Speakers:

Francis Lynch

Lucy Morris

Transcript

Francis Lynch: I’ve known Lucy Morris for many years, having worked alongside her in a couple of organisations. In this conversation, she talks of the changes she’s made over the years and how she’s now living out her purpose in ways that she didn’t even see as possible when she was a. Young woman. Lucy sees her work as being that of a storyteller. She says that she’s interested in telling stories Francis Lynch: of social justice, and particularly those of women. At Baptist Care, she says, I’m telling stories into the heart of the system and to the outer edges of the system. I’m trying to humanise and make visible the preciousness and uniqueness of the work that is done. Lucy is the CEO at Baptist Care, which is an organisation that provides aged, disability and mental health services across WA. She has worked in the community services sector for over 25 years in both England and Australia. She has a theology degree and Master of Philosophy degree from Manchester University and a PhD in leadership, ethics, values and spirituality in NGO’s from Curtin University. She’s also an adjunct professor at Notre Dame University. Lucy has also recently been ordained as a priest. at the Anglican church. And ministers in her community in South Western Australia. Please join me in a conversation with Lucy Morris. Thank you Lucy for. Being Agreeing for Agreeing to be interviewed as part of the living. With purpose interviews. So if you were to. Introduce yourself to somebody. How would you? What would you say about yourself?

Lucy Morris: Ohh goodness, It depends on the context. But generally, I just say I’m Lucy Morris. And I work in the Community sector and I’m a priest.

Francis Lynch: Yeah. And what, what do people follow up with? Do they ask anything after that or?

Lucy Morris: Yes, they do. Sometimes the priest, the declaration that I’m an Anglican priest, will shut the conversation down. People get quite nervous and anxious about that particular aspect. When I talk about the Community sector, that is one that provides a greater opening for people to talk and engage.

Francis Lynch: So you you really have these two parts of your life i mean, there’s there’s probably many more than two. There are two significant parts of your. Life. What’s the the community part? Community services. But you? I know you’re at Baptist care. So what’s that journey been like for you?

Lucy Morris: It’s an absolute passion for me. I’ve been working in the sector now 25. Years in this country particularly and in Perth. And I am. Totally focused and passionate about what community feel feels like for people, how people get to be in the world in the time. That they have. What services are available to them? What relationships can be enlivened? And and on a much bigger scale, I suppose at a global level. What sort of world are we making and how are we contributing to it and I think the way we conceptualise. Community in a postmodern world is very disconnected and alienating and very individualistic, and I get scared about that. And so my focus around community is absolutely about relationships and the uniqueness of human beings and. How people live and work and love. And flourish and how we create a world that we want our children and grandchildren. To live in. It’s got to be enlivening, I think. Too many people have lives that can go nowhere and never. Never see opportunity and never hear how precious they are, so community community services for me comes right back down to practical stuff. And while my. Skill based is not necessarily in the actual doing. The conversations I have, and I suppose I see my work as storytelling when I look at it through that particular lens, then I’m very busy telling stories, talking conversations, thinking, reading, writing, reflecting, praying.

Francis Lynch: So who do you tell the stories to when you’re. In that role of of seeing?

Lucy Morris: Immediately and initially it’s making sure that people around the organisation know each others stories.

Francis Lynch: OK.

Lucy Morris: So Baptist care employees over 1700 people, we cover vasts ways of WA. And people can be working in remote and rural and regional locations, have have no concept if they’re totally immersed in delivering services to people who live with disabilities, they might not ever understand what it is that we’re doing in aged care and vice versa. So I’m telling stories to people as I travel around a system. I’m telling stories into the heart of the system and to the outer edges of the system. I’m trying to humanise and and make visible the preciousness and the uniqueness of the work that is done. And then. I look at who I’m talking to externally. So who am I needing to talk to about what Baptist Care does? The contribution it’s making in the world, how we’re changing community, how what our dreams are and our aspirations are what mistakes we’ve made, what we’re learning, how we’re being human. In what can be a very inhuman, dehumanising world where people and. Our language is. Commodifying people, turning us into products, deconstructing us, taking any sense of humanity away in any sense of anything bigger than just what I do.

Francis Lynch: It strikes me that as you describe. That you know in your role here at. Baptist care that. There may be similarities in terms of that priest role that you have so is that about telling stories as well.

