Ten Pin Bowling - my style

We decided to go bowling over the weekend with the kids and their mates, the youth group and so on. I knew that it would be a long affair and I thought I would leave the kids do their thing! So I came prepared-with my laptop and one of my favourite movies "The Bourne Identity"

Amused I think would be the word as passer by's looked on along with the youth. Well why not with their pins and balls, strikes and random cheers of glory it all mingled with the screams and screeches of tyres the roar of wound out car engines, gunfire and the ricochet of bullets. The bloodied fists of Matt Damon escaping the clutches of those rogue agent sleepers. There's nothing like a good killing down at the local bowling lanes.....Oh! and a good burger and fries with that!

By the way, that's not my bag in the photo that's Linda's, she was doing card making....you think I'm nuts......

A Country Holiday - Part 2

We had so much fun together on holidays no matter where we went, the larger the number of us the better it was. Swimming down at the fresh water creek was a real treat escaping the heat of the day onto the cool gravel banks which were lined with willows and other gums. Swinging and jumping into the rippled water off ropes and splashing about was an afternoon well spent. Bathing in rubber ring inner tubes and playing tag, watching mom and dad sharing a moment together while mom adorned in her yellow floral bathing cap and dad with his handkerchief with the corners tied into small knots so as to cover his head and protect it from the harsh sun was a memory we all share. At one point that summer afternoon dad had yelled for us all to hurry out of the water! Once out we looked back into the yellow stained creek and saw a long thin water snake winding its way down stream. Skimming and winding its way across the surface with its head just above the water where we had just been swimming. This may have been lethal for one of us, they are very deadly. Land snakes were also very common for this country, red belly blacks, browns and even the odd green tree snake was seen hanging in the trees which we climbed. But the cool evenings were always my favorite as the sun set and the deep blues and purples rose above the horizon with the slightest twinkling of the first star appearing in the deepest blue sky. The silhouette of the now black hills and the golden and rust sunset settled down low. Stars emerged and gained brightness the longer I stayed and watched. I loved the cool gentle evening breezes the slight rustle of the leafy trees which were now absent from the light but the solitude and sounds made you fully aware of what was now hidden in the shadows. The night sky was immense out in the country with planets visible and celestial bodies above the crisp night air and I felt ALIVE!
Glorious is this creation above me I am so minuscule in the equation of things, small and insignificant in the greater picture. The colors of stars were more than diamond blue, but now diamond white with red and green jewels packing the heavens. Clusters and bunches, singulars and double stars all sparkled with life and filled the deep blanket of space above me. My memory for such things is sharp and the aromas of life still preoccupy my senses. The aroma of fresh culled lamb being roasted on a fire stove mingled with smoke racing up the chimney stack was deliciously pungent along with the hot crusty bread and potato's. The strong smell of cattle and manure from the earthy farm is not an unpleasant odor as it reminds me of happier times and the fondness for my surrogate family. The dusty dirt mixed with the dryness of the heat reflects upon times spent in open paddocks surrounded by sheep and the rancid odor of their soiled fleece. But never the less this was a time of youthful experiences growing up in a time of innocence and raw country.
Early morning would come upon us ever so quickly with the new day birthing itself through open windows and shadows disappearing. Dew covered webs were exposed between fences and tall weeds, glistening in the daylight. The echo of moans from cows and the slight bark of a distant dog was heard in the stillness of the country. Breathe in, breathe out ah that fresh morning air would hit your lungs like pure oxygen racing down a shaft. Breakfast was mayhem in that little cottage the ruckus of hungry men devouring every crumb of hot buttery toast and gulping down pints of fresh milk with the clatter of dishes and the mad dash to fly out of those barn doors stampeding off to various principalities of the farm to continue yesterdays adventure were all part of the morning ceremonial dance. As the day warmed the chorus of cicadas hummed loudly from the canopy above and we traipsed down dirt tracks and through the bush with the crunch of dry grass and sticks under foot. Grass hoppers leapt out of our way clinging to tall grasses and the odd rabbit scurried down brittle mud holes.


