Welcome to the website.

This is Don Bartlett and I am a man of many parts; most of them held together by scar tissue.

'Beres' is a nickname given to me by early friends.

I was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1951, and raised in a Christian home. A dysfunctional family and a troubled childhood saw me arrested and convicted twice of burglary by age 16.

During the time most others fondly recall as the 'best years of their lives', I’d be run over by a car, knocked over by a tram, deliberated over by a judge, passed over by girls, laughed over by classmates, fondled over by a church elder (and an Uncle as well), scoffed over by teachers, despaired over by parents and prayed over by my grandmother.

And that was just 1967. Oh yes! those were the days!

Most of my teachers despaired of me, while others found me to be an appropriate butt for their jokes.

But one stood out.

At age 10, my Grade 5 teacher convinced me there was still hope for the 'big people'. He would spend valuable time with me, helping me to believe in myself and my abilities. Thank you Blakey; I never forgot; so I wrote you this letter.

Later I lived in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney, before finally returning to Brisbane.

After an interesting sales career, in music and computers, I graduated from Christian Outreach Centre Ministry College in 1987 where I was influenced by Clark Taylor, and have since served as a musician, pastor and voluntary worker in various locations. 

40 years of consistent and comprehensive failure in anything to which I set myself, led to several years of clinical depression and alcoholism, as my marriage collapsed and most of my friends disappeared.

Only one thing seemed certain.

No amount of personal effort, religion, or positive thinking, came even close to being able to achieve anything other than disappointment for me.

I was encouraged by a psychologist friend, to explore a possible reason for my experiences and was subsequently diagnosed as having had lifelong ADhD (Attention Deficit Disorder).

From that time to the present, I came to some measure of an understanding of the enormous grace of God. I was drawn to and blessed by, an ex-alcoholic Roman Catholic Priest by the name of Brennan Manning, (Ragamuffin Gospel), the enigmatic Max Lucado (Next Door Savior), and a broken but Godly Pastor whose songs are sung in over a hundred languages, Geoff Bullock.

I met my beautiful bride, Lora in Australia in 2002. In 2004 I moved to Tennessee (a little bit like Hee Haw, but a state),where we  married at Neely's Bend Uniting Methodist Church, amongst Lora's long time spiritual family and avid supporters during her mission visit to Australia where we met.

I have two daughters, Christie, 20, and Joni, 18.

I currently serve at Nashville's inner city Woodcock Baptist Mission, and as coordinator for a city wide ministry to the homeless and marginalized in Nashville, Tennessee.

Through all these experiences I seemed possessed of a stubborn hope for and belief in a God who was good, and who esteemed me as somehow worth His attention.

I had for the most of my life believed in a God who didn't exist.

One who practiced a kind of cosmic dog training school, where if you did good you got good, and if you did bad you got beat,

and so like others around me, I learned to 'do do this' and 'don't do that'.

But the ancient Israelis had that much, and if that was all there was, then what was Calvary for?

What Calvary achieved, has been downgraded over 2000 years to the point where we can now give God an early mark and carry on with just the club secretary.

Churches have evolved to the point where a good Harvard Business School template can be used for all things spiritual. We just use 'spiritual words' for camouflage.

CEO's are 'Apostles'

Research & Development = Prophets.

Pastors = Middle Management.

Teachers = Training.

Evangelists = Sales Staff.

For God so loved the world that He didn't send a committee.

We've turned from being fishers of men to being carers of the aquarium.

The wheel is still turning but the hamster is dead.

For myself, the feeling of real freedom, of being loved with all my faults, and leaving the rescue and rebuilding of Donald Bartlett to One who has my highest good as His passion, and in Whom I have never found disappointment, is too addictive to let go. That's what prompted me to write this song.

Under the mercy,

db

2007