Lucy Morris: It is, and certainly my journey towards. Stepping into the role of being a priest was informed by. My work in the Community sector and my. Sense of how precious people are in the sight of God, and that particular story is not told. And that language is Disappearing. We have a world where you can be religious and have a faith, but it tends to be in private and informal. The formal public spaces are being closed off to us and so as I, as I think about my relationship with God, God in me and me and God. How do I be in the world and tell the story of God in you and everybody else? So yes, I am a storyteller. When I stand up in church on a Sunday and do a reflection on telling a story as I stand at the altar doing the Eucharist, I’m telling. The great, awesome story of how God is present in our world and that I think is the biggest, most important story that there is. So I am passionate about working in a faith-based organisation, I don’t think. Now that I’d probably survive in an organisation that didn’t have a sense of the spiritual and certainly my passion in the Community sector I’m particularly interested in issues around social justice, I tell stories in that space, and particularly for women. So I find more and more. As I as I be a priest. Not it’s not about doing, but. As I be, that’s who. I am, yeah, in the very fabric of my being. Then that informs everything else that I do and. The way I try. And live in the world.

Francis Lynch: Are you able to perhaps reflect on on who has been influential for you through your life in terms of. Where you end up now. You know there could. Be when you were in much. younger or it could even be in. The last few years, but. You know who are the many influential people that have. They guided you or influenced you.

Lucy Morris: I think Properly. Three or four people, my father initially, who was? A very faithful man. Who grew up in a very poor environment as a Salvation Army child of two Salvation Army officers. In England and in London. And going through the wars. As an older teenager. The war transformed him and took him into the Church of England. And he was. A faithful child of God in that space, right until he died 5-6 years ago now, and I went to church, schools, boarding schools, which at an impressionable age where when I was nine and was at school until I was 18. And then university. I was a churchgoing child and teenager and young adult. Since then? I think my next big step for me was when I stepped into Anglicare, when we imigrated to Australia  25 years ago and I met people for the first time who were open and advocating. Around social justice issues. And I was rocked. Absolutely rocked all my middle class aspirational stuff came into question for the first time. So my adulthood, my young adulthood was shifted. And then when I got a job at Mercy Care. For the first time, I stepped into an organisation led by women designed by women seen through the eyes of women, and for the first time, very first time I saw female leadership in all its glory and went goodness me. This is very different.

Francis Lynch: I mean I I mean, you and I were both there. And certainly women like Sheila so.

Lucy Morris: And sister Ann, they were inspirational and transformational and. And that too, I think was. Completely unexpected and shifted me again quite stepwise around the spiritual journey and beginning to integrate different aspects of my life and. Probably then the last little bit as I think about people of influence, I went and did my PhD 2004, 2006.And discovered more acutely. I did it around leadership and spirituality and values and ethics and not for profits and discovered spiritual mysticism and spirituality in that space. And and it was in that. Research that they’re thinking about working in community and working not for profits and advocacy and social justice tied up with female leadership as opposed to general leadership, which then tied up into what faith does. And mysticism and spirituality. And I think that tipped me finally. Into starting to think about, I need to look at myself again, not as a human being, objectively looking at the different parts of my life and my world. And then what am I doing about it? But starting back and saying. If I’m. If I’m a Christian, and if I’m. If I’m being in that space as a Christian, then my whole world needs to be rethought again, and I can’t come at. It thinking I’ve. Got a jigsaw to put together as an objective body of work. I actually have to sit here and say. I’m living in God’s creation. How does this make sense? Then? All the pieces then got jumbled up and reshuffled, and when we moved to Dunsborough back in 2010, my local parish priest in the Anglican church was. A young woman. Anglican woman who had come from South Africa, two young boys, she and her husband had escaped apartheid and. The final bit of the jigsaw was. You can actually be a Christian and be a priest and not become something that you are not. God welcomes you and accepts you and understand you as the person that you are and the journey into God into closer relationship with God. Doesn’t require you. To turn yourself inside out and do something else in order for you to be acceptable.

Francis Lynch: I mean, it’s interesting because I mean. My history from being brought up in the Catholic tradition and yours in the Anglican position, I mean the the concept of priest has not necessarily changed very much in the Catholic tradition, but it has the Anglican tradition and so is that part of what’s enabled. You to to make.

