The God of Dishes

I have moved!

2011-10-25T21:09:00.005+11:00

Some people are REALLY hard to love!

2011-10-14T10:16:00.003+11:00

This morning I was precariously close to slapping a person with a disability.

I took a job in disability support because I wanted to work within the community, alongside some of our more marginalised citizens, walking the journey and offering respect and dignity where there is often abuse.

But this morning, I felt abusive. I thought mean thoughts and had a great desire to pull her hair as I pushed her cardigan over her head. I whipped the sling straps from under her legs and was brisk and careless as I pulled her folds of skin back to dry.

It is really easy to be abusive.

Patricia makes me so mad sometimes - the kind of mad that makes your blood boil. I've seen other staff members go off the wall at her: she has a habit of telling you exactly how you should be conducting your work:
"Now mop the floor!"
"You can't have a break now!"
"Put on the gumboots when you're giving me a shower!"
They don't sound like big things, but she hits up against this raw nerve, which sits at the tip of our pride. Personal care workers feel this especially: we don't have a lot of power in our jobs, but was sure as hell would like to decide whether or not to wear a pair of gumboots. I'm surprised at how mad I can get around Patricia. Working with her feels like being a servant, with her string of commands that she ends with "please", which somehow has the effect of making her sound more demanding.

Sometimes I watch my emotional-maturity-meter plummet to near zero around Patricia, and I struggle to find creative ways to respond. There is always a temptation to take advantage of her lower level of intelligence, for example:
"Would you like to go down a bit on the bed so I can dry your skin?"
"You forgot to say the magic word, Adriana." (she hasn't quite mastered my name, but neither have most of my colleagues, so that's ok)
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't say 'please'. You should be more polite when you speak to me."
Now it would be really tempting to say something smart ass like, "Generally in the English language we only use the word 'please' when we are making a request of someone; in this particular case I am asking for your preference. But since you so insist, please would you like to go down a bit on the bed so I can dry your skin please Patricia?"
Such a response would be personally satisfying, but would also be a really unloving use of the intelligence and education I have been given through sheer good fortune. So I bit my tongue, and explained that I was giving her an option, rather than asking her to do something. I didn't say please, though. I still have my pride!

What I am struggling to find is a balance of patience, gentleness and assertiveness around Patricia. She can be REALLY hard to love, at times. At other times, I see her light - like the other night, when I bumped into her in the city. I called out to her; she jumped (she was using the ATM); then smiled and laughed and we had a nice chat. A surprise encounter that made me remember that I still liked Patricia. I introduced Patricia to David, and was really pleased that they could each meet the person I spoke so much about.

But this morning she refused to lift the doona from over her head, finally peering through a crack to tell me how angry and upset she was with me, for scaring her in the city. She had a point - she was using the ATM at the time, and taking money from an ATM at night, in a wheelchair, must leave one feeling quite vulnerable. But I was sad and a bit upset myself, that our lovely impromptu encounter had ended in anger and resentment. I give a lot of grace in that relationship, and sometimes wish I got some back.

Patricia is demanding and prickly for a reason. She hasn't had the happiest of lives...how do you go on after being abandoned by your parents for being a 'cripple'? Shunting someone from foster family to foster family doesn't generally produce a whole, well-balanced person, who feels they can trust the world and its inhabitants.

I was hoping that I could offer a little love to Patricia, in her world that is so marred by burnt bridges and broken relationships. But loving Patricia is really hard work, and I'm not sure whether I'm in this for the long haul.

St Paul, porneia and the bonds of fidelity

2011-08-26T00:22:00.001+10:00

I wrote an essay a few months ago about my good friend St Paul and his attitude to premarital sex.

This is an issue that has concerned me for some time, not least because of my own experiences of being at once a Christian, a sexual being, and not married. Now that I am married, surprise surprise, I find that I am far less troubled by the issue. Nonetheless, the subject called ‘Practices and Theologies of Love’ offered an opportunity too good to pass up, so I committed myself to writing the essay and figuring out once and for all what Paul had to say about sex before marriage.

As I flipped through commentaries and lined up my notes into paragraphs, I saw that actually, Paul didn’t have a whole lot to say about premarital sex. The reason, in a nutshell, is that the ‘dating scene’, in which we enter into extended ‘relationships’ with others as a precursor or an alternative to marriage, did not exist in Paul’s day. So to suggest that Paul had something to say about this issue is to imbue his words with a context very different from his own.

What Paul did mention a fair bit, however, was this concept of porneia. Older English versions of the Bible translate this to ‘fornication’, which in English means ‘premarital sex’. Hence the confusion. Nobody knows exactly what Paul meant when he used the word porneia, but here are some likely possibilities:
• sex with a prostitute;
• unlawful sexual conduct described in Leviticus 18, including incest, sex with a menstruating woman, men having sex with men and bestiality;
• the sexual idolatry that permeated the Greco-Roman world, which involved abuse, promiscuity and exploitation.

What I found out was that Paul was less concerned about the impact of porneia on individual morality, than its affect on the wider group. Take the example of the man (part of the church in Corinth) who has sex with his father’s wife, in 1 Corinthians 5. This is termed porneia. Paul’s concern is not for the man, or for the woman or the father for that matter. He demands that the church “hand this man over to Satan”. Paul is worried about the effect it will have on the Christian body: “Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?”

Paul talks a lot about ‘the body’, which is a metaphor for the group as a whole. The concept comes from a long rhetorical tradition, in which the Greco-Roman polis or city-state was often portrayed as a body. Strife, discord and civil disobedience were seen as diseases in need of eradication. It is this communal ‘body’ that is important to Paul. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” asks Paul (6.19). What doesn’t come across in the English translation is that ‘your’ is plural and ‘body’ is singular – in other words, the Holy Spirit dwells in the communal body. Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul blurs the categories of the individual and communal body. It is as if they are one and the same thing. Community members have their own bodies, but are simultaneously part of the ‘body of Christ’.

It is this communal body that porneia so threatens. “Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?” asks Paul in 1 Cor 15b. The answer, of course, is ‘no’. Not only does this compromise the individual, but also the integrity of the group. Porneia stalks on the edges of the group, ready to infiltrate and compromise the integrity of the whole.

I think that porneia is still a threat. I find it helpful to think beyond just individual sexual morality, and the impact that sexual abuse and exploitation – a clear form of porneia – have on the wider community. I was thinking about contemporary issues such as ‘sexting’ and young ADFA cadets filming each other having sex, and the utter devastation this kind of behaviour has on people and relationships. I think this is porneia.

We are a society that believes in consequence-free sex; in sex that is first and foremost fun; sex that is removed from communities and severed from reproduction and children. At the centre of sex lies not the family or even the couple but the individual, and what is paramount is that the sexual needs of the individual are fulfilled. Sex is a pleasure-inducing product, transacted in an economy where the happiness and wellbeing of the individual is the primary currency. If the individual can experience passionate, gasping, orgasmic sex, then this person has achieved a significant degree of success. This is how we define good sex.

This is our modern sexual ethic – and, like any other application of rampant individualism, finds its ultimate destination in abuse and exploitation. Porneia, if you will. The modern sexual ethic, concerned mainly for the pleasure of the individual, does not care much about the other or the others involves. It is ultimately selfish.

And this is the point where I get to marriage. You may find the institution of marriage problematic – not least because it excludes a very important segment of our population (people in same-sex relationships). Marriage, however, has something very good going for it: it has the effect of giving sex a place that is wider and deeper than the individual. Rather than sex itself and the pleasure it affords holding the ultimate value, it the marriage itself that is valued. Sex is simply a part of the marriage. This leaves us outwardly focused: looking face-to-face with our spouse, rather than down at our own genitals.

If ‘marriage’ doesn’t work for you, then let’s think about fidelity. Fidelity is the commitment to lasting connections, as opposed to the pursuit of fleeting individual pleasure. Fidelity goes beyond the couple, extending into ever expanding networks of friendships, families and communities. Self-centred sex destroys bonds, but sex that is built on fidelity strengthens them. In my books, fidelity is the opposite of porneia.

“But since there is so much porneia,” says Paul, “each man should have his own woman, and each woman her own man” (1 Cor 1.2). Paul, in essence, is advocating fidelity. I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing.

Women in church leadership: A reply

2011-08-11T19:57:00.006+10:00

My friend Tom asked an important question about the role of women in church leadership, here. He says that he's heard a lot of arguments against female 'eldership' in the church, and wants to hear some arguments for. This is my response.

Tom - thanks for your willingness to grapple with this issue with such authenticity and openness. Given I am exploring a path of church ministry and leadership, I think I owe it to myself and my questioner to respond.

The key offending passage is this: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” (1 Timothy 2.11-15).

I can see, Tom, why you might find it difficult to biblically justify women in church leadership and, it would seem from the text, in teaching positions (where they teach men). There is nothing ambiguous about 1 Timothy 2.11-15. It’s not my favourite text, or the most quoted text within the modern church, but it is part of our sacred canon, and so must be contended with.

Part of grappling with biblical texts involves putting them alongside other passages. For a fuller picture of the role of women in the early church, we should look to the book of Acts and to the greetings in a number of Paul’s letters, which describe and list a number of women. Not least of these is Priscilla who, along with her husband Aquila, runs a home church. The very early church was based in people’s homes, which, being the locale of family, was the domain of women. The early churches were fairly egalitarian in structure – modeling themselves on a flat-structured family, as opposed to the vertical-structured and male-dominated temple or synagogue. The inclusive and egalitarian nature of the church is expressed nicely in Galations 3.28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

But then, we hit 1 Timothy, which is very clear about the place of women. I actually think that what we have here is two different strands of thought. Galatians is from the more egalitarian early church. 1 Timothy, though attributed to Paul, is probably from the early second century. The language used is quite different, and indicates a later period. It was apparently quite common for followers of important people in the ancient world to write new texts and attribute them to their hero, which appears to be the case for 1 Timothy. Hence it was included in the canon, because Pauline origin was one basis of canonic inclusion. But that is not to dismiss 1 Timothy – though it may not be Paul’s, it was still canonized, and as Christians we are therefore obliged to read it and take it seriously.

Unfortunately, the natural progression of things tends to be away from egalitarian origins, towards concentration of power amongst the powerful. What we see, between the time of Galatians and the time of 1 Timothy, is a movement towards patriarchy.

As such, I cannot read 1 Timothy 2.11-15 as divine revelation. Rather, I read it as divine WARNING – of what happens to radical equality in the midst of power and male dominance.

I have picked. I have chosen. I have decided which tradition I prefer. I do this on the basis of my life experience: of the women leaders who I have seen enrich the church (and what a waste had they been silent!), of the amazing nun who teaches my Gospel of John class (which has men in it), and my church history lecturer who also happens to be the first ordained woman in the Baptist church in Australia (go Marita!).

But I think that is what we are all forced to do. Others privilege 1 Timothy, and they do so on the basis of their life experience, also. For some, silencing women is more appealing than radical equality.

I actually think that it’s amazing that we have hints of a tradition that values female equality in the church within our canon. After all it was the church – the church controlled mainly by men – who chose which texts should become scripture and which should not. But all we have is hints, while the texts that purport to silence women are enshrined loud and clear.

So that’s my two cents, or maybe a dollar. It’s time for dinner, as my fingers are tired from typing this thing twice (the whole thing got deleted before when I tried to squeeze it into Tom's reply box)! Thanks for the question Tom, and may God be with you as you grapple with it further.

When community breaks through

2011-08-09T23:04:00.002+10:00

Yesterday I spent the day hanging out with Malcolm*. Actually it’s part of my job: I am now a fully-fledged disability support worker. Malcolm is a sweet-talking, cheeky-grinned 54-year-old who spends most of his time in an electric wheelchair. He has a mouth like a trooper when he’s pissed off, and likes to race his wheelchair in fifth gear along the open road.

It was my job to accompany him around his community for the day. I was struck by the way Malcolm impacted the people in his local community. Everywhere we went, tired, busy, overworked workers stopped everything as soon as Malcolm walked through the door.

The entire teenaged workforce at McDonalds came out to greet Malcolm, standing around chatting and joking while he lodged a complaint (with a glint in his eye) about some poor kid handling the deep fryer. A girl with bleached blond hair and a ring in her bottom lip shoved a yellow and red striped straw into the plastic lid on his coffee cup. I held his coffee while he sucked deeply on the straw, using my other hand to sip the tea he had bought me. Afterwards a man held the door open for Malcolm as he wheeled out, leaving a string of goodbyes and profanities in his wake.

At the bank, Malcolm shouted to the tellers to bring him Amy, his favourite one. She came around to stand by his chair, while he asked questions that she had already answered numerous times before. She didn’t seem to mind – in fact she seemed to rather enjoy it. Her middle-aged manager grumbled a little but I could tell she was hiding a smile. She jostled back and forth with Malcolm as he made unreasonable demands, while customers looked on smiling.

Then we went to the TAC to place some bets: first on some horses, then on some dogs. Malcolm talked with the man behind the counter in some male dialect that I had never heard before, and he swore when he lost his $15 bet. The man behind the counter told Malcolm he was a “real gentleman”, but he was smiling the whole time. I could tell that he really liked Malcolm.

The only place where people didn’t know Malcolm’s name and where nobody talked to anybody was at the local gaming joint, where I assisted Malcolm to feed $50 notes into one of those money-sucking slots. I was just as mesmerized as anyone else by the flashing lights, electronic jingles and clatter of gold coins. People only looked at their screens, or their pots of money, or their frothy cups of complimentary coffee. Nobody looked at anybody else. When I talked to a person, it was more like talking to a machine.

I was thinking that even though Malcolm has a ‘disability’, he also has an incredible ‘ability’. He has a capacity to reach in and bring to the surface that which is so very human in all of us. For many of us, community interactions are little more than faceless transactions. But when Malcolm is around, the bankers, TAC employees and shiny-skinned Maccas workers suddenly become people, who smile, joke, grumble and ultimately care. The great surprise is that it is obnoxious, wheelchair-bound Malcolm who causes the breakthrough of authentic community. Maybe the presence of a ‘disability’ makes us all realise we need each other?

At the gaming venue, Malcolm was blank-faced, somewhere else. Everybody seemed stuck in their own sad world of boredom and addiction. I don’t think it is possible for anything like community to break through in a pokies joint.

* not real name

The needy friend

2011-07-12T18:10:00.004+10:00

I had this thought about friendship: that genuine friendships involve a need on both sides. I had thought in the past that a friendship based on need was disingenuous, or even selfish. I had this idea that friendship had to be altruistic, and to be friends with somebody because you needed them was, in effect, to use them.

But when I think about the different relationships in my life, I notice that the deepest ones involve or have involved need. It is a need for companionship or connection, generally. It is the satisfaction of a mutual need that enables deep friendships to grow. This is why many of my lasting friendships were formed in places of uncertainty, loneliness and fear, and why it is difficult to form deep friendships when one is comfortable, content and already befriended.

This, I realise now, is a beautiful thing, because it means that the best, most fruitful connections - the ones that enrich our lives and make them worth living - come out of our hungry, vulnerable, infant-like selves. We are never complete, but for the relationships that hold us, and (conversely) it is this incompleteness, this empty space inside, that enables friendships to form. And not coincidentally, it is also this empty space that causes us to seek out and connect with God.

Isn't it lovely that friendship only exists because of loneliness? Isn't that the most hopeful thing?

Food, sex and hedonism

2011-06-12T22:40:00.002+10:00

I was thinking today, while Masterchef was playing in the restaurant Dave and I were eating at, that we’ve all become a bit hedonistic of late. It’s all pleasure for pleasure’s sake. We collect culinary experiences like we collect passport stamps, or music for our ipods, or furniture, or clothes, or sexual experiences for that matter. We pile these things up like Lego pieces and put them in the shape of a person, and they become us. We become mirrors for the things we project onto ourselves, and we hope that people like us for it. In other words, we become what we consume. We value things for the pleasure they can afford us, and then once we consume them we think we’re valuable.

I’ve also been thinking about sex lately, due to an essay I’m writing. In the last 60 years or so, ‘sex’ as a dominant discourse has drifted from the moorings of family and procreation, to a personal pleasure that is transacted between two free individuals. Sex has entered the market place alongside food, cars, music and real estate. New ideas about sex have reduced its value to its fun-factor, or, less crudely, it’s ability to give us deep and fulfilling pleasure. Without sex, we are told, we are not reaching our potential as human beings. Commodified sex always existed in the form of prostitution, but now it seems to be the basis of relationships.

Sex can be pleasurable, as can be food and all the other things we like to consume. But to reduce these things to consumable pleasures is surely to drain them of all the really good stuff they embody. Surely, when it comes down to it, food and sex are about life.

In a literal sense food gives us the nutrients to live, but is also what we share with our friends and family in order to laugh, commune and deepen relationships. In focusing exclusively on the optimum taste and texture of a black forest cake is to forget that the cake is ultimately for celebration with people we love.

And sex is also about life, in more than just a literal sense. Sex can bring people closer, deeper and more awake to each other. If sex is just for pleasure, then as one author put it, it is no more than simultaneous masturbation, offering no more than personal gratification, and making us more disconnected than ever.

This whole focus on pleasure is ultimately a massive set of blinkers, distracting us from things in the world that are outside of our bodies. The exploited animals and farmers that produced our exquisite food don’t matter, and neither do the wars we are involved in or the lonely man down the street who is eating by himself.

Surely if we deeply experience food and sex, for more than the pleasure that can be derived, they would bring us closer to the people and the world around us. Experiencing the world purely for the pleasure it offers just sends us further inside our own bodies, leaving us deaf, blind and senseless to the real world beyond ourselves.

The job of a Christian

2011-04-25T13:35:00.003+10:00

Right now I'm feeling sick at a comment from the head of the Australian Christian Lobby, that Australian servicemen and women didn't fight for gay marriage and Islam. I feel sick because this is a Christian leader who is using a sacred Australian day - when we should be remembering the horror of war and the people who lives were lost or changed forever because of it - to peddle his own political agenda of hate and exclusion. Is that was Christianity is about?

I'm also feeling sick from a conversation I had over lunch yesterday - Easter Sunday - with a group of mainly Christians. Someone told of how students from the student village in Maribyrnong - next door to the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre - placed Easter eggs on the outside of the fence line, so that the people locked inside could not reach them. The students were taunting the imprisoned asylum seekers. People sniggered over their Easter barbecue lunch.

I'm disturbed mainly because these are Christians saying and doing these things. If our churches don't teach a message that makes us repulsed at such statements and such behaviour, then our churches are lost. There is no point to them. If they are preaching a message of personal salvation that is divorced from salvation for our community, our society and our world, then this is rubbish salvation. It's salvation that is egotistical and self-centred, and no good for anybody.

What kind of salvation was preached in our churches this Easter?

As the events leading to the state murder of Jesus picked up their pace, Jesus told a story about who will enter the empire of God. All the nations would be gathered before Jesus who, in that scenario, was King. Some people would be invited in: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

These people asked the King when they had ever seen him in need. And he answered, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

It wasn't long before Jesus was executed. We remember his death and resurrection at Easter time.

We, as a nation, will be judged by the way we treat those on our edges. Asylum seekers, strangers seeking a new home, people with disabilities, people who are imprisoned or homeless, our first people, people who are gay, foreign or just plain different - these are our edge dwellers. Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

It's the people on the edge who will judge us, because they are the people who can tell us whether we are a loving, justice-seeking nation. This is the prophetic voice, the voice from the wilderness, the voice that lets us know who we're fooling when we congratulate each other for our prosperous, peaceful, egalitarian society.

It's easy to be blind. But the job of Christians is to see the people, to hear their prophetic voice, and to do something.

Religion in schools

2011-04-10T10:37:00.002+10:00

The controversial issue of religious education in schools has again reared its less-than-pretty head, like a pimple that could either burst or go underground again for an indefinite period of time (as a mild acne sufferer, I know how these things work).

Apparently the Education Department forces primary schools to have religious education whether they like it or not, and the only provider to conduct such education is explicitly and motivationally Christian. As such, 96 percent of religious education in schools is taught by Christians.

It's not meant to be biased, but of course it is. It's taught by church goers who are passionate about their faith, and passionate about sharing it with the up-and-coming generations. They're going to want to talk about the joy they find in their own faith.

I'll be blunt: I think that it is absurd in this day and age, in this multi-cultural, multi-religious society, in this diverse and complex world of many diverse and complex religions, that the religious education taught in schools is almost entirely Christian.

The Christian story and faith is an important one, and children need to know about it because it undergirds much of the culture and customs in this Anglo-Saxon dominated society. From a personal perspective it is also a worldview that I am passionate about, and believe that it has the potential to seriously enrich and change people's lives.

But it's not the only religion! Religious education is important because whether we like it or not - whether we are religious or not - religion is one of the things that makes the world go round. It shapes events, it determines the way people interact, it determines the way people don't interact. To be schooled only in the Christian religion is to miss a crucial lens for viewing our society and the world. It is to miss out on the opportunity to understand where other people are coming from. And it is to miss out on the chance to be seriously enriched and changed by these different ways of doing, being and believing.

I think it would be amazing if the funding allocated to religious education in schools was used to promote understanding between different religious groups. There is an experimental program called 'Building Bridges' that aims to facilitate discussions between high school students of different faith backgrounds. I think that's a brilliant idea, and the kind of thing that true 'religious education' should be aiming towards.

This conversation is also somewhat personal for me, as I have been thinking about chaplaincy as something to do in the future. I believe that there is an important role for people of faith in secular institutions - to provide support in a holistic way. But I'm uncomfortable that again it's mainly Christians that get the funding to do this stuff.

Wandering the wilderness

2011-04-09T23:10:00.003+10:00

In the period of Lent, we read the story of Jesus in the wilderness, wandering for forty days and forty nights, by which time he is understandably 'hungry' and is tempted by Satan.

It's good for us to have 'wilderness' times in our lives - periods of wandering and waiting with no path to anywhere. I'm having a wilderness time at the moment. I am waiting for my path to appear. It hasn't been long but I'm already hungry. Hungry for a sense of purpose and direction; hungry for the feeling of importance or the elation of significance. I am ripe for the tempting.

And the temptations come in fairly innocuous forms: an ad for a job that seems 'ideal' but not for right now, for example. Things that, as Caroline preached a few Sundays ago, are not bad in and of themselves, but could be 'temptations' merely because they stop you doing what you are meant to be doing.

Which for me, is wandering in the wilderness a bit longer. Waiting for the right path to appear, and having faith that it will.

A nonviolent God? The scriptures transformed

2011-03-15T21:31:00.005+11:00

The other night, while my friend and I wound around the roads of the Eastern suburbs talking life and faith, she asked whether I believed all war was wrong.

I said I generally believed in a nonviolent God.

She asked me how that was possible, given all the war and bloodshed in the Old Testament.

"I guess I can't believe in a God that would order genocide," was my reply.

These are tough questions, for Christians who take the Bible seriously but want to worship a God of love and peace, not death and violence. The Bible, in fact, does report that God ordered genocide, commanding the Israelites to kill seemingly everyone in their path when they set up shop in the land of Canaan.

It's easy to pretend that these things aren't in the Bible. But they are.

Still, I believe in a nonviolent God. Why? Because I believe in the God introduced to me by Jesus, who taught us how to love our enemies, break the cycle of retaliation by turning the other cheek, and put down our swords to seek healing instead.

The fact is that I read the Bible not by taking every word literally and applying it to my life (there would be a lot of stoning of non-virgins if we were all to do that), but by reading it through the lens of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was a Jew, and so the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) serves as a backdrop to all he did and said. Jesus, the radical Rabbi, lived in the tradition. And yet he transformed it into something new - something that would better serve God and humanity.

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind'; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’" said Jesus in Matthew, before adding, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

And so while the law says, "Do not murder", we should go further and reconcile with our brother or sister so it never gets to that point. And while we have heard it said, "Do not commit adultery", we are commanded not even to look at a woman (or a man?) with the desire to possess her (or him). And while the law says, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", Jesus tells us not to retaliate, but to turn the other cheek instead. Break the cycle of violence.

Jesus treats the law as something dynamic, something capable of transformation, something more than a stale scroll used to keep others in their place. But to do this he needs to read beyond the letter of the law and live the spirit of the law, which is ultimately about people and their God.

In some ways, Jesus was doing nothing new - even within the Bible we see new traditions building on old traditions and changing or transforming them. For example different strands that appear in the Torah are in fact in conversation with each other, with varying standpoints on a number of issues. Chronicles 1 and 2 retell and amend stories from earlier on in the Bible. And Job challenges the dominant religious idea, found throughout the Hebrew Bible, that suffering is the result of punishment from God for some sin you have committed.

And so, the tradition of Jesus is the one in which I choose to stand. That is not to dismiss the stories of war and bloodshed in the Hebrew Bible - they are there for a reason though their purpose may have served the earlier Israelite community better than they serve us today. I stand in a tradition transformed by the love of Jesus Christ, which continues to be reshaped and re-imagined by the followers of Christ. Jesus took the law beyond its dead letter, and we must continue to do the same, discerning how it might be applied in our own context.

First and foremost, we must love God, and love our neighbour as ourself. The rest of it hangs on that.

Unintended consequences

2011-03-08T13:53:00.002+11:00

All Luther and his Protestant followers meant to do was make it clear that faith no longer had to be mediated through a church hierarchy - that all that was required for your eventual heavenly ascent was a personal relationship with God, direct from created to creator, no priests needed, thanks.

Faith, then, only required you, your Bible, and your God. It was, in other words, a private affair, a path of personal salvation, that need not concern anyone else. The proper repository of spirituality was inside the individual, not to be exposed to others, except perhaps in a civilised manner in church on a Sunday.

Incidentally, this marked the start of individualism in the Western world, because suddenly the basic unit of value was not the family, the church or the village - it was YOU, who God related directly with, and YOU needed only to be concerned about YOU.

It also marked the end of the public life of religion, which we saw most poignantly in the separation of church and state.

Some time after that, we lost God. And then someone found her again, huddled under a pew in a cold church. Half of the YOUs were running around outside, making lots of money, ripping other people off; the other half of the YOUs were sitting sternly in the church, after having spent the week making lots of money and ripping other people off.

I think that God really wants the whole world to dwell in, rather than being stuck under a hard wooden pew or stuffed into a confessional booth.

The Bible and me

2011-02-24T21:52:00.003+11:00

I've been grappling with the Bible of late, and wondering about its relevance to me, and perhaps more importantly, us. My struggle is this: I want to engage with it critically, but as a Christian I feel it is crucial to be open to its transformative power. I want to use my brain and ask the questions, but I am also aware of the importance of approaching the text - and the thousands of years of tradition that surround it - with respect and humility. That is the tension in which I live.

This is kind of 'where I'm at' - at the moment - with respect to how I view the Bible:

(1) The Bible is not a book. It is an anthology, or a library - a collection of works that draw in many traditions, and many voices, that span many, many years.

(2) As such, we cannot expect the Bible to have a consistent voice. The Bible contains ideas that are in tension as well as ideas and statements that are in conflict. That's ok - after all, the Bible never purported to be consistent.

(3) God's breath can be found throughout the pages of the Bible, as it hovered in the pens of its many writers and editors, and as it dwelled within the communities that nurtured the ideas and stories that finally made their way into the Bible. We need to be continually on the lookout for God's spirit in these sacred texts.

(4) As a Christian, my 'theological centre' is in the Gospels of Jesus Christ. The Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, forms a backdrop that brings meaning and clarity to Christ's teachings and story, while the rest of the New Testament provides wisdom for groups of Christians, perhaps some cautionary tales, as well as some ways to come to grips with what Christ means for us.

(5) Reading the Bible and applying it to our lives requires discernment, careful study and a good dose of love.

Is that all terribly controversial? I always feel like the controversial one.

Can I call this work?

2011-01-08T15:41:00.002+11:00

I moved in with Dave about a month ago. This new domestic situation – I have spent the last seven years living platonically in share houses – has caused me to confront again the issue of work.

I’ll be frank. Compared to many of my friends, and possibly the majority of the world’s population, I live a pretty cruisy existence. When others complain about being run ragged working late at the office or getting up five times throughout the night to tend to a screaming child, I can sympathise, but not really relate.

My week is set out thus. I am engaged in paid employment three days a week, as a researcher at a most esteemed academic institution. I could work more if I wanted, but I don’t, because I would rather spend my time doing other things. I volunteer at Credo one day a week, where I chop veggies in the morning and run a creative writing group in the afternoon. This leaves one weekday left, which I call my ‘free’ day, and utilize it for my own creative pursuits, whether it be writing or researching (I’m currently working on a book), or, as has been the case more recently, attend wedding dress fittings and look at flower posies on the internet.

And then I have a weekend – because everybody needs a rest, don’t they?

The fact that I’m not chained to a desk five days a week or doing something similarly painful with my time is a common source of guilt for me. I can’t remember which philosopher said, “I think, therefore I am”, but I think a more true motto for our society would be, “I do, therefore I am”. Hence we all ask the question, “What do you do?” at awkward social events, because its answer is defining.

But here’s the catch – the ‘do’ bit is only really defining when it has some kind of economic value.

Which gets me thinking – have you ever found it extra awkward asking a woman that question? Not when she’s in a business suit and heels, because then it’s obvious that she spends her days in some kind of paid employment – but when she’s the wife of someone and is wearing something different or has some kind of demeanor that makes you think that she might be a homemaker?

The awkwardness, for me, arises if and when she chooses an answer involving the word ‘just’ – as in, “I just look after the kids”. You have a choice, then, of either being a bit sad about her choice of the word ‘just’ and move on her ask her about her kids, or tell her, righteously, “There is no just when it comes to looking after kids!”

The fact is that I’m a bit awkward about unpaid employment. And I’ll take a stab and suggest that other people might be a bit awkward as well.

It’s ok to be studying, because it’s the lead up to paid work, and it’s ok to be retired because it means you’ve spent a fair chunk of your life doing paid work – but unpaid work on its own is embarrassing and awkward probably because society doesn’t value it very much.

So, I feel guilty about my two days of unpaid work. The volunteer work isn’t so bad – I suppose because I feel like it has an economic value. I see it as a donation. My ‘free’ day, on the other hand, doesn’t really have an economic value, it’s mainly for me and my creative headspace, working towards a nebulous goal that I feel is nonetheless important.

Things have changed upon my recent co-habitation. There is now a question hovering in the background that we only occasionally ask outright: What are we both contributing to this partnership? David works full time in a paid job and so his question is easy to answer. My non-paid work requires more effort to rationalize.