The families were out together on this particular day and we were given a crash course in what to do if we marched upon a sun bathed snake in the brush. Stop and signal! Do not run! and don't panic but call or whistle then we will get to you, so with this is mind we went off to search out firewood for the fire ovens and stove. Collecting was made easier for the farm houses with so many of us out scouring unitedly putting together bundles of kindling and piling up short logs and broken stumps. We had headed out into several directions and within minutes screams filled the bush! Yes it was me. I could hear don't panic and don't run! but run was all I could do. I had stumbled into the bush by myself when I stood upon a fallen limb from a gum tree to see if I could spot everyone else. As I stretched my gaze I was assaulted by a whole nest of hornets which they had built within the fallen log. I had stood smack bang on top of them unaware. There was no warning or humming noises to my recollection. Next I felt powerful mighty stings come from those yellow insects. I ran to escape them but they followed ferociously stinging me all over. My legs were covered with what looked like hives and my neck, face and ears were all victims of the indiscriminate attack. I think mom was the first to get to me and she had picked me up and huddled me into the cab of the truck in which we had traveled to collect the wood. Sobbing with fright and crying from discomfort all had come to see what the hoo-hah was. Disillusioned they left after peering in at me to carry out their task of collecting wood with no great tale to tell of the snake that had attacked one of us, what an anticlimax to what could have gone down into the chronicles of the Children's home.
With our holiday now winding down the mood was a little somber with packing slowly and other menial duties to perform we started to say our goodbyes and let our true feelings show. We were all going to miss this place and the newly developed friendships we had established with this family we had come to know and love. Shane one of the boys around my age, my best friend shared his first kiss with the farmers daughter. Tiny green frogs we had collected now had to be let go although some never made it as we had hidden some under our beds inside a monopoly board game only to find the next morning they had dried out like peas and obviously died. Dad and his two natural sons shared time with each other bonding while restoring an old yellow rusted out jalopy which sat motionless on the side of the dirt track to the farm house. We rode around the paddocks in that car with plumes of smoke trailing behind filling the air along with our laughter.
Horses were ridden one of which had bitten Stephen on the back and well deserved I thought for his mistreatment of so many creatures. Bunnies caught in traps squealed as their last breath was knocked out of them with a final lethal blow. Hiding in lofts, watching lambs culled and night spotting kangaroo were all practises of devout and antiquated farm life we had come to know.

Mesmerised in reflection as the drive home was long, we all sat silently staring through the dust stained glass into the horizon as shadowy blurs passed us by, wondering! what was happening at this very moment on the farm which had seduced us so swiftly and whilst not even bringing back so much as one single memento but instead rich memories and the dust left on the soles of our shoes. The farm has become a cherished memory deep in the annuals of my mind, sacred and unchanged.

The End.

