The Holy Covenant Anglican church in Cook, ACT is a lovely suburban community. It appears compassionate and people are warm. A couple of ladies, who looked like they could well be office bearers of the ACT chapter of the CWA, greeted me warmly and the husband (presumably) of one of them spoke to me about how they occasionally take the service at the nearby Calvary Hospital. The “high church” feel and the focus on topical concerns like migration of Syrians to western Europe and Australia’s action towards its own asylum seekers across the Indian Ocean had me wonder how I was going to enthusiastically engage or be engaged here. Jesus, God’s saving grace and the bible were mentioned only in the liturgical parts of the service. The sermon was on faith in action a la James but given the other messages coming through, that might well have been designed to prompt thoughts and actions on the asylum seekers/refugees front.

Later in the evening I said to Tress – I forget if it was through text, Facebook messaging or the phone – that the search for a church would probably continue.

I guess it is possible I would not have a faith community here in Canberra. Not until it becomes clearer if I was to stay here longer than until this present contract runs out.

I guess many things are and will remain transient for now.

I guess that explains a lot of why I feel so out of it in so many ways. Maybe that suggests the wisdom (or lack of) in taking up this role, nearly 700 km away from home in Melbourne in the first place but I guess the opportunity to engage Kiddo has been a main driver.

On Friday night Kiddo Mic and I met up at the Hamlet in Braddon. I rode there after work and arrived early before them so I walked across the road and picked up some beers. We shared a variety of food – Peruvian, German and Spanish – ate and talked then went back to the apartment where I watched the Hawks go down to a very good West Coast Eagles side.

On Saturday morning I gave Kiddo a ride to the ANU where she was meeting up and working with a group of fellow writers. I then went for a long slow run, did the laundry after that and went out to buy lunch for kiddo, dropped lunch off for her at ANU and then went back to the apartment. I made myself some lunch and just after 1pm decided to clean the apartment. I had thought I’d spend no more than an hour – it’s a tiny 2 bedroom’er – but I ended up cleaning more things than I’d expected. I also used more cleaning chemicals than I’d expected so when it was all done after 4pm, I decided to head out again – it had been a warm and sunny day – and rode to the Lake area again, this time taking a right turn after crossing the bridge at New Acton. That turn took me to the National Museum area and I felt free and the clean fresh air was what I needed to flush the scents of those chemicals out of my system. Back at the apartment that night I watched the Crows v Bulldogs game. The winner was going to play Hawks. It was well balanced, with neither side leading more than 1-2 goals at any point. Crows edged it in the end and it would be them against Hawks at the G this Friday – when I’d be on the road again…

Yesterday after church I went to Belconnen and did some shopping at Westfield. I did some ironing back at the apartment, kept the laundry away and then sat out at the balcony to read (Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen’s “Pure Sex“). It was another warm and sunny day and I was in my shorts and with a glass of chardonnay, reading out on the balcony was very pleasant. Kiddo and Mic later came back from Crossroads and lunch and we chatted a bit before watching another footy game. It was another close encounter between Richmond and North Melbourne. The latter won and would meet the Swans in Sydney. The two Western Australian teams await the victors (Hawks v Crows and Roos v Swans) at the Preliminary Finals. Grand Finals await. As it stands, I’m scheduled to be back in Melbourne on that weekend. But such is my life now that even that is transient. I might be in Canberra watching it on the little TV in the little apartment – alone.

Kiddo goes to Crossroads this morning. Ironic isn’t it?

Anyway, I’m visiting this one this morning:

http://www2.holycovenant.org.au/home.html

Some time towards the end of July, I decided to take the next step towards pegging down my tent in Crossroads, in terms of church life in Canberra. So I signed up for the small group introductory sessions. That was probably 19 or 26 July.

When the first meeting finally arrived on 5 Aug I had mixed feelings. On the one hand it was tiring to head out at night mid-week, especially on a cold winter’s evening in Canberra. On the other hand, I thought it was something I had to do, if I was to have a better fellowship with believers here in Canberra.

The introductory group met 3 consecutive weeks, each week seeing me battle the mixed feelings and ended with me being glad I went. So on 19 Aug – the last meeting – the pastor said in the next few days we’ll be contacted with information about new groups we could consider joining on a longer term basis.

3 weeks on, I haven’t heard back from anyone. 6 weeks after making the first move and some 2 months after deciding to do this, nothing has come out of it.

I’m suddenly reminded of how crappy church and Christian organisation admin can be. Maybe there are other priorities. Maybe there are extraneous issues. Still, 3 weeks to simply facilitate connections? Potentially it could well be October before it happens and by then it’s close to year end break up stuff.

