Recently we drove, Favourite Wife And I, through the most astonishing, rugged, spectacular and – for us – unexplored country. We were back in Mt Buffalo National Park, a favourite place not too far from Paradise. Our Park Ranger neighbour had said that there was more to see, and that we needed to push on past the idyllic Lake Catani. This is easier said than done, as the lake has it’s own irresistible gravitational field that drags you into its orbit of bird and reed rimmed, snow-country solitude. It has a melancholy beauty, a sense of age, a life so compound and complex that you feel minuscule; a fleeting visitor.

But push on we did; on past bitumen’s end, Bugger and the rolling show strapped firmly in the back of our van. We drove through the perfectly named rock spires of Cathedral Saddle and onwards until in the distance we saw The Horn!

And on the the very peak of this gargantuan pile of rock a tiny smudge of colour which looked, through binoculars on the bumpy road, like people! I didn’t mention this to Favourite Wife for several minutes because it seemed preposterous, and only more so as we gradually approached the rising pinnacle of The Horn.  But they were people; and we urgently wanted to be amongst them!

 

 

Here the story takes a bizarre turn, not so much because I climbed The Horn, but because I had little doubt that I could. The climb is about half an hour of steep track with frequent granite stairs that were cut into the stone during the 1940’s with the panache and precision of that era.   I knew I could climb The Horn because twice every week I shorten my elbow crutches by one click (to the “off-road” setting) and head to the top of the steep hills opposite our home.  This is bizarre. Two years ago I would not have dreamed of such a feat; and the hour and a half I spend walking the hill remains in irreconcilable contrast to my capacity at other times in the day.

Where The Horn took a half hour or so to conquer, the climb to the top of our hills in Paradise took a good 8 months. It began last winter when my Favourite Wife brought home a Shooting Stick from the second hand store.  I had been searching for one of these old fashioned devices which I remembered in the hands of my much loved spinster great-aunt. The theory that I wanted to test was that I could walk further if I could stop and sit down every now and then.  With a seat, I reckoned, I could overcome the intimidation of the half way point: when you decide you have walked far enough, you still have to turn around and walk all the way home! But I have to look back in time to paint a full picture.

Two years ago I wrote several posts around my frustration with the keyboard, which had seemed to loose its usefulness much too suddenly.  When I read those old posts I am struck by the fear they contain; a panicked sense that everything is about to crumble. Irrevocably. In those days I was still living well within reach of a Motor Neurone Disease diagnosis. Although it remained unconfirmed over time, the terminology that doctors continued to use throughout the first few years remained corrosively powerful.  Times beyond counting I saw it written in this curious fashion on reports, letters, forms:

?MND. 

Strangely enough it was the difficulty with typing which allowed me to begin to shake off the MND shadow.  When dexterity (for want of a better word) began to trouble me I realised that the issue was not primarily one of strength; and with that knowledge I began to work on strength building exercise. I took advice from a friend who is a personal trainer.  I built a seat at our letterbox as a half way rest stop.

I built another seat, “The Outpost” over the road; and the bushland beyond the fence soon beckoned.

Eventually armed with a cane in one hand and the Shooting Stick in the other, I climbed through the barbed wire fence and began incrementally longer forays in to the wilderness.  What a joy!  It took months from then on, pushing the distance a little at a time so that “enough” was reached no earlier than my return to our garage door.  I was energised by reaching one goal after another, eventually setting my sights on a particular towering, twin-trunked gumtree high on the ridge. Two peculiar factors assist my climb: The first is that for several years I have found uneven ground far easier, ridiculously easier, to walk on than flat ground; so much so that crossing the bitumen road to begin the walk is often the most difficult stage.  This also is bizarre – I know – but was explained by a therapist who said that uneven ground ‘recruits additional muscle groups’. The second is that I can breath freely while I walk, whereas sitting leads inevitably to the breathing machine. These two factors make walking on the hill very attractive!

I reckon that it was on the day I reached The Big Tree that I finally shrugged of the MND gloom; completely (almost….) erasing it’s presence from my own thoughts and emotions.  I can’t explain how difficult this was with any better metaphor than the steep hillside: eventually I climbed out.

The climb is still daunting.  But every time I reach The Big Tree and take in the panoramic views of our district I am exhilarated, and still astounded, by the bizarre freedom that awaits me on the slopes of Paradise.

 

Rejoice!

Thursday last.
“Mr. Allen,” came the alarmingly soothing voice of the VW Service Manager, “we have found the fuel leak, but we will have to take out the fuel tank to ascertain the nature of the problem.  It will cost $545.00 for us to do that, would you like us to proceed?”

Friday.
“Mr. Allen,” said Scary-Smooth, “we have found the problem. The quote to replace the (sender-pump-something) will be $1235.00, would you like us to proceed?”

Saturday.
45 minutes before the Taxi was due to collect us for our annual Melbourne foray the excellent respite facility where Little One stays rang. Our girl had been badly bitten by another young client. She wanted to come home, she was very distressed. The staff, who we trust, were distraught an apologetic; but felt that she would be OK. A heart wrenching decision, with subtleties that only a parent accessing respite care might recognise.  With discussion and prayer we decide not to bring her home. Instead we call on our very kind neighbours who will deliver some of Little One’s treasures, and a small gift.