Rinaldo

A Country Holiday - Part 1

Uralla - Armidale, NSW

The thought of going on holidays always filled me with high spirits and excitement, the anticipation was unbearable like that of youthful Christmas eve's, and waiting up to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus. The night before leaving we hardly slept, the air was filled with a commotion of whispers bags were packed, fishing rods out, tents lined up and the clothes to be worn the next day were laid out ready to slip into at 4:00am the next morning. "Check the batteries in your torches boys" Dad said to us all before hitting the hay. These were the summer holidays and we always had such great adventures wherever we went. If it wasn't camping on a river with canoes and fishing it was to the farm with trapping rabbits, shooting and riding horses. Sometimes it was a holiday house at the beach on the mid north central coast where we would swim, play cricket and run down sand dunes for two weeks. There were fourteen of us boys in total and never a dull moment had. We ranged in age from 20 years down to the youngest, 7, that was me. Two vehicles were packed and loaded and one with a trailer hitched the day before leaving. Early in the crisp quiet morning everyone was woken and piled into the vehicles and I was the last to be woken only to be ushered into the back of the little blue ford station wagon and laid down on my sleeping bag where I continued to sleep whilst traveling north to Uralla, outside Armidale, NSW. Farm country! Bush, dust, heat, plains, hills, creeks, cattle and flies! millions of flies.
Mom and Dad were fortunate enough to know someone who knew someone else that would rent out this small farmhouse on their huge property. Their names now slip my memory but they also had their own dwelling which housed the young family of five, with two boys around 10 or 12 and the youngest a girl of around 7 or 8.
The trip started out in what seemed the black of night, but in reality was around 4:00am but not far into the trip the sun dawned appearing with its blazing light shining directly upon us and square into our eyes. It was brilliant! The day was fresh and now stirring, we full of yawns and waking now sitting upright in our seats were headed for adventure.
We traveled along the main roads and highways that passed through toll gates on route. Coins were readied to be thrown into the basket at the toll booth so that the red light could change to green giving us the all clear to proceed on our way. Mom was driving the wagon on this occasion and the toll gates were dead ahead. Her speed never seemed to alter as we approached the light at the toll booth with the lowered boom gate. I could hear the fumbling for change as us boys stared at the boom gate wide eyed as we seemed to approach quicker and quicker! MOM we yelled! slow down, you have to slow right down and put the money in the basket! but Mom so casually kept going without even braking, whether she was nave or just gutsy I don't know but we all groped for the roof, the sides of the car, the dash whatever we could as Mom ran the red, she tossed the coins out of the window and they tumbled and crashed into the basket then making their way down to the bottom, she planted her foot just as the boom lifted in time. All this happened without Mom ever applying the brakes. We sailed through with not so much as a blink from Mom as we just sat there stunned with dropped jaws and bulged eyes.........well! this is how I remember it anyway. She let out a laugh and her grin was from ear to ear like a cat chuffed with itself after escaping with its ninth life, we were speechless. What at first seemed like a huge kerfuffle turned out to be one of the coolest things Mom ever did, we all laughed and thought how groovy Mom was. Where did she learn to drive like that? She must have seen it at the movies, where else?
The drive was long and dry but we had finally arrived turning onto the long dusty road that afternoon which would wind us through to the farm house. Through open yellow paddocks and cattle grids, and through the opening and closing of rusted old gates, we were on the open acres of their property. Rusted barbed wire fences with rickety tree stumps used as posts lined the dusty long track all the way through the dry bush. Flies buzzed around the windows as dirt smeared them and visibility was poor from the cloud of dust settling from the vehicle in front of us. I recall the long track as it was well traveled by us all which led out to the main road, it was the only way in and the only way out. The baker would come each morning and leave hot fresh loaves of bread in the mail box situated at the beginning of the drive. They were wrapped in open ended thin paper and we would ride the farms motor bike down the long road to pick them up. It was way to far to walk too. The aroma of that crusty bread still remains with me and the large thick slices with peanut butter spread across them were more than delicious. Lambs running in the paddocks and cattle roaming, dogs rounding up strays with whistles from the master were all a part of farm life here. I remember the fresh milk and the pale cream which sat beneath the bubbly froth collected in those metal buckets. Scones were made fresh with the milk from those early morning milking's and whipped butter smeared across those warm yellow cakes served right out of the hot oven with fresh cream and home made preserves. The smell of the wood fire oven even in the heat of summer was sensational, the small chimney stack on the iron roof was so charming in the setting of draped willows which surrounded the little farm house and sheltered it from the scorching summer heat. The cool breeze pushed the old tyre swing under the large tree nearest the house whilst we all ran about playing near the wooden veranda which swept all the way round the old quaint cottage. Cool lemonade was served for afternoon tea with those delicious scones and cake while the dogs lie in the shade tied by long rope to the heavy old machinery lying about in the tall grass.

For us boys fourteen in all, exploring for the first couple of days was the immediate plan of action with barns and wool sheds, dams and bush to conquer. This saw us through as mom and dad needed wind down time after the long haul to the country and several months of the getting us off to school, checking homework, cooking and cleaning, driving us to boys brigade to church and other social functions. Teacher parents interviews, kisses and cuddles, tucking us all in at night, saying prayers with us all morning and night then entertaining us with comical antidotes from their travels from England to Australia on the cruise ship the Oriana and the war stories of the bombing raids upon great Britain during the second world war. All these things took place while Dad held down full time work at the local technical teaching college. He repaired the family cars at home on weekends, worked on hobbies we undertook and could not finish without his help, fixed bikes, took us all water skiing or fishing but also had the infamous task of disciplining us boys with our quivering bare bottoms staring up at him right in the eye waiting for the spanking of a lifetime. It must have been as traumatic for him as it was for us staring at all those bottoms over the years, any wonder his hair curled and eventually fell out. Dads favorite word was Taboo! If we weren't to touch or do something it was always referred to as TABOO! Dad had a unique and apt way of gathering us all together on outings if we had wandered off too far or too long or simply when we needed to head off again. He would whistle! but not just any old whistle. He would cup both hands together with a hollow center in between his palms then put his cupped hands to his lips and blow through a small gap between his thumbs, we could hear it from afar. It was so distinct we all knew it well and we would come a running to that sound he was famous for.

