When my wife’s older siblings started school, they were allowed to go barefoot. Barefoot sounds primitive (or at least Hobbit-like) and terribly unsophisticated to my Sydney North Shore upbringing. I was in shoes before I could walk. My father did not own a shirt without collars and wore a tie on weekends if he left the house. I…
A cruisy, summer sunday afternoon in 21st century Australia, Jed’s savouring an ice cold beer after mowing his lawn, fresh cut grass filling the air, as his teenage daughter backs out the driveway. A thud. Silence. A scream. Glass shatters, beer flows effortlessly over the table, empty. Empty. A stumbling run, an erupting panic. His little boy lies…
When I was about five years old, neighbours moved in that fascinated me in the way that five year old boys are beguiled. Curious stares from my side were met with terrifying glares from the woman back at me – which would send me running – and then back for some more prying. They were different, Max and…
I’ve heard some funny stories about nativity scenes lately. One about a baby Jesus that went missing years ago that caused a man to grow up thinking Christmas must be about farm animals. Another about a baby Jesus with a broken leg (he was dropped). The guilty was reminded of his crime every Christmas. “You made baby Jesus…
We are caves. Hidden. We don’t find these caves until a great crisis takes us there. I love caving. The gargantuan shapes. Foreboding depths. Cloying darkness. Pillars, patterns, crevasses. These underground passages have always called us. They were our original dwelling places (both the womb and the womb of humanity) and remain the place of initiation. The human…