Lucy Morris: Absolutely. Because I my first degree at Manchester when I was eighteen was a theology degree

Francis Lynch: Yeah I remember

Lucy Morris: and I did a Master of philosophy in the theology faculty and at that point in time there was no way I could ever be a priest because the job did not exist. And it was what, 1991/92 here in WA, where Archbishop Carnley finally ordained women for the first time in the Anglican Church In Australia, and when I talk to Catholic girlfriends. Their grief is palpable about not having this job opportunity, and it’s a part of me being a woman and saying, what is it? What story am I telling for God? Part of it is telling the story that women and woman. Is absolutely this is a. This is a calling and a vocation that should not be denied. I I, as I stepped into this journey, was accepted by the church as an ordinand. My deepest questioning kept  coming back to this particular aspect. What would it be like not to be able to step into this as part of my faith journey If this is who I am called to be.

Francis Lynch: Yeah, I’m interested. I mean, you’ve been mentioning very, I mean, these these interviews really are about meeting with purpose and you’re you’re sort of touching on those issues. But if I was to. Ask the direct question and say do you have a clarity of what your purpose is now? Can you describe them?

Lucy Morris: I do have clarity the the the difficulty, the extraordinary unexpected. Difficulty I have. Is how I. Find the words to describe what it is, so it’s it may sound a little jumbled. I am I’m passionate about. Social justice and Working in that space for God’s children I find that passion. It’s mostly around women and children and how they as 50% of the world’s population occupy. The poorest margins. And so my own work. In Baptist care, where our profile of staff is probably about 88% of our workforce is female. Probably 50 to 60% of our workforce is not Australian born. So I’m interested in asylum seekers and refugees and the issues that face them. I find that. The issue of discrimination and the use of privilege and the commodification of the human being around money and lack of money, and how people become invisible when they have no money, poor education, lack of. Opportunity that counts them out. Of the world. And predominantly that goes to women. But this is against God’s creation I’m passionate about. And I suppose the last bit of the jigsaw that has emerged for me. Has been around. Being active absolutely active in this space and that’s taken me into starting to learn about peacemaking and nonviolent activism. So I’ve been doing a lot of study about Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Miroslav Volf. Gandhi like. That I’m I’m you’re. More likely to find me writing, talking, waving a placard, and I suspect my next chapter.

Francis Lynch: Or sitting down.

Lucy Morris: Sitting there and with.

Francis Lynch: Tell me about that.

Lucy Morris: Oh, golly Francis, I was so scared, but it felt so right. I had been tracking and we had been tracking him. Baptist care stuff around asylum seekers and what was going on, and I’m acutely alert because at the time I was chairperson of Baptist Care Australia. Our national big body and some of our members provide services to asylum seekers. And funding was getting tight, and where those members were operating, they felt completely silenced because the government at that time and continues, I think overtly and covertly, to punish. Organisations that speak out against social policies, yeah. And so as chairperson, I was speaking out and I became aware of a of an organisation Christian organisation called Love makes away. Which was growing out of the Uniting Church Baptist evangelical movement. And I got to talk to Jared McKenna, who and his wife, to Theraisa, who were doing a lot of work in this space. And they started becoming engaged in it. And in the end, they do. Sittings in in politicians offices, in a particularly absolutely completely non violent way. It’s awesome and they’re learning from Martin Luther King, and Gandhi has been remarkable. And I asked if I could join them in any of their protests, and the opportunity came up in November, a year and a bit ago, the Monday before I went into retreat to become a priest, ordained so on the Monday I took part in a protest and sat in. Michaelia Cash’s office, as part of the Love makes away movement, and on Wednesday I was going into silent retreat, and on the Saturday I was ordained as a priest. And we turned up to the protest was to ask Michaelia Cash as the assistant Minister for Refugees and Immigration. To remove the women out of and children out of the offshore. Processing systems and out of any detention centres. Because it is against the UN conventions that we have signed, we got arrested and released and given move on notices the following week. I would have participated in the next one, but unfortunately I had commitments and didn’t make it. that group of protesters actually got arrested but actually taken down to the Perth watch house and strip searched. It was appalling and in breach of their

