Meanings...

Life is like living on a high plateau which rises above the clouds. The clouds ceaselessly move around our plateau. What is beyond or below the plateau is mystery...

There are two ways to live life..

We did not seek out this life on the plateau. We just arrived here. Life was not invited, we simply came; I do not know how. But to live we might accept that the plateau is all that there is. There is only the plateau, and nothing else beyond it in the mist. We can see the mists. They are there. They are dangerous. You can get lost in the mists; they are deception. If you go into them you will get lost; fall over the edge into insanity. So stay out of the mists and stay away from the edge. Stay safe in the centre where the ground is solid and all the paths are well known.

That is the first way of life. The 'road most often travelled,' perhaps. Philosophy or politics or religion do not matter here. Instead, there is what Geoffrey Hurst would call a matter of "style"- a fundamental choice of style for life. Life consists in being safe.

(This is all written from the perspective of not being in the centre. Perhaps there it does not look like this at all! Perhaps in the centre life is just as challenging- in its own perspective. But I cannot sit there and see it that way. There is no detached observation of Life. Life is to be lived and explained from where we are as interested parties. As very interested parties- a person could die getting this right!)

I cannot choose the 'way of the centre' because it seems in all its forms to have a fundamental fault. It is too safe; it avoids the challenges, and the real dangers of the mist. (Or it will not take the mist of the edges seriously.) It denies the mist or flees it. Yet the mists cannot be denied; they invade life lived at the very centre of the plateau, not able to be avoided either, in the end. Life cannot be made safe. The clouds blow across life- chill shadows as sickness and death invade our reality. Or perhaps oppression or famine. I have to live with the reality of the mist and the shadows and find my way through them before they drag me through or overcome me on their terms.

And that is the second way of life; the way that speaks to me. The 'way of the edge.' It is on the edges of life- out on the edges of the plateau that life seems to have meaning and purpose. It is out there that life ceases to be boring and meaningless. It is frightening and insecure and yet not anywhere near so frightening as staying in the centre.

The centre is where disaster strikes on its own terms; where one is enslaved to existence rather than having some control and truly living. If there is ultimate meaning or reality; if there is a ground of our being, we will be overtaken by it. It seems to me that I want also to find it. I want to act, not just be acted upon. If there is true evil in the clouds and mist, not just a lack of good, I want to find a way through. I want to find the path off our little plateau to the rest of the world, and not merely sit and wait for what may one day come. Perhaps it will never come unless I go.

Jan Thomas        

Tales from the Trenches 
Life for clergy and other church leaders is often like being dug in in the trenches. No progress seems to be made, and people are entrenched in old ways... and yet it can all be hilarious!
The Battle Zone October 2 2007
Balls on the Walls  Jan 2004 
An Unhappy Incident  May 29 2004 
Anointing  June 14 2003
Idolising Youth June 14 2003
Eugene... Waving in Whyalla  5-07-2004
The Pineappled Priest... Masses of Pizza 5-07-2004
Who'd be Archbishop?  5-07-2004
Late Night July 2005
Bombs 2005
Holiday Bay Jan 2007

Scraps
Not everything gets written up.... sometimes there are just a few stray thoughts...  Here they are; rough, first draft, never finished...
God in Trees 12-07-2004 
God...  a little system begins 26-6-2004
Truth...  26-6-2004
Survive, thrive, or die? Church futures 26-6-04
Struggle... losing church 26-6-2004
Soul Sickness All will be well  26-6-2004

What is left to us if we do not think?  If we do not seek to create, to dream, to tell stories... we become mere tradents, maintaining old belief systems which slowly fail and cease to sustain us. In the confusion of life we must make, and re-make meaning, or we will become clever animals... only with a sad memory that things should be better...