The weeks passed by so quickly whilst on holiday and there was never a dull moment. The hours in the day never seemed quite long enough, we filled them to capacity with so much living. We rode horses and went rabbit trapping, shooting kangaroos in the wild and caught small green frogs placing them in glass jars with small holes punched into the lids and trapped tadpoles with buckets down at the dam. Nestled up in the trees we had nailed potato sacks from the farm across branches and lay around in them watching the long property views and spying on those who would walk by underneath in stealth. Looking back it was a little foolish laying high in the lofty branches but what did we know? just as well we were slender boys who actively worked off every calorie with hard play. We'd help out on the property by picking apricots and eating our fill of them whist doing so, gathering wood and helping with other chores around the place. There's some old footage somewhere of dad and I riding a motorbike which belonged on the farm. Dad left a trail of dust behind him as he rode down the dusty track towards the old 8mm camera up by the farm house we all stayed in. He looked as though he was riding solo until in the last few frames you could see my thin arms straining to gather around his waist and then the terrified look upon my face came into view as we both rode past the camera. One day we boys asked mom for chocolate as we were all hankering for something sweet, but none was to be found. Mom then realized that she had packed some chocolate laxatives, boxes of the stuff. Why she ever had thought to bring so much with her we will never know but she had thought what would it hurt if she gave it to us. It would do us all good to be cleaned out I guess! she must have thought. So she gave the chocolate laxatives to us......a whole box each!! We woofed it down so fast at the thought of that delicious silky chocolate not knowing what lay in wait for us all. Well may I just add at this point that there was only one thunder box for sixteen people! and not to near the farmhouse, for sanitation reasons of course! It consisted of a metal bucket underneath the roughly made timber seat which had to be emptied into a pit every time it was full. Flies buzzed about ferociously banging into the walls and our faces like blinded swarms of bats escaping daylight for the cover of darkness.
Well what a fiasco...within the first 20 minutes or so the grumble of tummy's began and the pains of swamped bowels started to show on our small faces or should I say the pipes started to moan and the mad dash towards the thunder box was on. It was the survival of the fittest when all fourteen boys needed to go at once. We danced about like natives on hot coals, choreographed like blinded drunks and nothing that you've ever seen before, running about like chook's with heads cut off banging into one another as we escaped through the fly wire screen door hands covering our bottoms as if trying to hold back the forces of nature in vain and anything that might want to suddenly escape. Some dashed behind trees some made it to the toilet and others ran into the paddocks. For the rest I don't know or wish to remember but all I know is that the pit needed filling in twice before our holiday was over.....

Rinaldo

Ruhamah—‘The ones I love.’

Hosea the prophet of the old testament was told by God to marry Gomer a prostitute, to illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the LORD and worshiping other gods."

So Gomer the wife of Hosea became pregnant a second time and this time gave birth to a daughter. And the LORD said to Hosea, "Name your daughter Lo-ruhamah—'Not loved'—for I will no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them.

This was the name of the Baptist children's home I grew up in as a child. Born of no particular royalty or blood line or to any great future or call I existed along with all those other children who entered through the doors of that house. At the tender age of five I still remember the day my hand was let go and I entered into Ruhamah. The years passed and many of the children did not have parents or relatives visit them only I, one of 14 had regular visits from my natural birth mother every six weeks or so as she worked shifts. I would count down the days with such joyfulness and could barely contain the excitement within my tiny frame. My chest pounded and my heart ached at the thought of my visit now only hours away.

In the vestibule of the children's home sat on old black telephone on a stand surrounded with books and other papers and a silver shiny number dial. The hand piece was big and cumbersome and looked as though it had come out of televisions "Get Smart" episodes. I watched that phone from Thursday night through to Saturday morning hoping and begging for it not to ring. I knew that if that phone would ring, it would be my mother to cancel her visit. This happened often which crushed me. How a child ever recovers from this I don't know, the continual breaking of spirit and heart for me was a very painful thing to overcome and bear. I would have to wait a whole other six weeks and the countdown would start all over again. But I survived but can never forget the anguish and the distraught emotion which followed for weeks and years after.

But for others no one ever came! Mom and Dad of the home gave all the love they had but it was the Lord's love that we needed and His alone was the only love that could heal us.

The story does not end here for Israel knew their God to be a merciful God and He had promised that through their repentance and through God's great mercy towards them that they again would become His very own people whom He loved. Through unbelief some where broken off forever but for those who believed and who had obtained God's great mercy have now become known and named Ruhamah—‘The ones I love"

How merciful is our God, and His mercy has been demonstrated here to us boys who were the unloved but then became the loved by God! This children's home was no longer a house of the unloved but a sanctuary for "the ones God Loves"

My home today is know by its name "Hebron" which means a place of refuge, paradise and a place of peace. It is where the Lord dwells with us and we with Him. I do thank God for rescuing me and placing me in Ruhamah for its where I met my saviour, its where I was rescued and it's where I received mercy! and His LOVE....

