Yesterday I helped one of my students write a resume. He is going for a job as a cleaner at the hospital but they wanted a resume. Having no one else here to ask he asked me if I would help him and I agreed. In the process of creating his resume we had the most profound conversation.

He is an Afghani man who arrived in Australia 3 months ago. He fled the Taliban in 2000 and then spent 9 years getting here (illegally) through Pakistan and Indonesia. I couldn’t understand everything but he kept saying “guns” and “dogs” and “Taliban very bad” I think he was trying to tell me that the Taliban treat people like dogs and that they held him at gunpoint and took his business from him. He told me all this as I tried to piece together his work and education history which as you can imagine having spent the last 9 years as an illegal refugee is fairly sparse. His education history isn’t great either, 8 years at primary school then military training for 10 years where he mostly learned to read and write. I ended up deciding it was probably better to not put in anything. I think most employers would be fairly put off by someone who had primary school education and 10 years in the Afghani military. The saddest thing though is that there is nothing at all to put someone off this man. He is the simply the most gentle, polite, respectful and kind man with me and with all the students in the class. He has so much challenged any stereotyped ideas about Muslim men that I had (and I had them I have to confess but all my Afghani students especially him have made me realise that they may be the most misunderstood people in the world). He actually stands up when I come into the classroom. A habit I am trying to stop as quickly as I can I must say. Especially, as I feel that it is I who should be standing up when he comes in. A man who has been through all that he has but has maintained such a gentle spirit and no bitterness is truly extraordinary I reckon. I don’t think he feels like that though, having been treated in the ways that he has been treated he has lost most of his pride in himself.

As he left he said to me “You are very nice. What can I do for you?” I actually teared up. How could I tell him that I am actually not that nice. That I benefit on a daily basis from the exploitation of people like him, helping him write a resume is the least I can do. But more than that I wanted to somehow explain to him that in the sharing of his story with me he had given me something worth so much more than the resume I had written for him but I couldn’t quite find the words.

Then I came home and watched Q and A and Lateline. As the politicians and the people battled it out about what we are going to do about “boat people” and how we are going to get “the balance right of being compassionate and protecting our borders” I just wanted to scream.

Today I rang my superviser in Darwin to discuss an issue with him. We had a good chat and as I was hanging up he said, “I am sending you the summaries of the student’s evaluations today”. “Are they okay?” I asked all of a sudden feeling unnecessarily nervous. “They’re great” he said, “as far as I can remember only one, maybe two things you may have to note but nothing bad”. I hung up the phone feeling very worried in deed and checked my emails every couple of minutes to see if something had come through. It was ridiculous. I have 32 students, of course there will be one or two comments that I may have to note (in fact it is a good thing) but this does not mean that I am bad teacher or the students hate me or all the other negative things that were going through my head.

I really want to be less concerned about what people think of me. I had this issue a few years back when at course I was attending we were required to write notes to people giving them feedback about themselves. Of the 40 or so lovely notes I got one of them was negative and I totally fell apart. At the time I really worked hard to get over that and made some plans about how I would deal with negativity in the future and now here I was again out of proportinally worried about my students evaluations and feeling like I had gotton nowhere on that.

They came through a little while ago and they were absolutely lovely. While I know that people are always more likely to write good things and thus you can not put everything on these sort of evaluations they were a real boost for me. When asked if they were happy with class everyone single one of them said yes and there were a plethora of lovely comments to go with that. The one or two issues were simply one student who wrote “I like Emily’s teachings but we need more vocabularly” and another who wrote “I am happy to teacher but we need more grammar”.

I am very annoyed with myself and in light of the positivity of these evaluations I feel even sillier for worrying so much. But I guess that is not the point. I need to find a way of dealing with the fact that through life there are going to be people and students who do not like me but that’s normal and okay. I would like to be in a place where if one of them had of wrote “Emily is by far the worst teacher I have ever had and I have not learned a thing this semester” I would still be able to cope. I know I am no where near that.

