Transcendant Fear

"Buffaloes are held by cords, men by his words."
Malay Proverb.

"From the cowardice that dares not face new truths,
From the laziness that is content with half truths,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truths,
Good Lord, deliver me."
Kenyan Prayer


I stood with my 16-year-old son on the mudflats at Bayview and looked across the deep blue green water of PIttwater, across to the now very flash Newport Arms; my eye casting up to the hill where I had lived with my family 45 years ago. None of this was here 50 years ago, I said, pointing at the fleet of multi-million dollar yachts which dotted the bay. Floating islands of wealth, they were symbolic of a brash new Sydney that had passed me by. We had driven out here from inner-city Redfern because he's trying to get 60 hours up on his L plates drivers licence so he can apply for his P plates when he turns 17. And can drive places without his parents, as of course he's managed to work out. We were all 17 once, but they don't quite realise that. There are well-heeled looking families playing with their dogs and their children on the sandy mud flats where I used to play as a child. There weren't middle class people frolicking with their upper middle class dogs in those days; it was a remote suburb on the outskirts of the city and we as kids couldn't imagine why anyone would want to go there, it was in the middle of nowhere.


We didn't drive past the house where I grew up, we ran out of time and somehow I didn't want to confront all that. Looking at my old high school, Pittwater, which we all called Ditchwater and which I truly hated, was enough. Driving around the twisting roads that snaked around the hills, admiring the wealthy houses that now decorated the slopes, marvelling at the wealth that had poured into the area, that was enough. Lionel and I had gone to see Billy Graham give a speach when we were both 14 or so; and I remember still the stadium full of people and the power of those being pulled forward to the centre, to give themselves to God. Lionel went forward, much to our astonishment, or horror, and he wasn't the ame for months afterwards; got a serious dose of God. I guess they were nerdy little misfit friends on the whole; I certainly was, my head buried perpetually in a book. And we drove past Malcolm's house, who had died in his teens after huge problems; something to do with his head, there was huge drama with his parents one day when it was thought we might have given him a joint and he went completely off the rails.

And driving past that high school, I would never forget John Morone, who died in the middle of a school year, a flash of handsome legs, a perfectly formed face, all of a piece, athletic, always running on the field where we played touch at lunch time, here on the outskirts where our parents had chosen to live. One of my best friends was Chris Gosling, and we were utterly miserable together, though it's hard to remember now exactly why we were so miserable. It was the stifling conformity of the place, the late fifties, early sixties, in a remote suburb, was not the place for a bewildering variety of life.

None of this was here, I said, and my eye looked across the colour drenched scene, across the bobbing white boats in the marina, across the dogs playing in the shadow, across the deep green blue of the sheltered bay, up the green hill to that house where for me the unhappy pit I carried with me for so long was born, the streets that wound around to that sacred place, the place where I had been so desperately unhappy and my greatest childhood triumph had been setting the valley of palm trees alight; nearly burning down several of the neighbours houses and leaving the valley scarred with black for several years. The giant dead leaves built up under the crown of the palm, and they were so densely packed against each other that if you set one alight the flames would jump from one to the other.

I had been repeatedly in trouble for setting light to things; a childhood pyramaniac before the modern era when they have managed to cause milions of dollars worth of damage. In those days it was mostly just the bush and the paddocks around the various places where we lived. Even now I don't know why I did it; I just loved watching the flames, have always loved watching the flames. Even now I'm perfectly happy to sit and watch a fire for hours. But then it was all about the cataclysm, the choas, the sound of the fire engines, the utter disgrace, the inevitable belting. But at least in all the pain, as I was bashed around the house, at least I had achieved something: the flames. the smoke, the glorious sound of the fire engines, the chaos, the cataclysm. At least I had caused something.

It was a long long way in not just time since these incidents; and standing here while our own weird little inner-city dogs romped in the sand; my own perfectly happy well adjusted boy entering his last year of high school; it could have been another planet for all the connection it held.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.smh.com.au/nelson-unveil-stance-on-apology/20080206-1qdf.html

Nelson unveil stance on apology


February 5, 2008.

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson is refusing to say publicly whether he will urge his party colleagues to support or oppose the Rudd government's formal apology to the indigenous stolen generations.

Despite mounting pressure, Dr Nelson is refusing to declare his hand publicly.

He says he will discuss his views on the apology directly with his coalition colleagues when Liberal and Nationals MPs meet in Canberra.

The meeting will follow a discussion between Dr Nelson and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, during which Mr Rudd will outline the terms of his proposed apology to be delivered to parliament on February 13.

Dr Nelson says he will tell his colleagues where he stands on the issue, but will not canvas his position beforehand.

"I will most certainly be telling them my view, and will strongly hint at what we need to do," he told ABC Television.

"That will be informed in part ... by Mr Rudd giving me some indication as to precisely what we're being asked to agree to.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23167966-23109,00.html

THE biggest day ever in US presidential nominating contests began overnight with Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in a close fight and Republican John McCain aiming for a knockout blow against Mitt Romney.

Twenty-four of the 50 states hold nominating contests for one or both parties on "Super Tuesday", yielding a huge haul of delegates to this summer's nominating conventions to choose the candidates for the November presidential election.

Economic concerns - plunging housing values, rising energy and food prices, jittery financial markets and new data showing a big contraction in the service sector - have eclipsed the Iraq war as voters' top concern, opinion polls show.

Senator Clinton of New York tried to hold off a late surge by Senator Obama of Illinois who has cut into her once commanding leads in opinion polls nationally and in some states in the coast-to-coast voting.

"The fact that we've made so much progress I think indicates that we've got the right message," Senator Obama said on NBC's Today show.