Lighting the Dark

"This is what going to Church should feel like," Biz says to me as we walk our suburban streets hand in hand. We cross the road to the train station on our way to the 'Light the Dark' candlelight vigil.

 

Normally I face forward in the train to see where I'm going and Biz likes to sit backwards. I choose to shake things up and join her in sitting backwards to watch the scenery fall behind, like I'm acknowledging where we've been over where we are going.

Sydney teems with people, each with their own identity, their own thoughts. They are all going somewhere. I catch the eyes of a few people going in the opposite direction but on the whole to most I am but a momentary blur in the corner of their eye. Some are moving in the same direction as us and we filter into the town hall square with them under the shadow of the ornate stone masonry Church that stands to one side. There is already a gathering of people waiting in anticipation for the nights event. They are mostly older folk with bright eyes and smiles etched into their faces.

Their presence surprises me. I recall one of the defining moments in the development of my identity when I was a teenager. In the movie 'The Breakfast Club' I identified with the 'freak' as they were discussing not turning into their parents (not that my parents were an issue). She said “it's unavoidable, it just happens, when you grow up, your heart just dies.” Judd's character interjects with “who cares!” and through tears she replies “I care.”

Well I'm all grown up now and the young who now swarm into the square probably see me as a bit of an oldie but that's ok. I've gotten this far in avoiding the death of my soul and around me I see hope in my fellow bleeding hearts that I will not turn into what I hated the idea of becoming. And shouldn't our hearts bleed for the refugees we deny hope and for Reza Berati the gentle giant who came to us for protection and a new life and instead was brutally killed?

The dark envelopes the few thousand gathered here and we stave it off with the lighting of our candles. The candle I brought with me was the candle that the Church community of Deloraine gave me when I was commissioned as a Chaplain back in 2007. It has a now faded cross painted on it above the Deloraine High School emblem and written beneath are the words 'Here is my servant, whom I have chosen.' This candle of symbolic and sentimental value hasn't held a flame for seven years but tonight I light it because while I may not be a Chaplain anymore, I still feel called to serve the beliefs and values that I held and that I hold.

We find a vantage point near the rear of the crowd overlooking a sea of flickering flames to the town hall steps where the organisers have set up their cameras and microphones. With hot wax already periodically dripping onto my hand that holds the candle we are encouraged to vocalise or whistle rather than clap in response to the activists and religious leaders that are to address the crowd. Chris Taylor of the Chaser is up first acknowledging that he is not one of the religious leaders, “there's still time!” some wacko yells. From that light moment Chris builds to something heavy and the response is a clamouring of whistles, woohoo's and a few thousand raised candles. I'm glad we've left applause behind, it doesn't suit the atmosphere.

We listen to refugees and activists and people representing different faiths. I appreciate the different faiths and denominations expressing solidarity with each other, and with those of no spiritual belief, in standing together with those that we have neglected. The Jewish leader expressing that his people still remember the trauma of fleeing from persecution and so stand with all asylum seekers receives one heck of a 'hell yeah.' And the Christian leader who addressed Tony Abbott's quote that 'we will not succumb to moral blackmail' as meaning that Tony is choosing to take us on a course to moral bankruptcy elicits a chorus of “Shame, Shame Tony Shame!”

Sydney has often felt like a place without a soul to me in my short time living here. As tonights events end and as people mill around the square and I see their faces lit by the candles they hold, I sense a heart here connecting me to these others. There is a pulse here despite where forces of selfishness and fear and bigotry want to take us.

Biz and I move toward the memorial for Reza at the foot of the steps leading into the town hall. An Iranian flag is flown for him and mourners gather round flowers, pictures and messages to Reza that people are encouraged to write. We deliver our message. We walk away from that scene, a scene that is usually reserved for viewing on our tv screens of pain half a world away. But this is not half a world away, this I see with my own eyes, this that has happened in our name. This is not the Australia that I want.

Perhaps I should be facing forward as I ride home on the train but I don't know if we've turned a corner yet so I find myself facing backwards again. And it falls away behind me as I plug some Billy Bragg 'waiting for the great leap forward,' into my ears. That sacred moment of fellowship where people of different ages and shapes and sizes and cultures and beliefs can come together as one to stand for something bigger than themselves. If I was more poetically inclined I'd turn to Biz and say “yes, that is what going to Church should feel like.”