Why Ray Williams is Still My Hero
We wouldn’t be able to do any of the stuff we do with kids if it wasn’t for the support we get from local business people in our community. This is not a shameless plug for our sponsors, just recognition of the fact that whatever we’ve been able to achieve in Dulwich Hill has been a team effort between church and community.
People often ask me,"I suppose the church pays for all this, do they". I tell them straight, that our little church in Dulwich Hill has never been able to properly afford even the minimum wage for their priest, and that the Church with a capital ‘C’ (ie. the Anglican Diocese of Sydney) has contributed next to nothing. No. Almost all our support comes from the three local pubs the Gladstone, the Royal Exchange, and the Henson Park Hotel and from the local RSL club (Petersham). The rest of it we pick up through the Christians vs. Lions fight nights we put on, and through other community events (eg. the Mayor’s golf day, the annual community Street Fair, etc.).
It wasn’t always this easy. In the early years we really struggled to keep the Youth Centre open. Then we caught the attention of one corporate benefactor, who was able to keep us going long enough for us to put the other support in place. That benefactor was Ray Williams, former chief executive of HIH insurance one of the most gentle, caring, and humble men I have ever met, and currently one of the least popular men in the country.
It amazes me when I think about it. Some of the best people I have ever met are people with terrible reputations. In each case of course their reputations have been largely media-generated.
When my mate Jim got shot, one of the major Sydney newspapers ran story entitled "Evil Villain Gunned Down". It featured a picture of Jim carrying an automatic weapon. The picture had been taken many years earlier during Jim’s time with the Australian Army. I thought ‘You bastards! That’s not the man I know.’
When Morde was on trail in Israel I read a variety of articles that spoke about him as being a sophisticated spy - working for the Arabs and out to destroy his country. I thought ‘You bastards! You have no idea who you are talking about.’
Now I read stories about Ray - about how he manipulated the market to line his own pockets and how he deliberately defrauded millions of people, and I think again ‘You bastards’.
Ray was sent by God to help us. I have no doubt about that. I first met him through a fight I took, though Ray himself was no fan of boxing.
The story of that fight was in itself quite bizarre.
I had been sitting with the Archdeacon in my office one afternoon. He was wagging his finger at me and telling me that I’d have to close down the Youth Centre. "You just don’t have enough money to keep it going" he said. And he was right. We were exactly $1000 short of being able to pay our youth worker’s wage for the next month. I was feeling rather nonchalant about it all and was telling him to have more faith. At exactly that moment Kon, my trainer, came to the door.
"Dave, do you want to take a pro fight?" he asked. "No" was my knee-jerk reaction. I’d just completed my fight career (I’d thought) with a shot at the NSW super-welterweight title in kickboxing. The law in this state at the time was that you had to hang up your gloves when you turned 35. I was 34 and nine months at that stage. "How much are they offering?" I asked Kon. "$1000" he said. I told him I’d take it. We raised close to $50,000 for the Youth Centre through that fight. More than half of that money came through Ray.
A guy by the name of Jeff Wells wrote an article about my fight that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald one Saturday. After that, cheques for as much as $1000 started arriving in the mail! Then one morning a courier turned up with two cheques - one for $10,000 in the name of HIH insurance, and another for $15,000 in the name of a Mr R. Williams. I remember trembling when I received these cheques. I’d never seen that much money before in my life.
I had never heard of Ray Williams, but his business card was attached, so I rang the number and got one of those classic receptionist voices, saying "Mr Williams is busy at the moment. Can I take a message?" Then I mentioned my name and all of a sudden I was speaking to Ray.
"Ah ... hi ... do I know you?" I started. "No. I don’t think so," he said. "You’ve just sent me cheques for $25,000" I said. "Yes" he said. "Um ... are you a local from around here? Have you been watching our work?" I asked. "No" he said. "Well ... are you connected with the church or with youth work around here?" "No" he said. "Well ... are you a fight fan?" I asked, scratching for some point of connection. "Not at all" he said. "I read an article about you in the Herald and it looked like you needed some help." "Yeah, I do" I said. "Well, will that help?" he asked. "Oh yeah" I said, "that’ll help."
That’s how our relationship began. Over the years that followed Ray took a keen interest in our work. As things at HIH became tighter, we didn’t receive any further support from the company, but Ray himself would generally turn up to our fundraiser fight nights, and he wouldn’t leave before slipping us a cheque from out of his own funds. It’s what kept us going while we searched for more stable sponsorship from the local community. We owe a lot to Ray.
