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My heart sank when I read the news story which a friend emailed me. ‘Could this be Matty?” he asked. I skimmed the story and tried to work out when the last time was that I had seen him. I was pretty sure that I had seen him since the tragedy that I was reading about had happened, so I felt a bit of relief.

The story that was in the papers this week was about a garbage truck driver that had accidentally run over a homeless man who was sleeping on a dirty mattress on Bourke Lane in Redfern. The accident happened last year but the trial was this week and the truck driver was acquitted of negligent driving. The driver had thought it was simply a pile of blankets in the laneway and was devastated to find there was a human being lying there. The man who was run over was Mathew Hayne and the accident happened just down the road from where I live. I had thought that it could have been another Matthew I know, “Matty”, who you can also often find sleeping in the laneways of my neighbourhood. So I was glad to hear it wasn’t him. However, the story left me feeling affected and deeply sad and I had to think about exactly why.

Of course it’s a horrible story from all angles. It’s a horrific tragedy for the person who was run over, the family, the truck driver and the council. Fingers can be pointed at anyone. Why was Mathew on the streets? Why could not the truck driver have been more careful? Why are people leaving mattresses in laneways? Is this a sign of the “affluence of Sydney” as the magistrate said? Could the council have stopped this by putting up more parking restrictions in those tight inner-city laneways? The blame can spin around like a whirlwind which we can get caught up in as we choose the victims and culprits in this fatal story.

However, what stood out for me was something that Mathew’s mother said when she was interviewed by reporters eager to get to the sad story through the woman who gave life to Mathew. She shared about how she had been looking for him, she told them about what a happy young boy he had been and then she said “He’s not a homeless man. He has a family and he is well loved.”

He’s not a “homeless man”.

There are so many people who live and sleep on the streets in my neighbourhood. How many times have I used that expression, “homeless person” about them, without knowing the name of the one I am referring to even though I see them almost everyday? A friend corrected me once by telling me that I should be using the expression “the person who is experiencing homelessness”. However, I can still retreat into old habits and label a human being “homeless” without even bothering to look them in the eye, get to know them and find out their name.

It made me think about the invisibility of some people in our society. Even though this terrible story was an accident, it’s a sad reminder to me and makes me reflect on how a city like Sydney bypasses, marginalises and stigmatises the homeless community. Are we taking care of our most vulnerable? Do we see them or are they invisible to us?

According to the recent statistics homelessness in Sydney is up by 13 percent. This is the case even though this week we have been delivered a federal budget that is in surplus. The direct reason for the rise in homelessness is that there is a lack of affordable and low cost housing in the city. Sydney is pushing out those who cannot afford to live here. Will Sydney be a playground for only the well-off? We all lose living in a monochrome city curated for the rich, that is more homogenous and less diverse. Even though there has been more money going into affordable housing according to the government, the money is being put into maintaining current low-cost housing properties rather than creating new spaces and dwellings. This makes it look like we are helping those who cannot afford to live in Sydney and who need help with housing, when we are actually not.

What kind of society are we if we do not take care of “the least of these”?

In my book Urban Spirituality: Embodying God’s Mission in the Neighborhood I write:

 

How do we better connect with what is genuine, authentic and meaningful within us and also in our world?  Most of us want to live an authentic life and especially at the beginning of a new year we tend to ask in one way or another, “What will bring meaning to my life this year?” I think that this is what new year’s resolutions are in the end, a quest or at least an attempt to live a true life.

In a world filled with fake news, political correctness, self-projection, polarisations and easily available platforms that give anyone an amplified voice on which to project their ideas no matter how good or terrible they are, I’m longing for truth and authenticity. I know I’m not alone in that desire.

I long for that within me and also in my world.

How do we penetrate the deceptions of the self and our world in order to find what really matters without having to retract from life altogether? Howard Thurman called this discerning the “sound of the genuine” in us and in our world.

What does it look like to discern the sounds of the genuine? In Parker Palmer’s new book On the Brink of Everything, he gives someone advice and says that we should stop marketing our lives and start living.

That resonated with me.

We swim in an environment today where each of us more than ever has the opportunity to project our best self in the public forum. We have become so clever at it that not only do we project our best self but alternatively, we can also project a version of our broken self, a kind of “curated imperfection” in order to “market” ourselves as Palmer facetiously suggests. I believe that living in a way where we are continually “marketing” ourselves, stops us from connecting with the sound of the genuine around and in us.

