George Johnston | Author

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Looking back

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Looking back will only give you a sore neck. I’ve heard plenty of variations on that phrase. They all mean the same thing. Regret for the past can hamper what you see looking forward. But a little regret can also give you a realistic view of who you have been, who you are and what you may become. So when I meet Andrew I fire off two questions for him.

Those questions paraphrased are: What are three positive things about yourself ? Also, What do you regret about yourself? He lists caring, sporty and crazy for his positive list. His negative list includes pride, temper, and anger. With that out of the way he then takes me on a journey through his life to date. Andrew has come a long way in every sense of the word. Born in Sri Lanka his heritage was flavoured by Sri Lankan, French and Irish influences. He had a multicultural background long before the word came into popular use.

Unfortunately in 1969 the Sri Lankan Government decided to turn away from Multiculturalism. They banned students from using English in schools and made everyone use only Sinhalese. For those of European background who then felt compelled to move overseas the Government seized their assets. That’s why when Andrew arrived in Australia with his sister and mother they only had 300 dollars

Andrew has gone into many things thinking he could make a difference then he frequently discovered that his actions have changed him instead. I am sure that he did not enter into his first marriage to learn the lessons that he did. He has now been happily remarried for many years.

Music has been and still is important to Andrew. He has been heavily involved with worship teams in churches. His church life was challenged when he met Ron Hutchinson from the Fringe church at Redcliffe. He learned that there had been 16 suicides in Redcliffe that month. This news clashed with some deeply inappropriate behaviour that he witnessed in other churches. They were not meeting the need that was in the community. No one person can solve everything so he knew he could not do that. But he could be in the best place to help out provided he learned the lessons of 67 years of successes and failures.

He currently works in a caring profession and is part of a band called Oleander Grove. He has a wealth of stories to tell. I have barely scratched the surface here. Looking back on life may give you a sore neck but its also a great way to see how far you have come.

Fringe Chat Smile therapy

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A smile can cross the boundaries of language, ethnicity and culture. It has the potential to disarm and charm and soften any circumstance. It can be its own language in a way more powerful than any traditional dialect for it talks to the speaker as much as the listener. It does not seek to change you and yet this may happen anyway.

When Abby smiles it is not just the restrained upward curl of the lips but something deeper that illuminates her whole face. So when I arrive a little late for our meeting I know what to expect. A welcoming smile.

Her father was a Vietnam vet who left when she was around three years old. She was too young to know that it was not her fault. Today there is a much wider public knowledge of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that affects many returned servicemen.

Abby tells me that she lost her smile when she got into drugs. She was around 14 years old at the time. It was also around this age that she sought out her father again. His hard working, hard partying life style was not the nurturing thing that she needed at the time. As a young person most of us don’t know what we need but we seek it out anyway. It should be our birth right, to know that we have intrinsic value. Instead of this she felt worthless and wrong.

She was arrested for underage drinking and discovered speed at the age of 18. She would remain in a relationship with a man she did not like because he could supply her drugs. All of these things were not taking her to anywhere good.

Abby married when she was twenty seven. Sixteen years and two children later she would leave the abusive relationship which had for many years seemed normal. For many of those years Abby’s smile hid a simple line of reasoning in her head. If I smile I won’t get hit.

Her discovery of faith was not just a head thing or even a heart thing but something between those two polarities. A place where she just knew that she had intrinsic value. For Abby the character of Jesus is her simple template on how to live. He hung out with some rat bags. So it came as a surprise to her when many church goers would not talk to junkies. Maybe that’s because they get fixated on telling people to change rather than giving them an accepting safe place to heal.

That’s a funny word. Heal. It suggests that everything gets better and that all hurt will just go away. A small portion of residual hurt may always remain. Abby smiles a lot today but beneath the smile there is hurt when she sees the things that other people may not notice themselves. The warning signs regarding domestic violence, drug use, and a whole host of other harmful behaviours. This residual little hurt may be the thing that gives her the empathy to see people rather than just pity them.

Abby currently works in an NDIS support role dealing with people struggling with a wide range of issues. That sounds like something she would be good at. Why? Because she has the other side of an easy smile, that ability to listen that people appreciate. She wouldn’t ruin it by saying some trite comment like ‘I feel your pain’.

Love has a dialect that comes from somewhere between the head and the heart. It can be manifest not only in shared smiles but also shared tears. Abby does not believe that it is her role to change people. But when like her you show an interest in wanting the best for everyone then good changes might just happen anyway.

Fringe Chat Hunger for life

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I am not a cook but I know my way around a kitchen, sort of. I know how to open a fridge and stare into it slack jawed and glassy eyed. I can press the buttons on a microwave. Ok I exaggerate a bit. The man sitting opposite me today at this coffee shop really does knows his way around a kitchen. In his younger years I wouldn’t have recommended that you push his buttons because he enjoyed conflict. He worked in the high stress, high pressure zones that are large commercial kitchens. Lots of shouting, lots of emotion a recipe for disaster unless you thrive on this kind of thing. He did.

You may have heard of the phrase, ‘If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.’ This gentleman loved the heat. He loved the pressure. He loved the conflict. The question I have is why? The simple answer that he enjoyed it belies a complexity we can never understand. We can guess by identifying contributing factors but the picture will always be incomplete.

