Blog Posts

If only

1/28/2020

I have one relationship that’s been very off and on. More off than on if I’m really honest. It started many years ago but it wasn’t long before I realised that we didn’t really have much in common. You might call it a relationship of convenience and although it was a healthy one, it offered little to encourage me to persevere.

Oh, I did try to be loyal, faithful even, but it was hard work. I seemed to be the one doing all the giving and so I would give up for a time until I realised how foolish that was and I’d make the effort to try again. I don’t remember how many times I tried but never succeeded, that was until two years ago.

Maybe my expectations changed or finally I saw the importance of the relationship, but in February 2018 I finally committed for the long term. I can’t say it’s been smooth sailing but I know I’ve benefitted immeasurably.

Where once I had to force myself to go to the gym, now it’s become as much a part of my live as eating breakfast or cleaning my teeth. We still have little in common, the structure and regimentation do little to inspire my creative heart, but the changes in my health and well being far outweigh the discipline it takes to stay committed.

I’m left wondering how different my life might have been if only I’d stayed committed all those years ago. And I wonder how many other things I’ve chosen to pass by because they didn’t appeal to me or seemed too hard. Many of those things could have greatly enriched my life had I not decline them.

I find it easy to be dedicated to the things I enjoy, the things that feed my soul, but life is so much bigger than the easy things. The things that require discipline, courage, determination and hard work give back in full measure. And they are the things that test and stretch me, the measuring stick that gauges my potential.

I fear dying, never having discovered what I’m truly capable of or having tasted the full gamut of experiences open to me. I don't want to die regretting the things I didn't attempt. I want to discover who am I when the stakes are high, when the challenges fill me with fear and trepidation? What do I have to lose and what do I stand to gain?

In Waking the Dead, John Eldredge says, “ Twenty clear days a year, that sounds about like my life. The rest of the time it feels like the bathroom mirror after a hot shower”.

And that’s the problem isn’t it? I’d rather not go down a road when the way ahead is filled with mist and there’s no guarantee of what’s beyond. But I’ll never know what benefits are hidden there unless I go in boots and all; face the unknown and undiscovered with heart and eyes wide open and a determination to make the most of every experience.

To my surprise, my time at the gym has done so much more than improve my health. I’ve met inspirational people, people with major disabilities who persevere and struggle on, unwilling to give in to limitations. People in their 80s and 90s who refuse to allow age to define them. Caring supportive people whose one aim is to help me be the best I can be.

I’m not suggesting that you rush out and join a gym but just be open to opportunities that may not have your name on them, but may help you find dimensions in yourself that you could never have imagined. Determine to head down the mist filled valleys and stay open to all they have to offer you, you too might be surprised.

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Wide eyed wonder

1/21/2020

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There were laces to tie, a jacket to zip and a hunt for a hat. We tumbled out of the door into the sunshine with all the excitement and enthusiasm only a small child can bring to a morning walk.

We hadn't reached the front gate when he spied a trail of ants. We knelt down to take a closer look and studied them intently as they navigated their busy workaday world.

There was no straight path to our destination. There were gutters to investigate, low fences to walk along, pine cones and pretty leaves to collect and sticks to carry. There were shadows to chase and questions to answer, a fireman to wave to and trucks to count.

A blind man passed by with his white cane and we sat on a fence and talked about what it would be like to be unable to see.

We sniffed flowers, watched an industrious bumble bee and even discovered a fat green caterpillar enjoying his breakfast. I marvelled at the wide-eyed wonder of childhood and felt the deep joy and privilege of being a part of it even for that moment.

What a shame that somewhere on the road to adulthood we lose that childlike sense of wonder. We are encouraged to focus on the destination, schoolwork, career, achieving, and in the process we are robbed of the fascination of the present moment.

Maybe we need to rediscover the wondrous, multidimensional awareness of our childhood, to stop sleepwalking on the sidewalk and redevelop 'first eyes'.

