I wonder what impact it has had on our way of thinking that in many Bibles the words of Jesus are printed in red? The implication seems to be that they are possibly the most important parts of the Bible we can read.

Jesus’ words…

But why not highlight and focus on his actions? Why choose his words?

Could that be our inherent bias for learning via spoken words rather than by action? Could it be that we see him preaching and think ‘Ah this is the important part?’

What if we went thru and highlighted everything Jesus did? To go a step further, what if we deleted everything he taught and only left his actions (I know – tricky) But I wonder what we would see and what we might learn from this.

We say that actions speak louder than words, or even that our actions are evidence of what we believe but we have put the emphasis on the words. For many of us words are cheap and easy – we can talk a good game whether or not we follow thru with action. Obviously Jesus’ life and actions were in sync, but we have chosen his words as the focus.

So I propose a new blue letter Bible where the actions of Jesus are all highlighted in blue font because these acfions are the outcome of his teaching and the stuff we are to imitate.

As you were

I watched the cafe manager make his way toward us – the 3 of us sitting at a table set for 4 – but with no 4th person in sight. He walked our way and then I saw him glimpse the teary eyes of Danelle and I. He tuned into the tone of the table and gently veered away. Now wasn’t the time to check on the meals.

We had headed out for dinner to a local cafe, partly with the intent of discussing what we will do on Sam’s birthday next week – Feb 18 – and soon to be followed by the anniversary of his death on March 24. We asked ourselves what we’d ‘like to do‘ on these days…

Simply, we’d like not to be facing a day like this… But it’s too late for that now. We are neck deep in ugly grief.and these days are brutal reminders. We shouldn’t be sitting in a cafe red eyed from tears as we discuss what would be ‘significant’ or ‘nice’ or ‘appropriate’. 

How the heck would we even know?

Are there books on this stuff? Do you YouTube it?

None of us wants to look away and just press on – go to work then home, followed by a gym session. And repeat. But what do you do?

It’s not like planning a birthday or wedding. The anticipation seems to take the form of dread. But the day is coming. We are placing ourselves firmly back into the reality of his life and death. We can only relive what we have lost. Yes I know we can ‘celebrate his life’ and all that, but it’s hard to keep a foot in both the celebration and mourning camp on the same day. And to be honest it just feels way more mournful than joyous.

I sometimes feel like I am looking at this whole experience thru a window of opaque glass – like I can make out what’s going on but I am not seeing the depth of it. I wonder if I have faced this loss square on or if I’m inadvertently dodging it. I’m not sure how to know that though.

Sometimes I do just look away – hit the off switch on the ‘frameo’ as pictures of him cycle thru reminding us of his life. Some days I don’t want to see those images. Other times I sit in the anguish and allow it to wound me again, reminding myself of how much there was to be grateful for – that we will meet again… It’s a strong hope.

We are now that family of 3 – yeah just 3… And you can’t help but feel the incompleteness that this reality brings.

And I’ve got kinda used to shedding tears in public places – because this is just how it is.  Sometimes tears flow and it would be dishonourable to try and pretend they don’t. I am happy to shed tears for this boy. If you happen to be present or see it then just roll with it.

And as we have gone thru this year I have been reminded again more than ever that we all carry pain – some of us have the cold, brutal, permanent pain of a death, others the ongoing ever present pain of a marriage gone south, or a terminal illness. Some live with tormented minds – damaged souls, even if they present ok… I’d put money on it that everyone is dealing with pain of some sort. 

And sometimes it’s hard to stop and explain it afresh to someone. I had a phone call this week with a person I had never met before and the longer we talked the more I felt that I needed to cue him into what had happened 11 months ago that had put out lives in this kind of holding pattern. I imagine it helped him make sense of our current life situation.

And if you find yourself in the presence of people you don’t know well who are in pain then take a cue from one of our local Thai Restaurant waiters. Danelle had dinner with my brother’s stepdaughter here a month or so back and over the evening both shed some tears at the losses they had experienced. At the end of the meal as they were paying the bill, the young waiter simply said ‘I don’t know what you are going thru, but I hope you’ll be ok.’ A simple kindness and a recognition that two people had shared their pain in his space.

It’s all it takes to make awkward not awkward.

It always happens.

You take a week off, spend it in the country, then next thing you know you are wondering what it would be like to move there – to live there permanently- to establish a new home and community.

And I guess the answer to that question probably depends largely on what you believe your
sense of calling is and how that may play out in a new environment. My calling is embedded in the title of this blog – to be a missionary in my own backyard – specifically Australia. When given that title it becomes specific but also broad – ” Australia” is a very big and diverse place.

How does that work?

A quick side track before I get to the point – my sense of “calling” first developed after a
basketball tour of the Philippines. I came home wanting to be a ‘sports missionary’. It was a
way I could serve God and use my athletic capacity. So I headed off to Bible College to
prepare for this adventure. However along the way, my focus on the Philippines got
railroaded. The person I was supposed to meet to arrange things didn’t show up – and as it
was the late 80’s we couldn’t just re-schedule a zoom call or Facetime. It was the era of
actual handwritten letters or occasionally phone calls.

In that same year my own church was looking for a youth pastor and a series of events led
me to put up my hand and get the role. For several years I was employed part time as a
youth pastor at Scarborough Baptist Church and part time as a phys ed teacher at
Scarborough High School. The same year 9 boys in my health ed class on Friday afternoon
were the ones who fronted up to youth group later that evening- and they continued calling
me ‘sir’.

I knew my heart and my focus was always on there who weren’t in church – who didn’t get it
and who had very little idea about faith . It took me a long time to work out how to be a
missionary in that space. I felt very constrained by the conventions of Baptist church life. I
remember being thoroughly rebuked by an older man because an article in our local
newspaper about our evening ‘ outreach’ service didn’t mention God or the Bible. I probably
gave back as good as I got in that exchange, as by that time I was thoroughly infuriated by
supposed ‘elders’ who lacked any kind of simple grace, let alone missionary acumen and
vision.