We decided that as a couple we were happy to give a certain amount of time to the community, which my volunteer day feeds into. My ‘free’ day, however, raises the question of ‘What is work’? Is writing and thinking and researching ‘work’, when I don’t get paid for it, or payment might not amount to much and could be a long way away and – to make matters worse – I enjoy it? What about spending time with my sister and her baby – this is very important but is it work? Hanging out with my bridesmaid to make sure she’s down with the flowers and hairstyles? Baking biscuits for the new neighbours that moved in? Tending to my vegetable garden that doesn’t produce many vegetables but does produce lots of interactions with other community members? Are these things work? Sometimes I feel like I work really hard doing some of these things, but I struggle to call them work, and then I feel guilty for investing so much in them, when I could be using that time to earn money.

And then I have this feeling that I should do extra housework to make up for it, which is also awkward and embarrassing because it seems really backward and sexist, and David is a Sensitive New Age Guy.

But many of these activities that I love are what forms the social glue in our society, so they are immensely important. Apart from being unpaid they are also so…well, female! ...which is also why they are undervalued. And this forms the basis of another source of my guilt, because staying home a day a week partly to do traditionally female activities, while my husband-to-be brings home the bacon (or tofu), is SO not the go-getter feminist I was brought up to be.

Oh, if only I was a man, and then I could do as much housework and baking for the neighbours as I wanted and it would be cool!

Lessons from Sydney

2011-01-02T20:52:00.002+11:00

I’m currently on a week’s holiday in Sydney, and so far I have learnt two lessons.

The first is this: People don’t need all the details. I must credit this lesson to David, who has pointed out on numerous occasions that I often tell people way too much. I don’t mean necessarily sordid details about what I did last night (although I’m occasionally guilty of that crime too), but rather more mundane example like, “I’m going to be 15 minutes late.” You see, people don’t need to know that, “the traffic is terrible,” or “my sister took forever to get ready,” or “I couldn’t find a fresh pair of undies”. Generally, they don’t really give a damn – the point is that you’re going to be late.

So, the other day I went up to the motel reception and said, in simple elegance, “Can I please have a bowl, a spoon and a little bit of milk?” The man in the paint-speckled trousers, who had come down from a ladder to serve me (I add this detail to indicate that this was by no means the finest of establishments) replied, in equally simple elegance, “No worries love. I’ll bring it right round.” I didn’t mention anything of my special muesli mix that I lugged all the way up from Melbourne, or even the fact that I required it to keep my digestive tract chugging along nicely (“Don’t you find that travelling has a rather binding effect on your system?” I might have added). But I said exactly none of these things, and the man behind the counter obviously didn’t give a damn because he knocked on my motel room door a few moments later with a bowl, a spoon and a small pitcher of milk. No questions asked; I had learnt my first lesson.

I decided to test out my newly found insight a second time at yet another delightful northern Sydney suburban place of lodging. This time I took it to a whole new level: I called room service. Now let me impress on the reader that this is not an activity of which I am accustomed: every fibre of my being tells me that there is something very wrong with sitting up in bed dialling numbers and expecting things to be brought to you that you yourself cannot be bothered to get up and fetch yourself. But, the brown vinyl motel room folder told me otherwise, so I resolved to try it out.

I politely requested a bowl, a spoon and a small pitcher of milk, with not even a mention of my digestive system. The restaurant had closed, I knew in advance, and this institution only generally provided room service when the restaurant was open, but I figured that if I sounded satisfactorily self-assured, they would make an exception – and anyway milk on demand is surely within the usual offerings of any decent suburban motel.

I was wrong. The woman at the end of the line informed me (as I already knew) that the restaurant had closed, and there was simply no way they could produce my requested items. As first I felt deflated, because my new technique was clearly not fool-proof. Then I found myself feeling a bit shitty – surely a request as humble as my own was within the breadth of an institution set up solely to cater for the needs of travellers?? I mean, it wasn’t as though I had just asked for a banana split with extra caramel sauce, thanks very much. What kind of motel was this, that couldn’t even give me some milk and some wholly common eating utensils?

I trudged to the local service station – which by the way was a good kilometre away – in a bit of a huff. As the sun beat down and the cars and trucks of the Pacific Highway hurdled by, I did have a chance to reflect. This brings me to the second lesson learnt on this trip: If you want somebody to do something for you that they don’t have to do, you have to be extra nice.

If you are thinking that I should have learnt this lesson a good while ago, you are probably right. The tendency to be a little demanding and obnoxious is unfortunately one of the weaker points of my character (note to David). In my defence, however, in the modern, highly bureaucratic society of our own, it takes a particularly high level of perception to realise that though something may seem to fall within the responsibilities of one’s job, it may in fact not. They may do that thing for you, but if they do, it will be a favour.

It was true. The restaurant had closed for the morning. I may think that motels should provide milk on request but what I was asking, in fact, was that the managers of this Golden Chain motel would do a little bit extra for me. What I should have done, then, was start by acknowledging that the restaurant was closed, and request that they do me a big favour by producing my desired items. I probably didn’t need to tell them anything about the health-benefits of my particular mix of muesli. But what I should have realised is that people don’t like it when you demand – or even request – that they do something they don’t have to do. On the other hand, if you make people feel like they are doing something nice for you – which they are – my theory is that they are more likely to want to do it.

By way of another example (if this point isn’t obvious to you already): I have an expectation, which I think is fairly reasonable, that I will get paid by the certain university that I work for. In addition, I have an expectation that I will be paid on time – and that I won’t be left begging off parents and scabbing drinks off friends when they miss my pay for three fortnights in a row.
No reasonable person would disagree with this assumption. On the other hand, the lovely and ever-helpful people at HR cannot be expected to chase down the hours that they did not receive from the person whose job it was to pass them on, but has now disappeared into another dimension and does not respond either to phone calls or desperate emails. There is no point leaving angry voice messages and sending sarcastic emails to the people at HR, though you are entitled to feel angry. From their perspective, they would be doing me a big favour by chasing up my hours – not merely doing their job. Thus, I need to treat them as though they are helping me out, and make them feel like they want to prioritise me over and above others in their busy schedule on account of my sweet disposition and pitiful situation. I must shower them with thanks and gratitude in anticipation for their life-saving service of which they have no obligation whatsoever to fulfil, but they will do only because they are a nice girl/guy.

But just don’t give them any unnecessarily details, because the probably won’t give a damn.

The empty spot inside

2010-11-28T18:08:00.002+11:00

I read a book that talked about loneliness - it said that we weren't meant to be alone, that love and community are at the centre of what it is to be human, that God created Eve because without her Adam wasn't complete.

I struggle to be alone. I get lost in silence of an empty house, I don't know where to put my hands, where to sit, what to eat. A free day, spread out like a canvas with no plans and no one but myself to fill it with, can fill me with anxiety. I feel that I should at least be productive - improve my mind with a book, get some exercise, vacuum the carpets.

What am I so scared of?

I've been sick these last days. Not lying in bed in a feverish stupor kind of sick; just a low-level flu that prevents me from going to work but opens my days to different possibilities. Some of these days I have spent at my own house, away from David, where it is empty and quiet. I have watched BBC history documentaries on You Tube. I have improved my mind with books. I have gone round the corner to buy vegetables from that flirtatious old Italian man. And then I have stopped. The sound of an excited BBC presenter no longer blearing from my computer. The trams whirring by in the distance. The light growing dim in a cold room, wind swishing the trees outside.

And I've felt alone. Lonely, even. And I've sat, and thought, until even my thoughts get too noisy. I've felt that empty spot inside, as empty as my silent empty house. I light a candle - it just feels like the right thing to do. And I sit and wait.

Was that what I was scared of?

For how long can I sit here, and what will happen if I do?

When I marry, will my empty spot inside go away? Will Adam ever fill it? I'm not sure if I want him to. I feel like God flickers in that spot.

I wrote a list of all the boys I'd ever kissed, ever rolled around in bed with. It was a long list. Mainly, I realised, in most of those boys and men, I was escaping loneliness. Escaping the sensation of emptiness, which begs to be sated like hunger. I wondered whether I had been damaged by this trail of sexual experiences, whether my purity was tainted and my soul scarred the way that the Christian writers who write about chastity tell me it will be. I don't really know - we are all damaged, but it's hard to know what from. But one thing I did realise was that by kissing boys, I lost an opportunity. I sense there is a great wealth inside our internal empty spots - and I think we all have one. I didn't want to come near that wealth. It was easier to kiss boys, which were like fairy floss to a growling stomach. What might have emerged from my empty spot inside?

These days, I hear the rumble of loneliness less. My love and companionship with David is like wholesome bread. But the spot is still there, and though it's the very arms of God that stretch out from our friends, family and lovers, God still flickers in that very inner place that no friend, no lover, no brother, will ever reach.

There will always be a part of us that is alone. I will try to thank God for that.

Fortresses vs relationships

2010-11-10T22:04:00.003+11:00

Within my circles, we have a unique way of viewing 'security'. I belong to a community of Christians who believe in social justice and the power of sharing food, art and sport with those in our midst - rich, poor and marginalised alike. Security, then, is less about building fortresses and more about building relationships. The idea is that when we know the people around us, we have less reason to be scared, and they have less inclination to hurt us. You're less likely to rob your friend than the neighbour you have never met.

But then, of course, people we love DO hurt us, and we hurt people we love. This is especially true when one is desperate. You can rob your best friend of when you're chasing for drugs, for example.

And so we walk and oscillate along a fine line, between keeping the door open and keeping the door locked. When I was a young, single, female resident living on Level 8 of inner-city Collins St Baptist Church, I did value the lock on the door, and the buzzer system where we could screen who came upstairs. I learnt that you can love everyone, but you can't trust everyone. We often opened the door, but we also utilised our system of gates, locks and surveillance.

I've been thinking lately about international security. I believe strongly in the power of building relationships at an international level, as well as an individual level. I think we would be safer as a country if we invested more (disinterested) aid in Afghanistan, for example, rather than supporting a war that's getting a lot of people extremely angry. I think that diplomacy, student exchange programme, effective aid, trade and more are all great ways to increase the security of our nation, as our government well knows.

However, I also know that sometimes things don't go as planned - sometimes somebody you once thought was a friend turns around and stabs you in the back. I am pragmatic and I think nations, as well as individuals, need to be prepared for that possibility. We need our nation-versions of gates, locks and surveillance.

We have these things in the forms of international intelligence, our defence force, border patrols, airport security etc. I think this is good. The question, for me, is striking the right balance: there is a point where your gates, locks and surveillance actually make you less safe. On an individual level, it makes it hard to make new friends: your house becomes a fortress of alarms and cameras and a target for thieves and neighbours that call the police when your dog is barking rather than popping by themselves. People don't trust you because you don't trust them. The same occurs at an international level. The trust is breached. You're more likely to face a sanction or a pointed missile than a stern diplomatic word when your country does something that encroaches on the power of another.

What definitely topples the balance, and what Australia is guilty of, is when our defence mechanisms become offence mechanisms. It's one things to defend your country against physical attack; it's another ball game altogether when you're waging war somewhere else. (Of course, we use the language of defence to justify this: we're "fighting terrorism" etc.)

So where does the balance lie, between building relationships and building fortresses? Is it necessary to have a defence force? What about our extensive surveillance systems, for example, the base at Pine Gap? Are we overreaching on the 'fortress' side or is this what a nation-state needs to do to stay safe?

"Why is the church so silent on current wars?"

2010-11-08T22:12:00.003+11:00

The other day Simon asked the question, via Twitter, "Why is the church so silent on current wars?" David, who keeps an internet connection in his back pocket, got the message via his iphone, and since we were in a cafe drinking various hot substances, we got to talking about it.

I came to the conclusion that the church isn't terribly loud about anything, really. The times have changed since the days when journalists would sit on the top balcony overlooking the sanctuary of Collins St Baptist Church, furiously taking notes on the sermon so it could be reported in Monday's paper. In those days, the church really did have a voice, and people actually cared about what was said on a Sunday morning.

These days, nobody cares what is preached from the pulpit - beyond the congregation (if you're lucky). Nor does the media care to consult the church as to what it thinks on certain issues. The most we get, in terms of a public voice from the church, is the voice of particular charismatic leaders from within the church, who are animated and know how to play the media game. Ones that come to mind are Father Bob and Danny Nahlia (controversial pastor from Catch the Fire Ministries) - and, when he was serving in the church, Tim Costello.

Things might be different in Sydney, where you have the likes of George Pell and Peter Jensen who, David tells me, are weighty political players. I don't think we have an equivalent in Melbourne.

What we do have down here, however, are active Christian groups that try to influence public policy. Some are NGO and welfare-type groups, like Urban Seed, Sacred Heart Mission and TEAR Australia, and these groups often have a public voice. The other type is the Christian political pressure groups, like Salt Shakers and Australian Christian Lobby. The former generally speaks for the left; the latter almost always speaks for the right.

The churches themselves don't provide the public voice, but it's these extra-church groups, usually made up of church members, that do the talking, or else, like I said before, the charismatic church leaders that are few and far between.

David says that the churches don't have time to be a public voice, and I tend to agree. They are spending all their time trying to figure out how they can be relevant to our society, how to get people through the doors and how to look after people (or cynical version: stay attractive) so that people stick around.

Talking about the war is the last thing on their list of priorities.

So who's going to talk about the war? Salt Shakers certainly won't, nor will Danny Nahlia (they're concerned about more pressing issues like stopping gay people from getting married). The archbishops of Sydney are way conservative and probably support the war, so they won't do it. Father Bob might, and possibly already has. Tim Costello has joined a Christian NGO and won't because World Vision doesn't want to piss off too many people. In fact the majority of Christian NGOs and welfare groups are in the same boat - they don't want to lose key supporters especially when their mandate isn't protesting against war but conducting international development or serving hot meals to homeless people. When they speak publicly or lobby, they tend to speak within the area in which they work.

Which leaves, you guessed it, just you and me (and maybe Father Bob). But in another sense, we are the church, so perhaps the church isn't so silent after all?

Is violence the only response we can think of?

2010-11-03T10:54:00.005+11:00

I was on the train the other day just minding my own business reading a book, when I looked up to see a man mouthing off to another man and his children. The man with children - a red-faced Aussie guy - was getting really angry. I recognised the man who was mouthing off - I'd seen him round before, and knew that he had a mental disability.

The situation ended in violence, with the red-faced Aussie guy following the other man down the carriage, forcefully grabbing him from behind and trying to push him off the the train. The man with the disability managed to escape into the next carriage, after which time a lot of people in the carriage applauded the the other man for his heroic behaviour.

I was quite disturbed: could this man not think of any other means of solving the problem without resorting to violence? Of course he needed to protect his children from the foul and abusive words of the other man - but is wrestling a man with a mental disability and trying to push him off a train the best way?

I ended up asking the man if he knew that the other guy was mentally disabled, and suggested that his violent reaction was inappropriate. Another man opposite me yelled out, "Get of the train, ya stupid woman!"

The red-faced Aussie man said that he knew the man had a disability, but that the man had acted violently towards his children. I said, "Violence begets violence" and he answered, "That's right."

Anyway, I didn't relate that incident to draw attention to my own heroic behaviour, but just to point out that people don't seem to be aware that you can respond to violence without using violence yourself. There are many creative ways that you can deal with a situation so that it doesn't escalate - even if it's simply asking someone why they are acting in a certain way, rather than fighting back. Usually you can avoid a violent situation even before it begins.

But this man had probably not been exposed to such techniques: all he had seen modeled to him, most likely, is what he himself modeled to his children. Violent responses to violence are not only condoned but commended in our society, as we witnessed with the applause that this man received.

I've witnessed lots of other violent situations on trains and around public transport. This is the second I've witnessed involving a person with a disability - the other one was when a Yarra Trams officer came close to beating up a man with a clear mental illness who was acting provocatively. I've also seen burly Met officers crowd around and intimidate a man who then shot up and tried to get off the train, and before we knew it there was blood.

Why are are violent responses so revered in our society, and where are the alternatives?

Western scholars studying 'exotic' religions

2010-09-21T12:40:00.005+10:00

When I was at uni I studied an anthropology subject about religion. Anthropology is the study of people; traditionally people from societies other than our own (sociology tends to study our own society, although these days the boundaries are fairly blurred). I remember constantly being bothered by this niggling concern, that the Western scholars, and us as their students, were missing something important. We read exerts of ethnographies from all over the world, detailing accounts of witchcraft, ancestor worship, totemism and all other manner of religious beliefs and practices. Yet the assumption was always that the religious phenomena these 'exotic' people engaged with was not real; that is was some kind of device that the society used to explain something else, or perhaps a type of psychological manifestation.

It's not supposed to matter whether or not an anthropologist accepts the veracity of religious believes or magical practices. The idea is that you just observe what happens and think about the role that the beliefs or practices have in the society. The dancing ritual may or may not have any mysterious or spiritual quality that is beyond pure human experience, but it sure does bond people together and transfers some cultural values, for example.

But I think it does matter. I've been doing some more reading on this topic lately, and personally I think that one of the functions of religion is to help people connect with what I call the 'divine'. Other people might call it spirit, or God, or mana, or the goddess. If you start off on the assumption that people's concept of spiritually is not 'real' and that the divine does not exist - which seems to be the assumption by most of the scholars I've been reading, rather than a less decided agnosticism - then you're missing a big chunk of the function of many religions.

I come to this question from the perspective of my own Christian faith, of course, which takes the existence of the divine for granted. It would be hard to accept the divine as a given if you don't believe in it. And certainly many (most?) scholars have not and do not have this conception, largely because many scholars are from secularised Western backgrounds, belong to fairly secular institutions and have agnostic or atheist beliefs.

Which is why I always felt, in that undergrad subject, that our study of religion was fairly ethnocentric - that is, privileging our own ethnic perspective over others. I also felt it to be a bit patronising, as the class smirked at this 'irrational' beliefs of other cultures. Well maybe they understand something that we don't understand! I wonder if academia were dominated by highly religious people from non-Western cultures, would scholars come to different conclusions about the nature of religion?

'Original sin' cosmology makes you feel crap

2010-09-17T15:33:00.003+10:00

I've been reading up on religion and cosmology, for a paper I'm writing for work. A 'cosmology' is a theory or conception of the nature of the universe and our place in it. For example, the idea that God is male, or that God is a loving God, or that humans were put on earth to subdue it - these could all be part of people's cosmologies. (These examples come from a Christian worldview, which I'm most familiar with - although probably some are shared with other faiths too.)

Cosmologies really impact on the way that individuals act and the way that a society is organised. They affect the way we interact with nature. Obviously if you think that God wants us to subdue and exploit the earth you're going to be more likely to do that. Likewise, if most people in your society think God is a man then men are likely to be held as more 'God-like' and thus superior.

I was thinking about of theology 'original sin', which I grew up with. It's a distinctly Christian idea, and it doesn't come up in Jewish thought, having developed in the minds of the 'church fathers' in the second and third centuries. Anyway, the idea is that humans are born into sin - i.e. we are born evil. This happened because Eve took that bite of the apple (of course - it's the woman!), and plunged all generations to come into rebellion and darkness. It is only through the salvation offered by Christ that we can be seen as 'good' by God.

I have just realised that this idea, which I have taken for granted for most of my life, has impacted negatively on the way I see myself. I have not seen myself as inherently good and I have not felt that God sees me as good. I have defined myself as a sinner, because that's what the church has taught. The 'goodness' that was bought for my by Christ I have always envisioned as a kind of whitewash, covering what is essentially bad. My badness was so bad, in fact, that Jesus needed to be nailed to a cross to make up for it.

What a crappy, negative, debilitating cosmology. I'm angry that it's what I've believed for most of my life. Even whilst I've questioned the idea that the whole point of Christ's life was his death, I've still somehow believed that I'm essentially bad, or at least, there's nothing much good.

I'm banging the keys hard now. I think I'm mad. But I'm glad I'm now realising that I don't have to let this shitty theology to rule my life. I think it has something to do with the low self-esteem I have often suffered with. But I'm now beginning to nurture a vision of myself that is essentially good. Will probably take some time, though.

Can anyone else relate to this?

Setting up a library in the developing world

2010-08-03T14:56:00.000+10:00

I’m exhausted from lifting boxes of books and directing boys to lift even heavier boxes of books. I’m in the middle of converting a jumble of picture books with broken spines, faded junior fiction and geography books from the 1970s into some kind of workable library. An enthusiastic couple from Footscray has collected this array and shipped them to Solomon Islands Hope School c/o the Australian Federal Police – discards from primary school libraries in Melbourne as well as some lovely new titles straight from the publishers, which still squeak when you open the covers.

Does the book about Mexico, published in 1972, belong in the history section or the geography section?

Is the book entitled ‘Seasons’ – which really school be called ‘European Seasons’ – relevant for children living in the Solomon Islands?

Do we really need seven copies of the biography of Henry Parkes?

As temporary chief librarian, I have to make a few decisions. I decide to keep most things. Surely a book about Mexico from the 70s is better than no book about Mexico at all?

I decide fairly early on that my main task is not to set up the library, but to train a librarian, or a team of librarians. There’s no point having a library with no one to staff it, because it will quickly disintegrate without someone lovingly plastering wandering pages back in place, and entering new additions into the system.

Then I realise that my chosen future librarian has never used a computer before. I wait patiently while she tentatively presses the ‘on’ button; I take a deep breath as her eyes scan the keyboard, trembling fingers poised, looking for the ‘a’ key. You need to press ‘shift’ for capitals – try holding it down before you hit the letter. No before. Before. So much knowledge that I just take for granted now – until I have to transfer it to someone else. The difference between single clicking and double clicking is harder to explain. I kind of know by intuition now, like swallowing or speaking English. It’s so hard to explain what is second nature!

I don’t think my volunteers have even used a library before. They are trying to set up a library without knowing what one is. I told my future librarian to split the picture books from the novels; to write the picture book labels in red and the novels in black. I glanced back an hour later and saw that she had done them all in red. For me, the difference between a picture book and a novel is instinctive, and I assumed it was for her as well. I assumed wrong. She looked like she was about to cry as I helped her pull the novels from the big pile of labelled books.

I should have explained better. I should have taken them to the public library so they knew what they were working towards. I should have done a lot of things. I feel so inadequate for this task!

I now realise that my task is to train my librarians in library skills, computer skills, as well as general knowledge like the difference between history and geography. I also realise that my task is to make sure the bulk of these books get catalogued and entered into the computer – if they’re not done by the time I go, in five days time, at the rate the volunteers type, they might never get done.

As we work, as few of the little kids from the school come upstairs to the church mission house, which I’m living in and using as a workspace. They sit on the floor and read the books quietly into the afternoon. I think people here are starved of books. I left a novel lying around the other day, and it was devoured by Ruth’s daughter, and then Ruth’s cousin. This family is relatively well off, compared to other Solomon Islanders. But even for them, access to books is rare and cherished.

We’ve entered 700 titles into the system when we decide to unload the rest from the container. I stare despondently at the piles of dusty, dishevelled books that seem to keep on growing. My back aches from the hours of sitting on the rickety stool I found that belongs to the church’s drum kit, typing titles and publication dates into the computer database. The laptop we’re using has no battery so we have to find something else to do during blackouts.

Ruth and Hennesey are the couple who run the Hope School, which is for kids who live on the streets or who come from domestic violence situations. Ruth’s dream is to eventually make the library into one that the whole community can use. The children and young people walk up and down the road outside our house, continually into the night, because there’s not much else for them to do. Everybody has red-stained teeth, from the incessant betel-nut chewing. Traditionally, this mild narcotic was chewed only during feasting, for weddings and other special events. Now, people chew constantly, and betel-nut vendors line the sides of roads. Ruth hopes that a community library will give people something else to do.

But for now, until a new building can be erected, this will be a school library. Today Ruth directed some of the church boys to move bookshelves into a small area sectioned off inside the metal shed that’s the main school building.
“We’ll put some beanbags here and a small table there, for the little ones.”
I’m starting to imagine what the school library will look like.

I ask my volunteers to put the books in order, according to what we have written on their spines. My hope is that they will see the subject areas neatly groups together, and get a picture of what a library is supposed to achieve.

I’ve been working hard, but soon I need to let my baby go and let it run for itself. I hope I’ve set up something that will sustain, and will reap some rewards down the track.

Wealth without exploitation?

2010-07-26T08:43:00.000+10:00

A few Solomon Islanders I’ve met say that they want to live like Australians.

I am perhaps feeling a little romantic about the way of life I’m am witnessing in the village, and I tell them that taking up an Australian lifestyle could mean the destruction of community bonds and the environment. I tell them that in Australia, it’s relatively rare to know your neighbour. I have this hunch that it’s to do with how rich everyone is. Many of our river and forests have been poisoned and destroyed. In the village I saw people intimately connected with each other, with the land and with the food they are eating. Most Australians don’t have that.

And yet I would rather live in Australia, where I don’t have to lug water up to the house to flush the toilet, and where I can travel on the train to the city’s centre, and where I can easily satisfy my material needs and desires. Better still, I would rather live in middle class Australia where I can get my two degrees and my nice office job, where I don’t have to sweat under a steaming sun for potato and cassava. I would rather live in Australia, a good base from which I can trot across the globe, comparing this place and that with my last exorbitant adventure.

How can I criticise people’s desires for development, when the very clothes I stand in are the fruit of my wealth?

But I am also critical of this wealth, as much as I enjoy its benefits. Australia’s wealth – my wealth – comes from exploitation, on so many levels, stemming deep from our roots. The land, which contains the resources that drive our wealth, was not only stolen, but its traditional inhabitants were murdered and the people broken. The land itself has now been ripped up and butchered to make way for cities, farms and mines. We exploit the air so we can produce electricity to keep our economy running strong. In the early days the poor of England and Ireland were shipped to Australia and used as slave labour, and later Solomon Islanders were kidnapped and made to work on the sugarcane fields of Queensland. This was all kick-started by the colonial ambitions of our former Mother Country, whose wealth was gleaned by plundering the rest of the world of its land, labour and riches.

And so, we are rich, and we live a nice lifestyle. Sustaining these lifestyles requires more exploitation, of the earth and its less wealthy inhabitants.

My question for Solomon Islands: is it possible to generate wealth without exploitation? And suppose it is possible, can you preserve what is good and beautiful about Solomon Islands people and communities?

The government intervention program of Australia and other regional partners, in Solomon Islands, is called RAMSI. RAMSI came to Solomon Islands after some terrible ‘ethnic’ tension that occurred between 1999 and 2003. People put down their guns almost as soon as RAMSI arrived. Seven years late, RAMSI is still in Solomon Islands, trying to strengthen government institutions and bolster the country’s economic performance.

Australia is the main player, but outside of RAMSI it is not just Australia who is interested in the affairs of Solomon Islands. China and Taiwan are also pouring aid dollars into the country, hoping for power and influence in the region. No doubt Australia is there for the same reason.

The kind of development proposed is usually large-scale projects such as mines and ports. These kinds of projects have the capacity to generate large amounts of money – some of which will no doubt line the pockets of rich foreigners, but some of which can also be used to really help Solomon Islanders. The education system, for example, is in a bad state. Teachers often do not know the material that they are trying to teach, since they have come from that very same education system. Most schools don’t have proper books and libraries.

A well-placed injection of capital could surely improve the situation, which would have flow-on effects of the wider society and to government. Is this money to come from aid donors like Australia, China or Taiwan, who will then hold the country to their demands and conditions? Or could it be funded by the proceeds of a gold mine?

And could a gold mine be run well, without poisoning the rivers that people rely on, without the proceeds going into the pockets of just a few people (probably men), while everybody else suffers from the environmental impact?

There are lots of NGOs doing good, bottom-up development work in Solomon Islands – developing people’s livelihood opportunities, doing piecemeal work on the education system, helping people respond better to the frequent natural disasters. But is it enough?

And enough for what? Enough so that Solomon Islanders can live like Australians? Or just enough so that people have higher levels of education and running water and die less often from malaria?

Ah, so many questions. Anybody got any answers?

A village wedding...

2010-07-20T08:50:00.002+10:00

I have just come back to Honiara from a few days in a village and I must say, I’m a touch relieved! The destination point was R-, which is a village on the west side of one of the other main islands, Malaita. The purpose was a wedding: the younger brother of Ruth (the woman I am staying and working with) was getting married, and I got to tag along!

I fished the travel sickness tablets from my medical kit soon after the boat left the wharf – which I promptly threw up. The rest of the trip was spent on the floor, clutching my stomach while the kind attendant passed me plastic bags. Tearoha, Ruth’s 10-year-old daughter, just laughed at me.

When we entered the village on the back of a truck, I was so overwhelmed by the mass of unfamiliar people – many of whom were staring at me – that I happily took up someone’s suggestion and went to bed. That afternoon I sat on a stool amongst some of the women, and some brave little girls got up close, clinging to each other and giggling. One of them poked the skin on my arm. We finally broke the ice with some hand-slapping games. I find it amazing that little girls all over the world seem to play the same games! I taught them a few that I remembered from my own childhood, and then they wouldn’t leave.

The wedding preparations were in full swing. I watched some pigs being slaughtered, their screams ringing throughout the village. The men then used their fingers to pluck the bristles, and a team grabbed Bic razor blades to shave what was left. A big group of people sat around into the night, chopping the pigs into little pieces. A group of ten chicken-pluckers, many of whom were children, sat in a semi-circled and pulled white feathers from fattened birds.

When they held up the naked chicken carcass it occurred to me that the only time I’d seen anything like it before was in the form of the rubber chicken in a magic show. The dead chickens I was used to seeing were neatly folded under plastic film, their long toes clipped so we’re not reminded that this lump of flesh once pecked and fossicked. But these chickens were fattened up months before the event, as were the pigs, and people gathered taros, cassava and stones for cooking in the weeks leading up. There was no paying caterers for this wedding – the land and the people did it all.

The whole village came to the wedding, including the other language group (Langa Lanage as opposed to Kwa’rai, who hosted the wedding). The bride wore white and the service was fairly Western traditional, save for the wonderful Melanesian women’s choir that accompanied the couple to the church, and the scores of villagers who poked their heads through the windows to get a peek of the proceeding. I got a front row seat, such is the privilege of a white visitor!

But the wedding made me feel a bit homesick, as I thought about my own community and my own husband-to-be. There’s nothing like being an outsider in the midst of another’s community bonds to make you feel alone!

I also really began to miss my independence, by the end of my stay in Radefasu. I was like an infant again, completely reliant on everybody else for everything.

I needed to use the toilet, which requires a bucket because the house I was staying in was fairly modern save for the lack of running water. So I asked one of the women what to do, who inquired loudly as to the nature of my business, and then everybody discussed amongst themselves how I might acquire a bucket. A grumpy teenager led me to the church where she emptied a bucket of flowers, took it over to the water tanks, filled it up and set it before me. I knew what to do from there.

