We brewed a beer - and it was good

Solace hosted 'Take up beer for Lent' recently and it was brilliant. The creation of Marcus Curnow (marcuscurnow.wordpress.com/), the concept was for a small bunch of people to meet every week of Lent, brew a beer together and read through the bible readings for Lent from the common lectionary. Solace recognised this as a great idea and invited Marcus to make use of our facilities to make sure this happened. Marcus generously agreed to travel each week from Footscray and we made it happen.

The brewing journey was replete with risks, exotic ingredients and simple fun. We brewed a Celtic amber ale kit brew from Brewcraft in Heidelberg, sanitising the equipment, mixing together the wort and setting up the fermenter at Solace's place in Heidelberg Rd, Alphington. The fermenter chortled away during all of Solace's activities for a few weeks, bringing smiles of anticipation to the faces of Solace people experienced in the ways of home brewing. Bottling the brew was frenetic and much fun, a brilliant label was composed by the group and affixed to the bottles after a nervous two-week wait for the brew to mature. On the final night we opened a few bottles and tasted it. Some bottles were flat! But the beer tasted satisfactory anyway. The final bottle opened had a creamy head and the possibility remains that the rest of the brew will taste magnificent. Everyone agreed that brewing together had been fun and a great experience of stepping outside the usual consumer experience and undertaking the risk of producing something special for ourselves.

Each week we read another section from the bible, all the readings being traditional Lenten ones. Marcus did a great job helping us grasp the cultural nuances that shaped the original writing. One of Marcus' techniques is to interpret a contemporary political cartoon together, as this requires similar skills to reading the bible. Our small group of men (some women said they would come, but couldn’t make it in the end) took to debating the meaning of the cartoons and the bible stories with gusto - perhaps encouraged by tasting some highlights of the brewer's art. Each week we all gained a deeper understanding of a bible story and all achieved a fresh perspective on the world around us. We had joked about 'reading the bible through the beer goggles', but Marcus genuinely helped us see the text in a fresh way, bringing out how those who are tired and perhaps disenfranchised by the games the powerful in society play may react to these ancient stories of wisdom.

A theme throughout the season had been 'coming of age'. Both beer and wisdom stories have a profound influence on our coming of age rituals in Australia; all of us could recount stories of starting drinking beer as young men. Also, all of us could acknowledge that authentic food was a part of our spiritual lives, as is the bible stories. The journey together brought both of these themes together in a powerful way. All of us quickly became enthusiastic about what we were achieving together. The lessons we learnt together during Lent defy simple articulation; but each of us finished with a profound sense that we had learnt something that would enrich and encourage us on our life journey. Perhaps we learnt that making a profound connection with another person is a necessary part of reconciliation; perhaps we learnt that the promises of power are hollow compared with the chance to become aware of our place in a wonderful living creation. Whatever we learnt, we will look at the world in slightly different ways from now on.

Thanks to Marcus and all the good men who participated.

THE HEAVENLY BANQUET

I would like to have the men of heaven

In my own house:

With vats of good cheer

Laid out for them.

I would like to have all the saints,

Their fame is so great.

I would like people

From every corner of heaven.

I would like them to be cheerful

In their drinking.

I would like to have Jesus too

Here among us.

I would like a great lake of beer

For the King of Kings,

I would like to be watching heaven’s family

Drinking it through all eternity.

Easter week at Solace

Easter holidays have started here in Victoria, and Solace is celebrating running our first seasons of Tuesday Stuff and Sunday Stuff at our new venue in Alphington. Easter week is fast approaching and we're anticipating a fantastic time. Details on gatherings are given below, but first a comment on the meaning of Easter.

Easter is the time for celebrating and reflecting on Christianities central event: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Many Christians greet each other on Easter Sunday with the words 'Christ is risen', and replying 'He is risen indeed'. At Solace we are exploring together what it means to affirm 'Christ is risen'. There have been many attempts at explaining the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus over the course of the church's history. Many of those attempts have gone beyond the gospel accounts, some using the epistles plausibly, some using other parts of the bible with less credibility. At Solace we are encouraging each individual to reflect on the meaning of 'Christ is risen' for themselves. In our conversations about the meaning of 'Christ is risen' we come to a meaning that we as a dispersed community hold as truth.