So last night I decided to cut my losses and move on. Sure, waiting can yield results but this is waiting for nuts reasons. There is no reason to hold on to this thread and allowing the frustrations or disappointments to continue. I have had enough of frustrations and disappointments. What I need is hope, promise/source of more hope and something to look forward to with less prospect of disappointment.

So it’s back to the drawing board for me. It could be another Anglican church somewhere in Canberra or if that fails, then it’d just que sera sera. Numerous Canberran Anglican churches have causes such as inclusiveness, gender equality, indigenous reconciliation, refugees rights etc as core concerns. Sure they’re all important but somehow they don’t strike me as what a church is about in terms of core focus. Only 1-2 says preaching the word of God is a core focus so I might give those a go, though they’re not near enough for me to ride my bike to.

I guess in so many ways, church life in Canberra is but another moving feast/target at this point in my life. Still in a roundabout of sorts I guess.

I was in Melbourne again last weekend. 2 consecutive weekends of drives on the Hume sounds punishing but it didn’t feel that way. It was a scheduled trip anyway – Tress and I had drawn up a schedule of visits to Melbourne/Canberra by either of us, which goes on till October.  I was saying to her on the phone somewhere on the Hume yesterday, that while physically tiring, trips home to Melbourne is always refreshing and restful for me emotionally and mentally.

Especially this past weekend when I spent the better part of Saturday tidying up the garden.

As always, winter sees the garden more neglected and when spring finally arrives, the neglect begins to show and the longer and warmer days also meant it was more inviting to be out there doing the work. So I got out the hedge trimmer, the step ladder and did those James Sterling hedges in – trimming and clipping so that they looked like freshly cropped heads of schoolboys in school on the first day of term. The lawn mower got worked too and thankfully the 3 month old petrol still fueled the machine sufficiently to keep it all looking better. Next trip should see some “feed n weed” worked in.

I miss spending Sunday arvo at home in Melbourne. Time was when I could maybe cook on Sunday arvos – doing soups for the week, or taking the little fellow on long walks. I now leave Melbourne right after lunch and spend the whole arvo on the Hume. Or if I wasn’t doing that I’d be at the flat on Turner, doing some ironing and then maybe also going for long walks through Haig Park or towards Lake Burley Griffin. But I’d be doing that alone, instead of with Tress and I guess it isn’t so much the activities as it is who they were done with. I guess that’s the single biggest factor of why I have felt so strangely “off” these past 4 months.

Today is officially the first day of spring. On the way back from Melbourne on Sunday, I noticed the golden wattle – the Green & Gold of Australia – littered on either side of the Hume. It’s shades and hues vary little and as one drives through, the unmistakable change of season lifts its colours, inviting one to look, smell the air and feel the coming of warmer and longer days.

It used to get dark by 5pm and when I hit the Yass Valley it would have been pitch dark. On Sunday however, it stayed light till just before 6pm. It made a difference to my mood. It could be I was simply getting used to this routine but the pain of leaving Melbourne on a Sunday arvo has alleviated.

Locals tell me Canberra gets pretty hot and dry in summer. We’d visited kiddo several times in summer in past years so we sort of know what the heat can be like but to have lived here through winter may make a difference to my experience of the warmer months ahead. I’m certainly looking forward to the change.

Yet this morning, as I rode in on the push bike, it was still very cold. The “feels like” read -2.7 degrees and I had to don the usual gears – the beanie under the helmet, coat, scarf, ski gloves etc. Riding home should be better though.

My lunch walk yesterday proved the Golden Wattle has well and truly welcome spring. I couldn’t resist taking the photos. I’m with the Green & Gold – I very much welcome spring and the warmer days ahead.

As I left the M80 and started along the Hume, I thought again of the weekend I’d had. It was one of the most event filled weekends since I started work in Canberra in May.

I’d had a long meeting on Friday arvo, with the external lawyers advising us on the new arrangements with the Red Cross Blood Service. So when I left the office to drive down to Melbourne, my mind was still on some of the issues we discussed, trying to process and digest the elements and what needed to be done in the coming week(s).

When I made a toilet stop at the Gundagai Maccas, the restaurant was empty. The long meeting at the office meant the lunch I had planned with some colleagues didn’t happen and I’d only had a cup noodle. The Gundagai Maccas usually has a biggish crowd. With no crowd there, I decided to grab a quick bite. As I sat down to have the meal, I read some WhatsApp messages saying 5 chek – an uncle, Tiat Been – had been admitted to the ICU for severe lung infection. He had had a fall earlier and his blood pressure was critically low.

