Journey to the margins - part 3

Call to Follow
From the roof we go back down to earth, to street level, to the basement: Credo Cafe.

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
(Mark 1:16-20)

Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
(Mark 2:13-17)

Credo was started because one of the first people that lived here was a chef, and he used to invite people he met on the street upstairs for meals. The word spread that if you knew this guy you'd get invited over for great meals, and soon there wasn't enough room in the apartment for everyone who was turning up, so the basement was cleaned up, and became Credo Cafe.
Ned, a guy who's been around Credo for a long time, said to me a couple of months ago, 'The reason I love Credo is that the worst of enemies can sit down across the table from each other and eat together.' This is kind of similar to what is going on in the scripture. The tax collectors were quite powerful people, but very unpopular because they worked for the Romans, who were occupying Israel at the time, and the sinners were people who were outcast from society because they didn't meet the religious peoples' standard of holiness, and here they are eating together. In our society lawyers have a lot of power, but aren't very popular because of the kind of work they do. Often in Credo we have lawyers and corporates from the companies that fund Urban Seed, eating alongside people who are outcast in our society because they live on the street or are addicted to drugs. Credo is a place where the powerless and the powerful can begin to be reconciled over lunch.

Journey to the margins - part 2

Temptation

Next we go up onto the roof, to read from Matthew's gospel about Jesus' temptation:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’
Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” ’
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
(Matthew 4:1-11)

At one point this was one of the tallest buildings in Melbourne, but now we're surrounded by much taller buildings, belonging to powerful companies like Westpac, ANZ, Optus, Commonwealth Bank and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (our wonderful sponsors). From up here it's pretty difficult to see what's going on down at street level.
In the scripture, Jesus is taken to the highest point of his capital city, where he is offered great power, but he isn't interested.

temptation, scripture, city, walk, Jesus, Satan, power, buildings, church

Journey to the margins - part 1

Tomorrow night I'm taking a church group on a city walk for the first time, looking at Jesus' journey to the margins, in the first eight chapters of Mark's gospel, and how these scriptures connect with what's going on in in the city.

This walk usually starts on the front steps of the church, in Collins Street, one of the most expensive streets in Melbourne. We start off by talking about stuff like

what we see, hear, feel, smell, taste in the city.
what we like about the place and what we don't like about it.
why people come to the city.
what is life giving in the city, and what denies life.
where God might be in the city.

Prologue

We move into the church sanctuary to read Mark's prologue, which is about John the Baptist:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
(Mark 1:1-11)

We look at this scripture in the church sanctuary because it's a Baptist church, and John is called a baptist, so it sounds a bit like the sort of place you might find John. But Mark tells us that John was found in a pretty different place. Rather than being found in a clean, safe, important place like Collins Street, people had to travel out into the desert to find John. When they did find him he wasn't dressed in a nice suit, but a coat made of camel's hair.

Court

Went into court with someone this morning. This time it was really wierd, because the magistrate was quite brutal during the hearing, gave the lawyer a good dressing down, but then she let my friend off all charges. He'd originally been worried he'd have to go to gaol for over a month. It was almost like the magistrate was trying to make the hearing so painful that it would be punishment enough, or like she was just playing a game.

Pro Hart's death

Last week I started getting heaps of people ending up here looking for stuff about Pro Hart, and it wasn't until Friday or Saturday that I found out he'd died, and it seems he was buried today.
When we were in Broken Hill last year I mentioned our visit to his gallery, and when we got back I wrote a little bit about his Search for God painting.
And here are a few articles that have been published since his death:

'Pro Hart: hang the lot of them' (Sydney Morning Herald)
'Pro Hart farewelled' (SBS World News)
'Oh, Mr Hart ...' (Sydney Morning Herald)
'Pro Hart: loved by the people, not "art mafia"' (The Age)

Recent photos

Here's some recent photos that I haven't posted here:

Identity and social justice

Convicts in London, about to be sent to Australia
Have been thinking about how ancient Israel's identity as liberated slaves shaped their approach to social justice. A creed they recited before offering the first part of their harvest to God says,

My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O LORD, have given me.
(Deuteronomy 26:5-10)

I seems that this had alot of influence on how the the poor and the enslaved were supposed to be treated in ancient Israel. (I wrote a bit about this in January, here and here.)
Thinking about where our country has come from. Some of us have been living in this land longer than anyone can remember. Some of us are descended from poor people who were set out here as punsihment for petty crimes. One of the best known characters in our history was a bush-ranger. Some of our ancestors were persecuted in the goldfields because of their race. We had more casualties in the First World War than any other country, because our soldiers were put on the front line, even though it wasn't our war. Some of us ended up here because our homelands have been torn appart by war and genocide.
That's definitely not the whole picture of where our country's come from, but I'm wondering about how all this should influence the way we approach social justice.

Drug use during the Commonwealth Games

We noticed during the Commonwealth Games, that drug use in our laneway actually went up. Strangeley, it seems that the concreters who were working here until the Games scared people away more than the police and security guards did.
As well as there being more heroin use in the laneway, I noticed Games volunteers hiding in the laneway so they could have a smoke, and drunk tourists ended up in the laneway at least once.
Also, the fact that there hasn't been much heroin around (particularly in the CBD) means that people have been going onto speed or ice (methamphetamine, crystal meth) instead.
I don't think I'd even heard of ice until late in 2004, when Today Tonight and A Current Affair went berserk about it , so I've just been doing a bit of research. Four Corners showed a documentary on ice recently, and you can watch it or read the transcript here.

Aeon Flux

Friday night I went to see Aeon Flux with Damo and Nomes. We all agreed that it wasn't very good. Visulaly it was great (except for some dodgy CGI at the start), but it none of us could properly understand the story. It takes place 400 years into the future, but it's not really explained how the world's changed. You can see what's going on, and it all looks very nice, but it's very difficult to understand what's going on.
So it's another crappy comic-to-film adaptation, to go alongside Fantastic Four, Spiderman and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Sport and affluence

On Friday we were invited over to Tekeste and Setel's appartment for lunch. They are from Eritrea, and are trying to get permenant residency here in Australia.
Teketse reckons that a sign of a country's affluence is the amount of time and money they invest in sport. It's pretty amazing that we've got so much money here that in a lot of areas there are swimming pools and ovals and gyms all over the place. Also interesting that despite only having about 20 million people here, we always win heaps of medals in the Olympics and stuff, and do very well in a lot of other international competitions as well. And then there's all the millions of dollars we've put into the Commonwealth Games, which isn't really even a major international sporting event.

Sierra Leone goes for gold

Found this poster in Centre Way (one of the few places where street art hasn't been cleaned up) on Thursday. More than half of Sierra Leone's Commonwealth Games team have gone missing because they don't want to go back. The Age's most recent article on them is here.

Lenten Reflections

Tom Sine has uploaded Mark Piersen's Lenten Reflections onto Flickr, here.

Concerning Forest Edge

A couple of people (including MUMZ) have asked about how Forest Edge was. I have said that there was some good stuff and some crap stuff. In some ways it was fairly disorganised, and thus we got people turning up to some of our seminar things expecting a different seminar. There was a fair trade cafe area run by More Praxis, where there were a lot of social justice type seminars on, and a lot more laid back music than the rest of the festival, so that was good.

We listened to two guys argue about something they almost completely agreed on for about three hours.

We had chilli con carne sin chilli. So basically, it was just carne.

DeeDee's friend Sasha wanted me to introduce myself to this guy who she reckoned I must have been related to. It turned out to be John D'Alton. Except she reckoned he was called Calvin.

Christian City Youth, all the way from Christian City, had no tops to their heads.

A redback spider landed on Sounds Like Chicken's drum kit.

Our tent got blown down because it wasn't put up properly.

Saturday night we stayed up till about 2am helping Marcus work out what to do for his Colossians Remixed seminar the next day.