Francis Lynch: You meant it was intimid

Lucy Morris: yes,

Francis Lynch: intimidating

Lucy Morris: deliberately, deliberately so. We were very lucky, but for me. To deliberately set out to be. Averted my protest and participate. Took a lot of prayer and a lot of resolution and from a family perspective, lots of conversations about what that might mean, because in practice I could have lost my current job if I ended up with a criminal record. Because I have to be an approved person by the federal government to look after aged care. Could have put. My organisation at risk and I had to tell my. That he might end up ordaining somebody with potentially a police record, and I had to take the Anglican church into account. He was remarkable. He just looked at me and said I trust you. I told my board. Told my chair. And they. Swallowed and supported me but. It stripped away the bits that were non essential and the beauty of the timing was that I ended up doing this on the Monday and all the excitement and the clutter and the social media was absolutely meaningless because I stepped into silent retreat 36 hours later. And so it really meant that I was sitting there making sure that I was doing it for. For the children and the women and around justice and around God’s children as opposed to any other reasons that you can get seduced into and thinking about. So I’m really clear my purpose. is, If I use. Religious language and I I think my vocation as a priest is as a prophet. And as a radical disciple of Christ.

Francis Lynch: If if you were to go back. If you would. Just place yourself back. 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, do you Think your purpose has changed. From where you were to where you are?

Lucy Morris: I sometimes regret that the lessons I’ve learned. In the last 15-20 years, I actually didn’t learn as I moved from teenager into adulthood. Francis Lynch And what does that mean? I think that means that. I might have gone and done more training and learning around peacemaking and moved into a more. Earlier into more of an advocacy overt advocacy role. On the other. Hand I think here my at 56. I bring now some weight of years I bring a PhD that gives me letters after my name, that people for whom that’s important means they’ll pay attention. My children are grown up, so I’m not putting them at risk in terms of. Implications around employment. It’s just me and my husband and we can be foolish in God’s name and and at that level we’re not. So I the other part of me says, well, there is a season. And this is the season that I’m stepping into, and I’m just making the most of it. And I will if I could run Helter Skelter into it more quickly, I would do. But. Praying deeply. Spend a lot of time with God and taking the way God leads.

Francis Lynch: So on the. Other hand, if you really look forward. 10 or 20 years. Do you think that? The core purpose that you sort of Francis Lynch: see yourself now? As being able to articulate to think that that will stay relatively on the same part.

Lucy Morris: yes, I think my husband looks at me, Riley on occasion and says I will be probably getting you out of the Perth watch house in 20 years time. Taking the keys along so the police can untie you. You know and and. There’s there is. Truth somewhere in that. Humour, which says I will. I will do this for as long as I can. And while I’ve got. Breath in my body and I will do this. As a Christian. I will do this. To say that God’s world cannot be treated like this, and I will do this in a way. As best as I can in a way that says this is about love, this is not about hatred. This is not about discrimination or privilege. This is about. Love and we need to do it differently and it’s possible there is a different story to tell.

Francis Lynch: So it sounds the way that you describe. That it sounds, is so you are feeling more free to express those things now.

Lucy Morris: Yes, I think it’s a it, it certainly is. A feeling and an emotion. And a spiritual drive. And intellectually freer and that might be. The accumulated 56 years of learning and ongoing education and conversations and career positions I’ve held, which have continued to. add to the capacity that I have to offer. The other side of it though, Francis is. At the end of the day, when I die. I will be naked. I will not have all of this stuff.I will be.A plain human being. And so part of my understanding of this journey is, is is absolutely I’ve got to be clear that this is God’s. Work, not lucies work. So what i to bring into. It i offer. But at the end of the day. It will, you know, it will get stripped away. There will be nothing left and just as much as I I’m building up and adding to. It will get Stripped away layer by layer.

Francis Lynch: There’s nothing to. Take with at the end of day.

Lucy Morris: And there’s nothing to take with me so. Who I am. In God. Ease at the start and at. The finish and must be in the middle.

Francis Lynch: So where where do you find the energy to keep. Doing what you’re doing now in your life?

