A special series of commentaries bringing you
perspectives of young people
Tuesday, 26th December 2006
Boxing Day

Dear friends,

I'm not sure how we're going to go with the planned series of perspectives from young people this week only because of the holidays. I have two of the perspectives in but I'm not sure how firm the commitments are from the other writers. Hopefully though the commentary today written by my son Ben Coyne will provoke considerable interest not only from our regular readers but in stimulating more young people to write. If our effort this week is less than fully successful on account of the holiday mood I feel very confident that we will have set the stage for an extension of this series early in the New Year.

Hopefully what you are going to find here are very honest, warts-and-all, perspectives that will be both beneficial to those of us who are parents and also might be of benefit to our spiritual pastors if they can be bothered having a look. Ben is pretty flat out working at the moment saving up for the commencement of his studies this coming year — he's picking sandalwood seeds on contract (ten hour days, excellent pay and conditions, about ten km's north of New Norcia in WA but literally grovelling around in leaf litter in the plantations to collect the seeds) — but I will try to get him to look in on the forum next weekend if anyone would like to direct questions or responses that he might answer.

In the meantime I do hope you enjoy his contribution, as unnerving it might be to our beliefs and hopes, and have a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life, and in our world.

Perspectives on Spirituality and Religion written by young people We begin today a special series on the perspectives of young people on religion and spirituality. Today we bring you the introduction to the series and the first perspective written by Ben Coyne, the 28 year old, eldest son of the Editor. The Editor's introduction includes a copy of the briefing note that was sent to the young people. Ben is an arts graduate from Murdoch University, has this year successfully completed a post-graduate course in counselling in Perth, and has been accepted to study law at Southern Cross University in NSW. He has been a leader in many activist endeavours in the realm of human rights, social justice, sustainability and ecology in all the States of Australia. He has also travelled extensively overseas and all his travels and studies have largely been self-financed through part-time work and by himself living in a very sustainable and economical way that gives very practical voice to his beliefs. His extensive commentary gives an excellent overview of his spiritual outlook and his attitudes towards institutionalised religion and religiosity. [Editor's introduction][Ben's perspective]

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher
Catholica Australia