And it wasn’t just the money. It was the man too. He was inspiring in his humility.
At the time of the first donation we had a guy in our church who worked as one of the chief accountants in the public hospital system. "Oh yeah" he said to me one Sunday. "If it wasn’t for Ray Williams, half the hospitals in Sydney might be closed." And then he added "but he never likes to have his name mentioned. He hates the limelight"
We found this to be entirely true. We managed to get him on stage once to present a trophy to one of our fighters, but it was a tough job. He really hated being at the centre of attention. It’s one of the things that makes this Royal Commission so odious to him.
I still can’t believe the way the media have gone after him – vigorously attacking him for his generosity to hospitals and charities. It’s not as if he was giving away money that should have gone to insurance claimants. If he hadn’t given it away, I guess it would have slightly increased the dividend paid to the shareholders, and he himself must have been one of the largest shareholders. I still find it preposterous to think that the media should have acted so self-righteously indignant about the fact that the poor shareholders were losing potential income because it had gone to the children’s hospital. It’s just ridiculous.
But it wasn’t only the media that crucified Ray. Once the news about HIH’s collapse became public knowledge, former colleagues deserted him, old friends and associates turned their backs on him, and charities that he’d been supporting for years all of a sudden didn’t want to know him. Ray had been on the board of the Children’s Hospital for as long as anybody could remember. They sent him a letter saying ‘thank you but your services are no longer required’. Nobody waited for the results of the Royal Commission. Nobody waited to see if perhaps he wasn’t the real villain in the piece. Everyone distanced themselves, not wanting their own reputations to be tarnished.
I seriously can’t understand that attitude. I know I’m capable of doing some stupid and selfish things, but deserting a mate in his time of need is not one of them. When I think about all the people that Ray must have helped over the years, I just can’t believe that none of them thought to ring him up and say ‘How are you going, Ray. Perhaps it’s my turn to give you some support?’
Anyway, my point here is not to spit my dummy. And I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a clue about big business, insurance laws, or anything of the sort. But I know a good man when I meet one, and Ray Williams is a good man and someone whom I’m proud to call my friend. And I’ll be buggered if I’m going stand by and listen to people pouring crap out on a mate of mine without saying anything.
To be truthful, I don’t expect that Ray will ever fully regain his former reputation or standing. I know too much about how the media works and about how our court system works to ever expect real justice. As with my friends Jim and Morde, I’m not holding my breath waiting for the truth to come out. No. I’ll look to the day when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and Christ. When that day comes, all the crap will be sorted out.
Rev. David B. Smith (The 'Fighting Father')
Parish priest, community worker,
Martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three
Rev. David B. Smith
(The 'Fighting Father')
Parish priest, community worker
Martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three
www.fatherdave.org
Get a free preview copy of Dave's book ,
Sex, the Ring & the Eucharist when you sign up for his free newsletter at
www.fatherdave.org
A Cheap Holiday in Other People's Misery (Catching Up With Mordechai Vanunu In Israel)
One of my favourite pieces of music is the Sex Pistols' classic 'Holidays in the Sun' - a song that begins with the line, 'a cheap holiday in other people's misery'. This would have made a fitting epitaph for my holiday in Israel, except that the $3000 air ticket meant that it wasn't exactly cheap.
I went to Israel full of apprehension. Just knowing what we all know of the backdrop of paranoia and pain that hangs over that land is enough to make anybody apprehensive, but I also went carrying a dark secret - that I was a friend of Mordechai Vanunu's, and I was nervous about the reaction I'd get should this truth suddenly become public.
My friend Morde was completing an 18-year prison sentence for doing something that most people in this country consider heroic. Morde told the world about a secret stash of WMD's ('weapons of mass destruction') that are being developed in an underground factory in the Negev desert. Most people I know think he did the world an enormous favour, but most people in his own country wish Morde had kept his mouth shut. Indeed, most Israelis regard him as a traitor!
In order to try to understand this attitude towards my friend, I tried talking to local people about their attitude to nuclear weapons. The response I received was alarming! "They're only there as our last resort" one articulate young journalist said to me. "Just in case we get completely overrun." "Well ... what happens then?" I asked. "Well", he said, "then we destroy everybody!"