And I came to understand a little better the nature of a subsistence lifestyle. I mentioned around lunchtime one day that I was a bit hungry (alas there was no convenience store in sight!), but was told there was no lunch that day because everybody had been busy killing pigs in order to reward people who had helped with the wedding or contributed to the bride price. So much labour is involved in eating – you have to catch it, kill it or dig it, and then prepare it and cook it. So I waited til dinner.

And so I have a new appreciation for the joys of urban life, as polluting and unsustainable as it might be. It’s nice being able to catch a bus into town when I want to. It’s hard to leave the village. I managed to arrange a little trip around some of the nearby islands while I was in the village (I was intrigued by the Langa Langa people who have no land and so make artificial islands out of rocks!), and the whole thing cost over 300 Solomon Island dollars, by the time I paid for fuel and hired the boat and its drivers. Who has that kind of money – when you live off the land, largely outside of the cash economy? When you live in the village, it’s hard to go anywhere. As a consequence, I attracted a group of about eight women, who all wanted to go for a ride and see a part of the world beyond the village.

I can see why so many young people come to Honiara seeking opportunity and excitement – unfortunately far too many of them end up chewing beetle nut on the side of the road, and walking up and down, up and down, because there ain’t that much to do in Honiara either!

God in Solomon Islands

2010-07-12T15:40:00.000+10:00

At the Pentecostal services, they often talk about THIS life, as opposed to life after death. “Jesus heals”, “God is good to me”, “God always provides” – it is these kinds of phrases I hear over and over again. These aren’t rich Australian Christians who have everything they want and need, and whose main religious concern is the kind of afterlife to expect. These are Christians who rely on God everyday; when many pray the words, “Give us today our daily bread” they are literally asking God for their next meal.

I was sceptical at first. When one of the women, Sista Beverly (I have changed her name for the purposes of this post) got up to give her testimony (amidst cheers and hoots and cries of ‘Amen Sista!’), she told how sometimes there is no food for her children, but God makes it ok. I wondered exactly how her faith helped her – did it just make her feel better about her poverty?

But I had forgotten my own childhood experiences, when Mum and Dad had their own struggling business during the 90s recession. It was nothing like the poverty Sista Beverly was experiencing, but my parents found it pretty hard to make ends meet, with me and my five brothers and sisters. They sent us to a private school, but I think it was pretty hard going.

However, I remember understanding that God always provided. Not in some airy-fairy feel good way, but literally, at times, provided food and clothing. It usually came through the Christians we knew, who would hand over $100 in an envelope or drop off some groceries. And my parents would do it for other people too – they were always giving away money or baking cakes for people or whatever.

God doesn’t work in a vacuum – God operates within a community of people who love and support each other. Is that what God is? The love that people show for each other? Or is God separate from that? I remember growing up and people just sensing when someone was in need, and responding to that feeling. I think that kind of intuition is God too – it’s God’s spirit connecting us all together.

Today I sat with Sista Beverly in the church building while she made a beautiful flower arrangement for tomorrow morning’s service. Afterwards she went out to pull up some cassava from the land next to the church, which she planted a while ago. Some of the church members use that land for growing food. I tagged along and as she dug we chatted, and I found out that her husband had left her with four children and no means to support them. She doesn’t have any family to help her. So she relies on God to provide every meal. Sometimes someone brings her some rice or some root vegetables. I think people from the church help a lot (I wonder if the people who speak her language – her wantoks – help her more? I need to ask). Even that church land is God’s way of providing – never in a vacuum, but always through people sharing and showing love.

I had never tasted cassava before so she gave me three to take home and cook up. I gave her a cucumber I’d bought from the market that day and a loaf of bread. I think that’s how God works. Just by talking and sharing what we have.

I like it here. Life goes slow and I have time to talk and sit and read and think and write. We’re going to a wedding in Malaita next weekend – very exciting for me!

Honiara!

2010-07-10T10:00:00.000+10:00

I’ve been in Honiara, Solomon Islands, for three and a bit days, and it occurred to me that I should let people know how I’m going! Right now I’m home alone – everybody else has gone down to Honiara High for this evangelism night that’s part of the United Pentecostal Church conference. People have travelled by truck, boat, bus and plane to be here. There’s a whole group of people from Malaita – that’s the next big island across – who are spent six hours on the boat and are sleeping in the leaf hut by the church. I’ve been chatting with them about life in the village.

I’m staying with Ruth and her family, which includes her pastor husband, two daughters, a cousin and an adopted son. Their church is hosting the conference. I met Ruth when she came to Melbourne last December and spoke at a forum I ran on religion and disasters. Ruth runs Hope Ministries, which is the organisation I’m volunteering for. Hope provides education for street kids. My task, among others, is the help organise the school library.

So far I’ve been to two Pentecostal churches services – one for women only, and one huge one in the open hall at Honiara High, that involved an imported American pastor. The best part is the singing, for me. When the women got together they strummed their guitars and sang Christian songs in Pijin and in English. They have this way of singing that seems to flow straight from their souls. I tried to do it but my voice kind of got stuck near the back of my throat. And there are a hundred harmonies flowing alongside the tune.

Here, everybody can sing. I think that everybody can sing in Australian society to, but people think they can’t. The thing is with Solomon Island singing is that people pick a pitch that suits their voice and makes it work with the melody. Sometimes in my Australian church I hear people singing who ‘can’t sing’ – and they are actually singing a third below the melody. They’re creating a harmony but because it’s not ‘correct’ they think they can’t sing. I like the Solomon Island way – if you have a low voice you sing low, if you have a high voice you sing high. And I guess you learn from a young age to make it harmonise in with the other voices.

So I’ve been singing along and learning the songs, clapping and dancing and all that. I stop short of the Pentecostal arm waving and the shouts of ‘Amen!’ and ‘Praise the Lord!’ The biggest culture shock so far has been the Pentecostal style of worship, which I’m really not used to. But nobody forces me to participate where I’m not comfortable, which I really appreciate. I’ve made friends with quite a few of the church ladies – they’ve been so lovely and welcoming.

I’m having a wonderful time so far. I’m picking up the language quickly – the best thing I did before I came was learn a bit of Pijin. It’s amazing how it breaks down barriers – people go, “Oh, she speaks Pijin, she must be ok”. The kids were really shy at the start but they’re getting used to me now. I’m sharing a room with Ruth’s daughter and young cousin (just a bit younger than me) and we’re having lots of fun. They’re showing me around and teaching me how to ride the bus and all that.

There is a giant huntsman spider watching me. I wonder if it’s the same one that accompanied me in the shower the other day. I squealed and Ruth’s cousin came in and herded it out with her fingers. I preferred the multicoloured moth from the first night. But you win some you lose some.

Right now I’m also waging a war on mosquitoes. I brought a massive baton-like can of repellent with me from Australia, and I intend to use it – whether by spraying or by beating them off! I’m not planning on getting malaria while I’m here. The mozzies are little but deadly.

Cake tin rant

2010-06-28T14:08:00.003+10:00

I wanted to bake a cake, but in order to do so I had to buy the right size tin. The only one available was a super-good-quality-delux tin that cost $16.87 at Big W. $16.87 for a freakin' cake tin? No way!

I was thinking how there is this current trend in manufacturing really good quality homeware items - but they're the kind of things that don't actually need to be terribly good quality. I mean, my Mum has ordinary, run-of-the-mill cake tins that have lasted her all of her married life. She's still baking yummy things in them. I just don't think there's a need for overdoing it on the potato-masher quality.

But then, for other items that you use every day and actually WANT to last a long time, like electrical appliances, it's really difficult to find something good quality. In the old days TVs would last for 40 years; now TVs last for 5 years and your grater would last an eternity. Only there's no point for the grater lasting an eternity - you probably have another one anyway, so you'll send this one off to the op-shop in your next spring clean.

So I didn't buy the cake tin. I'm just going to bake the cake in something that's the wrong size.

Afghanistan war in an election year

2010-06-23T13:30:00.004+10:00

Seems that Afghanistan is back in the news again. A number of Australian military personnel have died, and people are starting to ask more questions about whether we should be there. The polls show that the majority of Australians do not want our country involved in this war.

Coincidently, there is also a federal election on the way. Presumably the government will read the polls and decide that it is in their political best interests to withdraw? Sadly, no. The reality is that most people are passively opposed to the war in Afghanistan. If they had to decide, they would decide against, but in the scheme of things, it’s really not a big issue.

I found an interesting document on Wikileaks - a CIA report into shoring up support for the Afghan war in Western Europe. The document is dated 11 March 2010, and notes a poll that indicates that 80 percent of the German and French respondents opposed increased troop deployments in Afghanistan. Yet, the report says, "public apathy enables leaders to ignore voters". The report goes on: "The Afghanistan mission's low public salience has allowed French and German leaders to disregard popular opposition and steadily increase their troop contributions to the International Security Assistance Force (ASAF)". People oppose the war, but when it comes down to it, they don't really care that much. Only 0.1 to 1.3 percent of these poll respondents identified "Afghanistan" as the most urgent issue facing their nation.

Presumably the reason this CIA report was written is because they are nervous. The Dutch government fell over the Afghanistan issue, which led to the Dutch withdrawal of troops. In the Netherlands, Afghanistan became an election issue. There is concern that the same thing could happen to other coalition partners, like France and Germany - especially if there are more casualties. Summer is upon Afghanistan, which is the 'fighting season'. With the recent troop surge, there could be a lot more Western deaths. The report is concerned "that a spike in French or German casualties or in Afghan civilian casualties could become a tipping point in converting passive opposition into active calls for immediate withdrawal."

Until people begin to care and actively oppose the war - through demonstrations, letters, lobbying etc - Australia's troops are unlikely to budge. Australia's involvement in the war is completely beholden to domestic politics - one of the great things about democracy. Right now there is bipartisan support for the war, but perhaps if enough Australians cared, the Liberals would differentiate themselves by introducing a platform to bring troops home. It's entirely possible - after all, they're just politicians, fickle as the wind.

But until the war hits the voter radar, the status quo will be maintained.

My question is: how does public disapproval turn into public resistance, and what do we do to help that happen? Perhaps we could learn some lessons from the Dutch?

[Update: Defence Minister Steven Faulkner has just indicated that some troops might be coming home 2 to 4 years from now. I would say this announcement is likely due to increased disquiet about recent deaths. The other thing is that Australia isn't terribly committed to the war in Afghanistan - we're there mainly to look like we're supporting the US. So maybe withdrawing some troops isn't such a biggie.]

The end of apathy at uni

2010-06-15T21:32:00.001+10:00

When I was at uni I was involved in two student movements: Students For Christ and the political group against fee increases. I realised one time that they were having an event on the same day: the Christians were doing an Easter drama depicting the passion of Christ, while the activists had scheduled a protest.

(I wanted Jesus to be depicted as a woman. I thought it would show people a different side to Jesus and cause them to think deeply and ask questions. I rang up Kate, who was a leader, and told her my idea. She said, “Hmmm…”. I asked one of the other leaders and he said, “Hmmm…” as well. The idea never got up.)

On the day, one of the Christian students (a man) walked around on the main lawn with a cross pretending to be Jesus. A group of Christians followed behind, handing out tracts and pretending to be disciples. At the same time, the activists wore t-shirts that said “Welcome to the degree factory” and chanted slogans. They were on the main lawn too. I just stood and watched.

Then all the sirens went off in the university, so the whole campus was evacuated onto the lawn. Everybody was pretty shitty, except for the Christians and the activists.

The Christians said, “This is a great blessing, because people can hear our message!”

The activists said, “The student body is finally beginning to see how oppressed it is, and is coming out in droves to protest!”

For a while after that, in meetings, everybody was in a really good mood.

The 60s are gone

2010-06-05T21:23:00.004+10:00

Today I met a woman who wanted to go back to the 1960s. She recited a poem, flecked with exerts of Bob Dylan and Jimmy Hendrix, sung with the voice of a middle-aged hippy and some pale blue eyes. She wore a psychedelic rainbow scarf and fluro laces on her black Dr Martin boots, and spoke about fields of daisies and a peace sign painted onto a smooth cheek - in the days before the drugs made everybody fight and 'free love' was the trojan horse that exploded marriages.

And most of all she yearned for her lover - that long-haired man with a scruffy ginger beard, who made her feel beautiful and special and that she belonged somewhere. Her pale eyes lifted skyward as she recited her words - of a full length fur coat skimming the ground, of platform heals that went high, sky high, and of a woman she once loved buried deep beneath piles of Simon and Garfunkel and cut-off hair.

As we chatted over milky tea and cream-filled Arnott biscuits, I suggested that what she missed was still within her - that it was a part of HER she wanted back, not the era. She shook her head slowly: "No, it was the 1960s" - the idealism, the freedom, the community. It was a short-lived revolution, destroyed by the very things that caused its conception. "I never got into drugs, I never slept with anyone else's husband!"

And now, all alone, the man who once held her in a fragrant bossom gone, selling stocks and tending children.

"Won't somebody join me? Why won't somebody join me?"

Stop trying to make yourself feel better about my shit life!

2010-05-07T23:46:00.003+10:00

There's this guy who begs around the CBD - you probably know him. He stands there with his head down, as thought bowed in reverence, or shame, holding out a cup or a hat for people to throw their coins. He never makes eye contact and he never says anything. I've said hello to him a few times and even engaged in some awkward conversation. I knew his name at one point, but I've forgotten it now. The other day he was standing outside Myers in the same forlorn position and so I went and said hi. I said that it was getting cold and he agreed that it was. I asked him whether he was cold standing there and he said he was, a bit. I told him that I thought his coat looked warm and he said it was ok. He's always so damn polite. Then I said that I had to go, and I clip-clopped off.

The next day I saw him again. I was about to walk past but I thought I'd stop for a quick hello. He looked up at me and said, "Why don't you just go off and have a good time?" His voice was shaking a bit. "I'm not your responsibility, you know."

I told him I hadn't meant to offend him and I quickly walked away, upset and embarrassed. I'd been trying to be a good, caring citizen and it had completely backfired. What had gone wrong?

I never exactly enjoy chatting with the guy. He's not the greatest conversationalist, after all. I do it because...well, I want him to know that I see him. That he's not invisible. I'm trying to treat him like a person.

And also, it probably goes some way to reinforcing my identity of being a person who cares about the downtrodden. Those conversations were always awkward, and he was as aware of that as I. I reckon I've been a bit patronising with him too - always emphasising the positive in everything and urging him to agree, like he's some 5 year old ("But your coat must be warm! At least you'll get something to eat tonight! Oh, surely the concrete isn't THAT hard????!"). All wide eyes and smiles. Yeah well, you know, maybe his life just plain sucks, and maybe he's ok with that. Maybe he doesn't need me trying to make myself feel better about his shit situation.

I thought about writing him a letter, telling him I'm sorry for bothering him and being patronising and all that. Maybe I can explain that I want him to know that I notice his existence, or something. I could put it in his hat. Is that a bad idea?

A gift of perfume, a packet of soap and a chocolate bar

2010-03-21T22:27:00.005+11:00

Got a present today. I run the prayer space every second Sunday night in Credo - 15 minutes of sacred quiet before the rush of dinner, where we light a few candles and say a few prayers. You have to be pretty on the ball - if everybody comes in and grabs a hot drink, for example, it can take a long time to settle the mood again. So I have volunteers strategically placed to gently guide people towards the lit candle on the stage area, where we always do our prayers.

Anyways, I'd opened the doors and all these people flooded in, and I was about to gather everybody around the candle, when this person said to me, "Excuse me miss." It was one of those people who you can't figure whether it's a man or a woman - possibly it was neither or both. Since 'it' is a horrible term to use for a person, I will use the gender-neutral pronoun 'ze', mainly because I've always wanted to use it in a piece of writing and now's the perfect opportunity.

Ze clutched at a small plastic bag. "I brought you a present."
"For me?" I'd only met this person once before.
"Well this other little lady somewhere else has helped me so much with clothes and food and this and that but I couldn't find her today so I thought I know you and I thought I could give it to you instead." The voice was deep and the chin wagged at a furious rate, seemingly even faster than the words being spoken.

My eyes darted sideways at all the people spreading out throughout Credo. How would I ever get them back again? "Thanks!" I said.

One by one, ze pulled out a collection of gifts. A bent card and an accompanying envelope ("Here's a card I'm sorry I didn't have a pen."), a chocolate bar, a packet of soap, a muffin, a banana and an orange in a paper bag ("I like fruit and fruit's very good for you, isn't it, it is isn't it?"). I raked my fingers on one hand through my hair, waiting as each gift slowly revealed itself.

Ze kept talking about something I couldn't quite understand. Finally I said, "Thankyou so much for your gifts - but I have to get things started."
"Ok, ok, that's ok, that's fine." And it was, and I gathered everybody together for prayers.

I realised later that it was a bit like the story we'd read in church that night, about the woman who poured ridiculously expensive perfume on Jesus' feet and mopped it up with her let-down hair. It was worth a year's wages, that little bottle, and people critised her for the waste ("You should have sold it and given the money to the poor!"). But Jesus felt honoured by the gift.

Made me think that sometimes you just have to honour a gift, especially if it is from a person who is marginalised. Some people say that the woman who poured the perfume in the gospels stories was probably a prostitute (although not in John - it is Mary there, of Mary and Martha fame), because she was so bold and had the perfume in the first place. What if Jesus were to have said, "Woman! What a waste! You should have sold that perfume and given it to the poor!" The woman would have felt so rejected. Poverty is about more than just money; it's also about acceptance. In accepting such an intimate gift from a prostitute who the religious people would not so much as look at, Jesus was being truly loving.

I felt like if I'd said to the person in Credo, "Can you wait til after and give it to me?" it might have been a rejection. Even though I had more people to worry about than just that one non-gender-specific person. Sometimes to be loving you have to honour the individual over everybody else.

Paid to be friends

2010-03-18T21:25:00.002+11:00

James and I were having coffee when I said I had to go to see a friend, who was staying in emergency accommodation. I mentioned a little of her story, and how she had ended up on the streets.
"Did you say she's your friend?"
"Yes, that's right..."
"Isn't that sort of blurring the boundaries of your relationship?"

And it was a fair comment because, in any other professional setting where you are working with homeless or otherwise marginalised people, to become 'friends' with your clients is at best blurring the lines between your personal and professional life and at worst just plain unprofessional.

But of course, at Urban Seed, these blurred lines go to the very nature of our work. We aim to build relationships with people on the margins - not in a professional capacity, but one that is very personal. There are no 'nine to five' relationships at Urban Seed; people come and go as if they are, well, friends.

I have always struggled walking the blurred line. When I was a resident at Urban Seed, my job was to build relationships with people. But what kind of relationships were they? If it's my 'job', then there is a sort of contractual obligation to hang out with people. I was never paid in money, but had my rent and bills taken care of on the proviso that I would do this 'work'. I often felt as though the relationships I had with the homeless people around me somehow justified my living in the building.

Additionally, there is a real professional aspect to the work. We see ourselves as 'non-professionals' but we are also an institution, providing free meals and helping people sort out housing issues and the like. We are not just an ad hoc bunch of Christian hanging out in our neighbourhood, making friends with the people in our midst.

The occasional unease of our work reveals itself in the 'job' versus 'mob' tension, that is spoken a lot of in Urban Seed. Many of us have jobs attached to this kind of work - whether it be the nebulous role of a resident, or the strategic role of an executive officer. But it's more than a job - many of us are deeply committed to our work in a way that goes far, far beyond a contractual agreement. We are also a 'mob' made up of informal, personal relationships.

In other words, there are contractual aspects to the relationships we have around Urban Seed, and there are personal aspects as well. Holding the two together requires some skill!

I think that one reason I am happy living away from Credo is that I never really mastered this skill. Now, all my relationships with people who come into Credo are personal, because there is no longer any contractual imperative. I no longer feel like I have to justify my rent, but can spend time with people, cook with people and write with people (in the Credo creative writing group) because I want to.

It's not just at Urban Seed that the tension between the personal and the contractual is felt. James is studying to be a teacher, and talks about how some teachers go above and beyond their contractual duty to teach to a satisfactory standard, because they care so passionately about their students and their job. The problem is, says James, that this can so easily turn into exploitation. I can see how professional boundaries can be quite necessary at times.

I think that for any job to be fulfilling, the tension must exist. If you teach only to fulfill a contractual obligation, then teaching will only ever be a somewhat satisfactory means to a pay check. But if you are personally invested in your work, and you can believe in your work - well, I suppose that's called 'vocation'.

The Profound Truth

2010-03-07T23:53:00.003+11:00

Yeah so anyway I got engaged on the weekend. I changed my relationship status on Facebook to 'Engaged', and was waiting to be inundated with messages from all my excited Facebook Friends, but so far the only person who has commented is David (who I'm engaged TO). I have had to remind myself that there's a world out there beyond the social media realm, and that in fact the people I have spoken to in real life are in fact very happy. It's important that other people are happy...the whole point of getting married (as opposed to having a long-term live-in monogamous relationship) is to get the blessing and support of the people around you. Mum's happy so we're 75 percent of the way there. And Mum's not, as far as I know, on Facebook.

Most people haven't been that concerned about the ring but want to know "how it happened". I really want to show off the ring but I suppose it's good my friends aren't as materialistic as me.

By the time my sister called and wanted to know "how it happened", I had enlarged the story to apocalyptic proportions - justifying the augmentation to David by explaining that I was attempting to convey a 'profound truth' as opposed to a 'historical truth' (or perhaps it was just: if you're going to tell a story, it might as well be a good one).

"We were watching Cats the musical when we heard a roar and realised it wasn't a cat, but was coming from outside the theatre. Before we knew it the whole stage was flooded and the cats had scattered. When we left the theatre an eerie still hovered over Collins Street. Chunks of ice littered the gutters and the leaves had been stripped from the trees and were plastered to pock-marked cars and under smashed windscreens. Part of the road had been ripped up with the torrents of rain that had rendered the storm water system completely inadequate. Then, amidst the chaos, we went to a wine bar and he got down on one knee and proposed."

Which is all sort of historically true, just as the gospels are all sort of historically true, but we give all stories a spin to emphasise a truth that is greater than the details of what actually happened. "Be with me though the weather is stormy and chaos abides all around," is my 'profound truth' - which is WAY better than "...and so he got down on one knee but I didn't really notice because we were sitting down anyway and, you know, David's pretty tall."

So now I am engaged to my lovely David and VERY excited about all our future adventures - wonderfully marked with unpredictable Melbourne weather and a warm nook in which to shelter.

Freakin' lingo

2010-02-02T23:14:00.003+11:00

Today I had the experience of hearing somebody speak a sentence and having no clue what any of the keywords meant. I got 'the' and 'at' but I was at a loss to the rest. I was trying to make casual chit-chat after a seminar that a friend was speaking at, which happened to be full of business information technology and logistics students and experts. I was just there for moral support. After the initial question, "So what do you do?" I had to take them through the ensuing sentence word by word to extract the meaning.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people overuse industry and academic lingo because they actually don't know what it is they're studying themselves. The meaning seems to be shut away inside the walls of some intellectual game, without truly making a connection with the outside world and the lives of ordinary people. I get this feeling because I do it myself, sometimes, when my research is particularly foggy. You hide behind the vagueness and breadth of words that have multiple meanings, and most people don't ask too many questions.

Later that day I went to another seminar (today I felt like I was back at uni again!), and I had an only slightly better idea what was going on. This one was actually sort of in my area, but was so theoretical and relied on so much assumed knowledge of this author and that theory that I had the feeling of being in a familiar room with the lights switched off. I kept waiting for the guy to get to the crunch - to actually talk about a thing or a country or a person - but all I got was illusions to bodies of literature.

So I was getting annoyed and was thinking, "This is such a self-indulgent wank", and I got even more frustrated when the questions - all from middle-aged men - came out in equally convoluted gobbly-gook.

I joined the (mainly) men for drinks after the seminar, and they turned out to be nice, relatively normal people (as normal as academics get, I suppose). It struck me that this seemingly exclusive and unnecessary language was actually useful to them - it allowed them to discuss complex concepts in a kind of short-hand that the people in the group were all familiar with.

That's why you have lingo: it actually serves an important purpose of communicating shared meanings in a concise manner. The problem is that lingo is, by nature, exclusive. I think it's important that there are other people participating in seminars like today's other than the middle-aged men who have been in the field for 50 years.

But yeah, I guess what I'm saying is that the language you choose to use is always a balancing act between expedience and inclusion. And by being too expedient and too exclusive you run the risk of being ego-centric and narrow-minded. It can be about keeping your place and making other people small.

So I suppose that lingo can be used as a way of keeping others out - because you're in your own little intellectual world and don't want to relate to the outside; because you don't intend for others to be able to understand the language of your group. Lingo and language generally is about boundary setting, which is important for any group (or else it wouldn't be a group). It suffers from the same dilemma as any other sort of group boundary: how penetrable should the boundary be before the group stops being a group, either because no one joins or because everybody joins?

Finding Eden

2010-01-26T15:31:00.002+11:00

David and I spent this morning trying to get into the Garden of Eden, but it seemed thoroughly sealed off to the outside world. From the map it looked deceptively accessible, the inviting green patch (with the words 'Garden of Eden' stretched across) just millimetres from where we were staying. Turned out that this was one of those fenced off sorts of gardens. We began to walk around the outside of the high concrete wall, looking for a gate or an entrance of some sort. A well-maintained tangle of exotic-looking green beckoned us from inside the Garden. Kolkata (Calcutta) pulsed on the outside. Over rocky sidewalks we filed past bubbling caldrons of potatoes and spices; boys playing cricket on patchy littered grass; a tiny girl slapping a soapy, miniature piece of fabric against the pavement. Ornate buses and hundreds of yellow taxis whizzed past. The wall protecting the Garden remained high as ever.

Finally we did find an entrance - a foreboding archway labelled 'Water Gate'. We entered to find concrete buildings and soldiers riding about on motorbikes. A woman in a red patterned sari was walking the road, towards us. She waved at us in a shooing motion. We turned around - clearly this wasn't the Garden, but an adjoining army base. We must have come too far. We set back outside the gate, back in the direction we came.

There was a road that we'd walked past before - this time we took the turn. It looked more promising and before we knew it, we'd found the gate to the Garden of Eden. But alas, it was locked! Through iron bars I could see that gardeners were scattered amongst an organised sort of a jungle, which was thick and moist against the Kolkata sun. I wondered if the gates were ever opened - or whether the Garden of Eden was Kolkata's version of a living room that is too good to ever be used. We left Eden's walls and wandered through the streets of Kolkata instead.

I quickly developed a fledging affection for this city. There's an old-world charm about the place - in the side-walks piled high with sweets and special breads, in the rickshaws that are pulled by short sturdy men in their lungi and sandalled feet, in the gentle blues and pinks of the old architecture. The people seem friendlier than in Delhi, and will call out 'Hello!' and street vendors charge only minimum white-person premium for the food they sell. A woman saw my baffled look as I figure out how to cross through an endless stream of traffic. She said, "This way," and led me across. Traffic police hold cars and buses back with their hands, while pedestrians cross. In Kolkata, the government cares about pedestrian safety! Incredible.

After we'd had our fix of dusty, busting streets, we decided to go see what an Indian shopping centre was like. We hopped into one of those yellow Ambassador taxis (India must be the only country in the world that continues to manufacture cars from the 1950s!) and went off to the mall. The taxi stopped often in traffic and when it did, enterprising people took the opportunity to see what they could get out of two young white folk. A flock of young men tried to sell us punnets of strawberries, the prices getting lower and lower as we continued to shake our heads ("If you can't peal it, you can't eat it" - and we were due to fly a plane the next day). We sped off with the taxi and left them in the dust.

At the next traffic jam a man with one arm and a big smile came to my open window. "How are you? Having good day? Money please? Just one rupee? Handicapped, see, one arm. Just one rupee?" I shook my head. "Sorry, no." I had a personal policy about not giving to beggars. The man walked off swiftly, and the taxi moved on.

I saw the women on the side of the road even before the taxi stopped, and I saw them weave through the traffic to get to my open window. I decided not to close it - if I was going to say no to beggars, I had to look them in the face. They were young and both held babies with thin yellow hair and puffy eyes. They were the sickest-looking babies I had ever seen. They didn't even say the word 'money'. "Baby very sick. Need medicine, hospital, need food. Please. Please." I said no. They stood there, repeating the various words. "Medicine. Hospital. Food." I said no again. For the longest while, until the traffic started up again, they just stood there with their palms outstretched saying, "Please. Please." As the taxi started up one of the girls reached into the car and touched me. I pulled back. As we drove away, I felt so ashamed for drawing away, like she wasn't even a person.

The shopping centre rose out of the dust like some glassy space ship. Street vendors sold food on the other side of the street, and to get across you had to climb through a hole in the metal fence dividing the road. "If it's one thing that India knows how to do," said David as we skipped up the pearly steps, "is juxtaposition." So we hung out in the mall for a few hours, alongside middle-class Kolkata in their shining saris and denim jeans. Eventually we took a taxi back to our hotel.

We're leaving India in the morning, and I probably won't have a chance to see if they ever opened the gates to the Garden of Eden.

Delhi-ites

2010-01-24T03:38:00.004+11:00

I think that Delhi is a really nice city. I'm sorry if that means I'm not very hardcore, because I've spent more time sipping chai lattes in coffee shop than tropsing through slums or whatever you're meant to do when you're being a traveler (not a tourist). But I happen to like nice things: yummy food, vibrant streets, well-constructed public transport systems, remnants of cultures that go back and back and back. Delhi has all that, and I like it.

According to Sarah, one of the women who David used to work with at the Emmanuel Hospital Association, three quarters of India's rich live in Delhi. By the number of outdoor malls full of jewellery, brand name clothing and homeware stores, I'm not surprised. There are wonderful bookshops with upstairs cafes, where you can eat Greek salads and not worry about getting sick. The bookish air is thick with English language - young, middle class India is reading and conversing entirely in English. The old colonial language is also the language of aspiration and progression; English is the language of the educated and upwardly mobile. English is part of New India - a poignant symbol in the same vein as Levi jeans and Coca-cola.

And so, being the way we are, David and I fit squarely within the ranks of the middle-class, educated, English-speaking people of Delhi. 'Delhi-ites', is the term coined for this category. And it wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the poverty. Ah, that old, wretched poverty, that defines your wealth in all its stark glory. So ubiquitous it's almost cliche. The dirty-faced children with outstretched arms, clamouring at you while the string on your swinging shopping bag plays delicately against your fingers.

When you see those pictures of slums, juxtaposed with high-rises, in your home or office in Melbourne, you can feel a sort of righteous anger - "Such inequality!" you can say, and you secretly despise the rich who allow it to happen. But when it's YOU who is walking down the steps from the upstairs cafe, and it's YOU with the pashmina around the neck...well, who do you have to be angry at now? You feel guilty, but what can you do? You try not to look at the child, because there's too many and you can't give to them all, and anyway, it's better to give to an NGO, isn't it?

"Is it obscene to be eating here in this cafe?" I ask David.
"Any more obscene than eating in a cafe like this in Melbourne?"

Fog, diverted plane and a bus

2010-01-15T16:00:00.001+11:00

Apparently it's fog season in Delhi, which we noticed in full when our plane was diverted to Jaipur due to low visibility. After an initial announcement about the 'change of programme', the Spicejet crew were completely in denial about the fact we had landed in a totally different city. They unlocked the overhead lockers and announced, "We hope you enjoyed your flight from Chennai to Jaipur. We look forward to seeing you next time."

Inside the airport a group of angry men surrounded a lone Spicejet staffer. Communication wasn't high on Spicejet's list of strengths, but in the end it emerged that there was a bus available to drive us to Delhi. David and I formed a little conglomerate with the other Australians on board (a women from Byron Bay who was teaching a meditation course in India, plus her daughter), and together we survived the 6 hour bus journey. I stuffed my feet into socks then sandals and huddled into my seat, as the bus glided through the fog like a fish on the ocean floor. The bus had everything but suspension, and my head made contact with an obsolete metal fan a number of times. David looked like an origami napkin, his long limbs tucked up under his chin. He opened a packet of banana chips (our last vestige from the South) and contents jumped out all over the floor. The Australians giggled. I thought it was pretty funny too.

We paid Rs750 to a taxi driver to take us to our hotel ("Standard airport rip-off price," said David. "At least we've calibrated now," I replied.). Delhi is nice - much more likeable than Chennai. Very cosmopolitan, and I just feel like a person here, not a tourist. Again, just passing through - off to Kathmandu in the morning, before heading back down to Delhi again for a longer stint.

The 'real' India

2010-01-15T05:18:00.003+11:00

"Wow, I think we've hit the 'real' India."
"There's no 'real' India," retorted David.

And of course he's right - what I meant was that we'd reached an uncomfortable, less endearing India. The train from Allepey to Chennai took 14 hours, but it might as well have been 14 hours on a plane. The fourth-biggest city in India churned my stomach even before the engine changed its tune and the train slowed down. The smell is an all-body, intoxicating experience - an evil concoction made up of the fumes of 2 million vehicles and the effluent of 7 million people. Maybe there were exotic perfumes and fragrant spices and fleshly cut flowers in the mix there, but I couldn't smell any of that. All I could smell was pollution and poo.

So I decided that if I had to live in Chennai, I would move to Allepey. Not that many people have that luxury - I suppose people are tied to places by work, loved ones and lack of opportunity. I saw my first Indian slum in Chennai, on an early morning stroll along Marina Beach (scattered with old shoes and empty drink bottle, circled by big, black, dirty birds). It was sad and beautiful, bursting with colourful humanity. The scene - women in saris washing children in multi-coloured plastic tubs amid fish vendors and wandering goats, all against against a backdrop of ocean - would have made some great photos. I poised the camera a few times, but it didn't feel right. I couldn't turn someone else's poverty into a Kodak Moment, to take home and call my own ("Here, look - I took a piece of this bathing man as a souvenir!") . I took some photos of the goats instead.

We spent the rest of our time in Chennai trying to avoid Chennai. We sipped real, espresso, barrista-made coffee in a hip, sexy area that had more in common with Collins Street than Marina Beach. We went to an air-conditioned cinema and watched a film in HIndi. We paid Rs750 to take a taxi to the airport (we got ripped off) because thankfully, we were just passing through, on our way to Delhi. Money gives you that ability - to shut the world out and turn the air-conditioning on, if that's what you want. When you have money, you can choose not to see, not to experience. Money keeps us inside a bubble, which takes a whole lot to pop.

I do appreciate it, though. I do appreciate my ability to shut out the world, at times.

Love, fear and religion

2010-01-12T10:00:00.000+11:00

There are only two things in the world: love and fear. That’s what Leunig says, anyway, in one of his prayers. I never really understood what he meant, but it’s beginning to come to me now.

Kerala, like everywhere else in India, is heavily steeped in religion – the difference is that the faith of choice here is Christianity. Rosary beads hung from our taxi driver’s dash on the way from the airport, and we passed pink coloured churches whose decorative facades reminded me of something made out of cardboard, tacked on to the front of an otherwise ordinary building. From village parishes whose crosses are reflected in the backwaters, to large cathedrals that rise up on the side of busy roads, there are churches everywhere. Life-size models of Mary and Jesus ascend in shrines that are more like oversized glass cabinets.

We went into a wonderful old cathedral in the tourist district of Fort Cochin – built by the Portuguese in the 1500s. This was a living church: large stars made out of basket material hung from the ornate ceilings, and the images of Jesus sported disco lights. Though the cathedral was beautiful and felt light on my spirit, I didn’t feel a strong affinity with the faith expressed there. As David and I discussed it afterwards, I realized that this was a religion with a heavy focus on fear. It was about worshiping to absolve guilt; it was about praying so that God may show mercy on one’s soul.

Where was the love, inside this old cathedral? I imagine it was amongst the people. But from the prayers and images that covered the walls in the church, I also sensed a lot of fear.

Fear lurks in all religion. We believe for fear of being damned. We insist that others believe the same thing for fear that we might be wrong. We build walls and hierarchies for fear that we might lose our power, or lose ourselves. We of the Protestant faith have bastardised Christ’s message and example and turned discipleship into a club, where you have to follow the rules to be a member, and membership equals salvation.

But what of love? It doesn’t lie in a set of beliefs, or a liturgy of prayers. It doesn’t lie within the bounds of a club. It lies in the way we treat each other – with dignity, with humility, without envy or exploitation. Salvation doesn’t lie in what we believe: salvation is love. If we believe because we are too scared to face the consequences of disbelief, then that is bad religion.

It’s comparatively easy to believe. Love is freakin’ hard.

Loving involves listening, and that’s hard because you might find out that you’re wrong. Being wrong is scary, because it shifts the way you think of yourself and the world. It’s too easy to become dogmatic, but that’s just fear.

Love involves making yourself smaller and less powerful, and that’s scary because you think you might turn into nothing. Love involves finding the similarities between yourself and other people, and that’s scary because you might realise that someone else is just as right as you are.

There are only two things in this world: love and fear. Love and fear.

How business operates in India

2010-01-11T19:34:00.000+11:00

I’m intrigued by the way business operates in India. In Australia, if you want to get a taxi from a hotel, you get the person behind the desk to call 132227, and an anonymous cab driver turns up at the location. If you want to do the same thing in India, the person behind the desk is likely to call a taxi driver friend. It is better to ask the hotel operator than to randomly hail a cab, because you have the added surety of a relationship.

Let me illustrate: today we wanted to get to a relatively remote beach via auto-rickshaw and pay the driver to stick around for a couple of hours so he could then drive us back to Gowri Residence, where we’re staying. We asked Wali, a staff member from Gowri, what was a reasonable price and was told: “Rs350 – I will arrange a rickshaw for you.” Wali made a call to somebody he knew who was a rickshaw driver, so that when the driver arrived, we didn’t have to explain anything. We felt confident that we could trust this driver, because he had more to lose than he could gain by ripping us off – at stake was a personal and business relationship with the people at Gowri.

We chatted with the driver both ways on the journey (David has made a point of finding out what’s going on with the cricket and it’s an invaluable way to make friends!). At the end of the trip I said to the driver “Rs350?” To which he answered, “You decide.” He knew we wouldn’t rip him off either, because we’d already established an amiable relationship. Plus, and perhaps more significant, we had an interest in keeping on good terms with the people from Gowri, which would be undermined if we paid the driver less than what was fair.

So that’s how it works – through relational ties. People aren’t afraid to help each other – even if it’s the opposition. If one stall doesn’t have change, they go to their competitor next door to get some. You constantly see people hitching rides on each other’s motorcycles, or on the backwaters, larger boats looping ropes around canoes and pulling the smaller vessels along for a bit. People own their own plots of land, but they farm it together. There’s a great collective spirit here.

So that’s Part One – David tells me that Indians also have a great capacity to rip each other off. The tension between the collective and the individual is one that marks every society, and I suppose there are people who are collectively orientated and individually orientated in India as well. Right now it’s Day 5 and I’m still in the honeymoon period. Please don’t burst my bubble just yet.

Wealth and washing clothes in the Keralan backwaters

2010-01-11T10:00:00.001+11:00

David brought his laptop into paradise, and I’m quite glad of it. The backwaters of Kerala are watery roads that connect towns and villages, whose livelihoods were traditionally etched out in rice paddy fields and fishing boats. Dusk is settling on the water, evening light playing its last dance amongst the ripples. Coconut palms are silhouetted endlessly across a dark sky, and some kind of Indian music is warbling across the water, counterpointed by lapping water and the occasional chirp from a frog. I can hear the sound of cooking – our chef is at work, preparing our dinner. The boat sways and I’m taken some place else.

The houseboat David and I hired has been drifting through this array of rivers and canals all afternoon long, while we wave at the villagers washing their clothes and generally going about their daily life. We have a chef and a driver. How rich we are.
I step off the boat when it docks for the night, keen to get a glimpse of life in a backwater village. The houses snake around the waters, perched on narrow banks. I greet the women and children with ‘hello’ or ‘namaste’. The children grin at each other then stand erect and finally brave, “What is your name?” “My name is Andreana. What is your name?” And that’s as far as the conversation goes, before they erupt into a fit of giggles and run away.

I am trying to get used to averting my eyes when I pass a man: I’m not concerned for my safety, but it doesn’t feel proper for me to be constantly catching the gaze of men.
“Madam!”
I look up.
“What did you do to your arm?”
He is a good-looking Indian man in his 30s, wearing a lungi and bare feet. I show him the last piece of gauze tapped to my forearm, and explain how I fell in a ditch in Allepey.
“Ah I see.”
He asks where I’m from and I tell him. He says he has worked in tourism, on the houseboats, which explains why his English is so good.
I want to know about this village: why it appears so wealthy, for example. We are in the middle of nowhere, but the houses are stout and colourful and people look happy and healthy.
“Do people own their own houses?” I ask. I’m interested in land and how people hold it, because it’s one of my research areas back home in Melbourne.
He tells me that they do – and not only that, but everybody owns their own plot of paddy field land as well. People work together in the fields, because you can’t farm your own bit of land on your own. When he speaks, his lips come together tight and stretch wide again, like a piano accordion.
“Has it always been this way?”
No it has not, I am told. Before independence, the state of Kerala had a system of feudalism, where tenant farmers paid rent to landlords. After Gandhi and independence, a series of socialist governments brought many changes of Kerala, including land reform. People don’t have to pay rent anymore; the wealth stays in their own hands.
He tells me that the wealth also rides on the back of the Portuguese, who set up the first trading routes from the south of India, and later the missionaries, who helped to achieve 100 percent literacy. The south, I am told, is a very different place from the north.
“So is land reform the key to Kerala’s wealth?”
He is leaning casually on one leg, while I stand properly with hands clasped, listening earnestly. A few curious children gather around while we converse. He asks if I have time – he can explain more, if I like. I tell him I have some time (although I’m a bit anxious because David is waiting back at the boat). He says that the real backbone of Kerala’s economy are its emigrant workers. The north of Kerala is heavily Muslim, so many Keralans work in Middle Eastern countries, sending capital back to their families. This part of Kerala is far further steeped in Christianity than Islam, but even so, remittances mark deeply on the economy.
“Out of 100 households in this village,” he says, “30 or 40 would have a member working in another country.”
I point to a small but sturdy house standing behind us, with the sound of a TV wafting out of open French windows and a satellite dish fixed to the side of the wall. “Is that why the houses are so nice here?”
“Yes,” he answers.
Aside from farming and selling labour overseas, many in this area work as fisher people. For the aspirational young, however, the future seems to be in tourism – operating houseboats like this one, for example. “Here in Kerala,” he tells me, “agriculture is becoming less and less, and we are turning more into a consumer society. For example, we no longer grow any of our own fruit and vegetables – we buy from other states.”
“Is this a problem?”
“Yes it is, because it drives the prices up. It is ok if you are middle class, as many of us are. But if you are poor, it is very difficult.”
“And so the gap between rich and poor is growing?”
“Yes it is.”

I think about my home in Melbourne, which is also largely a consumer society. There are people who lose out there, also. I guess standards of living can only get so high before people start falling through the cracks. Gain that is beyond your share is always founded on somebody else’s loss. As we get more, we become more selfish and stop looking after each other. I think about the Keralan rice farmers, who can’t farm their own piece of land by themselves, so they have to work together. If they were richer they would have machinery, and wouldn’t need to collaborate as much. The ties based on economic interdependence would begin to dissolve, and thus the ties between people. That’s where wealth disparity begins.

“Some people here are beginning to buy washing machines and things like they. They don’t need to, because we have everything we need to wash clothes.” He points at some steps leading down to the darkening water. “The washing machines are just there to tell everybody how rich you are.”
“Status symbols?”
“Yes, status symbols.”

He wants to know about Australia and I tell him it’s not so different – only we are further along than Kerala. Our eroding wealth goes much deeper and further than the way we wash clothes.

He invites me to chat more – he motions in the direction of his house. It is beginning to rain and the mosquitoes are biting; it’s getting dark and I told David I wouldn’t be long. We each express gratitude for an enlightening conversation, and I wander back to the houseboat to listen to the sounds of dusk falling.

The time I fell into a sludge-filled ditch in India

2010-01-10T15:31:00.000+11:00

The other night I fell into a hole full of sludge. I climbed out of the concrete roadside ditch and found that my bottom half was almost entirely covered in black who-knows-what and my arm was grazed. David and I looked at each other and said, “Oh shit” – and then, almost in unison, “That really is shit!”

“What do I do?”

We quickly realised that no auto-rickshaw driver was going to let me within smelling distance of his vehicle. We stood there a moment, both completely unsure what to do, and me with my gritty, soaked pants sticking to my backside. Headlights lit the street and horns continued to blare. Sari-clad women paused, tut-tutted and kept walking. It wasn’t long before a man took pity and directed us to the hotel where we’d had dinner.

With wet, smelly grit in my shoes I tiptoed gingerly to the hotel. We stopped at the door and called to the registration desk, “Do you have a bathroom?”
“Stay where you are, stay where you are!” The hotel staff, it seemed, were not particularly keen to get black sludge all over their white floors.

There was a group of nicely dressed Indians sitting in some kind of waiting area in the hotel. They gazed at the gunk-covered white girl and let out a collective “Eww” (or the Indian equivalent). The whole situation struck me as particularly funny, so I started laughing. There wasn’t much else I could do.

Eventually, a hotel staff member led us around the back of the neighbouring service station. David said, “I’m coming with you for this bit” (he’s the hero in this story). We dodged parked trucks and men smoking cigarettes until we found ourselves in a small Indian bathroom, with a toilet, a bucket and some taps.

I stood there in my undies and panicked about what the hell was in that sludge while David went off to find some antiseptic and new clothes. He returned with a shiny plastic bag from the lit up Reebok store a few addresses down – the only place selling clothes that was still open at this hour, it seemed. I pulled out a white cricket uniform. It cost Rs1000 (about $25 – there was 30 percent off cricket gear that day) and it would have to do.

Dressed up in my cricket uniform, with my (thankfully shallow) wounds drenched in antiseptic lotion, we stopped by one of the many drug stores that dot the streets of Keralan towns. We walked away with a course of antibiotics in a brown paper bag (“Sell only upon receipt of physician administered prescription”) and hailed an auto-rickshaw for the bumpy ride back to our abode.

We decided it would be a good idea to see a doctor, mainly to get the dosage on the antibiotic right. The next morning, through a series of directions, we found ourselves at a hospital. Rows of people sat on long dusty benches in a breezeway, while official people wearing white whisked in and out of doorways. I stopped in my tracks and surveyed he scene.

“Do you want to go in there?” Dave wanted to know. “We don’t have to.”
“Sure, let’s do it,” said the writer in me.

I was aware that I was getting special-white-person-treatment, because after registering and paying the Rs150 initial fee, we managed to skip several queues and were led quickly through a door, past a very sick-looking man lying on a narrow bed, and into a small room crowded with hospital personnel.
“Please sit down.”
I sat down on the bed, but it was the wrong spot so I got moved. A man in a white coat asked me a question that I couldn’t understand. I looked at David but he appeared as clueless as me. The man asked again and I looked back, blank-faced before saying, “Oh! Australia!”
“No no no.” The man repeated the question again. I looked at David. David finally figured it out. “What is your complaint?” he interpreted.
“Ah, right.” I related the story. The man in the white coat pulled out a stethoscope and strapped Velcro around my arm, pumping it tight.
“So do you know how much antibiotic I need?” I asked.
The man waggled his head. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the doctor that.”

Ah ha. So he was the triage nurse.

I sat there a few minutes longer before the nurse announced that the doctor was here. He pointed over to a corner of the room, where an overweight man wearing a stethoscope around his neck was walking slowly through the door. The fat doctor lowered himself onto a chair, his face grimacing. He motioned for me to come over.
His face was a sickly grey-brown colour – not exactly a picture of health, I thought to myself. Oh well, hopefully he’ll know about antibiotics.
“What is your complaint?”
I explained the story again. As I spoke he gazed over my shoulder through yellow-lens glasses. When I finished talking he looked at me, felt my forehead, and briefly pulled the skin under each eye. He poked his stethoscope into his ears and lifted the end, motioning for me to shift forward on my stool – he wasn’t going to come to me. The doctor wrote something illegible on a piece of paper (I guess there’s one thing all doctors have in common!) and handed it to the triage nurse.

The nurse gave David a piece of paper and we wandered back out into the breezeway again.
There were about three counters to choose from in the following order: Pharmacy, Billing and Cash. We lined up at Pharmacy because that seems somewhat logical – turns out we were supposed to go to Billing first, then followed by Pharmacy, and then by Cash. But the staff were very gracious and communicated amongst ourselves to get the two whities paid up and out of there.

It all seemed chaotic and illogical, but it must be functional. After all, we were in and out of there much faster than most Australian clinics. Then again, I really did get some serious preferential treatment. The meds cost about Rs180 – about $4 for us, but a fair bit for a local. I’m not sure whether healthcare for locals is subsidised in Kerala.

We Googled the medication we had been prescribed (each in a little brown paper bag with squares that were ticked according to the frequency of administration). Turns out we got an antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory and something to cure indigestion from overconsumption of spicy food. I suppose he prescribes the latter drug for all white people who come, no matter the complaint.

So I think I’ll live through the experience. For the time being we’re not going far from the beaten track, in case I come down with some terrible fever. But so far I feel ok – from now on I’ll watch my footing a little more carefully, and be grateful for the opportunity to tell some more tales.

Stuff White People Like

2010-01-08T03:37:00.003+11:00

The Lonely Planet describes Cochin (or Kochi) as a 'gaggle of islands', and so today we left the chaos of the mainland town Ernakulam for the comparative serenity of Fort Cochin, where apparently goats outnumber auto-rickshaws on the roads. Well, I'm not sure about that last claim, but certainly what DOES outnumber the auto-rickshaws is the tourists.

The website 'Stuff White People Like' lists 'Being the only white person around' as one of our key desires whilst traveling - it makes us feel like we're somehow less of a tourist and more of a traveler, or something like that. I found the best cure for my discomfort at being surrounded by hundreds of people JUST LIKE ME was a good dose of irony. David and I found ourselves directed by a series of coordinated signs and brochure wielding representatives to a Kathakali performance, where the costumes and makeup outdo the even most ornate Baz Luhrman production. It was White Person Hell - a room completely full of fisherman pants, tank tops and oversized earrings. I squirmed in my seat until I found the cure - I just started taking photos of the people taking photos. After a while I felt mean and became ashamed of my actions...my comfort clutch of irony (another thing that White People Like) was a guise for arrogance, since it implied that I was better or more self-aware than the other tourists.

Hmm, propensity to psychoanalyse one's self - another thing that White People Like. I guess that's because I'm White.

So this is India

2010-01-07T15:54:00.002+11:00

Woke up to the sound of gunshots and a flurry of voices, wishing I had've been more conscientious in my perusal of the official travel warning website that the Australian government puts out. Turns out the reverberating bangs came from a nearby construction site, so David and I breathed a bit easier.

So this is Kochi, India: sleepy in the morning (apart from the construction) and buzzing, beeping and blearing well into the night. We wandered out of our hotel room last night in search of dinner, making 'chicken' runs for it through traffic that never stops, and treading precariously over the rubble that's the footpath. I found out that my 'hunches' about roads meeting up don't apply in this city, and that David doesn't like getting lost. We ventured into a department store lit up like a Christmas tree, which held five levels of the most beautiful silk saris. The women are so beautiful here, and wear saris that make me want to be Indian so I could pull them off.

This is no sleepy seaside town! Off to Fort Cochi next, which I'm hoping will be a little more relaxed (and smell a little less...).

Kuala Lumper in the language of commerce and opportunity

2010-01-06T12:20:00.004+11:00

Dusty runways have been replaced with steamy tarmacs. We wound our way around thermal screening passage ways, crawled along in fat dazed out queues, and ended up on an over-airconditioned bus headed into Kuala Lumper. I sat next to a beautiful woman in a headscarf and tight jeans. She was holding a little boy who alternated between playing a game with me and wacking my boobs in a hope of finding some milk.

The good thing was that the woman taught me how to say 'thankyou' ('derimagasi', or however you spell that). I must say that I've felt a little silly utilising my new forre into Malaysian language, because everybody here seems to speak English (not that I've so far ventured far). Nearly all the billboards in this hyped up, Vegas-like city have a large componant of English, and the radio station blearing in the taxi-ride to the hotel was like Hamish and Andy in some kind of generic Asian-accented version of my native tonge. As David says, English is the language of commerce and opportunity, and everybody is more than willing to speak it. Not everybody here has shared in the riches, though - we passed one begger on the way from the hotel to the internet cafe.

We've spent the first night in style, and I spent part of this morning filling up on logan fruit and smoked salmon at the hotel's buffet breakfast. Back to the airport in an hour or so for our next stop: India!

At the airport

2010-01-05T12:12:00.000+11:00

Sitting in the international departures lounge with the Mac computer that David normally has within a two metre orbit of his body. He's pushed it under my nose in a loving bid to get me to write something. I am ever grateful for these small patchwork squares of support. We hope there's enough here to hold it all together for three and a half weeks non-stop togetherness. I'm optimistic.

I bought a tuna patty for $6, inside a polystyrene container. Heart sinking, I left the disposable cutely on the counter and wondered whether I would regret that purchase in India (Dang! Could have bought 240 extra rupees worth of elephant embroidered cushion covers for that!). I should've got the sushi, but I'm deciding not to let it ruin my trip.

I'm relishing the last little pieces of home comfort - grinning customs officials who laugh at old passport photos; a dusty runway under a hot blue sky; the Qantas logo. I think I will appreciate having the ultimate colonial language as my mother tongue, in the lands of the colonised.

The planes are cumbersome but confident beasts, defying the odds to be up there, king of the skies. Soon we'll be sent into the clouds, clutching at aluminium feathers. First stop: Kuala Lumper.

Summer night on Swanston

2009-11-26T00:10:00.000+11:00

Summer wafts down Swanston Street and we float along in its warm evening breeze, all bare arms and sandals. I’ve left the woes of war and capitalism in my stuffy air-conditioned office at RMIT. A mild sun has kindly warmed the pavement throughout the day, and I nestle into a doorway to watch the crowd go by.

They come in waves, you realise when you sit still for long enough. On this summer night they meander by in big chatty groups that look like they’re together, but then you realise they’ve just crossed at the lights at the same time. The city churns in cycles and rhythms, forming us as one and dispersing us just as quickly, like sand on the beach.

She is playing the piano; her white hair becomes a dramatic veil as she sways back and forth over the keys. Her face is somewhere else; her arms stretch far and wide so that each key is visited – tenderly, passionately – by a nimble finger. I wonder how many poems have been written, inspired by her.

A crowd has formed and I can tell some people have been there all night. I imagine that they are receiving some kind of healing. People stop in their tracks, in the middle of conversations, arguments. Orange and blue money drifts into her hat.

Rob is doing his drawing on the pavement, a few metres down – more architecture, really, as he chalks up his grand designs with arches and ruled lines. A few people say hello as they walk by, have a quick chat. If he didn’t live on the streets, and if she didn’t live in a hotel, we might call this an ‘art space’ and serve coffee or chai. If they were richer again, people might pay for the experience.

But in these city margins we are given a taste of high culture, all for free. Around their art a spontaneous, temporary community forms – art appreciators from all walks of life (streeties, suits, people in wheelchairs). We slump against stone walls and shutters, content smiles on our faces.

Her son comes by to help her pack up. “One more, one more,” she calls out, holding up a finger. He shakes his head and laughs as “one more” turns into about four more. A smattering of applause follows each piece (Chopin, Beethoven, The Beatles). Her son is clapping loudest of all.

Eventually she is gone and the crowd dissolves, sand to be washed up somewhere else.

The stance of silence

2009-10-28T14:25:00.000+11:00

My Dad says that I need to reassess my position on Afghanistan. He says it’s not clear-cut and coalition forces might be doing some good. He is uncertain and wants to stay silent while he ponders. He would rather I stay silent, too.

I say that in our silence, we are acquiescing in this war. We may not understand its complexities, but by saying nothing – doing nothing – we are saying that it’s ok. Silence is as strong a stance as any. The war will continue as long as we let it.

I say that my Dad needs to reassess his position, too.

Prayer of thanks for street evangelists, Socialists and British backpackers

2009-10-27T14:21:00.000+11:00

Thankyou, God, for the man who stands on Swanston Street with grey hair and a PA system, reading the letters of Paul and telling us to repent.

Thankyou, God, for Socialists with card-tables who clamour at blank-faced pedestrians, for signatures in petitions that nobody cares about.

Thankyou, God, for the British backpackers who tell us about lost dogs and refugees and children with guns, asking for an ear and monthly donations on our credit cards.

Thankyou, God, for tacky religious tracts, badly-written political leaflets and UK citizens who talk too fast. Thankyou for stopping me when I need to be somewhere. Thankyou for making ignorance and ipods a choice.

Thankyou for reminding me, daily, that I have an option to listen and a chance to think. The possibility claws at my door like a hungry cat.

To Sibel

2009-10-27T10:21:00.002+11:00

Bubs -
Streak of light
in a wintery room.
I'm sorry your world
has so little to offer
a ray of sunshine
like you.

Goodbye sweetie.

Charity ball

2009-10-26T14:12:00.002+11:00

Charity balls are bizarre occasions – particularly ones that are aimed at poverty. You sit there is all your finery, sipping wine and nibbling at raw salmon, while somebody up the front is telling you about children who are too poor to bring lunch to school, and who struggle to hold their pen because they lost fingers in the war. The din of clattering cutlery and small-talk rises above the distinguished speaker, whom we are so privileged to hear from as he has come all the way from Rwanda. We are so privileged we can ignore him.

The Y-GAP Asante Sana Ball was a momentous occasion, with the historic St Kilda Town Hall decked out with giant African statues, pillars throwing fabric flames and exotic flower arrangements on every table. I’m not sure how much the tickets cost because Merridie shouted both David and I, but I gather they weren’t cheap. The proceeds would be going to two projects in Africa – classrooms for an overcrowded primary school in Malawi and a safehouse for children who have exited slavery in Ghana.

I’m impressed with these people. Their projects seem really great and they seem to have an incredible amount of know-how. I’m used to trivia nights in church halls and barbeques at Bunnings, but these guys are auctioning off guitars signed by U2 and opening Fairtrade coffee shops at major train stations. When I was doing this kind of thing with VGen (World Vision youth movement), we were teenagers and uni students. But these guys are young professionals working as solicitors at top-tier law firms and accountants at Price Waterhouse Coopers. They know how to work it!

I’m feeling slightly depressed, and I’m sure that it’s more than a vague sense of inadequacy. I think it’s the juxtaposition between these extremes – the champagne and the expensive cuts of meat, the stories of children living in abject poverty.

I’m also conscious of some elements of the ball, which might actually perpetuate the kind of injustice we are trying to fight. I nibble at my chocolate cake, encrusted in giraffe-print marzipan. Was the cocoa harvested by the enslaved children, like the kids at the Ghana project?

They’re raffling off a $5000 diamond ring, the kind that might put your back out if you wore it too long. A woman with a tiara, leopard-print dress and a tanned cleavage struts the room, offering people raffle tickets for $40 a pop, in exchange for a glass of champagne and a chance to win the prized jewel. Were the diamonds in the ring used to finance militant groups in Sierra Leone or Zimbabwe? They didn’t say.

It’s easy to get excited by wads of cash, because we are infused with a mentality that money solves everything. I remember running a fundraiser when I was in high school – something about protecting platypus habitat. We decided to make milkshakes and sell them at lunch. I remember the big jar of gold money and feeling proud. But I also remember looking out over the oval after lunch, and seeing it littered with disposable milkshake cups. I wondered how many might end up in the river.

Sometimes we give with one hand, and take with the other.

I sigh at the BHP Billiton MCG box they are auctioning off at the ball (what has this company done to the environment and to indigenous groups in Australia and around the world?). I gasp at the shopping-tour fundraiser advertised in our showbags (a percentage of the money you spend goes to projects in Africa – as does a percentage of the greenhouse emissions produced from the manufacture of the shit you buy).

But – as David keeps reminding me – these people are on a journey. They run advocacy forums educating young people on issues of slavery, so they are further along than most. We are all contradicted. These young professionals are straddling two very different worlds, and it’s gotta hurt a bit.

At the same time, we need to think of responses to poverty that go beyond giving money. Cash can fund some excellent development projects that have some wonderful, life-giving consequences, but without challenging the fundamental systems that we benefit from, children will always be enslaved in Ghana and the Malawian education system will always be impoverished. The West has a great deal of responsibility for much of the world’s poverty – whether through the Structural Adjustment Programmes it imposes on countries steeped in debt, or through the Western companies that benefit from slavery.

Our continual giving absolves us from guilt and allows us to continue sinning, much like the indulgences of the Catholic church. By continually being in the position of donor, we reinforce a position of power.

But 16 committed and passionate young Australians have been to Africa, and have seen the product of colonialism and oppression firsthand – even if it hasn’t been articulated as such. Some of them might come back, run a couple of fundraisers, get married in a few years, and then push their experiences to one side. But some of them will be fundamentally changed, and will continue the journey. Some – like the good soil in that Gospel story – will dedicate their life to fighting injustice, inspiring many others to do the same.

And some kids in Malawi and Ghana will have a better future now. Some of them might also use their opportunity and power to fight injustice, and bring many others with them.

The ball is jarring…depressing and hopeful all in one. I am choosing to hope.

Afghanistan: Standing in questions and half-truths

2009-10-13T01:16:00.000+11:00

If Iraq was based on lies, then Afghanistan finds its legitimacy in half-truths. Iraq harboured no weapons of mass-destruction, but the Taliban is a reality that causes even the most peace-loving liberals to think twice. Everybody wanted out of Iraq. But Afghanistan…will peace jeopardise freedom? Will the exit of troops amount to the entrance of hand amputations for nail polish, and executions for teaching girls to read? Thousands are dying and the war is failing, but which father, which feminist, which brother, could abandon the women of Afghanistan?

These are the questions that tumble our way as we stand on those steps at Flinders Street Station with our banner: END THE AFGHANISTAN WAR. I try to stand proud but for the first bit at least I can’t help but feel naked, beside a banner that is too big and too red. My tendency is to avoid conflict, and right now I’m not feeling very agreeable.

“Sayyid Ahmad, 16 years old, killed when he picked up an unexploded US cluster bomb in Shakar Qala village, near Heart, Afghanistan, on 21 November 2001. We remember.”
“We remember,” repeats a small assortment of peace activists, crowded around the banner.
“Private Benjamin Ranaudo, 22 years old, from Melbourne, killed in an IED attack in the Baluchi Valley north of Tarin Kowt, on 18 July of this year. Lord have mercy.”
“Lord have mercy.”
This morning’s weather seems fragile, a crisp blue sky clumped with thick wads of grey and white. We don’t know whether it will break into a smile or a torrent. Turns out we’ll get a bit of both, but this morning at least is brisk. We call out the names of the dead over a patchwork crowd – students, workers, day-trippers, tourists. Some people pause, consider, move on. We keep reading the names.

After a few hours we are standing in silence, having exhausted the small sample of names that Simon printed off the internet. We survey the crowd and let people survey us. A man with a determined shuffle and a golf cap pauses in front of the banner, mouths the words, nods, shuffles on. A woman with wiry, frazzled hair and a lined face considers the message a moment before swatting at the air in disgust. She swings her arms widely as she stomps towards the lights, where her worn face breaks into a beam as has a chance encounter with a friend. The woman picks up the friend’s dog and cuddles it. She turns to us again and swats in our direction, before crossing the road.

And then come the questions. Some are questions that don’t want responses – assertions more than anything.
“How is this helping the troops who are fighting overseas?!”
“Do you people support the Taliban or what?!”
These questions leave as quickly as they arrive, slipping back into the crowd in a whir of shaken heads and fists.

Other questions come with brows knitted in conflict – despair, perhaps – but not anger.
“If we leave, won’t the Taliban return?”
It’s these questions that dry my mouth, doubts and half-truths soaking up the saliva. War is bad and people are dying, but aren’t these guns holding back the reign of a quintessential enemy to human rights and women’s liberation? If the troops leave will life for the people of Afghanistan get better or worse? What if it gets worse?

When I allow the questions to sit, away from troubled faces wanting answers, the lies seem to rise to the surface on their own. The idea that the USA is unleashing its might on the poverty-stricken country of Afghanistan in order to liberate its people emerges from murky waters as untenable. Of course, the whole region is key to the US and allies for its natural resources – Afghanistan, in particular, is required for natural gas and possibly oil pipelines. The more I think about it, the more the threat of the Taliban seems part of an elaborate PR campaign designed to convince us that this war is not about energy resources and wealth generation, but democracy and human rights.

PR campaign or not, the Taliban is a very real threat. A broad man with grey, concerned eyes approaches the vigil, which has now reduced in size to three. The clouds have lifted and the sun is heating the bluestone steps. The man says that he doesn’t have time to talk now, but he is worried about the vacuum of power that will be left if US/NATO withdraws. Won’t the Taliban just swoop in and take control? The man apologises for not having time to hear us out, scurrying back to work and leaving me wondering what I might have said to him. I think about the war criminals who make up the Afghan parliament, and how they are not so different from the Taliban – fundamentalists who use the name of Islam to justify cruelty and oppression. The ‘democratic’ government of Afghanistan recently legalised rape in marriage. Rule under the Taliban would be oppressive, but perhaps no more so than the current government, minus the military occupation and air strikes.

The answer in my head depresses me. Somehow I want something better than Taliban rule for Afghanistan. I ask Simon how he might have responded to this question. Simon, who admires men like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, talks about the potential for non-violent resistance to authoritarian rule. I want to know what that might look like, and he tells me about the non-violent student resistance to Milosevic, which successfully overthrew the Serbian dictator. Interestingly, he says, there was far more resistance to the Taliban before the US/NATO invasion and occupation. Now people are siding with the Taliban because they provide a degree of security, and also some basic services. Perhaps not education for girls, but more than what the government is offering. If the troops leave, suggests Simon, there will be room to support grassroots non-violent resistance to Taliban rule. We don’t know how this will result, but one thing we do know is that violence hasn’t worked.

No easy answer, but perhaps, in the cracks of this bluestone, a blade of hope.

The vigil stretches on into a second day, my feet sinking into the rhythms of the Flinders Street steps. I am beginning to enjoy the act of standing, like a proud red pimple disrupting a creamy complexion. We pack up umbrellas, sunscreen and banner at 6pm on the second day, sunburnt faces tired but content.

And now, in the days after our vigil, we hear that the president of the USA has been awarded the Noble Peace Prize. “No peace here,” quips The Age, as it places an article on the scaling up of the forces in Afghanistan right next to the NPP piece. This disparity is so ludicrous it makes me laugh. I wonder if the company that does the US government’s PR has somehow got a rep on the Peace Prize committee.

The view from the steps is a collage of flashing billboards. From the steps, it all seems one and the same – half-truths packaged up in lights and full colour, when what lies behind is greed and destruction. Usually I switch off, prefer to stay numb, not to think. Today I choose to do it differently – to refuse to go along passively with someone else’s PR campaign. I wish I felt as sturdy as the bluestone beneath my feet. Here, I find no easy answers.

We stand beside the big red banner - testament, perhaps, to the truth that lies in the question. It feels good to be here.

Migrating Bird

2009-09-23T11:37:00.001+10:00

They fly into your life like a migrating bird. They stay for a season, sing their songs, build their nests, make you glad to be alive.

Early one morning you wake up, the small white sun yet to climb over the skyscrapers. Your bedroom is dark and the sound of silence rings through the city. You try to remember what you were dreaming about. All you can recall is the sound of flapping wings. You close your eyes and go back to sleep.

Bleary eyed, you stumble out of bed with the sun high in the sky and the city buzz in your ears. Your housemate is about to crack open an egg for breakfast. No, don’t! You pull it away and nurse it in your hands, taking it into your bedroom for safekeeping.

Where do your feet sink?

2009-08-31T00:09:00.000+10:00

He tramps around Melbourne with a suitcase for a home, selling flowers and lunch-hopping for multiple free meals. Thursday morning is library morning, when he perches his large frame on a computer chair and studies his family tree. We meet at Credo over beef stroganoff and cut up wedges of orange. We chat for a while – history, politics, this and that. He has an arts degree with post-grad study in art history. He tells me where his family is from – England, Scotland, Cornwell. It’s funny, he says, I know much more about the British Isles than this place, here.

As scraps are tossed into the slops container, he wanders out the door again, flowers in hand, and feet sunk deep halfway across the world.

I wipe down tables and sweep the floor, where my own feet are stuck, for now.

Healed!

2009-08-18T14:29:00.001+10:00

The other night, during my late-night visitation to the Level 9 living room, Gin and I talked about healing. Gin related a conversation she’d had with one of the outreach nurses.
“Jo seems to be doing well under the new programme,” she’d said to the nurse.
The nurse agreed. Gin and the nurse had both known Jo for many years. What they both knew, and didn’t need to say, was that ‘doing well’ for Jo still meant a life of drug addiction, mental health problems and debilitating physical illness. ‘Doing well’ meant that Jo was managing these things better.
Gin sighed as we debriefed the conversation. “And I thought to myself, ‘Is that all Jo will ever be able to hope for?’ What does healing look like for Jo?”

We tell the story of the haemorrhaging woman in our back laneway – a site that seems to represent the combined hope and despair of this Biblical text. Jesus is on his way to heal the dying daughter of Jairus, a very important man. He is flanked on all sides by a jostling crowd, all seeking a slice of Jesus. All of a sudden Jesus stops in his tracks.
“Who touched me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” say his disciples. “There are people all around – everybody is touching you!”
Jesus won’t be deterred. “No – somebody touched me. I felt power go out of me. Who was it?”
A woman comes forward and falls to Jesus’ feet, trembling with fear. She has been haemorrhaging for 12 years, but just this moment, since touching Jesus’ cloak, has been healed. The woman tells Jesus her “whole truth”. She had been to many doctors over the years, but they had all ripped her off and left her worse than before. During this time the woman had been a social outcast, because in that society women who were menstruating could not dwell within the community. This woman had been effectively menstruating for 12 years straight.
After listening to her story, Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

This time, it is Kate who is telling the story, while we huddle close and rub our arms from the chill of the winter shadows.
Gregg pipes up. “Do you see that there are two healings here?”
There are, indeed, two healings in this story. The first is when the woman is physically healed of her bleeding. The second is a kind of ‘social’ healing – Jesus pronounces her healed after listening to her story – her “whole truth”. Perhaps this is the first time in 12 years that anybody has heard this woman’s story.

As we walk down the narrow laneway, past the fit bin and wall murals, I wonder about the unwritten epilogue of this story. What happened to the woman after her encounter with Jesus? Would she suddenly be embraced by her community and treated with all the love and respect she had been denied over the last 12 years? I suspect not. Prejudice runs deeps and low. Moreover, the woman is probably without a husband, so would be in a position similar to that of a widow – with no one to take care of her material needs. The woman has been healed, but her problems have not been fixed.

We tell his story in the back laneway as a recognition of the complexity of what it means to be healed. This is a space where people meet death, metaphorically and literally. There are no TV cameras or white suits in the back laneway. People sometimes fall to the ground, but not usually because they’ve been slain by the Holy Spirit.

But amid drugs and needles, there can be moments of healing, as someone finds a real encounter with another who cares enough to listen to their story. The back laneway also leads to Credo Café, which is where many people find life. Stories unfold over years and years: it can take a long time for a “whole truth” to be revealed. Healing is a slow and painful process. It happens until the day we die.

I don’t spend a lot of time in the back laneway. It’s usually cold and I always seem to be on my way somewhere else – to go to work, to take the garbage out, to see a friend. I don’t listen well in the back laneway – I struggle to sit on the concrete and hear a person’s story. But Jesus stops for the bleeding woman, sitting with her for…how long? How long does it take to hear someone’s “whole truth”? He stops, even though Jairus’ daughter waits, dying. He stops until it’s too late, and Jairus’ daughter is dead.

What does healing look like for Jo? Maybe it’s morning coffee, or candles lit during a moment of quiet on a Sunday night in Credo. Maybe it’s a shared smoke on the Level 8 fire escape. Maybe it’s Jo ‘doing well’ at a new programme. Maybe it’s choosing to stop and chat on the street, even if we have an appointment to rush to.

Maybe healing is about suspending, for a moment, what seems important, to hear a little bit of somebody’s truth.

Sick

2009-08-16T14:12:00.000+10:00

I’ve got the flu. This one’s a knock-out. Throbbing head, aching limbs, dank, gargling cough…ample opportunity to feel sorry for myself and to get other people to feel sorry for me too. I put myself to bed last night with a series of grunts and moans, sighing long and loud as I tied my sheets in knots.

I called my Mum. I always call my Mum when I’m sick – a weak substitute for an in-person mother, with accompanying vegetable soup and buttered toast. I got all emotional on the phone, as years of tension and angst melted into the primordial need to be mothered. I thought about the grown men on battlefields of the wars of old, and how, in their dying minutes, they called out for their Mums. I’m feeling a little teary as I write this now.

Dimitri tells me that you need to make a big stockpile of soup at the beginning of an illness, while you still have the strength. There are tricks to having no one to take care of you, he says. His words are so sad I want to cry again.

I lie on the carpet in front of the heater, listening to Regina Spektor and watching the sky whip by beyond my festering living room. A winter sun streams through the glass and warms my face. I close my eyes and imagine that God is smiling down on me. Life is so beautiful, I think through a throbbing head. Even in my deepest darkness, the universe shines bright.

I open my eyes again and see that the sky has turned a solid dreary white. Well that sucks. I pull out a crusty handkerchief and blow my nose.

Seeing Mel

2009-08-07T23:10:00.000+10:00

Mel is lying content across the sofa, reading a book. She wears tortoiseshell spectacles and a thick, hand-knitted jumper. It’s hard to believe that this time last week, she was sleeping on the streets.

The bruises were hard to ignore. Her plea for help came in urgent snippets, when Steve was out of earshot. I just listened. I didn’t know what else to do.

We heard yelling in the back laneway and rushed down the stairs. We stood between the pair as Steve waved his fists. He left with Mel’s bag.

Gemma and I spent the night with Mel in a cramped motel room with a loud air conditioner. We drank red wine and tried to go to sleep. In the morning Gemma dialled numbers while Mel sat outside the room, chain smoking. Gemma’s voice grew weak and desperate as the options shrank. We decided to pray. We didn’t know what else to do.

Today we wandered the city, helping Mel rebuild her identity. Pension card, bankcard, Medicare card. Her presence seemed to strengthen with the swelling of her wallet.

I glanced over her shoulder as she wrote an email to her daughter. ‘Love Mum’, I read, and nearly cried. I’m starting to see Mel.

Social reject and sexual deviant: Stories from Year 8

2009-08-05T22:28:00.001+10:00

When I was in Year 8 a rumour went round that I masturbated. I was first awakened to this great joke when I walked past a classroom full of kids in the year-level below.
“Hey!” one of the boys called out. “Did you remember your sticky tape?”
I was a little confused, but had a sickening feeling that something dreadful was unfolding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
One of the other boys held up two fingers, bound together with clear plastic tape. “What are you going to do tonight?” The boy wagged his attached fingers in the air. “Are you going to masturbate?”
The rest of the classroom jeered while I fled the room, utterly mortified.

I wasn’t entirely surprised at the public humiliation. In some ways I’d brought it on myself. I remember sitting on the concrete one sunny lunchtime, in a circle with three others – two girls and a guy. Spring had arrived, and we were emerging like cramped reptiles from the tops of lockers in windy corridors. We were playing some kind of game – something along the lines of Truth or Dare. The other kids in the circle were higher on the social hierarchy than I, but I had a momentary sensation of acceptance and belonging. I remember enjoying the closeness of the circle.

I wanted to know whether the others masturbated. I guess I just wanted to make sure I was normal. One of the girls looked down, lips curved in a nervous smile. “No,” she answered, before looking me in the eye again. “Why – do you?”
“Well actually, yes,” I answered, confidently, pleased to be divulging a secret.
“Really? Do you really?”
“Yep. Sometimes. But don’t tell anyone!” I quickly added, suddenly aware of the power I had granted my three companions. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“It’s ok, we won’t.”
Their words were reassuring and I believed them. I had to believe them. I wanted to trust them.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! One little slip – one overly-confident assessment of friendship – and it had come to this. The outer corners of my eyes stung as I raced from the classroom of shame to my next class. I had been ruined.

I remember the whole ordeal as extremely lonely. Any semblance I had of friendship prior to the affair was now in tatters. And how do you talk about such things? Apart from the taunts, the only other noise was a deafening silence. Female sexuality, in our culture, has often been met by silence, and this sexual shaming was, in some ways, no different.

Something had to give. One evening, a week or so into my social descent, Mum and I went to school for some kind of information evening. As we got out of the car, a mob of large boys from my year level walked by, laughing and joking. I wanted so badly to be seen. Not ridiculed – just seen. I imagined yelling out and waving, and some of them coming over to greet me. I knew that that would never happen. The bank of tears broke and before I knew it I was crying my little Year 8 eyes out.

Mum pulled me into the foyer of the VCE centre. Mrs Maher, who was walking by, entered our little female huddle.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” they wanted to know.
Tentatively, through sobs and hiccups, I told them that there was an awful rumour going round.
“What is it?”
“That I masturbate!” I wailed, before descending into a fit of more sobs.
“Why that’s ridiculous!” exclaimed my mother. “As if they would even know!”
I didn’t tell her that it was I who had told them. “Everybody hates me! Nobody likes me!” I said instead.
“That is not true!” said Mrs Maher, who is always overly optimistic. “People respect you! They think you’re great!”
I didn’t believe her, and looking back, I’m still not sure that I fully agree with her. I was pretty low in the social pecking order, and had somehow even managed to fall out of favour with the less-cool female friendship group. I spent my lunchtimes at music rehearsals, partly as a survival tactic. I took home wheelbarrow loads of prizes at the school awards ceremonies, which didn’t make my life any easier. And now, the label of sexual deviant. A true Year 8 nightmare.

Some time later, a rumour went around that another person in the year level masturbated – this time a boy. I was not sympathetic – mainly I was just glad to have the attention off me. Rather than the two-week ordeal that I suffered, his lasted a day, if that. The message was clear: masturbation is dirty, but so much more dirty if you’re a girl. Girls are so disgusting that they apparently require the use of sticky tape to cover their fingers. I’m saddened by this message and its inherent double standard, and I’m saddened that in Year 8 I believed it and didn’t see how manifestly unfair it was.

I wonder also whether I was chosen as a scapegoat to cover the discomfort and shame others felt about their own emerging sexuality. I was an easy target – social reject, unpractised at fighting back. I wish that rather than denying the rumours, I’d stood up and said, “Yes! It’s true! I do have a rigorous, healthy female sexuality!” But you’re not thinking that in Year 8. You’re wondering how you will survive the next day of school.

Feeling climate change in my heart

2009-08-02T21:05:00.002+10:00

“For a long time we have understood the implications of global warming in our heads. But Australians need to feel it in their hearts.”

So said the campaign coordinator from Greenpeace, who organised a speaking tour of Pacific islanders who told us – passionately, desperately – that their homes are drowning.

It’s gone past the point of mere intellectual concern; of artificial apocalyptic images produced by and aimed at the middle class intelligentsia. It’s gone past optimistic campaigns – environmental rock concerts, exercises in switching off lights for a particular off-peak hour. All it once, it seems, the issue of climate change has shot past all this and triggered in me a kind of heart-sinking despair.

The Age announced last week that this coming summer would be the worst fire season ever. I read the headline with a crinkled forehead and a constricting stomach. How can this be? What about a grace period of a few years – time to recover, to prepare? I imagined fireballs, thrown relentlessly from heaven at my friends and family in the bush, for every summer to come.

But it is not God who sends these plagues, any more than it is God who causes people to be homeless or dispossessed from their generational lands. We brought on our environmental woes when we decided that we were tougher than our planet, that we could use her up and discard her carcass and live happily ever after.

Or maybe it’s wrong to say ‘we’, for surely it’s not all of us? What we see now –smoke unfurling into the sky, machines swallowing whole forests – is the product of a particular system; a particular kind of greed. Western capitalism, with its guns and handbags, surges on while the people of other worldviews and other social systems look on in dismay.

And so our Pacific island neighbours suffer at the hands of a new kind of colonising force – one that steals land and destroys cultures (benefiting only the coloniser) as effectively as any of the past. King tides from the ocean lap at their coconut palms and taro plants, polluting their water supply. People with nowhere else to go evacuate flooded houses…until the next time. Or until their island home disappears altogether.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” asked a woman from Kirabati, pacing the room and talking in high, urgent tones. Australia, she says, is part of the Pacific family, and has also been part of the problem. When will Australia take responsibility and stop polluting the air? When will Australia pull its proper weight to help its family members adapt to rising sea levels? Am I my brother’s keeper?

Australia seems completely inept at responding to this crisis. How can we be using numbers like ‘5 percent’ when the firestorms have already started raging, and family members have already started drowning? How can we think that the solution lies in turning appliances off at the point, while the real problem is industry and consumerism? What has to happen before governments do something?

Government is wooed by the tea parties of people with shiny shoes and sharp teeth, while the vibrations of a monster’s feet rattle the teacups.

I’m feeling it. I’m feeling it in my heart.

The City and the Single Girl

2009-07-31T00:13:00.003+10:00

This weekend is Seeds Retreat - that is, all the communities connected with Urban Seed getting together to hang out. I'm running a session on 'Single people, coupled people and community'. I put a few thoughts on paper to do with my own stories of singleness in intentional Christian community. This won't be the crux of my session but it helps me to understand my experiences when I write them down!

***

Single and living in community

I’ve never really identified as a Single Person before. I’ve had long periods of singleness, yes – but a primary identity as a Single (that dreaded noun!)? No. I’ve been Woman, Christian, Activist, Writer – but never Single Person.

We identify with what we perceive to be special, significant attributes; things that make us different from other people. I never identified as single because for most of my life, singleness has been the norm. Growing up, my parents had lots of single friends. My own friends had always mainly been single. Throughout life, singleness held a status no more unique than that of being coupled.

Things changed when I became a resident at Urban Seed. I stopped seeing my friends from uni so much, and spent more time with the Urban Seed community. My experience of Urban Seed has been that singleness is not the norm. I am the only single person in the residential community. The majority of staff members are part of established couples. While there are quite a few single women who work at Urban Seed or who are part of the City mob, and while most Credo punters are single, it often seems that the dominant culture is situated in the realm of coupledom.

I first thought I might be a Single Person when I went to the Anabaptist conference at the start of this year. Before I went, a small hope flickered at the back of my mind that I might meet somebody interesting. When I got there, all I could see were wedding bands. I was put in a cabin with the other Single Women – a mixture of the transient Singles, like myself, and more permanent Celibates. There were a few Single Men – about three, I think. One of them slipped me his number. I suppose we all had the same thing in mind. I’d never felt so Single in my life.

A few months prior, Dave announced at ressie dinner that him and Gemma had become an item. I burst into tears. Great lumps of grief emerged from some place inside of me. I hadn’t even realised they were even there. Part of it was sheer loneliness – the announcement of a new Couple held the mirror to my own state of being Alone. I was caught in that ravine that many a new ressie has found themselves in – the gap between a partial departure from old friends and support networks, and the arrival in a new community which absorbs most of your time but with which deep intimacy has not yet had time to develop. I was at a point where a boyfriend might have gone some way to fulfil my need for intimacy.

Part of my grief was also tied to the fear of becoming more lonely as a result of this new coupling. Prior to Dave and Gemma getting together, half of the residential community was single. Our team was well-balanced and I just fitted in with the mix.

Now, five-sixths of the residential community was in a romantic relationship with somebody else. Where did that leave me? When everybody around you is sharing most intimately with one other significant person, how is it possible to have any deep relationships within a new community? I began to feel a bit silly – like a lonely old aunt who bakes and is generally very sweet, but is relegated to the position of amusing minor character. I presented my various romantic exploits as entertaining titbits – stories of adventure and desperation told with smiles and laughs and received as such…but failed to get across the very deep needs and desires at their heart.

I am thankful to say that my fears were not realised as drastically as I thought they might. I think that others in my residential community have understood my situation, and have been intentional about including me in their lives in a deep, meaningful way. Gemma and Dave conduct their relationship in a holistic way that refuses to shut out others in their community. I’ve never felt like a third wheel around them. The others seem sensitive to my stark singleness in a coupled community – on ressie retreat, for example, my consent was sought before partners external to the residential community were invited along. My answer was fully respected.

I have faired well, but have also come to understand the potential vulnerability of the single person living in Christian community whose makeup and culture is dominated by couples – or perhaps even more potent, families. When churches and communities are segregated along relational lines, it’s often single people who get left out. Couples inviting other couples round for dinner; parents with young children going on family holidays with other parents with young children…we always need to ask the question: who is being excluded here?

It’s not so bad if there’s a group of single people who can all hang out together. It’s harder when you’re the only one. But there’s more at stake here than feelings of exclusion. Actually, married people need single people. Single people need married people. Unmarried couples need married couples. We all need each other, because we all have unique things to offer.

“[R]elationships require more than having honest heart-to-hearts with one another,” writes Lauren Winner in her book Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. “Relationships require that married people must invite single people into their lives, and vice versa. This means not just inviting your friends over for dinner; it means going grocery shopping together and taking vacations together. It might even mean […] married couples or families with kids living with unmarried folks.” Supporting single people is more than making sure their social needs are met (which is more than a little patronising) – it’s about recognising that, like couples, they are integral parts of the community. It’s about singles and couples and families doing life together.

I refuse to take on the identity of Single Person. I’m just Me. I’m excited that I’m able to do life with people of all relationship statuses. I feel blessed that I’ve been able to offer my gifts and energy to enrich my community, and that people care about my romantic plight but don’t seem to take pity on me. I appreciate what the couples in my community offer. As I say, I have faired well. I wonder how many others can say the same thing?

Paul's gift

2009-07-24T21:31:00.000+10:00

It’s a Friday night, just past knock-off, and the streets pulse with optimism. An eclectic crowd swarms the pavement, all chatter and clatter – Asian students with vertical hair, couples gliding hand in hand on their way to restaurants, young women in pointy heels and fitted grey suits burning the sidewalk with hurried strides. I enter the torrent and float along, flute over shoulder, mesmerised by this world outside of my living room.

The card table is filled with intricate objects made of what looks like woven grass – dragons, frogs, a cross, even an engagement ring. In place of the Chinese man who usually sits there, crafting his delicate trinkets, is Paul.
“Change of profession, I see?”
Paul glances up, surprised. His beard is snowy white and his eyes are pale blue. When I asked him where he was from last Christmas, he told me he came from the North Pole. “No, no, I looking after for other man,” he answers, smiling.
Right on cue, the Chinese artisan comes up to the stand. We greet each other with smiles and little humble bows.
“Look, I show you what this man do,” says Paul, guiding me round to the other side of the table. Apart from the woven articles, there are engravings of famous people (Michael Jackson, Barack Obama, Madonna), and framed cut-outs of women’s profiles.
“I buy you one of these,” says Paul, pointing at one of the frames. “He will cut out picture of your face – take three minutes!”
My impulse is to refuse – the night is getting on and I really need to do some busking. But Paul is standing firm, eyes wide.
“Do you have the money?” I ask, immediately regretting what I’ve just said, and all that it implies.
He looks at me intently. I notice that one of his eyes is watering, sending a tear trickling down his right cheek. “I may be homeless, but I’m not poor,” says Paul. “I don’t pay rent, you see.”

“Stand right there,” says the Chinese man, and I obey. I face a glut of commuters outside a tram stop, while crowds stream behind me.
“Be very still.” I can sense people momentarily congregating at my rear, looking to see what’s going on. I move my eyes from side to side, attempting to see who is watching me. The artist stands a metre away on my right, nimbly clipping away at a piece of paper with a small pair of scissors. I am grateful for Paul standing in front of me, describing all the things he intends to do this week. Art gallery, gym, something else I can’t hear properly. As well as being from the North Pole, Paul is about 90 percent deaf. My ears strain, as his muffled words navigate the Friday night din.

“Done!” says the artist, and shows me the paper cut-out. I recognise that nose, that brow – normally I hate seeing my profile, but this time I’m impressed. Paul has been distracted by a couple of older women he knows. I recognise them from Sunday night dinners in Credo. They look refined and English. “Oh yes,” they say, admiring the image. “We can tell it’s you!”
Paul is pleased with the product. I thank him profusely. “It’s okay,” he says. “I want to give you something – you give me food at Credo, and I give you something as well.”

Clutching my frame, I exchange more humble, thankful bows with the artist. Paul and I part ways, a little more equal than we were before.

Saving the Giving Tree

2009-07-08T21:22:00.002+10:00

There was once a Giving Tree who loved a little boy very, very much. When he was young the pair would play together – he would swing in her branches and she would protect him from the sun as he napped.

As the boy grew older he visited the tree less often. The tree just wanted the boy to be happy. She gave him her apples to sell so that he might have money to go out and have a good time. She gave him her branches so that he might build a house. In the end she gave him her trunk, so that he might build a boat and sail away. The story tells us that the tree was happy, because she loved to give.

The tree was happy – “but not really”, the story tells us. For the tree had become just a stump. Eventually the boy became an old man, and came back to sit on what was left of the Giving Tree.

A guest speaker read this story to us last Sunday in church, showing us the pictures like a kindergarten teacher would. It was a metaphor for the way we treat the Earth, he said.

The speaker asked what we thought of the story. The conversation began with a cough and a splutter. (Once very vocal, our congregation is now unaccustomed to being asked its opinion.) Somebody offered a comment about ethical investment. Somebody else mentioned plastic bags. I nodded in agreement. A little part of me dies every time I forget to take my greenbags to the supermarket.

Then Bogusha – God bless Bogusha – raised her arm straight and high.
“I think,” she began, “that we should be caring for the sick and the needy before we think about saving the environment. How can you think about plastic bags and superannuation when your mind is consumed with how you are going to survive the next day?”

I have a lot of sympathy for Bogusha’s point of view. The power to make ethical and environmentally friendly consumer choices often corresponds with the power of your dollar; environmentalism is a middle-class concern that requires a middle-class income. Organic food, solar powered hot water, energy efficient appliances – these choices involve both money and head-space. Bogusha is a long-term sufferer of chronic fatigue syndrome. I imagined there would be times when finding the energy to make breakfast would take precedence in her mind, over and above how she might reduce her personal carbon footprint.

I put up my hand. The speaker acknowledged it with his eyes, but by this stage the congregation was revving with ideas and opinions. I waited patiently as people talked over one another. Finally I told everybody my point of view: which was that the planet cannot be saved through consumer choice.

For me, conserving plastic bags and turning appliances off at the switch are matters of integrity; simple living is part of the life that I expect my God would like me to lead. But the hard reality is that these small, precious acts are dwarfed by the problems at hand. Reversing climate change requires drastic action at a national and international level. With polluting companies in the pockets of governments, preventing the development of new, clean technologies, we are kidding ourselves if we think that turning the hot water system down a couple of degrees will make any difference at all.

My comment was framed negatively and, as expected, was shot down by a dozen voices. But consumers can impact on companies! Shell changed its practices in Nigeria because of public outcry!

These things might be true, but I don’t think they’re enough. To suggest that we can turn climate change around through our consumer choices to me is both a gross understatement of the problems we face, plus an overconfidence in the potential of consumers. Plus, it puts too much responsibility on the shoulders of individuals rather than government and business, who have the power to effect real change. I find the whole idea kind of disempowering.

Actually I think effective action is possible for the everyday person, but it must occur at a structural, systemic level. The solution lies not in people changing their daily habits – many are too lazy and many others are simply unable. For real change, the whole system must change. For me, staging a protest at Hazelwood – telling the government to shut down decrepit brown coal power stations and invest in clean energy instead – goes further in the direction of a genuine solution than installing energy-saving lightglobes or improving my personal recycling system. Of course, these actions are important, but I don’t think they get to the heart of the problem.

I don’t want to abuse my Giving Tree. The difficultly is that we are collectively the boy in the story. I can’t prevent the cutting down of the Tree by reducing my personal environmental footprint. The best hope I have is using my individual power to change the system.

So what am I doing to change the system? Nothing. For now, I will continue to take out the recycling and turn down the heater. I smile sadly at the Giving Tree, while my people reduce her to a stump.

Can I help?

2009-07-01T20:17:00.001+10:00

Tom* has one of those awful coughs that gurgles in his lungs, pushing through a swampy mess until it breaks free with a fresh production of phlegm. My friend and I look up, concern creased across our foreheads. Tom has a hospital-issued plastic bag, held firm at its rim by a plastic ring. Official mucus-collector, it seems.

It is a Sunday night. Outside the sunny winter day has evaporated into a chilly, cloudless night. I’m hanging out at Credo Café - the church runs a dinner on Sunday nights, and it’s always well-attended by lots of cold and hungry people. Often, on a Sunday night, the warm air of Credo is laced with an uneasy energy that I don’t feel during our weekday lunches. Credo is small and easily crowded. There’s a lot of people getting by on little sleep, and the tension is catalysed by drugs and alcohol, occasionally erupting into conflict. I run an open prayer time before dinner starts, where we light candles and occasionally sing a song. I always light a candle and say a prayer for Peace.

Tonight, my Peace candle has been noticed. Some people sit quietly, tucking into bowls of meat and roast vegetables. Others sit around the big table talking loudly and laughing. I eat my meal on the little stage with my Sunday Night Dinner friends, including John and Djar, who don’t usually come in during the week. I talk about bikes with John and art with Djar. It’s hard to engage them both in a conversation at once.

The little red Peace candle has melted almost entirely into the sand, which is clumped with hardened wax and various other foreign objects. My friend James has dropped by and we sit at the back of the stage area, chatting. A small possie of grey-headed men congregate nearby cradling milky coffee with too much sugar. They talk quietly and laugh in the hushed, cynical tones of the experienced. My conversation with James (war, politics, relationships) is interrupted by Tom’s cough.
“Are you ok?”
“Upper respiratory infection,” he croaks.
“Oh.” I pause, wondering what helpful thing I should say. The gap in the conversation is filled with another batch of coughing. “Did they put you on a course of antibiotics?”
“Yep.”
“Do you have somewhere warm to stay?”
Tom sighs and looks up at one of the other men, who has a lined forehead and laughing eyes. “The hospital kicked him out,” says the man, raising his eyebrows high. “But he’s got a place til Wednesday.”
“Yeah, I collapsed on the way out,” Tom elaborates. “The doctors helped me up and sent me on my merry way. Staying in an old folks’ home now.”
“But only til Wednesday,” I murmur. “What then?”
Tom just shrugs. “Hopefully find somewhere warm.”
“Do you have a health worker?”
I receive a blank look.
“You know, like a nurse or a case worker or something?”
The man with the laughing eyes smiles at me and winks. “He’s had a few of those.”
The rest of the men roll their heads back and laugh. Wet, guttural coughs ring through the near-empty café.

That night, I discussed with Gemma and Dave what I might do to help Tom. They suggested calling one of the outreach nurses, who work with homeless people. The reality is, though, that the nurses are most likely well aware of Tom’s situation. The entire Melbourne welfare sector probably knows all about Tom. I imagine Tom has been homeless for some time. He’s probably very well linked in.

One of the things I’ve learnt since becoming a resident at Urban Seed is that usually, people don’t need my help. If someone is homeless, they’ve often been homeless for a long time, and know what phonecalls to make for crisis accommodation. Having experienced crisis accommodation, they also know that it’s sometimes safer to stay on the streets. They know more about the system than me – a community worker who has only ever experienced the welfare sector from the end of an office telephone.

People have a myriad of support services at their disposal, and many spend more time trying to avoid them than using them. Shirley* is a fiercely independent 75-year-old in a pink beanie and spectacles, who thinks the main problems with society are too much swearing and immigrants talking loudly on trams. Shirley yells at streeties for using the ‘s’ word. She speaks with annoyance about the nurses who come to her house to treat the cancerous growth on her hand. “Why can’t they just leave me alone!” she wants to know. I bet she gives them a tough time when they arrive at her home.

There is a housing crisis, and for many, secure housing is an impossibility. It’s no surprise that people don’t want my help, because the situation is hopeless – there’s nothing I can do.

However, even if housing is available, not everybody wants it. When you’re on the street, you have a whole lot of social networks available – drop-in centres, street culture friends etc. In the city, it’s easy to get a free feed, and if you want medical help, that’s usually available too. I have a friend who, after years spent waiting for a housing commission unit, finally got a place…in Broadmeadows. He knew nobody there, and spent the first few years wondering whether he would be better off moving straight back onto the streets, where at least he had support.

And so, I realise, there are often more important or more useful things you can do than providing material help. We sometimes refer people to services in Credo, but our main work is to provide something that the services don’t offer. Tom probably has a nurse looking out for him – several, perhaps. What the nurses can’t do is provide a warm space with prayer candles and good friends.

I also have the feeling that I am ‘helped’ more in Credo than the people I could potentially assist. My job is to build connections with people ‘on the margins’ – but in doing that, I think I am the one who comes out a healthier, more whole person.

* names changed

Tell me a story…

2009-06-30T18:08:00.001+10:00

James told me that he wasn’t a fan of Ghandi.

“Really?” I’d never heard anybody say that before. I almost wanted to tell him to keep his voice down – we were sitting in Credo Café, one of the main hubs of Urban Seed. In that organisation, to deny Ghandi is getting close to denying Christ! “Why?” I wanted to know.
“Well Ghandi called off the independence movement when it turned violent,” stated James, leaning against a wooden bench. A candle flickered while volunteers mopped the floor around us. “I think to myself: how dare he! If the people wanted to take the movement somewhere, stopping it was a complete abuse of power. It wasn’t his movement – it was the people’s!”
I sat there half-smiling, a little stunned.
James went on. “In fact,” he said, “The Ghandi story is simply a narrative that is popular amongst Americans. Same as Martin Luther King. He appeals to a white liberal audience, because he’s relatively nice. It’s all about racial harmony, as opposed to Black power. Actually,” said James, “the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was made some years before his death. Before he was assassinated, his speeches took on a stronger socialist flavour. But those speeches don’t get remembered and quoted!”

I am not surprised that James has picked up on – or rather has been around people who have alerted him to – the socialist leanings of Martin Luther King. James believes passionately in the power of the grassroots. He is a self-identifying activist, and continually wears a cotton red-and-white scarf that he picked up during his time in Palestine. A dense beard belies a youthful face and a crooked smile, which persists whether he’s extolling the virtues of a polyamorous lifestyle or condemning Israel for genocide.

James reminds me that the stories of the lives of people we love and admire – like Ghandi and Martin Luther King – are simply that: stories. Like any narrative, some aspects are left out and others are emphasised, and this corresponds with the agenda of the storyteller.

The Ghandi story, for many of us, is a principle in narrative form that nonviolent good will always conquer violent evil. We underscore the nonviolent methods Ghandi demonstrated, such as long marches to gather salt and the burning of British cotton. James, on the other hand, emphasises the fact that at a certain point Ghandi calls the movement off – taking power from the people and causing the Indian people to suffer even longer under British rule.

Similarly, we pick and choose from the historical reality of Martin Luther King – constructing a story of the man as a peaceful defender of civil rights, rather than a man of socialist persuasion. In fact, the whole Black civil rights movement is framed by the figure of the peaceful, Christian King, rather than the Muslim Malcolm X who believed in disciplined, violent defence. We construct a narrative and that becomes history.

As I write this, I think that it all seems so obvious it possibly doesn’t deserve a blog post. But it’s something I need to continually remind myself of – that there are so many versions of history, and when you seek to emulate an inspiring figure, all you can do is imitate the ways of a character in a story. A story based on a historical reality, yes, but nonetheless a story.

The Jesus that I know is a story character. A while ago I posted an analysis of a narrative in Mark, in which Christ overturns the tables of the vendors in the temple. Actually my interpretation is very much a product of my time at Urban Seed, where we tend to view the figure of Christ almost as a social and political revolutionary. My Dad doesn’t share these views, and responded to my post with a lengthy comment, arguing that Jesus’ purpose wasn’t primarily political or social

“I don't believe Jesus came to Jerusalem just to cleanse the Temple,” said Dad. “He came to die […] so that Man might live.” Dad went on: “His death would enable Man […] to enter that Kingdom, because without Jesus' death and therefore atonement for sin, NO ONE would be able to enter it.”

For me, Jesus was about restoration on Earth. For Dad, Jesus was about eternal life in heaven. There are many other narratives you can create around Jesus – I even read recently that Jesus’ mission was to free women and teach us about sexual liberation and the ways of the subconscious. The Gospels give us four separate stories about Christ, and we pick and choose from them to construct a narrative that works well for our own agendas.

Somebody turned the main lights off and we sat in semi-darkness. James related a story about the people of Venezuela, who defended the socialist President Chávez against a CIA-backed coup. Of course, James has his own narratives that he follows – his actions are inspired by the stories in which the common people win. Like me, he picks and chooses from what actually happened, constructing something that is useful for his life.

What actually happened? Who knows? All we can do is tell a story. That’s called history.

Devoted to truth

2009-06-26T18:33:00.001+10:00

By the time dinner was over, we were sitting like content cats, warm and sleepy, sinking into the corners of the couch. The conversation had relaxed to a steady rhythm, like the breath you listen for in a slumbering child.

“If you can’t rely on the Bible for truth,” Dimitri was saying, “then where do you look?”

I gazed at a poster on the wall, not really seeing it. The Bible and me – yes, what a contentious relationship we’d had. It no longer made sense to believe all it contained at face value. Worse, often my efforts at understanding context and peering behind bad translations left me wondering whether I was getting any closer to truth, or just reading into the Bible what I wanted to read.

“I suppose you look within yourself,” I said. Even I wasn’t entirely convinced.
“But then you could end up believing just about anything, based on your personal circumstances or just the whim of the moment.”

Dimitri is not religious, but I agreed with him on this one. When you seek truth, surely you need some kind of reference point. People believe all kinds of crazy things because it feels right. There is good spirit within me, but I can’t know truth based on that alone.
“You need to talk to other people,” I offered.
“Yes.” Dimitri was nodding. “There’s something to be said for talking to others, and maybe for traditions, too. You can’t believe something because it feels right at the time, and write off centuries of thought and the experiences of other people.”

At some point Dimitri mentioned the word ‘listening’. Maybe truth-seeking involves good listening skills, I mused. Listening to other people, the voices in your own tradition, the voices in other traditions, the sounds of your own heart, the words of sacred texts, the movement of waves and the rustle of a breeze. I don’t think truth can be found in any one of these things. It has to be sought after in all of them.

The conversation reminded me of a prayer by Leunig:

In order to be truthful.
We must do more than speak the truth.
We must also hear truth.
We must also receive truth.
We must also act upon truth.
We must also search for truth.
The difficult truth.
Within us and around us.
We must devote ourselves to truth.
Otherwise we are dishonest
And our lives are mistaken.
God grant us the strength and the courage
To be truthful.
Amen

I haven’t known Dimitri for very long, and we continually marvel at just how differently our brains are wired. You really think like that? He is brain; I am gut. He is scientist; I am spiritualist. While I am intrigued by mystery, he would prefer to ignore what is unknowable; what cannot be measured or investigated. He wants concrete truths. I am content with the knowledge that some deep truths cannot be proven, but are still very, very real.

But the prayer struck a cord with both of us. While we seek our truths in different ways, we are nonetheless both devoted to it. We are both ‘listening’, but perhaps hear different things.

What we agree on is that truth must be lived. It is no good simply to believe. If the world is heating up we must do something to reverse it. If Christ calls us to befriend the poor then that is what we must do.
Otherwise we are dishonest
And our lives are mistaken, says Leunig.

We sipped tea, together and different, pondering the nature of truth.

God grant us the strength and the courage
To be truthful.
Amen

Always enough

2009-06-24T21:39:00.002+10:00

The other day I received a newsletter in the mail from an organisation called ‘Manna Gum’. Jono Cornford had written an article about the manna story, from the Bible, which I found really inspiring.

When the Jews were released from slavery in Egypt, they set out in pursuit of the Promised Land. What they found was desert. While they were the cogs that kept the economic powerhouse of Egypt running, they shared, nonetheless, in a part of the wealth that was generated. “There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted,” they complained, when they found themselves faced with the harsh emptiness of an Egyptian desert. It would have been better to have died in the city, they declared, than to starve to death in the wilderness.

God’s response was to provide. The Jews arose the next morning to find a layer of dew on the ground. When the dew evaporated into the desert air, a residue of mysterious white flakes remained, which apparently tasted like honey wafers. This was the food they lived on.

“He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little,” the Book of Exodus reports. “Each one gathered as much as he needed.” When people tried to save some for the next day, it turned smelly and grew maggots. The exception was the Friday morning, when they could gather double the usual amount – since Saturday was the Sabbath, no manna would fall that day. For each day of the week, there was always enough.

Sometimes I think the coins that commuters toss into my case are a bit like manna from heaven. Like the mysterious bread appearing while the people sleep, I cannot make the coins come. No matter how sweetly or how passionately I play, this means of survival is placed squarely out of my control. Some days I am faced with an abundance of small gold coins clunking softly into my case. The other morning, an hour’s work brought in less than $10. I sighed and wondered whether I should bother anymore – perhaps I should go back to my research job. But, just like the manna story, I find that there is always enough. A little today, a lot tomorrow – whatever rains down on me, there is always enough.

When you wake up in the morning knowing there is only 60 cents in your bank account, and the remainder of your savings sit in a jar on your desk, you can feel a bit like a climber with no safety rope. I love the feeling of freedom – of being weighed down by nothing but the clothes on my back.

Other times you feel the fear. For me, it’s not a fear of starving or being rendered homeless – I don’t pay rent and I live in a place whose mission is to eat food. But I fear other things: rejection from friends because I can’t pay for drinks; being overly dependent on the generosity of others; a strange sensation that I might be whisked away in the next strong breeze, because my wallet isn’t heavy enough to hold me down. I am no longer a cog in a machine, but somehow that machine is a source of comfort and security!

Every now and then, I am faced with a decision of whether to keep money I have found in my possession (stimulus package, back-payments from RMIT etc.), or pass it on. If it sits in my bank account, will it go bad? Or is it wise to hang on to a few of these dollars, for rainy days and emergencies?

Like most things in life, there are no hard and fast rules. For now, an existence with less cash is serving me well. New growth defies a bank balance that shrinks. I am becoming more practiced in releasing tense stomach muscles when I think about all the things I need money for, and trust that I will be looked after (like the lilies of the fields and the sparrows of the air, I remind myself). Somehow, maintaining a loose fist helps me stress less about money – rather than seeing it as a scarce commodity, I prefer to view it as an abundant resource that needs to be moved around. There is enough for everybody.

Less money keeps me awake. My eyes are open to the ways of God – to the grace, the magic, the serendipity, if you will. I bit the bullet and gave a chunk of money away to a friend who wanted to travel. But I walked away with a wad of cash – an old housemate my friend and I were visiting had finally jumped on ebay and sold a table we owned (but didn’t use); a friend paid back some money she’d been owing me. I graciously received – it was my manna from heaven. For me, it was more life-giving to live within the goodwill of the universe, rather than rely solely on my personal prosperity. Perhaps this is the lesson Jesus was trying to teach the rich young man, when he was told to sell everything he owned. The rich young man walked sadly away.

But, I can envision a fuller bank balance in days to come. There will be times when having more money will be life-giving. Money can be used as a tool for fulfilment.

Perhaps when that time arrives, the money will fall, ready to be harvested when the dew clears for the day. Should I look for it; seek it out? Or do I simply need to open my eyes?

A flower...or God?

2009-06-17T20:43:00.002+10:00

Something a friend said, describing a past relationship: "I looked at a flower and saw a flower; she looked at a flower and saw...God."

I could expand and write 800 words on the topic, but I'll refrain because I have to write an essay!

tourist icon

2009-06-17T11:48:00.003+10:00

This morning somebody took a photo of me while I was busking. It was at a new spot I've found, at Melbourne Central. I didn't say anything at the time - just gave the Asian girl, cradling a tiny digital camera, a strange look. It wasn't til afterwards that that the incident settled in my chest and I began to feel angry. I suppose I felt objectified - like I was a tourist icon, rather than a real person who deserves to be asked before having her photo taken. Just part of the city landscape. I imagined finding myself in a Melbourne Information brochure - a two-dimensional thing that adds to the 'culture' of this city, but devoid of background or personality.

I remember going to Mexico City and guiltily taking my little disposable camera out of my backpack and taking a picture of a scene of people eating outside a street vendor. I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway, and I still remember the looks of annoyance on people's faces as they found their images imprinted - as though they were monkeys at a zoo - on the film of a tourist's camera.

I guess now I know how it feels.

My Jumper

2009-06-17T09:00:00.000+10:00

My jumper is big and dense and made with green wool plus copious amounts of love. In the dead of the winter, when I’m tapping away on my computer late into a Saturday night, my jumper holds me close like a zealous lover. Together we keep each other warm and fight off the icy fingers of an encroaching dawn. His arms are thick and wide; I feel safe and protected as he nestles against my chest.

The sky lightens and a small, white sun creeps up over the buildings, throwing a beam of winter warmth through the glass and onto my desk. It moves onto my cheek. Suddenly it all gets too much and I pull my jumper off – quickly, urgently – and dump his vast green mass onto the floor beside me.

An unexpected friendship

2009-06-16T00:04:00.001+10:00

Dad came into Credo with the intention of bonding with his daughter. He sat down opposite me at the big table, poking at a bowl of chow mein with his folk.
“So, what’s news with you?” Dad asked, earnestly.
“Oh, you know, the usual.” I launched into a vague description involving my studies and my work.

While I was talking, a man with a red face and a fluff of white hair sat down beside me.
I turned to the man. “What’s your name?” I asked, also quite earnestly.
“I’m John.” John didn’t seem to have any teeth and his voice was soft and muffled.
“So John,” I began. “What brings you here?”
John turned out to be a particularly candid person. “I want to find someone who can live with me.”
“Like a girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I’m very lonely. Maybe you can come and visit me?”
“No!” I said, smiling. “You’ll want me to move in with you!”
John grinned. “You can if you want!” he said.

I decided to change tact. “John, I’d like you to meet my Dad, Frank.”
“Hello there,” said John.
Dad looked up from his bowl. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, a little unsure as to whether he meant it.
“Where do you live?” asked John.
“Ah, Whittlesea.”
“That’s near me.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes – I live in Mill Park.”
“Oh yes well I suppose…that’s not too far from where we are…”
“Will you come and visit me?”
Dad cleared his throat and threw me a slightly startled look. “Oh well I’m not sure if…”
John pulled out an old docket and scribbled some words and numbers on the back. “He’s my address, and my phone number as well.”
Dad reluctantly reached across the table to take the piece of paper. As he did, John grabbed his hand. His eyes spoke desperation. “Please visit me.”
Dad tucked the paper into his breast pocket, saying nothing.

“So will you visit him?” I asked later as I walked Dad out to the laneway.
“Well – you know how it is – you say yes once and you have a friend for life!”
I laughed. I knew exactly what he meant.
We walked slowly to the end of the laneway. When we got to Little Collins we kissed and parted ways.

I watched Dad as he walked a little way along the narrow street. He pulled the folded docket out of his pocket and opened it up. He stopped walking to read the scrawled words. Then he carefully refolded it and put it back in his pocket, before setting off again to his car.

I stopped watching and wandered back to Credo. John had gone. Somebody had turned the music up loud. I filled a bucket with soupy water and began wiping down the tables, humming along to whatever was playing.

Going up the mountain

2009-06-08T23:56:00.002+10:00

Today Mum offered to take us up the mountain to see what it looked like after the fires. I didn’t know what to say.

The first thought that popped into my head was ‘disaster tourism’. I remembered how in New Orleans companies ran bus tours of the flood-devastated Lower 9th Ward. It seemed wrong. It was wrong.

Yet when I found myself in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, I wanted to go down and see it for myself. The other Australian interns at the law office and I took our hire car down and drove quietly around the narrow streets, cameras guiltily poised. We took home our pieces of Katrina – images of buckled lives burnt into our minds and onto our films. I’m glad I have those photos, but I’m still a little ashamed.

So when Mum was doing the last call for the bushfire tour, I was in two minds whether to go. I badly wanted to see it. Somehow it seemed more valid and less disrespectful because I’m from Whittlesea. I have a connection; it’s not blatant stickybeaking.
“Is it wrong?” I asked my sister, Rebecca.
“I’m not going,” she answered, decidedly.
I chose to go anyway.

Mum was a good guide, pointing out Coombs Road, where Brian Naylor died, and the O’G-’s property. Andrew sat in the front while Kat, Elizabeth and I squished in the back. Mum complained about the council, which was holding up the rebuilding process. I stared out the misted windows. I followed the valley and the bare, hard crest in the distance with my eyes. Trees jutted from a smooth dome like spikes of hair on a bald man’s head. An army of blackened sticks descended down the hills and across the land, on and on.

I felt sick. February came back. Helplessness. Taking the train and the bus back to Whittlesea the day after it happened, only to do nothing. Asking what I could do. Can I cook dinner? Can I water the garden? Can I pray? Being told: no, no, no. Those things are all wrong. Looking at a candle. Deciding it’s a bad idea to light the candle. Setting up a vigil in my old bedroom. Nobody coming. Everybody rushing around. Feeling alone. Feeling stupid.

We winded up the road, specks of rain gently tapping the windscreen. I imagined what it would have been like – trees splayed across the baking bitumen, trapped screams, an inferno hotter than hell.

Bronwyn coming around. Words of hope that nobody believes. Fighting with Mum. Crying into Dad’s chest. Praying with Dad. Hearing the news. Watching Rebecca rush off to be with Bronwyn. Nothing to do. Feeling alone. Feeling stupid.

Tents and caravans dotted the sides of the road. A few Australian flags floated in the cold breeze – a symbol of strength and hope, I supposed. Up close, I could see that many of the black trees were clothed with a beautiful, defying green, like lace. In one spot, large ferns had popped up. They seemed to have even surprised themselves. A couple stood on the side of the road, holding a digital camera at arm’s length and peering at its screen.

I left Whittlesea a few days after the fires. There was nothing for me to do. The city was waiting for me. Nothing much had changed in the city.

The conversation rolled around predictably in the car. People should have left earlier. But there was no warning – it just happened! It was the wrong policy, this whole idea of defending. But it was the best policy we had at the time! I would have left. I would have left early; on time. They’re just things. Who cares about things? Oh, but a house is so much more than a house! It’s a life!

I feel better when I ascribe some blame to the victims. Foolhardy! Should have known the risks! My brazen words hide the truth that scares me too much to say out loud. It could have been me. It could have been us. That’s the one thing we don’t say to each other.

I’m glad I went up the mountain. I didn’t feel like a tourist – or if I was, it was equally a tour of an emotional destination I had spent several months trying to escape. I sit on the periphery and peer in – not knowing what to do but look.

Why soldiers go to war

2009-06-06T01:08:00.002+10:00

My sister Kathryn is being deployed to the Middle East soon. She invited me to her going away drinks at the mess and so I went along, my floral skirt and knee-high boots clashing with the surrounds as much as the red ‘visitor’ badge clashed with my pink top. But military people are almost always friendly, with a firm handshake, proudly Aussie accent and a stockpile of questions about my civilian life.

Kathryn shouted me a Coopers – it was Happy Hour and cost her about $2, which is half the usual price. No wonder they have a drinking problem in the army, I thought. I stood amongst uniformed officers and swigged at my beer, pleased not to be sipping on wine. When the conversation descended to a rattle of acronyms, I gazed about the room, observing the dark wooden panels and forest green carpets. A well-maintained windup clock hung from a wall, proudly paying homage to an era of old, its culture and traditions preserved like polished brass.

Kathryn introduced me to Luke, who was slim in his RAAF uniform, with fair hair and a cheeky smile. Luke was excited because he was about to be deployed to the Middle East. I was curious at this excitement – mainly because I’d witnessed the same sentiment in my sister.
I plucked up the courage to ask Luke. “So why are you so excited about being deployed?”
“That’s a good question.” He picked up his beer from the table and took a sip. “Think of it like this. Imagine you’re eighteen years old and you’ve just been drafted into an AFL footy club. You’re the first pick. Now, imagine that it’s the first game of the season, and before it starts the couch tells you to stretch your quads because you’re about to go on. So you warm up and do your stretches, but then he says, ‘Actually, we’ll put you on for the second quarter’. So you wait around but then when the second quarter comes, he changes his mind again. And so it goes on like this for the rest of the game, and then the whole season. You never get to go on.”

I was nodding – I got what he was saying. They want to go to war so they can put their training into practice. I could relate to that – it would be like practicing the flute day in, day out, but never getting to perform. None of us want to do what is frivolous – we want our efforts to make a difference.

I met Susan, who was also RAAF. She had down-turned eyes and wore a bemused expression on her face. She kept pulling a medallion out of her pocket to show people, which was still in its box.
“Look at my medallion,” she kept saying. “It’s the first one I’ve got!”
I asked to look at her prize. The small metal round bore a little map of Victoria, and said something about the Victorian bushfires. Susan told me she’d been very instrumental in helping with the defence contribution to the fire fighting. She’d finally been recognised for her efforts.
She told me what rank she was, but that she was really the RAAF equivalent of an acting-Captain in the army, which her salary reflected.
“Another Captain got picked over me for deployment,” she said. Her glass of wine was disappearing quickly. “It was only because of his rank – I had the expertise. I’m pretty much a Captain anyway.”
When it was just Susan, Kathryn and I, standing in a little female huddle, she told us that often people get deployed as a way of getting rid of them for a while. “The problem with me,” said Susan, “is that I’m too indispensable. That’s why they won’t send me overseas.”
The problem with not being sent overseas, however, is that you don’t get recognition for your work: there are no gongs or coloured panels that you can wear on your chest for being indispensable in Australia.
“The person who stays at home works harder than the ones who go,” Susan said, “but they just don’t get the recognition.”

I was curious that Susan was so desperate for a medal. But then I thought – isn’t that what we all want? To be told that we are valued and that our labours have not been in vain? I said, “But civilians can work for decades in the same job and not get a gong or a medallion.” As I said it, I realised it was entirely different. In the military, the main way of showing a person they are valued is by presenting them with one of these formal rewards. If you don’t get it – even if they throw you a party and make you a cake – you feel jibbed. Medals are the language of the military, just as gifts and cards reinforce words of thanks in the civilian world.

This afternoon’s trip to the mess gave me a good insight into why soldiers go to war. I don’t think it’s usually because they believe in what they’re doing. I think it’s because going to war, for them, fulfills some very basic human needs, which all of us, in our different ways, spend our lives trying to meet.

RSVP

2009-06-02T22:54:00.004+10:00

I set up an RSVP account last night. I’d like to say it was just for fun; a social experiment or an experiential pastime…but if I did say that, I’d be leaving out a big part of the truth.

The truth is that, well, sometimes I get lonely. There, I’ve said it. Sigh. It’s the kind of loneliness that you’re not aware of most of the time because you’re distracted by the rest of your life. But it occasionally manifests itself in your gut like an indigestible mass of rice-starch after a big yummy meal at one of those cheap restaurants off China Town. Sometimes it’s more of an ache, and you can’t figure out why it’s there. Did I eat something bad? Am I stressed about that essay? Ah, that’s right, we’ve been here before. It’s loneliness.

Gemma hovered by my side as I worked on my profile description, giving me advice on when I sounded like an idiot. It’s hard to be honest and still give a good impression of myself. It’s hard to say what I believe without sounding trite and clichéd. I worried that what I was writing was a caricature of myself – a flattering cartoon image, if that’s at all possible. I sound fun and quirky, full of colour and soul. Anything vaguely negative that I write about myself is carefully placed to be balanced by a more overwhelming positive, and inserted for the purpose of making me sound fallible and thus, perhaps, more attractive.

There is nothing overtly dishonest in what I write…what feels unreal is in the very nature of what is a profile – a snapshot taken from a particularly attractive angle, like the photos we post of ourselves on Facebook. I would say ‘like the photo I uploaded that accompanies my profile on RSVP’, only I don’t really like my RSVP picture. It was one of the only ones I had of myself, and gets me on a funny angle.

Despite my reservations, the kisses came in thick and fast – these virtual flirtations stacking up in my inbox like unfinished drinks at a bar. My immediate response was panic. Do I have to talk to all these people? Most of them seemed completely inappropriate. Gemma and I sat cross-legged on my bed, giggling as we sifted through the pile of profiles from lonely men.

if u make me smile once...ill make u smile twice. no discounts. only double deals… I own a ship...friendship....safe to travel...will never sink in the sea...planning to own 1more...relationship... anyone wanna come for a ride?...

"Hmm, no thanks."

I am a hard working and committed gentlemen who works for a small chartered accounting firm in the CBD. I working in the Taxation, which may sound BORING to most people..

“Correct.”

i am very fascinated by the quantum interactions that occur on the sub atomic level, sadly it is a topic that i can spend days discussing but i shall spare you the tedium of a long winded speech about the wonders of string and membrane theorems...lol

“He’s got to be kidding.”

We scanned through the profiles the way we run our fingers across the ‘best and worst dressed’ in the MX, sniggering at them for their sin of making themselves known and vulnerable. I cast them aside with the polite auto-reject of “Thanks for your kiss but I don’t think it would work between us.” Clearing them from my inbox and my life, I felt in control again.

Like a beautiful woman sitting alone in a bar full of men, I don’t pursue. To be able to send ‘kisses’ you have to pay $14.90 a month; each email conversation you open costs $9.99. So far I haven’t paid a cent – I let them come to me. Seems that the online dating world isn’t so dissimilar from the real world.

One man started an email conversation with me, deeming me worthy of his $9.99 ‘stamp’. He declared that my profile reminded him of a girl he’d once adored, but lost contact with. Seems that he’s pursuing me to live a dream with another woman he thought was long dead. I don’t know why he told me that, but to tell the truth, when I read that statement, I didn’t mind. I was kind of flattered, actually, that he liked me.

We emailed back and forth, and he wanted to catch up. I said, “Sure, why not?” I don’t really know much about him (he likes reading and LOVES to travel, apparently), but I guess I’ll find out more on Saturday. That’s when we’re meeting for lunch.

We’ll see if this RSVP thing fixes my loneliness problem. Somehow I doubt it…although it could prove a very useful distraction.

Anger that shuts down an intersection

2009-05-31T23:56:00.000+10:00

These men are angry. It’s a body-gyrating, fist-pounding anger, sounding distorted and tinny through run-down megaphones. A band of young men, some in turbans, others not, stand invincible at the centre of a sea of more young men, who sit like immoveable rocks or else stand and cheer at the command of their leaders. On the periphery is a husk made up of the curious and the less committed, poised with digital cameras and mobile phones. Police complete the configuration, circling it with their fluoro vests like speciality dancers in a Rock Eisteddfod.

I first saw them just after 3, when I walked past the intersection between Flinders and Swanston Streets. With vague curiosity I meandered through the edges of the crowd. What’s this about, I wanted to know? Racially-inspired hate crimes, I was told. Apparently international students have been victim to a spate racist attacks in recent weeks. Aussies have been stabbing Indian students with screwdrivers at railways stations and gatecrashing Indian parties. These people want it to stop.

I went back at 5. The cold air had a new bite to it and the city lights were shining bright against the descending darkness. The bells of St Pauls wouldn’t stop ringing – loud, disjointed notes that went on and on. They mingled with the now seemingly crazed voices coming out of the faltering loudspeakers – words I couldn’t understand. The mob had bunkered down to a large, impenetrable core.

It’s nearly midnight and I can still hear the crowd. Sirens scream and float up to my bedroom. Last year, taxi drivers protested in the same spot for 22 hours. This mob ain’t going nowhere.

When I went to Credo for dinner, I sat next to Djarro and told him what I’d seen. Djarro said they had no right to take to the streets like that – they weren’t from this country and they should either go through diplomatic channels or else deal with it like everybody else. They had no right to be so angry.
“Are you angry?” I asked.
“No.”
“You’re not angry about what colonialism has done to your people?”
“It’s not in my people’s psyche to be angry,” was his answer. “We are calm. We don’t yell and shout. We’re just not like that.”
He went on to talk about his people, and how they had been decimated by ‘Anglos’. His eyes grew fierce with hurt and what looked like anger.
“You sound angry.”
“Ok, well I am angry. But our anger is controlled. We listen and we talk.”
I thought back to times when I’d heard Aboriginal people talk about what has happened to their people since colonialism. They don’t normally yell or embellish their words with lots of emotional adjectives. They just speak the truth, with a clarity that almost sparkles.

After dinner Djarro and I wandered down to the blockade. We stood on the steps of St Pauls, surveying the formation below. I stood next to a man with a bushy black beard. What is it they want, I wanted to know? His voice was impassioned, his dark eyes avoiding mine. We want freedom from these hate crimes, we want police protection. He related stories I’d heard earlier about stabbings. We come to this country to peacefully study, he said, and we do not deserve to be attacked by Aussies. We want more police protection.

When will they stop protesting, was my next question? When somebody comes from the government to assure them of more police protection, was his answer.

His demand was vague and his rant sounded like repeated rhetoric. More police protection…what did that even mean? It sounded to me like a simplistic solution dreamed up by one of those informal leaders with megaphones, mid-speech.

The protest, it seemed to me, was just their way of channelling anger. There may not be any political strategy behind it. I wonder if what this is really about is a group of proud, educated men who are sick of doing the demeaning jobs that no-one else wants to do. They drive our taxis, staff our convenience stores – and have been reduced to a strange stereotype that includes both impotence and violence. They are looked down upon, yet also feared.

This stereotype is not so dissimilar from what Djarro faces. He has a lot more to complain about, and perhaps that is why it gets under his skin when educated Indians take to the streets. For the most part, Djarro has dealt with dispossession by expressing his hurt through art and making the best of his tattered roots. His anger rages, but comes out as a sort of sadness – grief, for example, that he can’t think and talk in his own language.

I think that Djarro is resentful of others who are already powerful using that strength to shut down major intersections and make the front pages of newspapers. In this country, genocide never stopped traffic. Djarro’s people are scattered and disenfranchised. Dispossession makes it very hard to make change out of anger.

sorry

2009-05-28T09:04:00.001+10:00

On Tuesday it was Sorry Day. We held Credo Gathering outside in the laneway, before a backdrop of an Aboriginal flag and the urban Dreamtime mural that is painted on the wall of the adjoining hotel. Coco, who is not indigenous but could somehow pass as such, read out the acknowledgment to the traditional owners of the land. Gin read the story of a man who, along with his siblings, was stolen from his mother. We lit candles as we prayed for this man and others. I lit a candle and said “Sorry”.

I’ve been thinking about that word a lot lately. It came to my attention a while ago, when I was with Nick. I noticed that he never said sorry for anything. He would arrive hours late armed with excuses rather than apologies. Ill-fated circumstances were never attributed to himself – they were always somehow out of his control.

In some ways, I admired Nick’s ability to recognise where he was not to blame. Some things are out of your control, even if you are involved in the incident. I compare Nick’s aversion to saying sorry with my own tendency to be unceasingly apologetic at times. Nick’s son, Marrick, picked me up on it during a game of ball – I threw badly and instinctively said “Sorry”. “There’s no need to apologise,” he said, with incredible clarity for a 6-year-old. “It’s only a game.”

Over dahl and shahi paneer with Despina at my favourite Indian restaurant, we chatted about the word ‘sorry’. Like me, Despina apologises a lot. “In Greek,” she said, “they don’t have the word ‘sorry’. When I went to Greece I had the experience of not being able to apologise for everything I did. It was really weird.”

So in Greece, I confirmed, if you accidentally knock someone on the train, you don’t say sorry. If you’re late, you don’t say sorry. What if you do something really bad, I wanted to know? Well, she answered, you explain your actions. You don’t – you can’t – say ‘sorry’.

“Actually,” said Despina, “There is one phrase that you can use. It’s something like ‘I have an ill feeling’. You use it if you’ve done something bad.”

An ill feeling. Very different from a flippant ‘sorry’. You wouldn’t use it if you knocked someone on the train, for example, or were five minutes late for an appointment. This phrase, whatever it is, seems to show that you are aching inside because of your own actions.

‘Sorry’ says that you regret something you’ve done. Perhaps it is also a request to be excused by the person you did wrong to. Stating that you feel terrible about doing something is different. You are not asking for forgiveness. You are not even really saying, outright, that you did something wrong. You are just describing your feelings in the aftermath.

Women, I have noticed, say sorry a lot. I think we generally feel more guilty than men – guilty, it often seems, of our own existence. Karen Armstrong, in her book “The Gospel According to Woman”, puts it like this: In the West guilt seems to be part of the female condition. When we women have cause to feel guilty we wallow in it, and when we have no cause we manufacture one, in a way men simply do not do.

Armstrong goes on to describe the guilt of women who return to work after having children, and the guilt of women who stay at home. Women are guilty about failed relationships and bratty kids. We are trained not to be assertive and to prelude a criticism or to herald our presence with an apology that might be verbal (I’m sorry to disturb you…sorry to insist on this…sorry to have to tell you that your work is appalling) or it might simply be a deprecating smile or apologetic shrug.

Armstrong links this obsession with apologising with the guilt we have inherited from centuries of Christian thought blaming all women for the sins of Eve, who, apparently, introduced evil into the world. According to the Church Fathers, we are all Eves.

Personally, I’d like to try living for a while without the existence of the word ‘sorry’. For times I really needed to apologise, I could just say, “I feel sick inside for what I’ve done”.

But, for our Indigenous friends, this might not be enough. I do feel sick inside for what colonialism has done to Aboriginal people and communities. But I don’t think ill feelings alone cut it. What is required is a reaching out; a statement that what has transpired is morally wrong. A plea for forgiveness – if not for the individual but for the wider society.

I think there is something healing about the word ‘sorry’, when used well. Maybe when we women use it too often, we devalue its currency.

bleeding heart

2009-05-25T22:19:00.002+10:00

In the city, on almost every street corner, is somebody with a clipboard and a pommy accent trying to sign you up to some moral cause. It’s funny, but no matter the charity (old growth forests, empowering women in India, rescuing bears from evil circus masters) they all pick me out as a potential supporter. Some people get approached in the street because they look like they might want drugs; I get approached for some kind of principled vibe I apparently possess.

And it’s not a bad pick, on the part of the ethical spruiker. I work with homeless people (tick for Mission Australia); I don’t eat much meat (tick for Animal Liberation Victoria); I care about the environment (tick for the Australian Conservation Fund). I once campaigned for the introduction of Fair Trade products in universities and I used to be involved in the youth arm of World Vision (both ticks for Oxfam). I am the quintessential over-achieving bleeding heart, and they pick it in an instant.

I generally scurry past the clipboard-bearing backpackers with my hat low and my eyes cast down, lest they see what kind of person I am. Occasionally I accidentally make eye contact, or fail to adequately brush off a conversation hook.
“Do you like animals?” or “Do you care about the environment?” they ask.
I whimper, “Maybe,” and that’s it, I’m a goner.
“Fantastic! Now, before I got on, are you over twenty-one?”
I’m a little flattered that they still ask me that question. “I think so.”
“Great. Now – have you heard of Amnesty International?”
“Yep.”
And so it goes, on and on, a barrage of questions that require only one-word answers that apparently give the desperate salesperson (paid by commission) permission to rattle off information and point at graphs at a speed I can only guess has developed from the fear of having potential signups walk away mid-sentence.

What really bugs me (warning: minor rant forthcoming) is that they don’t usually bother to engage with me as an intelligent person who is possibly interested in the subject area and not altogether ignorant. Actually, I was once the secretary of the Amnesty International club at uni – so clearly I care about the issue. I don’t need to be convinced to care; I need to be persuaded to give money. But you just get treated with the same eye-glazing spiel, like everybody else.

So I’ve never signed up with any of these guilt vendors – I always end the conversation with a declaration that I have no money and make a quick exit. That is, up until today. Because today, as I was hurling my grocery shopping home, I encountered Steve, who was playing with his dog. Stuffed dog. Steve introduced me to Bob, who was a very obedient dog and hadn’t bitten anyone in over five years. We got chatting and Steve soon revealed that he was from the Lost Dogs Home. That is, he worked for the Lost Dogs Home. We talked and joked and he told me about all the amazing things the Lost Dogs Home does – and I was impressed!

It probably helped that Steve had a cute Scottish accent. But it also turned out that the Lost Dogs Home don’t get government funding because they refuse to put down healthy animals (“We just work harder to find good homes.”), and have a 24/7 animal ambulance! When we got to the part where he was asking for money (or, in his words, become a member of the “Paw Club”), I felt so awful turning him down. I took the usual approach and told him that I had no money, which was true. Steve wouldn’t take no for an answer. He said I should busk more. So I agreed. I signed up to be a member of the Paw Club, making monthly donations of $20 a month. The first payment is set to come out 2 July – hopefully I’ll have more than 18 cents in my bank account by then.

And then I slipped him my number. I shocked myself. I’d done two things in the space of 5 minutes that I’d never done before – signed up to one of those clipboard charities on the street, and given a guy I liked my number without him even asking for it. After that I ran away, scared I’d do something else disturbing.

He hasn’t rung, yet. He probably has a girlfriend. But it’s only been 5 hours. Should give it a day or two. We’ll wait and see.

more haiku's

2009-05-25T07:18:00.000+10:00

Faith walk:
The space where money was
Is now filled with Spirit.

A better world:
Colourful mobs of hairy friends
Make me feel alone.

Twenty-first century:
Dreadlocked girl doing yoga
By the old convent.

haiku writing

2009-05-24T07:08:00.002+10:00

I've been writing some haiku's lately. They're fun to write. There is apparently no consensus on how to write a haiku in English, because the art form is Japanese. The main things they have in common is three lines. Some people say that the first line should have 5 syllables, the second 7, and the third 5 again. I find that helps as a rough guide. But I think the main thing is to have two sections with a 'break' - I've been doing it by starting the thing I'm describing in the first line, with some kind of essential truth or description in the second and third lines. Here's a few I've come up with:

Lemon myrtil tea:
Silence sits in the bottom
Of the pot we shared.

Sound of drilling
Cracks the shining blue sky
That drifts from another world.

Mini skirt:
Thighs wobble -
But she still looks good.

art exhibition

2009-05-23T19:06:00.001+10:00

“My mum did that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one and that one!” says the artist’s child, proudly and with the particular hyperactivity of a 10-year-old girl. She is one of a tribe of children – girls, mainly – who, I can tell by their stylish and rather grown-up outfits, belong to that category of parents that lie somewhere between hippies and yuppies. Their mothers stand in loose huddles, leaving lipstick marks on glasses of white wine as they slap each other lightly on the arm and throw their heads back in laughter.

Couples peruse colourful pieces in acrylic paint, one by one, clopping slowly across the hard floor and talking casually about where a particular piece might fit in their home. A man with a protruding belly and a beer stands in a corner decorated sparsely with pencil sketches, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He is looking anxiously in the direction of the ladies’ toilets, his view momentarily obscured by the tribe of little girls who dart by.

I recognise a politician (also a little overweight), who is talking in muffled tones about the importance of the arts to a woman in black with thin red lips and deep furrows between her eyebrows. Next to him is a woman with a very colourful floral scarf and red boots, who is waving her hands around furiously and laughing in a high pitch way, almost spilling her glass (brimming with red wine) on the politician.

I turn to look back at the uncomfortable man in the corner, and find him greeted by a woman with very blonde hair, very hair heels, very pink nails and stockings full of little holes that are in a pattern you might see on a Turkish carpet.

The politician makes a speech, mainly about the importance of the arts. He says: “Great art holds a mirror not only to the mind and soul of the artist, but also to ourselves as art appreciators.”

I leave soon after, the collection of paintings disappearing from my mind like casual words over a glass of wine.

Friend

2009-05-21T00:31:00.001+10:00

Her face is stern, strong and lipsticked. She worked as a doctor in a hospital before her world was reduced, by “chronik fatik sydrom”, to a day-by-day struggle to feed herself and convince other doctors that she’s not mad. Today, when I run into her on Little Collins, she is all smiles. I know the drill – kiss, kiss, kiss, beginning with the right cheek. She tells me how radiant I look, although I know she is disappointed about my hair (“Now that your hairstyle is more sophisticated, you must begin to act this way,” she’d told me when I first cut it off.)
I brace myself and draw a sharp breath. “And how are you?”
“Ah well, you know, not very good.” I am expecting her to go on. I glance over her shoulder, in the direction of the station. My train is leaving soon. “But, you know, that is life.” She pauses and beams. “But you – you look like you’ve just come back from a wonderful holiday!”
I glance at my watch. “Actually, I’m about to go on one. Just for a few days, in Ocean Grove. Staying with a friend.”
“How WONDERFUL!” she cries. I’m not sure whether I’m meant to feel touched, or guilty for my gifts of youth and good health. “But,” she adds, with a warning tone, “Remember what they say. A guest is like a fish – good for about three days, but after that begins to smell!”
We laugh loud and high – I feel like I could be a fellow Ukrainian woman, sharing a joke that only Ukrainian women understand. This joke is a fairly generic one, but she makes me feel special, in her peculiar way.
We part in a flurry of smiles and laughs. I walk briskly onwards towards the station, grinning with pleasure.

Mothers' Day

2009-05-11T11:48:00.004+10:00

Young man, about my age, sits slumped on the neatly mowed grass, knees bent only as much as his leather motorcycle pants will allow. He hasn’t brought flowers…just himself. As he settles before the brass plaque, flushed from the ride, the cool evening air stills against his face. His heart rate drops to a steady meditation, subdued by an old, aching wound. We walk by silently and carefully. He looks up and I smile at him, sadly. I feel a bit pathetic. I can only imagine.

It’s Mothers’ Day and there are fresh flowers everywhere; plump petals boasting youth and life. They will wither soon after the visitors leave. Rebecca and I walk Kerry to the grave of her elderly parents. It doesn’t seem two years ago, although a lot has changed. Kerry has her own unit now and seems so confident and independent. It’s been nice to watch. She comes to the gravesite with some artificial flowers in hand – she’s such a practical person; these ones won’t wither and die. I remember when we lowered the coffins (Kerry’s mum’s first – she’d always been afraid of heights). I think back to Kerry shaking with grief as family members threw chunks of soils into the grave. Mothers Day is always hard, but today Kerry is composed.

Rebecca and I leave her to be alone and go to search out the O’G-s’ grave. Rebecca has visited before but can’t remember where it is. We file silently through large, dark-grey tombstones of polished marble, engraved mainly with Greek-sounding names. Some of the newer ones have photographs of the deceased embossed on the stone. I’m surprised – I hadn’t known such a large Greek community existed around Whittlesea. Mum would disapprove – for herself, she wants just a brass plague, simple and dignified. I too would feel uncomfortable having my remains adorned by a large shiny tomb. So showy; not very Australian. But I suppose it wouldn’t really matter for me. It only matters for those left behind.

We finally come across the grave we are looking for, marked by a temporary post. Stapled to the post is one of the laminated keepsakes I took home from the memorial service, with the names and smiling faces of the three family members. Under each face is written 7/2/09 – the date of Black Saturday. The freshly heaped dirt is covered in bunches of flowers – some fresh, others turning brown and stained by coloured tissue paper that has run in the rain. There’s another, unmarked grave next to what seems to be the main one, bare besides a few scattered marigolds and a pinwheel that is spinning a little in the light evening breeze. Rebecca wonders if that’s Stewie’s. She’s not sure so adds her small bunch of home-grown flowers to the main grave.

We realise that the O’G-s’ grave is actually quite close to Kerry’s parents’. I wonder if they knew each other. Ken and Alan might have played golf together – Ken being a long-standing employee and volunteer at the Whittlesea Golf Club, and Alan being a local businessman. Ken lived with Shirley and Kerry in a small house (which he owned) in Eden Park. Alan lived with his family in a spacious home at the top of a hill in Humevale, near the golf club. Neither the golf club nor Alan’s home are there anymore, thanks to the fires. I think Ken’s place has been sold. Now, they are all practically neighbours.

Rebecca and I find Kerry sitting on the grass, tears streaming down her face. Her body shudders and she says, “I miss them so much!” She comes here most weeks, but today, being Mothers’ Day, is difficult. Rebecca tells her how much her parents would be proud. Kerry nods, chin dripping. We help her up and walk her to the car, arms draped across her shoulders.

Our huddle makes its way past the boy in the motorcycle gear. As if our leaving marks his cue, he stands to his feet. We pile into Rebecca’s little red car. The radio comes on and we turn it off. Peering through the two front seats I watch the young guy walking towards his bike. His back is stooped like an old man. Rebecca silently navigates the narrow paths between the sections of graves.

Turning around in my seat, I can see the boy getting onto his bike and turning his headlight on. My heart aches for him; I want to run out of the car and give him a hug. I don’t. I imagine that at least for this part of Mothers’ Day, he wants to be on his own.

Sex object? I decide!

2009-05-08T08:28:00.004+10:00

Yesterday as I was walking to the park to preserve my mental health, I wandered past Treasury House. Two black cars pulled up, and a man in a black suit and an ear piece simultaneously stepped out of each door. They looked like advisers to Labor politicians; I'd seen that sort before at a 'community cabinet' when I spoke about clean energy to a politician, who was flanked either side by these burly men in black. As a strolled in between the two cars, I was struck by an almost laughable sense of invisibility.

I related the story last night over dinner: "They were just so masculine! They didn't even see me as I walked through. Not that I was surprised - it was a Credo day so I'd decided not to dress like a sex object." We all laughed at my implication that sometimes I do dress like a sex object.

Actually there were a few reasons for my invisibility - my femaleness was just one thread that caused me to slip their gaze. I was also dressed incredibly casually - as an unimportant passerby that had nothing to do with their very important business. They had no reason to look at me. But it was in the gendered vein that our conversation continued, with a discussion over whether women could choose whether they wanted to be a sex object or not. Gemma remarked, "The gazer doesn't necessarily have all the power. The one who is gazed can dictate the situation as well."

Her comment was a response to a discourse, prevalent in film studies literature, that painted women as passive objects to be observed, while men did all the observing. Men, in that line of thought, had all the power.

David responded in predictable facetiousness. "Are you saying, Gemma, that women who walk around in miniskirts with boobs hitched up to around their necks actually have some control over whether they're looked at or not? Are you saying that women can manipulate men with the way they dress? You've got to be kidding!"

Gemma rolled her eyes, but the rest of us laughed. I said that I actually really like the fact that I can control whether I'm looked at or not. Sometimes - shock horror! - I like being looked at. I suppose that could be because I'm stuck in a patriarchy where I've been trained to think that my value lies in whether I'm attractive or not. Without denying that possibility, I would say that there is something light and playful in looking at someone and being looked at as well. And it doesn't all go one way - I look at men too! It's part of the fun of being young and relatively sexually attractive. I can decide, to a degree, whether I want that kind of interaction or not. I don't feel oppressed in this way; I don't feel like the passive object of the male gaze.

It's nice to have that realisation.

telling tragic stories

2009-05-03T20:35:00.003+10:00

Went to a wedding last night, which was one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to! I think the main reason it was so good was because there were so many nice, interesting people there. Sitting on my table was this activist couple, who were involved in the peace movement, particularly to do with Palestine. They were great because they were normal, daggy people who ate chicken – they didn’t snob the work that I did, and were genuinely interested in my experiences in New Orleans.

As we shouted above the DJ during dinner, I had this feeling I’d seen the guy before. It was during the father of the bride’s speech that an image popped into my head of a scared kid in a too-tight private school uniform stepping over the banister of one of the stalls, high up over the audience, during a talk given by the then-Education Minister, David Kemp. He must have yelled something anti-Liberal Government out, but what I remember is how terrified he looked – partly, I suppose, because everybody was looking at him, and partly because it was really high up and I don’t think he had any idea how to get down.

I was also wearing a private-school uniform, and after the forum I remember running up to the guy to congratulate him on his fine act of resistance. Incidentally, he was a card-carrying member of the group Resistance, which is the youth-wing of the Socialist Alternative. We chatted for a while, and afterwards Mrs Maher told me to watch out of boys like that. I said, “Oh, Mrs Maher, you’re so conservative!” I think she was offended by that.

We verified that it was, indeed, the same courageous yet geeky guy, who, eight years later, had a full beard and was wearing a suit coupled with a large red and white cotton scarf from Palestine. He told me about being a human shield in Palestine early on in the conversation, and casually dropped in mentions of similar work in Iraq. He was no soft-lined hippy type, that was for sure. He had the air of somebody keen to impress; quick to lay claim to certain political causes and dangerous situations as a way of telling me what kind of guy he was.

I can’t judge, because the reason I was so keenly aware of his conversational motives was because I do the same thing myself. I say things to shock and to excite. I’ve noticed it particularly around the bushfire stuff. People ask, “You’re from Whittlesea – were you affected?” And the honest answer is ‘yes – I was and I am’. I know personally several people who have died, and others who have lost everything they own. The community I grew up in has been shaken to its core. In the direct aftermath, I found myself relating these things almost as a way of claiming a stake in the disaster. There’s some kind of kudos that comes with direct association with any large tragedy, as terrible as that is. Yet at the same time, I really wanted the people around me to know I was affected. I guess you could say there were some mixed motives in there.

We decided to kick on to a bar, and as we left the reception venue my newfound friend mentioned, with slightly alarming nonchalance, how he’d come across a dead man in Palestine who had drowned as a result of flood waters rising in an unnatural way against the Apartheid Wall. His tone was all too familiar. He is seriously disturbed, and perhaps has never really found a way to process or express his grief. He is seeking political kudos in his shocking story…but maybe this is his way of making sense of the incident.

Perhaps by shocking or impressing, we are reinforcing to ourselves that this thing is a big deal. The thing that the man at the wedding and I have in common is that we were both a number of steps removed from the incident. It’s actually really hard to process traumatic stuff when you’re not directly involved, because your energy goes into feeling empathy for those more directly affected. So we spend a lot of time telling people how full on the incident was, as a way of dealing was a whole lot of repressed emotions.

I really liked the guy. He annoyed me as well. I can see now that my annoyance was really irritation at myself, for doing exactly the same thing.

some questions about sex and power

2009-05-02T02:04:00.001+10:00

Just finished reading Helen Garner’s book, The First Stone. Garner sits in some “questions about sex and power” from the vantage point of an ‘old guard’ feminist from the 70s who is facing a new crew of younger feminists in the 90s. The Master of Ormond College at Mebourne Uni is accused of sexually harassing and inappropriately touching two female students. The girls eventually go to the police, and Garner wants to know why.

The 90s, evidently, was a time when sexual harassment was big on the public agenda, and a lot of feminist energy was directed at the issue. I don’t think that we’re that obsessed with sexual harassment today. Garner describes some of the ways young women were responding to sexual attention – feelings of repulsion at being looked at; worthlessness when touched against their will. There seemed to be a feminist discourse that emphasised the invasive, almost violent sexual will of men, who exerted themselves over powerless female victims. This idea is familiar to me, because I’ve played into before – using it as a way of painting myself as an innocent victim, rather than an active player in a dicey situation.

While we use this framing of power play from time to time, it’s not a dominant idea for my generation. When I’ve used that discourse, I’ve been aware of how disempowering it feels, and how actually, I would feel far more whole if I took responsibility and admitted that I was not powerless, but chose to act in a certain way. Garner riles against the idea of female powerlessness, and when I look around today, I see that women are taking up that power more. There are some strong assertions of female sexuality, and perhaps a recognition of the responsibility that comes with that. I’m not sure that women of my generation have that same discomfort at the male gaze, or whether a grope would be internalised as a sense of ‘worthlessness’.

One thing, though, has not changed. And that is the odd passivity that washes over many of us, like an icy shower, when we are subjected to something sexual against our will. Garner described it in her book using examples from her own life and the lives of lots of other women – women who are, at any other time, strong, assertive individuals. And that is how I would describe myself, yet as I read these stories, I can relate so whole-heartedly to them it’s almost eerie. It happens so fleetingly you convince yourself it was an accident and press on as if nothing happened. Or, it happens so gradually that you don’t even notice it, until you’re in the midst of it and you don’t know how you got there. Or, it happens and it would be somehow inappropriate to say or do something, as if what had transpired was appropriate! The feeling is so bizarre, and you bustle off in a state of shock or denial, and afterwards you go, “Why didn’t I just…” But you didn’t. Somehow, you never do, until later.

I wish I could tap into that female power in those situations – to ‘slap ’im’ or make a scene. But I just freeze, and then simply try to escape the situation. Garner suggests that what we do, in these situations, is work to protect him. What is with that? What do we have to gain?

ANZAC Day

2009-04-25T20:12:00.003+10:00

Today's ANZAC Day. Last year I got all keen and went to the dawn service. This year wasn't really happening for me, so I wandered down around midday for the afternoon service. I always have really mixed feelings about ANZAC Day - it feels wrong not to participate in some way, yet each time I go along to a march or a ceremony I feel kind of out of place. It's not often that I chose to stand amid crowds of mums and dads cheering on members of the military, or sing the national anthem in implied support of our overseas troops. Yet I have to go and do something to remember, lest we forget, I suppose. I go because I need some occasion to recognise the terrible waste of war that sits, proud and ugly, in our Australian history. I go because I feel like not going would be terribly disrespectful to all those people who died...ungrateful, perhaps, although I don't exactly buy into the idea that they sacrificed themselves for our freedom. I sort of think that they sacrificed themselves for the folly and power play of politicians. But my war history is terrible so I'm never very sure of this gut instinct.

And so this year, as last year, I took my place before the shrine, just wanting to remember the dead and pay my respects, but finding that I was becoming increasingly confused and uncomfortable. Why was everybody clapping the uniformed soldiers marching by? Was it because they, too, are ready and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and way of life, in much the same spirit as the ANZACs? Perhaps it was a general cheering on a show of appreciation for the armed forces. I find it hard to clap to that. Do people consider the present-day military a personification of the soldiers who died? Maybe. I don't mind that idea so much. But what I find really difficult is the way present war is justified by the ANZAC myth - we remember, alongside those who died on the Western Front, those who are serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands etc etc. That annoys me - I just want to remember those who died, not those who are presently fighting in wars I don't agree with. I don't like it when the lives of men who were virtually cannon fodder for the elite are turned into some nation-building myth, which somehow justifies more death, waste and injustice.

To be fair, this year wasn't as bad as last year. At last year's dawn service, this digger who had been serving in Afghanistan got up and told us all how he was proud to be following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather in both the great wars. It amazed me how powerful the ANZAC myth is - that it can make people proud of war. It struck me as a fantastic device used by the nation to normalise and glorify violence. This year John Brumby made a much more sensitive speech, which focused more on the tragedy of war. I don't mind John Brumby.

dumpster diving on Today Tonight

2009-04-24T19:08:00.001+10:00

Here's a segment from Today Tonight on dumpster diving and freeganism!

I expected a really negative report, but it was anything but! Unbalanced, as usual, but in favour of the freegans, not the supermarkets. Perhaps that's not such a surprise, given these populist current affair programs usually side with the everyday little guy/girl, rather than big business or government.

Dad's Age article - sustainable cities

2009-04-24T08:00:00.000+10:00

My Dad got an article published in The Age last Friday, which I helped him with. He says that many of Melbourne's problems are caused by its sheer size, and that instead of continuing the policy of never-ending urban sprawl, we should direct growth into smaller, sustainable cities in regional Victoria.

The article generated a lot of discussion, including letters from the editor and about 30 comments in the Your Say section, which is great!

strange spots

2009-04-23T18:12:00.002+10:00

I have developed some mysterious spots on my stomach and back. My first response was to look on the internet, which I don’t recommend for those suffering from any kind of hypochondria or paranoia. After not managing to do much more than rule out meningococcal, I began showing my rash to all my friend, who responded with diagnoses ranging from ringworm to shingles, and treatment plans varying from flaxseed oil to teatree oil.

One friend suggested seeing a doctor. I hadn’t thought of that. So I jumped on the internet again and googled ‘bulk billing doctors melbourne’. I found out that it’s hard to locate a doctor who bulk bills, particularly in the CBD. So I rode my bike to Coburg and sat in a waiting room adorned with plastic plants and a wood-veneer desk. Dr S- (the ‘lady doctor’) was a stern mother type, who threw a sharp, disapproving look when I confessed that I got “a little bit drunk” last Saturday night, but smiled when I told her, candidly, that my recent sleep deprivation was due to a new boyfriend. She looked at my spots through some weird mechanical looking device, and concluded that I would need a blood test to be certain of whatever disease I’d contracted.

