A community laments, remembers and hopes

Photos courtesy Brian Hills  [click each to enlarge]

About 400 people gathered this afternoon to share in a process of community affirmation and support following the loss of the Wembley Downs Shopping Centre by fire seven days ago. A short simple ceremony invited each person to hold a rock and to imagine it absorbing sorrow through its heaviness, emanating thanks and memory through its warmth, and issuing hope as the crowd built a cairn under the remaining shopping centre signage. Chris Richards spoke on behalf of the owners expressing appreciation for community support and the desire to rebuild. Pharmacist Henry Gulev, for the tenants, thanked the community for expressions of care and concern.  Councillor Elizabeth Re, on behalf of the Mayor and the City of Stirling, assured council assistance in working through the issues related to the rebirth of the site, including community consultation. The crowd, comprising business owners, shop staff, residents and neighbours adjourned to the adjacent church courtyard for refreshments provided by Indiret Singh of IGA, several neighbours and the church. The Rebuild Wembley Downs neighbourhood initiative collected messages and contact details from those wishing to help. Today saw a community rite of passage that led from desolation to expressions of hope.

From the ashes the phoenix…

 

The community is beginning to rally. There have been very positive expressions to the proposal outlined below and which is being distributed, as I write, throughout the district. Compassion for one another – neighbour for neighbour, customer for trader, trader for customer has been working it’s way through the community. The annual District Fair tomorrow will be a venue for much meeting and sharing, and Sunday’s event will cap it.

This weekend will see the beginning of a new chapter for our neighbourhood.

COMMMUNITY GATHERING
for an act of
HEALING and HOPE

this Sunday October 26

2.30 pm (Daylight Saving Time)

at the site of the Downs Shopping Centre.

Refreshments at Church of Christ hall after

Acknowledging loss
Expressing thanks
Building hope for the future

Enquiries 9245 2593

 

Fire aftermath

LAMENT

HOPE

These two signs hang on the fence surrounding the charred remains of our local shopping centre. One expresses the deep sorrow of the community, the other is a pointer to the community spirit that will carry us  on. Both lament and hope need to find expression and it is my desire that we will find ways to appropriately process these as individuals and as a community. The Luita Street fair, though annual, is a timely event to remind us that while our loss is significant, we have not lost all. Our hope is also that the way will be clear for a swift re-establishment of the shopping precinct.

My church, just across the road from the devastation, is trying to think of ways of being useful. We can organise rides for shopping for those who have been dependent on shops they can walk to. We can become a distribution point for the local suburban paper. We can offer the listening ear for those who need to talk it through. But we are also open to ideas from the community. Tell us what you think, either by leaving a comment or by emailing. 

 

 

 

Burn after Reading: Review

Well, it’s a Coen Brothers production, and that generally means it will be different. I went along to this with heart in mouth because we had recommended it as a high school chaplaincy fund-raiser. Many of the people I was with were senior genteel church folk, and, since booking the theatre, intelligence was coming in on how unpalatable this cinematic experience was going to prove to be. 

Burn after Reading is a black comedy, a satire – typically disturbing because it holds a mirror up to the masses. The laughter one hears in the theattre is the nervous laughter of recognition. None of the characters (as opposed to actors) had any redeeming qualities. Each one was self-obsessed… even self-addicted. The plot, with its typical Coen inspired twists and turns, was, I felt secondary to the portrayal of truly awful characters. Relationships were meaningless and moments that promised warmth and empathy in relationship turned out to be means to narcisssistic ends. Some would have come away from the film asking “What was the point of it all?” I think this was the point. I came home from the film and was immediately confronted with the community drama happening in my own street. My own community was gathered there, shocked and seeking to comfort each other as the fire engulfed our local shopping centre. It was the opposite to the “anti-community” portrayal of the film.

Local shops destroyed by fire

Our local shops have been very handy to us – just across the road from where we live. More than that, however, they were the hub of the Wembley Downs community. As I write, the street is full of emergency vehicles while the ashes are hosed down. The crowds have dwindled now and the heartbreaking work of starting again lies ahead. These are tough times already, but the Wembley Downs community is resilient. The story of the fire is here.

A quick lesson on how the Stock Exchange works

I’ve seen this before, but it seems the time is right to put it out there again.

Once upon a time, in a village, a man appeared and announced to the
villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to
the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10
and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.
He further announced that he would now buy at $20 for a monkey.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching
monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people
started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each, and
the supply of monkeys became so small that it was an effort to even find
a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since
he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy
on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. “Look at
all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected.
I will sell them to you at $35, and when the man returns from the
city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.”
 
The villagers rounded up
all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

They never saw the man nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how the Stock Exchange works.

Blogging against Poverty – Blog Action Day

Ever wondered what more you can do about world poverty? It’s a bit like the kid throwing beached starfish back into the ocean – not a hope of saving the thousands of stranded ones so why bother at all – what difference does it make? “It makes a difference to this one,” he says, chucking another into the deep. Today, I learn is Blog Action Day 2008. Blog writers everywhere are being invited to write about poverty and register through this site. The day is still young as it beginns to unfold around the globe and there are already 9394 sites with over 10 million readers registered. What’s more it is already choc-a-block full of ideas and suggestions. It’s a bit like a crowd gathering on the beach to throw stranded starfish back into the ocean.

Wall Street – bankruptcy over bailout

OK, having owned up to my own sense of economic bewilderment and yet a gut feeling that congress made the right decision when it denied a $700 billion bailout, I’ve found an article that makes sense to me. (Click here). It clearly advocates bankruptcy over bailout.  I think it’s right because it’s an honest acknowledgement of the consequences of greed. Yep, we all bear the brunt of the pain – but at least we get the chance to start over and build a more realistic and equitable economic base that is prepared to wear the cut and thrust of free market economies from a more compassionate point of view. 

None of this is new or unexpected. Have a read of Micah and Amos and some of the other minor prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. The same dynamics are being addressed. There is also a solution – but how many would find it palatable?

Off to Adelaide

Time to catch up with all my kin in my home town of Adelaide – lately I’m managing to get over there every couple of years or so. This means things will be quiet here over the next week. Plenty of good blogging material out there at the moment. I’m not an economist – but what a day! What does congress’ rejection of the $700 billion bailout mean? Why do I feel relieved at congress’ rejection when I don’t comprehend how a gifting of squillions of imaginary dollars can have any effect at all? Some things are more of a mystery to me than infinity!

The Visitor – more movie dipping

 

 They told me I should see this one.

 So I did.

 The Visitor certainly evoked memories from not so distant times when folk from my church and I sat through tribunals, negotiaited immigration interviews and confronted officialdom on behalf of “illegal immigrants,” otherwise deemed by the international community to be legitimate refugees entitled to protection under United Nation conventions of which my country is a signatory! It was all there, the infectious humanity and joie de vivre of those under the heavy burden of having to prove they have the right to exist in safety, the intransigence of governments and their enforcement authorities, and the ordinary “joe bloe” who innocently gets caught up in it and finds his own passions awakened.

 The story has no resolution and some will find it unsatisfying.

 For me it was cathartic.