Church out in the fields
I returned to Darwin from three years of traveling as an art’s student in the UK and Melbourne. There to be told by my parents they were off to live on an acreage in rural South East Queensland. I was like “Why would you want to do that?”. But given a few years it was obvious I had to move out here in the fields with them as I was too crazy to manage my own life. I read a description of Hervey Bay in a backpackers guide, err. My parents told me “You have read about Hervey Bay, forty kilometres out of there is Burrum Heads and ten kilometres out of there is Dreamtime Avenue, the’s where we live.” I don’t want to go there! I conceded I needed a break and I had heard the country was meant to be good for crazy people. This led to two short stays in 1998 & 99 then I settled into the fields in 2000. In October 2003 I started getting my self to AA meetings. There I started giving Geoff, a criminal who found Christ through an act of christian charity, a lift to meetings and we found we had the same higher power in Christ Jesus. “Come to this cool little church I go to.” “What sort of church is it?” “Just come and check it out.” So I found a spiritual mentor in Garnet. That was twenty years ago.
Another profound thing I have found here is the stars. From the fields out here you can make out details of the Milky Way, the centre of the galaxy, the outer spiral arm, the Magellanic Clouds. Which brings me to two verses from Psalms I would like to share.
PSAlM 8
GOD; brilliant Lord
Yours is a household name
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous.
Your hand made sky jewellery.
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my mircro-self and wonder.
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second to look our way.
Psalm 19
God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.
That and the song of the birds. We have noisy birds out here and there and are a lot of them. The Lorikeets can make a nuisance of them selves with their squawking if they get together in large numbers as they do at sun set and sun rise at times in places. But mostly it is a cathedral in tongs wilder than any techno tune. The trees sing His praises.
The ministry of the stars, the prose of the birds and Garnets wise teaching in the Bible have given a spiritual dimension to this strange place in the fields my parents decided to move too. It has been a comfortable safe place to return too.
The lunches at this place are always very satisfying. When Garnet picks me up he asks if Ive had breakfast. No; I breakfast after service when I go to this church. I want a good appetite for lunch.
And this sharing bit is awesome; I don’t know another church that is doing it. I think John Wesley: the 18th century British revivalist responsible for Methodism; would have been all over this. Wesley started out as a standard Anglican clergy but had an evangelical conversion and started his own thing, a method that would go on to form the Uniting Church and the Baptist church among others. He liked to get small groups of church going christians to gather in there homes and discuss the Bible and there faith during the week. It was his method that inspired the Oxford Group that the AA movement sprang from. Yes I think Wesley would like this sharing at church thing.
My christian journey has been a rocky one. I was bought up an atheist, “religion is the opium of the masses”. I believed in God but was satisfied with the answer to life the universe and everything is forty two. Then I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and my philosophical mind was opened. I traveled: immersed my self in modern art, attended pagan festivals, studied philosophy, drank from sacred wells, learned the Hari chant, spoke with street preaches, nuns, pastors and Christian Scientists. There always seemed to be some one to explain the Christian message to me and they were so keen to do so.
Around this time I went insane, over the next six years alcoholism slowly crept us on me as a way to deal with the anxiety and delusions. In 2000 I was stuck in my parents back yard in Rain Tree Acres: no friends, nothing to do, no where to go, anxious and confused and a free cask of wine sitting on the roof. But I had Christian mentors in my Aunt in Adelaide and Garnet out here in the fields. And so my Christian side has grown stronger. I have sanity today in part thanks to the pastoral effort of Garnet and the fellowship of this Church.
My devoutly christian aunt and uncle from Adelaide have been to this church many times as have their children and grandchildren. My Mum has been an important part of getting me to church here and confused to being a christian in the car on the way to one of these Sunday meetings. This church has been there for me and my family for twenty years now.
I think the work Garnet dose here makes him a prophet. Not a great prophet; but a lay cow boy who has held together a unique ministry for twenty years that I know of. A prophet is some one who tells God’s Truth. And Garnet & Joy have been spreading God’s Truth from this hall out in a field half way between Burrum Heads and Howard for over forty years.
So yes – I have had three great spiritual guides out here in the fields: the message in the stars, the song of the birds and the prophesies of Garnet & Joy servants to the Lord.
And what sort of church is This? It’s a cow bow operation – out in the fields.
Thank you to this church for being here for me the past twenty years.
Clown Artist Philosopher 