Thinking Out Loud 
Tales from the Trenches
Sermons
Epiphany
Scraps

"Thinking Out Loud"

What are my values? October 2 2007
Values are actions, not ideas... Sept 27 2007
Who to be  March 12 2007
The first journey I remember 17 February 2007
Compost  Fertilising the soul 15 August 2006
Farming by the book 5 March 2006
Writing without Answers 8 Jan 2006
Writing How do they write each day....? Jan 2006
Dilemma November 2005
Compassion via Kangaroo September 2005
Manners - Good and Bad October 2005
(also Manners June 2004)
Life After Death Date uncertain
Translation Date uncertain
A Baptism October 2005
Do you remember? October 2005
The Authority of Nairn Kerr  August 2005
Waiting at the video shop July 2005
What is a conservative? June 11 2005
Imagining Me We make our own reality 5-09-2004
Success  15-08-2004
Holy War 3-04-2004
Scuba 3-04-2004
Clarence 3-04-2004
Dad 3-04-2004
Whispers 3-04-2004
Old Man Norfolk... Life should be more than this Feb 7 2004
The year that was... a reflection on 2003 7-01-04
A love of now... How shall I live?  April 2003 
The Main Course The aborigines from Dundee March 8 2003 
For God's Sake... an un-Christian funeral January 2003 
Contrasts and Commonalities Jan 2003
In the midst of life; the death of two boys Jan 2003 (> 60 seconds)
Who is God? December 2002 
The Big Questions: Who am I? Sept 2002
Lived  Awaiting Heaven August 2002
Drecly July 2002
One Leg Feb 12 2002
There is but One God  November 15 2001
Wollemi Pine October 26 2001
Saum: A Prayer
Islam October 21
Sick? October 23 2001
There is no god...  October 12 2001
Meanings Sept 28 2001  
Jenny Sept 28 2001
Dying July 22 2001
A Last Mercy  February 2001
Forgive and Forget? Sept 2000
Bread Alone April 4 2000 
Money April 4 2000    
Thuruna Bay (1996)
Bible Believing?  
Bible Believing But Not Fundamentalist  
Heaven  
Travelling

Epiphany

Epiphany April 25 2002 Notions about what Epiphany and experiencing the Divine might mean
Ecstasy Let go.... 2007
Hares  April 24 2002 Surprising life in the wastelands
Nana's Sunrise April 27 2002 Nana's theology was very simple... but there is not much more I can say.
God Knows May 2000  The same sensing comes in the waves, and far from the beach.
Solace April 2002 Presence during pain?
Brownie and Pelicans: the Presence of God 
Sept 28 2001 Originally a sermon, this recounts one man's epiphany, and thinks about what it might all mean.
On The Beach 1989 Reflection when faced with the apparent hostility of nature and our insignificance.
Darkness circa 1981 How reflection leads to the Divine. A journal entry "as writ" at the time.

Sermons
Sunday After Easter 2008
Easter Day Sermon 2008
Palm Sunday Sermon 2008
Outback Sunday  19-9-2004 
Choosing our Divisions 15-08-2004
Christmas in Luke... Luke's Christmas story 27/12/2003
The Divine at the Root of all Things...  Mark 13 15-11-2003 
Right Relationships 4-10-2003
Who killed Jesus? A Palm Sunday sermon about us July 2003 
Ride the Storm Sermon on Mark 4:35-40 June 2003
Why I Pray Rev. Judith E Meyer Nov 2000
Two Times Jesus July 28 2002
There Goes the Neighbourhood  Feb 12 2002 (1993)
Jesus, a Refugee  December 29 2001
God Loves You? November 19 2001
Wedding Sermon November 10 2001
Justified  27 October  2001
Honestly Post Spong 27 October  2001
A Eulogy for Curt  October 2000 
Blind Men? A homily on men seeing the real world and finding some peace October 2000 
Palm Sunday 2000
A Priest's Christmas December 19 1999
Gotta cross the river one day October 1999 
The Parable of the Talents November 1999
Half way to the shed October 1999
The Labourers in the Vineyard   October 1999
Resurrection 
Age:  A sermon October 1999
Some misunderstood ideas and some really good news   February 1999
Our Achilles Heel Pentecost and World Environment Day   February 1999
St Valentine's Day God and Sex   February 1999
Why do I hate women?    September 1998
I will not leave you desolate 
Compassion The Plane, the Escapee, and Dad   August 1998
Zachary To be a man...   August 1998
Zachary is 6  December 27 2001
Sow to the spirit. Freedom to be free - July 1998
Feeling the great grief.... Anger in men - June 1998
We have peace with God.... Trinity 1998
There is no resurrection without death.... Easter 1998
Anzac Day - A sermon  1994
A flag for a new world.... Advent 1992
A sermon against domestic violence.
I looked but I didn't see anything...
... a hint of light.....
God is here.....
But these are not jeans.....
Pitjantjatjara funeral
Bible believing, not fundamentalist..
Divorce...