Thanks Mom and Dad for your great love and sacrifice, I know you will hear those words "Well done good and faithful servants - enter into my rest"

Truly Thank you!

Rinaldo

The Flyer

The Flyer
The Newcastle to Sydney flyer was a grand experience, a regular trip which weekly commuters, travelers and children rode frequently to their destinations. Generally from Sydney it took around two and a half hours to arrive at the end of the line, Newcastle railway station. I rode this train many times and have sizable memories of the summer journeys and travels they took me upon. They began first as mere visits for holidays to my grandmothers house where my sister lived where I would spend two weeks at a time with them. The train was long and measured up against the concrete platform. A yellow painted line ran its whole length as an edge to keep passengers safe behind as hurtling trains pulled in and out of the busy station. I can still smell the seats in the cars of the train and the feel of the timber, smooth and polished along the widow sills and door frames. The diesel you could taste and the smoke filled the air breaking through the tears of arriving and departing loved ones and as business men carried their newspapers and excited children embarking on holidays lined the fast tracks. There were smoking and non-smoking cars, a buffet car which you would courageously leave your seat to fight the jostling movement of the train to reach for a sandwich and coffee. The thrill also of changing cars whilst in motion was like being that of today's Indiana Jones jumping the roof of one car to the next and holding on for dear life, a fierce wind blowing and eyes focused downward toward the hardened steel tracks, silver streaks disappearing beneath you! yet whilst in reality you would only have to open the door at the end of the carriage and pass over the two plates of landing coupled together with chains and linked hand rails on either side which jerked away from each other whilst trying to cross them in motion, then breaking through the noise barrier and the up draught of air into the next car with a thud of the door closing behind you locking out the volume and what seemed to be a gale force wind.
Central station Sydney was a concrete jungle of activity with sounds too many to recall, trains coming and going, departures and baggage trolleys moving up and down the platforms, deep sounding horns from trains departing the station, radio announcements and clocks that would surround the place with times of all the traffic but the most magnificent sight were those endless steel tracks intertwined, streaming forward for miles and miles crossing over one another and branching out into several different directions as your eyes would follow them as far as possible. The sounds of the approaching metal bullets and the rickety sounds of those timer matchbox type trains rolling into the station made the atmosphere complete. What a commotion! a junket of railway fever. Blue uniforms and whistles, loud speakers, tickets and litter blown around the tracks as the heavy locomotives hurtled their way into position alongside the packed commuters. The air pushed hair around faces and flipped hats off, threw newspapers around like mother nature itself, Central Station was alive, 24/7.
The seats were bouncy and almost leathery but not quite, with the N.S.W. Railways emblem punched into the seats at random intervals, the smell was like a new car smell and the floors were smooth and slippery. The windows rattled and could be opened almost enough to get your head out of, but the oncoming train passing inches from your face was enough to put an end to reaching out further than you wanted too. The boom of explosives placed on tracks by signal men notified those working up ahead of the upcoming locomotive. Tickets please! yelled the conductor who would examine every passengers ticket and then punch a hole into it with a bright silver hole punch. The tickets were printed on to thin green card and stamped with your destination and the date of travel.
All aboard! time to leave, the horn would blow and the doors to the cars would close, the air conditioning system would get louder and then the jolt as we all lurched forward would indicate we are finally departing the station. Last goodbyes were said through glass and waves from one aisle to the next to those left standing along side the huge engine with the endless stream of boxcars passing them by. Brass fitting with fixtures for baggage were above our heads and small radiators were at the ends of each car for the winter traveler. Bubbler's filled with icy water were also fixtures in the vestibules of the train and ash trays in the arms of the seats for the smokers. How exciting to be a traveler, I was on my way to my grandmothers house all on my own. I never read or said much while traveling but just took in the scenic views with sun and shadow flickering past through the trees. A seldom word is spoken by me even to this day as I travel, I like to take in the sights and reflect upon silly notions and wonders in my head.
If you have ever had this experience of the Sydney to Newcastle flyer you also would remember that the Railways would give out free ice creams for those holding tickets, served in small round tubs with a wooden paddle to eat it with wrapped in cellophane, Peter's ice cream from memory. What a treat it was and one I had come to look forward to with all my travels backwards and forwards to Newcastle.
As the years passed and I grew a little older and I would think back about these frequent journeys, like the time we all had to alight the train at Gosford station! There seemed to be quite a disturbance going on by all the railway guards and station master with detectives and dogs being brought in. Down on the tracks and under the train they went, luggage was rummaged through all the while we stood at one end of the short platform. A bomb hoax was then explained to us all but nothing ever found. I thought to myself if the bomb had gone off we would have all been killed anyway as the train was right next us and we were not that far from it.
The times have changed now from those diesel engines and the Indian red and brown matchbox cars to the silver and steel, double decker cars now with electric run engines. The last time I caught the Flyer was when I was 13 years of age, this time it was a one way ticket July 9th 1976. I know this date well as it was the final journey I ever took upon the Flyer which reunited me with my mother, a dream dreamt of often, but in reality it was everything short of what I had conjured up in my mind. I left my sister and grandmother at Broad meadows station, Newcastle one Friday afternoon. I had left on bad terms, terms which have never really been resolved or talked about to this day. Money and theft were the issues and my sister and I were the guilty parties although I feel I got the blame for the most of it.
I had arrived in Sydney in the dark winter and it was cold. I carried my luggage across several platforms with a scarce number of people about and then had to make my way to the suburbs by train. It was a lonely ride with no one to meet me, the first of many lonely paths and journeys in my life. I new where to go as I had been to this place before, Petersham in Sydney's inner west quite close to the city itself full of new Australians and a whole different culture of people. I got out of the train at Petersham station that night, after trying to peer through the darkness with my hands cupped around my eyes pushed up against the window of the train as I made my way to the station but could see nothing. I got out and it was very dark and a large staircase stood in front of me. One light reflected down onto the platform and stairs. An overpass slightly lit led me onto the street which then took me upon a 3 kilometer walk to mums place. An old brick two storey house directly under Sydney's flight path to the airport, which had been converted into 4 flats, with an old copper as a laundry tub in the backyard with water and gas pipes running along the outside brick work. I struggled with my bags and fought off the chill in the air, alone and a little frightened I made it to her one bedroom flat where she lived and which would now become mine for a short while. I traipsed up the stairs and in through the unlocked door. It was dark with no lights on. I heard some noise coming from another room and saw the flickering of TV lights so I made my way down the corridor to it and there was my mother! she laid in her warm bed watching TV, a new colour set which she had just bought as these sets had only been released a year or so earlier. Her opening words were "Oh you made it and why did you do it? (referring to the stealing). I didn't know how to answer her or what to make of her just laying there watching TV, never bothering get up or to come meet me at the station but instead allowing me to travel all that way at night on my own.
Well this was the first of many unanswered questions and frequent disappointments throughout my life with her.
Nevertheless the journey's upon the Sydney to Newcastle flyer were events that ushered me into many of life's destinations, some well traveled, some not so well traveled. I wonder where in life did those past journeys take others? To happiness or to devastation, to regret or to nowhere?
Regardless wherever the destination I will never forget the anticipation and the excitement of my travels aboard the Flyer.