One theme that has already emerged is our attraction to the opportunity to be transformed personally: by love, by grace and - mysteriously - by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We've considered contrasting ideas about Easter from Marcus Borg and from Keith Green. Really different men, different ways of understanding bible and yet both are excited (in their own way) about the opportunity for positive and loving transformation.

We hope that you also will reflect on what 'Christ is risen' means in the coming weeks and find your own excitement in this age-old phrase.

Easter Week at Solace
April 17 10am Palm Sunday
April 22 2pm-3pm Good Friday
April 24 10am Easter Sunday
See Solace Lent and Easter events 2011 for more details and locations.

John was a bit different

Across Solace and for all Lent, we're all considering the Gospel of John and also looking at the Glenferrie Gospel by our very own Stuart Davey. When I looked at John in preparation, I was most struck by how different it is compared to the other Gospels. If you asked me why look at John, then my answer is 'because John was a bit different'.

John has the whole 'logos' ('word of God') theme, especially in the prologue, which is a real difference to the other gospels. It appears that John was addressing his gospel to Jewish people of the day who were adopting Greek philosophical ideas into the Jewish story. John’s assertion that Jesus was both spirit and man was a really vital part of the theological debate of the time and remains a vital concept today.

John is also different because the gospel is missing most of the stuff the other Gospels talk about. Check out this list at Wikipedia of omissions in John's Gospel. Some big differences for me is the relative absence of 'the Kingdom of God' language, no mention of forgiveness, no mention of loving enemies - important stuff for me. Why wouldn't John have it?

John is a long gospel and full of unique things: Jesus delivers long essay-style speeches in various parts (there are no parables as such); Jesus talks about himself a lot and; Jesus asserts himself as a God a lot more. The emphasis in John is different from the other Gospels; my understadning is that there is more about Jesus as a timeless revelation of the loving creator.

Given that John is so different from the other Gospels, why wouldn’t we simply discard it? After all, John seems to contradict the other Gospel’s reports of what Jesus did and said. I think John is a fantastic addition to the bible because of two things. First, it shows us how the early Christians were doing theology; they were wrestling with the meaning of Jesus and creating rich ideas and stories as part of that. Secondly, John connects the Jesus story to a broader philosophical conversation about meaning and hope, which is still relevant to each of us today.

Work and Sabbath - week 7 Household Covenant

The question is: "What impact does your 'work' (whether paid or unpaid) have on your time for family, commnunity and service? Do you have adequate space for spiritual reflection and renewal?"

The suggestions include setting aside time regularly for reflection, restricting distractions and urgent messages at certain times, and even taking a year off to consider life goals, etc.

Funnily enough, I'm on a career sabbatical at the moment. I'm working a couple of part-time jobs that are in areas of interest to me, mainly to research on which area I will focus on in my next, full-time role. Even though I'm quite deliberate about this, a few things make me worried. I worry a bit abouot whether I am contributing enough, about whether I (and, more importantly, my family) are going backwards in terms of prosperity (which may affect our long-term health and my daughter's education oportunities), whether I'm losing ground in terms of social status and whether that will make my voice marginal in times to come.

Overall, though, it is a good thing. Most of the reading I've done on leadership and personal effectiveness do recomend setting aside time to reflect on your own life and how you can plan to make it happen.

It's hardest to do when you have some responsibility, whether with parenting or at work. It's easy to feel that you are letting others down by not being busy all the time. But, other people have to solve their own problems; a few hours spent on sabbath each week may well mean you increase your effectiveness for the rest of the week; and working is not the only thing we are on the planet to do.

We've got a reasonable handle on this topic in our household. I reckon we'll address some of the anxieties we feel about taking down-time and also be a bit more deliberate about when we do down-time so that it happens before we crash in an emotional and physical heap.

