Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News

But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?”

So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.’

Luke 12:20 - 21

Don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t plan for your retirement! Even at my age funding a lengthy retirement is no easy task. Like many other baby boomers this will mean that we’ll need what we have set aside and that may mean there is little left to pass on to our children. The drive today is for young people to put any extra income into superannuation. I have no doubt it is very good advice.

So when Luke (12:15) writes, “… a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs,” he is undoubtedly reminding us that there is more to life than storing up treasure on earth, and that it should be balanced with storing up treasure in heaven. And what might this treasure be? And how can it be measured? Perhaps the jewels are justice, hope, truth, charity, reverence, a sense of wonder, dignity, endurance, a commitment to community, service, servant leadership, faith, peace, joy, honesty, respect, integrity, understanding, compassion, responsibility, equity, health and wellbeing. They may not add up to three score and ten years (and preferably four score and ten), but they can be reinvested over and over again. These, we say in modern parlance, are Gospel values.

Of course life expectancy in first century Palestine was somewhat brief, and the idea of living to a ripe old age was available only to the wealthy and lucky. The vast majority of the population of Palestine would have lived somewhat precariously, dependent on inheritance, hard work, good weather and the generosity of friends and neighbours. Jesus isn't against cautious preparation for old age, only avarice that prevents generosity.

Now Luke's Jesus does caution us that we should also live fully, that we should be alive to the moment, to enjoy the fruits of our labour, “Take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time (12:19),” for he warns that all your savings are for nothing should you die! Balance ought be added to our list of Gospel values, for it is in the balance – living in the present, and preparing for the future, that we spend our treasure. Spend it well.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

The funeral for Annette's husband, Ron McCulloch, will be at St Brigid's Church, Wynyard this Thursday, 28 July, at 11.00 am.

Embracing the Shadow

by Richard Rohr

God Sees in Wholes, We See in Parts

Both therapy and spirituality have an important place in a full life. Much therapy today is a needed way of dealing with our psychological problems. But eventually we must move from exclusively trying to solve our problems to knowing that we can never fully resolve them, but only learn from them. Sometimes, we can only forgive our imperfections and neuroses, embrace them, and even "weep" over them (which is not to hate them!). This is very humbling for the contemporary Promethean individual. As Carl Jung writes, "the greatest and most important problems in life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown." [1]

Only an in-depth spirituality can fully accept the paradox of our flawed humanity, indwelled by God's presence, where both light and dark are allowed and used by God. This is not a capitulation to our shadow self, but an integration that brings forth what Merton called "a hidden wholeness." [2] We grow through necessary conflicts and tensions. I don't think there is any other way. Dancing along a self-created primrose path will merely lead you to illusion and superficiality.

The movement from the purely psychological model to the full spiritual self will initially feel like a loss of power. And indeed it is for the ego! But for the True Self, it is actually the rediscovery of an authentic and original power, where human clay meets divine breath (Genesis 2:7). To succeed in the first half of life we usually have to deny our shadow and unacceptable self. This allows us to look good, but not really be good. The burden of the second half of life is often the reclaiming of what we have denied, feared, and rejected in the first half. I know it feels like backtracking, and in some ways it is. But remember, your shadow self is not your evil self, it is simply your denied and rejected self.

All sin is merely disordered love, which is searching for a pure and true love. God is very patient with us while we learn how to really love. As we integrate and forgive our shadow self, life gradually looks very different. Life becomes many shades of pastel instead of just several primary colors. We finally see what we have never dared look at before. This is the birth of compassion. The journey toward Biblical faith will often feel like losing our vision (note Paul's conversion in Acts 9) and being given by grace a whole new pair of eyes.

The steps to maturity are necessarily immature, and we must learn from each one of these missteps, and never hate or dismiss them. Julian of Norwich says it so well: "God judges us according to our true essence, which [God] keeps whole and safe, inside [Godself] always. Divine judgment reflects our Beloved's righteousness. But human judgment reflects our changeable fleshliness. . . . I could not find blame and anger anywhere in God!" [3] How different the entire history of Christianity would have been if we had trusted that infinite love can only be accepted in finite steps.

Peter's Whereabouts for the next two weeks:

Upcoming Events:

From Stella Maris - Burnie:

From St Patrick's - Latrobe:

From St Patrick's College - Prospect:

From St Finn Barr's - Invermay:

From Larmenier - St Leonards:

From Sacred Heart - Launceston:

From St Joseph's - Rosebery:

From St Joseph's - Queenstown:

From Sacred Heart - Ulverstone:

From Star of the Sea - George Town:

From St Brigid's - Wynyard:

From St Anthony's - Riverside:

From St Thomas More's - Newstead:

From Our Lady of Mercy - Deloraine:

From Marist Regional College - Burnie:

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying,

and when he had finished, one of his disciples said,

‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’

Luke 11:1

As adults none of us wishes to either show or admit our dependence on others. If it is about our spouses and partners, we use words like shared responsibility, or, working together. However we word it, the research still tells us very plainly that women do most of the housework. I know, I know. The statistics are against us, if not personally, then across the entire male gender in general. In essence, while we try to avoid such words as dependence, reality suggests that we are, in fact, utterly and totally reliant on someone else filling in the gaps, or coping with everything. OK, perhaps on a good day we could call it co-dependence.