Lucy Morris: I spent the last few years beginning to strip away some stuff. So thinking about what’s not important or what is distracting. So being clear about what I’m doing, does it contribute? To how I’m. Being and going where I’m going. So that’s part of it. Being clear about my priorities in my. Love and marriage and relationship with David and our children and grandchild. My commitment to my workplace, what they expect from me and the best that I can be. For them. In the role that they. They asked me to do. and I’m a priest in the local parish part time. I spend time each day and it sounds dramatic, but it’s not that I spend each time spend time each day praying. Quietly and as I get older. My the aspects of me as an introvert. Become more pronounced, so I need the quiet times and I need the opportunities

Francis Lynch: Those quiet times to give you some.

Lucy Morris: give me and feed me. Feed me spiritually as well as feed me relationally.And at the end of. The day. I still fall over with the same regularity I still. Weep and get confused and hurt and make mistakes. I’m trying to learn. And and and. yeah

Francis Lynch: It it’s interesting. Just that mention of introverts, because I think, you know, introvert has a sort of negative connotation sometimes and and. Certainly, being a card, carrying one myself. It doesn’t Francis Lynch: really. It is. It is that sense in its truest sense, really, of being able to. To feel like I am being on your own and and knowing that that actually is important to be able to regenerate and to replenish the energy storms.

Lucy Morris: Yes i have a public profile in the. Job that I do. So sitting on the beach at weekends or going into. The church and. Praying is what.Feeds me for the week ahead.And I I think it’s a rare gift because. It doesn’t struggle to do that. I think my my. Weakness. My struggle is that I enjoy reading. I enjoy learning. I enjoy being fed intellectually. So the hardest part. is not getting stuck there or stopping there, but moving into the quietness and the solitude and just putting those things down and just being me.

Francis Lynch: But it sounds as though you really have made choices to give that time and space.

Lucy Morris: Yes, yes. And I I don’t know how I would cope now without that. And I don’t think it’s just a maturing age thing. I I as a as a priest. The being. Becomes more and more important rather than the doing.

Francis Lynch: I mean a lot of. Day, you know. In in current. Society or community a lot of people now talk about mindfulness or meditation as as aspects of. Of or similar sort of things to what you’re. Sort of thinking.

Lucy Morris: Yeah, and I, I’m glad. I watch with. I’m a little anxious and I’m hesitant about this because I think It’s still easy in that space to elevate the individual and make it personal and seek into oneself for the answers. And it then still contributes to alienation and disconnection and the lack of engagement because it’s still about me, whereas I think. A spiritual life with a faith in God or in the transcendent, however, one thinks about the other. Keeps one in perspective. And it’s not about what then about what I’m doing, but it’s about what God is doing and how I fit into the larger scheme of things rather than the scheme fitting around me.

Francis Lynch: I’m interested in in asking around, you know, whether it’s in your workplace or whether it’s in your community or parish or wherever. But I I wonder whether you come across people who. Perhaps unclear themselves about where they’re going. And what they’re. Doing and sort of seeking some support or yeah support in terms of you know. Well, what’s my purpose? Where am I going? What am I? You know, where’s my my journey? And and I’m just interested in how you would sort. Of respond to people. You know, if you come across that sort of seeking. Yeah, it it. It happens and I’m. I’m getting better. At recognising the quiet signals rather than the overt ones, and I don’t always do it well. And what do I mean by that? It’s when I come in with enthusiasm and excitement to talk about God, and I could see people backing off because. I’ve been too. Enthusiastic about it and and and they’re not. Wanting anything as overt or clear as that, But I’m very happy to sit and talk about. The things that are bothering them give them different perspectives and trying the way of talking about how they fit. Into a creation. That they are a part of and have a part to play. As opposed to. Being alone in the universe and when I’m dead, I’m. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Francis Lynch: Yeah. And I think it’s just picking up on the comment you made before around you know that sense of perhaps finding meaning within but not. Being   Francis Lynch: connected and and becoming isolated and and those sorts of things. I mean I think they are. Experiences that some people have that. Trip them up a little. Bit you know and so.

Lucy Morris: I think our. Our culture. Inclines us towards becoming very narcissistic and very self centred, and the best that we can achieve is to be selfish about our family. You know, we might. Make might do stuff for our family, but to go beyond that, our culture doesn’t. Overtly and often indirectly does not encourage a sense of society and something a bigger purpose than what I can achieve in the. World and I. I get so sad when I go to funerals and you hear this catalogue of achievements, but people don’t know the person and don’t have a sense of. What their desires were and. How they felt about other people. It’s just a list of.

