Painting Fakes

Over the last couple of years I've been listening attentively to all sorts of religious music in the process of rethinking my own practice.  There's been nothing systematic about it.  Often what I've been listening to is music I've known for a long time, but because I'm more focused on the question I'm listening with different ears. How can we get past heavily theological, formulaic music and find something that creates a genuine emotional connection?  How can we get out of the atonement bubble and sing about everything that matters in our lives?  Are we prepared to weep and get angry as well as celebrate and praise? I've expressed my frustration at the music currently promoted in my church and others like it .  I've contrasted this with the ancient Israelite practice shown in the Book of Psalms , and with some other Christian practices that are often unfairly derided.  But I've also found a lot of what I'm looking for in songwriters from o

Ok, so I've been participating in the debate about same sex marriage, in a desultory sort of way.  I'm for it.  I don't feel that strongly about it, but if people really want it I can't see why they should be refused. I'm not enjoying the debate though.  It seems to be so black and white, as if it was clear what marriage is and it's just a question of who has access to it.  Like cornflakes, or the internet.  I'm longing for a discussion which actually talks about the question in a meaningful way. Recently I got a taxi home from the airport, and the driver was a young Indian man, as most of them are now in Brisbane.  He had just been married over in India, and was hanging out for the day when his wife's visa was approved so they could be together.  He was more than happy to talk about the whole thing at length. Like a lot of Indian marriages, this one had been arranged for him.  His uncle had gone looking, found a girl who he and other relatives

One of the endearing things about Australia is that we are just as bad at national days as we are at national songs . Our supposed official national holiday, Australia Day, marks the day when the First Fleet landed in Sydney Cove in 1788.  It provides a telling contrast with its US equivalent. Thanksgiving Day celebrates the anniversary of the pilgrim fathers' first harvest in New England, their heartfelt thanks at the progress of their new community of religious freedom far from the tyranny of their English oppressors. By contrast, very few of those who landed in Sydney Cove in 1788 were inclined to celebration.  Most of them were in chains, with their oppressors on hand and well armed to keep them down.  Nor were the soldiers who guarded them much more enthusiastic, sent on this posting to the ends of the earth to guard dangerous prisoners.  The original inhabitants were none too pleased either at having their best lands taken by these strangers. Our celebrations occasionally

It seems that this Christmas I can't get away from renditions of The Little Drummer Boy .  Here is the one I enjoyed most, from Walk Off the Earth. I don't really know what's with the dogs.  If you prefer something more traditional here's an  a capella  version by Pentatonix. In case you haven't had it drummed into you by years of repetition over shopping centre sound systems and in Christmas concerts and pageants, the lyric goes like this: Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,  rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, So to honour Him, pa rum pum pum pum,  When we come. Little Baby, pa rum pum pum pum I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum That's fit to give a king, pa rum pum pum rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum,

In the last few weeks we've had some very sad stories in our media.  Police shootings of mentally ill young men, children dying from drinking unprocessed milk, our government winning the right to treat asylum seekers with unprecedented cruelty....  In the midst of this are two tragic crimes. On November 23 some people out for a Sunday morning cycle heard strange noises coming from a partly covered drain beside Sydney's M7 freeway.  They investigated and found a newborn baby boy abandoned in the drain.  Doctors judged that the child had been there for 6 days.  The lucky boy is now recovering in foster care and his mother has been found and charged with attempted murder. Just a week later , two young children playing on Maroubra Beach in Sydney uncovered the remains of another infant who turned out to be a baby girl.  Sadly this child did not survive and the remains were badly decomposed.  The search for her mother is still ongoing. These stories produce a complex re

I'd almost forgotten George Harrison's All Things Must Pass .  Years ago I had a pirate tape of it which I listened to so much it died.  I never got around to replacing it until about a month ago when I found the album posted in its entirety on Youtube while I was looking for something else.  I surrendered to the impulse, partly out of pure nostalgia, but more so because my recently acquired love for the 'Jesus is my Boyfriend' song and my admiration for the subtle Sufi devotion of Richard and Linda Thompson's best work made me want to listen once again to Harrison's songs of spiritual awakening. Harrison was the first of the Beatles to launch his solo career, with All Things Must Pass  hitting the stores in November 1970, a mere six months after the Beatles announced their split.  He didn't do it by halves, either.  The original release was a three LP set, with two LPs' worth of original songs and a third containing a series of bluesy jams with

I've been finding myself singing this Bruce Cockburn song to myself a lot lately. Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage  Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage  Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights  What did they think the politics of panic would invite?  Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"  But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse   Callous men in business costume speak computerese  Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees  Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea  And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see  "It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"  But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse   Fashionable fascism dominates the scene  When ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means  Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream  As the grinding devolution

We are currently being forced to accept, reluctantly and to our collective sorrow and shame, that for a long time our society has been remarkably tolerant of the sexual abuse of children.  Our Royal Commission here in Australia has been sitting for some time now, hearing horrendous stories of abuse in institutions which are mostly connected to the churches, Catholic and Protestant.  That we are hearing these stories has little or nothing to do with the willingness of churches and institutions to admit fault and change their ways, and everything to do with the courage and persistence of abuse survivors who have fought to be heard every step of the way. Now, as if to remind us that it's not just the church, the British legal system has finally wound its methodical way to the conclusion that Rolf Harris is guilty of 12 counts of sexual assault committed on four young girls between 1968 and 1986.  These charges seem to be the tip of the iceberg.  A makeup artist he once groped testi