an aussie bloke talking to GodWILLIAM EDWARD OATES
Teacher | Emmaus College | North Rockhampton Queensland 4701 | 2017
a little book of UNCOMMON PRAYER
By way of Explanation…This ‘little book’ is a collection of conversations (prayers) with God. Some of them are prayers that I say regularly, others irregularly (like once only) and others are meditations based on scripture (lectio divina) or formal prayers said in the Anglican ‘Prayer Book for Australia’, and more than a few are poems or words from songs…
Talking with God can be as easy as saying hello…thanks for waking me up!
I’m always grateful when my eyes open in the morning and I am still in the land of the living. A simple thankyou is the least I can say.
So… I set myself the task of writing at least one record of a conversation with God a week (ok a prayer as well) for the next ten weeks; a term’s worth.
I suppose it is like a travel diary, a record of some of the places and situations I find myself in, and what I said, or should have said to God about it.
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TOPIC 1I love using cartoons in my teaching, as they tend to say what I want the students to understand in a way that would take me a whole lesson. I teach in a Catholic College and staff are encouraged to pray with the students before we send them out to lunch. As an Aboriginal bloke I have always taught my children to thank the creatures who died to keep us healthy. This cartoon says that. My prayer of thanks before I eat follows:
Our Father God
Thank you for the food we are about to eat
We ask that it bless our bodies
We thank the creatures Lord
Who forfeited their lives to sustain ours…
Be with all our children and their children
Keep them all safe and well
You know their concerns, their fears, and their joys
We commit them to you
Asking that you be merciful
And turn their hearts towards you
In Jesus name we pray
Amen
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A blessing sometimes said as our Anglican Church congregation ends the Sunday service is a final admonition to the congregation; it is also great to say at the beginning of any day. When I remember, I say it to myself as I drive to work.
Go forth into the world in peace
Be of good courage
Hold fast to that which is good
Render to no one evil for evil
Strengthen the faint hearted
Support the weak
Help the afflicted
Give honour to all
Love…and serve the Lord
Rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit
And the blessing God almighty
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
Be with us and remain with us always
Amen
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TOPIC 2We take for granted the simple things in life, like the ability to breathe; we forget sometimes, it is God, who holds our breath in his hands. We breathe because we live and move and have our very being in him.
Master, in the business of life we forget that you are with us
In the mundane of our daily experiences
We forget that you are walking along side us
Is it rude to ignore you like this?
On the other hand, do you understand human forgetfulness?
I reckon you do Lord for you walked in flesh and blood
Like us, you did everyday things
You went to the toilet, picked your nose
Washed yourself and grew tired at the end of the day
That is what makes believing in you so good
You know the walk we walk
You know us; you love us regardless
Thank you Master
Amen
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“On an old rugged cross”…
Lord how did you manage to die
When your body need not have
That must have been a difficult thing to do
Shut your body down
To break your heart with grief
And the burden of other’s treachery
Though you breathed your last
Hanging on wood shaped from a tree
Whose life you sustained till it met its end
Shaped by a carpenter’s adz
Stained with your blood it stood bereft
Bodiless, alone, a sentinel of despair
Death could not sustain its grip
Death died in an embrace of love
You rose with a body renewed
Perfected, straddling the seen and the unseen
The is and is to come
A body on which all other bodies will be modelled
Fit for a new heaven and a new earth
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TOPIC 3I am sure that the very… very… very serious portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels is only an infinitesimal (very…very…very small) reflection of who Jesus was (and is!) in everyday life. Did he enjoy a good laugh? I sure hope so otherwise heaven is going to be dull….struth an eternity of no laughter? No way….
Lord…grant me self-control
Because if you don’t
I may need bail money as well
Leunig is a genius and his prayers are sublime in their depth of inspiration…
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TOPIC 4
While I was eating a banana this morning, I was ruminating on the pace of education and in particular, how we do ‘schooling’.
I was looking for cartoons to add to my class website, what I found was my favourite cartoonist Leunig.
Lord, what am I to do?
40 minutes that’s all I’ve got
Not counting the lining up
Encouraging males to be ‘gentlemen’
‘Ladies first lads…your turn will come’
Settling them down, the roll to mark
It all eats into the time I get to talk about you
35 minutes and counting
Tick…tock
Computers out and booting up
Oh sir! I forgot my exercise book can I get it out of my locker?
Sir… can I go to the toilet?
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‘May I’, I say… and yes get your exercise book
And I don’t know if you can go to the toilet but give it a go
Sir, can I fill my water bottle up? Struth…
Exercise books…tick
Connecting to website…tock
Ok, are we ready to start…
Let’s talk about DEATH
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TOPIC 5If you were going to ask Jesus something, what would it be? I reckon I’d ask something completely non-theological like: Did you play games when you was a kid and if so what ones? Were you any good at it or did you make mistakes like the rest of us? Surely you were not toooooo serious to play. What did you like to eat? Were there any food you refused to eat based on taste? Many questions…too few answers.
