Beauty

Beauty

A reflection on the occasion of the Graduation Service of the Disciples of the Cross, 

Melbourne, 29 November 2013

I gazed upon the faces sat upon the stage:

Diverse they were in culture, ethnicity and age.

And yet it seemed to me, to my great surprise,

That each was deeply beautiful to my beholding eyes.

From skin a deep rich brown, to those who are quite fair,

Different shapes of nose and mouth, colours of eyes and hair,

Faces of the  young, and of the not-so-old,

Of women (and of men, if I may be so bold),

Carried in them beauty deeper than the skin,

It was as if a light shone out, a light from deep within.

And I knew that I must figure out, there was something here to know:

What was this source of beauty, whence came this glorious glow?

I looked at student, friend and colleague, face by face in turn

Hoping that the secret of this beauty I could learn.

As I looked upon each one, it was as if a prayer,

For each face was of someone for whom I'd come to  care.

'Twas love that helped me see the beauty from within

'Twas love that helped me look beyond hair and eyes and skin,

To see the real person, the way that God saw them

No longer diamonds in the rough, but a bright and sparkling gem.

Yet even as I thought these things, I realised I saw more

Every diverse face reflected one that I adore.

At that very moment it became my fervent prayer

That those who saw my face would see Jesus glowing there.

Later, on the way back home, a stranger spoke to me

Yet in this brief encounter no beauty did I see.

It is to my regret and shame, I'd learned not my lesson yet,

In spite of all I'd got that night, there was one thing still to get:

Jesus said in "the least of these" was where we encounter him

But while I talked to this poor man my eyes were oh so dim

I missed the chance to see again the wonder of God's grace

Written in the lines of care upon this strange man's face.

How many times have I not seen the face of my dear Lord

Because someone that God has loved, I've passed by and ignored.

May the love that let me see You in the faces of my friends

Burn for every person that I meet, until this lost world ends.  

Ashes Match-ups 1: A tale of two seamers

He was the best of bowlers, he was the worst of bowlers.  Actually both the Aussies and the English have a bowler like this.  And this series might depend on which one of these does better in this series.  Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Broad can both be their teams most destructive bowler on their good days.  They can also leak runs at a rapid rate on their bad days.  They are both confidence bowlers who are hard to stop when they are on a role, however they usually need an early breakthrough to lift their confidence.  The opposition supporters like giving them both heaps.  They are also handy with the bat.

Of course there are differences.  Broad has a higher natural level of confidence, which might explain why he seems to have more good days that Johnson.  Johnson can get very down on himself very quickly, which may be why his worst is worse than Broad's. However his best is better than Broad's as anyone who has seen him in full flight at the WACA can attest.  Broad has shown a more consistent level of fight than Johnson over the years.  Johnson at his best is more brutal (ask Graeme Smith).  

Overall it is hard to pick from their Ashes record.  This is Broad's 13th match against Australia, and he has 50 wickets (3.84 per match) at an average of 28.9.  Johnson is only in his 10th match and has 40 wickets as at the start of day 4 (4 wickets a match so far) at 31.82.  His higher average is offset a bit by his better strike rate (48.1 to 53.9).  Even with the bat, Johnson has 330 at 23.57 and Broad 445 at 26.17, though Johnson leads the 50s count 4 to 3.  In this match, Broad has out bowled. Johnson so far, but not by much.  Johnson has out batted Broad, but Broad has another chance.  Strangely these two match winners have virtually cancelled each other out to this point.  It is the rest of the team that has made the difference.  However, I suspect that the relative performances of these two might just decide the series.

Over excited

 

I have read some ridiculous commentary on yesterday's play.  Yes, it was the best day's play from the Aussies in around a year.  Yes, England collapsed like a post-Hussey Aussie team. Yes, it was good to see big Mitchell and Nathan Lyon do well.  But the match (let alone the series) is far from won.  England have made a habit of bad starts to series in the last couple of years (5 first innings of the series under 200 since the beginning of 2012, none over 400), and they are just as adept at recovery.  It was only a few months ago that at the end of the English first Innings the Aussies looked in a very good position.  We lost that match, and despite some good positions in later matches, the series went 3-0 against us.  Furthermore, last time we played on this ground, we took around a 220 run lead into the second innings (60 odd more than this time), and the Poms scored 1/517 in the second.  Yesterday was encouraging, but let's not get over excited.  There are 23 days left in the series, and the Aussies need to win most of them still.  It will help if yesterday's effort was not just a once off.