Jon

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Indian poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore, 1861–1941

Reverend Jon Owen is the Pastor and CEO of Wayside Chapel, a charity that’s been providing unconditional love, care and support to people experiencing homelessness and social isolation in and around the Kings Cross area of Sydney since 1964.

Jon is a migrant to Australia of Sri-Lankan/Indian heritage and grew up in Melbourne in the 1970s. After school, he enrolled in computer science and engineering at university, but towards the end of his degree he started to question what he really wanted out of life.

So he took a gap year, volunteering to help disadvantaged people in one of Melbourne’s poorest suburbs. This changed his path in life, and for the next two decades, Jon and his wife Lisa opened their own homes to people in need, first in Melbourne and then Sydney.

As CEO of Wayside Chapel, Jon writes a weekly message to his community, reflecting on some of the biggest topics in life — like love, meaning and forgiveness. I’m pleased to share some extracts from Jon’s wonderful writing as well as an inspiring interview he gave last year.

I also recently posted a short piece called A Cup of Kindness which captures just a little of my own feelings in response to these excerpts.

On the human potential for change

One of my first interactions [at Wayside Chapel] was with a young man sitting just outside the op-shop with his head locked in between his knees, whilst clinging desperately to a suitcase. He was new around here and I asked how he was. He wanted to be left alone and informed me as much, yet even while his world was falling apart he still ended his request with “please”.

I watched as he was shown love and compassion by everyone from Wayside. Over the space of a few weeks his frown faded and he rediscovered a smile that could light up any room. As I was leaving one evening I was concerned to see him once again hunched over. This time however, instead of clutching a suitcase he was holding some knitting. I asked what he was doing and he told me that he was learning to knit. He wanted to make blankets to send overseas to war zones where kids in refugee camps needed them. He was upset because he had just dropped a stitch. He showed his work to someone who quickly got him back on the right track.

There are times that transform the mundane into the majestic, when a man turns from clutching at life with his bare hands to using them to serve others. His transformation has come through love that has the power to move a man from death to life.

(Weekly Message, ‘Jumping In’, 4 July 2018)

On truly seeing others

Our usual mode of operation isn’t to see others as “they are”, rather we tend to see … others and the world as “we are”. Being lost in a culture of self-improvement, it is easy to assume that others would benefit from the accumulated wisdom of our discontented strivings for impossible goals and standards. Most of our modes of being in this world involve some kind of impulse to fix or control. There are other modes that are accessible but are far less popular despite being gentler and more effective.

To someone in a world full of pain and suffering we can offer the gift of tears. Tears can cleanse our eyes and provide a renewed clarity of vision to help us truly see the person before us and to see that we cannot fix anyone. This is a liberation as it leaves us finally free to feel, to weep, and to grieve, which releases a weight from our souls. We know that if the tears have done their work then a burden is released. We are free from hatred, guilt and the need to blame others and the world. We are free to love, walk and work with others to create a better future.

(Weekly Message, ‘The Gift of Tears’, 5 August 2021)

On finding one’s purpose in life

[The Holocaust survivor] Viktor Frankl reminds us that “we detect rather than invent our mission in life.” Yet time goes so fast that it seems almost impossible to distinguish one moment from another. So often the answer to the question “What did you do today?” is met with the fuzzy response, “It was busy, but I can’t remember.”

How on earth can we heed the invitations we are receiving to participate in life?

Building in practices to examine life for understanding are essential for those of us who wish to be attuned to those whispers. I would like to be the kind of person that is immediately awake to the minutiae of meaning contained within every moment, but, sadly fall short. We must find practices to aid this, otherwise we live lives of quiet desperation where we “have the experience but miss the meaning” as [the poet] T. S. Eliot observed. We are meaning-seeking beings and examining the bread crumbs that are left on life’s trail can guide us toward a life lived on purpose.

(Weekly Message, ‘Some Bread Crumbs’, 28 April 2022)

It’s only through getting in touch with my own sense of brokenness that I’ve been able to discover my gifts and strengths, and they’re not where I thought they lay.

You know, if we look at a tapestry from the front, it’s beautiful, but if we look at the back of it, it’s just a mess of kind of fabric everywhere, and when I look at my life all I see is the back, all I see is the broken bits, and I stand here this morning thinking, “everyone thinks I’m a fraud,” alright, that imposter syndrome.

And it was only when I was able to place that to one side that I was able to really say, “you’ve just got to get over yourself, Jon, and actually just front up and be who you are, and be who you are unapologetically.”

(Interview for the Redefining Leadership series, 5 February 2021)

On noticing the precious moments

The most precious moments are often the most fleeting.