Jesus, what was your favourite food
When you walked among us?
Did they have sweet things?
Other than figs?
Figs are great in season
I love a fig or two myself but hey…
There is a slab of the year with no figs
When you were a kid
What was your favourite food?
What do you eat now?
You’ve had over 2000 years
To hone your taste buds
What food do they have in paradise?
I hope you have chocolate
It would be a shame never to taste it again.
When you call me home,
Would it be possible to bring some Krispy Creams?
Thank you for chocolate Lord
And other sweet things that help me through the day
I know I should not eat so much sugar
But… I love my chocky biscuits
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I eat them all the time
It that being a glutton?
And let’s not talk about cake…with icing
Being a diabetic and all…
According to one of my y9 classes this Krispy Cream is THE BEST donut around….no I haven’t tried it…yet
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TOPIC 6There seems to be a ‘sameness’ about the images of Jesus over the couple of thousand years since he rose from the dead. Some of the worse portrayals of Jesus in film is when he looks decidedly white Anglo-Saxon…and handsome as well. I tend to think that Jesus would look more like a ‘boofhead’; he was a labourer who was the adopted son of a carpenter who presumably taught his boys carpentry. Scripture says he was ‘uncomely’ to look at so I would not know by appearance that he was anyone special. Until he opened his mouth and spoke…
In every image we have of you Brother
You are dressed in white robes
Have you changed your look over the 2000 years
Have you cut your hair short? Shaved?
You know I have had a beard all my adult life
So… I understand if you wanted to keep it
Is it still long? Has it turned white?
But Brother…wearing a robe for 2000 years
seems a bit too much
I hope paradise is the heaven each of us hopes for
Rich in cultural diversity
And with things to do other than singing all day long…
Do we actually need clothes in paradise?
Don’t tell me that we all walk around naked!
I hope my new and improved body
Will be better suited for nakedness
Than the one I currently have…
Amen
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TOPIC 7Heaven, or paradise or after-life, is the great unknown. The hints we get from Paul the apostle are not very helpful. Christian traditional views of ‘singing praises to God along with the heavenly hosts for eternity’ frankly frightens me. I cannot sing and doing it for eternity will bore me witless.
Dean Koontz in his ‘Odd Thomas’ books, Thomas’s girlfriend Stormy always reminds Thom that he and her are being prepared for service in paradise after we die. This seems more like a place worth going to. How are we being prepared to serve? What ‘service’ is there to do? To whom will we be serving? Parts of the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, says what is here will be found there in the new heaven and earth.
Father I acknowledge that you are
The creator of all that is
The seen and the unseen
And not just of creaturely existence
On our blue planet
But of all the universe
By the way Father,
did you create multi-verses,
As some scientists have suggested?
Layers on layers of other universes
It is staggering just to think that you created
The trillions upon trillions of galaxies in our backyard
Let alone other playgrounds
Ok I accept the offer to serve in other places
If you need me to serve you throughout
The universe and or multiverses
I’ll give it a go…can my wife and kids come with me?
Amen
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TOPIC 8As Christians, we are encouraged to be servants of God, but what does this mean once you leave church on Sunday.
Father…help me to practice being a good servant
Not to wait till it is too late
To go to paradise without sufficient time
To be an agent of your grace and peace
Love your neighbor is the second great commandment. I have a problem with the word ‘love’ in the context of my neighbor. I know there are at least 4 different types of ‘Love’ but I’m still not comfortable saying that this is what I am doing. In plain English, I am happier with the word ‘kindness’; maybe it is a blokey thing…
Brother Jesus, it’s me again…
I’m trying to be kind
To everyone you send across my path
Damn… it is hard sometimes
There are some cranky people
Prone to rudeness and agitation
Nevertheless, I persist as best I can
Could you ask the Lord, the Spirit of life
To work within me to be more willing to show
Gentleness, calmness and to respond always
With a soft word
Amen
PAGE 13
Brother Jesus
Is that all there is
To a happy coexistence
To ease the tension
And thwart resistance
Let there be love
It sounds so easy
Sounds too simple
But we just can’t do it
At least not always…
Please help us… please
Amen
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TOPIC 9I have noticed over the past couple of years more blokes giving up shaving and allowing their hair to reclaim their face. Not only that… but there is an increase in stylish hats adorning their heads. Not just the scruffy bush Akubra, but also the city hat or as I call them my ‘town hats’. Yes, I have more than a few to wear for all sorts of occasions.
Thank you Lord that blokes
Can grow thick and luscious &
Often multi-coloured hair on our face
Thank you lord that women cannot
Barbers are more adept at cutting beards and moustaches, trimming hair that grow on and in ears and even eyebrows get a going over. Although I must admit, I do not go for the waxing of moustaches and the beard…each to their own.
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