Ever wonder what kids think about death?

People tend to be scared of talking about death. The Parting podcast is a series of discussions and stories, made and hosted by a group of brave, smart, funny and daring young people of Wollongong. I got to participate in one of the discussions and I learned a lot....
Report calls for shake-up of NSW funeral industry

Report calls for shake-up of NSW funeral industry

A recently released statutory review calls for a shake-up of the funeral industry in NSW. The report calls for significant changes to the funeral industry (note that the report is dated Aug 2020 but was withheld until recently). Last Friday SMH published an article on...

Dr Roanna Gonsalves to mentor me

I just found out that I have been accepted into the Writing NSW Mentoring program for emerging writers from diverse backgrounds. This means I, along with five other writers, will be mentored by Dr Roanna Gonsalves and will receive $1,000 to help us spend time on what...

My first funeral

I conducted my first funeral this week. Conducted? Officiated? Celebrated? None of those verbs quite fit what it felt like, which was more in the realm of Journeyed, or Travelled With. It was almost the end of the working day when the phone rang. I contemplated not...

Still showing up – surely that counts

“Honour thy father and thy mother” For my interfaith homework, I am reflecting on a chapter of the book, The Ten Challenges: Spiritual Lessons from the Ten Commandments, by Leonard Felder. So far I have got a lot out of reading this book. It has helped me...

My Crib Notes on Confucianism

The goal of the Confucian project is to become fully human. Kung Fu-tzu (Confucius) understood the self as a “node” rather than an entity, a “meeting place where lives converge.” (Smith, 1991). This resonates with my theories of the gift circle. In my PhD dissertation...