Social Justice and Spirituality

For me, getting involved in social justice has two main elements: it's right, and it helps me be complete.

I have no doubt that following Jesus means (in part) trying to be a moral person. One out-working of my personal morality is to help others. I see that social justice is a means of doing that. I like Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan and I take it to mean that all people are my neighbours (whom I should love), even if I'd like to screen them out on the basis of race or distance.

But I am not completely altruistic about social justice, I say that there is a benefit to me.

Being involved in justice demands that I consider the plight of others. This helps me feel empathy for others. I reckon that being able to feel empathy is a great sign of health and maturity. If I ever managed to focus on my own needs to such an extent that I simply did not feel anything when I heard of another's suffering - I reckon something would have died within me.

So, I can see that I will me more alive if I feel empathy, I can keep working my sense of empathy by considering the plight of others (especially those I may be tempted to ignore), and I can make sure that I consider the plight of others by being involved in social justice.

Others receive justice, and I get to be more alive. That's a fair and healthy way of living!

Poverty & Marginalisation - Week 6, Household Covenant

Wekk 6 of the Household Covenant concerns Poverty & Marginalisation. The key question is: "Do you ever interact in a meaningful way with people from a very different social stratum than your own, particularly those who are marginalised?"

Some suggestions are: volunteering at soup kitchens, shelters or clinics; researching the needs of local refugee or migrant communities; committ to a 'exposure' program, where you are introduced to marginalised people.

For our own household, this has definitely dropped since we became parents (and needed to focus more on career, saving for a home, etc.). Partly because of new focus, partly because of lack of time and energy.

We do get to say hello to some marginal people in and around Sunday Stuff (our church service), both locals who drop in for a cuppa and also a couple of attendees. It's not really a very meaningful interaction though.

In the past, I've been involved in a community lunch in Carlton, which gave good exposure to a broad cross-section of the local community. The lunch held in Credo Cafe at Collins St Baptist church is another great way to get involved.

To boost our involvement in this, we'll have to work hard to create some time and energy for it - a tough call with a pre-schooler and several part-time jobs to consider!

Consumption - Week 5, Household Covenant

The household covenant asks this key questions concerning consumption: "What ways can you go further in reducing your consumption and changing your patterns to conform to sustainable patterns?"



Some ideas are: checking you're not addicted to anything (coffee, books, shoes?); an audit of goods produced under fair-trade, anti-sweatshop or locally produced conditions; setting a target for foods sourced locally or produced organically or; learning about local food sources.



A suggested resource is the Sustainable Living Consumer Guide.



For us, this will require a bit of work. We don't have a fancy lifestyle, so we don't tend to think of ourselves as big consumers. We'll have to think very carefully about what we do consume and the related issues.

I'd like to know if spending on second-hand books has any negative ramifications. We tend to get tinned tomatoes from Italy (they're pretty cheap): is this better or worse than Australian tinned tomatoes? Is there an alternative to tinned? Does the preservation in steel cans actually help to reduce waste? Does the extra weight of the steel (during transport) outweigh the benefits longer-life?

And it's tiny things too. Is it better to buy pre-chopped sundried tomatoes than chop them up ourselves? I'd assume that a factory can chop them up in huge amounts and that would save energy consumption somewhere - but is that better than using my muscle energy at home?

I think the way to go is to write down a long list of things that we buy, then try to find out the things that have significant negative (or positive) impacts.

Environment - Week 4 Household Covenant

The topic for week 4 of the Lent Household Covenant is 'Environment'.

The key questions are: 'What concrete steps can you take to make your household and lifestyle significantly "greener"? How can you become knowledgable about the issues in your community and advocate for change?'

We do the usual things of recycling, re-usable shopping bags, turning off lights and appliances (a bit) and walking or biking a little. We only run one car in our household.

We could make more of an effort to get info about current environmental issues. As an engineer and investor, I could learn a bit more complex stuff about power generation and consumption on a big scale. We could do some more to measure our gas and electricity consumption - perhaps by looking at our meters more often.