He was the one who would always be causing trouble at home. It was easy to get a reaction from family members so their reactions just encouraged the fire in his belly, the passion in his actions. Medicated for Attention Deficit Disorder from the age of eight till he was eighteen his behavioural issues and anxiety didn’t get any better. By his own admission he had a nasty streak, an ingredient in his DNA that flavoured his character. When he came off the prescribed medication in his teenage years he replaced it with drugs and alcohol.

In the high pressure kitchens where he eventually worked drug and alcohol abuse was tolerated. So he had a place where he could be himself. But being yourself and living with the consequences of your actions can have a habit of colliding catastrophically later in life. He had already been thrown out of home by his parents, he had plenty of contact with the police and was familiar with evenings spent in the watch house.

When he was nineteen a stranger told him about God. This stranger hit a nerve because his words seemed to be informed by an understanding that his partner at the time had just aborted their unplanned child. Consequences, they were sneaking up on him giving birth to regret.

When he was twenty five another stranger much like the earlier one told him about God. This time he chose to respond to the stranger with a commitment to turn around, the very definition of repentance. But the motivation was very much centred around just killing off regret. What he did not realise at the time was that when you turn around the view is quite different. You see different things in front of you. You see your purpose. But it’s not necessarily just something you find as much as it’s something that finds you. A gradual process. An evolving relational journey.

When he first visited prisons with groups of people from different Christian organisations he recognised the same kind of high stress conflict zones much like the kitchens he had worked in. A melting pot of actions and consequence.

He knew from his time in kitchens that once you understood a recipe you could change it gradually until with years of trial and error you had your own signature dish. In a way this was what he did. But it was surprising to him how old life ingredients could be repurposed. His intimate familiarity with conflict grew, in time, into a really effective capacity to work as a qualified Prison chaplain.

An inmate once said to him that love is the difference between life and death. This really stuck with him. But everyone has different love needs. Everyone follows a different recipe which they often can’t change because they don’t know of any alternatives. How could he find some universal language to communicate hope. One answer, the answer that appealed to him was music.

If that sounds too simple you should remember that big things often begin with simple changes. Music therapy gives inmates something that they can make their own. Following the notes like following a recipe till they discover their own songs, the ones that tell their story. When you know your story, when it becomes music it can evolve into something better. Your own signature piece.

I leave our meeting with an appreciation that there are prison chaplains out there who are quietly doing the work that comes naturally to them. Just because it comes naturally does not mean that it is easy. So spare a thought for their efforts and dare to tweak the life recipe you’ve been given. Who knows – you might just have some undiscovered gifts that people are really hungry for.

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Fringe Chat Dare

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I have a few minutes before I meet with Karen Johns at Dare Formal wear in the suburb of Strathpine, just north of Brisbane. Dare is a not for profit that provides support, education and awareness for women and children caught up by domestic violence. The shop is quiet and the change rooms lie open and empty. The purple walls have words like believe,dream,love,and dream big painted on them. Small fairy lights soften the atmosphere. This shop is clearly no sterile supermarket chain. I have a strong sense that even before I meet with Karen I may have seen her character partially written on the walls of this place.

When she arrives it is immediately obvious that she has done this before. She talks about her life in an open and honest way getting straight to the point. There are a lot of points to make, too many to list in this short piece.

Born in the mid sixties to a sixteen year old mother and eighteen year old father, sexually abused from the age of six she endured various forms of abuse from different people over extended periods of time. As a child she never knew what the night would bring. I wonder what it would be like to live like that. My guess is that it would make you dream small, longing for the basic safe environment that many of us take for granted.

With such a tough background it is not surprising that her relationships were rocky. She has had four children to three fathers no doubt hoping each time that things would work out. She is a qualified teacher and has been in Pastoral roles in various churches. With the exception of a period where she turned to atheism she has always had a Christian faith. A big part of faith is believing that a better life is possible in the face of a world that is full of hurt people intent on hurting other people.

But believing something can be better by itself is only one step in the journey of making things better. The journey to finding your purpose, finding how you can make things better is a long, convoluted process. I confess that there were so many people referenced by Karen when she spoke that it was difficult to keep track of it all. This is not a flaw in her communication skill but more simple evidence of how we learn from a vast tribe of people who touch our lives in some way.

Dare Formal Wear grew from what Karen calls ‘the need to look after our own’. While ‘our own,’ initially represented people connected with churches it is really just anyone anywhere that needs to be kept safe from domestic violence.

When we finish chatting my mind drifts back to the first impressions I had when I sat waiting to meet Karen. I saw wedding dresses hanging before sets of mirrors waiting for people to try them on. Despite all the terrible things that can happen in some relationships people still dare to dream of something better.

Karen is driven by her faith, love and experience to give vulnerable people what they need by way of education and basic resources to stay safe and make good relational choices. That way hopefully with their eyes open to harsh realities they can find their safe place. A safe place where the night is a place to dream and the day is a place to live.

As I see it Karen invites you to Dare to care not just by giving what you want to give but by understanding what people actually need.

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Fringe Chat Father and Son

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John is a large man who makes himself small by being quiet. There is nothing wrong about being quiet. Introversion and extroversion are equally valuable. I have no doubt there are plenty of times when he can make some noise. But those who make a lot of noise want attention and he is not an attention seeker. He told me that he likes to play dum so that his mouth does not get him in trouble. When I ask him when his mouth last got him in trouble he said that it was years ago. So I wonder if playing dum is no longer necessary. He is forty six years old and has in his own words matured. I would like to find out what that looks like as I still wait to be mature.