Tragically, this was not an isolated example. Almost every time I sought an opinion from taxi-drivers, cafe workers or hostel staff concerning Israel's nuclear capacity, the word 'Armageddon' would come up. And these apologists seemed quite accepting of the fact that in order to strike this decisive blow against their neighbours, they might indeed need to take the rest of the planet with them!
Thankfully not every Israeli took this position. Indeed, the 'Free Vanunu' campaign itself had a strong local contingent of active peace campaigners.
These local activists were some of the most impressive people I met during my stay in Israel. Even in Australia they would have been impressive - mainly young, idealistic University students, with a commitment to world peace and global disarmament - impressive but not extraordinary in our context. In this context though, growing up in an environment so overshadowed by violence and fear, these brave young souls stood out like shining lights.
The violent side of Israeli culture was never more tangible to me than it was on the day of Morde's release. I had traveled many thousands of miles to be reunited with my friend on the day that he walked free. In my dreams I had imagined our reunion countless times. Morde would walk through those gates with his belongings in one hand, and me and a few friends and family would be there to embrace him and lead him away. I didn't really realise until I reached the prison just how far from reality my imaginary depiction of that scene would prove to be.
There were hundreds of us at the prison, and the vast majority were not Morde's friends. As the time of his release drew near, I tried to move towards the prison gate where I had always imagined myself standing as Morde walked out. I soon found myself squeezed into the middle of an angry mob.
It was certainly one of the nastiest experiences of my life. The whole mass of men seemed to seethe with aggression, and each individual was competing to claw his way to the front, for what exact purpose was not entirely clear. Thankfully I could not understand the chants that were being sung to the tune of 'here we go, here we go, here we go', but I was told later that the words for 'death' and 'traitor' had been central to all the mantras that were chanted that day.
On reflection I now think that it was a good thing that by the time Morde came through those prison gates the police had packed us together so tightly that I wasn't able to move a limb. What prevented me from running out to embrace Morde also prevented my neighbours from reaching him with more sinister intent.
Thankfully the car with my friend in it got away with no more than a dented panel and a shower of eggs. One antagonist did manage to mount his motorbike in time to catch the car, but after slamming into the side of the vehicle he lost his mount, and the 'free man' was able to proceed in peace.
Back at the gaol things then started to unravel. With their anger unresolved, the mob started to vent their aggression on other targets. I found myself swept up in this like a wave breaking over my head. One second I was walking towards my bus. The next moment I was surrounded by a mob led by an angry rabbi, screaming at the top of his voice. 'Go home' was the only phrase I could understand. Equally unambiguous though were the rough hands that were being placed on my body, the kicks that were landing on my legs, and the spittle that was accumulating on my face.
I didn't see any path of escape in this situation, so I placed my hands together in a position of prayer and bowed my head, working on the hitherto successful strategy that if you refuse to fight back, guys are generally very reluctant to beat you up. It worked. A man grabbed me from behind with both hands and hauled me out of the centre of the mob. I made it back to my bus without further incident.
All of this would have been water off a duck's back had Morde and I then been able to board a plane and fly back to Australia.
Unfortunately the authorities had ruled that this 'free' man should not be allowed to leave the country, nor go anywhere near a border or a foreign embassy, nor have any contact with 'foreigners'. The 'foreigner' restriction was aimed at the foreign press. Even so, technically, I wasn't allowed to spend extensive time with my old friend without risking seeing him re-arrested!
We were reunited briefly on the evening of that same day of his release. Unfortunately I cried so much that I really didn't get the chance to tell him all of the things that I had prepared for that moment. All I can hope for now is that one-day we will catch up properly - perhaps over a few beers back here in the land of Oz. I know that Morde would like that.
Getting Morde out of Israel is indeed the next big challenge for the Vanunu campaign. I don't know how hard this will prove to be. I do know that I had a bloody hard time getting out myself. In my case it wasn't that they didn't want me out (they held off the departure of the plane until I got on board). They just seemed determined to let me know that they didn't want me back.
I had been warned by the other peace activists of intimidation tactics employed by airport staff. Ironically, I initially made it through all four security checkpoints without being stopped. It was only as I proceeded to the final gate that a young man in a suit caught up with me and said, "Excuse me sir, but can I see your passport." He then told me that there had been a 'problem' and that he would need to retain my passport until the 'problem' had been resolved. I was then shuffled into a small room to begin a three-hour process of interrogation, body searching and luggage examination.