One of the things that I really like about living in Alice is how close everything is. My commute to work is 15 mins. Now most Territorians actually think that is actually a long way but for someone who commuted almost an hour for a few years 15 mins is amazing. And it is a beautiful commute along the West Macs I must say. Also, 15 mins or less if we want to visit any friends, do some shopping, go to the doctors, go for a walk in the bush, have a swim everything can be done in 15 mins. And if you want to do anything else you probably have to fly there because if you drive more than 15 minutes in any direction you’ll be heading into the middle of the desert and that goes on for a long, long way.

So today as we often do here I was able to meet Martin for lunch. I can just ring him and say “do you want to have lunch” and he says “yes” and we can because it only takes 5 minutes to get there. It makes me very happy.

I was in the paper yesterday. Well sort of. A group of us are sleeping out on the Todd Mall (the main drag of Alice) every three weeks in protest of some proposed council by-laws that would no longer allow people to beg or protest and would allow the police the right to move people on (for no particular reason) and take people’s blankets and dispose of them. Nice isn’t taking blankets from the homeless and fining people who are begging now that’s a smart way to solve the problem.

Anyway yesterday I did an interview with a guy from our local paper. We chatted for awhile about how we as a group believe that these laws are unjust and unfairly target the indigenous population. We also talked about the fact that we as a group are having a really profound time sleeping out as the local homeless community (all indiegnous) have been so welcoming of us into their space and many have joined us to sleep. We are all learning more about each other and building some relationships across cultures. In a town where in the last month or so we have had a young indigenous man murdered by a group of white men; someone giving away white pride shirts on the mall and a massive increase of break and enters into people’s homes and businesses this is much needed. Not much of this was mentioned in the article though. In fact the article was only about 10 lines long and I was quoted out of context a few time. The guy talked mostly about how the police and rangers have not done anything about us. If this was made in comparison to what they do to the indigenous people sleeping out this may have been okay but it seemed more an encouragement to get the police to arrest us than anything else.

There is another protest going on in town though about the changerooms at the local football oval not been up to scratch. A couple of citizens have got together and are encouraging the council to build better ones. This protest got over half a page dedicated to it and the second page (we were on at least the fifth)!!! There was a big emotive headline and big picture of some white men looking very cross and ready for a fight.

Is it only me or is there something seriously wrong when people fighting for a better changerooms for footballers get more attention than people fighting for just treatment of the marginalised in our community.

Martin and I saw this movie last Monday. I wouldn’t say I loved it but it was enjoyable. They very cleverly managed to not do the predictable thing but also not make you feel sad or crappy. Unlike most romantic comedies I walked out feeling good about my relationship. I also liked the actors and the music. I guess the problem was I just didn’t think it was that funny and they were perhaps trying a little bit too hard.

Speaking of movies Martin and I watched the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy again this weekend. It got very hot over the weekend and we weren’t up for much more. Especially as we had slept out again on Friday and only got maybe 4 hours sleep. Anyway, what fantastic movies they are. I have watch them all about three times now and I am still not sick of them.

After all the posts about hailstorms and blackouts and how cold it is in Sydney I thought I would say that here in Alice Springs the weather has been perfect for about week. Nights that are cold enough to snuggle in under a doona and light a fire with mornings that are warm enough to make you want to get out of bed and have breakfast on the balcony. The days are sunny and hot but not uncomfortably so, enough to inspire me to swim but not have to. The sky is that very central Australian bright blue with not a cloud in sight and the gale force winds that were around for the weeks before as gone and we just have a cool, soft breeze blowing. I guess it’s weeks like these that help us Territorians get through the summer.

