... and so we continue in prayer.

People who attended Catherine Peters' funeral have described the service to me as a "truly life-changing event" - one of those rare moments when all present feel God grieving as they themselves weep, and yet when they simultaneously feel the exhilaration of eternity, and our true future, breaking into time. Bosco has left this note for everyone:

Bosco, Helen, and Jonathan are deeply thankful for the thoughtfulness of so many since Catherine died. Through kind words, hugs, flowers, gifts to Oxfam, prayers, recalling stories, baking, and practical help, so many people have shared in this great loss and are supporting us in it. Together we share our gratefulness for the years with our gorgeous, smiling, vivacious, quirky, kind-hearted Catherine. Thank you for supporting, remembering, and celebrating, and for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.

We will indeed continue to support, remember, and celebrate Catherine, along with everyone torn apart during this past dark month. And one day, one precious perfect day, we shall see clearly. Face-to-face, laughing with eyes unclouded by tears; till then let nobody every think they need cry alone.

Now is the time of tears...

It’s been a few days now, but I’m still gasping with shock at the tragic death of Bosco and Helen Peters’ daughter Catherine.

Fr. Bosco’s site www.liturgy.co.nz/ is one of the Anglican web’s greatest treasures, and in January I had the privilege of meeting him and Helen while I was in Christchurch. What was supposed to be a quick cup of coffee ended up being the better part of a day spent sitting outside at the Arts Centre sharing our lives in the wonderful, heart-breaking, inspiring and utterly maddening journey that is faith. Together they are among the most inspiring and Christ-like people I’ve met: genuine and funny, filled with insight and the kind of honest love that makes me remember why I first became involved with this whole Christianity thing – because there really is a God who cares enough about people to dwell in our midst, shining both around us and through us in spite of whatever circumstances in which we might find ourselves.

All of which makes this all the more hard to comprehend. Why so vicious an evil should befall such great people as Helen, Bosco, and their son Jonathan, is beyond comprehension: like any theology graduate I’ve spent countless hours studying the strengths and weaknesses of endless theodicies, but none have ever seemed more than fatuous when considered in the light of a tragedy like this. In such times it’s only a touch that’s real, a kind word and the warmth that comes from being held by those sharing in our grief; those who also know what it is to live in a world clouded by sadness so dark that it seems the sun might never be seen again.

Which is why I’d like to send an expression of love and support to Bosco, Helen and Jonathan from all of us in the wonderful community orbiting around OCICBW… Ours may be a “virtual” church, but it’s no less real (and considerably more so) than many congregations I’ve had the misfortune to encounter, and on this terrible occasion we can as a community let Catherine’s family know we’re there with those whom she loved most.

The funeral looks like being next Monday afternoon, which will be late Sunday night/early Monday morning for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere. At the moment it doesn’t look as though I’ll be able to get on a flight so that I can attend myself, but members of my family in Christchurch will be delivering flowers on behalf of all of us in the OCICBW… gang. In addition I thought it would be nice if I could put together a book of all of our thoughts and support for Bosco, Helen, and Jonathan, letting them know in a physical way that we’re all thinking of them.

Please send what ever you’d like included in an email to me at alcibiades@tda.net.au making sure to put “Catherine Peters Memorial” in the subject field so that my irritatingly hyper-active spam filter doesn’t grab it. As many of you have probably already learned, my email server is very unreliable, so I’ll confirm your comments have arrived within 12 hours of your sending them: if you haven’t heard back from me by then please resend.

I’ll print them out on some nice paper, one comment to a page, and bind them, which will make a permanent record of our support for Catherine’s family: the weeks, months and years ahead are going to bring some very dark times, and this way our friends can have a reminder that we’re there for them long after the internet’s moved on. Please say as much or as little as you need to: just remember that I’ll need to have everything by Friday evening U.S. time at the latest in order to have it in Christchurch by Monday N.Z. time.

And please, remember Bosco, Helen and Jonathan in your prayers.

Rest in Peace dear Catherine, until we all find ourselves dancing in the Light which shall never be overcome.

After the fires...

Thanks to everyone for your prayers last Friday and Saturday. Unlike far too many people in Australia we came safely through the horrors of last weekend. I took this picture from the side of the road behind our place the day after everything was extinguished: it shows how the fire was lit at the top of the escarpment and then blew back towards the road and houses – yes, the police say it was deliberately lit, probably by local kids. Fortunately nobody was hurt here – my heart goes out to everyone in those communities where this wasn’t the case.


It was about half past three in the afternoon when first I smelled the smoke: Mrs Caliban was at work and Miss Nearly-Three at pre-school, while the littlest duck-nodle had just woken from his afternoon nap. This was what we could see from our back verandah; just after this picture was taken our neighbour suggested we start hosing everything down, and shared the “comforting” news that in the ’94 fires the house behind his was lost…


Ten minutes later everything was dark, the sun a blurred ball through the smoke. By this point the dogs were too frightened to complain any more at having been brought inside, and our eyes were starting to sting. Wrapped up against the burning embers falling from the sky, the little fellow and I were spraying water on the garden and roof to protect against spot fires.


Words can’t describe what it felt like to see the fire helicopter arrive. The noise was incredible, and in the dense smoke we could often only tell where it was from the sound. Nor can words convey how grateful we felt to the men and women risking their lives to fly under these conditions.







