It’s hard to describe how it feels 7 months down the road of losing a son. Last weekend we did the paddle out for Sam, an event I was only half looking forward to. I sense there was something of it all centring on the ocean that was both soothing me and burring me. I felt edgy and skittish but also like I wanted to full revel in this one last moment of remembering him publicly and in the place we both love so deeply. Perhaps it was knowing that this was effectively the end of the road for any kind of ‘corporate remembering’ that was knocking me off centre.

As far as the day went, quite honestly you could not have asked for a more beautiful , joyful and sincere time of honouring Sam. 

We kicked off with Rowan’s baptism – a significant moment in itself as he was one of Sam’s best mates during high school. Rowan spoke of wanting to transform a head knowledge faith into a personal experience of God and of Sam as someone who lived a life that inspired and pointed him to God. It was a perfect time to mark one death and one ‘new birth’, and a privilege to baptise him.

Then Morro drove in and sang the song that he wrote back when Sam had first died. It was as beautiful and powerful as I expected and there was nothing I could do but just weep my way thru it. Sam was courageous and fearless but it was this thrillseeker bent that eventually took him out. In a conversation later in the day with one of his diving friends D said ‘Sam was always diving deeper and staying down longer than we were comfortable with.’ Seems he was pushing boundaries in a sport where there is no margin for error.

Jake led us into the paddle out – an ancient surfing tradition, where the person is remembered and celebrated by those who shared the water with them. It was great to see a number of our local men there to be part of the day – men Sam had surfed with – blokes who had shown him the ropes, given him rides home and generally looked out for him as a local grom growing up in Yanchep. 

Around 50 people flocked into the north end of the lagoon and paddled out beyond the reef, forming a large circle as we joined hands. Micah reminded us before praying that Sam would surely be telling us ‘I’m peeing in my wetsuit!’. We splashed and hooted a final farewell to our boy – and then paddled across to the break where 2 ft mush burgers were splodging on a very dry, sometimes bare reef. Our local favourite certainly didn’t turn it on for Sam’s farewell, so the surfing was short lived.

One moment that I remember well was standing and looking out to the crowd as I got the day underway. Seeing locals who had shared this ocean with us for the last 13 years, school friends on whom Sam had left a mark, family – always large chunks of them – and then churchies and valued friends who had come to mark the day with us. I felt blessed to see these people present for Sam – and equally blessed to know they were with us on the journey. I never cease to be amazed at the grief other people carry because of Sam. For some it has rattled their world and it just keeps rattling. 

As the crowd settled back on the beach Toby (Cosi’s bro) sang a song he wrote the day after Sam died. It had beautiful lyrics and spoke to the love Sam had for Cosi and the hope they had of spending their lives together. The loss of that future is one of the things I lament most deeply.

On reflection, I wish we could have held the paddle out sooner, but conflicts with dates and dodgy weather pushed us out to here. The emotional overwhelm of the day has caught up with me now and I am feeling the like we have reached the ‘end’ of a long process. And of course the question that emerges is ‘what now?…’ 

I guess it’s just more stepping out day after day, choosing to find the joy in life while also holding the constant sorrow. There still isn’t a day goes by that I don’t find myself wondering, pondering, questioning the whole thing. How could one breath have made such a difference? Where exactly is he now – yeah I get ‘with Jesus’, but where exactly and what form is he in?… How will we be reunited and when? 

Life is in the process of re-forming and emerging from the chaos. We now have a puppy and that was a good decision. Tahnee has simply been a source of great joy and while there have been a few ‘sacrificial’ pieces of homeware chewed and destroyed by her, there are no regrets.

On Nov 16 we head to Tassie for two weeks with Danelle’s sister Janene and Stu & Carolyn, a holiday we planned a fair while ago and one I have barely given a thought to. That said, Tasmania is easy to love and Danelle has done a lot of the planning for us already. The decision to hire two cars should pay off too as we won’t have to decide between craft shops and surfing 🙂

As business slows down, I intend to see a bit more of the beach and to make sure Tahnee learns good habits. Remember that Bible verse?… ’Train up a dog in the way she should go and when she is old she will not depart from it…’

As I was working on a caravan recently the owners were present and chatting with me. She told that her husband was a police chaplain. ‘That’s an interesting job’ I said. 

‘We were pastors for 33 years’ she said, ‘but we got a bit burnt out.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I said ‘That sounds tough…’

I listened for a bit and then said ‘I used to be a pastor myself.’

