For ‘Cecil’ and ‘Wendy’ and the Other Angels

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I did not plan on writing to my friends again this soon. Yet, just as a musician cannot help but put down the lyrics of a beautiful song, so it is with one who writes when pressed by a stirring in the heart or by an image that they simply cannot let go. And that is why, despite my determination to refrain for the hour, I was left with little choice after an encounter this morning (August 27, 2026)—I have called these types of encounters “angelic”. These fabulous events are not rare. Look around, you will find them in so many places. Sometimes, yes, they are hidden. Other times they look for you and will cry out to you as the stones in the Gospel (Lk. 19:40). How blessed we are, and this beyond measure, to be able to bring peace and comfort to another soul. Ultimately, I have come to see, and it has been proven time and time again, that we are all—all of us, capax Dei.

In the mornings, once I have taken care of my ablutions, given thanks, and dropped off our youngest to school, I will normally head off to one of our local cafes to have breakfast and a cup of coffee. Where I have been going of late, and at that particular time, I meet up with two large groups of elderly folk, many of whom are plainly suffering from different ailments— and if I could not see it, I would know about it! At the start I did not want to hear about these problems this early in the morning, but also because it would remind me too much of my own story. I did not want for this to be occupying my mind at the start of the day. Still, I kept going, for I knew that I would very well miss them one day, and so I befriended a number of these wonderful warriors of life. I ask about their lives, where they originally came from, their occupations, and their advice on how to best navigate life. A little more on that later. Only last week, let us call him Cecil for now, I found that we were both going through the same disease. I was much encouraged by this former British naval gunner who had emigrated to Australia in the 1970s from Cumbria. But the story that I am writing tonight concerns someone else. An elderly lady who was sitting alone. I had seen her once or twice before, but she did not seem to be in anybody’s particular company.

I stood up to leave and as I looked behind me, there was a quiet voice. I wished this graceful soul, a good morning. I had assumed she had wished me the same. But, smiling, she looked up at me from her seat, and said again: “Did you enjoy your coffee?” I said, “yes”, with the intention to quickly leave, for I had chores to attend to. But it would be closer to the truth, if I were to say, that I simply was not in the mood for more chit-chat, and so I made to quickly leave. At that moment I saw that beautiful smile again on her face. You could even describe it as a wink. It was as if she knew. For she had very likely, in her recent years, felt this cold-shouldering no few times before. I could not move, even if I had wanted to. Did she remind me of my mother? Did guilt at my initial response weigh me down? Or perhaps, most incredible of all, did I see myself in her pleading eyes? Whatever the reasons, and they do not matter now, I sat down opposite her and asked her where she had originally come from? Let us call her, in this instance, Wendy. We were both from Sydney in the first place, and had lived only one suburb apart. So we could have crossed paths somewhere, all those years ago. And this is why magical realism is not so fictional at times. She had moved to the South Coast with her police-officer husband and two little boys—one of whom is a well-known cyclist. She worked for many years in an Illawarra hospital as a receptionist and charity organiser. Of course, like the tone marks that aid students of Chinese poetry, there was much more to Wendy, as there was to Cecil. Michael Leunig has written of The Crowdless Man: “[h]is gaze and yearning are way outside the loop, His pilgrimage has lots of holes in it. See him wandering alone Beaming to himself.”

So what am I trying to say here, and why have I been so compelled to write down what I am experiencing right now, and then to share it with you? I keep returning to certain themes that connect us. Fragility. Contradictions. Vulnerability. Our deeper need to be completed, along with all that comes with being human. No one can escape the human condition, and the profounder our exploration of the fundamental nature of our existence, the more difficult it becomes not to have compassion, not to practise forgiveness, and not to exercise charity in all of its forms. That is to love, as best we can, to aim for that archetypical ideal of laying down our lives for the other. Especially in academia, where egos can become almost unmanageable and here I know what I am talking about, for I am not exempt (I was a professor once upon a time), we can too easily, and too often, ignore the more real and enduring places of our legacy. At the last hour, citations and h-index will not matter too much. Rumi speaks in the strongest terms, and perhaps rather scandalously for some, of taking the bad side of the ego to the “slaughterhouse”. At the end of our time on earth, many of us will ask ourselves, how close we ever came to experiencing that selfless, sacrificial love:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (Jn 15:13)