In the end the verdict was that I was free to go and that there was nothing suspect about the contents of my bags, but that the bags themselves were suspect and that none of them could be taken on board as hand luggage. This meant that I could carry with me my camera, but not in my camera case, my laptop, but not my laptop case, my video camera, but not the bag with the shoulder strap that I lugged it around in, my toothbrush and paste, but not my toiletries bag, and even my Palm-pilot portable keyboard, but not the little vinyl dust-jacket that I kept it in. I could take what I liked, so long as I carried it in my arms.
It was just a game, though they managed to keep straight faces throughout the whole ordeal. For my part I refused to get on board without the bulk of my carry-on items. In the end they agreed to give me a large cardboard box to put them in.
And so my cheap holiday in other people's misery came to an end. But now the real work begins. For I returned home, but I left my friend inside the confines of St George's Cathedral in Jerusalem, where the good bishop has offered him sanctuary.
Morde can't leave the Cathedral grounds. He has at least two reporters on every exit, taking shifts to cover his movements 24-hours per day. If Morde tries to walk out into the street, he'll be immediately surrounded and identified, and given the number of locals that would count it as a point of pride to be responsible for his death, Morde's life in the open probably wouldn't last more than a few minutes.
I'd like to see my friend back here in Australia. I wonder if the Australian government has the courage to offer him citizenship?
Rev. David B. Smith (The 'Fighting Father')
Parish priest, community worker,
Martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three
Rev. David B. Smith
(The 'Fighting Father')
Parish priest, community worker
Martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three
www.fatherdave.org
Get a free preview copy of Dave's book ,
Sex, the Ring & the Eucharist when you sign up for his free newsletter at
www.fatherdave.org
The real problem with today's Teenagers (And why most Parents just don't get it!)
An address given by Rev. David B. Smith (aka. 'Fighting' Father Dave) at the Sydney Town Hall, February 21st 2003. Dave was addressing students, parents & teachers at the Fort Street High School speech day.
"The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests wide and far, enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before, and which they were not capable of alone. The consciousness of belonging, vitally, to something beyond individuality; of being part of a personality that reaches we know not where, in space and time, greatens the heart to the limit of the soul's ideal, and builds out the supreme of character."
(Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, October 3, 1889)
Who was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain I might ask. No, not the one-time British Prime Minister. That was a different Chamberlain. J.L. Chamberlain was a general in the American Civil War, who fought for the North. Why mention him today? It will remain a secret at this stage.
My name is Dave. I generally function under the persona of 'Father Dave'. That's because I am a priest -an Anglican priest. Apart from being a priest I am also a boxer and all-round martial arts master. I am also a 'youth worker' of sorts.
In some places in the world I would be granted an enormous amount of respect because I am a priest. In this community, I find I receive more respect that I deserve on account of my reputation for hitting people. I personally believe that the only role in that list that really demands respect is the one of 'Youth Worker'
Working with young people is hard. I used to be a young person. I was a hard young person to work with. I was a difficult student at school. I went on to be an argumentative University student and then a troublesome seminary student. I've left behind me a whole string of academic institutions that have been somewhat glad to see the back of me.
Now I've been working with hard and difficult young people in Dulwich Hill for the last twelve years (which may be God's way of paying me back). Some of the young people I've worked with have really got their lives together and gone on to bigger and better things. Quite a number of them have died - mainly from overdoses but also from car accidents (often in stolen cars) and from suicide. Others I'm still working with. They're just not quite as young as they used to be.
People ask me all the time 'Dave, what do you think is the biggest problem facing young people today'. Most people think I am going to answer 'drugs'.
I do not consider drugs to be the biggest problem young people are facing today. That's not because I don't think drugs are a big problem. I've worked with a lot of drug-addicted young people over the years. I have been robbed and manipulated by them, and I have watched many of them. Even so, I do not consider drugs to be the biggest problem plaguing our young people.
Some people think 'violence' is the biggest problem facing young people, and I am conscious of the fact that for young guys (in particular) problems of violence can still be a major issue. Violence is not nearly so big a problem in my area as it was five years ago, but we still managed to finish up one of our most recent blue-light discos with an all-in brawl in the streets. Problems of violence are alive and well in Dulwich Hill. Even so, I do not consider violence to the biggest problem facing young people.