I could see her face get that bemused look as I knelt on her floor and tried to mount a heater. I probably didn’t look much like a pastor – and I too was bemused that I had said ‘I used to be a pastor…’ Was that really the case? Had I reached the end of the road with that vocation?

My hunch is probably not, but right now isn’t the season for diving into anything complex or challenging. In my own gut I feel like I’d enjoy a decent challenge, but I know Danelle isn’t ready for that and there is no value in pushing into anything. I’m very happy to cruise, enjoy another quiet summer and do bits and pieces here and there as needed.

And then we see what 2025 holds… Def gonna be a better year than 2024.

Living in a ‘tolerant’ western culture, absolute statements about religious faith can go off like dog farts (and right now we know all about those). You make the call and realise that the room has gone quiet. People are wondering – has anyone else picked it… or is it just me? (And I put ‘tolerant’ in quotation marks because we actually aren’t tolerant of everything)

Anyway let’s get dirty like our pup above and throw around some difficult ideas…

One of the challenges the Christian story brings is it’s abundance of absolutes – claims made by Jesus or the biblical writers that are bold, strong and at times even offensive to those reading them. Case in point would be Acts 4:12 ‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to humankind by which we must be saved.’ 

There isn’t much room for negotiation on that one. Jesus himself makes this exact claim in John 14:6, ‘I am the Way,Truth and life – no one comes to the father except through me.’ It’s places like these that we get the language of ‘Jesus being the only way to God.’

A more popular view would be that we are all climbing the same mountain just from different aspects.  Ultimately we will all – Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Sikh etc – reach the ‘top’ using our own guides. I feel like that is a more likeable and digestible approach in a pluralistic western world. Let’s just hope that whatever we are doing takes us up the mountain.

Some angles on this that I find challenging:

1. Each religion makes different claims – it is a nothing more than a matter of simple logic to say they cannot all be true. Christians see Jesus as the saviour of the world, through his death on the cross. Without this act of love and forgiveness we would spend this life and the next separated from God. Jesus is our ‘point of difference’ and we cannot frame it any other way. When Muslims claim Jesus is a prophet, but not divine they make a statement directly contrary to what Christians believe. We simply can’t both be correct. If we accept that both are equally true, then we have to accept that some people will be able to call black ‘white’ and vice versa without contradiction. Doesn’t make sense does it?

1. The Bible – The scriptures I use as my means of discerning faith decisions and making sense of the world are not open to the possibility of all other faiths being equally able to save. For Buddhists who do not believe in the existence of a God we can’t even have the same conversation because there is no God to discuss. I appreciate that accepting the Bible as having genuine clout on these issues is an under-lying assumption that not all would bode well with. Perhaps its because I have spent my life immersed in this book that I come to these conclusions. Or – and I hope this is true –  my experience and interactions with this book have proven credible and trustworthy.

1. The conclusion matters – given we are essentially discussing the meaning of our existence and our purpose both on this planet and beyond, it matters that we think carefully about our conclusions. It just doesn’t work to say ‘it will all work out in the end.’ Because it might… but then again it might not… And I realise there is a lot to process, but these questions are often left to lurk in the backs of our minds until something jars us into serious thought.

1. Jesus – the life of Jesus and the claims he makes are either true or outrageously ridiculous. I am assuming the gospels are accurate historical records of what took place in that time and they portray him as the saviour of the world / the Messiah / the king whose kingdom is not of this world. He calls people to follow him, to place their faith in him and to trust him for an understanding of how to live both now and into the eternal realm. So if what he says isn’t truth then he is a con-man / deceiver (who also died for that lie)…

One of the inevitable questions we face in asserting Jesus as the ‘only way’ is that of ‘so does that mean that every person who ever lived and who didn’t hear about Jesus is consigned to eternity in hell? That would seem very unfair I agree. If you were lucky enough to be born in a country with Judea Christian heritage then you have all of that as your back-story whereas if you were born in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Anywhereistan then you are at a significant disadvantage.

And then, given we are in a secular age and the Christian story has diminished in our consciousness most people not raised in a church-going Christian family will need someone to guide them to a point of belief and faith in Jesus. What if the person who has been explaining faith to you does such a terrible job of it that you conclude it is a load of nonsense?… If you ‘heard the message’ but couldn’t make sense of it are you lost for eternity? (Surely an all powerful God could have sent you a smarter evangelist to present the message?…)

And of course there’s the question of those with significant cognitive disabilities – how do they come to a point of faith? Can they even?…

I could go on, but you get the point. This stuff gets messy fast.