We were now running well behind in our packing, and my last minute adjustments to Bugger.  We have never taken the old manual wheelchair on a train.  We decide to delay the Taxi by 15 minutes, still leaving 25 minutes to drive to the station. The dispatch lady was sure that would be fine.

But it was not fine at all. The Taxi was 5 … 8 … 10 minutes late, and we rang to learn that a Wheelchair Taxi was still not available. We called the station; the train was on time and leaving in 15 minutes. 5 more anxious minutes pass. What to do! Our own vehicle was indisposed while it’s gold-plated sender-pump-something was being fitted, and we would need a big vehicle. With 10 minutes until departure we cancelled the Taxi and called a school colleague with a 4WD.

By the time we left home, the train had left town. Comparing the timetable with driving times to towns down the line it looked as though the train would beat us by 10 minutes at the very least.  We found a phone number for a station coming up, and agreed to deploy the secret weapons! These are they: ‘wheelchair’, ‘ventilator’, ‘respite’, and the big gun: … ‘down syndrome’. These words are an arsenal of motivation when dealing with officialdom.  But they were unnecessary! Our train had been delayed by a freight train! The very charming, very elderly Station Mistress at Chiltern directed us to platform 2; which, oddly, is not opposite platform 1. It’s back up the line a bit.  Which meant that minutes later when our train pulled into platform 1, we had to move fast! The train driver saw us running (and pushing) and gave a reassuring waive from his window. We were going to Melbourne!

Tuesday.
After a sublime weekend including a clarion performance by the MSO of Handel’s Messiah; church and lunch with great fiends; carols in the cathedral and a delicious Monday with family, we turned for home.

“Well”, said the conductor on Southern Cross Station, “You’re not on my list!”
Obligingly he rang and quoted our booking number; and conveyed to us that because we had not attended Wodonga Station three days earlier and collected our tickets, our booking had been cancelled. Once more the secret weapons came to mind, but the look on our faces must have been enough.  “There’s a wheelchair space in economy you can have”.  A wheelchair space with a fold down seat for Favourite Wife and a family of four unbelievably riotous children that drove her nearly to dementia for four long hours.

“If you can be here in ten minutes”, said Scary-Smooth at 5.21pm, “you can pick up your vehicle”.

The $1235.00 was hard to pay.  Not because it hurt; but because I had dropped my wallet at the railway station in Melbourne 6 hours earlier, and had cancelled our cards.

Favourite Wife bought fuel, as instructed by Scary-Smooth, across the road from the service centre. The vehicle would not start. The VW peeps at had gone home. The lights were out. The gates were shut. The phone rang out. She called a tow truck.

Wednesday.
Little One bailed up one of the Paramedics in our lounge room, and in her rather tricky diction confessed to having dialled “Oohhh Oohhh Oohhhhhh” at school one day. And how that was a very naughty thing. The Paramedic was wonderful, and handled the moment beautifully, but she really did have to get back to the main event: Favourite Wife, semi conscious on the floor after tripping and putting her hand through a pane of glass. Fortunately we have the most amazing neighbours, one a nurse. They were on hand first, then the Paramedics, quickly followed by a terrific teacher from our school who came out readily at 10pm, disentangled Little One from the scene, gently distracted her from her determination to ride in the ambulance, and finally took her home for the night. We were fortunate indeed that it ended around 2am with only 8 stitches.

 

Someone joked that we must have killed a Chinaman in another life; (a statement that is probably the utter antithesis of our faith). But it started me thinking, what do I believe about compounded misfortune? I know of another family who endured excruciating difficulty at this time of year; good people, on a business trip. They didn’t pre-book accommodation; she was expecting (very expecting!); they had travelled a long way by donkey. A donkey. Imagine it!  As the last light seeped from the sky, courage drained from their hearts, and both began to entertain private, fearsome doubts about themselves, about the chid, about each other, about everything and anything.

Peace & Goodwill in Australia is a cool beer on a public holiday; and our notion of God’s gift is alarmingly close to our personal aspirations. Peace, we think, has to do with circumstance.  But is the peace we hanker for the Peace He came to bring? Or is His Peace the returning confidence that He has come, He is here, He will come again.

 

Rejoice!

My family have left for their busy day of school and work, while my task will be to prepare for tomorrow’s eight hour drive to Sydney.  Before I begin the formidable task of assembling, repairing and double checking every little bit of the Rolling Show, I am taking a customary few minutes behind one of our bay windows.  The sun crests the steep hillside opposite our home long after it has risen  on the working class, relying on retired gentlemen such as myself to enjoy is prime warmth. Its now substantial beams spill down the hillside, pouring into every tiny droplet of dew until the sparse eucalypts, the native grass tufts, the familiar mob of kangaroos, the varied bird life, ‘all of creation’ is silhouetted in a glistening, white and rainbow blanket of light.  It’s a mesmerising vista that voices the word Spring.  The sky is crystal clear; an early, tentative blue that seems to be pacing itself, gathering momentum for a deeper cobalt that might in a while be displayed as a taste of the summer to come.  For the first time in months I have opened the window wide to the fresh air which only last week was icy and definitely to be kept at bay. Snow capped peaks can still to be seen not far from here, and this morning’s breeze feels like a cocktail, ‘shaken – not stirred’, with cool and warm currents each intact.

