References

• My Evening with Rob Bell Gosh I love this man. Incredible human. Incredible spirit. Incredible heart. Incredible speaker. Incredible message. Rob has come over from LA to probably mostly surf but also to speak; Friday night at the Seymour Centre in Sydney, and tomorrow night (Monday) at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne. If you don’t have tickets for Monday night, stop reading and go and do that, now! https://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=EVENINGR16 If you haven’t come across Rob yet, I’m so so sorry. You have been missing out and have so much to catch up on. Rob is a pastor, author and I’m sure he’d appreciate the claim of father, husband, surfer and musician, but probably not usually referred to as a comedian, but that would be denying one of the wonderful things about him, the way you talks all things deep, meaningful and spiritual is absolutely hysterical. He shares the good news. He talks about God, christianity, the Bible, atheism, war, gun control, politics, and also about curiousity, humanity and this essence of Spirit that constantly shows up in our lives in the profound acts of giving of ourselves to others. Those moments of opening ourselves up to something more, are to him, the evidence that Spirit exists. His ideas about religion, the Church and the Bible come with incredible insight and perspective. He, I suppose you could say, doesn’t feel comfortable with the physical building of a Church, that segregates ‘them’ from ‘us’, and have rituals that don’t extend past the eucharist and offering within the Church to our lives outside the building. His insight and reflections are divine…there is no other way to describe it. I was raised as a Catholic and though I wanted to be a good christian girl, I dreaded church. And I think it’s fair to say my parents didn’t like it either. In fact my Catholic father never attended and it was my Lutheran mother taking us to Catholic mass to possibly fulfill a family obligation of raising Catholic christian children. I remember trying to fake sleeping in, in the vain attempt that mum would also sleep in. It wasn’t a weekly thing, unless we were leading up to Holy Communion or Confirmation but whenever there was mention of church on a Sunday, despite getting up super early on Saturday morning to watch kids TV and eat Fruit-Loops, come Sunday morning I would be the sleepiest kid in town. Church was boring. What was said at mass did not inspire me, it did not light a fire of compassion and hope and an unwavering belief that I am a part of something bigger. It didn’t have me consider that there is something bigger at play and that there was good news. I heard a lot of judgement and as I grew up and became aware of a lot of the atrocities of the Catholic church, the wars that were started because of rivalled beliefs, the unacceptance and vilification of same-sex couples and so many other things, I decided that that was not something I wanted to be apart of. To me, religion wasn’t loving, kind or compassionate. The way those people acted didn’t seem to be in the way I thought God would have wanted or intended and I didn’t see Him as harsh and judgemental. It’s not that I stopped believing in God, I stopped wanting to be apart of the way humans were controlling our connection to God. It had become rigid and stagnant. Rob talks about feeling bored at Church too despite the fact he thought there was brilliant material that could actually help us answer some of the big questions we have been asking for centuries. Why are we even here? What is it to be human? Is there somewhere else other than here? The idea of church for Rob isn’t about hymns, reading in monotone from a pulpit, or preaching but a gathering of people where he can share stories of hope and love, despair and pain whether that be in auditoriums, halls, theatres or through his podcast. His take on the Bible completely disrupts my understanding and interpretations from my many many readings of it. What I experienced on Friday night lights me up, fills me with compassion, hope and love, provides me with unwavering belief that I am apart of something bigger, and makes me feel connected to other people. That’s what church should be. You know I could go on, but I’ll sum up by mentioning some key points Rob raised that resonated with me that I think you will find useful: ~ ‘Calling’ is overrated and curiosity is underrated. We can get so caught up and stressed over what our calling is. What we should do instead is follow what we find curious. What has us asking questions. If you are unsure what you should next do, you should go off and discover something about what has you curious. ~ Sometimes you find your path because it is something that you love, other times it is what cranks you up (makes you mad). ~ Disruption causes us to open up. It’s through the disruption of our everyday lives, the hard times, that we open up to something bigger and more beautiful. It is the experiences of pain and hardship that turn us towards the things that make us more than we were before. ~ Spirit has a way of talking through someone so that everyone feels like the are being spoken to directly. ~ “I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder” – Abraham Joshua Heschel If you haven’t seen any of Rob’s work, search Amazon for his books, search your favourite podcasts app for The Robcast, google NOOMA, Drops Like Stars and Everything is Spiritual. And go and see him Monday night.