Some people think in terms of lack of employment opportunities as the major issue. Others would speak in terms of family breakdown or problems of prejudice - all real issues. Personally though, I believe that the biggest problem facing our young people today is something a little less tangible. Personally I think the biggest problem I see with our young people is that most of them don't feel themselves to be a part of anything that is bigger than themselves.
Most young people I meet have tragically small horizons, very little ambition, and hence live in very tiny worlds. When I ask teenagers about what they would really like to do with their lives if they could do anything at all, most others speak in terms of getting something, whether that something be a horse or a car or a girl or just 'a lot of money'.
No one I speak to says 'If I could do anything I wanted I'd find a cure for cancer' or 'I'd negotiate a peace deal in the Middle East'. And this reflects, I believe, the fact that most young people I know have very narrow horizons. Indeed, most young persons I know seem to live in worlds that are not much bigger than themselves.
Go back a couple of generations and most European Australians were ready to lay down their lives for King and country. You wouldn't find many young people today willing to sacrifice themselves for Queen and country. You won't find many young people who have any real sense of loyalty to the Queen or to the country. Indeed, if you ask most young people what it means to be Australian, you won't generally get a reply that contains any ideals.
There are positives as well as negatives in this equation of course. Strong patriotism often goes hand in hand with strong prejudice against people of other nationalities. And our Australian cynicism towards our governing bodies at least means that we're not easily fooled by political propaganda. Even so, the downside of our 'loss of national identity' means that we've been thrust back upon ourselves and upon our peers to find some sense of personal identity.
Now if you're following me here at all you may well be thinking 'Yeah, Dave thinks that because he's working with a group of no good loser drug addicts. Hell, I don't know what happened to him since he left Fort Street, but that guy has been on a one-way downwardly mobile trip. Over here we've really got it all together.' Yeah? I don't know.
One of the most depressing groups of young people I've encountered in the past few years has been at my oldest daughter's school. She attends a different government run selective high school. I won't say which one. NOT THIS ONE! When she fist started school there they asked her whole class 'what did they want to be when they finished school?', and almost every other person there, apart from her, said 'a lawyer'.
Now people, maybe I've been prejudiced over the years by the enormous amount of time I've spent in juvenile courts and in the prison system, but it seems to me that if we're really on about building a better Australia, the last thing we need is more lawyers!
Now I know I shouldn't be black and white about this, but my daughter went around and asked her peers 'why do you want to be a lawyer?' Some of them answered 'because my dad is a lawyer' or something like that, but MOST of them said that it was because being a lawyer was a 'good job', by which they mean what ….? A job that can help a lot of people? NO! When people say a 'good job' they mean a job that makes a lot of money.
There was a time when we used to speak of the 'idealism of youth'. What's happened to that? When did youthful idealism get replaced by this 'I want to make a lot of money' mentality? Why do people who should know better want to make a 'lot of money'? Is it because you think you need a lot of money in order to survive? You don't! Is it because you think 'if I have a lot of money I will be really important and people will look up to me?' GET A LIFE!
Friends, I do not think that there is any greater tragedy in this community than a highly trained intelligent young person who has all the gifts and abilities necessary to really make a difference in this society, but who has no idea where to direct those gifts and abilities. It's like having a powerful loaded weapon and not caring where it's aiming when it goes off.
This is the tragedy: that most of our young people, I fear, drug-addicted and not drug-addicted, well educated as well as less well educated, winners as well as losers, live a life wherein 'my life is basically about me'. That's a tragedy.
One of my good friends is a guy called Mordechai Vanunu, who is still in prison in Israel for telling the world about all the nuclear bombs that his country has stockpiled. Morde has been in prison there now for 17 years. The worst thing about his prison term though was that he spent the first 11 and a half years in solitary confinement, which is one of the most torturous forms of human punishment - living in a world inhabited by one!
I see a similar tragedy taking place in the lives of so many of our young people who really have no hopes, dreams or ambitions in this life that go beyond themselves. What a small life to live! It's like trying to beautify the wallpaper in your own solitary cell!
It's this loss of idealism that I see as the greatest scourge afflicting our young people today, and my response to this situation is to teach these young people to fight, which might not seem like the most obvious solution to the dilemma to everybody.
The relevance of fighting to an individual's value system might not be immediately obvious to everyone, but I do seriously believe that pugilism and idealism are intricately linked. The bottom line is that I know that it all works.