We eat a bit of meat and don't grow much food at home. We could investigate that kind of stuff pretty easily.

We certainly don't know lots about the natural environment around our home. We could learn a bit more about native vegetation and what is a sustainable ecosystem in our immediate area.

Lot's to think about!

Ethical Investing Resources

I've collected a little list of resources for people wanting to start out in ethical investing.

A key part of investing is being well-informed. If you are wanting to consider ethical issues you will need to seek information from alternative sources. Not all information will lead to sound investments and I do not endorse the investment advice from any of these sources of information. alternative sources of information should be read alongside mainstream sources to get a more complete picture.

Kiva is a micro-credit organisation that matches up investors from the developed world to entrepreneurs in the developing world. www.kiva.org

Ethical Investor magazine is another good newsletter, I've only seen a few hard-copy issues so far. www.sri.com.au

The Uniting Church have an ethical investment fund which has a retail offering. It is both a vehicle for churches to invest, as well as a provider of captial for some social programs run locally. It also invests globally in ethical opportunities. www.ucafunds.com.au

TEAR are starting to produce some resources to help guide investment, check out tear.org.au, they are also a source of general information on big infrastructure projects and developing world infrastrcuture need. TEAR have links to developing world microcredit organisations, but I don't think they offer a retail investment opportunity. www.tear.org.au/resources/harambee/

Reading the 'New Internationalist' alongside The Economist etc. is a good way of following news of infrastructure investments and also micro credit industry movements. www.newint.org

The 'Intelligent Investor', is an Australian value-investing newsletter. This is a good check for the soundness of investments. www.intelligentinvestor.com.au

Giving - Week 3 Household Covenant

It's week 3 of Lent and topic 3 of the Household Covenant is 'Giving'.

The Household Covenant states 'Giving helps build social relations rather than private capital'. That's an interesting perspective that is contrast to giving as a simple, non-rational, transfer of wealth.

We give to church, to Red Cross (for humanitarian work both in Australia and overseas) and to the Australian Conservation Foundation to help the environment. We also give a lot of our time to friends, family, church and some causes. We have a strong network of friends as a result.

We've probably given to the extent that money and time that could have been invested in career and wealth creation has been forgone. I suppose only time will tell whether that was a sensible decision. It was a compassionate decisions, so perhaps that's enough.

One idea that came out of my review, is that we could give a little less time and try to earn a little more money. That money could be well spent on eradicating extreme poverty within our lifetime. I've started reading books by Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty) and Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save) that strongly suggest that we can eradicate extreme poverty soon at at reasonable cost.

Above all, I'm keen that giving be something that builds relations, not just a voluntary tax.

The second Sunday of Lent

A lot of thought went into Part Twelve of Glenferrie Gospel, which went live today. Re-writing and re-contextualising the story of Jesus walking on the water, from John's perspective (Jn 6:16-21), was hard. It was one of the last parts I wrote - having skipped it and left it for a couple of months, almost sacking the episode altogether amidst laboured cries of "why on earth did you put that bit in, John!?!" Scholars were largely unhelpful as they imported the meaning of the story disciphered from the other gospel accounts. Only six verses long, I understand the temptation.

Whether or not I understand it acurately (should such a position be absolutely possible!) I found a point to the story that both seemed outrageously new and exciting, while also reassuringly familiar. In John's account there is no Peter stepping out on the water, no homily about faith and doubt, no unpacking the geographical significance of where they are going and from where. Rather it is about Jesus' friends in the midst of utter fear (darkness, water and storm represented some of the great threats to life in that time). It is about Jesus calming that fear. Is it mostly about Jesus reassurig his friends that they wouldn't face something which he had not - he wasn't (and couldn't) assure them that they wouldn't die, but told them that it wouldn't happen before he first had died.

"Follow me" Jesus said to them. He wasn't interested in them running on ahead without him.

