Overseas readers, we've got a Prime Minister called John Howard, at least for the next 72 hours (as we go to press) and he's warning us to re-elect him and his party because, if we don't, we may 'change the country'! What a terrible thing that would be, John's inferring. Maybe it would be terrible. I suspect not, but then, I've got a vested interest in change because I'm a creationist i.e., someone who believes/trusts in the ongoing unfolding, probably infinite, of the cosmic plan, the relational matrix.
That's 'bobbiwaffle' to some, but to me the truth upon which rests my case for social activism and a civil path to peace.
An election happened Wednesday, 21 November, when 800 people attended a Multicultural Educational Services conference in Melbourne. These people elected to work together for the benefit of the Australian Commonwealth, made up, of course, predominately of migrants (I use the word 'predominant' from respect to our aboriginal people whom we have dominated since 1777.) I was blessed to form a panel with Thuk, a Sudanese, and Malika, an Eritrean woman. Well-known Vietnamese/Australian Ahn Do was the facilitator. The stories were stunning, including Thanh's. My job was a mere regurgitation of how we in South Melbourne came to be mixed up with migrants. More than that, how I personally became, vocationally, a fellow traveller with hundreds of migrants. It took that conference to remind me of the size of that crowd.
Even with no wife, partner or children to remind me (there, I'm 'out', I'm a celibate!) I told the crowd I spoke in memory of my friend, Ahmed Nasir Sheik Abdi, Somalia, who was shot dead on the last of several rescue missions. Many South parishioners will remember Ahmed with great affection. The Sudanese man frightened some of the audience with his obvious strong commitment to the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth and his honest, if non-pc, appraisal of the Sudanese predicament!
Malika's story ended in Warrnambool where she lived and worked as a marine biologist. She told of the gradual warming between her and her neighbours. Malika wears a veil, just like our women religious did. Warrnambool got used to it, as Aussies do get used to the 'strange' if left alone.
I sprouted a few bits of pious bobbiwaffle which readers and parishioners have heard before, probably 'ad nauseam', about how we're all in this together, forming the colourful crew of spaceship earth. And the other bit about religion sometimes needing the restraining hand of secular society to deter religion from doing harm to public civility. I really believe that.
Ahn Do is an excellent example, as is his Young Australian of the Year brother Khoa, of migrant 'missionaries'. They've become embedded in our Commonwealth and show us how to be serious in a funny way. (Infotainment is a risky gene, not to everyone's liking.) I'm feeling a bit better this week about spriuking social activism as opposed to (or balancing) devotional quietism.
A boost came from Dr. Rob Grogan, a southerner, who's working on a history of south Melbourne Catholicism (my mob). That history proclaims South Melbourne's commitment to help the poor, deserving and undeserving, over 150 years. I guess that's the reason I feel better today about the authenticity of my own feeble crusade for the undeserving poor through the agency registered officially as 'Father Bob Maguire Foundation'.
Safran and I will wait till Sunday to the 3JJJ show, 9 - 11 pm, so we can be smart with hindsight about the election results. We'll interview, also John Bryson ('Evil Angels') about jury room culture. Also, Carol Cams, NGV, Curator of Asian Art, talks about 'Krishna, Love and Devotion'. Finally, Melbourne singers of gospel to either celebrate or lament the election results.