Cold morning…. brrr and they tell me they have a heatwave back home… gud on ya! I was woken by God this morning at 7am in time for some fruit juice, toast and coffee before setting off for one of the nearby churches.
En route, taken by the design, I couldn’t help but photograph a newly built underpass. Also here is a typical example of the many houses built raised off the ground for air circulation.
I arrived at St Mary’s Catholic Church (which used to be the Cathedral) to find their family service wasn’t until 8.30 so I walked on to St Mark’s Anglican. Perfect, I heard the 5-minute bell for the 8am service, and I could hear strains of “All things bright and beautiful.” When I opened the Hymn Book, I couldn’t believe that the words were Aussie. Oh this was so appropriate for me!
“The Wild flowers in their beauty, the mountain ranges tall;
The billabongs and rivers and friendly birds that call.
The coloured walls of gorges, the gum trees green and tall;
The rocks and pools and palm trees, and sparkling waterfall.
The many coloured corals, the creatures of the sea;
Of bushland, field or desert, on farms or roaming free.
All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small;
All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”
The theme of the service was new life in Spring, the sermon was the Feast of St Francis and even the Gospel was the piece I carry around with me in my bag: Matthew 6: 25-34
Therefore I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?…..
Even the other three hymns were some of my favourites: Make Me a Channel of Your Peace, For the Beauty of the Earth and Brother Let Me Be Your Servant (I sang the descant under my breath….where are you Jo!)
We spent a fairly quiet day indoors as the weather had deteriorted and the temperatures had plummeted suddenly. This was good for catching up with emails, blogs and reading. Kylie went out to do a bit of shopping and brought back some dvds from the library.
In the evening, after a tasty steak dinner, we settled back to watch “The Rabbit-Proof Fence”, a 2002 Australian drama film directed by Phillip Noyce based on the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It is based on a true story concerning the author’s mother, as well as two other mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, to return to their Aboriginal families, after having been placed there in 1931. The film follows the Aboriginal girls as they walk for nine weeks along 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of the Australian rabbit-proof fence to return to their community at Jigalong, while being pursued by a white authority figure and an Aboriginal tracker. An extremely emotive story and very well acted, particularly by Molly, the eldest child. The film also highlighted the extreme harshness of the bush and how the aborigines’ were used to this way of living.
We continued with a discussion on the culture differences, not only in Australia but throughout the world, and there appears to be no clear resolution. So the day ended on a somewhat heavier note than the one on which it started. Things are certainly not always “bright and beautiful!”