Ma Wa Gray

  The young man steps onto the trail. He pats the left pocket of his khaki shirt checking that his pipe, tobacco and lighter are in their usual place. He deftly swings the binocular strap  around his neck and sets off.  He marvels at how long his strides are. There is a new spring in his step, or rather an old spring in his step, he delights in its return. He knows that if he needs to run, he can run. A smile spreads across his face, a gentle, shy smile.  He walks the meandering path with purpose. As the reality of this new world settles around him he notices that everything around him is so much more vibrant and alive. The trees pulse with life and chlorophyll, he can almost feel the rhythm of life being sucked up from the nurturing ground, through the roots and out into the canopy above him. Here even the trees have a spirit.   And here the rocks tell their stories too. Stories he's been trained to read and yet now they echo with such clarity that he is a...

  The night before Jesus died He washed the feet of his disciples. At the time this action was seen as a hugely humbling gesture. Feet are intimate, they are sweaty, dusty, our very human connection to the earth upon which we walk. Knowing what we know now about feet and their connection to the rest of our bodies, and our souls, I feel this humble act that Jesus performed for his beloved friends must have been a far more intense spiritual experience than we initially make it out to be. He wasn't just cleaning the dusty roads off their feet, he was cleaning their souls.   Jesus would have connected to his disciples in a way that would have told him everything he needed to know about them, of this I am certain. He would have known who was tired, overwhelmed, battling with digestion, anxious, who had betrayed him. The stories of his friends would have been written on their soles, and souls. I suspect that Jesus would have gone to the part of the foot connected to the solar p...

  1 KINGS 19 11 - 13 Sometimes we find ourselves a long way from home. Sometimes it’s a geographical distance. Everything is unfamiliar – the food, the culture, the climate, the clothing, the people. And sometimes we can feel a long way from home in our hearts – even though we are surrounded by those who are familiar to us and who love us. Today I want to talk about a time in my life when I was a very long way from home, both geographically and emotionally. 15 years ago I was a graduate unable to find a job. I also found myself in a massive crisis about the direction in which my life was heading, or in this case, not heading. I had met my future husband, Stephen, and although I knew he was the man God had chosen for me I was at war with myself and with a future I was so uncertain about. And I wanted to run away from it all. I was depressed, anxious and terrified. And I am sure that some grade 8s might chose similar words to describe how they have felt in the past two weeks. It was ...

Inspired by various families I have witnessed while on holiday... The family chat group that Kevin begrudgingly belonges to exploded sometime in February when one of his in-laws suggested that they all celebrate the coming Christmas together at a hotel. It would coincide perfectly with his mother in law's 70th birthday. Everyone on the chat group, apart from Kevin, agreed that they could think of no better way to get into the Christmas spirit than to spend seven solid days in each other's company, including nine children all under the age of 10. Since then the chat group has been riddled with extreme holiday expectations and awkward reminders to pay for accommodation. Kevin spent the next 9 and a half months in mild therapy with his padel partner, Brian. Their final post game beer, sometime at the beginning of December, ended in a bracing hug with Brian reminding Kevin that he is only a phone call away if things get too much.  It is now two days into the seven day Christmas ext...

 On the eve of my 42nd birthday I found myself alone in the gym at eight in the evening, running. Stephen had given me strict instructions to keep my heart rate up in order to get his crucial Vitality points. I pointed out to him that my wearing his watch would earn him Vitality points no matter what activity I do, even if it's just walking to the fridge. I'm not exactly ready to run a marathon, or run in general.  I also checked myself into the gym last night because my reflexologist, (shout out to the phenomenal Lauren Shattock Hammersley) mentioned in my last treatment that my legs might be feeling a bit heavy. Legs do generally feel heavy if you haven't bothered to lift them in over six months.  The good thing about running in a gym, alone at eight o'clock at night is that no one can hear you breathing. Not even I could hear myself breathing. If it weren't for headphones I would never, ever exercise. It's a lot easier to punish a treadmill with one's slu...

  As a teacher one hopes to create that one iconic moment for students where academia becomes magic. My moment as a student happened when my ethereal English teacher, Moira Lovell, began reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird' to our Grade 10 class. If one is familiar with the book one knows that the opening pages are somewhat long in the tooth. Lots of sociopolitical context. The introduction is one which will make a 16 year old fresh from having eaten lunch a little heavy lidded.  Enter Scout. The moment Mrs Lovell changed her perfect elocution and adult tone to the gritty, fiesty accent of a little girl from Maycomb County, Alabama I believed that anything was possible in a classroom. The entire class was transfixed. Similar to how I'm sure the generation of radio listeners felt at the lead up to the next Goon Show, or War of the Worlds, our English lessons became much anticipated events. We would sit enraptured for an entire lesson as the voice of Moira Lovell, an English teach...