As my time in youth ministry progressed I became increasingly concerned for how we related
the gospel to post – moderns. (It was the 90’s) I read all the books and learned the missiology
that went with this. There was a point when it dawned on me that my identity was still that of
a missionary but of one to this great, deeply secular country.

I doubt I will ever venture overseas in mission, but I am constantly seeing opportunities and
‘people groups’ right here in our own backyard. The challenge I find is remembering that its
not “on me” to reach them all. The Spirit is already at work and inviting people into life. My
job is more that of the midwife – assisting with gestation and birth.

Old style Christendom mission work often involved big tent crusades or inviting people to
events where they would get ‘saved,’ (or they would at least have an experience that left
them feeling better than when they arrived.) That type of mission may still have a place
somewhere , but my current context isnt one where I could imagine it successful.

I sense most mission in our country today happens as ‘missionaries’ stay in a place long
enough for their lives to have credibility and for their message to have coherence with
everyday life. It takes a long time for people to assess your life and see if you are the ‘real
deal’, or just another rabid evangelist behaving like a multi-level marketer.

After 14 years in one community I feel like we can now say that people know who we are and
also accept us as those people. We are the local ‘God botherers’ but we have also been able
to communicate the message of Jesus in a way that makes sense to these people – and
some accept the message while others ponder it further, or simply reject it. Its much the same
scenario Paul worked with in Acts 17.

So back to my original musing. To pull stumps now and relocate to a new community, no
matter how enticing would be very difficult. I sense it would have to be a 20 year / forever
decision if we are going to remain true to our calling. I never put anything ‘off the table’ when
it comes to future adventures, but I do constantly find myself wondering if we undervalue the
power and impact of stability – being a permanent and solid presence in a specific place.

Yesterday while surfing I had the board hit me hard in the face – my teeth split my lip and
there was a fair bit of blood. On the beach, or in the water were 4 or 5 people I could have
asked for help because we have an existing relationship – but as it turned out 2 young girls
walked with me up the beach while another man drove me home,’ I didn’t know any of them –
but they were pretty keen to ensure I didn’t drive!

Stability means that over time you slowly get to know more people and they see you in good
times and bad. They see lives lived in surrender to Jesus (as best we are able) and they
have observed us in celebration, as well as in tragedy.

Sometimes words are needed to articulate why we live as we do – why our vision of an
alternate kingdom and our surrender to a good king is the basis for our life. Sometimes
actions and attitudes do the work themselves. But it happens slowly and often
‘unintentionally’, osmotically even. We just live our lives and hope that the allegiance to the
king causes enough curiosity and maybe even inspiration for others to want to know more.

But it takes time. Stability takes time and even then it is not enough to simply inhabit the
same home for 20 years, stability needs expression in presence and participation – being
visible in the community as well as involved in some way. This is not rocket science. It’s as
simple as walking the dog and being aware and engaged as you walk, It’s taking your kids to
swimming lessons the hanging around and engaging. It’s prioritising local work in your
business. It simply isn’t enough to exist, but neither is it a complicated process to be present
and participating in a community.

To step it up one more notch, I would say the next priority is availability. In a world where
people are often so busy , to have time for people is a gift. It’s in these spaces unfettered by
rigid time constraints that conversations can wind into topics that get bypassed in small talk.
Mission starts with stability , it gains traction with presence and participation, then it moves
further with a commitment to availability and to genuine, sometimes costly engagement.

If you get to here then chances are you are living with a missionary posture, practicing missionary habits and then praying and trusting that the Great Missionary will be doing his work in peoples’ hearts and minds. All’s left to do is assist in the birth process and welcome new life.

Oh – and if you just moved house , or you’re about to do so, consider the next place you go
as a potential 10-20 year commitment, then begin engaging in your community and see what
develops.

But be patient…

Today is 10 months since Sam died – a pretty unremarkable number by any measure. No one really pays attention to ’10 months’, and why would you? Except for us, I guess, as it’s just a further statistical reminder of his absence.

A couple of videos of him laughing and joking around on Cosi’s instagram this morning stabbed my heart afresh. Somehow video is more ‘real’ than images – you hear his voice and pick up his tone – that unmistakeable goofy silliness… that warm, kind heart… Seeing his face sends tears down my face. I miss him.

At 10 months I feel like some of the dust has settled and we are figuring out how to live again as a family of 3 rather than 4. We spent a lot of time with Cosi over the last 10 months, but this week she relocated to an off-grid camp project in Vic where she is working for the year. For her it’s a brave adventure and a step towards finding some fresh vision for the future. I admire her courage and her willingness to pull stumps and invest in a new direction, but obviously all of us miss her presence and her shared experience of the grief journey. I doubt anyone ‘gets it’ like the 4 of us, so to have ‘one of us’ away for an extended time feels a bit wrenching – even if it is for her good.

10 months is also long enough for many people to move on and either forget that this happened or simply feel like ‘enough now’ of the grieving and missing him – time to look ahead. I wonder if people assume we have somehow put this thing to bed and are getting on with our lives? Those who have had similar experiences would just smile and say ‘yeah… right…’ Maybe those who have never known a deep loss (and I probably would have been in that box 10 months ago) would no longer feel it appropriate to be looking back. Time to dust yourself off and re-build your life – right?

Well yes – but actually no.

Each of us carries this in a different way, but what is common is that raw, searing pain is never far from the surface. I don’t know if it ever will be. So if you are a friend, know that we are still very ready and willing to talk about Sam and about how we are going.

On that note, it’s been a week for beautiful conversations and in that Danelle and I have both experienced real love and care.

Early in the week Danelle caught up with old friends from Scarborough days, a couple whose daughter had died and who wanted to see how we were going. It was penned as a meeting of the women so I wasn’t there, but Danelle came home feeling loved and seen by people who ‘got it’.

Last week I received a text inviting Danelle and I to lunch – a person wanting to check in and see how we were going. It wasn’t someone I am close to so their number wasn’t in my phone. I had to text back and say ‘thanks – but who is this?’ I guess we don’t keep everyone’s phone no’s all the time, but when I realised it was Mike, I was very happy to accept.

