St. James, King St

For anyone interested, I have a really ghastly cold - but I won't go on about it.
There are a number of spiritual sites in the City that I love, and I visit them often if I have a spare moment and I happen to be in the area. I go in, sit for a while and say some prayers and, if the facilities are there, light a candle for someone in my life who needs it.
One of these places is St. James Anglican church in King St. St. James carries the distinction of being the oldest church in Australia, having been designed by Francis Greenaway (though not, ironically, as a church!). These days it is distinguished by its gorgeous High Church ceremonies and its tolerant and open culture. They run a fantastic adult education program, do great charity work, and I sometimes go to meditation there on Wednesday mornings. And their musical program is just wonderful!
Sounds perfect, doesn't it? Even better, it is almost always open during the day, and so the perfect place to drop into for a spot of meditation or prayer. There's a kooky little chapel at the side, obviously added on in the 1980s, judging by its wild design. Now this is usually the sort of addition I'd despise, but its been there long enough now to have acquired a veneer of reverence, even style. It is a perfect little spot to hide away in and pray, and you can light a candle and leave a prayer request, making it almost heaven on earth in my equation.
Oh, and sometimes (it has exceedingly eccentric opening hours) the extraordinary children's chapel is open in the crypt, and that is my friend Maggie Hamilton's favourite place in Sydney.

Ingham, North Queensland

I grew up in the little sugar town of Ingham, North Queensland. And before you ask, no, that's not where the chickens came from.
It's a funny little place - quite pretty, in its own way, and relatively unchanged. When I was back there recently, the only difference I noticed was that everything was smaller and older. I guess that happens.
Here is Ingham's spectacular main street, on which not very much happens - apart from the yearly Italian Festival and the Maraka Festival, which I always remember looking forward to as a child.
Ingham is filled with quite picturesque old pubs, which are always well frequented.
And its hot - very hot, all the year round.
And you can't get sushi.

Wooden Louvres

Another distinctive aspect of North Queensland architecture that is now confined to the realms of museums and kitschy heritage reproductions is the use of wooden louvres in place of windows with glass. This seems to have been especially favoured when verandahs were closed in to make additional rooms for growing families. Here are some of theose louvres at a restored house at the Townsville Palmetum.



My great-grandfather built his own house (or at least, he constantly expanded an old fishing shack he'd won in a game of poker) in Lucinda, North Queensland, and raised a family of four there. The front rooms were indeed enclosed verandahs, and I remember being fascinated by the beautiful hand-made wooden louvres that he had installed there. They were made with thick-ish pieces of timber painted a distinctly 1950s blue, and were opened and closed with a wooden rail set into the louvres themselves. They were remarkably effective at capturing any available breeze, each window being able to be positioned just-so. Not so effective, however, at keeping away mosquitoes. There were always gaps, and in the evening you could almost be carried away by mosquitoes, Lucinda being little more than a reclaimed mangrove swamp.
The house is still standing, though was sold many years ago. Last time I checked the louvres were still doing their job. Here's a pic from when my Aunty Audrey was still alive and living in it. This charming little ancestral shack would be worth a fortune now, being only a short walk from the beach.

Coloured Windows

I've been in North Queensland for the past couple of weeks, mostly at hospital attending to my Grandmother, with the occasional foray out into the real world. It has been a long time since I was in North Queensland (almost 10 years) and that meant that I could afford to view things with a certain detachment, even occasional fondness and nostalgia. I guess that because I was there for my Grandma and surrounded by family I hadn't seen for such a long time, images and objects kept coming up that reminded me of my childhood in the tropical North.
Right near the hospital in Townsville is quite a beautiful park featuring a range of varieties of palm tree, and at the entrance is an old restored school house that is an almost perfect example of traditional North Queensland architecture. It looks very like the house my Grandmother owned in Cordelia, and the thing that really hit me was the multi-coloured window glass. Each window was divided into 4 panes of glass, and each pane was of a different colour - exactly like the windows in Grandma's old house. This was once very common in old houses in the North, but they have almost all disappeared - wooden windows rot quickly in the tropical damp, and aluminium frames have been too tempting to pass up in most cases.
I'm not sure why these multi-coloured windows were so popular, or if they served any other than decorative purpose. I should imagine that the height of their popularity would have been the 1950s, though it could have been much earlier (their inclusion in this scrupulously restored house suggests that they carry a longer vintage).
So here they are, these lovely little coloured windows. A small feature, certainly, but one so completely unique and evocative that the very sight of them caused a tremor of nostalgia.

