Colourful Dreamer

Advent in Samoa (Written at the end of the Diocese of Polynesia Year of Youth Event in Samoa) Hot days Sun blazing Water dripping We wait Here I am Here we are In Samoa 3 candles lit All saints we gather We wait Listening for an infant’s cry Looking for glimmers of hope Here we are Send us Christ is being born among us Christ is being born in us And in the moana Do we just sing a carol Pray a prayer Or clap our hands? Or do we live this birth Leaving footprints sprinkled with good news? God waits In Samoa

There has recently been a lot of news coverage about the billboard put up by St. Matthews in the City. I want to make two comments. The first is about the criminal who vandalised it. How dare Arthur Skinner and the Catholic Action Group portray Christianity in this light. How dare he deliberately vandalise other's property. Has Christianity now sunk to the level of agressively enforcing it views on others, as Arthur is suggesting. I have no problem with him protesting, although I suspect his theology is really dodgy, but to destroy others property because he disagrees with it is wrong. I wonder if he sees the irony that in his defence of a “traditional” understanding of the birth of the prince of peace he uses non peaceful vandalism as his medium. He has done more damage to an understanding of Christianity than this billboard ever has. I wonder what those who know little of Christmas and Christianity will now think of us who seek to follow the one whose coming we celebrate in