Keith Waters

Recently I was asked why I was a Christian. I mumbled the first few reasons that entered my head – the enticing power of the story, an increasing belief as I age that divinity indeed infuses all things and that Christ, dead in the dust at age thirty-three, was indeed distilled divinity.

The questioner was satisfied and moved the conversation along to other things, but I was not satisfied and so have taken this opportunity to record at this moment in time the reasons I am a Christ follower.

I believe that a carpenter’s son named Jesus did indeed crack Time in half, enter this world in the guise of a squalling infant, say his piece, be slaughtered for his pains, and crack Time again on his way home. I have no real basis for this belief, and neither do you. We either believe the man or we do not, and I do, for reasons I know and do not know.

Some of those reasons I can articulate. My teen hero’s were Christian and influenced and transformed my life at a time of adolescent chaos and confusion. I had a number of close friends who were Christians and many others who were not. Right from the outset of my career in this work I have bumped into Christians who have inspired me (and some have let me down).

But I believe in Christ for a whole range of muddy reasons. Sometimes I desperately need to lean on a God wiser and gentler than myself. Sometimes I desperately need to believe that when I die I will not be sentenced to Fimbul, the Hell winter, where there is only the cold voice of Nothing, but rather I will be at peace and draped in Light. Sometimes I am nudged toward belief by the incredible persistence and eerie genius of the tale; the life giving love of my wife, the naïve admiration of my children, the Lord of All Worlds cast ashore on this one as a mewling child in dirty straw. Sometimes I am moved past reason by the muscular poetry and subtle magic of these stories. Sometimes it is an intuitive yes as the light fails and the world is lit from below. And sometimes I simply cast my lot with the sheer bravura of such a patently brazen lie. That a man could die and live again is ridiculous; even a child knows that death is the end.

Or is it?

I do not want to be sure about that. I want to meet my father, a man I never knew. I want to meet my Grandmother again who had such a lasting impact on my life through her gentle care of me as a child. I want to meet my Grandfather a man who many admired but died before I could get to know him. I want to catch up with my brother who is about to pass to the other side. I want to catch up with Polly my best mate who passed away in a bike accident. I want to meet Ghandi, Crazy Horse, Joan of Arc and many others. I would like to meet this fellow Christ, who haunts the edges of my dreams, who flits from tree to tree in the forest through which I make my way. I would like to live forever, and hold my wife and eight children in my arms until the end of time, and daily read the immense poem of Death into Life, and grin at the whirl and swirl of its endless unfolding, until the end of Until.

So I am a Christian for many reasons. Sometimes I think I might also be a Buddhist, because that faith is calm and wide, and sometimes I think perhaps I am also a pantheist because I smell divinity in football, homeless people, drunkards and flowers. But Christian is my language, Christian is the coat I wear, Christian is the house in which I live.

It is a house that needs cleaning, a house in which savagery and cowardice has thrived, where evil has a room with a view, where foolishness and pride have prominent places at the table. But it is also a house where hope lives, and hope is the greatest of mercies, the most enduring of gifts, the most nutritious of foods. Hope is what we drink from the old story of the carpenter’s odd son.

Keith Waters

Recently there has been a number of challenges made to the Executive team about the values of Anglicare and whether we can do better to align our decisions with these values. When one holds the values so highly as all Executive and Senior members of staff do – it can initially come as an affront when another reflects on possible divergence from these values.

We have to expect in an organisation where we highlight and place great importance on values that there will be times when the gap between what we espouse and what we do will be highlighted. It has given me cause to not only reflect on the values but more deeply to reflect on what I believe in – for what it is worth here are some of my reflections:

I believe that there is a mysterious and graceful and miraculous Coherence stitched through this world.
I believe that this life is an extraordinary gift, a blink of bright light between vast darknesses.
I believe that the fingerprints of the Maker are everywhere, children, rain, flora.
I believe that every sadness and tragedy and evil are part of that Mind we cannot comprehend, but only thank: a Mind especially to be thanked, oddly, when it is most inscrutable.
I believe that children are hilarious and brilliant.
I believe that everything is a prayer.
I believe that my wife is the strongest and most graceful female being I have ever met.
I believe that a family is a peculiar and powerful corporation, lurching towards light, webbed by love, a whole ridiculously bigger than its parts.
I believe, additionally that close friends are family.
I believe, deeply and relievedly in giggling.
I believe that the best of all possible breakfasts is vegemite on toast with a cup of Irish tea, taken near a flowing river, rather later in the morning than earlier, preferably in the company of my wife.
I believe that love is our greatest and hardest work.