I love our new house. I love the view, waking up and looking up those mountains is so wonderful. I love the bright colours that we have painted it. I love the pictures we have put up and all the photos of family and friends. I love cooking in our kitchen with our good knives and having a hotplate and oven. I love my cupboard, hanging clothes is such a luxury and having enough room for all my clothes. I love the shower, it is solar and excellent pressure. I love the size of it, not too big, not too small. I love that almost all the furniture is second hand (except perhaps the flat screen TV we bought and I even love that too). I love the outdoor spaces. I love that I know how much work went into it and I did heaps of it myself. I love that we have already been able to offer much hospitality in it and I look forward to more. Most of I love that Martin and I live in it together.

Lots of thanks to my mum and Keith who put so much effort and money into providing it for us.

I loved, loved, loved this book. It was one of those books that you come across every now and then that seems to put into words (and eloquently) all the things that you have been struggling to get straight in your head but don’t seem to be able. One of those books that some how makes you feel at home and less alone in your thoughts. I am recommending it to everyone especially people who are perhaps disillusioned with Christianity and are needing a new way of understanding and living it out if they are to be able to stick with it at all.

Not that Marcus would say that the “the emerging paradigm”, what is described in this book is new, rather he sees it as the truly traditional way of approaching Christianity. I quoted this book a little bit in my last post, obviously the emerging paradigm is a more inclusive paradigm that envisages equality in the church between women (as well as homosexuals but let’s not go there perhaps) however I will quote it once more.

“Within this framework, being Christian is not primarily about believing, in the modern sense of believing certain propositions to be true. Instead, the emerging paradigm emphasizes the relational meanings of faith and leads to a relational and transformational vision of the Christian life. To be Christian means to in a relationship with God, lived within the Christian tradition.”

It seems this theme is no longer so hot here on blogfeed but the conversation continues no doubt and I would like to contribute my thoughts. We had one opinon from Tom, another from BJD and it is important to me (and perhaps others) that someone gives the other opinion (even if a bit late, it took awhile to write this post) and I do so with respect for all those who have written and commented.

I believe that all people, including men and women, are equal. By equal I mean completely equal thus equally capable, and with the blessing of God, to lead businesses, countries, families and churches.

I admit up front that I read the Bible from a historical, metaphorical and sacramental point of view. Thus for me the Bible is a sacred document and central to my faith and the way I live. I try to read it every day and it helps me understand who I am, who God is and what my life with Him should look like. However, I do not believe that the world was created in a literal 7 days, that the red sea was literally parted in two for the Israelites to pass, that Jonah was literally swallowed by a fish and I am even unsure of some of the miracles of Jesus. And even if they were literal I am unsure of their relevance to how I live my life. That does mean I do not believe in the truth of these stories. I believe that they have a very profound “more than literal” meaning that is still very relevant today. That God created and is in the world, that no matter where we go it is in God “that we live and move and have our being” that the spirit of God was in Jesus and in him we can see what a life lived fully in God looks like and finally that our God is a transfornming God who brings people from slavery into freedom, fear into truth, crucifixion into ressurection etc. I also do not believe that God really called the Israelites to bring down death and destruction on the communities around them, such as they did (as much as I do not believe that He called the crusaders). Nor do I believe he told Isiah he would “dash infants to pieces before their eyes” or that He was/is particularly concerned about whether we eat animals that “have a split hoof and chew the cud”. For me these have a historical context of people trying to understand their God. Just as the idea that a woman is unclean for a week after the birth of a baby boy and two weeks after the birth of a baby girl. And if we need a New Testament example I do not believe that slaves should obey their masters.

It has been argued that this way of reading the Bible is arrogant. I would argue that almost everyone reads the Bible this way (hence the fact that very few people, probably none, continue to live by the above regulations) but I also believe that as Marcus Borg (and other Biblical scholars) argue the historical, metaphorical and sacramental way is the traditional way of reading the Bible. He says “the notion of Biblical infallibility and inerrancey first appeared in the 1600’s.” He goes on to argue that “it was the Enlightment that identified truth with factuality. Before that people were more concerned with the more than literal meaning.”