Serendipitously, the first tenuous violin strains  from Vaughn William’s ‘Lark Ascending’ have just come from the radio behind me.  We have a rather superb sound system, a benefit of my mother’s estate, and I must hold my breath (although the breathing machine seems determined to disagree!) as William’s Lark begins its upwards flight,  augmented through the open window by the plentiful calls of local kookaburras, rosellas, currawongs, honeyeaters and – most beautifully – a shrike-thrush somewhere nearby. I have to write immediately, even though the writing could mar the moment’s transcendence.

I know, however, exactly where this musing in my journal will take me: directly towards one of the niggling, unsettling questions that occupy a sometimes noisy backroom in my mind. Why does beauty so persistently emerge in a troubled world? It seems  improper that beauty should thrive, almost ambivalently, in a world that also contains the turmoil, folly and pain of humanity.  As if to deny the world’s ugliness – even as we see it so graphically, so relentlessly on every evening’s News – beauty gently flows into life, filling a landscape, in a chord of music, bringing grace to a conversation, or imbuing the companionable silence that husband and wife can know and treasure.
I’m not quite hitting the nail on the head here yet … …
“Why?”  I want to shout aloud, “Why does beauty surround me, as it seems to have done throughout my life, while elsewhere children play outside local pubs, their tiny black teeth rotten through at six years old by the cans of Coke they suck while their mums and dads booze away inside?”

Why do Palestinian families spend their days lying horizontally on couches strung around their lounge room walls, hoping to lessen the risk from stray AK-47 bullets that pop through their windows? Why are there refugee camps ‘temporarily’ housing hundreds of thousands of souls in cities of frayed and windswept canvas?

Why do I have so much when so many have so little? Why are we living in Paradise? Why do I have a beautiful wife and wonderful children, and grandchildren too? (…soon to number 4!).  Why do we live in a land of peace and plenty? Why are we surrounded by nature, wildlife, birds and bushland when so many of our brothers and sisters around the globe stare at crumbling, shell-pocked masonry? My Christian heritage assures me that this is the blessing of God, for which we give thanks. We do give thanks, my Favourite Wife and I; every day, without fail. But I suspect – more and more – that our thanksgiving avoids questions that we dare not ask.

Joy is perplexing. I scarcely ever find myself saying “Why me?” in the sense of why am I in this physical predicament, or why have I lost my opportunity to work and contribute to the world; why a wheelchair, why a breathing machine, etcetera, etcetera. But I regularly trip over this unexpected quandary: “Why is my own life so good, so rich, and so beautiful? What ever did I do to deserve all this?”

A paradox, at the same moment affronting and immensely reassuring: beauty will show itself in a world awry.

Rejoice!

Ten months on from “Does my Nose look Big in This?” It is time for an update. Some time after writing that missive I discovered a curious and liberating link between Public Transport and Non Invasive Ventilation, but there is a back-story to cover first.

Quite some time ago I asked an engineer friend to help me design and build a ‘carryall’ to go behind Bugger’s seat and hold the breathing machine and other electrical bits and pieces.  We worked on it over a couple of months, and the result was terrific.  It hangs from a rail behind the seat, pivoting so that when the chair tilts backwards the water in the humidifier doesn’t spill a drop.  It has to fit in a small space, dictated by the width and travel of the chair’s rear wheels; and the final design and construction in lightweight aluminium is a credit to my friend’s ingenuity.

Ten months ago I added four small wheels so that I could roll the carryall from room to room to meet the growing need to use the machine during daylight hours.  Nine and a half months ago I replaced and relocated all four wheels after they began to snap off going around corners.  My engineering is not at the standard of my friend’s!  But one problem remained: I was still tied to power points.  As the use of the breathing machine gradually increased, so did the time I spent within a short radius of whichever power point the machine was plugged into. After a couple of years of relative freedom my mobility was once again under threat.  The solution: a car fridge transformer with various switches, plugs, cables and no small amount of advice from our local electronics shop.

Then came a moment of exhilaration akin to discovering that you can fly! (Do you have that dream at night?)  The first time I switched the breathing machine from 240 volts to 24 and rolled away from the power point was like unaided flight.  I zipped around the house, inside and outside, did loops through the garage and the front gate; and even a lap of our dead end road in sheer elation.  I was free!  ……. until I remembered that people were going to see me.  It’s one thing to master the technicalities; mastering one’s inhibition is hideously more difficult.

Here, then, is the strange link between Public Transport and NIV (Non Invasive Ventilation is the medical term for what I am using; leaving the patient to scrunch their eyes and try not think what ‘Invasive Ventilation’ might mean).  Once I was powered up for travel I began to notice that each time I boarded a bus there was a tiny lessening of my terror at being seen with a breathing mask.  I think that a subtle change comes over people as they sit two-by-two in unreasonable proximity to complete strangers.  Most passengers (other than the garrulous odd-bods who leap into the very front seat where they can lean half way across the aisle and discuss their personal life with the bus driver.  In a loud voice. Why would you do that?) withdraw somehow; shrouding themselves in an invisible cloak of privacy, avoiding eye contact, assuming a concentrated, philosophical and distant expression that could not possibly be mistaken for interest in the intimacies being shared in the row behind. In that ‘safe’ environment I learned, very gradually, trip by trip over the months, to use a breathing mask in public.  And then, very, very gradually I gained a modicum of confidence in front of family and friends.  An process still evolving.