What do you believe?

Wow! Moving house a week before Christmas – not something I would recommend having just done it myself. The busy holiday season is almost past, my goals are set for the New Year and I have decided to indulge myself in the pleasure of a bit of reflection.

It is good to be home. Not just in another house. But home. Pulling up stakes, as we have done three times in the past 2.2 years with a family of ten, has taken its toll - especially on Lyndal. Recently Lyndal said to me "Promise me that we won’t move again at least for another two years'." The weary look in her eyes told me how important this commitment was to her.

At the same time we were moving house and establishing a home, the Australian governments White Paper on homelessness was released. It got me thinking about the importance of home, of place, of a sense of place in people’s lives – mine included.

I am finding that there is something very good about rootedness. I have been surprised already in my new home with our work on establishing a vegetable patch and planting a number of fruit trees. I have found much pleasure in working alongside my children in creating a rock creek in our garden and then watching their delight as the rain made it flow and started to fill the pond at the bottom of it.

I think that permanency must be a deep desire of the soul. Deeper far than adventure-thirst and wander-lust. Whether displaced by eviction or dislocated by opportunity, there is unrest in our spirits until we find a secure place to call home. We seem to have an innate, compelling drive to establish roots, even when the soil is rocky. I have seen it happen over many years with homeless families who move into transitional housing waiting for something long term. The drive to re-establish stability is both powerful and persistent.

Rootedness must have intrinsic value. I am finding something remarkably satisfying about enjoying hand watering the fruit trees we have just planted – knowing that something good will come of it. In a highly mobile society where neighbours are transitory and homes are commodities to be traded, I am beginning to see just how gracious is God's gift of stable community for His people. Already neighbours are trickling in and making contact partly out of curiosity but also out of a deep desire within us all to connect. It is in this connection that people taste the grace of community.

Our world churns with massive global migration. Nations are breaking apart. Overnight entire cultures are turned into wandering bands of refugees. Huge city-states are emerging like giant magnets that draw the diverse peoples of the globe into chaotic proximity. Displacement is epidemic. And an intense yearning for home burns in the souls of the scattered people of earth.

Centuries ago the prophet Isaiah caught a glimpse of God's promised design for the security of His people. For the dispersed people of Israel as well as the displaced ones of our day, the promise speaks hope to the human spirit:

"They will build houses and dwell in them;they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.No longer will they build houses and others live in them,or plant and others eat.For as the days of a tree,so will be the days of my people;my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands." (Is 65:21-22)

Could it be that the God of history is preparing us for residency in the city into which He will gather the faithful from every tribe, nation and tongue? Is global urbanisation His invitation to learn how to rightly function in our cities in order to equip us to reign in the City of our God?

For now I will savour the special grace of this moment – lettuces already growing and tomatoes ripening. And the joy of seeing a contented smile on Lyndal’s face.

Keith Waters

Hippocrates (460 – 377 BC), the father of modern medicine, recognized the power of the healing profession to effect great good as well as its potential to do much harm.

The oath that he instituted, a pledge taken by doctors to this day, established ethical standards for physician conduct which included patient confidentiality, referral for specialised treatment, sharing of medical knowledge, and valuing prevention above cure.

The Hippocratic Oath requires that physicians be personal and caring, put the interests of patients first in medical decisions, strive always to preserve life and never play God by taking life. And above all, do no harm.