In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill only the best... [d]on't run away from this dying. Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat. (Rumi)

pHOTO BY Jakub Pierożyński

This elderly lady with those pleading eyes, the one we have for now, referred to as Wendy, speaks to me and tests me again. As I write, I see her here, sitting right beside me, for I am drafting these paragraphs in the very same place this morning (September 1, 2026). Why did I want to get away so quickly? What did I have to do that morning that could possibly measure up to helping make another human being a little happier and more valued? Yes, perhaps I was frightened by seeing my own reflection in her eyes as I approach her universe. But that was no excuse. Another soul was pleading for some respite, some acknowledgement of her presence and meaningfulness in the world. And by stopping to speak with her, by trying my best to listen, I learnt more of pastoral theology and of the loveliness of Emmanuel Levinas’s “the Other”. Which is, that the person standing before us, will in many ways transcend their physical presence—not unlike a glass-stained window when the light passes through it.

Nota bene: And one of the most common counsels from these warriors of life? “Keep yourself busy” and—“get your priorities right.”

Eastern Orthodox Liturgical Chant

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Music has been a part of my life ever since I was a little child, a significant witness to the passing of the years. I can still remember. Whether it was listening to the Divine Liturgy, which Mother would play on her treasured vinyl records (LPs), or to the easy listening stations at the Reno Café, where the old Philips radio was forever on. And later by choice, when I was older, music would accompany me everywhere from the city across the ocean and into the desert. Whatever the condition of the heart, as King David one of the authors of the Psalms well knew, there is consolation in music. But I have even from my childhood noted a difference between what we might call sacred and secular music.[1] It seemed the natural distinction to make. And the manifest difference between the two? In very simple terms, sacred music relates to God, to ‘the divine’, whereas secular music will typically relate to the human, ‘to the earthly’. Sacred music as well, has a tradition of being accepted as a music genre set apart for worship by a large group of a believing community. It is conventionally in the form of a chant (“a rhythmic speaking or singing”).[2] Another difference between the sacred and the secular is that the former is text confirmed in scripture and liturgical texts, and does not stimulate or arouse violence or wickedness,[3] which secular music can do.

This is a tremendous topic and one which can stimulate much discussion, especially when it comes to definitions and to people’s biases of what actually constitutes the sacred.[4] It could be as difficult as trying to get behind Dostoyevsky’s enigmatic “[b]eauty will save the world” spoken by the Christ-like figure the epileptic Prince Myshkin. But technically, at least, chant, is one of the signature characteristics of sacred music together with its connection to ritual and cultic practices. I can be moved to tears, for example, when I listen to Kris Kristofferson’s country gospel “Why Me, Lord?”[5] Or Barbara Streisand’s haunting rendition of “Avinu Malkeinu”.[6] Where would musicologists place these songs in a canon of religious music? I know they swell up an enduring gratitude in my own heart. The spine-tingling Christos Anesti sung by Irene Papas [7] which was adapted by Vangelis from the traditional hymn is another piece of music which can test the boundaries for the definition of a music style or form. Nor as a Christian, is the magnificent Azan from Sheikh Abdul majeed,[8] or listening to Cantor Moishe Oysher,[9] something which does not deeply touch and act upon my spirit. Gregorian chant synonymous with the Roman Catholic Church plays a part in my devotions, as do the inspiring chants of the Taizé community. From the masters of classical music there is an impressive list of great requiems in the dramatic tradition of the concert oratorio. The purpose behind sacred music, or at least that music which is specifically set aside for worship, is to lead to interior reflection and spiritual growth.

“Nothing elevates the soul,” writes Saint John Chrysostom, “nothing gives it wings as a liturgical hymn does.” In modern terms this could be transliterated into Hunter S. Thompson’s poetics on music as “energy” and “fuel”.

The intention behind this little introduction was to share some paragons of the sacred music from my own community of worship, the Eastern Orthodox Church. Outwardly traceable to the classical age of the Greeks but strongly influenced by the “Jewish Synagogue chant and psalmody”, eastern liturgical chant in its present recognizable form was developed in the earliest years of the Byzantine Empire.[10] Below are samples of the chant which is not to be confused with the Byzantine music of the courtly ceremonials.[11]  If you do not have time to listen to all the pieces, then might I suggest the cantor who is considered the principal of his generation, Theodoros Vasilikos, and the angelic Cherubic Hymn from the Novospassky Monastery Choir: