Category: Books

Journal of Contemporary Ministry (Christian Research Association) Issue No.8 2023

Book Reviews

Living for Shalom: The Story of Ross Langmead, Woods, Jeanette. Eugene, PR: Wipf & Stock, 2021, 283pages.

The city of Melbourne (Australia) is not generally known for its theologians. This biography of Australian missiologist, Rev. Dr Ross Langmead, goes some way to changing that. Living for Shalom is an insightful, well-resourced biography written by Langmead’s sister, Jeanette Woods, during her time in enforced COVID-19 lockdowns. The book, displaying appropriate pathos while being widely informative, includes contributions from many notable figures of Australian theological contexts, along with the rich array of community-based characters who were part of Langmead’s life. Woods narrates the text in third person, creating a sense of professional distance as she surveys her brother’s life with its struggles, victories and complexities. There is a delicate balance here that is managed consistently, whereby Woods has – from her privileged familial position – been able to make the most of sibling intimacy and resources, whilst avoiding the hagiological bias that at times is present when authors write about those they love. The interest of the reader is kept as an ever-present driver of the text.

Langmead’s life is sketched in its own narrative arc, beginning with his arrival into the world, born into a Salvation Army overseas-missionary family. The anecdotes of early life are conveyed with amusement, insight and conjecture as to their ensuing effects on Langmead’s development – a theme of Langmead’s own later reflection, as demonstrated in excerpts of his private journals and public materials. From the get-go, it is clear that Langmead’s intelligence, thirst for wisdom and grounded social ethic drove him in many concurrent directions, and that deciding in which directions to pour his limited time and energy was an ongoing wrestle. Music performance and outreach, practical research, skills teaching, community development, academic writing, theological lecturing, research supervision, church responsibilities and involvement in denominational (Baptist) and wider ecumenical contexts – not to mention overseas and cross-cultural work – Langmead was involved in so much.

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Our History | Flinders Christian Community College

My latest publication is the forty-year story of Flinders Christian Community College in Tyabb, Victoria. I was invited to co-author this volume with my long time friend and colleague, Valerie Mason; we both were heads of campus in the college and retired in 2008. It was a wonderful opportunity to research and collaborate to write the history of three campus over four decades.

The college was founded by people with a vision for Christian education for young people on the Mornington Peninsula, and has grown to be a vibrant educational community with nearly 2000 students, a large staff and modern buildings and facilities.

Val and me at the launch of the book.

We chose to represent the voices of students, staff and parents by canvassing memories and thoughts about the school. These form a large part of the text and bring immediacy and authenticity to the narrative. Building on the previous history of the college from 1983-1994, written by Mrs Avril Howard and titled Born to Bear Fruit, we first painted a word picture of the school as it is today. Our goal was to show that while the college looks very different now, it still encapsulates the founding values of Christian schooling.

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After the storm in the Yarra Valley

One of Ross Langmead’s songs is called The Pilgrim Song. It is a favourite for many because the lyrics reflect what all of us feel: life is not always easy. Ross was a man of faith and is remembered by his friends as cheerful and encouraging. Yet he had his struggles, as do we all while we are still on earth. He reminds us in this song that we sometimes are so bowed down by the rain that we miss the rainbow above. He drew on his faith and the strength of community to help him lift his eyes.

Listen to the song and if you would like to order a USB with Ross’s and Daddy’s Friends’ digitised music on it ($10), please use the contact form on this website.

It’s not easy to walk in the rain, and I walk with my eyes to the ground,

And I often ignore the rainbow above, and the coming of the sun.

V 3 There’ve been times of heavy weather when I’ve thought of giving up

And questioned whether anyone has made it through.

But i stake my life on what I know of Jesus and his love

And see the rainbow as my sign that it is true.

And see the power which comes from sharing all the power that we have

And the glimpse of peace and justice on the way

Is enough to make me lift my eyes and take another arm,

Strong enough for one more day.

Ross Langmead 1985 v3

You can purchase the book at https://wipfandstock.com/9781666715385/living-for-shalom/

We had two attempts to launch “Living for Shalom: the Story of Ross Langmead”: one by Zoom and one in-person event. Both were cancelled in these uncertain times, and the event probably won’t be recovered. Although book launches are a good way to sell books, the greater loss was the gathering of friends and family to celebrate the subject of the biography: my brother, Ross.

The book was to be launched by the Rev Dr Jason Goroncy, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology at Whitley College, University of Divinity. Jason was a colleague and friend of Ross, an author in his own right and a member of Westgate Baptist Community. His speech was not given, but he has shared it for us on his blog. You can read it here: https://jasongoroncy.com/2022/01/14/on-living-for-shalom-the-story-of-ross-langmead/

I had also drafted my speech before we cancelled, and have been asked to share it:

The author’s speech for the launch of “Living for Shalom”

We thought this day would not happen! (And it didn’t…) A book launch is rather like a christening, or dedication of a baby. This baby was born in September, 2021, but a launch is finally the day when we give thanks and celebrate together.