For centuries the Hippocratic Oath has served the medical profession well and countless patients. It has guided medical breakthroughs and protected patients from questionable treatments.

Perhaps a similar type of code would be useful to us in our work in Anglicare. We know that helping can certainly be for better or for worse.

A misdiagnosed ailment can lead to improper, even harmful, treatment. It can prolong or even worsen the plight of the needy. Good intentions and kindhearted spirits, while commendable, are insufficient guarantees of positive outcomes. Unexamined service that risks leaving the served worse off than if they had been left alone is irresponsible if not unethical. Some guiding principles are needed to direct our care.

The following is an attempt to articulate a few fundamentals to guide us toward effective care-giving. The list is not exhaustive, and each item requires far more unpacking than this writing permits. Just as the Hippocratic Oath has provoked vigorous and sometimes heated debate among physicians and has required repeated modification to remain contemporary, I hope these “Principles for Carers” stimulate some healthy discussion among us.

An oath for carers

The effectiveness of our efforts to empower those who access our services could be significantly enhanced if:

1. I will never do for others what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.

2. I will limit my one-way giving to emergency situations and seek always to find ways and means for legitimate exchange.

3. I will put the interests of service users above my own (or organisational) self-interest even when it may be costly.

4. I will take time to listen and carefully assess both expressed and unspoken needs so that my actions will ultimately strengthen rather than weaken the hand of those I would serve.

5. Above all, to the best of my ability, I will do no harm.

On International Anti-Poverty Day, what can we learn from the current financial turmoil?

The world’s biggest economies are on life support. Dramatic events in recent days and weeks have highlighted that governments are prepared to dig deep into surpluses or go deeper into debt to feed our faith in the deity that has become “the market”.

But what would the world look like if our politicians had had the will to throw similar amounts at material and emotional poverty before now?

In coming months, many more Australians at risk of poverty. They will experience new pressures life-limiting pressures.

The poor did not create this problem and must not be forced to pay for it. They did not make high-risk investments that have gotten the world into this mess.

The comprehensive failure of extreme capitalism is a reminder that greed is not good.

There is something terribly awry in our thinking about the global financial crisis which has rolled down on us all. The current economic crisis is trying to tell us that our way of life is unsustainable. Our politicians and business experts want to “fix” the crisis without stopping to wonder what it is trying to teach us.

What is this crisis telling us about our obsession with materialism, wealth and power, credit and responsible financial choices, economic values versus family-friendly values, generosity and justice, and both personal and social responsibility?

What is it telling us about the role of the market, the place of social regulation, the spiritual consequences of economic disparities, the moral health of an economy, and the criteria of the common good?

History tells us that markets fail. When the bubble bursts, people get hurt. It’s happened before. There was the dot.com bubble. And the previous stock market bubble. We know that all artificially inflated bubbles will burst someday, and yet there is a seductiveness about them that is almost irresistible.

The words of Devinder Shama with the advocacy organisation Share the World’s Resources (STWR) ring loud, “ The one trillion dollar bailout package that President Bush is promising could have wiped out the last traces of poverty, hunger, malnutrition and squalor from the face of the earth – if only our global leadership prioritized the poor with the same level of urgency as the financial crisis.”

Whilst it’s debatable whether Shama is right, the point is not lost that the same level of response to prop up a system which has made record profits off the back of low income and middle income earners has not been applied to addressing poverty or inequality either in the US or in Australia.

Today, International Anti-Poverty Day, is as good a day as any to imagine, ‘what if the world’s most powerful leader had the will to find a trillion dollars to enable the most disadvantaged to reach their potential?’

Anglicare’s national report State of the Family 2008, launched in mid October, describes the emergence of a new class of Australians needed the help of welfare agencies as a tipping point for the nation.

Is it heartening to see the Rudd Government’s response which appears to have given further confidence to those with home loans, tries to protect those at most risk and committed funds to boost employment in the face of a certain downturn. All of these measures are welcome. But what more can be done?