So Mike is someone neither of us knows that well – but who thought of us, took the time to drive an hour up from Bayswater to our local beach, to buy us lunch and sat and listened to where we are at. Over lunch as he asked very simple questions – ‘how are you going?’ ‘What has kept you going?’ ‘How can I pray for you?’ I found myself very teary as I reflected once again on the presence of God in the midst of this tragedy and of the love we have experienced from his people – from the ‘Church’ in it’s many shapes and forms. We retold Sam’s story, and as hard as that was we were reminded again that we have not been alone. One of my wrestles has been with the question ‘where is he now exactly?’ I get ‘to be absent from the body is present with the Lord’, but I’d like a GPS bearing to work from – or something more clear than we have in scripture. Mike is a respected and experience theologian, but even he wasn’t able to shed much more light on this mystery that perplexes us – where do we go when we die?

I know the simple answer is ‘heaven’, but it’s also a non-descript answer, or it conjures up unhelpful images from evangelical heritage. I have some ponderings as to what shape heaven may take, but my ideas are more rooted in trying to make sense of an alternate reality than anything I find in scripture. Mike prayed for us and we went home after a couple of hours saying ‘wow – how cool was that? Someone we don’t know that well drove right up here to spend time with us and to care for us…’ It was a reminder that there are people out there who are sharing this road with us in various forms – some who relate to our experience because of their own loss – some who just love us and care.

Then yesterday Sue came to visit, another friend from Scarborough days (isn’t it good when friendships go back 30-40 years?) and she is a woman who has known the very personal wrench of loss herself. She has had many years of walking the path of grief and part of what she has learnt is that the ‘dust settles’ for others – if not for us – so to have someone check in a bit later in the journey is valuable.

We chatted for 3 hours (which I don’t often do…) as she asked us similar questions of how we were going, where we were going, what life is like… It was another emotional conversation, but not in a heavy way. There was a lot of joy and hope in the room as well as a fair bit of mystery as we pondered some of the questions that leave us perplexed or confused. Like Mike, Sue drove a long way to come and sit in our lounge room and be with us, but her presence was a gift and as she left we looked at each other and said again, ‘wow… we are so blessed to have these good and beautiful people in our lives.’

And today I got a phone call from my old mate Scott, who is back from his year in the Kimberleys and was waiting for me at Gypsy Boy cafe at midday… It would have been a great conversation if I had been there, but we are actually scheduled for next Friday – thankfully his diary glitch and not mine! So next week I look forward to that lunch with another old friend.

So how are we 10 months on?

We are loved – very loved – and very cared for. We are still broken and beaten up – still wrenched here and there by raw emotion and at times ‘lost’ in the mess that is grief. But we are loved and carried by people who see us and who are brave enough to ask us the questions that they know will evoke pain – but will also bring healing.

So if you are wondering if we would welcome your visit or your concern or your care, chances are the answer is ‘absolutely!’ To have people willing to put aside their own concerns to come and listen to us has been a huge part of healing. Thank you to all of you – you know who you are.

A number of years ago I got banned from speaking at a church in WA. I know because the pastor invited me – but then later called to say the elders weren’t prepared to have me and would I mind not coming?… It was the Forge era and some of what I had to say was intentionally provocative and challenging around the theme of mission. But clearly this church didn’t want me to come and do my thing there. I’m not sure if the ‘ban’ is still in place, but I certainly haven’t heard from them in recent times!

I guess the way I live and express my faith is not everybody’s cup of tea . I won’t go into depth on that thought as this post is less about me per se and more about how we admit people to the faith community or exclude them – and on what basis.

Tyson Fury for instance…

You know who I’m talking about right? The ex – heavyweight boxing champ, who grew up in a traveller / gypsy community and about whose life a whole Netflix series was made. If you go to his Instagram page, or Athlete’s for Christ you will see him there proudly affirming his conviction that Jesus is Lord and he is following him. But if you watch the show or read his biography you won’t find a guy who would easily slide into your local church. I can’t imagine a Baptist member’s meeting to vote on Fury… He’s loud, brash, a self confessed heavy drinker and in many ways a very unconventional Christian.

There is a part of me (a part I am ashamed of) that says ‘he ain’t the real deal’, but that’s only because he appears to live a life that I would find at odds with the Christian culture I have been part of. And in that he would present a challenge to my own life.

Then there’s Bono…

If you read ‘Surrender’, Bono’s autobiography, you would have no doubt as to the authenticity of his faith. He is able to integrate scripture into his writing in a way that reflects direct, deep personal experience. But he doesn’t seem to be part of a local church anywhere. He can’t be serious about discipleship if a local church community isn’t part of his life, right? The guy is out there on his own – a loose canon right? We’ve heard people called that before? Haven’t we?…

And then, Alexei Navalny, whose autobiography I just finished listening to. In short, Navalny was the Russian contender for presidency, who Putin had imprisoned and then killed. His story is at times inspiring, often humorous (he has a very optimistic outlook) and at times deeply reflective. He describes entering prison as an atheist, but ‘finding religion’ while there. He tells one particular story of being in solitary confinement and of memorising the sermon on the mount, convinced that Jesus really knew how life was supposed to be lived – and then after memorising it, he sought to live it out in the brutality of his prison environment.

He does swear a lot though… And he talks more about religion than Jesus… I’m not sure he’d be allowed admittance to some churches on the basis of his bad language or his limited understanding of faith. That said, I imagine if I was locked in a Soviet prison, knowing that I was going to die I might use some fairly naughty words too.

I could go on, but you get the point.

If like me, you have grown up in a particular expression of evangelicalism then chances are you have had your ‘boundary markers’ formed by the priorities of that particular culture. Church attendance, language, even dress code are all such common – yet often shallow markers of what we use to determine acceptability (even though it really isn’t ours to call anyway.)

I remember in my childhood days at a Baptist church where a certain elder’s son was living a prodigal life and when he occasionally did come to church on a Sunday night it was in a hotted up car, that he drove fast and loud, it was with long hair and cigarettes and a vibe that said ‘I’m not a churchie’. I can’t believe he ever made it past the front door – how he managed to deal with the concerned looks and disapproving manner of the gate-keepers…

So this is just a quick thought dump after pondering the way we frame our communities and how we determine who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. There is no question of the ‘Jesus way’ – it’s everybody in – all are welcome – come as you are.

