The Jin-Jiyan-Asadi (Women/Women’s Knowing-Life-Freedom) people on the steps of Victoria’s parliament have opened my eyes and heart to the chance of a much better world.
It is like reading the letters of Indonesia’s national hero R.A. Kartini:
Mona’s tears of grief are part of the deeply empathetic foundation for a non-violent female lead campaign against tyranny.
This can be the foundation not just for a better Iran but for a better world.
Pope Francis was born on this date, 17th December,
On his 78th birthday he made a statement which I see as a wonderful example of the Islamic principle Amar Makhruf Nahi Mungkar (Participate in what’s good and avoid what’s wrong.)
Michelangelo’s Last Judgement was first revealed 481 years ago on this date in 1541.
It shows saved souls ascending to heaven on the left and the damned descending to hell on the right. Jesus and Mother Mary are in the middle looking down, Mary looking right and Jesus looking left, with His hands turning in a way that suggests strong involvement and power on both sides.
Knowing where God’s gift of freedom will take us is never easy. Not enough freedom is tyranny and too much freedom is anarchy.
Yesterday after a mostly Greek ceremony remembering freedom, I told one of the Australian born leaders that I believe that combining the biblical ideas that the Truth will set you free and that God is Logos (word, discourse or reason) could lead to a theology of freedom.
The guy slimed warmly and said that he agreed.
As far as I was concerned he hade only agreed to the possibility of discussion of my line of argument. That was all I thought. I was wrong. I have received a cold, legalistic letter from one of his underlings demanding a partial retraction from me of what I published. Here is that partial retraction:
Is a better commitment to freedom through Logos what Christianity needs in a secularising age where lost frightened people are still in need of the moral foundations and consensus religions used to more easily provide?
Or are the Christians, who now sometimes receive favour and money from the secularists who attack their way of life, too scared to speak up for Logos and what that word really means?
With great sadness, but deep determination to honour the spirit of
A.the brave Greeks who condemned fascist demands in 1940,
B. of my father in 1945 when he faced Japanese bullets for freedom,
C. of his theologian father in the 1930’s who then spoke up against on the plight of the Jewish refugeees from Hitler’s persecution
D. and of my other theologian grandfather who spoke up in the 1940’sa for the united Nations where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) whose first signatories included Greece and Australia
I respect the guy’s right to be silent and anonymous and unknown but I don’t respect his rude failure to discuss an idea, the divine right to free speech, enshrined in both UDHR and the Bible.
“For the word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4-12)
Greek Joy in Australia, lead by one of Freedom’s preeminent multi-cultural women in Melbourne, Anastacia Ntouni, and her fellow Freedom politician, Angelique Matias.
The four women are celebrating OXI Day when the Greek Prime Minister Metaxas and his people stood up to Mussolini.
Anastacia Ntouni, (second from the right) and Angelique Matias (on the left of the picture).
Afrim is a man deeply committed to bringing people together with the beauty of flowers in a spirit of love.
But I sense that he is deeply concerned about what he sees in some people in his immediate neighbourhood and across Victoria and Australia. He says: “We are at war with our own politicians. But my friends in the freedom movement are now standing up for the moral values which the Anzacs and all other diggers fought for.”
In Afrim’s eyes, I see the same quiete, kind, thoughtful, family-based determination which I have been privileged to honour in my own father’s eyes from the time when dad was involved in fighting fascism in the 1940’s.
When different cultures meet in a spirit of creative freedom, amazing things can happen.
In the following micro-movie made in his Wominjeka Garden earlier this week, Uncle Glenn Loughrey turned the soil for a memorial planting and found eight words which constitute brilliant insight into what the Australian tradition of memorial tree plantings can become.
Lest We Forget.
Bunjil watches over us.
Let Bunjil fly!
To resolve the differences between competing cultures, we must seek what’s good and keep away from what’s wrong. (Amar Makruf Nahi Mungkar)
Geoff Fox, 24th September, 2022, Naarm, Down Under
When actor Steven Kakatsis told me of the barbaric slaying of his 20 year old uncle in the 1940’s in the Greek Civil War, I heard a story of the past that resonated very deeply with me in this troubled modern world.
Steven told me what he saw in his uncle’s eyes and I looked into Steven’s eyes with my camera.
From a nation founded on the idea that all the people living on the continent now known as Australia could be ignored, here is a tiny filmic journey into the terrors of facing the unknown.
This is a statement of five of the most important religious beliefs I hold.
(I publish it on the birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose faith journey took him in the opposite direction to mine and who said “You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”)
The truth will set you free.
There is no god but God.
Faith cannot be forced.
Bunjil watches over us.
In the beginning was The Word and The Word was with God and The Word was God.
Geoff Fox, 13th September, 2022, Melbourne, Australia
Watch the hands of Aussie men in dancing dedication to commemorate the courage of those who kept us free.
This is not a very highly formalised planting and dedication of a Memorial Tree.
Its a relaxed meeting of friends in a small town in one woman’s front yard.
The way they go about this reflects the values of past heroes who served for their loved ones, for their country and for us. They often suffered terribly and were all ready to die for a good life together for everyone.
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