Thoughts from Our Six Months in Exile

In the coming week we are looking to return home after being shut out by the Queensland Government for the last six months. We were among the lucky ones that were provided for comfortably where we are.

But my heart goes out to the 20,000+ others who, meanwhile, have been locked out of house and home for many months. The Queensland Premier’s mantra: “We are just keeping Queenslanders safe” rings hollow for these, also Queenslanders, many of whom have lost their jobs, been paying two lots of rent or have been sleeping in their cars and water logged tents; among these are tragic cases of mental health breaking down and giving way to thoughts of suicide. These did not feel they were being kept “safe”.

I suppose the owners of the Titanic could have claimed, “We were just keeping the passengers safe” because they provided lifeboats for the 700 that made it into them; though this ignores the twice that number from the same ship, who were shut out of the lifeboats and perished in the water; these did not feel quite so “safe”.

For some, but only for some and only some of the time (there were limited spots available) there was the option of flying back into 14 days hotel quarantine. However many simply could not afford this: for just the two of us – with the cost of air fares, hotel quarantine, transporting our car and separately (because of insurance rules) our goods – it would have cost us well in excess of $6,000; for a family of four, more; much more. Some were looking at bills of $20,000.

Meanwhile, many back in Queensland have been kept in ignorance – blissful ignorance, just as long as they believed they were being “kept safe”. Some have even cruelly blamed those who left the state to care for a dying loved one and made it clear those returning are not welcome.
The mantra: “We are Queenslanders” starts to wear thin. Surely, as a nation, we can do better than this; we are not Queenslanders, we are Australians.
More than that, we are humans made in God’s image, and hence bound to “be merciful” to other of our fellow human beings, “just as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36). The blinkered lack of compassion has been appalling.

God’s Provision

Thankfully, we ourselves had to endure none of this. Though the occasion of our arrival was sad (we came down to care for a dying loved one, see here), nonetheless we were among a small number of exiles wonderfully provided for. At worst, our six months of exile here has been inconvenient.
(A big shout-out to our daughter Karen who regularly travelled across Brisbane to look after our house, and to our neighbourhood friends, Sue and Alan. Thanks, also, Zac and Mel.)
But we didn’t lose a job, we had somewhere comfortable to stay, and (at least, after a few months once we were allowed to travel locally) we have had numerous opportunities to catch up with many long-time friends.

“What have you been doing?” we often get asked.

Well, as I just mentioned, we have been able to catch up with friends, particularly Eileen’s sister, Linda, and her husband, Kent. In just the last week it has been a joy to have our daughter and her husband, Alison and Doug, along with their children, down here who are kindly taking a lot of our stuff back with them. And just today we look forward to our son, Simon, and our daughter, Julie, visiting from the U.K. – so thankful for the effort they have made to be here for a time.

We have also made new friends. Incredibly, the indefatigable Jennie Roe contacted us when she discovered Eileen was related to her, and alerted us to lots of other cousins Eileen never knew she had – all descended from Eileen’s grandfather’s first marriage back in Ireland in the 1800’s. And all this time Eileen thought she had no cousins!
We even found one such cousin living a stone’s throw from here (well, if you are a good thrower) – a lovely Christian couple who, unbeknownst to us, even attended the same church as us for a while in the late 60’s. And it turns out the husband knew my mother (they were fellow teachers at Caringbah High School), where he taught our long-time good friend, Peter Barnes.
(Sorry if all this is too much information, but we really stand in awe at the Lord’s providence which He ordered as a result of our being in exile here for the last six months.)

We have also been able to catch up with Peter Barnes, and his wife Lyn, at Revesby Presbyterian; as well as renew acquaintance with so many other dear friends from our days in Wollongong, and others throughout the Sutherland Shire, and Epping; and also those from various churches like Engadine Congregational Church and Southern Districts Reformed Baptist Church. And, one from more than 50 years ago, when he and I were cooks together at Pioneer Camp on the Shoalhaven River!

Throughout this time we have also kept in contact, by phone at least, with many of the dear folk back in Brisbane and South East Queensland, and shared in the trials that some are going through there.