If we could lead with that then maybe faith and the faith community would be more attractive to so many people who just see themselves as not belonging or not even welcome.

And if you’ve read this and feel like I am ‘lowing the bar on holiness’ or offering cheap grace – then you have read it wrong. I suggest Jesus has no barriers to entry other than a willingness to bow the knee and call him Lord. What happens after that is another thing entirely. How faith takes shape in a person’s life is always a journey, so to even expect a Tyson Fury to believe and behave like a middle class church going evangelical is absurd.

If you also feel this ‘not my type of Christian’ thing going on, then quite simply it’s time to call that for what it is and repent – have a complete change of mind – and allow Jesus to welcome whoever he wants into his kingdom.

And along the way perhaps we will be shaped and formed by these people in ways that our tightly formed and bounded cultures could never do.

I wrote what I thought was the final instalment of this series back in 2017, but seven years have passed and a lot has happened in that time. The sense of connection to the ocean and the way it has been woven into our lives has both increased, but it has also been the source of our greatest tragedy.

When you teach your kids to love the ocean you never think it will claim their life. Despite what we know of the risks and dangers it’s hard to imagine you, or someone close to you, will be that person who literally ends their life in the water. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while then you would know that earlier this year our son Sam, died while free-diving, but I will come back to that later.

As my 50s drew to an end I reflected with friends that I think I may have surfed more in this decade than I did in my teen years – which is really saying something. I can think of many days when I have driven home in the dark after my third surf for the day at our local beach. Like the fat kid at the buffet, I just kept going back for more even though I was spent and had no more energy. It just seemed too good to waste an opportunity to be in beautiful waves with good friends. Some days we would sit out there and reflect that you could pay lots of money to go on a surf adventure and not get pristine conditions like we have in our backyard.

Speaking of surf travel, in this time we made another trip to Medewi, not as successful as the first, but still a lot of fun. It seemed the crowds had increased even more and it took the edge off the enjoyment. I doubt we will go back again. It was also the period during which Sam and I went to Siargo in the Philippines, another trip that didn’t quite turn out as expected. Sam got a bad flu on the way over and was smashed and out of action for the first 3 days of the trip. Meanwhile on those days I surfed a wave in the village where we stayed, a perfect, uncrowded right and left that was out of the main surfing hotspot areas. I had 3 days of amazing waves while Sam was sick. On day 4 it delivered it’s final push of swell just as Sam was emerging from his fug. Sadly he missed the best of it and the rest of the trip was spent surfing scrappy waves in crazy crowds and not really enjoying it. I paddled out at famous ‘Cloud 9’ on a small day, but it was infested with locals who didn’t want to share, so I picked up one or two small waves before giving it away. Bummer…

On the second last day of that trip, Lucy, our dog died and Danelle sent a text advising me, but suggesting I didn’t tell Sam. That didn’t go to plan as Sam picked up my phone when the message came in and just happened to see the news. It definitely took the edge off a surf adventure that was already not going well for him. But if I’ve learnt anything it is to not get your hopes up when on surfing adventures because the weather, swell and conditions are not privvy to my holiday plans and may not be cooperative.

These days I’d hesitate before doing an overseas surf trip. Unless there is a heap else to do, it could just be a very long and frustrating couple of weeks – and there are so very few places now that are uncrowded. That said if you know of a place where there are fun waves, no crowds and a water temp of above 20 lemme know and I will be there!

As Sam got older his surfing improved and he began to surf more challenging waves – bigger than I was happy to venture into any more. Increasingly I realised that my capacity for heavy hold downs was diminishing and I needed to be more calculating about what I was capable of. It was humbling and even a little embarrassing to set off on a 5 day solo surf trip to Horrocks and surrounds only to arrive and see double overhead waves rolling thru and then realise I lacked the confidence to paddle out. Time is catching up with me.

As Sam was moving onto bigger things Ellie was just getting moving. I can’t remember exactly when she started surfing, but I do remember the first day we drove down to Mettams to watch her. I expected to see her flailing  around in the white water and maybe making it to her feet on the odd occasion. I had no idea she had been spending hours in the water practising, so when I saw her paddle into a set wave, snap to her feet and then ride it thru to shore I literally jumped off the concrete bench I was sitting on and cheered and carried on like a madman. My daughter was a surfer… It was like one of my greatest joys – both of my kids were ocean lovers and surfers.

Sam’s love of the ocean expanded to free-diving where he and his partner, Cosi, caught some very big fish. The Hamilton name has not been associated with fishing until this time, but maybe we were just doing it wrong… Perhaps a speargun is the easiest way to land a good catch. As they grew in confidence Sam and Cosi headed further out to sea in their kayak, always in search of the best catch. Getting the news on March 24th this year that Sam had drowned while fishing is still utterly devastating. Perhaps if we had not been ‘ocean people’ it never would have happened… you think these things. I don’t think I can write anything more about that. It just ‘is’ a reality in our lives now. Sam is dead – gone… The place that has been the source of such great joy in our lives is now forever a place of deepest sadness.

In 2021 we did another ‘lap’ of the country and I was eagerly anticipating another surf-fest as part of that trip. When we left home my back was sore and I had a bit of sciatic pain, limiting my movement and ability to ‘pop-up’. I managed a few surfs in South Oz, Vic and even Tassie before I managed to bugger up my back further by heaving a generator in and out of the back of our ute. More than anything I was looking forward to the NSW coastline with its never ending bays and points but by the time we reached Newcastle I could barely move. I tried a couple of surfs with Sam when the kids joined us for a bit, but I just couldn’t pop-up without pain shooting down my leg. I persisted for a few more surfs – ever hopeful – but all I was doing was getting angry and frustrated. We landed in the Gold Coast during a lock down, which coincided with a heavy swell, meaning Snapper to Kirra was all lining up and looking sensational. I was half glad I couldn’t paddle out as the size of wave and the rip pulling north would have seen me being ‘that guy’ who just didn’t know his limitations!