And Tomsy was:


And we got to get away from the city for a few days, just before it got absolutely insane. Now there are police and security guards and helicopters everywhere.

Black GST

I didn't end up staying inside all day after all.
This afternoon I went with Gin to visit Black GST's camp, at King's Domain. When we got there we were asked to put some gum leaves in the sacred fire (from the Tent Embassy), and then stand in the smoke, to get rid of any bad spirits from outside the camp.
It turned out that Mary, who worked on one of the murals in our laneway, was there painting a map of the camp. There was a lot of painting going on, as well as music, cooking, football and preparation for subversive action.

Coffee in the laneway

Yesterday morning we took some couches out into the laneway, and served coffee and biscuits, from 10:30 until lunch. We're doing it because a lot of the service providers in the CBD are cutting back their services during the Games, because they figure that most of the people who use them won't want to be around, because of all the police, et cetera. So we thought we should try and make it more comfortable for people to be in the city. So we'll be doing it today, as well as Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week.

I looked out the office window just before, and wondered why there were bins blocking off the laneway.

Then I realised it was so no-one would park where we'll be setting up.

Today Melbourne is going to be very stupid because:

• it's the Commonwealth Games
• it's St Patrick's Day, so there will lots of drunk people pretending to be Irish
  
• Condoleeza Rice is coming to town
• there's an anti-war protest, starting at the State Library this morning, and then moving into the CBD

So I think I'll be trying to stay inside today.

Monitoring 2006

This has already been going on for a little while now, but I forgot to mention it here. We've started the Monitoring 2006 Project to record how disadvantaged people are being effected by the Commonwealth Games, particularly the 12 500 police and 4500 security guards. Our press release is here. We got mentioned in The Age, here.

TAZ: Temporary Autonomous Zone

A roaming graffiti wall has been created as part of the Melbourne 2006 Graffiti Games. I spotted it yesterday in Degraves Street. Pictures here, here and here.

Opening night

Apparently the Games Opening Ceremony was on last night, while we were having tea, and while CLEAN was opening, in Hosier Lane. We went down to have a look after we'd had tea, and then went down to Flinders Street Station, where the food vans come most nights. Recently there hasn't been much people there because the police appear to have been bothering them a lot. But last night quite a lot of people turned up, particularly young people. (There haven't been many young people down there at all this year, apparently because of the police. We also noticed that there were a lot of young people in Credo yesterday.) So although there were a lot of police around, I think it would've been difficult for them to move people on, because so many turned up to the food vans, and because of the crowns of people going to watch the Opening Ceremony at the MCG or on the big screens.

Melbourne, Commonwealth Games, Opening Ceremony

The concreters have finished, so we have our laneway back now.

These are our new curtains. Ray made them and put them up last week.

Coke evangelism and other train station stuff

All the bins at Flinders Street Station have been replaced with transparent ones, so it's easier to see if someone's put a bomb in them or whatever:


When I was at the same station on Saturday, I noticed that Coke had a stage set up where they were giving away free drinks. They were actually yelling out slogans through a megaphone.

Some of us around here have been talking a bit about how similar the new Coke campaign (Why can't relationships come with a gap year? Why can't we have a big money job with zero responsibilities?) is to the offers the devil makes to Jesus during his forty days in the desert.

The devil said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.'
Jesus answered, 'It is written: "Man does not live on bread alone."'
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, 'I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.'
Jesus answered, 'It is written: "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only."'
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 'If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down from here. For it is written:

'"He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."'

Jesus answered, 'It says: "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."'
(Luke 4:3-12)

Coke and the devil both seem to be offering no limits, without any consequences.
I also wonder whether the only thing the new Coke contains that is actually good for someone's body is water, seeing as it contains no sugar.

