Isaiah 11:1-10
Before one is ordained as a deacon or priest, one goes to visit a psychologist for a battery of psychometric testing, which includes drawing up a kind of family tree of dysfunction. I was reflecting on that experience this week as I celebrated 16 years of ordained ministry, and I remembered explaining to the friendly shrink that both my grandfathers were alcoholics who abused their wives, probably had post-traumatic stress disorder from their war service and who were both remembered as toxic, aggressive, unkind men with few redeeming features. By contrast, my own Father who this week celebrates 45 years married to Mum, is a gentle and kind man who is beloved by everyone he knows. It is no accident that his two sons are a nurse and a priest (albeit a rather cynical and jaded nurse and priest) and that his grandsons are intelligent, creative, kind and respectful young men. While I’m conscious of the privilege of being white and living in Australia, I’m also conscious that in many families trauma begets trauma from one generation to the next, and I count myself very fortunate that the violence and pain of my forefathers is almost entirely absent from the lives of my nephews.