Our children, on the other hand are called dependents for a very good reason. Their welfare, their health, their education, their everything, is channeled through us. It is our responsibility, it is our lot until they start making those decisions, slowly but surely, for themselves. When we have children we become acutely aware of their needs – they need feeding, warmth, a change of clothing, sleep, play, talking to, cuddling, discipline, teaching. Those who lack this acute awareness struggle with the notion of parenting and more often than not require support. And let’s be realistic: it is not uncommon in many communities.

Luke (11:1 – 13) introduces his notion of dependence when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. We call it the Lord’s Prayer. More appropriately it should be called Our Prayer. In this prayer, God, addressed as Father, is approached as the giver of grace and mercy. Our spiritual and physical health is dependent upon his unrestricted, unconditional generosity. We are already most favoured, we are his children. He is utterly and total aware of what we need, and Jesus tells us, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

This is not a dependency that requires no action from us. No. Each day we must forgive our neighbours their debts, we must keep his name holy and ultimately assist in the building of his kingdom, for his will must be done. This prayer also becomes an indicator of the presence of the kingdom among us: we pray that we will be nourished by his daily bread (in the sense of the Eucharist, as well as both spiritual and physical nourishment, and as participation in a divine, heavenly banquet begun now in the present and to be completed in the eternal kingdom).

Paul, in writing to the Colossians (2:14), succinctly expresses our dependence on God: He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross.

None of us needs to be carried from birth into the next life. Even dependents have obligations: to be thankful, to be cooperative, to acknowledge the work done for and on their behalf, to contribute, to encourage and to fortify the efforts made. But helpless dependency must end. It too must be nailed to the tree. Each of us needs to carry our own weight.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

Losing and finding Dad in dementia

by Julie Guirgis in Eureka Street

It's nearly 6pm; I'm winding down from a day's work and thinking about preparing dinner. Then Dad appears in the kitchen doorway and asks 'Am I going out today?'

Elderly man, head down in shadows. He can no longer tell the time. For him, 6pm could be 6am in the morning. 'The day is over, it's night time,' I say. 'Look outside.' I don't shout, but there's an edge to my voice. As soon as I've spoken I regret it.

Sometimes I wipe away a tear and vow to do better. But five minutes later, when he again asks 'Am I going out today?' I know I'm probably not going to succeed.

One day I walked past the bathroom and noticed a pale yellow puddle with an odour worse than an unflushed toilet. I cringed at the putrid stench, with the realisation that I had to wash urine off the floor. In that moment my life felt insignificant. Freedom, once as natural to me as breathing, is now competing with a barrage of demands.

A week later I was lounging on the bed reading, when Dad abruptly banged on the door and yelled, 'Where's Anthony?' Anthony is my intellectually handicapped brother. 'He's at the day program Dad.' He repeated the question, only this time louder: 'Where's Anthony?' I felt frustration surge through my chest and spill out my mouth. 'He's at school, Dad,' I said, louder now, too.

One minute lapsed before he repeated the question a third time. At this point I could no longer mask my rage. 'Are you dumb?' I asked, overemphasising each word. Although oblivious to the insult, he was aware of my anger, and made his anger known by banging on the door even louder.

Then he yelled out yet again, 'Where's Anthony?', pounding on the door so brashly that it sounded like a gun in a Mad Max movie. Without a bulletproof vest to protect me I felt the metal penetrate my skin. I laid there immobilised, and let out an unfamiliar scream before I burst into tears.

"'They are going to kill me if I go outside,' he cried. He became so paranoid that he thought the fridge door was a point of entry for these imaginary perpetrators."

Not long after the incident in my bedroom Dad displayed more concerning behaviour. The ugly side of dementia had once again raised havoc in his tormented head. 'They are going to kill me if I go outside,' he cried with the helplessness of a child.

His terror-filled eyes stood out against his frail, distraught face while his breath came out in ragged gasps. He became so paranoid that he thought the fridge door was a point of entry for these imaginary perpetrators. When I would open the fridge he would scream 'Shut the door,' slamming it with such force that it nearly crushed me.

Dad's illness sometimes causes ambiguous loss. It is unclear, has no resolution or closure. He is like someone I don't know anymore; he is gone-but-still-there. This leads to complicated grief. I search for Dad's familiar face, but even that has changed. His eyes that once shone are glazed with confusion and fear. I barely see a glimpse of him. I can't look at him without seeing a fading picture of who he used to be, and speak of him in the past tense.

When I reflect on who he was before, it helps me separate him from the illness. I gaze lovingly at the photos of him resting on the mantelpiece. I see a jovial man with a warm smile, who loves his family more than life itself. My impatience softens. I press the photo against my chest, closing my eyes and remembering the magical moments. Days of going to the beach, soaking the sun and fresh air, frolicking in the sand. Calmness comes over me, remembering a time when I felt safe and at peace.

Dementia can be spiteful and cruel, travelling with its hideous companions, delusions and aggression. It is an impostor trying to steal Dad away. When I am feeling strong I can push it out of the way, to find remnants of Dad. On other days I can succumb. These are the days I would gladly hand him over to someone else. Even for a few hours. Nothing prepared me for the labour of love needed to care for him. Not only did it change his personality, it changed me into a person I no longer liked.

I never envisaged it would turn out this way. Nevertheless I've taken over the reins, although they were shaking in my hands. Despite the sadness and difficulties that go with dementia, I see the paradox. I'm able to experience all the different parts of him; the vulnerable side, the childlike side, and the fighter in him. I have learned to go into his world instead of expecting him to come into mine.