Thus I come to my argument about women in ministry, believing that much of what was written about men’s and women’s roles has a historical context (and I remind you I am not being selective as I read the whole Bible this way). And while I believe in the wisdom of wives at times “submitting to their husbands” I do not see it as a blanket rule (and most would certainly agree with me when we throw in the issue of domestic violence). Just as I believe at times “women being silent and listening to the wisdom of men” is important so do I believe in the importance of men doing the same. And I would argue if one truly believes in the inerrancy of this statement they should be silencing women in churches and in fact all circumstances totally.

For me the message of the Bible as a whole and of Jesus (who was suprisingly silent on the issue given how much air time it gets in church circles) is one of equality of all people, “in Christ Jesus there is no male and female”. The message is one of liberation, of giving voice to the voiceless and empowering the oppressed and if we silence women in any way they become voiceless. And as many have commented (even those who disagree with me), women held leadership positions in the Bible and in the ministry of Jesus. I am constantly drawn to the story of the crucifixion where, as the men flap around betraying and denying Jesus and then don’t even recognise him when he appears to them, the women stand at the foot of the cross and then go to the tomb. It is to them that the news of the ressurection is first given and to them the responsibility to share it with others (to minister perhaps).

It has been argued that this isn’t a salvation issue. As someone who believes that salvation is as relevent in this life as it is the next, if not more so, it is a salvation issue. This is a justice issue, and like all issues of injustice such as slavery, poverty, racism we as Christians are called to liberate. Christ has called us to freedom and I just can’t envisage full freedom for women while they are not able to lead chuches just as if black people were not able to lead churches I would be saying the same. This may seem over the top to some but perhaps not to the massive amounts of people who are leaving the church because of its irrelevance. And that is an issue that needs to be taken seriously in this debate.

Well that’s enough I think (although I could go on I am sure). Again I remind people I have written this post with respect and admiration for others who have written simply with the hope that as people consider this issue they hear both sides of view. I hope if you choose to comment you would offer me the same respect.

It’s been the desert festival here in Alice Springs and last Sunday night we got to go to the coolest concert by the Black Arm Band. It was absolutely sensational and I would like to join with Keith in saying to everyone that if you ever get the opportunity to see them you must. The nigght was made even richer by the fact that it was a night in which indigenous and non indigenous people came together and danced and partied. So much of life in Alice Springs happens seperately so it is special when the whole community comes together. Keith and the choir also sung that night. They were great too. I was very sad that I was not able to join the choir in the end as I now work on Thursday nights.

On Friday night, some people and I gathered in down town Alice Springs for a little non violent protest against some particularly racist proposed by laws. My mum has written a bit more about this so read hers for more details. I had a lot of fun even though I got next to no sleep with the lights, the noise and the fact that somehow Martin and I ended up sharing a single swag because two kids moved into the other one. I confess I was a little nervous before hand, I thought perhaps that the local street community, predominantly indigenous, would be at the very least indifferent to us but they were not at all. They were so welcoming. I don’t know why I would have thought that seeing as almost all my experience with homeless people and indigenous people proves contribute, if even ever so slightly to break down some of those.

Yesterday, Martin had his soccer grand final. I went along with some other wives of the players to watch and although they did not win I had a good time. Martin’s soccer team is predominantly African and thus the cheer squad is top quality. I have no idea what they are saying but they sing out loudly and sound great. Afterwards we all went to the pub across the road. It was not a bit pub and so we and the dozen Africans filled out the place easily. It was quite a hoot.

And finally, in most exciting news Martin and I have finally moved into our house. I am so happy. I have stuck up all my pictures and got out all my books and albums and I feel so much more like me. I also have a proper cupboard to hang my clothes in and a kitchen in which I have space to chop things up and I don’t have to cook on a gas stove. I wake up every morning and look out over the ranges and I feel so very blessed. Going without things for a little while helps us to appreciate them so much more. I hope that feeling lasts a long time.