So I jumped on my bike again and trundled to the Sisters of Mercy on Moreland Road. A nurse with grey hair and a smiling, olive complexion sat me in the big grey blood-drawing chair and tapped around for some veins.
“…On my way, to where the air…is…clear…”
I recognised that tune. “Are you singing the Sesame Street theme song?”
“Oh yes!” she answered, pulling the tourniquet tight. “I’ve had it in my head all day!”
I told her about the time I taught a group of people to sing the Sesame Street song in four-part harmony. She laughed, and noticed the strange spots on my arm. “What are those?”
I explained that I didn’t know, and that was why I was here.
“Oh, I think I have something similar!” she cried. “I’ll show you!” She stood up, putting down the alcohol wipe to untuck her blouse.
I inspected a few blotches on the nurse’s back. “Oh yes, that could be what I’ve got,” I said.
“Well, do give me a call when you’ve got the diagnosis,” said the nurse, and focussed again on the task. “Now, I’m not going to bullshit you,” she said, looking up. “This is going to hurt.”
It wasn’t too bad, and I left smiling, encouraging her to keep singing.

So it turns out that I probably have psoriasis, which is, apparently, one of the most ancient skin diseases known to humans, and incurable to Western conventional medicine. Dr S- prescribed cortisone cream which I refuse to use, because it doesn’t actually fix anything – it only treats the symptom. Nick says that your skin is like your body’s billboard, and will signal when there’s something wrong. Agreeing, I went along to the clinic at the Australian College of Natural Medicine in the city, and spent an hour and a half telling a trainee nutritionist and naturopath what I eat, how much I poo and lots of other giggle-inspiring information (from me, not them – they were very professional). My treatment plan involves fish oil, lots of nuts (thankyou stimulus package) and some kind of ‘flower essence’ which I drop underneath my tongue whenever I’m stressed. I’m trying to have a bit of a health overhaul – more sleep (despite the boyfriend), no alcohol, no dairy, no caffeine, etc etc. I’m also trying to remove the sources of anxiety from my life, which is proving a little more difficult.

The naturopath wants my blood test results. Dr S-'s receptionist is being all possessive about them – apparently I might have to go and collect them (40 minutes on my bike) because of ‘confidentiality reasons’. Whatever. People send confidential information in the post all the time. I think they’re just being difficult because they want to have a monopoly on my health…I guess their pride is at stake. They would hate it that I’m seeing a naturopath. But the doctor can’t fix what I’ve got – it’s like she would rather I stay sick than admit that she doesn’t have all the answers.

But anyway, it’s been an interesting exercise in health-service navigation, which I’m not used to because I normally don’t have heaps of things wrong. You really have to be switched on and quite pro-active. I can see how people would just languish for ages without proper medical attention, or else try treatment after ineffective treatment because of a blind faith in a particular system. I reckon you have to take your health into your own hands, which is something the conventional medical profession trains us not to do.

thoughts on begging

2009-04-08T09:23:00.001+10:00

I ran into Kwin the other day for the first time in ages as I was walking briskly from Southern Cross Station, eager to get back to my warm living room and my book. She was sitting on a blustery street corner (Bourke and Spenser), colourful artwork displayed in books, few coins dispersed in a hat laid out on the ground. I exclaimed that it seemed like such a cold, windy spot; she answered that sometimes she needed to see the sky and some trees, because you can’t look at concrete buildings forever. We chatted for a while about this and that, while she rolled a cigarette. A man came along and handed her a five dollar note. “Bugger!” she whispered, loudly, after he’d left. “He always catches me when I’m smoking!” I asked her why it mattered, and she said that he used to give her twenty dollars, until he found out she smoked. “Now he only gives me five – he doesn’t want me spending his money on cigarettes. I can see where he’s coming from,” she pondered, “but I don’t like the idea of people giving me money with conditions attached. If you want me to have a night’s accommodation, go down to the local backpackers and buy me a night’s accommodation. If you want me to have food, well buy me a sandwich. But if you give me money, it must be given graciously. Don’t tell me how to spend it.”

I can see where Kwin is coming from. To stipulate how somebody is to spend a gift is paternalistic and somewhat controlling. Rather than build a bridge, it breeds mistrust and further instils the power dynamic between beggar and giver. It is to say, “I give you this money because I pity you, but I don’t trust you to spend it wisely.” What kind of a gift is that? It leaves the giftee grovelling and disempowered and the giver puffed up on self-righteousness. In our momentary experience as welfare-provider, we forget that we are also likely to spend that money on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. ‘Gifts’ attached to the words “do the right thing with it” are underlaid with a false superiority on the part of the giver.

I still hold to a noble idea that money is better utilised in the hands of an organisation like the Salvation Army, where perhaps it can be used to address a problem closer to its root, than in the hands of a beggar, where at best the money represents temporary pain relief. When a woman armed with a convincing sob story and a request for some loose change confronts me on the street, however, I find it difficult to hold to my conviction. Slightly frazzled and feeling compromised either way, I usually hand over a few coins. My housemates, who have lived in the CBD and thought about this issue longer, seem more intentional when faced with the same situation. They see it as an opportunity to build relationships with people who are very marginalised: Gemma often invites people to lunch and at the very least will ask them their name; Dave only gives money to people he knows. I like this form of giving – the kind that strengthens our social fabric through relationships, rather than the kind that hopes for a salad roll, but actually just keeps people in their place.

Palm Sunday

2009-04-05T08:00:00.000+10:00

Today is Palm Sunday. I intend to go to the peace rally. I've been studying the Book of Mark, and have only just realised how apt it is to have a peace rally on this occasion. The events that led us to celebrate Palm Sunday - Jesus on a donkey riding on a path made of palm leaves and people's cloaks - was the prelude to the clearing of the temple. The parade was not an isolated event, but, according to Mark, part of one of Jesus' most powerful political and social statements. So I thought I'd relate the story in this blog, using my own words.

Jesus and his disciples are traveling into Jerusalem from the Palestinian countryside. They get to Bethany, which is a sort of suburb of Jerusalem - much like Footscray or Coburg. Jesus tells two of his disciples to go down the main street and get a certain donkey which would be tied there, and gives some instructions as to what to say if people question them. So the disciples do this and bring the donkey to Jesus. A crowd of ordinary people gathered, and they immediately recognised Jesus as their working-class hero! They take their cloaks off and lay them in front of Jesus and the donkey, making a path for them also with palm leaves. People are going crazy – it’s like a ticket tape parade. They’re shouting out and celebrating, and quoting old scriptures that pretty much say that Jesus is the king and he is going to transform society. It’s weird, because Jesus is riding a donkey, which was the transport that ordinary poor people would use. It would be like someone saying she was the queen and riding through Footscray on a bicycle!

Anyway, the ticket tape parade ends, and Jesus goes on into Jerusalem and makes a bee-line to the temple. He’s planning on doing something. Now, the temple ain't no ordinary temple. It is the political and economic hub of Jerusalem, which was one of the big cities in the Roman Empire. It's absolutely massive - King Herod had knocked down the old temple and built its monolithic replacement out of imported marble in 19 BCE, which was apparently around 450 x 300 m (outer wall dimensions)! There were various courts for different classes of people (women, Gentiles, Jewish men, priests), plus the temple itself. There were large areas for buying and selling sacrificial animals, souvenirs and food.

The temple was so much more than a place of worship – in some ways, it was more like Wall Street or the World Trade Centre. It was a place of business and commerce and the abiding place of the rich and powerful (businessmen, politicians, lawyers, priests). Laws dictated that people participate in the temple life, or else they would not be an acceptable part of society. For example leapers (outcasts) and women would have to buy doves to make them ritually pure, whether or not they could afford them. It reminds me of the way people feel like they have to buy brand name clothes, shoes and handbags, so that they will fit in, even though they might not be able to afford them. It’s only really the corporations that benefit, in the same way that it was only really the businessmen who benefited from selling animals in the temple.

So Jesus goes to the temple and has a good look around, but it’s getting late, so he goes back to Footscray. The next morning him and his disciples get up early and go back to the temple. His aim is to SHUT IT DOWN. So he starts driving out the people doing business there, overturning the tables of the brokers changing currencies and throwing aside the benches of the people selling doves. He tried to stop anyone carrying merchandise through the temple courts. This was a bigger deal than usual, because it was Passover time, so there were people there from all over the Roman Empire, buying and selling produce.

And then Jesus speaks to the whole crowd, in this massive temple, and says, “My house is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it into a den of robbers!” The whole crowd was completely captivated by Jesus’ message, because they’d never thought of it like that before. Until this time, they might not have considered how they were participating in something that benefited the rich but kept the poor in their place.

Jesus was a pretty big threat to the priests and politicians and lawyers, because he was exposing the system for what it really was. They were scared because people seemed to be listening to Jesus! The priests, politicians and lawyers plotted to kill Jesus.

Jesus didn’t stick around – in the evening, he went back to Footscray.

So, the Palm Sunday ticket tape parade was really a prelude to a larger political act. How fitting it is for us to have a peace rally on Palm Sunday! This occasion should be used to challenge the powers that be, just as Jesus did in the temple.

The 'clearing the temple' story is sandwiched by a curious tale involving Jesus and a fig-tree. While Jesus is in Bethany (or Footscray!), he is hungry and sees a fig-tree, which is not in fruit because it's the wrong time of year. So before Jesus goes off to Jerusalem he curses the fig-tree, saying, "May no-one ever eat fruit from you again". The next morning, after the temple episode has concluded, Peter notices that the fig-tree has indeed withered and died.

It is as though the fig-tree is a metaphor for the temple - in Jewish tradition, figs are a symbol of peace, security and prosperity. Like the fig-tree, a fruitless temple will wither and die. At Peter's surprised exclamation, Jesus tells him to "have faith in God". Jesus points to the Mount of Olives - a cultural and historical icon for Israel - and says that if you tell it to throw itself in the sea, and really believe that this will happen, then it will. Jesus is telling Peter that he has the authority to dismantle the systems that oppress, if only he will believe it possible. In partnership with God, we can tell a fruitless fig-tree to die or end an oppressive system symbolised in a temple. In some ways, the system will end itself, just as the mountain, on your command, will throw itself into the sea.

Jesus ends the sequence by saying that when you pray, you should forgive people who have hurt you, so that God will forgive your sins. The system you have helped destroy will be replaced by God's system of mutual forgiveness, where you must forgive those who oppress you, because you are also an oppressor.

economy of God

2009-04-02T21:33:00.003+11:00

This is my two week anniversary of living outside of the cash economy. Well, I haven't made it completely into a cashless world - I've had a few busking stints. Nonetheless, for the benefit of all my faithful blog readers, who span all the way from Footscray to Camberwell, I will provide an update.

A big thing I've noticed is my attitude to waste. While in the past wilted celery at the bottom of the crisper and half a pot of uneaten soup in Credo would have posed as a burden, these moments have become exciting opportunities. In my world, which has a strong focus on eating and 'table fellowship', there is food to be found everywhere! I don't know why I ever bothered to buy bread because in Credo, we throw out loaves of the stuff (nice, wholemeal slices) nearly everyday. Right now I'm munching on some apple that might have just as easily ended up in the organics bin had Gemma not rescued it. The leftover cabbage in the Level 9 fridge becomes a part of my surprise fried rice, which included eggs from my parent's chooks and peas buried deep under chunks of ice in the freezer. I've had plans to go dumpster diving but to tell the truth, so far I haven't really needed to. 'Fridge diving' is thus far proving suffice.

The other cool thing about having not much cash is that my eyes have been opened up to more of the kindness of the universe; the acts of grace; the workings of God. Or, more likely, having less money means that this kind of synchronicity has a chance to surface and operate. You can choose to ignore it, or you can choose to open your eyes and be inspired that God is helping you along. One thing I was worried about was not having wholemeal pasta and my special non-hydrogenated peanut butter - sounds silly I know, but I think they represented a fear of a reduced ability to make choices. Anyway, I went up to Emerald to hang out with my friend Chandra, and what did she have in plastic bag for me? A packet of organic wholemeal pasta and some freshly ground peanut butter! She works at a health food shop: the pasta was going to be thrown out and the peanut butter was a grinding stuff up. Coincidence? No. I felt like it was God saying, "Don't worry. I'll provide." And then there's little things like walking to the supermarket with my bag of 50 cent pieces chunking around, and having almost exactly the right amount of money for the items I needed, despite having given a couple of dollars away to some people begging. It's that stuff that keeps you going...you just have to decide to notice.

You can notice and be delighted, and then you can decide to throw yourself into the hands of the universe's kindness. The more you do that, the more you will experience her gifts. I am only a little way along this journey of faith...I have many safety nets that sit above the hands of God. Jesus says to sell all your possessions and follow him. I am starting to see how advice is wise; how possessions prevent you from following him properly, because they stop you relying on his kindness. Don't worry about what you will eat tomorrow! he says. That is what the pagans do! I clothe the wildflowers and feed the sparrows, so how much more will I look after you?

So I'm at a point where I'm thinking about my safety nets. When I get lumps of money (scholarship, stimulus package, RMIT pay, etc), what should I do with it? Should I give it away, as a step of faith? Or do I see these things as provisions in and of themselves? Both options are tempting, in their different ways.

church camp

2009-03-30T00:23:00.002+11:00

Went on Church Camp this weekend. Or ‘Community Weekend’, as they call it at Collins St Baptist Church. L made us all play this stupid game called ‘beetle’, which involved a dice and less skill than bingo. You got to draw the body of a beetle if you got a 6, the head if you rolled a 5, a leg if you got a 4, and so on. The aim was to complete the entire beetle. The only interesting thing about the game was seeing how people drew their beetles – D drew a bizarre rectangular space beetle, and mine had several heads and a third feeler. We had to do this four times, and were so relieved when the whole inane process was over. But then L said, ‘Let’s play it again!’ – which meant that we would in effect have to play ‘beetle’ a total of eight times. Everyone was like, “Are you serious?” But I could see that unless anybody took a stand, we would all be stuck spending the next hour rolling dice and drawing insect legs.
I take special delight in gauging and then representing the dissatisfaction of any disgruntled faction, preferably if I am in agreement. So I stook up and said, “Does anybody want to play a DIFFERENT game?”
There were a some indecisive murmurs and a few people racked their brains for a beetle alternative.
“Sherades?” I asked the group.
The response was completely underwelming. Some people had already starting throwing dice and drawing more beetles. I couldn’t believe it – as far as I could tell, people just didn’t want to make waves; they didn’t want to upset the authority of the minister!
Well, I thought, if I can’t stage a coup, it will have to be a break off faction. So I said, “Whoever wants to play shedades, come with me!”
So me and a group of about six other rebels marched away from the dice-rolling, beetle-drawing minions and began a much more interesting game, involving much skill and imagination.

I have reflected since what the best thing to do would have been. The whole experience was fun, but I did feel like a bit of a ratbag. The schism that developed augmented a generation gap and probably alienated some people, who would have preferred to stay together as a group. But I just couldn’t be a passive supporter of this patronising game. Maybe I should have got some of the less major power players on my side, so that they might have persuaded the whole group to change games. I also ignored R’s game suggestion, which may have been more appropriate for everybody to play. Or, I could have slunk off quietly with my comrades, rather than make a big song and dance about it and possibly have made people feel uncomfortable. To tell the truth, I’m a little shocked at the way people acquiesced at being forced to do something so boring for such a long time. I wonder if it says something significant about our church – a tendency to avoid conflict and to go along with authority, perhaps. How frustrating!

Overall, church camp was ok – got to know a few people from the morning service a bit better, and had some connections with some people I’d been wanting to connect with. Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic…I’d been looking forward to deep group conversations by the river that went into the wee hours of Sunday morning, but that didn’t really happen for me. I find that I often get frustrated when I want to get to a deeper level with people, and all they want to talk about is TV or politics or frivolous anecdotes. I know that these seemingly shallow topics can be the bricks and mortar of something far more solid – that light conversations lead us into the deep in much the same way as the beach transforms into the ocean. But sometimes I feel like I’m stuck on a sandbar. We need to let the tides take us out, rather than clutching to safe and known rocks. Granted, I wasn’t in the mood for light conversations, and tended to leave in frustration rather than await their potential. All in all, I had a lot of laughs over the weekend, but found it kind of unsatisfying. I think we forgot about God – we got so caught up in ‘church vision and direction’ and ‘fun time together’ that we didn’t stop to invite the spirit into the process, or to notice her presence.

No money!

2009-03-20T09:49:00.002+11:00

Yesterday I ran out of money. It was to be expected...the only surprise was that it came so soon. I'd given up my well-paid research job at RMIT to pursue a fruitful career of freelance writing, busking and dishwashing in Credo. Crazy, I know, what with the GFC and all. Most people are scrambling to keep whatever work they have. And now, I've heard, the newspapers are no longer paying freelance contributers, not that I've really submitted anything of late anyway. My recent published works remain limited to this blog. Busking has proven more lucrative. I am now planning on supporting myself on my busking earnings. This will be an interesting challenge, but not impossible given I don't pay rent, my bills are limited to my mobile phone, and I dine most regularly at Credo Cafe, which is free. Once the panic of having no money subsided a little, I sat down at my computer and drew up a table of all the things I spend money on, and ways to eliminate or reduce them. It sort of looked like this:

public transport - ride a bike
food for eating at home - learn to dumpster dive
eating out - eat out less
alcohol - drink less
mobile phone - don't call people

etc etc.

The thing that scares me the most about this little experiment in voluntary poverty is not that I won't survive it - I'll always have a bed and I'll always have a meal - but that I'll be cut off from a certain part of the world. At present I straddle two worlds - I spend a lot of time hanging out with people who are poor, and I also have a lot of friends from my well-to-do life e.g. uni, church. Rich people tend to connect in ways that involve money, and that is what I'm used to and comfortable with. We go out for coffee, we see a movie, we go shopping at the market. We go see a band and drink expensive drinks. The thing is, I don't want to leave these people behind, in some self-righteous bid to be poor. I need to find ways of doing middle-class things that cost less. Actually, my friend Clare is great at that - while I was stressing about wanting to see a movie and have dinner with Nick, but suddenly being confronted with $20 in my bank account, I got a message from Clare inviting me to see a free screening of a movie at Fed Square. So Nick and I went along, and it was great. The thing is, there's probably loads of free things to do in the city. I'm just not real aware of them because I've always had money!

Possession of money lulls me into the illusion of independence. I don't need to rely on people so much because I can pay my own way, thankyou very much. When you don't have money, you have to learn to humbly accept from others. I brought it up with Nick last night - I didn't want him paying for everything, and feeling constantly indebted to him. I told him it was important for me to pay when I could - our relationship is modern, but comes encumbered with a history of women being economically dependent on men, which can be a source of great powerlessness. I wanted to have an equal say in the kind of things we did (which restaurant to go to, what movie to see), even though I couldn't contribute financially. Nick was great and understood what I was saying, which was a great relief. Actually I paid for the meal last night with my busking earnings because Nick had forgotten his wallet. He felt bad but for me, it felt great.

What I really want - and what I told Nick - was for us to consider our work different but of equal value. His work is financially rewarded; mine is not. I sometimes won't pay for the movie not because I'm lazy and don't work, or stingey, but because mine is a different sort of labour. If we both recognise and respect that, it should be no big deal if Nick pays. I recognise that this kind of arrangement requires a degree of enlightenment and a full valuing of unpaid work, which many women don't experience in their economically dependent relationships. It also requires the unpaid partner to be empowered in every other way. The couple is a sort of economic unit and for it to work, each role must be fully respected and valued.

So anyway, I've probably written enough now, but I'll keep you all posted on my experiences of life outside of the cash economy!

Home in the city

2009-03-06T16:53:00.003+11:00

Did some busking today. First of all I went down to the Degraves Street subway, which was my pitch when I busked on Wednesday. I'd done really well there - the tiles on the walls mean that the flute echoes about and sounds much bigger and fuller than it usually does. I played Amazing Grace real slow with lots of vibrato, and really filled the space. People seemed to like it. I went back today but the spot was taken. So I went for a wander to the Elizabeth Street subway, which is long and loud and skinny. There was a busker there as well. His name was Dean, and he'd written a book called 'Nice work if you can get it', which is about a gigolo. I read the blurb on his book, which was proudly displayed in his guitar case - clearly he's a multi-skilled man. Dean was nice - he told me that sometimes he busks outside Coles on Elizabeth Street, suggested I give it a go.

So I did - I played Amazing Grace long and slow, I improvised in a minor key around the tune of House of the Rising Sun (bit of a prostitution theme this morning), I let the lilting melody of Danny Boy float amongst the crowds and along the tram line.

Nobody gave me anything. Not a single silver coin. I felt a little lame, earnestly puffing away with my empty, desperate-looking case for the world to see and dismiss...but to be honest, I kind of enjoyed myself. It was fun doing something so completely different to everybody else - while business women hurriedly clip-clopped along, foam coffee cup in hand, I was playing 'Morning has broken' on the flute. In the past I would have been embarrassed to be doing something so different...in some ways, I'm more comfortable in the dreary stream of grey, black and brown, clutching a handbag, rushing off to be somewhere important. This morning, I wasn't going anywhere. Just playing my flute outside a supermarket, while the world rushed on around me. My own rhythm, a different tune. It was fun not to fit in.

I've been living in the city for 8 months now, and I'm starting to see this place as almost a bit of a playground. Maybe I feel a sense of ownership over it or something - I can go out and be something different, because this is my home, and you are all visitors! I can just be myself - at home there is no need to dress up or wear makeup...I can sing, laugh loud and wear tracky daks.

Yesterday evening we put on a sausage sizzle and cake sale to raise money for a family we know who lost their place in the bushfire. Little Bella was there, and she was being pretty hyper. She wanted to play row-row-row-your-boat in the middle of the footpath on Collins Street. So I played with her - getting in people's way, slowing them down, waking them up. A child playing in the middle of the footpath on Collins Street, outside the pearl shop. Fantastic. I wanted to be a part of that! I delighted it how natural it felt - how it didn't feel too much different from hanging out in our front yard. It was our front yard, I suppose. It's nice to feel a sense of ownership about that.

Meeting God, wherever you are

2009-02-27T17:51:00.000+11:00

As Christians, we all see different sides of Christ, because we all meet Jesus in different places. I have many friends, and they all know me in different ways not because I change, but because they come from different places. It’s the same with Jesus. Different parts of his story speak to people differently, and our relationship with Christ varies accordingly.

And as I change, I come to know Jesus in various ways. I focus on different parts of his story depending on what’s going on for me. Several years ago, I would meet Jesus at his death, clinging tight to its promise of eternal life for me and my friends and family. Since then, and especially since becoming a ressie, I have met Jesus as he heals the leper, or feeds the thousands from a bit of bread and a handful of fish, or asks his disciples to follow. I have met Jesus in his life and ministry, because at this point in my life, I can see how it gives life to me and my community.

The doctrine of the Trinity serves my work well, as I find the different aspects of God reaching out towards me. The Holy Spirit can often be felt, thick with peace, amongst the tables and bowls at Credo and in the midst of our singing. It fills me with the life I need to keep reaching out and loving, and is like food for my soul. I also like the image of the Creator God, nurturing and sustaining, like we do when we stir big pots of bolognaise sauce and mop the floor in Credo. And I begin to see Jesus in so many different people – the suffering Christ, the laughing Christ – and it doesn’t matter whether or not they’re Christian. God can be heard in the roar of the ocean when I’m on retreat, and the sound of the guitar as we gather before lunch. I am no longer surprised by continual gifts of grace, which come in many different sizes from God. No longer surprised, but still very thankful.

I guess God meets you anywhere…but I like meeting her in Credo!

My little tender soul

2009-02-26T17:40:00.000+11:00

Sometimes, though rarely, I have these wonderful, intense feelings of emotion, where I feel simultaneously very happy and very sad. It is as though I see the world in all its fullness, and I can see all that is beautiful and all that is tragic. I want to cry, out of a mixture of joy and sadness. I feel very human.

Sometimes a little part of my lonely soul opens up, and something reaches out, like a tentacle, I imagine, into the world. It has sensed something good and wants to touch it – to grab onto, perhaps, a fellow tentacle from a fellow person’s soul. Sometimes it finds one. Other times it waves around in futile desperation, blind and vulnerable, hoping that it will find something and when it doesn’t, it shrinks back inside, deeply disappointed, and my soul closes over again. My little squishy soul is protected again inside the hard shell that I keep it in, a bit like an armor, really.

It must be the times that I let my soul out that I feel so very human. It’s like a clitoris, so sensitive and responsive to all that’s going on around it. Capacity for immense joy and intense pain. Will shrink back inside at a moment’s notice. I guess we all have to learn how to treat each others’ souls.

Lover Comfort

2009-02-22T22:18:00.000+11:00

I suppose it’s a bit uncomfortable when you’re not comfortable.

Comfort – that thing that embraces your body and kisses your forehead, whispering for you to stay, just a little longer, just a little longer… And you do stay, that extra fifteen minutes. Then you find yourself staying for lunch and, why, you might as well stay the weekend too and hey, you know what, I really like having you around (and I can tell you like my company too), so why don’t you just move right in? It doesn’t have to be permanent. Leave whenever you like…you can always come back.

And with that, Lover Comfort has you trapped. You’ve move in and now you’re pregnant.

Noooooo!!!

Unwrap your arm from around my waist, give me back my bra – I’m leaving you today! Lover Comfort, I’m going someplace else, somewhere I can be free and feel the cold wind prickle my bare shoulders and smell the stench of poverty as it wafts by. Somewhere I can sense the sting of tears drying onto chapped cheeks. Today is the day I leave you behind; today is the first day of something new.

Uncomfortable? Yes, Lover Comfort, that it will be. Let your fingers trail over my back one last time. Put out your incense – it’s making me feel sick. I’m closing your bedroom door behind me. I’m outside now, in the wind and the rain.

It’s not very comfortable. But, Lover Comfort, I do feel alive.

Before

2009-02-21T22:16:00.000+11:00

The spark
before the bushfire.
The child
before the devil.
The sun
before the burn.
The love
before the religion.
The God
before the love.
The seed
before the tree.
The fire
before the growth.

A dose of bushire patriotism

2009-02-20T22:15:00.000+11:00

Thomas plays tennis with my younger brother and is a good friend of the family. I saw him last Monday while I was waiting at the bus stop on the main street of Whittlesea. At first I thought it couldn’t be him – after all, Thomas had apparently cheated death by a whisker and had burns to his face and neck, all on his first time out. He should be at home and not in front of me now, proudly dressed in CFA uniform, ready to go fight the fires. But it was Thomas, and as he turned when I called his name I saw that he had gauze plastered onto sections of his cheeks and around the front of his neck. As he related the story of being trapped amid towers of flames, of a fellow firefighter grabbing him and plunging his burning face under a torrent of water, and of nine firefighters crammed into a single fire engine and bursting through fences and caravan parks to escape death, I saw his cheeky grin faltering a little. He was going out again. My bus arrived and I lunged forward for an awkward hug. Thomas’ uniform felt a bit too big on him. I couldn’t help myself. “You’re our Hero!” I cried, running off before I could hear Thomas’ embarrassed laugh.

It’s funny, but in the midst of these Bushfires – this national crisis – I have found in my heart a newfound fondness for the Establishment. I used to watch the ANZAC Day parade in Whittlesea with the scathing eyes of a mild superiority complex. All those Good, Upright citizens unquestioningly playing out their prescribed role in the Order – the police, the CFA brigade, the army reserves, even the Brownies – all so freakin’ Respectable, but all part of the same Machine. And even now, I don’t deny that completely: there is something about the way that the world pays homage to these roles that makes me slightly skeptical. But in this time of crisis there has been a surprising, possibly temporary, shift in my heart.

It began on Saturday night – the first night of the fires – when I heard John Brumby’s voice on the radio making some rambling, uninspired comment about the widespread nature of the fires. I was immediately disappointed. I expected so much more from a leader in these chaotic times. I wanted a voice that captured the anguish of a state, yet with the calm strength of a leader in control. I wanted empathy, reassurance, mighty will and strong resolve – I wanted nothing short of a presidential address! I quickly suppressed that thought, because it wasn’t very me and certainly wasn’t very Australian – Aussies aren’t so forthright and emotionally driven to require such a show.

The next day there was a turnaround from our surprise premier. I saw him on the TV, surrounded by survivors and flanked by prime minister Kevin Rudd and police chief Christine Nixon. And John Brumby gave me the words that I needed to hear. Choked with emotion, it was obvious that he was suffering as his people were suffering. And he assured us the government would go to the moon and back to support survivors and rebuild communities. The visual presence of the federal government and the police force provided hope and reassurance. I felt like a small, grateful child before gracious and loving parents, who would do everything in their power to save us.

A while later I did get the presidential-style address from Mr Brumby, complete with podium and Australian flags. I was most appreciative. I’ve felt like I’ve experienced something of what it must be like for my country to be at war. I suppose that Australia is at war now, but it’s not the kind of all-consuming, almost unquestioningly patriotic war that would have characterised the War Years of last century. I don’t know if we’ll ever again have the kind of popular backing that occurred in WWI and WWII – perhaps since Vietnam, we’ve collectively become skeptical about the need for war and the motives of politicians. But in a Bushfire, we see some interesting parallels to wartime. Towns through which the fires have passed have been likened to Hiroshima; investigation teams tell of houses that look like they have been struck by bombs.

And there is something in the national psyche that reminds me of stories I have heard my grandparents tell of the war years. Like the world wars there is a common, obvious enemy that requires a collective response from all Australians, regardless of previous affiliations. And like the wars, the people who are on the front line against this enemy – often our young men – become Australian Heroes. Mirroring the soldiers of old, volunteers like Thomas walk the streets of country towns like Whittlesea proudly wearing their ubiquitous uniforms. Men who aren’t CFA volunteers gaze at television screens, wishing that they had signed up when they had the chance. Unlike the war years, women are now important players on the front line as well. Everybody wants to be involved; everybody wants to be a part of the Bushfire Effort.

And so I find myself becoming gladly swept up in this Bushfire fervor. Without thinking twice I join Facebook groups like, ‘I appreciate all the firefighters risking their lives to save our communities’. It feels good to be part of a National Effort Against Something, because I missed out on the Terrorism thing for political reasons. Even the activist-types are in on the act – a friend sent me a link to a website where people with creative skills but no money can auction off multi-coloured crocheted book covers and vegan chocolate cakes, with the money going to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal. This time, nobody is criticising a good dose of Bushfire Patriotism. It’s the police, the defence force, the CFA, the politicians, the Brownies and me – I’m a willing participant in the Establishment and it feels great!

So to the firefighters risking your lives on the front line, to the police force undertaking the grim task of sifting through ash and steel for the remains of people, to the Brownies who are making pikelets for the effort – I solute you all. You are our Heroes.