Back surgery was next and while it wasn’t a perfect fix, a year of strength training and stand up paddle boarding seems to have strengthened my core and I’m now in a place where I can surf without pain.

It’s been fun to watch Ellie’s surf savvy increase exponentially as she has caught the bug. Someone else is now checking wave, wind and period every day now too and understands the cravings that come with surfing – and the pain that accompanies a run of flat days.

In the last couple of years I have rediscovered the ‘coral coast’ a little more and found a few favourite spots up that way. It’s closer to Yanchep than down south and also a lot less crowded, so that may be where I spend a bit of time going forward. As mentioned before, I’ve also picked up SUPing, initially as a way of developing core & back strength, but I’ve done a little surfing on it as well. There have been a couple of hot still days where I have paddled out to Alkimos reef and found a small wave just perfect for the SUP, as well as a few days of surfing our local as well as over the lagoon reef (on high tide), something I never thought possible. Initially SUPing was hurting my back, but increasing the paddle length, as simple as it sounds seems to have fixed that.

As I wrote this (a few weeks back) we are in an air bnb in Eaglehawk neck Tasmania and I am looking out the window at perfect beach breaks going unridden because I chose not to bring a surfboard and wetsuit… Such is life hey?! Hamilton’s law = the possibility of great surf is directly proportional to the chances of you not bringing a surfboard on the trip… I did jump in for a very brief body surf as the 15 degree water was colder than I had even anticipated!

So seven years on from my last post the ocean is still deeply and beautifully woven into the fabric of our lives. From my morning coffee where I can see the ocean thru our kitchen window, to walking Tahnee and checking the surf, to my daily Yanchep Beaches 365 daily updates, a page I started for fun that now has 7000 followers.

The sea has been a place of great loss for us in the last 12 months, but for so much of my life it has been a source of immense joy and peace, so I can’t see me moving away any time soon. In a time of transition and upheaval we sometimes talk about where we’d move to if we could choose anywhere… literally anywhere… And we keep coming back to where we are – right here in Yanchep. It feels wonderful just to be able to say that.

I imagine if I live till I’m 85 I’ll still be getting up in the morning, checking the wind and the swell, wandering down to the beach but maybe watching someone else enjoy it!

How do you hear God – and more the point, how do you actually know that what you’re hearing is actually God?

I imagine it’s both easier and harder than people make out. Some people seem to hear God speaking every moment of the day – at least that’s how it feels. Maybe it is that easy for some… Others – and I would be one of them – hear (what I would discern clearly as God), less frequently – in fact rarely would be the word I would use to describe my distinct God encounters. I’m sure he is ‘speaking’ all the time thru scripture – I get that – but the moments where you go ‘hello!… this is weird and it ain’t me!… are so infrequent that I keep a journal record of all of them.

There was the time Dave Stanford spoke to me at a weekend camp and invited me to join an evangelistic basketball tour. He felt God directed him specifically to me – and he didn’t know that I had specifically prayed about going on that tour just two days previously. It was a bit bizarre and Dave and I still laugh about it even today. Of course I signed up for the tour the very next day.

There was the time I wanted to sell our dog who was driving me crazy with her anxiety. I wanted out. We found a buyer and she was due to be picked up the next day, but that night I sensed God saying ‘nope… you need to keep her and learn to love her…’ I know for a fact it wasn’t me thinking that because I was so over her I would have given her away. But then a God moment…

Late last year an email came into Quinns Baptist asking if I could make contact with someone who was seeking me. They noted that they were bivocational so I presumed they wanted to chat about the bivo life. When they came for coffee we had been talking for about 15 minutes when this person said ,’I guess you’d like to know why I’m here…’ I presumed it was to discuss bivo stuff, but then they told me that they hadn’t read my book. It turned out this person (who i didn’t know) had a vision involving me. (He had to google my name to see who I was) So they gave me their vision and I was left to process it. I have no doubt this person had a God encounter because some of their vision has been right in line with the track we seem to be on.

Then yesterday I was walking Tahnee, our 7 month old retriever / border collie and I had another of those strange God moments. I had been praying in the morning and reflecting on what the year ahead holds. As I walked out the door the image of a ‘coiled spring’ came to mind. I thought to myself ‘yeah – after the year of grief and trauma and relatively little ‘ministry output’ I feel link I’m ready to launch’.

As I was walking Tahnee and reflecting on that image I realised that I am a ‘door pusher’, in that if I’m not sure of direction I tend to push a few ‘doors’ to see if anything opens. As I was pondering this thought she was misbehaving, lunging at people, tugging on the lead and it was taking most of my effort to just keep her steady. She’d dive at a dog across the road, then back at the JW’s who set up a stall each morning, she’d pull towards the steps to the beach, then next minute be headed for the bush and something she had smelt in there. I don’t know if she was enjoying the walk but I was finding it difficult. I can’t imagine she was enjoying having me pull her back either.

For some reason in that moment I had a sense of God saying ‘this is what it’s like trying to guide you sometimes!’ Chuckle… yeah… It probably is. I can get fairly easily drawn to new opportunities and ideas, especially when there is a blank canvas to fill. I got the message. It was really simple. ‘Walk gently and allow God to lead you. Trust that the good shepherd is going to lead you into good places.’ Of course Psalm 23 prang to mind and I went home after and spent some time just reflecting on how I walk with God.

Psalm 23 depicts the kind of walk that is characterised by peace, trust and surrender. Maybe the good shepherd still had to continually herd the sheep back in line, but it feels much easier than what I was experiencing yesterday morning.

So the message (as I interpreted it) was simple; ‘Relax and enjoy the walk, trusting that the good shepherd will take you into good places (and he will walk with you thru the dark places). You don’t need to pull him around – he’s leading you and he’s got this.’

So we will see what the year ahead holds. Maybe the ‘spring’ will stay coiled for a bit longer, or maybe we will be invited into some good places and spaces. At the end of the day I can trust that – however it works – God is going to leading us.

So I share that, not because it was a ‘highlight reel moment’, but rather because people often wonder ‘how do you hear God?’ And this was one of those moments when I knew it wasn’t just me making stuff up in my head. If you aren’t sure how to hear God then I suggest it’s about tuning into his frequency and then trusting that what sounds like God (and if it lines up with scripture) could very possibly just be God.