It’s where I come back to assumption number 1 – my primary theological building block = God is good. 

If God is good then he won’t treat anyone unfairly when it comes to a time of judgement. If you lived in a place where you never got to hear anyone speak of Jesus then a good God is unlikely to say ‘ah… sorry – sucks to be you…’ If God is good then we will be treated justly. In Romans 2, Paul writes of those who have never heard and says:

14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 

There is an innate sense of right and wrong that has been hardwired into our being and in the absence of any experience of faith, it seems this will be our guiding light – of course it doesn’t mean it will always get listened to.

When we are talking about the eternal destiny of every person who has ever lived then we are discussing a massive subject and one with plenty of conundrums… 

What can we be sure of?

God is good – I know – I keep banging that drum, but it’s gotta be a starting point.

Jesus is the only way to God. 

I keep hoping like CS Lewis did that there may be a second chance to reassess the evidence post-mortem, and some universalist theologians would suggest that for God to achieve his purposes (his desire that all be saved) then this would be essential. But there is also plenty of scripture to suggest that there will be a cut off and some will not be ‘saved’ or welcomed into the new creation.

Jesus as the only way is one of those ‘lines in the sand’, that I hold to, but how God accomplishes this may be more mysterious than I am able to imagine.

If there was an olympic event for the person who could cram the most expletives in a sentence then this fella probably would have won gold. And if adding vitriol and venom for emphasis, was akin to increasing the ‘degree of difficulty’ then he was going to score off the charts there as well.

Ryan backed the van down the service entrance to the supermarket where we had just arrived to pick up the out of date produce. Another monthly run together where we visit 4 local shops and collect groceries for distribution later that evening. Its always good to catch up and chew the fat of life for a couple of hours, but this one looked like taking a bit longer as a massive delivery truck had beaten us to the draw and was occupying the only available service bay. We backed in anyway to get the lie of the land.

That was where we met Davo – a fit looking bloke, probably in his early 60’s, sorting out his ramps and waiting for some staff to give him permission to unload. We said ‘g’day’ and waited for someone to come and attend to us. After a few minutes of waiting and realising no one was coming any time soon we began chatting with Dave who let us know he hated his effing job, hated his effing life and hated the way our generation had effed up the world for our kids. ‘I’d rather just be effing dead’ he said (and it felt like he meant it.) With each statement he made, he looked to us for affirmation – that life was terrible, that we had screwed the world up and that we’d all be better off dead. But it was an affirmation that wasn’t coming – just a couple of gentle acknowledgments that his life sounded hard.

He returned to the desire to die – to be done with and out of here – hopefully to a better place. ‘I mean it.’ he said ‘I’m done!’

I’m not sure quite what prompted my question, other than simple curiosity ‘What do you reckon happens after death?’ I asked.

‘Oh – I suppose I go up there – if he’ll have me after all of my swearing and carrying on.’

That was a curious response. (Based on what we had heard so far I had anticipated he’d more likely say ‘eff all.’)

‘Do you know him?’ I asked, pushing into the identity of ‘him up there’. It seemed like an unusual question to be asking the delivery driver, but I was realising this wasn’t your standard, congenial conversation.

‘Oh yeah’ he answered. ‘I doubt he’s real happy with me – haven’t been to church for ages and I swear too much.’

‘He’s pretty good at being gracious,’ Ryan said.

‘I don’t think he’s too fussed over a few swear words,’ I added.

I think we had both keyed into the sense that there was ‘stuff’ going on for this man and that we may have arrived just in time to listen to him and help him process some of his anger.

In a previous post I pondered the extent to which God intervenes in our world and our daily lives – to what degree he engineers scenarios for us to engage in. In this moment it seemed that maybe he had purposefully put the two of us here waiting in a delivery bay with a very angry man.

Davo spoke of his life – of the endless work that was draining his soul, of his inability to get to church because he was just so ‘effing exhausted’. Then he went on to speak of how no one gave a shit about him – not his family or his friends… Then he said ‘you know it’s only my church who have sought me out and stayed in touch. They have tried to connect with me.’

‘They sound like good people.’ I said

‘They are!’ he affirmed. He told us of his journey out of alcoholism in 2016, and how one day he just decided to attend a church – out of the blue. It was a very conservative meat and 3 veg, evangelical church with no bells and whistles, but he said ‘That first day I went there I experienced something. I wept. I felt something very real.’