I know that I've had an almost 100% success rate when it comes to taking in guys who have serious drug problems or violence problems, that by the time I get them to the side of the ring for a serious fight, they are no longer having problems with drugs or violence or any of those things, but have actually developed a real sense of who they are and what they are on about.
I know it works. I'm not sure I fully understand why it works, but I would note that if you go back to Plato's Republic, to the wisdom of the Ancient Greeks, you'll find that Socrates assigned a very high place to the value of 'themos', which we translate as 'aggression' or 'fighting spirit'.
According to Socrates, no individual and no society is complete without properly developed 'themos'. Individuals and societies need to know how to fight if they are going to know real harmony and real justice.
The other authority I would appeal to today is Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain:
" The consciousness of belonging, vitally, to something beyond individuality … greatens the heart to the limit of the soul's ideal, and builds out the supreme of character."
Chamberlain writes this out of his experience in the American Civil War - one of the most terrible wars in history.
Chamberlain was, ironically, a contemporary and a colleague of William Tecumseh Sherman who coined the phrase 'war is hell' and I don't think Chamberlain would have necessarily disagreed with Sherman. But Chamberlain also found that, for all its horror, war had one very positive side effect - it gave people a sense of belonging to something that was greater than themselves and so it could bring out the best in people.
Of course Chamberlain isn't the only person whose seen this. My old dears at the church used to say it all the time. "What these young people need is a good war" they used to say. Now they weren't stupid, and they knew as well as anyone else that the last thing we really need is a 'good war', but their point was that they felt young people needed some experience like they'd had in their youth, where they were forced to work together with a broad range of people across the community and to make sacrifices together as they committed themselves to a cause which was something far bigger than any of them as individuals.
Fighting has worked for me (and it's less costly all round than starting a war). Maybe it will work for you too. Find out! Come down and touch gloves with me. Do a few rounds. See how the experience affects you. (just don't all come at once)
Perhaps fighting is not your thing. That's OK. Find another way to get in touch with your ideals and values. Spend more time in church. Head up on a mountain by yourself for a couple of months and just think and pray about it. That works for some people. Just don't be content with a life that has no greater horizon than your own wealth and self-importance.
We live in an extraordinary society in an extraordinary period in human history. Think about it. At how many other points in history, and in how many other places in the world, have any group of people ever had the degree of choice about the future that we have today.
Think about it. The rest of your life lies before you and you can really choose to do with it just about anything you want to! Your options are really only limited by your imagination and your genetic potential. At how many times and places in human history has that been true?
If you were born a few generations back in a village you wouldn't have had these sorts of choices. Your dad was the village Smithy, so that's what you were going to be. If you were born on a farm you were probably going to stay on that farm until you died. If you were a teenage girl you probably already had a couple of kids by now and your path was fully set.
We're at the opposite end of the spectrum now. If you decide to spend the rest of your life entirely devoted to playing your guitar you can do it. You may become a great rock star, but even if you don't you won't starve. The government safety net will still support you in the end so that you can keep doing nothing but guitar playing if that's what you really want.
If you decide to devote the rest of your life to scientific research you can do that. If that's your vision and you're determined, nobody is going to stop you from giving your life to that.
If you want to devote your life to feeding the hungry and healing the sick you can do that, or if you just want to sit around on your bum all day too, you can do that too! The choice is yours.
But this is our dilemma. Never before in human history have we had such a wonderful variety of choices before us, and never before, I fear, have we had so little idea of what we should choose.
One final illustration from a Peace March: I trust that plenty of you guys made it to the recent Peace March, and good on you. Let me mention to you one placard that I heard about at a march. I didn't see it but was told about it. It said "nothing is worth dying for". I thought that this was very clever at first, but then it occurred to me if nothing is worth dying for, is anything worth living for?
Friends, I believe that there are things worth living and dying for. Find out what they are and live them! Live your life to the full. Fight the good fight. Keep the faith. And the blessing of God Almighty - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - be amongst you and remain with you always. Amen!
Rev. David B. Smith (The 'Fighting Father')
Parish priest, community worker,
Martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three
Rev. David B. Smith
(The 'Fighting Father')
Parish priest, community worker
Martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three
www.fatherdave.org
Get a free preview copy of Dave's book ,
Sex, the Ring & the Eucharist when you sign up for his free newsletter at
www.fatherdave.org