He has just come from cleaning a driveway and looks hot. It is a hot day and the work would be hard on his bad back. He has the ambition to get his forklift licence. This would open up new opportunities. Maybe it would not hurt his back as much any more.

Born in Canada he lives in Brisbane. I don’t see any strong emotion come across his face when we talk except for when he talks about his Father. Then his eyes well up a little for his father has passed just a few months ago.

His relationship with his father was not good for most of his life. They in his words ‘did not get on.’ His father was a house painter who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and take up the same trade. Walking in another persons footsteps doesn’t often work out too well. Most people need to find their own path. It’s seldom an easy process.

For John just walking through this world was a difficult and painful process. He was born with club feet, his ankles were turned in and his hips awkwardly dislocated. It would take some fifteen operations to improve his gait. Unfortunately he did learn some less than helpful things from his father. One of them was gambling. He once lost ten thousand dollars in one night.

Kicked out of home over a disagreement it is not surprising that eventually drugs became a way to deal with life. Any drug induced high would be followed by lows and both anger and frustration. It was this anger that led to an impulsive assault that landed him in jail for a few months.

All of this is now behind him. He is happy in his marriage and has found some good people to have around him. He still struggles with his health but he has had the opportunity to connect with his Dad before he died.

His father was a workaholic but would gamble his money away. People often give as gifts the things that they value and for his Dad that was money. What John really wanted from his father was his time. When his fathers life was fading that’s what John gave him. His time. Holding his hand as he passed.

He does not speak with bitterness about his Father. I can see that in the end he really cared about the man. I can see that he has a quiet assurance that he has done the right thing by his father. There is a lot of pain there but there is also life. I guess the transformation of pain could be the thing that brings maturity. I should revisit my first sentence. It’s not that he makes himself small by being quiet. It’s more that for him doing the right thing is more effective when you don’t need an audience. Just quietly do the right thing to best of your ability. That’s not a dum play. It just might be quiet smart.

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Fringe Chat Safe

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Have you noticed that people sometimes finish a conversation with the phrase ‘Stay safe?’ Maybe this is a thing that people always did and I just didn’t notice it. Maybe it grew out of the worst of the pandemic. Either way the words are well intentioned. But let’s think about this. What does staying safe look like for you?

I guess everyone’s answer would be slightly different. We all have different life experiences and would all be afraid of different things. When we tell someone to ‘Stay safe’ my guess is that our kind words include an assumption of what safety looks like. I am about to introduce you to a forty year old lady who has spent the greater portion of her life not feeling safe. She lives in Brisbane and on this warm November morning chats freely with me about herself and her story.

She was raped by a family member when she was twelve years old. This was repeated over a protracted period of time. Her mother had also experienced the same behavior when she was younger but had the view that these things should be swept under the carpet. Of course ignoring something does not make it better. She had to go away, to leave the situation and find somewhere safe.

She knows that she left home when she was fourteen but has no specific memory of the event. Escaping the family home she took with her the lessons she learnt from hard experience. Lessons distilled into simple mantras like ‘Don’t get mad get even’. She needed to hurt people before they had the chance to hurt her. So to stay safe she became a bully, inflicting on others, what for her was a necessary violence. Soft drugs lead to a diverse range of hard drugs. To survive she earned an income from prostitution living a nomadic lifestyle. Her childhood family had moved some thirty times so in a way it was natural for her to do so.

One outlet for her propensity to violence was Muay Thai kickboxing. It was another way to earn money and strike back at the world at the same time. Most people would have heard of the fight, flight freeze response. She was good at fighting and also good at running.

If it is easy to run from the things that we are afraid of it can also be difficult to acknowledge what we should to run towards. Like all of us she wanted to run to a place where she was loved. But to be loved you need to be seen for who you are and getting seen, well how do you do that? Her experience learned from her mother was that you have to look good to get attention.

She speaks about her life today with a forward looking confidence that is encouraging to hear even though she may still freeze in some situations. This is not surprising given her history. When abused by family members freezing up protected her from what was about to happen. Now that she is clean and sober when people want to get close she may still freeze but she now has the ability to physically remove herself from the situation till she feels better. For her, safety is in the crowd not in the close confines of intimate relationships.

She has been married and does have children. It was something that her daughter said that changed her life. They were on the move again when her daughter asked ‘Can’t we just go home?’ She had never really had a stable home, a single place to feel safe. Deep down she longed for this but had no idea how to make this happen.

She had worked for various bikie gangs and had done some debt collection for them. In their own way they could be protective of her. But when in 2018 she stopped the sex work and began the painful process of coming off the drug dependency it was time to finally find a home of her own.

She discovered a faith in God which for her was the ultimate safe place where she could feel love. Lots of people profess a faith in God and claim to speak life but their words do not always match their actions. Fortunately she met enough people who did more than just make empty promises but knew how to bring life by seeing and meeting practical needs; like helping her off the drugs and finding a way to get her into her own stable home.

Today she hopes to do some work in Africa because she has learned that there are kids over there who live in situations that she can relate to. She mentioned frustration that it can be difficult to have other people see and support her efforts. But I have no doubt that in time she will find the right people who share her vision. Why am I confident of this? It seems to me that it is simply this: she is no longer just fighting against people or running in fear from them. There is no need to fight and she is now running towards something better. I don’t think she will ever find a totally safe place in this life. Nobody does. But if it is true that there is no fear in love then she is heading in the right direction.

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Fringe Chat Iceberg

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I meet Peter on a hot November morning at a popular north side coffee shop. If you were to walk past us you would see him as an ordinary seventy one year old, engaging in quiet conversation. He chats easily and is good company. If you were to get a little closer you may over hear snippets of his extraordinary story. This is a very small slice of that story.

I think that people can be like ice bergs with most of their true nature hidden from view. It’s not always hidden deliberately; it’s often just not immediately visible. Some have their extraordinary lives on show and appear to tower over others. But of course much lies beneath the water line. Others are like those flat tabular ice bergs. They can be ordinary and unassuming in appearance while possessing an extraordinary depth of character beneath the surface.

The funny thing about ice bergs is that sometimes they can flip over exposing what’s underneath. If you have ever seen footage of a big berg rolling over you will know what that looks like. It’s a huge event. In life there will always be events that turn things upside down. Just ask Peter. His father died in 1960 leaving some unwarranted feelings of guilt for his mother. In the same year, indeed in the same 48 hour period both Peter and one of his brothers where involved in separate serious accidents. Peter survived his while his brother did not. That in Peter’s words was when his family ended.

The end of one thing is usually the beginning of something else. For Peter this new beginning would take him and his mother from his native Manchester around the world to Sydney, Australia. He did not want to go for this meant abandoning his job as an apprentice electrician. He would leave behind all that was familiar to him in England.

He speaks positively about his Mum and Dad. On this sunny Brisbane morning he recalls his mother taking him into Manchester where she worked in a little tea shop. When she took him on a much longer journey to Australia it was a difficult transition for he hated the change. But he made the best of the situation joining the Air Force as soon as he turned 17. It was a good move as he stayed in the military for many years. He also met, married and had two children with a lady who saw him and loved him for who he is.

Life melts us in to a shape. Circumstances change us even as we try to change our lives to match each each challenge. The iceberg analogy comes back to me as I hear Peter speak. I imagine his berg would lie on its side between two worlds for Peter has always struggled with something that most of us take for granted, his gender.

His wife was aware of his struggle. She was compassionate and knew of his propensity to dress differently in the privacy of his own home. Reporting him to the military police seemed like the right thing to do but this was the early seventies when such behavior was less tolerated. Ultimately she supported his decision later in life to finally transition from Male to female. This happened when he was in his forties.

One of his doctors gave him advice which he took to heart. It was to be plain. To not need to stand out and make himself a target for people who do not understand his story. In our current age this may be seen as hiding but as I listen to Peter it seems more like a healthy strategy to get on with life.

The twist to his story is that much later in life to the extent that he was able to do so he transitioned back. Unpacking the reasons for this choice would fill a whole book and that is not my purpose here.
It would cover so many things like his faith and variety of life experiences. Remember I am just giving you with his permission a slice of his life. He has no regrets about his original choice to transition and knows that it is a difficult complex decision that people will make for themselves.

As I leave the coffee shop the street is a little busier with people trying not to melt in the midday sun. I wonder if they are all trying to pass as someone else. Maybe as someone braver or more confident, it may even be the other way around. Either way the possibilities are as endless as the range of lived experience. I guess everyone is a mix of the ordinary and extraordinary.

Listening to a small portion of someone’s story, especially when it is different to ours can melt any of our preconceived ideas and expectations away. I am not sure what I expected to hear before I met Peter. I guess I just expected to hear from the authentic person that he is today. I did.

Peter speaks fondly of the warmth of his wife’s embrace as they slept at night, holding him as dreams and nightmares came and went. We all have dreams and nightmares. We all need to hold each other’s stories gently. It was a pleasure to listen to him. The open silence of listening sounds like love to me. So come a little closer and listen up.

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Fringe Chat The big picture

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This world is full of mirrors. No, seriously, we all have them. They are those small rectangular things we call smart phones. We see our world reflected in an endless stream of images and videos. Park this thought for we will come back to it later. For now I would like you to meet Phil.

Phil is in his fifties and sits across from me telling me what makes him tick and my most obvious first impression is that he likes to talk. He also likes to think, deeply. He has a strong desire to live in the now according to his principals, morals and values. So his starting point in our chat is not what he was or what he will become but where he is today. I like that for we are not solely defined by our past and our future is an undiscovered country we haven’t moved to yet.

He has the gift of intuitive thinking. Intuitive thinking is the capacity reflect on what one sees and notice things that others may miss. He also gravitates toward critical thinking. This is the capacity to ask the right questions rather than blindly accepting at face value what people say. Lots of people say nice things but as they say actions can speak louder than words.

So if this sounds like Phil lives in his head at lot well yes that’s true but there is more to the story. There always is. He knows what a dysfunctional family looks like. He know what years of heroin addiction feels like. He has known the healthy buzz that comes from playing sports like soccer and the crushing psychological weight of a shame based personal world view. Responding to a strict parenting regime he became a wild child but by the age of 45 knew it was time to enter rehab.

Living with addiction was like stumbling through one of those old side show attractions with distorted mirrors that make you look short or tall. Coming through rehab was a huge struggle but on the other side he could see himself with a great deal more clarity. The principals, morals and values that guided him through all of this are rooted in his belief in God. But you won’t hear him pushing his beliefs on others for he has seen plenty of examples where people do that and pass on their own biased and distorted thinking. For Phil it’s all about meeting the need first. If they are hungry, feed them, no strings attached.