I was out on Friday and for the very first time braved exposure in the aisle of a supermarket.  I had no option; and initially employed the technique of concentrated price-scanning to avoid finding out if anyone was staring at me.  I turned into the next isle and coming the other way was another “wheelie” being pushed along by a carer.  She was a middle aged woman with significant disability.  As we were about to pass in the isle she looked me straight in the mask,

“God, you look lovely!” she said.

“Thank you”, I said, and smiled.

Everyone has their place at large in our world, and it’s a poorer world with the least one missing.

 

Rejoice!

My Bus Stop was finished today.

I say ‘my’ bus stop because in four years of bus catching, often daily, I have never seen another soul embark or disembark there. Just me.  When we first arrived in Paradise buses didn’t stop there at all.  The official bus stop was back around the corner of the park, surrounded by acres of

Grass!

Long wavy grass.
We can’t go over it,
We can’t go under it.
Oh no!
We’ve got to go THROUGH it!
Swishy Swashy
Swishy Swashy
Swishy Swashy

Speaking only for myself, I was scared.  I can tell you with complete authority that grass-moistened motorised-wheels skidding down the linoleum aisle of a public bus does not a beautiful day make!  A written request that the bus might pick me up at my preferred location has now grown to become, just three years later, this grand construction:

The strange thing is that I still see the general public back around the corner, not thirty metres away, standing on their un-sheltered, un-paved, un-mown and generally un-kempt grass; waiting for the same bus with grim forbearance. Should I invite them up?

When I first wrote about the pouring of the concrete bus shelter slab on a Spring day in 2011, I did not imagine that it would be quite this long before work resumed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I first wrote about the pouring of the concrete bus shelter slab on a Spring day in 2011, I did not imagine that it would be quite this long before work resumed. But now, as then, progress has come at an opportune time; a moment of coincidental, personal significance. Back then I wrote about the council as ‘Agents of Divine Providence’, sent (unknowing) to remind me that the world I inhabit is broader than the horizon I see.  That message was startling and reassuring just as I was about to journey southwards by train with my Favourite Wife, into the uncertainty of another hospital admission.  Today I can’t describe the circumstances that make  the workmen’s reappearance equally significant – believe me, it is. Curiously I would not have witnessed the actual installation if I hadn’t missed the previous bus by a whisker; forcing me to return home muttering and grumbling about the failings of public transport (knowing full well that it was me running late, not the bus). More than mere coincidence, the sight of a crane an hour later was a word in season on a very challenging day: “Don’t give in, there are journeys to be made, a mission to accomplish, no matter how unlikely it may feel”. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random events in the world around can’t possibly hold actual connection to our personal lives; and yet … they do! It’s irrational, probably egocentric, but over the years I have been astounded by such affirming coincidences innumerable times. This is dangerously close to superstition, and perhaps I am already sounding worryingly close to the crackpot dinner-guest we have all smiled at generously (and dishonestly) while furtively scanning the room for someone else to talk to. But for better or worse this is how my wife and I have lived, and how we have made some of our big decisions. After all, what was the Burning Bush from which Moses gleaned so much? Or the Guiding Star that summoned Magi from a distant land to an infant’s side?  Weren’t they signs? And have you read the story of the coin in the fish’s mouth?

I came upon this curious line from an interview with Paulo Coelho, said to be the most published author in the 21^st Century:

“I am a Magus, but so is everyone who knows how to read the hidden language of things in pursuit of their personal destiny”

I like this thought very much, but I want to run from it as well.  Paulo is a practicing Catholic having previously traveled some wilder paths, and a recurring theme in his books (of which I have only read two) is the small signs that come to mark our way.  What I dislike in the quote is ‘pursuit of a personal destiny’.  It sounds so selfish.

There is no possible excuse if following a ‘sign’ leaves you marooned, or worse. I can never say, “The Bus Stop made me do it”. But equal parts of watchfulness, humility, courage, and faith can point toward the future. If you believe in a creator, or better still a creator who continues to watch our world, the notion of guiding signs fits very easily. The aphorism, “It was meant to be” is much to flimsy for my liking; I need a robust God, one with a name and a voice.  But whatever your belief, engaging in the mystery of life, listening to life, is a wonderful thing.  “Don’t give in, there are journeys to be made, a mission to accomplish, no matter how unlikely it may feel”. 

(I’m very aware that this is not my best effort at the keys; thoughts and words have gone into hiding it seems.  But several weeks of polishing have not improved it all that much.  So…)

 

Rejoice!

Several Sunday afternoons spent at the keyboard in recent weeks have stalled at the very same sticking-point. No matter which story I begin to relate it always leads back another which I do not wish to tell. Perhaps if I tell the nasty story I will have more success recording the happier experiences of late.

A few weeks ago a medical test returned a positive result.
Which is unheard of!
Innumerable tests of infinite variety have rarely pushed the needle far from normal, which is why almost five years on there is still no diagnosis for my problems.  The test that finally returned a result was meant to have been conducted by a Melbourne Respiratory Service, however they declined to admit me to their programme, and sent me back to the Professor in Wagga who had ordered the test.  The GP raised her eyebrow and remarked that it seemed very rude – not to say irregular – of them to refuse a Professor’s request. Although they offered no reason for their decision I’m quite sure I know why:
…they think I’m mad.