In 2009 I visited Burkina Faso. Everything was new and exciting. I drank it in like a thirsty child ... the sights and sounds ... the colours ... the textures ... the people ... the spices, and the unfamiliar smells. My senses were on high alert. Every moment was filled with new discoveries. A missionary who had worked there for 20 years was fascinated as she saw me experiencing everything for the first time as she had all those years ago. For her it had become commonplace and familiar. It had lost its wonder. She got to see it for the first time all over again, through my eyes.

How much of the wonder of this world do we miss every day?

I want 2020 to be more about the journey and less about the destination. I want to live it with childlike wonder ... with more detours ... to be more available and more aware. I want to wave to the fireman, jump in more autumn leaves and notice the blind man. I want to be more constantly surprised by life.

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Tattoos on the Heart

1/14/2020

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I’ve been reading the deeply moving and inspiring book, Tattoos on the Heart, by Father Gregory Boyle. For thirty years he’s walked alongside the rejected and abused, those who’ve became gang members to find the sense of belonging and connection that has been denied them in life, that sense of being valued that is the longing of every human heart.

He has become the never-giver-upper to those who have only known rejection, the easily despised, the readily left out. He speaks a language most of them had never heard or even understood, the language of love.

It's a violent and dangerous world in which he lives and works and in many ways the book is dangerous too. Its stories pierce the heart and the ‘thematic mortar’ he slathers around to hold the stories together challenge me like no book on theology ever has.

The stories unearth my own subtle quick judgments and my ability to shape God in my own image. It's a confronting book, but honest, frank and delightfully humorous. There is no doubt that these young men and women have tattooed themselves on Boyle’s heart.

If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some people’s lives matter less than other lives.

In a series of powerful snapshots, Boyle unpacks the stories of many of the gang members with whom he’s navigated life. The stories are real and raw and brutally honest and I think it’s the honesty that undoes me. I see myself in Boyle and in the ‘homies’, as he calls them. You see, at the core we are all the same.

It’s when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks open the mind’s shell and enters the heart. Denise Levertov

And maybe that’s what draws me into their stories.

These homies have longings and dreams no different from mine, their potential no less, but some cruel reality of life has robbed them of any belief in their inherent goodness.

There is a palpable sense of disgrace strapped like an oxygen tank onto the back of every gang member. Shamed. Trapped.

But Boyle sees beneath that shame and glimpses the beauty trapped there.

Recently, in the bush park where I walk, it struck me that the peeling bark was a beautiful parallel to Boyle’s book. Layer upon layer of tough, hardened bark was cracking away and revealing the hidden beauty beneath. For some trees the process is just beginning, revealing just glimpses, but others have shed most of their old skin and now stand resplendent in their new glory.

So too are many of the 'homies' whose lives have been transformed by grace.

I highly recommend the book but be prepared to weep, and to laugh out loud. To recognise your own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women whose stories fill the pages.

And I leave the last words to Boyle,
The day simply won’t come when I am more noble, have more courage, or am closer to God than the folks whose lives fill these pages. I’ve learned with their patient guidance, to worship Christ as he lives in them.

Take a moment to ‘meet’ Gregory Boyle and Mario, one of his 'homies'. Watch the video.
Only the soul that ventilates the world with tenderness has any chance of changing the world.

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What makes a leader

1/7/2020

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While NSW faced a war like no other this week, an experience that can only be described as an inferno, the character and values of our leaders were revealed in stark clarity. The best of us and the worst of us are so often unearthed through crisis.

Like most of us, I watched the unfolding events along the South Coast with disbelief, shock and many tears. The sheer magnitude of the horror unfolding was inconceivable, people trapped at the water’s edge watching fire ravage all they owned, those who lost their lives defending their homes, and among those firefighters who have won our hearts with their courage and seemingly endless commitment, death, injury and constant unprecedented danger.