Took this while I was waiting at Burnley, for the Glen Waverly train, so I could go and get my wallet, which was handed in at The Glen:


And when I got to Glen Waverly I noticed these on the train platform:

Control Investments

One of the few billboards I actually liked (it was for Next Wave Festival) has just been replaced with this:

And now that I've had a look at the website I don't think it's so bad. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be another Zero Movement.

Forest Edge Festival

After work tomorrow night I'm going down to Forest Edge Festival. Hurrah. It goes till Monday, I think. The education guys are running some of the seminar type stuff.

CLEAN launch

CLEAN launches 6pm Wednesday night, in Hosier Lane. More info at the CLEAN website.

Hosier Lane, featuring the garbage of Hosier Lane

Wednesday afternoon, for Pain in the Arts (the Credo art group), I went for a walk with Andre and Marie around the city, so we could take pictures of what's going on leading up to the Games. They wanted to take some photos of Melbourne's wonderful street art, but most of it's been taken down, so we took a few photos of the bare walls.
Before we went back to Credo we went up Hosier Lane, one of the few places in the CBD that's not being sterilised to impress our visitors.









I love how art can make the ugliest things beautiful. Not just concrete walls, but even garbage:




I drew this when we got back:

Got me thinking again about a conversation we had with Brian McLaren, when he and Grace were visiting a couple of weeks ago. We (mostly Brian and Marcus) were talking about the implications of calling something (or someone) waste. How can a part of God's creation be considered waste?
Been thinking over the last six months or so about what a creation myth would look like if it developed completely in an urban environment. Would the creator spirit of an urban mythology create towers and trains and powerlines? Would it create some really good rubbish for the people to find uses for?

Melbourne panopticon

As of yesterday there's been security guards everywhere as well as the extra police. It seems there's a security guard down every laneway I walk past. One good thing is that they're not going to have any security guards stationed in our laneway, although one security guard will be coming down regualrly to check that everyone's being good. Another good thing is that the police have said that they'll call us if there's a situation involving drug use or overdose.

Commonwealth Games legislation

Thanks to Vic from Empire Games, I've been able to find some of the legislation that's been passed just for the Commonwealth Games:

• Commonwealth Games Arrangements (Games Management Areas) Regulations 2006
• Commonwealth Games Arrangements (Amendment) Act 2003
• Commonwealth Games Arrangements (Further Amendment) Act 2004
• Commonwealth Games Arrangements (Governance) Act 2003
• Commonwealth Games Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2005
  

Melbourne, Commonwealth Games, legislation, Commonwealth Games legislation

Green & Gold Slurpee controversy

As you may or may not know, there is a Commonwealth Games Act (which I've found impossible to access online), which prohibits people from carrying certain items at Commonwealth Games venues, including skateboards, unauthorised recording equipment and voice amplification devices.
Something you may be more likely to know, (considering how hot it was in Melbourne today) is that 7 Eleven are giving 15c from every Green & Gold Slurpee they sell to our Commonwealth Games heroes.

However, 7 Eleven are also encouraging their customers to breach the Commonwealth Games Act by turning their Slurpee cups into megaphones, in order to 'cheer on our Aussies'!

XVIII Stolenwealth Games

Black GST (Genocide to end, Sovreignty to beacknowledged, Treaty to be made) have set up a website for the Stolenwealth Games.

Melbourne Graffiti Games

The Graffiti Games Organising Committee (GGOC) has declared Melbourne CBD a maximum tolerance zone for graffiti.

Unlike the elitist Commonwealth Games the Graffiti Games will be open to anyone with a spray-can and a good or bad idea. The entire population of Victoria, as well as interstate and international visitors, are encouraged to compete.

Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Lent is the forty days before Easter Sunday (not counting the Sundays), which is traditionally a time for 'reflection, repentance and resolve to live differently.' (That's from Mark's Lenten Reflections 06)
Been thinking a lot recently about how we can look after the God's creation, which we depend on, and are part of. So I'm going to try and go without meat for Lent, largely because it takes so much land to produce meat. Not only do livestock take up the land they live on, they also take up the land needed to grow their food. I'm also going to go without alcohol, but I don't want to be obsessive about either.