I went to Melbourne in February, with the referral from my Wagga professor requesting a ‘sleep study’, which is a common enough thing.  An admission interview was held in an odd sort of room which was more of an alcove off a busy corridor than a room in its own right.  The doctor I was speaking with was youngish, pleasant, and interested.  Having spent some time reading and quizzing she left me alone for a few minutes and was replaced by a more senior specialist; a woman who I can only think of as brash and self assured.  With very little preamble she asked me if I was prepared to consider that I had a psychiatric problem.

Having, so I thought, seen this beast finally sheath its claws and skulk away almost two years ago I had let my guard down, and her words were an auditory assault for which I was very unprepared.  I reigned in the emotion that threatened to overwhelm, and tried to be objective as I explained that this suggestion had indeed been made in the past (but I think she already knew that); and that I had done my best at the time to consider it and search carefully and for any merit in the idea. I told her that I had completed a thorough Neuropsychology profile and that I been assessed by three separate psychiatrists, and briefly interviewed by the Austin Hospital Head of Psychology; none of whom found any cause for concern.  I can still hear her commanding voice, word for word:

“Well, I have been doing this for 25 years and they are wrong!  We need to tell a psychiatrist that YOU HAVE conversion disorder, now FIX IT!”

I don’t remember quite how it happened, but suddenly she was dragging me along the busy corridor by one arm, kindly allowing me with one walking stick, to prove (I suppose) that I didn’t have a problem at all.

Then I was passed back to the younger doctor who seemed rather apologetic in telling me that there was nothing they could do for me.  I was – for the second time – deemed ineligible for assistance through the Victorian Respiratory Support Service; and that was that.

Thankfully I had planned to visit my cousin later that evening, so I was just a train stop or two away from family, from refuge amongst safe people.

It was, and still is, horrible.  With the benefit of a few days to consider what had transpired I could see the outlandish aspects to the specialist’s verdict; most obviously the fact that she had reached her somewhat adamant diagnosis before having even met me. Then there is her evident disregard for other members of her profession. Nonetheless, these people have considerable power over their patients, and I have an acquired trepidation in all my dealings with them. I’m not sure that I have shaken off whatever it was that happened in Melbourne that day; even after having the ‘sleep study’ in Wagga that yielded the positive result which might hopefully confound my Melbourne nemesis.    I find myself less sure, less able to write or say or even decide exactly what I think.  But that may not be the nasty specialist’s fault: there is something vitally unsettling about relying on a machine to breathe, it feels sometimes as though a tiny wisp of my own soul disappears back up the springy tube with every assisted breath.

The good thing was that I had a wonderful home and family to return to by train the following day; a place where life can be lived well enough regardless of the doctors and their opinions, a home in Paradise where the good times keep rolling on!  And more on that anon.

Rejoice!

Flikka.
What a dog!

Early last year my Favourite Wife had an idea.
“A dog”, she said, more than once, “would be a special companion, and a lovely friend, and a valuable responsibility too”.  Speaking, of course, of our Little One’s interests.

I was slow to warm to this plan, but the plan was forming, with or without my warmth.  By midyear serious investigations into breeds and agencies were being made night by night on the iPad.  And in October a trip was made to Canberra to bring home a five year old Labrador named Flikka, who seemed – as we read her particulars and spoke to those who knew her at Labrador Rescue – too good to be true.

But it was true.  Flikka was everything anyone had said and a great deal more. It felt at times that she spoke English.  Commands such as “pick that up, and take it outside” (for a chew toy dropped in the hall), or “Off to sleep on Cassie’s bed” were simply obeyed from the outset; we never trained her to do anything at all.  She would come when called and sit when asked.  She would sit while food was put her in her bowl, and remain seated – in an agitated, tail-banging, lip-slavering state – until we said “OK”.  She was adorable, and she adored us.  Let’s be honest, she adored everybody! A paw would be placed gently on the knee of anyone found sitting down, drawing their attention to the beautifully seated Labrador with the slightly mournful, penetrating gaze; longing for a scratch.  Scratch under her chin too long and the delicate manoeuvre of double-paws on the sitter’s knee might be enacted; and scratch just a little longer and the whole dog would begin to lean heavily on your leg, and slide ever so slowly sideways onto the floor.  Which just so happens to present the dog correctly for a tummy scratch.  In the extremely rare event of a reprimand (thrice? maybe?) she would immediately hop on three legs with one paw poised to match the painful pity on her face.  Who could be cross with that?

If Flikka barked it was only ever once.  One single, gruff, woof; just enough to alert us to the person at the door; or to her desire to come or go through it.  She had the most adorable wrinkly-Labrador face that made us laugh out loud as we watched her emotions pass through her fur.  She was an accomplished sleeper.  Late in the evening we used to say her name very, very softly and her tail would bang-bang-bang on the wall even while she snored on through her dreams.  In fact, one of her greatest gifts to us came through her aptitude for slumber.  Against every scrap of my better judgement we had told Little One that Flikka would be allowed to sleep on her bed!  This bribe was not only effective in getting our 12 year old into bed on many occasions; but with Flikka on the end of her bed Little One began to routinely sleep all night.  We had been getting up to our daughter in the wee hours every night, sometimes more than once, with very few exceptions for more than a decade.  Thank you, Flikka, for teaching Little One something that we could not.

