Agony's Lodestone

Life is full of OMG moments. Working for God is fraught with secular and religious challenges that prompt the call. Here, life behind the scenes of a teacher in a religious environment is presented in a tapestry of anecdotes and memories. These pages celebrate a life lived in and beyond the classrooms of the tropical north. They paint pictures of teaching under pressure, and the highs and lows of relationships within Christian school communities. Teachers of today may recognize the angst and relate to the celebrations and sufferings as they too reach out for a helping hand and cry OMG. Christianity and cultural confusions raise perplexing questions about the teacher's role and emerge here in a kaleidoscope of personal experiences - the holy and the unholy. Laura Keating is haunted by the spectre of Injustice and delighted by the successes of her friends and proteges. They lurk side by side within the covers of this book. Spanning 46 years working in schools in Papua New Guinea and Australia, Laura Keating has witnessed the ebb and flow of time-honoured classroom practices. She has swung uneasily on the pendulum of education policies. She has been energised by the thousands of students whose paths she has touched and the countless colleagues who have buoyed her up in troubled waters. There are wounds and there is whimsy. Her God is everywhere and nowhere.