• It Is Through The Face That We Encounter God
• A Message of Hope
• Waiting
• An Octopus at Easter.
• Invite relationships
• Transformation
• This Moment
• A Good Story
• Can I Be A Healer?
• The virtue of doubt
• Mary Mackillop, Woman Of Faith
• Fridge Doors And The Rest Of The World
• Entertaining Angels
• More connected than ever, more disconnected than ever
• Feast of Teresa of Avila, 15th October
• The Witness of Maternity Leave
• Something New
• Farewell
• Australian Catholic University is a Public University Open to All
• What if God Was One of Us?
• Zest for life
• Attendance
• Christmas Angel Tree
• A Present For Me
• On being famous
• Reason To Celebrate
• World Youth Day
• May the evening's twilight find me gentle still
• Goodness: God’s Gift To Us
• A time for every purpose under heaven
• The Mad Dash
• The Positive Spirit is Fully Alive
• Its time to change
• Living an Abundant Life

Illustration by Graham English

‘Getting from the present moment the kind of growth that is in it.’ That is one of John Dewey’s definitions of education. That is what education is about, to help each of us grow in every moment of our lives, to find in this moment the kind of growth that is in it. This applies to good moments and to bad. ‘How do I grow in this?’

An alcoholic I know well told me the other day that he is off the grog. ‘How’s that feel?’ I asked. ‘I really like it this way. The world is so much sharper.’ What a lovely way to describe the good life, I thought, ‘the world is so much sharper’. Education is about making the world so much sharper. If we can see the moments and stay with them we get more from them. We are then attending to our own lives. We are really present.

A student in one of my tutorials the other day invited us to listen to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the part called ‘Spring’. ‘If you listen you can hear the instruments imitating birds.’ Good teaching enabled me to get from the present music the kind of growth that is in it.

• Graham English,
• Religious Education