Gandalf?

Some years ago, visiting the U.K, , I stood at the back of the little village church in Grasmere in the Lakes District. This is surely one of the most quintessential of little English villages! The poet William Wordsworth who lived in here for fourteen years, described it as "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found." 

The little stone church (St. Oswald's) has been there since 642. It’s one of the oldest chapels in England. With its high wooden pews, stained glass windows, pulpits, organ, fading hymn books and other pieces of typical church paraphernalia it looked and felt and even smelt “Churchy.” I had the sense of being whisked back in my imagination to every archetypal memory of childhood associated with being in “church.”  

Not many generations ago the shape and functions of a local parish church were well understood and more or less unchanging: funerals, weddings, worship services, hymns, maybe some choruses, Sunday School, pews, organs, offerings, youth clubs, cucumber sandwiches, fetes, lunches, fellowship events, holiday camps, dedications, children’s talks, missionary weekends, prayer meetings, working bees, craft groups and the occasional inter-church gathering or outreach.

The buildings were all designed along the same lines, the dusty old fellowship rooms all smelt the same! The liturgical hangings and occasional stained glass worked together to create a particular mood or space. There was a minister, with larger churches employing a part time youth pastor or maybe student minister, and very occasionally even a children’s worker or pastoral care assistant. The Church stood at the centre of the community. A place for worship; a place that told the story of that town; the theatre where the of the rites of passage for each generation were enacted time and again. 

To aspire to pastoral ministry meant describing a vocational pathway most practicing Christians could imagine, and most comedic TV shows could caricature with ease (Think Vicar of Dibley, for example).

Ministers managed and cultivated stable congregations whose members often had long histories in the church. The minister presided over the rites of passage for these close-knit communities -- hatches, matches and dispatches! The events on the annual church calendar were organized in a similar fashion year by year. The minister maintained and conserved the marks of a gracious and compassionate community that was often quite well connected and appreciated by its broader community.

Such a minister might expect to serve for maybe five to ten fruitful years in such a congregation before moving to take their particular gifts and insights to strengthen another, not dissimilar church. In a long ministry, that might encompass several congregations. Whilst there were cultural and geographic differences from place to place, the paradigms and patterns and expectations were common - even across denominational boundaries the patterns were not dissimilar.

This has now changed. Most denominations are both aging and declining. Many denominations face the likelihood of disappearing altogether in a society that is becoming increasingly pluralistic and secular. Most under forties have little memory of the faith-narrative and rituals, and those that do often come from non-english speaking communities. Careers are no longer ‘life-long’ vocations, but will change several times. Society itself is going through a season of rapid change.

A TIME LIKE NO OTHER

Picture a time of incredible change and rapid progress! The certainties of yesterday  are lost in the progress of today. As one writer enthuses: “Let the great world spin forever down the ringing groves of change!”

Another significant national leader says in a speech: 

“Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to ... our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed, all history points ... the unity of mankind [sic]. ....
The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible ease; the languages of all nations are known, and their acquirement placed within the reach of everybody; thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power, of lightning. ...” 

A key political commentator looks back: 

“ It is nowadays not easy to recollect how wide was the intellectual gulf which separated the young generation ... from their parents. ... The young men [sic] of the time grew up with the new ideas and accepted them as a matter of course... Our parents lived in an intellectual world which bore no relation to our own; and cut adrift as we were from the intellectual moorings of our upbringings, recognising as we did, that the older men were useless as guides in religion, in science, in philosophy ... we also felt instinctively that we could accept nothing on trust from those who still believed that the early chapters of Genesis accurately described the origin of the universe, and that we had to discover somewhere for ourselves what were the true principles of the ... science of sociology...”

The time I write of is one of great upheaval, discovery, technology and meteoric change. The old world and its ways are being swept away. A breathtaking and new global economy is being birthed. New injustices and also fresh opportunities are evolving. 

Fresh expressions of church are urgently needed and being launched – movements of brave, young and radical followers of Christ who raise the hackles of the traditional religious bureaucracies they are leaving! 

I write, of course, of the mid eighteen-hundreds. 

Where is God in difficult times?

There is a particularly poignant scene in Les Miserables. The poor and oppressed people have risen up in revolution hoping for a better life, but the revolution has failed.
Good men and women have fallen, and the level of suffering has increased and now Marius Pontmercy sits in the broken cafe knowing he's the only one to survive, his friends have died, other than Jean Valjean, and he now regrets and reminisces the loss of his friends:

“Oh, my friends, my friends, forgive me.
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.”

 

One of the realities of human life is that tragic things and suffering happen in our world, and not just to bad people who we might think deserve a good wake-up call. Look at the pained faces of those sitting in the ruins of a bombed out city or in a squalid refugee camp. 

One of the great questions in life is this: "Why is there suffering?" -- Where is God in a war? Or in an earthquake Or in a crime of terror? Or a sombre medical diagnosis?

How do you respond to that?
How do we help our kids understand why the suffering doesn’t just go away when they say their prayers?
What do you believe your faith has to say that is helpful or unique at a time like this?