For a sister to embark on writing the story of her brother is always going to be a delicate exercise. I used to say, ‘Someone should write Ross’s story.’ It was my encouraging husband who said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ I listed all the reasons why I would not be the best person, starting with, ‘It needs to be someone who knew him better as an adult, as well as when he was a child,’ and finishing with, ‘It would need other people’s perspectives’.

The thought, however, rolled around in my mind and incubated. I had finished writing my first published book and with my newly honed research skills, wondered what to write next. I knew it would be a commitment, and that not many people are in a position to give several years to a project. Apart from our family origin, I also shared many aspects of life with Ross – my faith, being an educator and studying theology. On what would have been Ross’s seventieth birthday, I wrote to Ross’s wife, Alison, and made a tentative offer. And here we are! It was two years from that offer to publication, and the book took seven intensive months of writing.

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Since Living for Shalom was released, many have been reminded of the era of Daddy’s Friends. Some remember hearing the folk gospel group in the seventies, while others still have recordings. Living for Shalom: the Story of Ross Langmead, which has now been released, includes the history of this group.

An excerpt from Chapter 4:

. . . Daddy’s Friends took off and was in high demand in Christian as well as secular venues. They were promoted as “Victoria’s most sought after evangelical musical group—young Baptist university graduates who will thrill you for two hours and keep you singing for two weeks later”, stated a poster for a Sydney event. Designated “folk gospel”, they combined their vocal talent with three acoustic instruments and the piano, writing much of their own music. They believed that they needed to share as people on the stage, earn the right to be listened to, and not be regarded just as performers.

Each member of Daddy’s Friends was highly accomplished and educated. Jill was a music teacher with degrees in arts, education, and music, and played percussion, blues harp and piano as well as singing. Peter was an articled clerk with distinguished results in his law degree and played twelve-stringed guitar along with singing bass vocals. Alan was an accountancy student with his own business enterprises who worked part-time in schools for Scripture Union. He played the signature bass and piano as well as singing. Ross was completing his MEd while teaching maths; he played guitar and blues harp, and sang and composed. Quite a multi-talented line-up! Mark Garner joined them sometimes and performed skits, and Alan was the cartoon artist who could illustrate talks and jokes . . .

Did you ever hear Daddy’s Friends or do you still have records and cassettes made by the group? Perhaps you were on a Theo’s team with them?

People who work in the arts world need patience.

A visual artist can probably bring an idea to fruition more quickly than others: a painting or drawing may be completed in hours, but often it takes much longer. But then there is the puzzle of how to share the piece with others; unless they view or buy it, the appreciation is fleeting and perhaps never to be repeated. It may end up being relegated to the back of a studio.

Performance arts involve long periods of planning and rehearsal, then culminate in one or several performances. Those who watch and enjoy have to carry the memory and images of these occasions and the feelings they evoke, but the actual events may never be repeated. Months of work is over in a few hours.

A writer faces a long period of gestation. Longer than a pregnancy, probably. Anything from months to years, with no guarantees that anyone will ever see this embryonic manuscript. It may take some time before the words even begin to appear on the screen. Some books involve massive research while others are inspired cameos written in notebooks, devices on the run or the back of a paper napkin.

My books spawn many sticky notes, shifted endlessly around on an empty wall. The chapters jostle for their order and some are deleted in rash moments, only to be dug out from computer trash and restored to dignity somewhere else in the evolving story. Ideas that seemed brilliant at the start are left sitting on the languishing list of thoughts, some never make it to the written word.

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The childhood shows the man,

As morning shows the day.

John Milton, Paradise Regained

As a writer of biography, I have had to consider the effects of a person’s upbringing on the direction of their life. It is the traditional way to begin a life story: birth and ancestry, childhood years, parents and siblings, childhood homes, education and locations. Milton expresses poetically what we all know – that adults are not formed in a void and the imprint of their early days often becomes clear as they mature.

The Jesuits have famously expressed it this way in their maxim: “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” Anyone who has watched the film series “Seven Up” would surely agree that there seems to be truth in that observation.

As a teacher for many years, I would say that children often show their personality, character and gifts when quite young. I am constantly delighted to hear news of ex-students who have progressed to all sorts of achievements as adults, most of which do not surprise me.