Right throughout NSW there has been heartbreak on a scale rarely seen and most of us have carried a communal grief, a oneness with those who were suffering, and a feeling of helplessness to do anything to change the situation. I’ve found myself distracted by the ongoing horror and the seeming endlessness of it all. Common, everyday things seemed insignificant in the light of what has been happening. Tears are never far away as I watch graphic coverage of fellow Australians suffering so intensely.

And yet we've also developed a communal gratitude for the men and women who have dragged on their boots and helmets again and again and again to face the fury of the relentless war of flames. We call them heroes, a word they wouldn’t use themselves. We stand in awe of their dedication, their resilience and their sheer tenacity. Everyday men and women, who leave behind families, miss special events and work sometimes 12 and 14-hour shifts to keep us safe. Unpaid. Unsung. Unflinchingly dedicated.

Like the man at the helm, a motor mechanic who began working with the RFS at just 15 years of age. A man who knows what it is to face the fury of a fire and what it feels like to lose a father to the flames. A man who has worked through every rank of the service, studied management through TAFE NSW and at the Australian Institute of Police Management as the inaugural fellow of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council.

A family man. A man highly respected by his men and now loved and honoured by the people of NSW. We’ve seen his compassion and empathy; we’ve experienced his strength, dedication and clear communication which we all want so desperately in times of crisis. He carries the weight of responsibility with dignity and grace, answers tiresome questions with enormous patience and his calm demeanour somehow settles our anxious hearts.

Foundational for him is, “Making sure the strategies, equipment and operations that we deploy are done in a way that maximises fire fighter safety. Every family has the right to expect their loved ones to come home after a shift.”

Shane Fitzsimmons is a true leader. What makes him stand tall above the supposed leaders of our time? What makes a great leader?

In a word, I think its character, and as I look around the country, and indeed the world, I marvel at the dearth of great leaders. How scarce on the ground are men and women of integrity, humility and courage. Men and women with a commitment to the common good rather than self. Men and women who are strong but gentle, who listen and are open to the hearts and minds of others.

We are inundated with politicians more interested in selling themselves and their cause than the good of the nation and its people. We live in a society where greed and self-satisfaction is more important than compassion for others, and self-improvement is sought after in preference to developing character.

So many people are more interested in giving their children a good start in life, a good education so they can find a well paying job, the latest technology, the trendiest clothes, rather than being committed to building character in their offspring? Is instilling character our overriding desire as parents?

Maybe the demonstration of true character than has been modelled by our RFS members and their leader, is the thing we can take away from the horrific days we’ve just endured … commitment, perseverance, courage, compassion, kindness, love and living for the good of others.

If they are the attributes we strive for and grow in our children, then maybe we will see an emergence of great leaders in the next generation.

Perhaps when all this is over we should have a statewide Appreciation of RFS Day when as a community we let them know how highly they are valued and appreciated, and how grateful we are to them for fighting for us.

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Reflections

12/31/2019

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Another year has become part of our past.

If your year was like mine, it’s had its ups and downs; joy and sorrow, achievements and disappointments, rich and meaningful relationships and those that have required patience and grace on a regular basis, good decisions and those that were not so wise. But in between were moments, … moments of wonder, of beauty and those moments you treasure forever in your heart … “I miss you grandma”, “I miss you too darling”, “But I miss you more than you miss me”, moments.

Whatever the year brought for you, 2019 was a chapter in your life. A year you’ll never have again. We are not the people we were at the end of 2018. Maybe we have changed in small inconspicuous ways or maybe for you this year came with monumental shift.

Maybe it's a year you'll always look back on fondly, or maybe you are just glad its over.

But before you go rushing or wandering into 2020, can I encourage you to take some time to reflect on the year just gone before it becomes a distant memory. Find a quiet place, some uninterrupted time alone with a journal or digital notepad and use the time to let God unpack for you the blessings and lessons that were tucked into 2019.