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of the provocative book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, tells how one day he received a phone call informing him that a five-year-old boy in the neighbourhood had run out into the street after a ball, had been hit by a car, and died. He did not know the boy; the family was not a part of his synagogue. Nonetheless he went to the service. 

In the eulogy, the family's minister said, “This is not a time for sadness or tears. This is a time for rejoicing, because Jack has been taken out of this world of sin and pain .... He is in a happier land now where there is no pain and no grief, let us thank God for that.” 

Rabbi Kushner said that he felt so so bad for Jack's parents and family!  Not only had they lost a child without warning, they were being told by a representative of their religion that they should rejoice. Of course they did not feel like rejoicing. They felt hurt; they felt angry; they felt that God had been totally unfair to them; they felt, not for any valid reason, guilty even. Their minister assumed God to be the direct and simple cause of this tragedy, and that therefore a simple solution would suffice.

Boutros Winter 2026 Update

Greetings friends,We’ve attached a short news-letter to give you bit of an update  about what’s happening for us and at haven. Click HERE

We’re into the middle of the year, with the shortest day of the year coming up soon (21 June)!

Winter is a season of discontinuity. The growth, warmth and light of summer are gone, he days are short, often damp, and there’s less light. Spring is still a-ways off. It’s a ‘liminal’ time!

Our modern world can feel like permanent liminality! Everything we thought was nailed down keeps changing. We live with permanent stress because the 24/7 world is never still long enough for us to re- acclimatise.

We’ve had a ‘pandemic’ of stress and fear long before we had the corona-virus pandemic! We have been alert and alarmed for years. And then of course, the never-ending earthquakes in world affairs can feel like a dark  liminal space. How do you navigate such seasons?

In our newsletter, there’s a reflection on managing such liminal times.

The prophet Jeremiah, writing about his time affirms where hope comes from: “... But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’"  Lam 3: 21-40

We want to say a huge thankyou to the many who encourage, support and pray for us and for Haven — You are all SO appreciated! 

  Sincerely,

  Martin and Esmae

Anzac Day | Grief and Hope

About halfway through the movie 1917 there is a haunting scene of exhausted young soldiers slumped down listening to one singing the song: “Wayfaring Stranger.” 

It’s the view of World War 1 from from the perspective of an insignificant shell-shocked trooper in the trenches.
It's Anzac Day again, and many of us will rise early to recall the Great War and the millions of lives that were lost.

The human cost of World War 1 was enormous. More than 9 million soldiers and an estimated 12 million civilians died in the four-year-long conflict, which also left 21 million military men wounded.

There was also a human cost in a larger sense. The war remade the world for the worse in every conceivable way. It ignited the Russian Revolution, it laid the ground for Nazism. It made World War II pretty certain. It’s hard to imagine the second world war without the first. What is unmeasurable, is the huge personal and emotional toll on a generation in terms of ongoing grief and trauma.

Each generation — and each of us personally will in some way — experience grief and trauma. Whether its the loss of a loved one; or surviving a natural calamity like a massive bushfire or flood, or a life- threatening illness — or maybe by having the rhythms and hopes and dreams of our lives derailed by some unexpected and inescapable shock or crisis — the great depression or nine-eleven for some, the repercussions of the COVID:19 crisis for others, the war in Ukraine or the Gaza crisis or grinding poverty or oppression.

On Generosity | Thoughts before Easter

On our own, we conclude: there is not enough to go around

we are going to run short
of money
of love
of grades
of publications
of sex
of beer
of members
of years
of life

we should seize the day
seize our goods
seize our neighbours goods
because there is not enough to go around

and in the midst of our perceived deficit
you come
you come giving bread in the wilderness
you come giving children at the 11th hour
you come giving homes to exiles
you come giving futures to the shut down
you come giving easter joy to the dead
you come – fleshed in Jesus.

Combined Churches Hurstbridge | Good Friday Outdoor Service 10am 3rd of April 2026

 

Coming to the City Nearest You

Palm Sunday, 29th of March 2026!

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, the city nearest you.
Jesus comes to the gate, to the synagogue,
to houses prepared for wedding parties,
to the pools where people wait to be healed,
to the temple where lambs are sold,
to gardens, beautiful in the moonlight.
He comes to the governor’s palace.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, the city nearest you,
to new subdivisions and trailer parks,
to penthouses and basement apartments,
to the factory, the hospital and the Cineplex,
to the big box outlet centre and to churches,
with the same old same old message,
unchanged from the beginning of time.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, the city nearest you
with his Good News and…
Hope erupts! Joy springs forth!
The very stones cry out,
“Hosanna in the highest,
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
The crowds jostle and push,
they can’t get close enough!
People running alongside 
flinging down their coats before him!
Jesus, the parade marshal, waving, smiling.
The paparazzi elbow for room,
looking for that perfect picture for the headline,
“The Man Who Would Be King”.

🍁 Autumn 2026 Newsletter 🍁

Greetings friends,

I can’t believe it’s Easter in just a couple of weeks!