What does it look like to start living our lives rather than marketing ourselves like products? What does “the genuine” sound, taste, feel and look like in a world that is all about self-projection, self-promotion and an exhausting drivenness? Here’s what I’ve been thinking.

A posture of Rest 

Angst can be a great driving force. If we are continually restless for more in our lives and driven by a sense of torment that things are not the way they should be, it means we are more likely to be activistic and influencers to change our damaged world. But I’m wondering what it looks like to make peace with the angst within us and instead bring change to our world from a place of rest. Rest in the fact that it’s not all up to us, rest in the fact that all things have their season and that a benevolent Power greater than us is driving our universe. This isn’t about apathy or resignation but rather about trust.

Basking in the Ordinary 

In the platforms and forums where we engage, the most charismatic, loud and bold voices dominate and we begin to think that this is where we ought to find authenticity and meaning. Authenticity and meaning can be found in those platforms but the deception is that we think that is where it is primarily found. We want to follow, and so the louder more persuasive voices woo us. But this can cause our heads to turn increasingly and permanently towards those places rather than paying attention to the more ordinary and mundane things where the sounds of the authentic can also be found.

Practicing the discipline of secrecy 

There is something very special about doing good in secret rather than in public. We all know this and remember that Jesus taught us to pray and give to the needy in secret. it doesn’t mean we don’t do these things publicly but there is something disciplined and sacred about quiet faithfulness compared to public shows of our good works. I think this is a spiritual discipline for today’s world which is all about amplifying our voices so that all hear the messages we have to share. In a world where we constantly hear “your voice matters”, a call to project, we can say yes but sometimes it’s ok to remain quiet and unnoticed as we faithfully do good in our world.

Revelling in Innocence  

Curating our self is something we all do. This means we intentionally present a version of ourselves to our world. I’m wondering however what it looks like to live an “unintentional” life. Again this does not mean a resignation or apathy but replacing a self-conscious striving for transformation of ourselves and our world, with living in an atmosphere of grace where we are surprised by the things that emerge before our eyes. When I was a child my mother and I would make bread. We would mix all the ingredients together including the yeast. This required a bit of work. Then we would cover the mixture in a bowl with a tea towel and I would run off to play. When I returned a while later, to my surprise, I found the mixture had grown and there was something resembling bread sitting right before my eyes. This reminds me of doing the ordinary work of God today in our world quietly and humbly, then hopefully, being delighted and surprised when we see the good that rises before us in its own time because of our work. This is different to intentionally curating or “marketing” ourselves where we expect certain results or impact and instead it means living in a state of continual wonder, delight and surprise as those grace moments pepper our lives.

What does it look like for you to discern and connect with the “sound of the genuine” in 2019?

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that can undermine a whole social system.

There is a video on social media of a Muslim man who stands on the street blindfolded, arms outstretched, with a sign at his feet that reads;

I’m Muslim and people call me a terrorist. Do you trust me? If yes hug me.

He stands there waiting for people to approach him. Slowly people take turns in embracing the man. Older men, younger women, children, all initiate hugs. Then we see a woman holding a newborn baby approach him and hug him, a man in a wheelchair hugs him. It’s incredibly heart-warming to watch.  Continue reading The Subversive Act of Hugging

 

 

It seems like everywhere I go today I hear about Hygge.

Hygge is the latest craze to hit our trend-obsessed world surpassing mindfulness and happiness as the medicine which will soothe our troubled souls in a weary, tumultuous world.

It’s yet another gift given to us by Scandinavians, the people who are apparently the happiest in the world, or so the statistics tell us. Either that, or it is a very clever marketing strategy designed to get us all to move there.  Continue reading Hygge and the Longing for Home

 

 

At a lecture on gender some time ago I said

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night I went to Susan Carland’s book launch in Sydney. She has written a book called Fighting Hislam which is about standing against a patriarchal interpretation of Islam. She has interviewed Muslim women in Australia and North America about their experiences of sexism in their religion.

 

 

 

 

What makes this book interesting is that Carland says people are wrong in thinking Islam is sexist and patriarchal.

Continue reading Things only religious women hear