Love in action meets practical needs. It gives people the space to reflect on who they can be when they are free of their burdens. Such freedom then becomes a journey of discovery. Phil discovered that he is good at public speaking. He had no idea about that until his attention was taken off the bad stuff and he took the steps to be free of it.

Phil struggles with what he sees in the world today especially the junk that accumulates on the internet. He is tempted to sink into cynicism but fortunately such compulsions are not the whole story. His phone camera has captured many beautiful images. After years of narrow focus on his problems can now also see the big picture.

His goal of completing a Bachelor of Counselling should give him the opportunity to share what he has learned with others. Formal qualifications combined with his knowledge and experience will serve him well. But he won’t see himself as an expert who has all the answers and he certainly won’t want to rigidly tell people what to do. It’s simply all about holding up a better mirror, identifying real needs and fumbling collaboratively through to discover something better. Life beyond smart phones and dumb ideas. Life in all it’s fullness.

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Fringe Chat Dream Big

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Brisbane born Pastor Ron Hutchison is a big man with big dreams. When most people have big dreams they don’t take the next step needed to make those dreams a reality. Ron is not likely to wait for the perfect moment or develop the perfect plan before he steps out. He is a man of action who credits himself with having the spiritual gift of stupidity. I wondered what he that meant by that. I think it means the gift to act without being worried about the cost of those actions. It involves a willingness to take some hits.

He has taken some hits over the years. His father was a violent man which his mother turned a blind eye to. He received broken ribs and broken fingers from his father. What does that do to a person? In Ron’s case it taught him how to fight. In time it also taught him how to stand up for the little guy.

But not all bullies throw punches. Sadly Ron has come across bullies in churches who have abused people under the guise of loving them. I would say that another of Ron’s gifts is his nose. It has been punched more than once in his life but it is still a really effective tool for smelling bullshit.

Like many people who have not had the best family situation growing up Ron developed friendships with men who became father figures to him. One gentleman taught him how to make models. Another taught him how to fish. But not all of his role models were good. Thankfully though as he progressed in life he displayed a willingness to work hard at whatever job came his way. He has done a paper run and a milk run. His other jobs included cleaning up in a cake shop, tyre fitting and also tiling.

Then came the moment when he hit rock bottom. Ron found himself in a car at the bayside suburb of Sandgate. Fortunately slashing himself with a knife did not end his story. If the aftermath he went to a church and responded to an altar call desperate to turn his life around. That is not where his story ends.

That sensitive nose of his was called into action again. Something did not smell right within the church he attended. The things that did not seem right were small at first but they accumulated. It all came to a head when his wife had a stroke and a miscarriage. The church advised him that this occurred because he had not been tithing enough. That was it. He had had enough. He got himself a theology degree and became a Pastor. The rest as they say is history.

Ron is now the Pastor at Fringe Church, Redcliffe. It is a church for those who have taken a few hits in life. It promises to be a safe place for many who may not feel safe in a traditional church. The church has done extensive work with current and former prisoners. Many of these people had given up on dreaming of a better life. So dreaming big is a new thing for them. Honestly to have any dreams at all is a great start.

Every story has a beginning, a middle and end. If you are still breathing you are in the middle of your story. Ron would encourage you find the thing that brings you life. He won’t find it for you. That’s up to you. If you ask him about his story you won’t get a happy ever after fairy tale with all the answers laid out for you. But you just might see how cool things can happen when people feel safe enough to dream together. You don’t have to be overly smart to work everything out. Sometimes a little stupidity helps.

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Story tellers

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We are all storytellers, gathered around the fire

fired up by limited memory, unlimited by possibility

What lies beyond the fire glow?

Made up, made of, limited memory, unlimited possibility.

We are made to sit around the fire in each other’s hearts

Emotional echoes resonate long after memory fragments

lose any connection to lived reality.

What is made up is made of limited memory unlimited possibility.

But around the fire, around the safe place

of a limited community, unlimited possibility

connects and reconnects memory fragments

with the check and balance of other storytellers

other sets of ears hear the bits that bring them life.

Only in a community of real people in a physical space

can there be the place, the safe space

to develop as storytellers, as people, as all gather around

fired up with the imagination and the courage to take

raw fragments of memory

and live as the author of our own stories.

This is not a solitary journey

for the story not told goes nowhere and does nothing

which would be a shame because it is amazing

just how much, just one story

can bring life in so many different ways

Gather up your stories and do tell

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Fishfull Thinking

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Beneath the hat
his face is red
his nose painted white
his singlet curved
ripped and torn
grey in early light

Perched on rock
patrolled by crabs
waves besiege his ledge
his territory marked
by esky, bait and a flagless pole
 hung over the edge

He held the pole
with meaty paws and tree trunk arms
his face a total blank
a dull expression often seen
on people queuing in a bank

So why do this?
What is his quest?
Here now I’ll take time
to guess.

