I am not going to post to this blog until sometime in January. This blog is a commentary on social, religious, and political matters. Those of you who have been dropping on by regularly will realise that my lodestar is the teaching of Jesus - particularly in relation to justice. I am completely overwhelmed by the events of yesterday: violence from Cronulla to Perth, back to Brighton le Sands and the southern beaches of Sydney. What are words in the face of such attacks, such racism, such violence. This is happening in my Australia, my nation, my country. I have posted before on Australia as a racist country. I have wished for this nation to admit to its racism. Perhaps the events of yesterday are part of the answer to this wish: an incontrovertible display of racism. Prime Minister John Howard has denied that Australia is a racist nation. I believe that he is part of the problem: not part of the solution. His track record does not speak of effective respectful racial conciliation either with Australia's First Nations or with a number of non-European constituents.Besides my emotional abhorrence to all this, what do I do? I am getting older and feel there are limitations to my contribution. My health has been an issue which has provided and continues to provide its own limitations. So, recognizing the insignificance of my words in the life of my nation, I am going to retreat, withdraw for a while. I want to focus on the feast, the great feast of love - where Someone loved us all so much that he came down and became one of us, lived with us, loved us and rescued us setting a pattern for each of us to follow. I will continue to post to The Trad Pad which is a commentary free zone and is full of more personal doings. Please take my silence as a time of constructive reflection, a time when I focus on the season of goodwill to all and hope that I can have some constructive insight into what ails my beloved South Land of the Holy Spirit.
May you and yours be blessed at this time and in the year ahead.