I thought it was time to let him in on the fact that we both had a little prior experience with faith and church. ‘You realise you’re talking to a couple of pastors here don’t you?’ I said. He smiled ‘What?…’

We talked some more and we experienced Davo’s countenance getting lighter with each moment. He started to smile, and gain energy, to speak of his church and their care for him, of how valuable that community was. We didn’t need to suggest he get back there – he’d already convinced himself that this was what was needed.

It seemed 20 minutes was going to turn into 40 or thereabouts and we both had places to be and things to do, so we said we’d take off and do the pick up later. As we left a now grinning and animated Davo yells out ‘See you later – brothers!’

And my heart smiled.

A 20 minute delay in the service bay finished up as a beautiful conversation with a man whose life had just got bit too much for him. A few gentle questions, a serving of grace and a couple of listening ears allowed him to share the pain, but also find his way back to the hope.

So, do I believe in an interventionist God?…

Oh yeah…

(I should note that my memory of detail is pretty ordinary so I have reconstructed this story as best I remember it. Ryan might have a slightly different take, or be able to add some detail.)

A number of years ago now I went surfing off the reef just out from the Alkimos wreck. I anchored my 17ft half cab just 50m or so south west of the break and well out of harm’s way. It was a beautiful morning of surfing out on the reef with just two or three of us enjoying some magical waves.

Then the wind turned suddenly as it does in our part of the world, and the seabreeze began to blow. The surf was now sloppy and I began to consider paddling back to the boat. That was when I noticed that the boat was actually making it’s way toward me. I had just caught a wave and was paddling back out, all the time watching my boat drift rapidly into the impact zone.

This was not good. With a large set wave looming on the horizon I paddled furiously towards the boat, clambered onboard with legrope still attached and board drifting in the water. A wave was about to break on the boat. I flicked the key, it started first time with a throaty two stroke growl and I gunned it thru the oncoming wave as water crashed over the bow. Had it happened today someone would have recorded it and put it on Tiktok or Instagram as one of those classic ‘kook fails.’

I moved the boat out of danger and with the breeze strengthening we decided to call it a day and head for the ramp.

I thought the anchor was rock solid – but when the wind turned my boat quickly drifted into trouble.

If you’ve been following our journey over this year then you’d know that the biggest shift has been the death of our son Sam, back on March 24th. On Tuesday it will be 6 months without him and it has undoubtedly been the roughest and toughest experience any of us have had to navigate. But as I was chatting this morning with my friend Stuart, I said ‘but the anchor has held‘. And by that I mean that our faith and hope in Jesus has been as solid as we hoped it would be.

Stuart asked ‘was there ever any doubt about that?’

‘Hmmm,’ I pondered. ‘In theory, no – but in reality you just never know who you will be or what shape your faith will take if the winds of suffering blow hard enough and long enough.’

It was March 21st when I posted a short list of the convictions that I believe have formed my faith and life. It is called ‘Runs Deep’, because these are deeply held beliefs that have formed over many years.

Number 1 is ‘God is Good’

I wrote that on March 21st with the deepest of conviction – I have said many times that it is the foundational element of my faith. Three days later Sam died. If I knew anything in the midst of that horror it was that God had not stopped being good 3 days later. But my life had been thrown into turmoil.

The final of my 6 core convictions was that, ‘My hope is in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ’

What I meant by that was:

that we are not alone – that life is not random and meaningless – but there is a good God who is in the process of restoring the broken creation and he invites us to join him in that.

The other 4 convictions were :

2. Jesus is Lord 

3. The kingdom of God is ultimate reality & the hope of God for the world 

4. Faith is both beautiful and mysterious (but not very systematic)

5. Faith is inherently communal

I won’t try and articulate how each one has ‘held’ or sustained me, as I sense it has been the collective strength of each of these elements that has really anchored me. Each idea is solid on it’s own but when knitted together into a way of viewing the world I have found that it has been a genuine source of hope and sustenance when I have felt overwhelmed, weak and sad.

People ask me if I am angry at God – and my question is ‘what for?’ I don’t have the expectation that God will step in to protect us in every situation where we take risks. When it come to ‘divine intervention’ I honestly don’t know how much we can attribute to God and how much is good fortune.

When a bus crashes and one Christian family thanks God for apparently protecting their kid while in the same event another is grieved because God apparently didn’t do his job of protection who is correct? Does God actually choose some to protect and others to die?

In the bigger scheme of things is God responsible for famines, natural disasters and general catastrophic events? Is he off his game and failing in his duty, or are they all part of a divine plan?

