One Man's Web

After the parables of Mark 4, Jesus embarks upon a series of works of power. Already there have been healings of individual people. Now, we have the stilling of a storm, and the death of thousands of pigs. After raising a child from the dead, and miraculously feeding thousands of people, Jesus will again aid the disciples out on the sea as a storm is building, this time walking out to them on the water, and climbing into their boat so that the wind ceases.

These stories have always had those who doubt them. But for our age they are not implausible; they are simply impossible. How, then, do we read them? The reductive materialism of our age sees them as nonsense. Their presence calls all of Mark into question. Most of us ignore the hard edge of reductive materialism; we accept the reality of morals and values, beauty, and love even though such things theoretically have no real meaning. But we know that storms are not quelled with a word. This is a reality which has no wriggle room... Read on >>>>

aka, Preaching to myself...

Someone, a stranger, told me a story of tragedy and triumph. Of a community banded together in an act of surprising compassion at a moment when events could have headed in a far more violent direction. This was a story of persistence, hope, and love. A story of flourishing. A witness to the effect of the Gospel.

Here is the first thing I notice about this story: It turns out I knew some of the players in the drama... Read on >>>>

In year five the school was swept by a craze. It was not marbles or YoYos. Instead, someone made a little slingshot out of a bobby pin and a rubber band, and soon, most of us had one. Farmer's kids went down to the implement shed and pinched a bit of high tensile tie wire, and used the vise and pliers to make souped up versions that would send a well folded spitball the length of the twin classroom.

The teachers soon caught on, of course, and one morning recess a goon squad of prefects began confiscating slingshots. In the next lesson, the headmaster visited each class, gave them a lecture on the danger of such things, and demanded that any slingshots which remained be handed over... Read on >>>>

My doctor was key in my being able to persist in congregational ministry. On one visit, he had a medical student observing, and asked the student what he thought about my back. "I can see the deformity," the kid said. My doctor smiled apologetically in my direction, and then suggested that patients would probably respond better if the student said something like, "I can see some scoliosis."

I didn't know I had scoliosis, and I'm not sure I really knew what it was, but I certainly knew my back periodically locked up. On the worst occasion Wendy and the kids dragged me the length of the Whyalla manse, draped over a large toy semi-trailer an uncle had built for one of them. On that occasion, I wondered if I might die because the pain was so severe I had trouble breathing.

Five years ago, we shifted house. Far from my usual physio, I booked into the nearest one I could find. There, I met a deceptively diminutive physiotherapist named Victoria. She looked at my back: "Ah! The scoliosis!"  Immediately I was bent and twisted and barraged with questions, then, "This is what we will do. Lie here. On your side. Closer to the edge..."

And she set about a set of twisting and stretching manoeuvres unlike anything I had ever experienced. This was not, as they say, a process for the faint hearted. Constantly checking pain levels, she nonetheless pushed me (literally) to the limits of what I could bear.

I've not met a physio I didn't like, and am deeply grateful for a group of people who have helped me through serious and debilitating pain. But here, I am in the hands of an absolute expert. After our first sessions, I not only had the pain removed from my lower back, but found that a mostly dead area in my left neck and shoulder was freed up and that I could feel what for years had been a six inch strip of numb skin. I also went home and took Panadol, followed by Nurofen at tea.

A couple of years later, the scoliosis caught up with me. I went back for more work. After a couple of sessions, Victoria sat me upright, got me to put my hands behind my head—careful adjustment there—and then slipped her arms through my own. I had just enough time to recall from childhood rough-housing that this was a "Full Nelson," before she lifted me bodily off the bench! When I had my breath back said. "I guess you don't feel much need to go to the gym." She smiled and said, "No. Not really."

(Victoria is a pseudonym) Archived here.