As you were 🙂

I remember being interviewed by Sheridan Voysey around 15 years ago and being asked how my perception of God had changed as I had aged. My immediate short snappy response was that ‘he has got nicer as I have got older.’

Yeah – of course there is much more to that story than God simply lifting his game – and much of it relates to my own maturing as a person – but I definitely came to know a more gracious, kind and loving God than I had grown up with.

So what happened? If there was any subject more complicated to get a handle on then surely it must be that of understanding who God is and how he works in the world. And yet it’s the one thing that matters so much to us – particularly if we are people of faith.

And in one sense we could say ‘it’s easy to know who God is – just read the Bible!’ Clearly that isn’t the answer as the conclusions people have arrived at just from scripture are often different and at times polarised.

Some see God as angry and vengeful and can find scripture to support this claim, while others would suggest that anger is not a quality we should ever attribute to God. That really does make it tough…

And part of our challenge is that the Bible isn’t our only source when forming our theology. If I remember correctly then the influences that help us form our theology are:

Scripture – we would say it is the primary one, but we must admit that as Scot McKnight has said, ‘we are always interpreting‘ and sometimes it is less ‘primary’ than it should be when it doesn’t suit our inclinations.

Tradition – 22 centuries of church history have surely helped us crystalise a few things. Over the years we have come to agree on some core truths, but there is still significant debate and discussion around many theological ideas.

Experience – My understanding of God is definitely shaped by my experience of him – or by what I interpret to be an experience of God. Over the last few years I have been writing down all of my ‘God moments’, firstly so I don’t lose them, but secondly so I can reflect on what I see there. I imagine we all read scripture thru the lens of our own experiences.

Reason – If we are always interpreting scripture, then we are doing so with our minds, seeking to make sense of things – to understand the story more fully and accurately. Reason is also applied to experience and tradition. Reason allows us to move beyond flat readings of the Bible, appreciating the different genres and forms the books take. Reason tells us we need to read Revelation differently to James and reason also helps us know that while James and Leviticus are both full of instructions, they need to be applied very differently.

Culture – Some would argue that culture shouldn’t shape theology but the simple reality is that it does. An obvious case in more recent history is the modern / post-modern way cultural shift. While the modern approach was to nail everything down, the post-modern approach was to throw everything up in the air. A post-modern culture has a much harder time with nailing hard propositional truths, whereas moderns liked to have ‘5 points’ (preferably all beginning with the same letter). We could ask whether the shift to an egalitarian view of women in ministry is down to biblical reasoning or whether it is a response to the equal opportunity culture around us. (In this case I sense ‘secular culture’ has helped us to regain what is actually present in the biblical story.)

So that’s a lot of preamble, to ponder before we even get to discussing what God is like – but it’s important for us to frame our thinking and to acknowledge the different factors that actually form our theology. When someone says to me I just ‘preach what is plain in the Bible,’ I can’t help but think ‘plain to who’?

And where would you start in the Bible anyway if you were going to try and frame who God is and what he’s like? If we begin in the Old testament and read chronologically then we see a particular type of God depicted – probably one that reflected their understanding of a divine being at the time. But then as we come to the New Testament we see a somewhat different God presented.

In my own thinking I have found that the most helpful place to start is in John 1 with the incarnation. In the beginning was the word… and the word was with what God and the word was God…’ Then verse 14 goes on to say, ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’

Hebrews 1:3 speaks of Jesus and says: ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’

Colossians 1:15 says very simply, ‘The son is the image of the invisible God.’

We could go on and rattle thru a few more ‘proofs’ of Jesus as the means by which we can know God, but suffice to say this is a critical starting point. Jesus is our best depiction of God. As a result I side with those theologians who argue that we should read all scripture thru the lens of Jesus. I can’t remember who said it, (maybe Greg Boyd or Brad Jersak) but I liked the phrase: ‘If you can’t attribute it to Jesus then neither can you attribute it to God.‘

If we read the entire the Bible thru the lens of Jesus then it obviously influences how we approach some of those difficult Old Testament passages on violence.

Then there is the question of what we mean by the words we use.

God is ‘love‘… right?…

Except that now we have to describe and define what we mean by love.

I was listening to Thomas Ord speaking to the idea that God is ‘amipotent’, his ‘invented word’ to describe God as all loving, but not all powerful. Ord feels this is a much better depiction of who God really is, because as he says, true love is never controlling therefore if God is fully love then he cannot have control over any of his creation (‘even the ants’, Ord would say.) I listened to him as i was curious about this idea. Sam’s death has challenged me to revisit some core stuff and ponder again how I see things. But I couldn’t come at the idea that true love exerts no control. As a parent I would be utterly un-loving if I chose not to exert control over my small children – to insist they eat their meals, play safely and obey what I say to them. In fact there are places where the exertion of control is to show love.

So I can’t roll with a God who has no control whatsoever over his creation. I can accept (again a McKnight idea) self limiting sovereignty – a God who chooses to give freedom in many areas, but who is executing a bigger plan and sometimes intervening in this world as he chooses. My mate Ryan gave what I thought was a helpful albeit simple way of seeing this God in church one day. Ryan spoke of owning his own home, but giving his children a room in the home that was theirs and within that room they had a large degree of autonomy – to keep it tidy or messy, to paint the walls or cover them in wallpaper and so on. But at any time he could also intervene to bring change that was in their best interests. It’s not a perfect analogy but it is helpful to me in understanding how God works in this world.

So God is love.

We agree on that, but we may not agree on what we mean by that… Complicated hey?

Then we sometimes speak of God as ‘all knowing’. Psalms say that he has numbered the hairs on our head. Really? God is in the business of counting hair? I doubt it, but it serves a figurative way of describing God’s omniscience. Again though, we have to ask what we mean by that… Does God know every detail of the past and future? Does he know every choice I am about to make today? Again we have a couple of different perspectives on this question. Some who would argue that God has pre-ordained absolutely everything, but the mystery is that somehow we still operate with free will. While others would argue that God knows the broad scope of the future, but he hasn’t set human choices in stone, otherwise we would simply be operating with an illusion of free will.