You can just make out the helicopter’s water bucket hanging down – the pilot was dropping beneath the escarpment to fill it from the river, then skipping back up to drop another load. The roar of steam each time it emptied was indescribable: the courage it must take to fly like that is breathtaking.








After picking the rest of the team up (who couldn’t believe how badly we reeked of smoke) we returned a few hours later to see the sky clearing and the helicopter leaving. What this picture doesn’t show are the hundreds of black leaves blown onto the grass during the fire, nor the little burnt circles where each one of them landed.






None of which matters in the slightest – that nobody was hurt is the only thing of any importance. What we experienced was absolutely nothing compared with the people in Victoria, and all our hearts and prayers go out to them. Hundreds – if not thousands- of people have lost everything except the clothes on their backs, many are in hospital, and most tragic of all is that the final death toll looks like exceeding 200. Thanks to everyone who was praying for us (knowing there was a community of people around the globe caring meant an incredible amount) but please don’t stop now! A whole lot of people need your prayers and thoughts far more than we did, and the community springing out of our beloved Mad Priest’s place might all be a lot of ne’er-do-well trouble-makers, but there’s no denying God hears each one of you! Thank you again.

Australia Day 2009

Please stand for the National Anthem...



When the pubs played bands like this every night, when the idea of watching a DJ was too stupid to even contemplate, and when us getting messed up in yet another pointless and unwinnable foreign war was unimaginable. You had to be there back in the day ... ;-)

Merry Christmas!!

Hi everyone - just a quick post to let you all know the Duck Noodle Gang is still alive, and, more importantly, to wish you all the very best for this time of year.

We're in New Zealand, where I'd hoped to write the long overdue emails to everyone I've been determined to send off while enjoying a respite from the chaos which is the life of a house-dad... but would you believe I left my notepad at home on the morning of our departure, and have instead had to endure an enforced 3 week internet abstinence? Yes, I know how dumb that was...

So instead all I can say is there'll be plenty of photos posted here when I get back, along with an article from the Christchurch paper by Bishop Victoria (the new woman Bishop), which is one of the most impressive Christmas messages ever. I'll also be lifting the game here a little following the completion of a few other projects, which means I can in all honesty promise at least more than the one post a month this place has dwindled down to.

And what else? Only this - God bless each and everyone of you!

Remembrance Day 2008: Lest We Forget.

The Pelicans and I were in a shopping centre at 11am this morning: I’d hoped to be somewhere a little more respectful by then, but getting anything done with two small children and two crazy dogs always takes three times as long as you expect. which is why we found ourselves walking through the foodcourt when a voice came over the public address system calling for one minute’s silence.

It was wonderful to see how everyone stopped what they were doing, and turned their thoughts to that day 90 years ago when the war to end wars itself ended. I’ve no doubt each one of the more than 60,000 Australians killed would have been more than a little touched to see a world that they couldn’t have imagined stop in their honour – but I’m also pretty certain they’d rather have lived to grow old; to take their own children and grandchildren shopping.

To put the carnage in perspective: about 1 in 80 Australians was killed. Another 270,000 were injured: that’s about one for every eighteen men, women and children living here in 1914. By the end of the war it was impossible to walk more than 100 metres along any street of any town in country and not pass a home struck by tragedy.

Miss Madam was intrigued by the silence, which was followed by the Last Post and the Ode. Toddlers have never been famous for their discretion, but she managed to not ask the inevitable questions too loudly. I explained about the daddies and uncles who never came home, and how their one comfort had been the hope that they were making the world a better place for children like her.


Later in the afternoon we went to a memorial on the edge of the bushland not far from our home. It’s a 1/8th size carving of the Sphinx made in the 1920’s by a patient of the returned servicemen’s convalescent hospital which was once nearby.


A relatively isolated place, there’s a strange spirituality that probably means it isn’t somewhere parents normally take children as young as ours – but I think the diggers would have enjoyed the sound of their laughter.


And together we said "thank you", and remembered what they fought to achieve for us all...

Fr. John Hope

In the comments of a recent post Brian mentioned the late Fr. John Hope of Christ Church St. Laurence, one of my greatest heroes. Under his leadership from 1926 to 1964 his church - one of Sydney’s few Anglo-Catholic parishes, and probably the best known - grew spectacularly, despite blatant attempts by the diocesan hierarchy to close it and distribute the assets to congregations toeing the party line. At a time when indigenous Australians were not even entitled to citizenship, and most church leaders were actively participating in the genocidal Stolen Generation policies, he donated property for the foundation of Australia’s first self-managed Aboriginal educational facility. There’s a great little biography of him on the Christ Church web site here, but my favorite anecdote about him comes from L. C. Rodd’s John Hope of Christ Church St Laurence.

Determined to do something once and for all about the “Popish superstition” at Railway Square, the belligerent Archbishop Mowll decided during a meeting in the 1940’s to attack Fr. Hope directly by asking if he was aware that “certain types” of men comprised a significant part of his congregation. “Most certainly” growled Fr. Hope in reply while looking the Archbishop directly in the eyes, “And is it not a good thing that these people so dear to our Lord have somewhere they can go?”

Priests don’t come much tougher than that. God bless him.