Francis Lynch: Was that for the monitoring?

Lucy Morris: Achievements, yeah.

Francis Lynch: Relationship on value and relationships or or.

Lucy Morris: Yeah. And you and you and and and they play pop songs andAnd you walk out thinking. Each life is worth more than this. How? Why can we not do this better? How can we? Do it differently. And I I mean, our working age care industry, we provide services to over 1000 people a year in our aged care facilities and then additional hundreds in our home based care. Community care. We have people dying.

Francis Lynch: Regularly.

Lucy Morris: Regularly and. As society and culture does not have conversations about death, we do not talk about quality of life until people are dead. We do not enable people to come at mortality and sense of God and the other. We shuffle it out of sight and we do it in hushed whispers and we get

Lucy Morris: embarrassed and we find it hard. It is so sad.

Francis Lynch: And and even I mean. Making note, I mean there’s it. It is what it is. But you know even. The way that Australian society we. We don’t see our neighbours die because they go somewhere else, you know, they go to one of your facilities or. They go to hospital.

Lucy Morris: and it’s neat and tidy and clinical and and, you know, in England, where you’d move into houses where people. They would be laid out on. The kitchen table and. People would have come in and. Seen them and had awake. But now it’s all done in hushed whispers. I think it’s going to change. The baby boomers have disrupted every single thing. That they’ve ever had. Anything to do with? So I think they will disrupt. They are disrupting, thank goodness, but they will continue to disrupt ageing and the concept of ageing and death, so I think we were we are in for a change. But how that conversation is going to emerge and what that’s going to look like is going to be really interesting over. The next 20 or 30 years.

Francis Lynch: Yes, I mean I’m I’m not sure where it’s gonna go, but. Yes, I’m interested to see where. OK. You mentioned before that you can get sort of a bit lost in in books and things like that. Can you tell me maybe some examples of things that have been really important to you or are important now in terms of. Whether their books or or you know, podcasts or. You know certain, whatever they are. But the types of things that you go to to get inspiration or to. To fill up the bucket?

Lucy Morris: Yes I’m not particularly technologically savvy, so I don’t yet haven’t yet worked out podcasts, and I’m one of those people that still doesn’t know how to transfer a photo onto a computer from her phone. But. I have a range of authors that I read, so I read philosophy, theology, feminist theology. And I, for example, love Hannah Arendt, a Jewish philosopher.I love Miroslav Volf, who’s a theologian I enjoy.Who else have I been reading? Re Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Elizabeth Johnston, who’s a Catholic feminist theologian, some of the Catholic feminist theologians, are absolutely awesome, and I have vast numbers of their books on my bookshelves. I read books by Noam Chomsky. ,Naomi Klein.

Francis Lynch: It’s it’s very.

Lucy Morris: In in the political with the small P, but critiquing and commentary on the world, I love poetry, so I look for. Female authors like always get her name the wrong way round. Angelou Mayo a black African woman who died recently. Denise Levertov, who writes beautiful religious poetry. I’ve recently been looking at Clive James’s poetry. He’s dying and he’s written some beautiful, exquisite poetry. I’ve been dipping into Thomas Merton and just read his autobiography, seven Storey Mountain, and then I’m going to. Go look at his. So I try and balance. Writers that are women.Along with men but I do I will read philosophy political with a small P critiquing. Theology. Feminist theology and then.I probably supplement that on the margins with feminist literature. So I’ve managed to wade through some of Germaine Greer, but I find her indigestible that modern day feminist. Literature much more mainstream feminist literature. And then I track in the business sense. Everything from servant leadership. Try to remember his name. But there’s a raft of leadership. HR management, mentoring stuff that sits in the. Vulnerable leadership, different way of thinking about leadership. I hate and despise and cannot bear the quick fix. 10 easy lessons leadership in 10 minutes management and you know that stuff that says oh for goodness sake.