Watching the news each day, so much has already happened in just the first few months of this year that is disquieting! We live in interesting times! Values we thought were nailed down have come loose. Institutions that were trusted are no longer trusted.  

The economic and political and religious systems we kind of assumed would also be the scaffolding for our lives are looking  shaky. There are so many disruptive forces at play, and we do not know what the landscape will look like when the dust settles.

The hope of Easter is the foundational belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which signifies victory over death, sin, and despair. For Christians, it is this "living hope” (1 Peter 1:3) that provides the assurance of new life and the power for transformation in the present, regardless of the turmoil that we see. 

The Easter message is as fresh and pertinent as it ever was!

We’ve attached a short news-letter to give you bit of an update: HERE

We want to say a huge thankyou to the many who encourage, support and pray for us and for Haven — You are SO appreciated! 

Sincerely,

M & E

Dona Nobis Pacem | Grant Us Peace

 

Lenten Prayer

Revise our taking

You, You giver!
You have given light and life to the world;
You have given freedom from Pharaoh to your people Israel;
You have given your only Son for the sake of the world;
You have given yourself to us;
You have given and forgiven,
and you remember our sins no more.

And we, in response, are takers:
We take eagerly what you give us;
we take from our neighbors near at hand as is acceptable;
we take from our unseen neighbors greedily and acquisitively;
we take from our weak neighbors thoughtlessly;
we take all that we can lay our hands on.

It dawns on us that our taking does not match your giving.
In this Lenten season revise our taking,
that it may be grateful and disciplined
even as you give in was generous and overwhelming.
Amen

Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven Rooted in Earth (153-154).

Lent: The Writing’s On The Wall | Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier

"It’s the cliché that means everybody else knows but you, you’ve been blind to the bleeding obvious. The phrase originates from an episode in the Old Testament, Book of Daniel, where the Babylonian King Belshazzar was entertaining his courtiers on the eve of battle, getting drunk from cups stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem, instead of being with his troops."

"The hand of G-d appeared and proceeded to write on the wall, words of judgement about not measuring up to expectations. Belshazzar was dead by dawn. He never saw it coming. 

None of us see it coming..." (Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier).

What are the certainties that weigh us down? What are the illusions and assumptions that immobilise and paralyse us until too late?

Marcel Proust said: "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes."  

   (Click pic to play song...)

Hannah Arendt quote

Written in 1951, and reflecting on the rise of Nazi Germany andStalinist Russia:

"...  In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... 

Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. 

The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” 

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Published in 1951, The Origins of Totalitarianism is Hannah Arendt's landmark analysis of the conditions that birthed Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Arendt argues that totalitarianism is a "novel form of government" distinct from traditional dictatorships because it seeks total domination over every aspect of human life—including the inner thoughts of its subjects

T. S. Eliot's "Journey of The Magi"

'A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.'

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

May we dream of a world made new

May we dream of a world made new,

Where together we shout for justice,

And as one we fight against oppression.

May we dream of a world made new,

Where together we seek God’s righteousness

And as one we sing God’s praise.

 

May we dream of a world made new,

Where together we climb God’s mountain,

And as one we enter the promised land.

May we dream of a world made new,

Where together we proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom,

And as one we enjoy its peace, and abundance and love.

Source: Christine Sine’s God-space website

Dear Vascoe, Leunig

How an infant in a cow shed overturns the brute force of Caesar.

By the time Jesus was born, Augustus had already been monarch for a quarter of a century. King of kings, he ruled from Gibraltar to Jerusalem and from Britain to the Black Sea. He had done what no one had done for two hundred years before him: he had brought peace to the wider, Roman world—peace at a price. A price paid in cash by subjects in far-off lands.

Augustus "gave peace, as long as it was consistent with the interests of the Empire and the myth of his own glory," wrote Arnaldo Momigliano. There you have it in a nutshell: the whole ambiguous structure of human empire, a kingdom of absolute power, bringing glory to the man at the top, and peace to those on whom his favor rested.

Yes, says Luke, and watch what happens now. This man, this king, this absolute monarch, lifts his little finger in Rome, and fifteen hundred miles away, in an obscure province, a young couple undertakes a hazardous journey, resulting in the birth of a child in a little town that just happens to be the one mentioned in the ancient Hebrew prophecy about the coming of the Messiah. And it is at this birth that the angels sing of glory and peace. Which is the reality, and which the parody?

Advent Week 4

 

Ave Maria | Bono & Pavarotti

Ave Maria

Where is the justice in this world?
The wicked make so much noise mother
The righteous stay oddly still
With no wisdom
All of the riches in the world
Leaves us poor tonight

And strength is not without humility
It's weakness and untreatable disease
And war is always the choice
Of the chosen
Who will not have to fight
Ave Maria

Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria gratia plena
Maria gratia plena
Ave ave Dominus
Te cum

And strength is not without humility
It's weakness and untreatable disease
And war is always the choice
Of the chosen
Who will not have to fight
Ave Maria