I had breakfast in Rococo on Glenferrie Road this morning, with my younger brother. I noticed across the road a cafe that had changed hands again - possibily the fifth time in the past few years. Its facade now a different color to what I photographed just a couple of weeks ago. I thought about the "death" of various businesses along the street, which has increased over recent months. I looked around at the other people in the cafe, and those on the street. I thought about the people we had seen last night - old school friends and aquaintences. Each have a story, where death and life - death and re-life, are a part.

Jesus says "follow me" and then promises to go before, to leave only to come back, and to walk with us in this following.

Grappling afresh with the fear of the disciples in this part of John's story of Jesus has brought a new awareness to Jesus' promise. Within the next couple of years I hope to be opening up a cafe with friends; should it "die" or shut down, I am reasurred that this isn't something foreign or beyond the experience of Jesus. I am encouraged to engage in the opportunity and face that possibility, rather than hold back from the fear of it. The same can be discovered for many other parts of my life too.

As I've already said, this little 'lesson' from only six verses of the story, seems so new, yet is so familiar.

Debt in the Household Covenant Week 2

Over Lent this year I am assessing our household finances against the topics in the 'Household Covenant'. For week 2 of Lent, the topic is debt.

The Covenant poses the questions - How is debt affecting you? How does debt affect other people? (my paraphrase).

Debt does not affect us overly much. I've been running a small business for a number of years (Mintleaf Studio - professional website design and development in Melbourne) and had made sure I was relatively debt free as part of the overall financial risk. Not everyone in small business does that, I'm sure that many households are greatly in debt to finance a small business that isn't actually very viable.

So, we did it differently. We have no mortgage, a small credit card limit that we pay off most months and a HELP debt (that's a debt to the Commonwealth as they paid for my engineering undergraduate and post-graduate study).

This means we can tighten our belts very effectively and live on less than many of our peers. We can be a little more generous with time and money as we don't have to service debt.

Of course, we may have forgone some wealth-generating investing in order to stay so low in debt; which may not be the best place to be long-term.

We don't know enough about the effects of debt in the world, except that Highly Indebted Poor Countries often face debt that can never be repaid. We've been involved in the Jubilee, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History campaigns for a while and that helped us understand that kind of debt.

We should find out a bit more about how debt affects relatively affluent westerners, as well as how debt can be sustainable in poorer regions of the world. At the moment I couldn't tell you much about the difference between bad and good debts - and I think I ought to know.

Household Covenant Week 1

I'm aiming to go through each of the seven topics in the Household Covenenat over the seven weeks of Lent. The first topic is 'Savings and Investment'. I decided to list out the ways that we save and invest and decide if they are making a positive contribution to a fairer and more sustainable world.

We keep most of our savings in an online bank account. I did a quick check and the bank does do some donations to environmental and children's health causes. Children's health is a pretty safe issue. The causes are located in Australia. Given how many kids die of preventable diseases overseas, that doesn't seem like a priority. Still, if my daughter got sick; I'd certainly feel different about the anmount of care available locally. It's nice to support causes my closest neighbours would identify with as well.

We do have a small amount of money in the 'Kiva' microcredit scheme. The scheme operates out of the US and matches lenders in the developed world to borrowers in the developing world. Borrowers may only borrow a few hundred dollars. Typically there are a good number of lenders, so the loan is spread out across a few lenders. Our money is currently with a woman in India, who has used it to buy a sewing machine. She has successfully paid off most of the loan already. We get a small return on investment, so it's worth doing another loan through the scheme and maybe extending our committment.

We have an online trading account for share market investing and I'm learning about the sharemarket through the ASX public help. I'm aware that there are managed funds for pretty much every investment flavour. I'd be interested to find out if we could go further than a local ethical investment fund (of which there are a number of good ones) and find a fund that helps address a critical need overseas; such as health and education. It's hard to know what needs will be suitable for private investment; especially as we'll need a relatively low risk investment.

After a recent adventure running my own business, we're setting our sights on home ownership. That's a big investment! I'd like to find out more about buying a smaller, more energy efficient, dwelling - maybe renovating a small house over a few years will be better than a large place in the outer suburbs.