Marcus has done a post about the MLC vocations gig, here.

The Hare Krishnas

This afternoon EcoPaul asked if I wanted to go down to Albert Park, to have tea at the Hare Krishna temple, and then go to the beach.
So after Eco had finished work, we caught the tram down to Albert Park, and then walked to the temple. We went through a garden, to the back of the kitchen, to grab some steel trays to eat off, because Eco won't use the disposable cardboard trays.
One of the monks in the kitchen was talking on his mobile phone, so Eco yelled at him to turn it off, reasoning that it'd give everyone cancer. The monk said he wasn't going to get rid of his phone, because millions of cows are being killed every day, and he can use his phone to organise action against this. Eco asked the monk what he thought about whales being killed, and the monk said that cows are more important, because we drink the cow's milk, so the cow is like our mother. Then Eco said that whales are the cows of the sea.
We went into the prayer room, where there were statues of various forms of Krishna, paintings of Krishna's story, and a statue of Srila Prabhupada. Eco explained what some of the pictures were about.
Then we went and sat in the garden for a while. There were a few people chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, which sounded a lot like Pentecostal christians when the speak in tongues (just like the Indigo Children do when they speak Star Language).
Eco was saying stuff about how he reckons Jesus was a vegetarian. I said I didn't think he was, because a number of times he gave people fish to eat. So Eco said that that was the same as me giving people meat to eat in Credo. So I pointed out that I'm not actually a vegetarian, I just try not to eat too much meat. So Eco started yelling out to everyone, 'He's not a vegetarian! He eats meat!'
Later we went upstairs to eat. We had buckwheat, tomato, zuccini, tofu, potato, a dessert that had coconut in it, and an orange drink. When we had finished eating, we went back to the kitchen to wash our trays. I went over to the bins to get rid of my polystyrene cup. One of the monks was hosing the concrete around the bins.
I said to him, 'Is this bin one for garbage?'
He said, 'What does it look like?'
So I walked across the patch of concrete he was hosing, to put my cup in the bin.
Then he said, 'Fine, would you like to clean the concrete yourself?'
So I said, 'Sorry, I just had to get to the bin.'
He smirked and said, 'Have you ever been to a temple before?'
I said I hadn't, and he gave me a smug look. Most of the other people were very nice. But that was probably the worst conversation I've had with a religious person since I visited a certain church last year, where the pastor said that if he wasn't a Christian he'd punch me.
After that we walked down to the beach. Eco turned off someone's sprinkler system on the way.

'Tarting up to impress the tourists'

Kate (Urban Seed resident from last year)'s housemate got a letter in The Age today:

Tarting up to impress the tourists
WELL, I for one am so relieved to hear that, due to the new Victoria Police and State Government policy, there will be no "distressed" homeless people on our streets during the Commonwealth Games. I would be so worried if all the important international visitors thought that our homeless people were distressed about their living situations. How embarrassing that would be for our city!

And thank goodness for the 24-hour number that will direct homeless people to shelter. They can just whip out their latest model mobile phones, dial the number, and be hidden from sight in no time. Now, that's a load off my mind.
Rebecca Rowe, Thornbury

letter, Melbourne, Commonwealth Games, homeless, homelessness,

The most important question you will ever have to answer

If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?

CLEAN

CLEAN is an ambush-style audio installation, bringing the dirty side of Melbourne to life in the midst of the 2006 Commonwealth Games urban polish. CLEAN explores what it means to scrub up a city in the name of sport.

Nic Low's been going around interviewing street people, beggars, street artists and others who feel as though they're being excluded from the Commonwealth Games, asking them about the clean-up process that's been going on. When Commonwealth Games visitors go up Hosier Lane, they'll set off motion sensors, starting speakers hidden in pipes and drains, so the voices of those who probably won't be around anymore can still be heard.

Melbourne, Commonwealth Games, art, installation, installation art, art installation, street art, graffiti, begging, homeless