On a policy level what federal government can and should do is promote and implement social inclusion initiatives across all policy areas to protect Australia's most vulnerable against the worst of the ongoing economic turbulence. Social inclusion is more than the simplistic provision of income security.

Our first minister for Social Inclusion, Julia Gillard, is right when she says, poverty interacts with other forms of disadvantage to produce deep and persistent social exclusion. Without access to health, housing, transport and services, education and opportunities to be politically engaged, incremental increases or one of payments in income support can be severely lessened in value. A society that embraces social inclusion is one that will be able to support people most likely to get into trouble from an economic downturn.

The ambitious agenda set by Rudd to tackle homelessness and narrow the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians must not be allowed to fall off the table.

On a broader level now is the time to give life to a set of values which puts people over possessions, that balances personal interests with the common good, that seeks to be good stewards of the environment, our gifts, our time, and leaves the world better for the next generation.

This is the third part in a series reflecting on Anglicare's organisational values.

My third son Keilyn wondered if he could mow the lawn for some pocket money. We agreed upon $15, and he was off to fetch the lawn mower.

A few minutes later his older brother, Jordan, who had mowed the lawn two weeks earlier asked me why I had offered the job to his brother, when in his mind, we had an implicit agreement that the work belonged to him. I explained that it was a first-come, first-hired arrangement and that Keilyn had asked first this week. Jordan later told me that Keilyn had just decided not to do the job, which left it up for grabs. Jordan had seized the opportunity.

There was something suspect about Jordan’s story. It was not like Keilyn to walk away from a job without saying something, especially when it meant ready cash.

Lyndal and I had some shopping to do. When we returned we commented on how nice the freshly mowed yard looked. We hadn't been home five minutes when Keilyn, distressed, asked me - "Why did you give my job to Jordan?"

Jordan had been slick, alright. He had maneuvered in ahead of Keilyn and took the mowing job for himself. Twisting my words, he had deceived Keilyn into believing that I had reneged on my agreement. Jordan had gotten over on both of us. And then it occurred to me - my deal was with Keilyn and that had not changed. Keilyn was still in the driver's seat. I reached into my pocket, pulled out $15, handed it to Keilyn and told him to do what he thought was right.

Lyndal warned me that I had just set up conflict between them. She was right, although I didn't admit it. When Keilyn and Jordan approached me together to resolve it later that night, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I decided it would be better for me to serve as a reconciler than a judge. So as the boys launched into a barrage of charges and counter-charges, each giving his own spin on what really happened, I mostly listened and asked clarifying questions. Eventually the atmosphere calmed down enough to permit a rational discussion about how to solve the problem.

Jordan could apologize for his trickery. Not a chance. So Keilyn was left with several alternatives. He could extend pure grace to an unrepentant conniver and give Jordan the $15. He could opt for justice and keep the $15, allowing the interloper to suffer the consequences of his deceit. Or he could find a compromise. This, I thought, was a golden opportunity to illustrate the unique centerpiece of the Christian faith - the triumph of grace over justice.

But a concept taught is a long way from a principle practiced. For Keilyn offering a gift of pure grace would cost him and that seemed like an outrageous choice. On the other hand, to make personal gain in the name of justice from another's labor, ill-gotten though it may be, would appeal quite obviously to his vengeful side.

At last Keilyn came to a decision. He reached down into his pocket, pulled out the $15 and counted out half of it for Jordan. Both boys seemed to accept the compromise, though neither with jubilation. It was a fair decision that both could live with – justice prevailed. As they started to walk away together, I told them I was proud of the mature way they had handled this difficult situation.

Respect, integrity, accountability and justice. These are fine values that I am pleased to see growing in our organisation. But grace is a value of a different world.

"Grace is not about fairness or justice," Christian author Philip Yancey makes clear in his book, What's So Amazing About Grace. "Justice has a good and righteous and rational kind of power. The power of grace is different: unworldly, transforming, supernatural".

Only rarely do we catch a glimpse of this magnificent, outrageous value. I couldn't help wondering what power might have been released, what waves of change set in motion, had Keilyn chosen grace over justice?