Making Memories on Australia Day

We're starting to make memories.

Thaddeus, who lives sometimes in an alternate universe of books and young-boy wonder, has done some funny things, one being the result of a desire to see the little frogs that we hear everywhere. We were walking home from Campion at night and he heard them in the little bushes by the sidewalk.

"How cute," I said; "I wonder where they are."

Next thing I know, the bush has been kicked pretty hard by a size 13 foot attached to Thaddeus. The frogs, of course, went silent. What's the equivalent in frog noise of "Oh, crap"? Whatever that is, that is what sound they made next: a tentative 'ribbit.' The bush was kicked again, and I caught a sudden glimpse of a little frog form, but stomach up, flying through the air.

That sight seemed enough for Thaddeus.

He also has been here just long enough to create some of his 'impressionistic' drawings of people's personalities. Ana, though, did Thaddeus and has the same gift of capturing something very funny about a person: Thaddeus is definitely a shark lamp slightly tilted.

We also made memories going down into Sydney for Australia Day; we met my cousin and her family. Of course we made them wait because we rookies drove, instead of taking the train. The train procedure just seems a little too much detail for me right now. It will come, I hope. So, of course we got turned around and went over the Harbour Bridge twice, twice going right over the Thorntons' heads, who were standing at Circular Quay. Then, when we parked, we got caught in a port-a-potty line, where the damn thing cleans itself for a minute every time some one uses it. "Self-cleaning cycle, please wait" is now burned into my bladder walls. The Thorntons are patient people.

Not only that, they have reached out to welcome this immigrant family, from sharing their home and time with us to helping us put cheap but useful furniture together; I thought of them when I read this in my devotion this morning; I quote it at length because it is so worth reading, and I believe the happiest people are people, like my cousins, who live this:

What is the essence of being a Christian? It is certainly more than doctrine, precepts, and commandments. It is first and foremost a relationship – a relationship of trust, affection, commitment, loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, mercy, helpfulness, encouragement, support, strength, protection, and so many other qualities that bind people together in mutual love and unity. God offers us the greatest of relationships – union of heart, mind, and spirit with himself, the very author and source of love (1 John 4:8,16). God's love never fails, never forgets, never compromises, never lies, never lets us down nor disappoints us. His love is consistent, unwavering, unconditional, and unstopable. We may choose to separate ourselves from him, but nothing will make him ignore us, leave us, or treat us unkindly. He will pursue us, love us, and call us to return to him no matter what might stand in the way. It is his nature to love. That is why he created us – to be united with him and to share in his love and unity of persons (1 John 3:1). God is a trinity of persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and a community of love. That is why Jesus challenged his followers and even his own earthly relatives to recognize that God is the true source of all relationships. God wants all of our relationships to be rooted in his love.

Jesus is God's love incarnate – God's love made visible in human flesh (1 John 4:9-10). That is why Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep and the shepherd who seeks out the sheep who have strayed and lost their way. God is like the father who yearns for his prodigal son to return home and then throws a great party for his son when he has a change of heart and comes back (Luke 15:11-32). Jesus offered up his life on the cross for our sake, so that we could be forgiven and restored to unity and friendship with God. It is through Jesus that we become the adopted children of God – his own sons and daughters. That is why Jesus told his disciples that they would have many new friends and family relationships in his kingdom. Whoever does the will of God is a friend of God and a member of his family – his sons and daughters who have been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ.

An early Christian martyr once said that "a Christian's only relatives are the saints" – namely those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and adopted as sons and daughters of God. Those who have been baptized into Jesus Christ and who live as his disciples enter into a new family, a family of "saints" here on earth and in heaven. Jesus changes the order of relationships and shows that true kinship is not just a matter of flesh and blood. Our adoption as sons and daughters of God transforms all of our relationships and requires a new order of loyalty to God first and to his kingdom of righteousness and peace. Do you want to grow in love and friendship? Allow God's Holy Spirit to transform your heart, mind, and will to enable you to love freely and generously as he loves.

We finally met up with the long-suffering Thorntons at the Hyde Park fountain, and the city seemed like one big festival. People with sequin Australian flag dresses (fashion faux pas); people with flag umbrella hats, many families just enjoying the day. It seemed family-friendly, joyful, and not super-loud, even with all the crowds. I find Australians joyful and fun, but not loud or obnoxious (except for the sequin dress). They seem less jaded, less cynical, in some way, from Europeans or Coastal Americans. It is as if Minnesota emptied and all the Minnesotans ended up in a place with super weather.

