Grahame Bowland

Classic Collects for a Contemporary Context - Liturgy A Book of Prayers in Common - Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Anglicans, and others have a shared collect tradition that few are aware of. Sunday by Sunday, they regularly pray essentially the same pr...

FREE: my Book of Prayers in Common – RCs, Anglicans, &others Sunday by Sunday regularly pray essentially the same collect on the same day. Here is my 12yrs reworking of the year’s worth of such prayers – use them prayerfully, and feedback any improvements. liturgy.co.nz/classic-coll...

The other day I asked an artist whether she was ever frustrated by the gap between what she could picture and what she could realise. She replied she often found more on the canvas than she’d started with.

Still thinking about that.

We just had Bishop Anne with us her in Perth as presenter at clergy conference – she was absolutely fantastic.

hey #biology & #stromatolite bsky... anyone know if these might be stromatolites? seen at Bremer Bay, wondering if perhaps they might be fledgling cyanobacteria colonies. near the sandbar between the estuary and the sea.

Lilly Pilly Sorbet There’s a Lilly Pilly tree in the rectory yard. This year it fruited twice, and from the smaller second crop I decided to make sorbet. Warren on TikTok came up with a great way to take the seeds out o...

I'm on holiday – today I decided to make Lilly Pilly sorbet, and it was delicious (and super pink!) grahame.theol.au/posts/lilly-... #bushfood #foraging #nativefood

Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other—and the Birds Loved It Wild parrots tend to fly in flocks, but when kept as single pets, they may become lonely and bored

This is both heartwarming, and bittersweet.

It strikes me that we've suburbanised pet birds just as we've suburbanised ourselves: so many people are lonely, just as these birds are. And I think loneliness is a greater evil than we generally credit.

www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/s...

My fiancée and I went down to the NYC city clerk’s office this morning to obtain our marriage license. There were far, far more same-sex couples there than one would expect, like maybe 30% of couples there were gay. All of us hear the ticking clock.

Christians in #Perth – on Palm Sunday there's an ecumenical gathering to pray for peace. 2.30pm at St George's Cathedral. I can't think of anything more appropriate to do on that day in 2025: please come along if you are able.

The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany This sermon was preached on the 23rd of February 2025, The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany. Texts: Luke 6.:27-38 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Sometimes in C...

My Sunday sermon, on the call of Jesus to love, even when we are hurt, or hated, or rejected, a call that Jesus himself embodied, disclosing most profoundly who God is.

grahame.theol.au/posts/epipha...

@unitingchurchau.bsky.social welcome! there's a bit of a dearth of Christian content and sharing on here, I hope you can help with that 😊

YouTube video by University Church Bampton Lectures 2022 - Lecture 1

Worth a watch given goings on – the 2022 Bampton lectures given by the notable Church historian Alec Ryrie, on how 'Western culture has come to define its values not by Christianity, but by the narrative of the Second World War' – and how this is now unraveling.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaFY...

Film Review: Conclave Conclave is, at its heart, a letter of love and hope addressed to the Church. This doesn’t mean that it is uncritical of the Church, or its leadership. The film takes as its subject the Roman Catholic...

Here's my review of 'Conclave', which I very much enjoyed. For me at least the film is a letter of love and hope directed to the Church, offering challenge paired with encouragement. Ralph Fiennes is incredible, and so is Isabella Rossellini.

grahame.theol.au/posts/film-r...

#progressiveclergy

The Third Sunday after Epiphany (also: Australia Day, or Survival Day) This sermon was preached on the 26th of January 2025, The Third Sunday after Epiphany, in the civil calendar known as Australia Day (or as Survival Day.) Texts: 1 Corinthians 12.12-31 Luke 4.14-21 I...

my sermon for today – on the forces that push us apart, and how we might instead embrace what Jesus offers us – release from captivity, the true unity of the Body.

grahame.theol.au/posts/epipha...

#anglican #episcopal #progressiveclergy

hah, thanks – yes that feels oddly long ago now. I'm so much happier these days than I was, finding your vocation is a wonderful thing!

Theatre Review: Not a Boring Life Not A Boring Life gets going even before it starts, the set itself offering the audience a laugh and a challenge before the cast have even entered the stage. A rather bold painting, volcanically mammi...

I went and saw 'Not a Boring Life' this evening, it's on as part of #Fringe. Here's my review (tl;dr it was fab!)

grahame.theol.au/posts/not-a-...

#Fringeworld

it's weirdly hard to parse XML in react-native; there's a smorgasbord of slightly naff modules for it, rather than anything built in. I hadn't realised XML had become so deeply out there and uncool #jsdev

One of the joys of my life at the moment - there are baby quendas (bandicoots) absolutely everywhere at St Barnabas right now. ❤️ here’s one hopping towards to litchgate.

First meeting this evening of what I hope and pray will become the parish youth group.

Explored Gen 2-3 (Eve and Adam and God) drawing on Dr Linn Tonstad’s famous paper reading it as a theological exploration of adolescence, and then we watched the movie Barbie together. Fab!

#progressiveclergy

Went on a hike with a friend this morning - 12km and 285m climbed in 3 hours! I’m tired and sore but happy 😊 #perthhills

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis Season 6 FINALE: Jordan Peterson Wrestles with God/Ben at MSNBC (ft. Matt McManus & Robert Myles)

interesting and quite funny discussion featuring Perth local Robert J. Myles, pulling apart Jordan Peterson's 'We Who Wrestle With God' youtu.be/xjh7zOdAcXs?...

playing about with pocketbase on my day off – seems super handy to get a backend for an app up quickly. replicated the backend for the Diocesan app in an hour; it took me maybe four days to knock that up with FastAPI/python/react

When I’m doing a week’s worth of housework and just about to open a bottle of plonk and @cjjosh.bsky.social and the G’Day Patriots folks publish a new ep - perfect!

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, 2024 This sermon was preached on the 21th of July 2024, the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie Texts: Mark 6.30-34,53-56 Imagine yourself as a villager, living in G...

This Sunday's sermon: on the strange, miraculous exodus to hope, and how we bring it to life each time we come to Holy Communion #hope25 grahame.theol.au/posts/pentec...

here's two of them pulling a shrub down to nibble on it, over on Wadjemup a while back. they are quite adorable. also, their fast mode of getting around is to hop like a roo 😊

'the number of attoseconds that fit into one second is the same as the number of seconds that have passed since the birth of the universe' - and these folks how to generate pulses of light on that scale. mindblowing. www.theguardian.com/science/2023...

Philosophy at a Red Light
existentialcomics.com/comic/515

horrific ABC report on trafficking and abuse of vulnerable people with NDIS funding in Australia.

That this is going on shows that we've absolutely failed to learn the deeper lessons of multiple relevant royal commissions.

tw: confronting images of victim-survivors www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09...

I was a software engineer for 23 years, mostly making my bread and butter by writing #Python code. I never bothered to set up more than print() debugging.

now that coding is (mostly) a hobby as I'm a full-time cleric, I've set it up in #vscode and ... yeah, I should have done that a while back 😂

presumably doing this would be followed by being tracked down by a vengeful precentor? 😅

heard someone in the parish kitchen but nobody there, then spotted this rather large bobtail. bobtail spotted me and immediately ran down the side of the fridge.

Coaxed out and caught in a tea towel and transported safely back into the garden. Surprisingly strong, hissed at me like a cat 😊