So often it’s only on reflection that we see what was there all the time and we were just too busy or preoccupied to see. Hindsight is filled with wisdom.

Here are seven questions to ponder. Cherish each one – don’t dismiss any, that one might just be the one that holds the gold. May God give you insights and understanding as you consider the ways 2019 unfolded for you.

What was the highlight of your year?
What two lessons from 2019 will you take into the year ahead?
What was your greatest achievement?
What was the lowest point of the year for you and how did you handle it?
What was the best intangible gift you received in 2019
What did you learn about yourself?
What are you most grateful for as you reflect on 2019?

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The gift

12/24/2019

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image: Greyson Joralemon

My firstborn arrived unexpectedly for Christmas. Born on 23 December, he was a month premature and weighted only 2.2kg. Our old Scottish minister sent a telegram, “To the wee stranger who came for Christmas”.

I didn’t get to take my wee stranger home for three weeks. They were difficult weeks but the homecoming was wonderfully exciting … and just a little scary. I’d never handled such a tiny baby before and now he was my responsibility.

Suddenly all the books I’d read and classes I’d been to in preparation for motherhood didn’t seem to help. He had trouble feeding, didn’t sleep and suffered with severe colic. Month after month without sleep, I felt helpless and inadequate.

Who was this little man who’d been given to me for a few short years to nurture and to love? What qualified me to be the mum he needed? Absolutely nothing. But parenting is something you learn on the job, there’s no apprenticeship, just walking by faith, one step at a time.

I guess it was no different for Mary. Amidst all the glory and wonder of the birth of Jesus, I often think about her. The journey she and Joseph made to Bethlehem was approximately the distance from Sydney to Lithgow (140kms). Whether on donkey or on foot I couldn’t imagine making that trip while heavily pregnant, especially over rough dirt roads and hilly terrain. It would have been demanding, exhausting and oh so uncomfortable.

And at the end of the trip there was no comfy bed with ensuite. Contrary to the common belief that she gave birth in the stable of an inn, Mary and Joseph are believed to have bedded down on the lower floor of a house of one of Joseph's relatives. It's thought that they stayed in the area of the house where the animals were brought in for the night because the house was already filled with other guests.

Image: Phil Hearing

I wonder how Mary felt as she cradled her baby in her arms for the first time. Grateful, honoured, and maybe just a little overwhelmed? God had chosen a young village girl to be mother to His Son, to feed and clothe him, nurture him, bandage his knee, wipe his tears and love him to the end.

She could not have known or even begun to comprehend what lay ahead for this baby she’d just birthed. Like Abraham before her, who could not have imagined that obeying God and leaving Haran would set in motion a stream of history so vast and one which would include this moment in the manger.

Mary helps me grasp just a tiny bit more, the reality of the Incarnation, the incomprehensible truth that “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us”.

There’s something extraordinary about being a first time mum, the unknowingness of it all, apprehension mingled with irrepressible excitement and the can’t-wait-to-meet-you sense of wonder that wells up inside you. Mary must have experienced that too, along with a crying baby, sleepless nights, the everydayness of childhood, the joys and sorrows of family life and the embracing of humanity in a carpenter's shed.

Many glorify the event, even more commercialise it and somehow the sheer magnitude of the
ordinariness of it all is lost, the reality that God works through the simple things, the mundane and the unrecognised, then and now.

I hope that the wonder and truth of the Incarnation dawns on you with a new freshness this Christmas Season.

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A table of surprises

12/10/2019

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Image: Alan Wigginton

I can’t remember how many times I declined the invitation. My son’s scouting experiences had made him passionate about the outdoor life and he wanted us to go camping as a family. The problem was I don’t have a tent-shaped heart, its more bedroom-and-ensuited shaped. The thought of trudging somewhere-out-there-in-the-wild to a bathroom and toilet filled me with dread.

But one day I decided that my love for my son was immeasurably greater than my love of comfort and I accept his invitation with considerable trepidation.