By now you have probably noticed that I have written in the past tense: Flikka has gone; barely five months after she arrived. I went to church on my own last Sunday, while the others took Flikka to the vet.  The vet was more alarmed than we had been, and was uncertain if she would come through an operation for a bowel obstruction.  But she came through well, and on Tuesday she came home to our enormous relief and joy.  It was short lived; as was our gorgeous friend.

Today I am completely alone in the house for the first time in months; no occasional woof, no paw appearing on my knee.  I was never keen to admit that Flikka was “good company for you” (me? needing company?  what am I, an invalid?).  I was wrong, and today the emptiness of the house is a very raw wound.  And it’s raining, which never helps my mood.  It hasn’t rained properly for three months; and now the drought has broken I’m glum.  But not so the animal kingdom.  Two green parrots, a pair of majestic red parrots with long blue tail feathers, and fully fifteen green finches have been nibbling at the bird feeder just outside my window – more than I have seen before – and as many Kangaroos have been grazing a stone’s throw beyond.  It feels like the zoo!  Nature lost one of its own and has summoned a menagerie to pay homage, and to remind me there is beauty in the world.

Our sadness is sudden and engulfing.  We have wept a late night vigil together on our lounge several times this week. It seems impossible to believe that one day our memories of Flikka will be fond, rather than anguished.  My distress frightens me.  I am troubled by our unanswered prayers for her life.  I am spooked by wordless notions of my own mortality.  I don’t understand why goodness is fleeting, why the pure things in our world are subject to indiscriminate violence.

As the rain clears away I am reading The Little Prince.  So popular when I was a child, but I guess he can’t compete with My Kitchen Rules.

“Goodbye”, said the fox. “Here’s my secret.  It’s very simple: one only sees clearly with the heart.  What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” repeated the little prince, so as to remember.

“It is the time you have wasted on your rose that makes your rose so important”

“It is the time I have wasted on my rose…” said the little prince, so as to remember.

“The men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox.  “But you must not forget it.  You become forever responsible for that which you have tamed.  You are responsible for your rose…”

“I am responsible for my rose,” repeated the little prince, so as to remember.

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

And as the rain clears away I am listening to J.S. Bach, St Matthew Passion.  It is the most beautiful, ordered, deliberate and unsparing telling of human grief; and of the hint of joy that lies beyond.
Sometimes no more than a hint.

Rejoice!

 

Someone recently pointed out that readers might believe our family to consist simply of myself, Little One and my Favourite Wife; just we three nestled in comfortably in Paradise.  But, there are numerous characters in the story (beside Bugger) whom I have not yet introduced.  The other permanent resident in Paradise is Flikka, the most charming Labrador ever to set paw on the Great Southland. Much could be written about Flikka, and it’s a puzzle that she has eluded the narrative so far.

But it doesn’t end there – far from it! – and this particular Sunday with the youngest of our three grandchildren visiting seems an opportune moment for an introduction.

Family life came suddenly to us, which is a gift of life that I treasure.  We were an ‘instant family’ of five, and for a long time afterwards our 4 year old would point from the car window at “our wedding church where we got married”.  Her words were apt, as we had all stood in front of the congregation, and we were all five of us married as a family.  That wondrous day was more than 20 years ago, and we now number fifteen.  One son, five daughters, one daughter in law, three sons in law, two grandsons and one granddaughter: the smiling bundle of joy at the other end of the house tonight.
So far. Doubtless there are yet more in the wings!

Shortly after Five became One we were offered the management of a poultry farm by friends in our church who had a very large number of birds.   50,000 excess laying hens were to be housed on a farm that would be leased for a couple of years, and we were given the job of making it work.  The leased farm was very old; and our adventures were very many.  The farm was on a steep hillside, which is a startling way to manage poultry.  In fact, it is probably a mistake.  The cottage was in a small house paddock at the bottom of the hill, beside a creek in which we swam and swam and swam.  For many weeks our three children who had never ventured beyond the burbs could barely be coaxed through the first gate!  Then for months they wore whistles around their necks, and when they were occasionally shrilly blown in terror at the sight of a giant spider, or perhaps a snake, I don’t know who was more afraid: them or us.

My first mistake as farm-boss was to systematically eradicate every last member of a dozen strong clan of cats.  I accomplished this in about a month of hunting, mostly late at night, armed with a .22, a torch and a 12 gauge for good measure.  To the untrained eye, (which mine was: a carpenter running a farm) the plague of mice surging thousands-strong along the feed troughs in the beam of my hunting-torch was a worrying sight.  Something to be dealt with once I could rid the farm of these darned cats.  It wasn’t until great long brown snakes started appearing in the chook sheds, shiny and fat on a diet of mice and egg yolk, that the first faint thoughts about the food chain began nagging at the edges of my working mind.

And what a mistake that was!  The snake crusades consumed a great deal more lead than the cat wars had.  We soon had numerous egg-packers working for us, and we appointed one as master-at-arms on the basis that she was a prize-winning large-bore marksman at the local rifle club.  This, also, was a mistake. She froze when faced with a target closer than her preferred range of 500 yards! Especially a slithering, red-belly black target advancing rapidly between the rows of birds.  It was very nearly a catastrophic mistake.