By the time I made my next toilet stop soon after Euroa/near Seymour some 3 hours later, the WhatsApp messages showed 5 chek had passed away.

My memory of him was shared by my brother in a family event not long ago, I forget the context or when it was exactly. My brother retold a scene in the Kampung Jawa home, where everyone was on their knees praying and many were crying. 5 chek who was in Perth after qualifying as an Engineer in the then Western Australian Institute of Technology (“WAIT”), had been involved in a serious motor accident. I remember seeing a picture of him in a wheelchair as he left Perth with my late grandfather, to return to Malaysia. He was bald, and looked very ill. Ever since that accident, 5 chek has had a range of disabilities. He had severe brain damage from the accident and the result was he couldn’t walk normally and generally his motor coordination skills were severely impaired. His speech was also affected but he was otherwise generally independent.

For many years, 5 chek faced tremendous challenges reconciling himself with his condition and often thought he stood a much better chance of better/complete recovery had he remained in Perth. I believe he was right. I also believe grandfather didn’t necessarily do the wrong thing. He wanted his son to be at home and he wanted to care for his son at home. I don’t know if he knew, appreciated or thought Perth would have been a better option for 5 chek in so many ways but there was a good chance his paternal instincts swayed him – overwhelmingly – to do what he did. The fathers of today may well have reached a different conclusion to grandfather but at that time (mid 1970’s) and given the circumstances then I think I get why grandfather did what he did.

I guess it’s one of those conundrums in life which would remain richly entangled for as long as I remember 5 chek.

Having said that, I believe 5 chek had a wonderful life. I believe his experiences – the immense physical, psychological and emotional challenges he must have faced, probably on a daily basis – gave him a life and experiences which helped shape his relationship with God and shaped how he touched others around him which only he and his enduring circumstances could have made possible. The usual discussions about what constitutes a good life – the definition of good – would no doubt be relevant, i.e good not as in whether, for example, he could have had a family of his own, worked or had a career, provided material things to himself and to his family, and generally live a good life as many would define a good life to be. The usual challenge to this notion of “good” applies. What if a good life means a journey with the Lord which made one see the Lord and His work in ways which made one think in completely different terms? What if he journeyed every single day trusting the Lord for every single action and thought and thinking about what the Lord is doing at large and doing through him, in a way which many/most of us cannot, because we live the “normal” or “good” life? What if that journey touched others around him in ways which his otherwise “normal” or “good” life would never have been able to do? What if that journey provided an alternate benchmark of what constitute a good – wonderful – life?

5 chek always made me think of grandfather. He made me think of what grandfather did for his children and grandchildren. 5 chek helped me think what it means to have a stab at making someone’s life better. Whenever I thought of him I thought about what it means to help someone, what it means to make someone’s life better – not necessarily on our terms alone but also on that person’s terms. The person we think about has his/her own journey and how that journey can be better and what that means. When help is needed, it is often about that journey that person has to make. It isn’t about the helper’s journey – it’s about that person’s. Maybe the helper is right and that person’s journey can be shaped by the helper’s thoughts, actions and contributions but it is about that person’s journey, not the helper’s. As long as that journey is one where the Lord is God, that can be – is – a good and wonderful life.

My last interaction with 5 chek was in February this year, when Tress and I returned to Klang for a short holiday. Tib organised a bah kut teh and tuah kor, 3 chek, mum, and several others were there. 5 chek sat near me. He had lost so much of his motor coordination by then and had tremendous challenge serving himself at that meal. Yet he persisted at being independent, was extremely courteous and polite when I tried to help him with his food and tea and he was having a red hot go at enjoying a good meal with the family.

Soon after I moved to Canberra, I was back in Melbourne for a weekend (end of May) and spent a day with Ruth, Jonathan, Micah and 6 chek and 6 chim. We talked about 5 chek’s care and wellbeing. Driving back from Maribyrnong to Forest Hill that night, I wished I could see 5 chek again, to tell him what his life had taught me.

5 chek was probably 67 years old. If he was, he would be at the same age as my late father when he passed on. Dad was a few weeks shy of his 68th birthday. I imagined 5 chek being greeted by our Lord with dad, grandfather, grandmother, kor tiu, chek kong, chim poh and others – all as part of the welcoming party – as he walked through the pearly gates. He is free now from his disabilities. Someone said as a younger fellow 5 chek was agile and moved quickly with taut muscled limbs. I imagine him moving freely again as he walked past those pearly gates. May you find the Lord’s rest as He promised. Goodbye 5 chek.