I sense we have some inherited some kooky expectations around what God should and shouldn’t do in the world and what we can expect of him as his people. Much of it relates to our concept of sovereignty and how much God actually is in control of and how much he is at work in the world orchestrating events.

We use interesting rhetoric like ‘It’s ok because God is in control.‘ How do you apply that to something like the upcoming USA elections? How does that apply to our life?

I’m not a deist – not by a long shot – but I do believe God is far more mysterious in his interventions than we can ever understand. I sense we think that we would much prefer a predictable, safe God who eliminates all pain and suffering for his kids – the only thing is that to do so is to remove a huge amount of our autonomy and identity.

I have delved more into that subject than I really want to here, as the point I simply want to communicate is that ‘the anchor has held.’ We are not adrift, floundering and lost. We are in pain, we are deeply sad – just flicking back thru my posts from this year left me bewildered again at the turn our life has taken.

I also understand that not everyone sees the world as I do. Psalm 88 is the classic lament – that does not end with a turning toward God, but instead the words ‘darkness is my closest friend.’ Ouch – that whole Psalm is powerful and disturbing. And for some this is their experience. That’s ok too.

At the end of the day it’s a journey we have to walk individually and a wrestle we must grapple with personally. But this is my experience. In the tone of Dale Kerrigan from the Castle ‘I am Andrew Hamilton and this is my story!’

What’s it mean pactically?

For the last 6 months our lives have been somewhat about survival – about getting thru the madness that accompanies such a loss. I have kept quite busy working on caravans and doing some speaking here and there, while Danelle has had space to sit with the grief and really work it thru. Ellie has had it toughest in that she simply had to go back to work – and nursing is obviously intense in that it’s with people… Meanwhile the other family impacted – Sam’s partner and her tribe have also been coping with the fallout of a life that was pointed in a direction that is now no longer possible. So much pain right there…

We have all felt it in different ways and coped in different ways. Danelle was a week away from starting an intensive course in clinical pastoral education at Royal Perth Hospital – sitting with people in their pain and grief. As you can imagine she postponed the course and she isn’t sure at the moment when she will be ready to engage with it.

We had also planned to help Margaret River Baptist with some interim leadership, but it was simply out of the question, to go and be present for others when we were so disoriented and hurting. There are currently no future interim ministry plans, but I imagine in time we will be ready for a few challenges.

With summer on the horizon my diesel heater business will slow and I will enjoy the warmer weather with some surfing, stand up paddle boarding and cycling as my daily regime. Add a few gym visits and weekly basketball and it’s hard to fit work in anyway! And as some of you will be aware a few weeks back I was pondering the idea of getting a dog again. I listed 12 reasons not to get a dog. And then one reason in favour – ‘I like dogs’. Guess what?… we got a dog!

To be honest I almost backed out on the night before we were due to pick her up. The weight of the responsibility was really sitting heavy on me – I wasn’t sure I could manage it well. I was worried about all that could possibly go awry, but as Ellie was quick to remind me ‘weren’t you the person who said we ought to ask the question ‘what if everything went well?‘… Fair call! i did say that, didn’t I? And I have chosen to look thru that lens in the expectation that if we do this well there will be immense joy and fun in having this new family member. So we now have a 12 week old Retriever cross Border Collie puppy who is already winning our hearts and bringing a degree of joy that we haven’t had for a while.

In fact it was only last night, I was lying on the floor playing with Tahnee, and I said to Danelle, ‘I am so happy we did this!’ Not words I expected to come out of my mouth, but she has certainly won me over. I also expect that much of my summer will be spent training and teaching her so she will be a good dog rather than psycho menace.

So that’s life for us at the moment, 6 months into this new stage. Thanks to those who have loved us and prayed for us and supported us. It still feels surreal that this is our life, but here we are….

I was sitting in church last night, listening to one of the same passages of scripture being read that I have heard time and time again over the last 60 years:

²⁸ When^[aj] Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed by his teaching, ²⁹ because he taught them like one who had authority,^[ak] not like their experts in the law.

Matt 7:28-29

When I think of Jesus speaking with authority I imagine him speaking forcefully, with presence and gravitas – making sure people heard and understood his message. I’ve pretty much seen it that way for as long as I can remember.

Then last night it just struck me that the comparison Matthew makes is with the ‘experts in the law’, the same people Jesus also refers to as hypocrites because they don’t practice what they preach. It made me wonder if the point Matthew is making actually has less to do with Jesus’ oratory capacities and more to do with the integrity of his life. Perhaps Jesus was able to speak with authority because there was congruence between his life and his words so when people heard him speak they had already observed him as the real deal.