Next to Hyde Park, there was a great vintage car show. One car was a tiny German make from just after WWII; I remarked that it looked just like the cockpit of an aeroplane, even to the point of opening from the top, the same way. The owner told us that it looked like that because after the war, Germans were not allowed to make anything metal-industrial, so they had to use scraps from the war to create new machines and autos. This was one of the more creative results. The cutest entry is below:

We took an old-fashioned London double-decker bus (no charge--Australia does many discount things to make it easier for families to enjoy the sights) down to the QVB, or Queen Victoria Building. This was built on the occasion of a state visit by the Queen, probably in the late 1800s. There was a large statue of Victoria near the entrance, and she would be absolutely frightening if she stood up--impossibly thick and muscular-looking, a bit like Soviet statues of workers I saw. Huge and strong. The propaganda is very apparent, I suppose. Lynnette and I stared at what must have been a mistake. Her Garter Star was firmly affixed, I might say plastered, right to the tip of her left breast. It looked awfully uncomfortable (no wonder she looked so morosely thoughtful), and then I remembered an Amazon costume, or Athena, or some Greek goddess in war costume, with the very same idea. Maybe more propaganda. Or just too tempting for the sculptor.

And sometimes, the Australians dress her up.

The statue has an interesting history; once installed in front of the Irish parliament building in Dublin, it was removed sometime after Irish independence and was finally given to Australia in 1986, upon the restoration of the QVB. The statue,  left in the tall grass in a school yard somewhere in Ireland, was shipped to Australia and given a home in Sydney. Perhaps it is one of those interesting ironies of history that the Queen whose government oversaw many of the homeless and unwanted Irish shipped to Australia to finally--after rejection--find a place in a New World, had the same sequence of events happen to her image in bronze.

Regardless of the rather imposing Victoria, the QVB, though, is really quite beautiful- not muscular at all, just a beautifully feminine, intricate shopping centre. Poor Victoria. I bet she was more like the building than the statue, and had to be made into an imposing figure, in order to keep an empire, in its long afternoon, together. The QVB reminds me of Gum's in Moscow: Gum's was one of the first true malls in the world; about a mile long, Gum's is a marvel of stained glass arch-ceilings, lovely wrought-iron railings, and fluted pillared walkways. The QVB is very similar, but different from the Gum's I knew during the end of the Soviet era; here the walls were colorful, the place was full, and the shops were lovely. There were places like a pewter soldier-model shop, complete with a whole Nazi scene, Gallipoli, and other famous Australian battles.

Clocks formed a part of the building: clocks in the shape of huge castles, and a complicated Australian history-themed one. 

This section of the clock commemorates the forced taking of Aboriginal children, to inculcate them into white culture. The inscription below the diorama says, "The Taking of the Children."

We then went down to Darling Harbour; we ate lunch, visited the Maritime Museum, where we saw the replica of Captain Cook's tall ship, the Endeavour, come in to dock.

We went to the Vikings: Beyond the Legend exhibit (who wants to get beyond the Vikings as a legend?). Actually, it was quite interesting; the gold filigree crucifixes from the Christian era were astoundingly beautiful. The kids (and Thaddeus) had fun:

Brad and I met a coffee barista from Mauritius, a small island far out from the eastern shore of Madagascar; he had a lovely French-Australian accent, and traded me an American dollar still left in my purse for a two-dollar Aussie coin. I've been having fun, by the way, planting money surprises in church collecting baskets. I like to put the dollars I have left in the basket and then watch the usher when he sees them. Anyway, the young barista from Mauritius told us, "My father wanted us to have education, and so we were either going to go to America or to Australia. He chose Australia because America is so violent."

I told him that many places in the US are quite safe, but that yes, there were some disturbing trends--like what in the heck is going on in Colorado?!

Here's some Australian police on lunch break. Brad said, "Even the police must eat lunch sometime."

As we walked back towards Hyde Park, Lynnette and I talked a little about the culture of Australia: she talked about the tension, in Australia, between maintaining a history and culture in the midst of tremendous immigration. Like many western nations, Australia values both its culture and history, and yet does not want to discriminate or keep people out, simply to maintain it. Yet, there is a real danger of it becoming unhinged from its roots, to become a meaningless, hyper-pluralistic place, a place without a sense of place.

This is something I have noticed here, and I wonder what the Australians will do, over time. They have made something of a success of 'the middle way' in terms of economics. They are not completely socialistic (it is a very different feel here from Canada or even the UK), but they are not laissez-faire capitalists, either. Economics is a cultural response to a situation; it reflects deep values, really, religious values. What is the end of a person? What is the responsibility of the family that is a nation towards individual members? Economics reflects this.

I didn't feel the same excitement as the 4th (really, the only flag I immediately want to kiss is the Greek flag, actually); I do feel a love for my country of birth, though, third-culture as I am. It was funny on Australia Day to see lots of people around you emotionally attached to an idea, a group, to which I have as of yet little emotional attachment.

So far, though, I respect Australians, and Australia. They have built something quite amazing, with very little time, out of terrible circumstances, and they have been more quick than Americans to deal with their injustices to aboriginal people. Everywhere, on Australia Day, one sees the Australian flag next to the Aboriginal flag. I am interested to know more about these mysterious people, people who were some of the last initial-participation people in the world, people who saw the creation as full of magic and mystery.