Dear Inner Circle,
How I’ve missed typing those words! Welcome back to another year of story sharing.
As we reconvene here in this note, I’m reminded of one of the most powerful quotes from the book After Virtue: “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself part of?’”
Story sharing matters, and your responses are what constitute this as a community, the beloved inner circle. Hope you’re ready? Let’s go!
Over the Christmas period, as if it wasn’t busy enough, Lisa and I moved house. The lifestyle we have chosen means that this isn’t uncommon, so there were definitely boxes that moved with us unopened from prior sojourns. As we blew the dust off them in an effort to seriously downsize, we got brutal. We discovered some resilient and confusing survivors from previous culls, like my high school thick woollen football jumper, my school blazer and a rusty old premiership medallion. Amidst the frenzy, a small box lay within another box. Its contents were all my diaries from ages 14-25 which I kept meticulously. They contained not so much nostalgia, as they were cause for a little nausea! These were not the musings of a tortured mind expressing existential angst, instead they were age and era appropriate – perhaps a little too much.
I cringed, laughed, cancelled myself and spent some time forgiving that little kid wrestling with the world, and also held him and the young girl beside him then (and beside me here still) in admiration. They made some decisions that have proven to have made all the difference.
Could you imagine if these journals were found and published as “This is Jon” – so much of what I had written is unrepeatable, as I am sure many of your thoughts were back then. At Wayside we don’t take a snapshot of a person’s life and call it the whole movie. In the midst of the extreme heat this week, I marvelled at the way our people adjusted to make room for the uncomfortable and the messy. Right now, our world seems exactly like that. Extreme. Uncomfortable. Messy.
It is tempting to take a snapshot of the world now and call it the whole movie – it isn’t – deep down we know it isn’t. Hope is a protest – a refusal to cede our agency in this world. So let’s grieve that which needs to be grieved and then move towards that which we can do.
As I cooked a BBQ here on Monday for our community, I had an Aboriginal Elder approach me. “Thank you brother, for standing with us, now, could you please learn how to cook a snag properly please!”
Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,
Jon
Rev. Jon Owen
CEO & Pastor
Wayside Chapel
PS. In the spirit of sharing, and of embracing the self-cringe… yes, that is me with a pair of jocks on top in the middle of Kings Cross. Why, may you ask? Wayside Chapel hands out more than 2,000 pairs of socks and undies every month, so to call attention to this need and raise much-needed funds, I’m asking you to join me on what we’re calling the Cheeky Challenge this Valentine’s Day. Click here to learn more about how to get involved for yourself, your work or your school.