So, that's our review in a nutshell. We have a couple of little things we could committ to, otherwise we'll need to do more research before we can turn these wishes into a definite savings and investment plan.

first Sunday of Lent

The first Sunday of Lent... My focus this Lent is my blog Glenferrie Gospel. I was wondering whether I should update it on Sundays - Sundays having the tradition of breaking the "fast" during the Lent period... I decided to rather spend a part of each Sunday deliberately reflecting on the story, the area of Glenferrie where I live near, and my interaction between both... So here goes...

I've always had the impression that as a foreigner to the time and location of the Gospel story that I missed much. If only I knew the customs, smells and sights it would unlock some hidden treasures of meaning for me... My study of John's Gospel over the years has debunked this idea totally. Sure, there's something to gain in some background knowledge, but in John particularly there is a sense that the whole story is set in front of a blank screen. A blue screen, perhaps, waiting for us to project our own context in it... Maybe.

The observation encouraged me to take a greater look at what can be found in my local area. I've since found many layers and facets of life down on Glenferrie Road, things that are lost when I describe the area simply as inner eastern middle-upper class Melbourne (which of course it is, but it also is not).

Who is in need in this area? 

Where are the poor? 

Where are the wealthy? None of these questions lead me to simple answers anymore. 

I'm encouraged to take the second, third and fourth look at what I see around me. I wonder if what I imagine Jesus doing in Glenferrie, the things that would make him happy, are anything near what actually interests or delights him. I wonder, so I go back for the fifth, sixth and seventh look around me...

Hymn of the Big Wheel - Week 1

The Hymn of the Big Wheel had its début last week; and it worked!

The Hymn of the Big Wheel is a 1 hour contemplative service with a social justice theme. It's focus is a reading of a list of statistics concerning the magnitude and issue surrounding world poverty. It's a list that can't be rationally absorbed when heard; it's more of an emotional thing. Then we contemplate the hope that Jesus brings.

Elements of the service include sitting in silence, listening to music (mostly contemporary), lighting candles, praying together and a few random elements.

Stu and me wrote it to give us a really different contemplative experience. It's great for Lent, but we hope we can put it on any time of the year.

The first week went well, though I was nervous! We noticed that there was a lot of silence, so we've made some changes to allow people to recite prayers together earlier and to make a personal response earlier. We tried a bit of drumming, but it was too much to ask, so we're replacing that with some candle lighting instead. Week 2 should be even better.

One of my favourite moments is when we pray Wesley's prayer, and then the prayer supporting the Millennium Development goals. One prayer is from the start of the industrial revolution and is in archaic language, the other is at the end of the industrial revolution. The prayers have similar sentiments; but are coming from really different contexts. Both ask that we commit ourselves to something different from the pursuit of our own prosperity whilst ignoring the plight of others.

8pm Wednesday nights in Lent, Fairfield SPACE, 88 Station St Fairfield.

The Household Covenant

The Household Covenant is a new thing to help people engage with big issues of social justice and sustainability in an accessible way.

The idea is to make a committment within your household to make changes to patterns of money and other resource use. Each household is completely free to make their own committments. The Housegold Covenant is promoted in Australia by Jon and Kim Cornford from Manna Gum, they've based it on one from the US (Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries www.bcm-net.org).

Jon and Kim came to Solace Sunday Stuff on Feb 22, 2009 and introduced the Household Covenant. Jon explained some of his ideas behind Christians getting involved in economic issues and Kim very generously shared some points from their own Household Covenant. We thought that Solace households could certainly have a go at the covenant and provide each other with a bit of support. I'll be looking at the covenant further over Lent.

The covenant has seven topics, making it easy to review your household economics and make some definite goals. The seven topics are:

1. Savings and Investment
2. Debt
3. Giving
4. Environment and Green Living
5. Consumption
6. Poverty and Marginalisation
7. Work and Sabbath

Each topic has specific questions about whether your activity is sustainable, fair and life-giving.

It's challenging, but very approachable. I'm excited to give it a go!