We arrived at the Warrumbungle National Park along with what felt like half of Sydney, all vying for a spot. My son made a dash for a place right at the furthest edge of the camping ground looking out over the bush, giving us a room with a view.

What none of us knew was that the Warrumbungles was in the grip of a mice plague. Some old train carriages at the other end of the park that had been turned into cabin accommodation, now lay deserted by their paying guests who objected strongly to a cavalcade of mice running over them all night as they tried to sleep.

Mice were everywhere, around the tent, over the tent and when we took down the tent several days later, there were lots of dead mice under the tent. We mouse-proofed our food by hanging it from the tent pole and walked between scurrying mice wherever we went, not a happy prospect for someone who hated mice almost as much as she hates spiders.

The trek to the bathroom paled into insignificance compared to the mice, but even they couldn’t spoil that first morning when I sat around an open fire with my son at dawn. The air sweet and still, the rising sun lighting up the bush before us and even the mice stayed well away from the fire. Suddenly I caught sight of why my son was so passionate about this outdoor life. It was a sacred moment.

He cooked us breakfast over the open fire and we sat around that camp table eating one of the best breakfasts I had ever tasted. The most basic table and the simplest food but its up there amongst my most memorable meals.

And I nearly missed it.

That table introduced me to a life I’d never experienced before and helped me understand my son’s heart in a way I’d never have known had I not ‘tasted’ his passion.

Image: Judychristie

That’s the thing about sacrifice, its costly but the rewards are often incalculable.

In so many ways a table is a symbol of sacrifice. Someone has to plan the meal and oh dear how often I’ve been exhausted just trying to decide what to cook; indecision, stuck in a rut or just not feeling very creative. Then there’s the shopping, queuing, carrying it home, putting it all away and the cooking hasn’t even started!

And although cooking is one of my favourite things to do, there are days when the temperature soars, when even I lose the enthusiasm to throw myself into meal creation. And when we came home as a family after a long day out, feeling really weary, it was hard to summons the energy to be the one to get up and cook so we could all sit down to good food. It was very much a sacrifice of love, frequently unnoticed, because that’s just what mum does (or maybe dad in your household), but the reward was enjoying a family meal together, the laughter, the stories and the togetherness.

I guess each one of us has the choice to sacrifice each time we come to the table. To be involved, to choose to listen and give someone else space to share their story and to contribute in a way that makes the time more than a mere meal, but a meeting of minds and hearts.

I’ve sat around tables large and small, timber tables aged by time and candle wax, glass tables, camp tables, scrubbed tables, polished tables, indoor and outdoor tables, some bare and some topped with the finest table settings, but always the meal is a gift, a sacrifice of someone’s time and energy, a giving of themselves. And I've had some amazing conversations around those tables, simple folk who've shared their heart, their challenging thoughts and sometimes their tears. And that too has been a gift; a gift from the table.

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The most generous table

12/3/2019

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Probably the most generous table I’ve ever encountered was on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It was one of the most memorable meals of my life, a gift from people whose store of maize was running low. The next harvest was months away and with little rain to that point, the chances of any harvest looked decidedly grim.

But with great generosity of spirit they shared what little they had. As we sat around that steaming pot of maize gruel that day, I pondered on how little we comprehend what it means to give out of lack.

It wasn’t just the sharing of their dwindling grain supplies, but the giving of themselves. It took all afternoon to prepare and cook the meal. There were no kitchen appliances just a human-size mortar and pestle to pound the grain and it was exhausting work in the blazing sun, I know, I tried it and how they laughed at my feeble efforts.

I walked with them to the well, some 15 minutes away and was in awe of the strength they had to pump the water and carry it back in heavy buckets on their heads. They lit the fires and moved the large iron pots into place to cook the gruel that would feed the extended family, maybe 35, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

My transportation out into the desert

Pounding the grain

As we sat around on the warm desert sand in the dying light of day, our very different cultures and lack of each other’s language failed to separate us. I’ve never felt more humbled or honoured than I did dipping my hands into that gruel with those women. It was a banquet such as I will never taste again, a table of generosity and kindness, connecting strangers who met so briefly yet in that moment our souls united.