Of course that may have given impetus to his voice, but I sense authority comes from a congruent life, rather than from knowing how to use appropriate voice modulation techniques.

Nick Cave’s song Into My Arms, opens with the line, ‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God’. He goes on to reflect further on what he may allow to be or not be. He wrote that song in 1997 and subsequently suffered the pain of having two of his sons die. A recent interview on the ABC and his book Faith Hope and Carnage portray him as a man with genuine gritty faith, but in this song conclusion is crystal clear – God has left us to figure things out on our own.

I do believe in an interventionist God – but I don’t believe he is predictably interventionist. And that is where frustration and confusion often lies.

If ever there was a conundrum it is the question of how God works (or doesn’t work) in this world. Sometimes we hear things attributed to ‘the hand of God’ that can sound amazing or absurd. Sometimes we hear God blamed for things that may or not have been his fault. How can we ever know what is going on?

These reflections come on the back of watching this week’s ABC Foreign Correspondent, the story of Dr Ken Elliot and his wife who were taken as hostages in Burkina Faso, with her being released after 2 weeks and him after over 7 years. It’s an amazing story of faith and faithfulness – both theirs and Gods – at least that’s how it appears to me (and to them). They attribute Ken’s eventual release to prayer and God’s faithfulness. They also believe God knew all of this was going to happen and somehow it was part of his plan. Hmmmm… You can’t watch the story and not be inspired by the Elliot’s story – spending 40 years in one of the poorest of countries living out their faith in practical and clear ways – yet their time in Africa ended with an abduction and some very difficult years. Neither of them appeared at all bitter or angry for the experience even though there were many difficult years. They would say ‘God had it all in control.’

Really? Was God in control of all those events? Was God manipulating people and actions to bring about their kidnapping and release for some great reason we are unable to see?

We speak like this often, believing that God is somehow at work in the world, behind the scenes working things out oblivious to our desires and actions – like he has a plan and we only appear to be free agents within that plan. We also speak of listening and discerning God’s next step for us, assuming he will choose to guide and direct. Or sometimes we look back in hindsight and believe we see the hand of God at work in circumstances and events. I imagine it’s more accurate to say that we interpret events this way – and while I do believe God is at work I’m not sure we can always interpret those events as such with any accuracy.

If we believe in a world where evil forces are at work as well as good, then perhaps we could just as credibly say that it was those forces that led to the Elliot’s kidnapping?… For whatever reason evil prevailed for a time and good people suffered as a result.

Was it ‘God’s will’ for evil to prevail for a time, for them to be abducted and separated for so long? Was this all part of a greater plan? Honestly… we don’t know. We really can’t say anything conclusively, but we do all have a leaning in these times. Some of us see God as faithful despite the evil that was at work to abduct them, others see God at work in the abduction to bring about some greater good.

To hear the story tonight was to listen to two faithful, godly people speak with grace and kindness and not a hint of antagonism. Perhaps if you work in a place like Burkina Faso you have already accepted the risk of such things happening. Maybe you can’t go live in a notoriously dangerous place and cry foul if you happen to be on the receiving end of some ill treatment? I think that’s a fair statement. All work of that kind has a risk. Their stance was perhaps like that of the 3 blokes tossed in the fire in the book of Daniel 3:17-18

If the God whom we serve exists, then He is able to deliver us from the blazing fiery furnace and from your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden statue you have set up.”

Daniel 3:17-18

Surely you have read that at times and thought ‘what kind of faith is that?’ He is able to save us – but maybe he won’t… I’d suggest it’s a very realistic faith – an approach to God that acknowledges his capacity, but also our own inability to predict what his actions may be in any given circumstance.

I’d defy anyone to state with 100% clarity what God was up to with the lives of the Elliots in Africa over the last 8 years. Some would say that their faithfulness gives added ‘boot’ to their many years of ministry and may have repercussions down the line they may never live to see. Some would say it was cruel that God allowed this kidnapping to happen and that he really let them down after so many years of faithful service.

Their story has a somewhat happy ending. They get to spend their final years together in peace, back in the security of Perth, although I’d be half inclined to guess that Ken is secretly making plans to return if given the chance 🙂 He just seems like that kind of bloke.