PS (thanks to Liza and Tuar Kor):

1. 5 chek was 68 years old, 2 months shy of his 69th birthday.
2. Grandfather was unwell and couldn’t stay to accompany 5 chek on his return from Perth to Malaysia. A Dr Lee and his Aussie wife later accompanied 5 chek on that return journey.

Bersih is a movement in Malaysia which in recent years sought reforms in election laws and processes there.

In recent months Najib Razak the Prime Minister of Malaysia has been embroiled in alleged corruption scandal involving huge sums of money. Some USD700 million was said to have been deposited into his personal bank account, which weeks later he said were political donations. This was after he shut down a local financial newspaper, sacked the Attorney General who was a member of a task force set up to investigate the allegations, and messed with a Parliamentary Audit Committee by promoting some of its members to his cabinet, thus disqualifying them from continuing on as members of the Committee. He also sacked, transferred or suspended persons in the anti corruption body.

As these actions fomented, they brought public sentiments to a boil – thus “Bersih 4.0” has gathered momentum. In spite of turmoils within the Islamic party (PAS) which had previously been a key component of past Bersih events, the current Bersih appears to have lost little interest or momentum in carrying out public rallies to protests against the Najib Razak administration. Idiotic mind numbing statements by some of his sychophantic cabinet members have poured fuel onto the fire and judging by the volume and tones of private family group chats of mine, ordinarily docile Malaysians are fed up and are ready to rumble. Churches will open its doors to protesters in case authorities play rough, and scores of private doctors have volunteered to provide medical services. Local food vendors have offered free pre-rally lunches. In short ordinary previously uninterested Malaysians are itching for a fight.

Tress and I, along with some friends and family here in a much quieter setting that is Melbourne, will attend a Down Under version of the event at Federation Square. If I weren’t heading to Melbourne this weekend, I would have headed to the Canberra chapter too, such is the momentum of disgust now building up. Actually I’m quite excited. After years and years of feeling angry and frustrated at how Malaysians are reticent to speak up against wrong doings, I think the country has turned the corner and has had enough. I left Malaysia in 2004 – finally in 2015, I see the frustration, anger and disgust which drove me out, now fomenting among those I care about.

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Notwithstanding some derisory columns published on this man, I find his telling of my concerns of the past 1-2 years, very focused and well articulated.

I recall in a morning coffee run a couple of years ago back in Superpartners, we were chatting about families etc and I threw a casual remark saying I’d be concerned – worried sick – if my daughter came home saying she was dating a lady. The reaction I got was telling. I was made to feel like I have said the worst, most inappropriate thing. I could not make that simple statement which expressed my personal hope for my own daughter to be in a heterosexual relationship as opposed to a gay one.

See this: Brendan O’Neil

It has been an unusual week so far.

Some time between 7am and 8am on Monday, I must have entered a space (or exited from the here and now) which caused me to “lose time”. I could not recall what happened. I had no recollection of doing the things I usually did at that time. I could not remember having my breakfast smoothie, my coffee or getting ready to come in to work. All I recalled was speaking to Kiddo about not being “all there”. I could not recall why I didn’t have the scarf on me while I parked my bike, which of the 2 walking shoes I normally use I had on when I hopped on my bike – till it was time to head home at the end of the day and what I had packed for lunch, till it was time for lunch. I could not recall preparing the bread to go with the soup.

It has gotten a bit better now, and I am more “here” but it was that momentary (albeit prolonged) amnesic episode which continues to leave a hazy trail.

So last night I decided to leave the apartment and go out a little. I had spoken to a colleague who said there was an Aldi in the Jamison Centre between our Turner home and Belconnen. I drove there, walked around that place and decided that it would be a “last minute grocery” place I could go to. The Coles is large and the Aldi is well stocked. I came back feeling maybe a touch more “here” but the haze, while clearing, hovers still.

I’m glad winter is nearing an end. I have been in Canberra for just over 3 months now, and would be spending the whole of this winter in this very cold city of Australia. It is not a city which I’d find difficult to like but with no clarity of what lies ahead, I have no laid down roots with as must gusto as when we first settled in Melbourne. Reticence to lower the tent pegs more permanently in church and building friendships here, as well as the frequent trips back to Melbourne are symptoms of that overall fog I guess.

Waiting on the Lord gets like that, probably. He knows where I’m heading, even if I don’t. In that sense, the “early signs of Alzheimer’s” is less worrying.

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