Our old fibro cottage by the river appealed enormously to my (dwindling) bachelor instincts, but must have come as a sobering shock to the other four-fifths of the tribe.  Favourite Bride’s bedside glass of water would quite literally freeze across at night when the mercury dropped to minus 8.  When the wind blew all the curtains in the house would billow, not seeming to notice that the windows were tightly shut.  There was a hump in the floor, making the walk from the kitchen (the only heated room in the house) to the mid-point of the lounge room an up-hill march, with a down-hill run to the children’s bedrooms beyond.  When I eventually drove my Favourite home from hospital with our first born I felt an irrational pang of conscience, and pulled off the dirt road for a moment to explain that there had actually been a snake in the kitchen earlier that day, only a little one though; and also confess that it had evaded extinction with its current whereabouts unknown.
This, also, was a serious mistake.

Our first winter was long, cold and absurdly wet.  Every machine was forever bogged in a deadly mess of mud and wet, slimy chook poo; and the sheds seemed likely to slide straight of the hill and into the creek below.  The tough conditions knocked out 12,000 laying birds – which is not good.  I spent more time burying birds than feeding them; and that too is a mistake. Nothing was easy on that farm, but nothing could have been better for our fledgling family than this nest in the bush.  No neighbours within cooee, acres to explore, tractors to drive, (and a bobcat! and a front end loader!  and a grader!), wood to chop, chores to share, a cow to milk, a horse to ride, and a creek beside which to eat our Sunday bake.
We’ve lived in paradise from the get-go.

 

Rejoice!

At about the same time that I was writing my previous Sunday post, my brother was dying.

At the top of this page is a picture from the outback. Just to right of centre you can see an old iron-clad hut which is the only remaining structure from the Mission era of Warburton Ranges. Much of our brief friendship happened right there in the “Share-A-Din”; as it is known amongst the Christian workers that share it’s often noisy welcome. Sometimes we met at his home where I would wait at the gate to be welcomed, rather than boldly knocking on the door itself as we do ‘over east’. The discussion often rose from a verse in his ever-present bible, which would lead to other passages that we read aloud in Ngaanyatjarra and English. He was always keen for me to practice his tongue. If we were speaking by phone he would secure my promise to post him the various passages that we had discussed in very large print on account of his failing eyesight. Occasionally we drove to a couple of fenced off acres a short way out of town which were his pride and joy. We would first sit in silent awe outside the gate, and then begin a guided tour – with historical commentary – past a couple of tidy houses, some camels, a donkey perhaps, and bough-sheds that were perpetually under construction for future Christian Conventions that were a part of Livingston’s grand vision. Once we squatted down on tiny concrete slabs in the red sand, all laid out in neat rows under a burning sun, like cheese-toast in a griller. These had been the floors of corrugated iron huts, one per family, in a former colonial era. Not for the first time my friend wept openly as he told me about the suffering of his people. Then we might sit under the welcome shade of a peppercorn tree …and sing. Livingston always led (always, in everything!), and I would follow along in a hymn, a gospel song or two, sometimes in English, sometimes not; and even the odd country and western number. Then came a rambling, deep and humorous conversation that covered all manner of topics but returned to shared joys and concerns in our respective families and churches. And then we would pray. And sing, perhaps; and pray. I think that my status as a grandfather (at only 47!) was just as vital to these exchanges as my credential as a fellow pastor.

We had know each other in the early ‘80s when I lived in Warburton, an isolated Western Desert community roughly half way between Alice Springs and Kalgoorlie, but our friendship proper did not begin until we met in the same isolated settlement in mid 2008. I had returned to Warburton with one of my daughters and some close friends to witness the dedication of Mama Kuurrku Wangka (‘Father God’s Word’, or the Ngaanyatjarra Bible); and to farewell two friends who had made the translation of the Bible their life’s work and were retiring to Alice Springs. The Livingston we met was very changed from the rough and ready young man we remembered; and had become a senior leader in church and community. I had grown up too, and Livingston would introduce me to others with a thespian retelling of my history as the young fellow who had worked with (or perhaps for) his father in the Community Store so many years ago; the very same boy that his father used to speak of, Livingston claimed, “as a son”.

The last time we met was Easter in 2010 when I spent three weeks in the ‘Share-A-Din’ and we journeyed together to an Easter Convention. Back then I was still travelling light, with a manual wheelchair, a backpack and a pair of sticks. I remember the wheelchair was somewhat confronting for Livingston. He made quite a joke about pushing a white fellow around, and the more people we came across the bigger the joke got! On my final morning in Warburton Livingstone arrived at the Share-A-Din puffing and rushing, with only half an hour to spare before the flight. He had been away on funeral business, and I had thought I might not see him again. But he had returned, and there was just time for a cup of tea, and some talk, and – as always – prayer. At the last he stood up, with the wide grin of a person about to giggle at their own joke,

“Next time I see you”, he said, laughing, “we’ll have a cup of tea in glory; we’ll be having a cup of tea at the Heavenly Banquet!”