While their story had a happy ending – one where we could say God was faithful and good, if we consider the plight of another significant and dedicated Christian then things didn’t end so well. 20th C theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was part of the resistance to the Nazi government, and despite his overt pacifism, he eventually got involved in a plan to assassinate Hitler. Unfortunately for him the plan came unstuck and he finished up in jail. At this time he was engaged – in love – and he wrote letters to his fiance from jail, but Bonhoeffer did not get released. In fact he was executed just a few days before his prison camp was liberated by the American forces. At the age of 39 his life was cut short.

It begs the question – where was God in this situation?

Was this a divine stuff up – a real case of God getting it very wrong or was this all part of a greater plan? Why wouldn’t a good God come thru earlier for a man with such dedication and capacity? And his fiance?… How did she process his execution? It wasn’t fair… but God didn’t stop it happening…

Bonhoeffer died as he lived with the final words, “This is for me the end, the beginning of life.”

There is no sense in Bonhoeffer’s writings that he felt duped by God with his imprisonment, or that his death was all part of a sovereign plan. I get the sense Bonhoeffer knew the broken nature of our world and accepted that. He also knew the risks of getting involved in the assassination plot so he wore the consequences.

These are two ‘public events’ that we can reflect on, but all of us have things happen in our lives at times that we may refer to as a) the hand of God b) good fortune. Can we ever know which is which? I sense we can to some degree, but never conclusively. When I hear people speaking of their whole life as having been orchestrated by divine acts I am somewhat skeptical. Equally when people of faith refuse to consider any involvement or interaction of God in their worlds I wonder ‘why bother with a God who never gets involved?’

But we have to be careful with how we approach this whole subject.

The person who runs late for a plane that crashes and fails to board may be giving thanks to God for his preservation of their life, but the families of the 10 Christian people on board the plane who died in the crash are less likely to be thanking God for the outcome. Where was God at work in that scenario – if at all?

You get the problem? The complexity?

It seems that sooner or later we have to be content to live with mystery and to accept that we simply do not know why things do or don’t happen. Hard theological lines that see God as orchestrating every event are impossible to accept – God inevitably becomes a monster – the author of famine, flood, one punch deaths… and so on.

To believe in a non interventionist God is also equally unsatisfying. Why bother praying if he has already checked out? And how can you ever have a relationship with a God like that?

God’s action or inaction in the world has been a significant issue for our family over the last 5 months as we have processed Sam’s death. Was Sam’s death all part of a divine plan – ‘God’s will’ as we call it? I wouldn’t subscribe to that

Did God see this happening and fail to intervene? Well yeah… if we accept that God is ever present and all powerful then he did not act to save our son’s life. Much as he didn’t intervene to delay Bonhoeffer’s death by a few days he didn’t miraculously give Sam extra air in his lungs to make it to the surface.

Or perhaps God is like Cave describes him – ‘non-interventionist’. He saw, he watched, he knew, but he keeps his hands off as he always does?

Every scenario presents a wrestle, or a choice to live with mystery.

My core conviction has been that God is good – and he is perfectly represented in Jesus. And I start from there with all of my theological musings. If i take that foundation stone away I can become all kinds of cynical, but while it is there I am able to trust when I cannot see and when all of my emotions are wanting to blame and accuse.

So – I tire of some of our Christianese that avoids the complexity and mystery of our world and I hope for more wrestling with our tendency to try and apply a black or white filter to any situation that appears to be grey. The Elliot’s story, Bonhoeffer and our own recent events all require some nuanced and careful reflection rather than glib statements that often leave us feeling unsatisfied and with more questions than answers.

In other news I (we – to a small degree) have been pondering the possibility of having a dog in the home again and last week I wrote a list to try and help with the decision.

 Reasons NOT to get a dog 

Reason/s TO get a dog

I like dogs  

Someone once said we are rational beings who occasionally make emotive decisions – but I tend to think there is plenty of evidence to suggest we are emotionally driven creatures who occasionally use our brains.

Back in 2011 when we moved to Yanchep, we made it a practice to always come home by the beach road. It’s a little longer, but then why live in a beautiful place if you don’t indulge in that beauty often. Then in 2017 I made it a practice to take a daily photo / video of one of our local beaches and uploaded to Instagram and Facebook. So this road has been a significant and beautiful part of my daily life. It was part of the reason we chose to have Sam’s memorial here, but also because there was no place he loved like Yanchep. He’d be stoked to know that he stopped traffic for half an hour or so while we made the walk to the surf club!

We are incredibly blessed to live in this place and enjoy all its richness, but it’s been curious to observe a different shade on the daily ritual, so that is what this poem is expressing. (Without that little piece of back story it may seem a little odd).