So if you’ve read this far you may well be wondering how on earth we can know anything truly and surely. After 60 years of life and 45 or so following Jesus I find that it is a curious blend of those 5 elements / influences I mentioned before, as well as Jesus at the centre of my thinking that helps me to understand and know God and to live at peace with the mysteries that I can’t resolve. To be blunt and open, this does not guarantee that my conclusions are always going to be accurate and true – but then that is simple reality for all of us. Let’s at least acknowledge it.

So perhaps some questions that arise out of this ramble are;

Who is the God you know?

What is he like?

On what do you base this knowledge?

How do you know your perception is accurate?

How has your own perception of God changed over the years?

I’d suggest that if our theology doesn’t ever shift or get challenged, then we really aren’t grappling with the realities of life and where God fits into them.

I’m not great at remembering dates – I will forget just about everyone’s birthday – but I will never forget March 24 2024. It was 1.25 pm if we’e being precise, because my google timeline shows exactly the time and place our car pulled to the side of the road, as we got the news that Sam had died. I guess he died around 1pm, but that was the moment we found out.

And it simply upended our world. Up until that day life had been as sweet as you could wish for. I was enjoying the balance that went with a fun, small business and itinerant work in country towns. Danelle was ready to kick off study in Clinical Pastoral Education with a view to becoming a hospital chaplain, Ellie was excelling in her work as a nurse and had found her second home in the waves, while Sam was powering thru Physiotherapy and in a serious relationship with Cosi. They had been adventuring into deeper waters with their kayak and spearfishing set up and were really nailing the freediving thing.

But if you know anything about freediving then you’d know it’s one of the most dangerous sporting activities in the world – not because of sharks or sea-life – but because people are prone to push themselves into dangerous spaces with breath-holding. And the space between the limit and too far is deceptively euphoric, making you feel like you’re invincible or you’re ‘tripping.’ That day Sam broke one of the fundamental rules of diving by swimming away from Cosi on his own. We don’t know all of what went down, but we do know he died by drowning. The Coroner’s report finally came in a few days back – a cold, factual email (with links at the bottom for those who may need support).

Before that day life still had it’s challenges. Sam had been battling a form of OCD and at times it drove him to the brink. But he was winning. He was on the move against it and making progress at the time he died. Cosi had found joy in life and a bloke who was able to match her intelligence, while also passing with flying colours on the EQ scale. We saw our families converging with a marriage at some point and we were looking forward to sharing life with the Palmers. Life wasn’t perfect – it’s too easy to make it sound like we went from being a 10/10 life to a 0/10. But if I had to give it a number it would be in the 8+ zone.

An explosion is a good analogy and even now we are still finding and picking up the pieces of a life that once felt healthy and full of joy. The remainder of 2024 was figuring out how to live in the space of grief while also acknowledging that we still have stuff that needs to happen. Ellie went back to work shortly after Sam’s funeral, having lost all of her annual leave to a 3 week grieving process. We have all had different forms of ‘hard’, but her’s has been particularly tough because she works as a nurse, caring for people and then going home to her unit where she had no one to process things with. It has been an ordeal watching her survive this year, and while I am beyond proud of her for the tenacity and courage she has shown I know it’s come at a cost. As a dad you wish you could simply reach in and extricate your daughter from this searing pain, but you realise there is nothing you can do, other than be present and love her as she goes thru it.

Danelle has been savaged by this whole thing, but she has also refused to bow to hopelessness or simple self pity. She has got out of bed each morning and opened her journal and her Bible and sat there until such time as she has been able to leave, often just weeping her way thru the start to another day. Danelle lives to be a mum – and she is ‘mum’ to many, many people. No one word captures her better than ‘mum‘ so to lose one of your own kids – who you fought so hard to get (IVF babies) – and who you have loved so deeply really tore her apart. I cannot thank enough the people who have been there for her – allowed her to rage, swear and cry time after time. She has not avoided the grief at all and I sense that while the pain is still raw there has been a lot of progress made in figuring out how to live with this loss.

I think I am still figuring out how this event has impacted me. I tend to operate on a fairly even keel emotionally, so while I know this has knocked me off centre, I haven’t felt angry or unable to continue. I went back to work the week after Sam died and I have tried to keep up my own disciplines of prayer, meditation and exercise and been ok with that. Where I notice the impact is when I am out cycling on the bush tracks and even if I am listening to a podcast or a book my mind cannot help but go to Sam in some way. It might be wondering ‘where he is’ (I know the answer is heaven – but I’d like more than that), wondering how we ever get life on track again, wondering how Danelle, Ellie and Cosi are going, wondering if I am ok or if I’m kidding myself… And so it goes on…

I feel ‘ok’. Really I do. Not on top of the world, but ok. I feel like the hope we have as Christians is real and that I can look forward to seeing Sam again. Sure, that doesn’t negate the pain – but it isn’t hope-less pain. I usually describe my experience as a deep sadness – it feels like a constant weight around my neck or a pain in my side. And yet it doesn’t stop me functioning. It was a very healthy year in the business and I was glad for the amount of work we had. My visits to help out country towns were limited, partly my own choice and partly that I didn’t want to take off and leave Danelle for a weekend.

One thing I committed to very early was the decision that this was not going to be the end of me. I will forever walk with a limp, and sadness will shape my life to some degree, but I was not going to let this tragedy take me down. I hope to allow it to form me, but not to break me. I don’t feel like I have ever come close to resignation or losing interest in life. Part of that is probably just my ‘wiring’ as an optimist. I know the damage this has done to me, but generally it doesn’t show up in significant ways day to day. It’s generally as simple as a memory flashing thru my mind and then sharing it with Danelle amidst a few tears. Sometimes it’s the ache of knowing he won’t ever call again, or roll into the house wet and salty. Probably the worst pain is that I won’t get to see the man he was going to become and we won’t get to meet the grandkids he would have had with Cosi.