That night I shared their mud hut. One room. Bare earth. Given with much love.

That day I shared a table without form and yet a finer ‘table’ it would be hard to find. It was an experience that challenged my thinking about how our tendency to stereotype can deny us the experience of tasting beauty at the extremities.

Frank Mullins is someone who knows a lot about those extremities and the beauty locked in them.

For 44 years he has trekked the two and a half hours from his home in Anglesea to North Melbourne to man the St Vincent de Paul soup van, providing meals for the homeless. He’s 81 now and about to hand over the baton, but he’s seen a thing or two in those 44 years.

He once discovered an old school chum who’d become an alcoholic and fallen on hard times. Facing the number of young people sleeping rough never ceased to trouble him, but it was the families who had nowhere to go that hit him hardest. He ached for them, especially the children.

Week after week and year after year he would lay out a ‘table’ before them, homemade sandwiches and soup, warm nourishing food to ease their hunger and keep them healthy. But he knew food wasn’t enough, they were starving for more than physical sustenance, they needed relationship and connection and to know they were of value.

He began to spend time with them whenever he could, sometimes to chat and often just to listen to their stories and their fears. He saw the difference a short conversation could make; he understood well the crippling disease of loneliness. He got to know their heart.

The ‘table’ he offered was as real as any you and I ever sat at and who can know how many lives he changed over those years, giving nourishment of body and soul, hope and dignity. Maybe some lives would have ended but for his presence in their lives. His was truly 44 years of extravagant hospitality. He offered so much more than food, he offered himself.

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Stories from the table

11/26/2019

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My maternal grandmother as a young woman

The table seemed to swallow up the room. It’s huge oak legs, square and solid like my grandmother’s temperament. I sat there on that distasteful day, the day my brother was born, feeling alone and abandoned. A new child in the family was bad enough but to be left alone with my grandmother was my worst nightmare.

I was scared of her; this tall, aristocratic woman who believed children should be seen and not heard. This day she sat in her usual carver chair at the head of that solid oak table, carving chunks of cheese with a fierce looking cheese knife and layering it lavishly onto fresh white buttered bread.

She ignored me as if I’d forgotten to come.

My five-year-old heart beat fast as I kept my eyes focused on my vegemite sandwich. It was the longest lunch I can remember. I hated the silence almost as much as I hated the rose covered cheese dish with its square china lid that seemed to be far more endearing to my grandmother at that moment than I did.

My mother with her parents

It wasn’t a generous table, just as my grandmother wasn’t a generous person. In some strange way, the table was a ‘portrait’ of her soul. Meals around that table were formal, cold and proper. I never tasted home cooking there or anything that expressed delight, but then I never saw joy in my grandmother’s eyes, only disapproval and judgment.

She didn’t fit the picture of a grandmother that I held in my imaginative mind, warm, cuddly and full of fun. She came from British stock and the story goes that somewhere in her lineage was a duke or an earl. It seems to make sense as her table was always set with the best china, stiffly starched serviettes and silver serviette rings. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

The table was the centrepiece of the formal dining room of her very grand house. Everything was large including the dining chairs. My feet dangled helplessly high above the floor and not much more than my nose peaked above the tabletop. It was not a table designed for children but then I doubt my grandmother was designed for them either.

My paternal grandmother with her family - my father on the right

My paternal grandmother’s table on the other hand was just as big but not nearly as grand. It was a scrubbed pine table she’d brought with her from South Wales when the family emigrated as 10-pound Poms. It sat on an enclosed back verandah that overlooked a huge lemon tree that seemed always to be laden with fruit.