In Loving Memory of my Grandma

My beautiful Grandma, Ethel Mary Barrett, died this morning at the age of 76.
She was a truly wonderful person, one of those people so filled with love and good spirit that it overflowed to everyone around her. I don't think I have ever known a person as universally loved and respected as she was, and she leaves a beautiful memory in the lives of so many people across so many generations.
She was a wonderful cook, and she loved to sing, and she was a great hugger. Anyone entering her presence was drawn into a warm embrace and a big kiss placed on their cheek. When she came to visit me in Vietnam some years ago she continued that custom, much to the amusement of the non-hugging Vietnamese.
She taught me any number of silly songs from the late 1940s, she taught me to always smile, and to avoid feeling too sorry for myself. She loved me completely and unconditionally, as I did her.
God bless you, my darling Grandma. I know you have gone somewhere more wonderful than here, and will continue to be surrounded by people who love you.
I will miss you so very, very much, for the rest of my life.

World Youth Day

I think World Youth Day sucks for all kinds of reasons.
I don't think that any of the tiers of government should be financially supporting any kind of private religious celebration, and the fact that NSW Labor is speaks to the corruption, the social conservatism and the dominance of the Catholic church in that party. It's just not healthy, no matter how you care to spin it.
I also resent the fact that WYD is really just presenting one face of Catholic spirituality, and its a pretty ugly face. It's a kind of Nuremberg Rally of right-wing Catholicism, and I resent being exepected to be excited about it. Don't tell me how much money it's going to contribute to the local economy (not half as much as the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which gets zilch from the government), or how wonderful it will be to have the streets filled with wholesome, Christian young people intent on doing good. I would suggest that the central message of WYD does a lot of bad to, for example, young gay and lesbian people, or young people who might happen to be Hindu or Buddhist, or young people who might want to retain the freedom and integrity to formulate their own beliefs free from the dogma and dictates of an authoritarian institution.
That said, there are going to be some fabulous high-camp moments that I am just not going to miss. These include:

1. Viewing the body of the Blessed Pier Giorgio - we rarely get to see the fossilised remains of dead people in Australia, and I wouldn't miss this macabre spectacle for the world.

2. The live Stations of the Cross - high-camp, real-life drama in the tradition of Jesus Christ Superstar. And the guy playing Jesus is a fox!

3. The Religious Orders Fun-Fair in Hyde Park - that's right, just across from the Cathedral they're setting up a kind of garden fete to encourage kids to join religious orders. Will there be a Franciscan jumping castle? The Benedictine super-slide? Put the balls in St. Therese's mouth? The possibilities are endless, and the implications of a pilgrims' fair are way too Chaucerian for me to pass up. I'm secretly hoping they will be selling indulgences.

4. Mary Mackillop's Tomb as Disneyland - the good Josephite sisters are ramping up operations at their actually quite tasteful headquarters in North Sydney. They are installing porta-loos and hot dog stands and charging punters 10 bucks to get into the church and spend some quality time at Mother Mary's tomb. Or you can buy a $30 all-day ticket which includes a continental breakfast and a whirlwind tour through the bizarre museum out the back that no-one ever visits.

I'm sure that there are actually some good and worthwhile events happening too. I am aware, for example, that the wonderful people at the World Christian Meditation Community - genuine good guys - will be operating an alternative space all week at the Paddington Uniting Church, where people can go and meditate and spend some quiet, genuinely contemplative and spiritual time. But for the most part the whole WYD event is an exercise in bombast, chauvinism and tackiness, and on balance it has done enormous damage to the reputation of the Catholic Church in Australia.

St. Martin De Porres

I stopped in at St. Peter Julian's in Chinatown last week and went on a shopping spree in their fabulous little gift shop, hidden away at the side of the church. It must be one of Sydney's best-kept secrets. By far the best range of Holy Pictures in Australia - I came out with arm-loads. The church is meant to close for renovations soon, and I am terrified that they will close the shop, or it will become more expensive.
Anyway, here is my new favourite Holy Picture. It is of St. Martin de Porres, a mixed-race Dominican brother from Peru who was known to levitate. Isn't he wonderful?