He may search for rest by sea
to dream by waves alone
he may meditate in peace
away from mobile phone
viewing another world
from the safety of the rock

Of course his purpose may be different
he may have another wish
he may long to make
just one story true
by catching a single fish

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The things that broke you

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Recollect the things that broke you
shaped you, made you into who you are today
Burrow deep inside to meet and mourn
who you were, who you could have been
to live with who you are in the light of today
and be sad and happy and washed by tears
that flow from pain and sadness and relief and
all the temporary things that come and go with
everyday life, with every life… and there is the thing
that phrase ‘every life’, everyday every life
has some recollection of the things that
broke, shaped and made what is here today
burrow deep inside to meet the things that broke you
and meet every life as being just like you
even if you can’t burrow inside to meet
and fully connect who they were
who they could have been
and who they are today
Respect the other, the mother , the father
the brother, the sister and as you have
done first for yourself do for them also
Walking on the same beach
with the ocean that ebbs and flows
dredging up from the deep
the lost things that wait for recollection
and all you do is walk together

Making connections

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I am sitting in my seat with my head turned to the left. It rests on the window as I look down. We are at thirty five thousand feet above the ground which is a map transformed into reality. Turbulence makes the plane shake laterally and I can easily imagine pockets of warm and cold air mixing like the different layers I felt while snorkelling on Magnetic Island. These are the layers of reality that are not seen but are certainly felt.

Beneath me the coastal rivers are mud veins that spread sediment across the flat brown landscape. The heart of the country is huge and beats slowly to its own rhythm. A light brown line stretches from horizon to horizon. It is just one of the long roads that cross this country. I wonder what it is like to drive across that desolate place. Maybe there is someone down there driving their car across that vast distance. A rooster tail of dust feathers out behind them which does not trouble the cattle dog that sits in the back. The driver holds the wheel with one hand in the casual twelve o’clock position. He is listening to the rural report on the ABC. If he glanced up he would see me though I am just visible as a contrail. He would see just a light white line that stretches from horizon to horizon.

Now I know this could be seen as daydreaming or idle speculation but somewhere out there is a driver crossing this vast land. As a writer our job can be making the connections that people do not always see. We uncover the layers of reality that are not always seen but are certainly felt. It is not something that we can tell you but we can show you.  All sorts of turbulence can shake you day and the day you map out is always transformed by reality. Our hope as writers is that we can show you something you might not have noticed.

In a different light

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There are no fish here to see
No fish to see as murky water
has sand in suspension floating
obscuring anything beneath.
This is the jetty at Picnic bay
it points towards Townsville
we look back along the structure
back to the shore where
the deep shade of the fig trees
invites us to shelter from
the heat and humidity
No fish to see here
maybe in a different light
but not now, not here
we climb the two headlands
in the heat and humidity
two vantage points to look across
the expanse of water and sky, and land
and it is good but hot, so hot
our clothes cling to us as we
cling to the notion to come back
and see this place in a different light
At night the jetty is lit
above and below the water
Blue lights attached on the jetty
deep below the water line
Attract a multitude of fish
So many shapes dart back and forth
we gaze into the blue
Amazed by the transformation
of seeing a place
In a different light.

Waiting…

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Beneath a dark sky Brisbane airport became wet as the morning shower became rain. Behind a variety of masks people held in check their expectations. Above them within the thick clouds planes held in holding patterns circled. Beneath the clouds the thoughts contained within the stranded travellers circled endlessly. When would circling stop and the journey begin?

Time moves slowly when you watch it. It doesn’t watch you and cares not for your attention. It just is. Circumstances just are. The morning progressed, the people didn’t. They remained stranded in time and place. But delay is not denial and in time the wait would be over. For some the relief of movement lightened the load even as they strained to move upright after so long as human pretzels curled over their phones. Along with everyone else we boarded the plane.

I met a lady on a deadline. For her the clock was still ticking loud in her head even as the engine whine rose in pitch and we thundered down the runway. Pressed into our seats we accelerated hard and rose through the soft white clouds that obscured all sense of motion. She closed her eyes and willed the plane a burst of extra speed so that she would not miss her friend’s funeral.

I will never know how her day progressed but I do know that tomorrow her delay would be just another story to tell. There are many stories that are never told. They circle endlessly in the imagination. Writing stories is not done by forcing them into existence. They wait to be discovered by checking our expectations at the door and practicing presence that is to say being fully present in all circumstances. 

Does anyone feel like sharing how they draw from experience to write? How do you stay in the moment to harness something good out of your circumstances?

Mercy Ships Part 5

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(Fufu is made by pounding the Cassava root into a paste.)

Emotional memory packs a punch. It lasts long after an experience has soaked into who I am. I remember so many emotional experiences from my years with Mercy Ships. Now I don’t use the word emotional to refer to grand mountain top experiences. I am talking about the diverse range of people and places that nudged my understanding of the world outward. Mercy Ships has taken me to eighteen countries, nine of them in Africa. Another country is just a shaded shape on a map until you step foot on the gritty dirt and walk with the people who live in a very different culture. Being on the ship for my DTS partly prepared me for this. I started in Reception.

In Reception I dealt with European, North American, Asian and of course African people. Everyone had a different accent, different words, even different ways of writing the alphabet and on a deeper level different ways of thinking about the world. For a week, I volunteered with the village medical team.  Initially I tried doing triage where I was quite confounded when each person seemed to have “body aches.”  We were always trying to ensure that things didn’t get lost in translation. This would take time and patience and of course a little mercy; mercy on ourselves and on others.

One of the first countries we visited was Ghana. Ghana is a tropical West African nation with a reputation for friendly people. I found myself walking through open air markets that sold food that was new to me. In the absence of refrigeration they sold a chocolate that had something in it to stop it from melting. Unfortunately that made it taste a little like candle wax. Yum. Another food was fufu which is a paste made from cassava, a root crop. I thought it tasted like wallpaper glue. Of course when I think about it people from other countries often found the taste of Aussie Vegemite disgusting.

