On one balmy Sabbath, at the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus visited the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth, and when he was asked to read a passage from Holy Scripture, he turned to a part, written by the prophet Isaiah, where it says, and I paraphrase: ‘The Spirit of God has got […]

At the heart of it, the battle that we fight, is not a war between religions but a war between love and hate. Love cannot defeat hatred with hatred. If we love us, but hate them, hate wins. If they love them, but hate us, hate wins. If the lovers of this world stop loving […]

Dave Andrews   I have often been called a ‘self-righteous bastard’. But the term was first specifically directed at me by my brother-in-law, Michael Bellas. Let me tell you the situation in which he said this to me, for the context in which he uttered the words, says it all. Ever since I can remember […]

Today is my last day in Sri Lanka. I have been here for two weeks, doing some work with my old friend Jeremy Liyanage who has returned to initiate a program called Bridging Lanka, bringing people of different ages, genders, cultures, religions, languages and traditions together in post war torn Sri Lanka. I had the […]

This is a lecture I am delivering today at the Emmanuel Centre:   To be human is for our hearts to beat with the desire to love and be loved. If there is a single universal rule of ethical human conduct recognized by the whole of humanity, it is that ‘we ought to love our […]

In 2001 I foreshadowed the coming of A New Dark Age. At the time I wrote: • Lately I have been having a recurring nightmare – that the world is moving slowly but surely into A New Dark Age. • In my dreams I see a landscape shrouded in darkness. As I peer through the […]

Dave Andrews Parker Palmer, the Quaker community worker says: ‘contemporary images of spirituality tend to value the inward search over the outward act, silence over sound, solitude over interaction, quietude over engagement and struggle.’[i] Palmer says ‘if one is called to the world of action, the(se) images can disenfranchise the soul, for they tend to […]

Dave Andrews Practising compassion, like Christ, involves developing an ‘ethos’ that is strong but gentle with people. An ‘ethos’ that is strong but gentle with people is not characterised by power that is exercised over people, but by power that people exercise over themselves. An ‘ethos’ that is strong but gentle with people is an […]

Dave Andrews Our word ‘compassion’ comes from ‘com’ meaning ‘with’, and ‘passion‘ meaning ‘suffering’; so to practise ‘com-passion’ actually means ‘being willing to share in the suffering of others with others.’ John describes Jesus as the ‘logos’ – or the final word – in any discussion about compassion. Paul writes: ‘You should have exactly the […]

Dave Andrews The heart of Christian mysticism is compassion. Jesus does not talk of God as ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Adonai’ – but as ‘Abba’ – or ‘Papa’. Some of us may have been abused by an earthly ‘Papa’ and may find it easier to relate to God as our heavenly ‘Mama’ rather than our heavenly ‘Papa’. […]

Dave Andrews   A ‘mystikos’ was originally an initiate of a mystery religion. ‘The present meaning of the term mysticism is as a metaphor for the “initiation” to spiritual experiences—and is the pursuit of communion with and consciousness of an ultimate reality, spiritual truth, or supreme being through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism […]

  Over the last thirty years I have published twenty books. (See the list in be.inspired). Just recently Piquant decided to publish a special tenth anniversary edition of the best-selling Compassionate Community Work. (See the link below). Well known Australian broadcaster and commentator, David Busch, says Compassionate Community Work ‘is a dangerous book. It looks […]