Death has been a significant force in our life this year. The loss of my brother was another very sad event and while I know we are not getting any younger, Steve was only 57. He was a good man and I regret the fact that i allowed our relationship to stagnate and fizzle.

We took our caravan to Moore River last week so that some family members could use it for accomodation over Christmas. I had to wipe cobwebs off it because we have used it so rarely. For me it’s a ‘happy place’ so I’m hoping we will get back into it a little more this year. That said, we didn’t avoid holidays, having been blessed with a stay in Denmark courtesy of some kind friends and then a two week jaunt around Tasmania, which I am still paying for (in kgs). When Sam died I had managed to carve 11kgs off what had become a rather chubby 59 year old body. I was down to 80kg with 78 as the goal, but the onslaught of food that came from all around us, combined with simple comfort eating meant I slipped a bit over the year, then during our two weeks in Tassie I didn’t go shy on food, and of course Christmas / New year is just one massive binge. I’ve been going hard on the exercise front, but I need to recalibrate the diet and that is the project for January. Losing 5kg to hit the 78kg mark would be nice. Possibly ambitious… but not unachievable.

The decision we made to buy a dog last year was significant and beautiful. I hesitated, almost backed out and then jumped in with both feet. I can honestly say with us 3 months in, that there are no regrets. I have been walking her early morning and late afternoons, every day to try and make the connection that will stand us in good stead in the future as well as training her and making sure she doesn’t turn out to be one of those unmanageable mutts. It adds 6-8kms to my day depending on where we go and how long for. So as well as my regular exercise schedule, I have two dog walks each day… It’s lucky I am ‘semi retired’ as I don’t know how I’d do it as a full time worker!

I use the term semi-retired as it communicates the space I live in most easily. While actual ‘retirement’, as depicted in common thinking seems like a foreign concept, I have slowed down my pace of life and that has been wonderful in many ways.

I have a few irons in the fire for this year ahead, a few definites and a few ‘let’s wait and see’ projects. The ticking over of the calendar year marks the beginning on a new lap around the sun and psychologically it puts Sam’s death further back. It is now ‘last year’. It hasn’t changed much practically – but it now sounds less recent, even if it doesn’t feel it. And with a new year come new ideas, opportunities and projects. I would like to make an audio-book version of my book, The Future is Bivocational. I’d use my own voice and hopefully get it into the hands of non-readers. I might kick back into the novel I was writing, or I may try to pursue some of the other writing angles I currently have on the backburner. I’m always keen to help the country churches where we can, so we will see what develops on that front too.

New years eve, a normally celebratory event we spent with 2 very good friends who fed us and chatted until my eyes started to shut (around 9.30) 🙂 They know us and have been with us from the start. Then new years day we headed to Lancelin to hang out with some other very good friends – a surf, lunch and some genuine conversation. I feel like a broken record at times when I say the most beautiful part of the last 12 months has been feeling the love from family and friends and knowing we don’t walk alone.

So the year from Hell is over and you’d think things can only get better from here right?…

I like to cycle up the bush tracks & fire breaks between Yanchep and Two Rocks. It’s pretty hard going in places with some steep soft hills, but its also a really good cardio workout. Eventually you arrive at the Breakwater Estate and if you follow the fence-line for long enough you find a gap that lets you out onto Breakwater Drive.

This morning I was cycling parallel with Breakwater Dr and along the fenceline when two roos came busting thru the bush on the road side of the fence. It all happened very quickly, but i saw one bound off, while the other lay still on the ground, her tail and leg twitching. Extending from her pouch were the paws of a decent sized joey.

I felt like for better or worse I had stumbled in on the scene of an accident and I was the ‘first responder’. As best I could make out ‘mum’ had been hurt so bad she couldn’t move, the other roo had left the scene and the baby was there on it’s own. It seemed heartless to simply hop back on the bike and let nature take it’s course.

I stayed on my side of the fence for around 10 minutes – remembering that it’s not the first roo you should worry about. If her mate was in range I could be in trouble. With no sign of the other I jumped the fence and drew a little closer.

She was twitching a little – but it was also clear that whatever had happened (probably clipped by a car) she was in her final moments of life. She was immobile and just waiting for her time to come. There was something poignant about this roo just crashing into my life in the final moments of hers. I would go so far as to say i actually felt a sense of responsibility to sit with her and stroke her neck until she died. I’m not sure what level of sentience kangaroos possess, but for a mum to be dying with her baby on-board must surely be traumatic no matter what species.

While sitting with her I rang Danelle who got in touch with Wildlife Services. They arranged for one of their staff to attend the situation. In the meantime, I was sitting on the side of a firebreak with a mum who was dying and a baby about to be on her own. Given death has visited our lives significantly over the last year I was probably a lot more patient and attentive than would normally be my form. The joey stuck his head out and I stroked his ear for a bit. I popped him out to see if he had been injured but he seemed ok – just scared – and eager to find his way back into the safety of mum – even if mum could offer no solace other than her last residue of warmth.

With the wildlife guy 3 hours away I decided to get back on the trail and trust that joey would stay safe inside mum for the next little while. As I rode home listening to David Kessler narrate his own book – Finding Meaning – The Sixth Stage of Grief, I wondered again about how the experience of death has shaped and formed me. His thesis is that after (or while) all the ‘grieving’ is done we can move forward more effectively if we can find ‘meaning’ in the madness.

One thing I know death has changed for me is my empathy and willingness to engage with another person’s tragedy. It’s still not my sweet spot – but having ‘been there done that’, I get it. And I don’t know many people who really do. So this morning as this roo landed in front of me, a different series of connections were triggered in my heart and mind. Previously I know I could have quietly chosen not to get involved – none of my business – and this is how things work in the wild. I also wouldn’t want to cool down and risk pulling a muscle when I start back in. It’s no big deal really – to sit with a dying roo and her child, but it was something I probably wouldn’t have done this time last year. It’s no big deal really – but I just wanted to recognise and acknowledge one way grief and death has impacted my life

There are other ways grief has formed me and where I have found ‘meaning’, but they can be for another post. For now it’s enough to know that the wildlife guy called 5 minutes ago to say he had found joey safe and well and she was now with the carer.

And life goes on.