At that time the ship was not air conditioned so it felt like living in a hot tin can. Getting my feet on the ground and looking around the ports of Tema and Takoradi on the weekends was something I enjoyed. We did have a few air conditioned vehicles that could be lifted by crane off the ship. They were used when a team from the ship had to venture further afield. I made several trips with those teams to lend a hand and I mean that literally as I was part of the puppet team. Kneeling in the dirt on a hot steamy day making my puppet dance to a song that a translator had introduced, well it was surprisingly rewarding. Hearing laughter and seeing smiling faces needed no translation.

Behind the smiles there was something that took time to see. I knew that living standards were different but that difference was in what I did not see rather that what was visible. Many of the houses were made of concrete blocks and had corrugated iron roofs. In the country they were often mud brick houses with thatched roofs. The thing that was often missing was running water. I had running water on the ship. Many people did not have the basics that I took for granted. That is of course the whole reason for Mercy Ships, to provide health care where it is either insufficient or nonexistent.   Seeing the reality of this need packed an emotional punch for me. I don’t remember all of the details about my time with Mercy Ships but I do know that I now have my own hard-to-define body ache.  It sounds like a cliché to say you feel someone else’s pain but it is the beginning of mercy – after all I did not choose to be born into a wealthy country. I hope my meaning is not lost in translation. Have a little mercy on yourself and others for we are all the same under the skin.

Mercy Ships Part 4

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Looking back on my ten years with Mercy Ships I see a kaleidoscope of recollections. Places and faces come in and out of focus. In writing my story I have no wish to look back through rose-coloured glasses, nor do I want to over emphasise the things that were difficult for me. I remember my first sight of people coming on, then later filing off the ship healed. In time I would get to know some of them and then they would be gone again. Memory has its limits and from this distance of time I do remember much but the order of events and the specific details are sometimes hazy. At the heart of this story though I clearly remember how a little bit of mercy can transform lives.

As I write this I can hear the sound of the surf and the wind through the trees. I am at Rainbow Beach in South East Queensland. I have Mercy Ship pictures on my lap top and the glow of colour from them lights my face in the fading light after sunset. When I framed those pictures all those years ago I did not realize how valuable they would become. When you photograph a scene you are choosing what’s worth remembering. Today I value every opportunity to capture the essence of the moment as tomorrow it will become part of a story worth remembering.

 I framed some pictures yesterday at Poona Lake, a beautiful freshwater lake in the middle of a rainforest that somehow manages to grow on sand. The foot prints that I left behind will wash away but the memory of floating in the cool water watching little yabbies (tiny lobsters) dart around will stay with me for a long time. I switch off the lap top and in the darkness am amazed at the massive contrast between my life in Australia and my previous life on the Anastasis.

The Anastasis is now gone, broken up and gone. The memories associated with it have not gone; they live on in so many people. Yesterday I stood beside the propeller of a ship that for a while was well know in this part of the world. The propeller is one small part of the Cherry Venture, a ship which ran aground here and became a tourist attraction. As the sea rusted the wreck into memory, people would souvenir parts of it until it was no longer deemed to be a safe place to go. It was removed and now it’s just a story. But stories do matter; they are how we understand the world. If you have been on the Anastasis you would have collected something that was precious and evocative to you. Your memory may not be perfect but your stories are worth collection. As I look back and remember my time with Mercy Ships I realize that right now there are people still over there looking out on difficult circumstances. Can there ever be a time when there is no need for healing in this world? For a while I was part of a team that brought mercy to people who desperately needed it. Gorome was one of those people.

Gorome was in her teens, but there was no giggling with friends at school about boys for her.  In fact, she did not go to school.  She tried when she was younger, but the cruel comments were too much. Gorome was born with one of the most common birth defects – a cleft lip.  Her upper lip had a split in it that extended up to her nostril and inside to include the roof of her mouth. The surgery that could have been performed while she was still a baby was not affordable or even available.  So she hid away from the world, looking after her younger siblings and helping with the housework.  She dreamed of an ordinary life where she can go out during daylight and not have to cover her face to avoid the ever-present stares of all who see her deformity.  But the skilled medical team on the Anastasis transformed her face and her life with a relatively simple two hour surgery.  This girl’s transformation reminds me of what is possible. I know so many times healing is not so obviously visible. That’s why we tell stories of hope. That’s why I will draw together ten years of experience into this series on my life with Mercy Ships. Hope heals.

Mercy Ships Part 3

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With her permission, I am writing about my wife’s experiences with the Christian charity, Mercy Ships. This is part three.

I had mostly forgotten about the awkward self consciousness that happened when I first stood up to the public scrutiny of performing in front of people. I am back on the Canary Islands. After my first three months on the ship it was time to serve Mercy Ships on dry land. When I chose to be part of this outreach team I thought I would have been able to hide my face and speak through puppets to children. The reality in front of me was not the reality I envisaged in my head.  I am performing to Spanish speaking adults and I know that my face could be revealing my feelings and my body is probably looking dorky. But with Mercy ships when there is a job to do, we learn to forget about ourselves and just get it done. This challenge would seem trivial after I had spent ten years with Mercy Ships. But it is still 1994 and I am illustrating the gospel message wearing garishly bright baggy trousers and a white tee shirt while a handful of people and a startled dog watch us. I could treat the dog if necessary as I have been formally trained as a Veterinary Surgeon.  But I am operating on a different level today standing on this beach outside in the sun, outside of my comfort zone. The strange thing is that I am learning so much by doing the thing that was not my first choice. I came to serve on a ship but here I am back where it all started on the island where I first came on board the Anastasis.