Every day 

I drive the same familiar road

As it wends gently around our local beach

Every day

Without fail

It is a rich liturgy

A regular practice of worship

Recognising the creator and his goodness

Daily giving thanks for the place we call home

—

Then one day…

—

That familiar road changed forever

The drive became both beautiful and riven

Seablue on sorrow

Gratitude shaded by tears

These two must somehow hang together now

The beauty is no less beautiful 

Because of the sorrow

The pain is no less anguished

Because of the wonder

—

On that day

Hundreds of mourners flooded the road

A young man had died too soon

Some knew him well

Some from afar

But all knew

It was a moment we should not have been sharing.

A terrible lapse of judgement 

An unfixable mistake

A permanent agonising hole in our hearts

—

Somehow the ocean we love 

The ocean that has enriched our lives so wonderfully

Claimed the person we loved

Our son, brother, partner, friend 

Took his last breath

In those great blue depths 

—

In the slow silent trek to the surf club

We cried out in grief, rage and terror

Powerless to change this new reality.

This precious place 

Now lives in my heart 

As the home of immense joy and peace

But also death and loss

Trauma and pain

On that day we walked the road slowly

Trailing a shiny black car

Mourners held ground

As traffic was redirected

A final walk to remember him

—

Now

Every day 

I drive that road

Still

Every day

I see the foaming ocean

The fringing reef

And I give thanks

Every day

I remember my boy

Who I taught to love this ocean

To seek adventure in her waves

And to live…

Every day

Gratitude dovetaiils with grief

Predictable as the tide

For better or worse 

Every day 

My soul rises and falls on this road

—

Yes, I could take another route

Weave through the quiet streets to flee the searing reminder

But we can’t run from this reality

There is no ‘away’ we can go to

This is my life

Our lives 

Until another day

That great day

When there will be no shiny black cars

Setting the pace

No mourners walking slowly and silently 

Just joy and peace

A wonderful recognising and reuniting

Then the only tears

Will be tears of joy 

On Monday I attended my brother’s funeral and listened to the tributes people shared of who he was and what he meant to them. As I listened it began to dawn on me that they knew a different person to the one I had ‘known’ all my life. People spoke of a kind, gentle and generous man who loved his wife and family deeply. They spoke of his love for music, wine, food and travel – for shoes and watches – colourful clothes and for his dog and cat.

It felt like they were describing a very good man, but it wasn’t a man that I knew.

As I was cycling today I was reflecting on our relationship of 57 years and why it was awkward and clumsy. Part of it was upbringing – a culture lacking in emotional connection – and part of it was that I mistook his softness and sensitivity for weakness and neediness. As a result I stepped away from him to hang with more blokey blokes. That happened some time in our 20’s and from then on our connection was difficult. So this poem is part memoir and part lament.

Unfamiliar Flesh 

My hand rests

On your pale freckled arm

Soft and warm

Unfamiliar skin

To touch is not our way

Unless in a handshake

But this is the last time 

I will touch

So I rest my fingers

On your wrist

Ponder our lives together

Yet not together

And whisper a futile, quiet prayer

For your return

—

But you are not coming back

Tubes in your wrist and throat

You have already left

Only a warm carcass remains

Machines do the work

For now

A nurse hovers busily

Taking notes 

Checking screens

Her footsteps patter

Pens scratch on paper

A quiet final moment 

Seems impossible 

—

My mind roams to the life we shared 

As children, it was a bed even

Such was Belfast in the 60s

Innocent and unaware 

We kept one another warm

We shared jokes

We tickled one another’s backs

You were gentle and soft

Generous and kind

Too easy to take advantage of

Sharing your treats

While I hoarded mine 

Wanting to hang out 

But I shoved you away

I mistook gentleness for weakness

Sensitivity for timidity 

I knew you looked up to me

But I shed you like a skin

For mates rough and rowdy

—

The brother thing was clumsy 

You pursued our bond many times

Wrote me letters and called me out

On each occasion I responded

With indifference and a sigh

I put your letters in the bin

I gave up 

Long before you stopped trying

Intimacy was not in my vocabulary 

Brother love a mysterious concept

We laboured thru life

Never quite connecting 

Never giving up completely 

—

Then snap

—

You died

—

In a moment

Fifty seven years of life ended

And now there is no difficult story

To resolve

It is over and we finish

As we have been for so long

Together but separate

Related in name

But distant in reality

So my hand on your arm

Feels weird

Inappropriate even

Two men equally awkward in death

As in life