By the way, William Moore’s March for Multiculturalism has been postponed from 4 November to 17 November. He couldn’t get the police he needed because they’re gearing up for Cup Day.
Anyway, if it comes off, it’ll be a good show of support for a good Aussie value - a fair go for all, especially for outsiders.
Cup Day is the annual feast of the outsider who rarely shows up but is feared by favorites and waited for by all punters. The one horse who wins the Cup after trailing for the whole race and then bursts from the back of the pack to hunt the champions down and pip the lot at the post.
If I was a fundamentalist preacher, I’d give you a few well chosen human comparisons. I’m not, so I won’t.
Just check life’s odds for and against yourself up to date and, if you’re even a ‘rank’ outsider, come from the back of the pack and surprise everyone, even your connections ie, family and friends.
See, fools like me see spirituality everywhere. If it’s not everywhere, it’s nowhere. It’s in the least likely places, like Flemington on Cup Day.
First of November, All Saints Day, says the same. Forget the gazetted Saints, you Christians, on the 1st. Remember the whole assembly, the mob of unheralded heroes in our own network of family, friends and even your favorite celebrities (those essential, fascinating stars of screen, stage and stadium whom we love to hate!).
November 2nd, All Souls Day, brings us back to earth, into the earth and under the earth, by reminding us spiritual beings having our human experience, long or short, no matter, really that we are eternally linked with innumerable other spiritual beings who have completed their human experience, long or short, no matter, really.
You younger readers experience this 'kind' of connectedness via the internet. It’s the latest example of how easy and how hard, all at once, it is to know that we’re all in this together, have been since 12 billion years BCE (more or less) and forever will be.
My generation (Year of 1934) had to make do (or were blessed with) a religious expression of this togetherness, otherwise known at the communion of saints and sinners, or a new fangled secular expression via fascism or communism.
All this within 300 years at the end of which we may well be participants in yet another 'great transformation'. The internet 'virtually' connects us all, for better or worse.
Each of us is the agent of change in a 'trickle up' dynamic. We consense no need for the hierarchies or priesthoods.
We can’t even rely 'religiously' on the rationalism of the past 300 years. We’ve been shot in the head too often. Now they’ll have to shoot us in the heart to stop us. Yes, Chris, there is a relational matrix and it’s US, past, present and future people.
We hung up some street reports over the last few days, on my blog and copied it for self-indulgence. These occasional reports from our street reporter are meant to be stuck on the fridge, become part of the family daily memory, remind us that it’s no longer them and us, just WE.
We’ve been bound together and thrown apart from millennia by what we believe.
Now’s the time to reassemble because of what we do, separate in fact, but united in heart.
When you read one of our street reports let it trigger a chain of events for you – sharpen the eyesight of your heart, assess the social impact of what you see, do something about it.
The DO bit needs guidance. Just maybe half a dozen of my workers can be available to advise by email or text what options you have, health and safety issues considered.
I’ll consult them, post the numbers and we’ll see if my Foundation can be more than a talkfest.
Triple J this Sunday night - a satirical (what else is there available to us/sardonic even 'Insider’s Guide to Power in Australia' – Hoysted and Fidler.
Joe Bageant, author of 'Deer Hunting with Jesus - dispatches from American’s Class War'. Jana Wendt, author of 'A matter of Principle.' Andy Seymour with 'Elvis has not left the Building.