If this were universally true, however, we would have to subscribe to a fatalistic view of learning and development, and as a teacher, I am equally amazed at the transformation over the years of students who did not show ability or perseverance at school. Maturity, the input of friends and mentors and just serendipitous circumstances can all play a part in surprising trajectories; thank goodness for that! Children can also rise up out of challenging homes and situations to beat the odds and throw off their childhood influences. Equally, we all know of wonderful families with children who have not thrived despite having many positive and protective factors in their lives.

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I knew very little about Veronica Knight when I began to write her story. In her three years as our informal foster daughter, we just enjoyed life and she quickly became part of our family. Although she was sixteen and almost an adult, she was childlike in other ways. We sensed that her so-called intellectual handicap, as it was called in the seventies, was at least partly the result of being confined to care homes and lack of regular education and encouragement. In other ways, she was insightful and smart. More recently I have had contact with one of her teachers, who described her as his ‘brightest student’.

Veronica’s last letter

Why my husband and I did not ask her more about her background, I am not sure. Perhaps it felt insensitive to interrogate a teenager about the years she never mentioned. Veronica was a ‘now’ girl: “What will we do now?” she would ask several times a day. We knew that she had spent several years in Minda Home, and that in Adelaide, to mention Minda was a pejorative in any context. She never mentioned any family members and I did not probe.

Sadly, Veronica became famous in a tragic way when her body was discovered in the Truro bush on Anzac Day in April 1978. It would emerge that she was the first victim of two serial murderers who received a great deal of publicity as their evil deeds were exposed (one had died in a car crash before the eventual arrest of the other one, who was charged and convicted). Veronica’s name was in the media and her movements on that last fatal night were detailed for all to read. She had been shopping in the city, was separated from her friend and accepted the offer of a ride home while she was waiting for the bus. Her last decision was a poor one. I knew that what was not in the newspaper reports was that she wanted to buy clothes and gifts for her imminent trip to visit our family in Melbourne where we were then located. Despite the information on her train ticket and our details in her belongings, the police never contacted us.

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Read no history, nothing but biography, for that is life without theory. Benjamin Disraeli.

Where to start with the story of a life? This is the challenge for any biographer, especially when the subject is no longer with us and has finished living his whole life.

On what would have been Ross Langmead’s seventieth birthday in August 2019, I made an offer to his wife, Alison, to try writing his life story. The prospect was daunting and being Ross’s sister did not necessarily give me an advantage. I left home when he was eighteen and we spent little time close to one another after that, both literally and figuratively. Is it better to know someone intimately, or to write from a measured distance that might encourage objectivity? Although I genuinely believed there were better people for the project, there was only one way to find out.

Ross’s diaries, journals, music and memorabilia

Primary documents are the foundation of true story writing; Ross left a treasure chest. He wrote journals and kept diaries from his teenage years until his death at sixty-three. An awesome collection of reflections, thoughts and questions from a mind that never stopped working!

First, we had to find them. Alison hunted down box after box of diaries, journals and notebooks. Digital journals and travel diaries were added, and the ordering began. The first hand-written journal is from Ross’s rite-of-passage and epic trip as a seventeen-year-old to outback Queensland in a vintage car with his cousins, of whom only one was old enough to drive. His daily entries about their adventures in 1967 make amusing reading, with their larrikan episodes interspersed with Bible studies and prayer gathered around a picnic table.

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It was as near to “hearing a voice” as I can remember. I had finished writing my own lengthy story and was struck by the fact that Veronica had only needed two paragraphs to document her part in my life. Veronica Knight, as dear as a daughter, had been like a member of our family for about three years in the 1970s. We were newly married and living in Adelaide; Peter worked as a residential care worker with troubled young men and I was teaching at a Lutheran secondary college.

We met Veronica when her hostel contacted us and said she was looking for a church or youth group. That was the beginning, and before long, she had become part of our family through informal foster care and an enthusiastic participant in the life of our church. In 1974, Veronica was nearly sixteen. She had no family and was mildly intellectually disabled. Lovable and cheeky, she lived life with gusto that belied her abandonment as a child and consequent status as a ward of the state.

Soon after she turned eighteen, she disappeared forever. As the tragic events of the Truro serial, tandem murders of 1976-7 emerged in Adelaide some years later, we had to absorb the shocking fact that she had been the first victim.

Forty years later, a lifetime had passed and our own children had grown up and given us many grandchildren. Veronica was a memory tucked into her special corner of my heart. Until I wrote about her and was shocked by how little I knew. Soon after, I was in hospital, recuperating from a knee operation. I began chatting to one of the nurses who then showed me a book she had written about losing her mum to cancer (tinyurl.com/np69s). She was touched that I downloaded it and read it in one night, but it set me thinking.

What had I experienced in my life that was deeply human and might resonate with others, as had nurse Leigh’s simple story? That was when I heard a voice, at least in my head, that said, “Write about Veronica”.

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