It was a modest home but my memories of meals around that table are filled with warmth and fun. My grandmother was an exceptional cook. I still remember her apple and blackcurrant pies and the way she cooked fish to perfection. Her Christmas pudding was a rich, dark, moist, dense slice full of joy, sprinkled lavishly throughout with threepences and topped with custard made the way only a Welsh woman can. Somehow I always had room for an extra slice of pudding in the hunt for yet another threepence.

She made baking-dish sized cakes in her postage-stamp sized kitchen; in fact I can’t imagine how she turned out such a volume of food from such a small space. Her table groaned with food, there was abundance and more to spare.

And while good food hangs in my memory whenever I think of her, it is the warmth and joy that flourished whenever we shared a meal around that table that I remember best. She was a woman who had been tried by life.

She spent her working life ‘in service’, brought up four of her siblings when her father was left alone, and endured the hardship of life on the coalfields. She lost 2 daughters, one at 10 days and the other at 10 months and as if that wasn’t enough, she lost a son in WW11.

I sensed in her a sadness that she had never quite overcome. Yet, unlike my maternal grandmother, she still gave of herself abundantly in the generosity of her table. She wasn’t given to frills and flounces and her table held no fancy cheese dishes, starched serviettes or silver serviette rings but children were welcome and memories were made.

Somehow the simplicity of that scrubbed pine table filled with home cooking, mirrored the image of this five-foot-nothing, unassuming woman from the Welsh valleys who had experienced life in all its rawness and yet continued to give to those who met around her table.

Two women from very different ends of the spectrum, mirrored in their tables like snapshots in my album of memories.

My paternal grandparents with me

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Bruny Island ponderings

11/19/2019

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Albino wallaby on Bruny Island - rather timid and not keen for me to get too close but quite gorgeous.

Cold nights, log fires, rainforest vistas, bay walks and farm life were just the recipe for the refreshment and reflection I needed. My Writer in Residency on Bruny Island was a great experience, my hosts were warm and caring and it was good to have the space to wander and ponder on nature and on life.

I began pondering on the things that have made me the person I am today. Of course the list is endless and none of us can know all the circumstances and people who have contributed to who we’ve become or the ways our perspectives and values have evolved. But as I look back over my life, I realise that so much of my thinking has been shaped around tables.

Way back before takeaway was a thing and standing around a barbecue became fashionable, we sat around a table and connected. For many of us it was the centre of the home, the place memories were made, wisdom shared, history learned and young minds came alive to possibilities.

I remember soaking up my father and grandfather’s stories like a sponge. They were stories that have had a significant impact on my life, stories of courage, tenacity and exploring the unknown, on the edge of certainty. I could never get enough of their stories.

My residency was spent in a beautiful rainforest setting, tranquil and soul restoring

Adventure Bay

Bruny Island, a island of diversity.

We were wired for them; stories.

They are an integral part of our childhood and as adults we still crave them. We find them in books, movies, TV series and even catching up with a friend over coffee or lunch and the inevitable question, “How are you, what’s been happening?” We want to know the next chapter in their story and so often its across a table that we share our heart.

And consciously or unconsciously we write them every day, fresh chapters in the book of life.

These days we write different chapters around different tables and in the process something important is lost. We are distracted by busyness and technology or eating takeaway on the run and it seems we’ve lost the art of table talk, good solid conversations about things that matter. And maybe we’ve lost the art of listening too. Maybe technology has retrained our attention span but I encounter less and less rich, thought provoking conversations and a dearth of soul-to-soul connections.

The wildlife was a constant joy

I've been trying to define the table. The dictionary tells me that it is a piece of furniture, but I suspect it’s so much more.

As I’ve reflected on the power of the table, I’ve decided to share a series called Stories from the Table over the coming weeks that I hope will inspire you to think so too. I want to invite you to see your table with fresh eyes and imagine all that it can be.

And here's a question for you to ponder in the meantime. What does your table say about you?