The Canary Islands lie 100 km west of Morocco. This subtropical place is a collection of eight main islands that is geographically part of Africa but politically and economically connected to Spain. Before I left the ship to travel across these islands I had to decide what role I would play when I came onboard again. I gravitated to what I thought I knew. As well as choosing the ship drama team as one of my preferences, I also chose working in Reception. Some of the Reception duties would be similar to what I have done as a Vet. I can answer the phone, I can greet people, but would the reality in my head match the reality I would experience?  I enjoyed my time on the Canary Islands but I was also very keen to step back onboard the ship. We spent one uncomfortable night sleeping at an airport because we had arrived late in the day and our connecting trip to another island was very early the following morning. I could never know when I would step outside of my comfort zone. I did know that this new life was for me because after the fact it felt good to be a little stretched.

Stepping into a new life takes time and it was in this time and on these islands that I had to continue to take baby steps into forgetting myself and just acting confident. Feeling confident would come after acting confident. In drama there was a lot of acting. I remember almost stepping into the path of a car when crossing a road as they drove on the opposite side of the road to what I was used to in Australia. So yes I soon sensed the need to be cautious as I stepped into my new life on the ship. It could be exhilarating and challenging at the same time.

Reception would be my first job on the Anastasis. In Reception I would see so many people file on board the ship. Many had their faces deformed by life threatening illness and I could see in their faces fear and hope. Many had been shunned because of what they looked like and in some communities people believed that their illness was the result of demon possession. Just the act of stepping onboard a ship took bravery as many had never been in a large structure in their life. I would see many of these people file off the ship healed, their faces changed forever. I would be forever changed by my time aboard the ship. I would eventually run Reception myself but in 1994 I could not know that this would be just the start of a long journey that would take me to so many places. As I forgot about how I might be perceived by others, I gained the freedom to choose my next Mercy Ships adventure some days and on other days be ok when the adventure chose me.

Mercy Ships Part 2

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With her permission, I am writing about my wife’s experiences with the Christian charity, Mercy Ships. You can read part one in my previous post.

For the last four years I have cocooned myself off from new experiences and have tried to make my life safe. My vain attempts to deal with the grief I felt from my mother’s death led me to hold people at a distance, and I had been gradually pushing God away also. I wasn’t really close to my mother but her early death changed me inside. Witnessing her suffering was very hard. The discipleship training that I was to experience on the ship would teach me many things, one of which would be the discipline of serving people in need and being with them in their suffering. A Mercy Ship is a hospital ship that provides essential medical care in areas of the world where there is little hope of healing.

In my first months of training on board the Anastasis I struggled as an introvert whose inner life had become walled up compartments of pain and loss. I would leave four years of grief behind and find ten years of richly rewarding life experience, but at the start I could have no way to knowing this. I would live on a floating hunk of metal that contained a melting pot of humanity confined on board a vessel just 159 metres long. It was a melting pot in every sense. People from all nations, walks of life and cultures rubbed sweaty shoulders together in the hot cramped confines of a former Italian cruise ship. I was here to move out into the wide world to meet the needs of others but I felt compressed in the narrow confines of the ship where my need for healing initially held me back. I was here to move forward into a new life but even on the steep staircases between levels I had to crab sideways to pass people going down or up.

I sought to spend as much time as possible up on deck away from the claustrophobia of narrow halls and small rooms. It was a cooler, quieter space. On the ship I thought my window on the world would be opened up to me straight away but the little round port holes did not reveal much of the outside world. Navigating the low ceilings I quickly learned to protect my head from injury and my feet from various trip hazards. Navigating so many new relationships on board the ship would be an essential skill if I was to chart a course between the personal space I needed and the public space where I could serve the needs of others with Mercy Ships.

 A joke comes to mind, a Polish doctor, an American, a Swiss lady and an Australian walk into a small cabin; yes, that was my first cabin on board and no, I wasn’t sure what punch line would be at the end of the joke. It was not always clear if I should laugh or cry as life just came at me with a loud vibrancy which was exhilarating yet also confronting. I had a love/ hate relationship with the noisy dining room where everyone ate in shifts because of the limited space, but up on deck the sight of the sea and the sky invoked in me a sense of peace. In the open space I was reconnecting with the faith I sought to revive. But these times would be limited as ship board tasks had to be done; an ageing vessel needs ongoing maintenance. We had to clean everything, to help in so many ways that there was always something to do.

My first port of call was Senegal and my first three months went from November to January so that meant for me a Christmas like no other. I was welcomed into the cabin of a Canadian family and I felt at home with their kindness and generosity. At the Christmas dinner I chose to be part of the team that served the meal and as I enjoyed this simple task I felt the walls within me crumble a little more. In time I would move from carrying dinner plates to cleaning the bilge plates in the noisy engine room. There I was, a former veterinary surgeon working with a Japanese anaesthetist in the bowels of a ship. Over the next ten years I would get to do so many things from scuba diving under the ship to handling customs issues. At the end of my first three months I had made the transition to ship life and I was beginning to hope that Mercy Ships would be the life for me.