Outside the chapel the other day an elderly father, now in the final months of his life, sat with his son. He was a kid of the Cross [Kings Cross, Sydney] and now his grown-up son is taking him around to the places of his childhood so that he can remember. He grabbed a guitar and he strummed a beautiful melody, then passed it to his dad, the years and the dementia melting away as he belted out a ripping blues tune. One of our beautiful regulars noticed this precious moment and it filled her heart with joy as she silently sang along.

Life is full of moments worth capturing, being awake to them is well worth it.

(Weekly Message, ‘Staying Awake’, 3 June 2021)

Most living is “thick”, where we stumble from place to place, meeting to meeting with the assurance that very little real “meeting” is going on. Time moves in a chronological order, in a methodical way, and sometimes the days end can’t come soon enough.

Celtic mystics spoke of alternative realities, they called them “thin places”. These are the spaces and times where the veil between our world and the eternal is particularly thin. Time slows down and all present find themselves sharing what can only be described as “sacred ground”, and bear witness to something almost “other-worldly” and magical. Most of us have only been lucky enough to have experienced this a few times in our life.

(Weekly Message, ‘Thin Places’, 18 November 2021)

On being with someone in their final moments

Nearly 20 years ago Lisa and I set out on our honeymoon and landed in the most unlikely of places to begin our lives together, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). Volunteering had always been important to us as we knew that doing great work comes at a great cost, and the gift of time makes a huge difference.

We signed up to volunteer at Mother Teresa’s Mission. “Love” was the theme, the guide, and the motto that infused their programs, “Anything done in love is worth its ‘weight in gold’” we were often reminded.

A cranky old nun berated me once when she heard me trying to learn some language,

“Your Bengali is terrible, that’s not what anyone wants to hear in their last moments on earth, for goodness sake, stop it, they are in enough pain already, just love them!”

Training for working in the orphanage and home for the dying took a little over an hour, as instructions on how to provide basic palliative care in a desperate situation or changing nappies for a child no bigger than a small soft toy didn’t take long. What we didn’t realise though, was that we were embarking on a lifelong journey in learning about how the power of love can break into even the most hopeless of situations.

(Weekly Message, ‘As If They Were Her Own’, 20 May 2021)

On the unity at the heart of all religions

I don’t care what tradition you’re from, at the centre of them all — and I’m not trying to be a big pluralist here — I’m just saying, it’s about love, how does love look like in the world in which you exist, and how do you have a practice that can connect you to gratitude, to your community, to your family, to who is around you, that is the most important thing. …

The next century is going to be more religious, so if we don’t have the dialogues between those religions, we’re in deep, deep trouble. And so how do we create more forums for listening and understanding, and how do we move from a tribal understanding to a cosmic understanding of what it means to exist in this universe, that is going to be the challenge for people like me and religious leaders.

(Interview for the Redefining Leadership series, 5 February 2021)

On the nature of love

Rather than a pursuit of a feeling, love is about devoting a life to courageous acts of service that usher more kindness into our world, especially in the darkest of circumstances.

(Weekly Message, ‘With Broken Hearts’, 10 February 2022)

Experience shows that whilst love is offered, it is better offered as a fragile gift rather than proclaimed as a song. As I spoke to welcome them [15 young people graduating from the Wingspan training and employment initiative] to Wayside, I saw their beautiful faces full of anticipation but also trepidation.

I was reminded of a young boy who once ran away from his house and hid in our backyard. After his mum raised the alarm and after a few frantic hours of searching, he was located weeping underneath our house. After being coaxed out with a chocolate bar he calmed down a little and then cried a little more. His life was a series of appointments and disappointments with his dad, who would breeze in and out of his life, making wild promises that he would [break] too easily, eventually breaking his little heart.

Is it any wonder that the promise of another chance holds little weight when spoken into some hearts? It is only a promise that shows up every day and refuses to quit that changes lives.

(Weekly Message, ‘Laughter and Wisdom’, 6 May 2021)

Love that comes with an orchestra playing sweetly in the background isn’t the only kind.

It would be false to state that love has nothing to do with feelings; that would be ridiculous, but I insist that love is not constituted by them. Feelings change constantly; some are helpful, many are uncomfortable; some bring ecstasy; and none constitute love. At most they provide a musical score; they add colour.

Love is something into which we step. It requires a movement of the feet. It is a place to stand and see another for who they are and not for the purpose they might serve.

I wish for you the kind of courage and strength to stand where you can see another. Where you can be fully you, by not being the centre of the universe but rather to discover that your centre is not within.

The joy of finding your centre between you and others – that’s how love works.

(Weekly Message, ‘With Broken Hearts’, 10 February 2022)