I was taken aback! But in the next moment I reckoned that he was right: this really was goodbye for us. I trusted him to know this, just as I had come to trust his knowing about many things. Livingstone was something of a rascal; he was never a man to retire in the crowd. He was strong willed and proud; and he well knew the power of his family name and the position of influence he commanded. But in his mid-life experience of a radical conversion to Christ he had seen something so true, so good, and so bright, that whenever he spoke of it I was convinced.

On a second visit to Warburton later in 2008 I made a pledge. This was not a passing undertaking; it was the earnest outcome of prayerful deliberation with my wife after returning home from the Bible dedication. My enduring promise to Livingstone – if he would accept it – was that I would support the Ngaanyatjarra church in whatever way I could; by visiting, by praying, by building bonds of friendship between our church ‘over east’ and his church in the far west.

“They raise their voices, they shout for joy;
from the west they acclaim the Lord’s majesty.
Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord.”                   Isaiah 24.

If you can believe it, I pledged my life to this. I didn’t know then that within three months I would have picked up a walking stick; or that on my return to Warburton in 2009 I would be using a pair of them; or that my final trip would be made in 2010 by wheelchair. How often have I pondered that pledge, and the calling I followed in making it, and the frailty of my fulfilment? Sometimes it feels like a cruel joke; a pointless and hopeless enterprise. But that is merely a human perspective, and I hear Livingstone’s voice laughing it away, and, in the same breath offering his oft-stated resolution; earnest and solemn,

“We’re going all the way brother; we’re following Him, you know? All the way”.

Rejoice!

_______________________________________________

I wrote about my friend before visiting in 2010:
A Ngaanyatjarra Man
and recounted and impossibly moving story he told:
Grace.

Other posts written from the Desert are:
Being and Doing – one of my favourites,
Kurta, Yirringkarra-rni!
Dumbstruck.

 

Hope deferred, it is said, maketh the heart sick. 

So also with blogging.  It maketh my heart sick week by week when my blogdeadline passeth without post.  I miss the community of readers, and I miss the clarity of thought that emerges when writing for others to read. I’ve long felt that you, reader, keep me honest.

So for this week, just as an appetiser, an attempt to jump-start my former habit, a toe in cold water, a leg over a wall; I have four quick thoughts:

Church.
Nigh on disaster for The Family From Paradise today on our first appearance after Christmas and Holidays.  My nerve failed and I allowed apprehension about the size of my nose* to drive me from the front row of church, where we customarily perch beside our pastors, to the very back of the back-most room.  I regretted my decision to hide as soon as I was hidden; but as with other temptations the deed was fairly irreversible once committed. Right now I am seated at our outdoor bench under its wide umbrella, itself under a cloudless blue sky.  A cool breeze carries the distant conversation of long-lived cicadas lazily recalling a rapidly waning Christmas, with satisfying antiphonal comments from Mozart through an adjacent open window.  In the security and peace of this position I can hardly comprehend the childish posture I assumed just a few hours ago: parked face-first into the narrowest corner of the back room. Meanwhile back on the front row a strange facial expression from someone up on stage had alerted my Favourite Wife to the highly inappropriate acts being committed by our 12 year old (I will say no more). Soon after I was summoned by SMS to the car: Favourite Wife anxious to beat a retreat home, and Little One loudly lamenting the forfeit of her weekly ‘church-strawberry-milkshake’.

Christmas.
An utter delight.  I can’t recall enjoying Christmas more in all the years since I was a little boy, only slightly older than the three infinitely precious grand children who came to our home.  We had sixteen of our family here for a week-long feast of food and fun, life and love.  Amongst the numerous Christmas Improvements we made around our home is the Tall Wall.  It now bears the imprint of the youngsters (and of the old-sters, who insisted on having their heights recorded also); permanent proof that THEY WERE HERE! I drive Bugger past this spot often in a day, and honestly something of their presence lingers there still.  Once upon a time I would have let my theology interfere with an assertion like that; but nowadays I can’t be bothered. Life is too blessed to be spent in fernicketyness. 

Sharon.
You may have seen her name amongst the comments at the bottom of these pages from week to week.  Sharon never failed to respond to anything I wrote, either here or more often with a thought-provoking email.  Sharon was a Catholic Nun on the other side of the globe, and she passed away in January.  She was one of numerous people that befriended me through an online forum, back when I briefly shared their mutual diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease.  I became close to a dozen or so people this way, extraordinary friendships that grew in a clarity afforded by dire circumstance.  Our conversations were nourishing and deep, sometimes practical, sometimes comic.  Sharon was the last one to pass away and I pause now to remember her; and Ann, and David, and Joel, and Dianne, and Pam, and others. 

2013.
I have lived too many of my (slightly more than 50) years worrying.  I was once preoccupied; which is a dreadful way of life.  I pre-occupied the future, mentally taking residence in imagined difficulties long before they arrived, and even when the feared moment finally proved itself harmless I could rarely enjoy it, because by then I had occupied some other concern way up ahead.  I don’t do that so much now, even though there are a variety of rather legitimate concerns at hand.  I probably should be worried; but oddly enough I rarely am.  Especially not in the clear light of a few hours spent writing; at long, long last. 

I hope to see you next week.

 

Rejoice!

____________________________________________ 

*  regarding nose size, see Does my Nose look Big in This?