Francis Lynch: Because a lot of that stuff seems to me. To to sort of. Think that leadership Is about certain routines, not about relationships or or who am i as a leader

Lucy Morris: Yes. And so you get people. I get young people turning up saying I’m a. Leader can have a job. And you go.Hmm. Hmm, that’s a really interesting. Concept or I’m I’m the best manager since sliced bread. And you go, hmm. Yeah, alright, let’s have a look and see what that looks. Like and. What do you think about yourself? And Do you know who you are, so I I get really cranky and the other stuff I struggle. With and and I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I do with people like Richard Dawkins and that genre of atheistic literature. So I read it to see what the arguments are.And then put it Lucy Morris: down and get really cranky and go out for a walk. On the beach and kick the water and. And go goodness me. And then try and try and tone my sermons down to be something that’s. Will keep my.Parishioners in their seats.

Francis Lynch: it sounds though like you really do have a a really strong sort of learner inside, you know, just constantly wanting to new, find new ideas or new challenges.

Lucy Morris: Yeah, I I and I. Think that’s because my father, when we I grew up in the Pacific, no television and radio if you’re lucky. But mostly my father read. And my father did classics at Cambridge. And our conversations at the dinner table were awesome and I was at university when I was. 18 to 24. When there was no computers around. Yeah. So my my, my basic behaviour around learning his books so I don’t I I get DVD’s. But I don’t. Manage to get to the cinema or. I don’t do. I did. Manage an iview thing about a month ago, but that’s the first time I’ve looked at that iview, so I will get better. But yes, my my my stuff is. The written word.

Francis Lynch: So we’re coming towards the end of this conversation. I’m just just wondering whether there’s anything in particular that you’re involved with in at the moment that you’d love to just mention or?

Lucy Morris: Yes, couple of things. I am involved with. And support the work of the Refugee Council of Australia and I’m involved in the National Churches of Australia Refugee Task Force, which brings together all the different faiths to work in that space from a strong advocacy perspective. And I’m just so delighted that the Christian Church. Is active in that space and the other thing that I’m doing. Is this is the second year in April I’m going to back to Rome, the Anglican Centre in Rome sponsor is sponsoring myself and a Anglican clergy woman in. Rome there are only two Anglican. Clergy women working in Rome Surprising, but Dana and I Co convene a leadership course for Anglican clergy, women and the Centre sponsors us, and we have a ball. So last year. Probably we had 30 women attending 17 different countries and it went for six days. Scared me witless. I’m not sure I. Did a very good. Job, but it was breathtaking

Francis Lynch: And you’re going back again

Lucy Morris: and I’m going back again to do it again. With Diana. The high one of the highlights for me. Last year was. At to take. Communion with all the participants staying when I. Did communion? Did communion? At the monastery of Saint Gregory, just near the Coliseum where the Abbot kindly allowed us to use his altar, and it’s the it’s the church. Which Has the chair. Where pope Gregory in 595 or 596 sent Augustin to England And there was. An incredible moment where we’re all sitting looking at this chair and wondering is that is the actual marble chair that these awesome people sat in and did this awesome thing. And then the next moment was a photo moment for us. So all the clergy women piled their handbags onto this chair while they went and had their photograph taken. But from a from a, A from a perspective of thinking. About the church into the future. That is one of. The things in the conversations that I’m engaged in. What is the church going to look like, particularly for women in the church? And what is being a priest? And being a lay woman in the church, going to look like as an Anglican in the Anglican Communion in the Catholic Church in the Baptist Church, wherever, how do women and what does the church look like for priests in the Future? And that, I think is a really exciting conversation to be having.

Francis Lynch: Yeah. And one last thing, just in terms of, you know, I’ve asked lots of questions, but maybe there was something in your mind that you were wishing I’d asked a particular question and I didn’t ask it. So is there anything else that you want to say?

Lucy Morris: No, there isn’t, I think. It’s been a it’s been a wonderful conversation and.You’ve been very.Indulgent, thank you Francis,

Francis Lynch No, thank you.

Lucy Morris: it’s been brilliant.

Francis Lynch: And and it’s been. Really clear to me as part of this conversation that you know. You you really are at a point where. You know, purpose for you is is something that is important, is clear and and really influences who you are and how. And how you? Live your life. And yeah, thank you for the time to sort of let me ask those questions and to sort of be able to to have this conversation. So thank you.

Lucy Morris: Thank you.