God’s Creation

We have relished God’s creation outdoors while we have been here. As well as the nearby beaches,  we have enjoyed our times traversing Cape Bailey, on the Kurnell Peninsula, within walking distance of here. Also, many beautiful locations throughout the Royal National Park.
We are thankful to God for being stranded in such a wonderful area.

Home is where the heart is

I used to say: “I was born in Cronulla and lived there for more than 23 years.”
I guess I will now have to say, “…for almost 24 years.” The last six months have been like coming home.

But, where is home?

Some years ago, travelling throughout Europe, I was reading “Joni and Ken”, the “untold Love Story” of Joni Eareckson Tada and Ken Tada.
Returning to Australia, after eight weeks abroad, I wrote back then:

Thankful to God for the many wonderful places, cultures, languages we have visited, and people we have met. Miss Gale once said: “There’s no place like home.” But as Ken and Joni have recently discovered (and as we discovered afresh): “Home is wherever we are together”. As long as “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20) home is where you are with those you love.

“Home is where the heart is.”
The saying is popularly credited to Pliny the Elder, which he penned before he perished in 79 AD, in the pyroclastic rain of death spued from Vesuvius, while he was attempting to rescue a friend and his family by ship.
Since then, it has been the theme of countless essays, songs, and movies – including Elvis Presley’s rendition of the Sherman Edwards’/Hal David’s song here.

I don’t need a mansion on a hill
That overlooks the sea
Anywhere you’re with me is home…

Even if you’re not an Elvis fan, who could disagree with that?
While in exile, as long as Eileen and I are together, this has been “home”.
Family and friends are “home” wherever you are.

Stockholm Syndrome

For the believer, his home is not on this earth: “Our citizenship is in heaven”.
In the words of the Jim Reeves’ song:

This world is not my home
I’m just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue.

For this reason Jesus warned:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:20-21)

Yet so often our hearts can be, and we make a home, in the wrong place.
I don’t mean in this world as a physical place. But increasingly we are under pressure to come to terms with the moral values of the “world” about us. We grow tired of always being “different”.

The world about us wants to hold us captive.
Initially, we resist our captor. But after a while Stockholm Syndrome sets in and we begin to identify with the culture around us and accept its values.

Like Lot of old, we “lift [our] eyes and see all the plain of Jordan, that it is well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord” (Gen 13:10). We “pitch our tent even as far as Sodom” (v 12), at first living in temporary structures outside the city.
But yearning for a more permanent home, before long we find ourselves actually “dwelling in Sodom” itself (14:12). Yes, we “torment [our] righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds” (2 Pet 2:8). But as long as we increasingly come to view the world about us as “home”, inevitably we more and more come to embrace the unrighteous values of the surrounding culture (Gen 19:8)

Well does John tell us:

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world” (1 Joh 2:15-16).

And, he reminds us:

“The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (v 17).

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Therefore, “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”

The Return of the Native

One needs to be a hardy soul to read the original novel, “The Return of the Native”. It is a depressing novel, as I understand many of the author’s other works are.
We are returning “natives”, though I have little in common with the eponymous “native” in Thomas Hardy’s novel, who returned  to the fictional Egdon Heath – except, I suppose, that he too ends his days as an itinerant preacher. But even there the comparison is slight.
Nor do we find much to inspire in the example of his ill-fated wife who, too much in love with worldly treasure, did not find her home where her heart should have been.
But then, a sad figure antagonistic to the Christian faith like Hardy is hardly likely to inspire in anyone a joyful note of Christian optimism.

Rather we are returning “home” but with a greater conviction than ever that we “wait for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb 11:10).
That is our real home, and we are homesick till we reach there.

“We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
“Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.” (2 Pet 3:13-14)

Forget Thomas Hardy. Listen here to Maddie Prior’s stirring rendition of  Charles Wesley’s “Away with our sorrow and fear”:

Away with our sorrow and fear!
We soon shall recover our home,
The city of saints shall appear,
The day of eternity come:
From earth we shall quickly remove,
And mount to our native abode,
The house of our Father above,
The palace of angels and God.