Rinaldo

The Beach.....

I am inarguably detained and captive to the thoughts and experiences of my past like a jungle narcotic and to their fixed and unchanged emotions which run rife through me as though it were my true life force instead of the shady red blood. As a child I took it all in, everything, I adapted quickly to life and the environments which surrounded me as if a chameleon. Life was fresh most of the time and I, inquisitive for it and its purest moments would inhabit embrace and devour all of its substance. I fed on the best of what came my way if only for ever so brief a moment or for simply a glimpse of an encounter with this intoxicating breath and mystery, called life!

Ah! The beach, this charismatic deep blue liquid which pools over our planet like a sultry woman from the east draped in pure silk. It surrounded me as I grew up in Sydney's south, and though even as painful as it was to dip in the cool salt water whilst eczema peppered my flesh in every joint and fold of skin, exposed and eaten by its appetite I fell for its hook. As mountainous as the seas could be to a child, tossing and tumbling one so young end to end with tremendous ease and without remorse all the while starved of breath only to be ejected to the surface for deep gasps of oxygen, then dropped again face down deep in wet gritty sand, grazed legs mangled in surf! It was exhilarating to be released and survive its rough play, dumped and spat onto the beach looking like a garnish twisted and served on top of some Thai dish. I was drawn by its beauty, its hypnotic dance, wave upon wave, backward and forward, sheets of foam and glazed ocean racing upon the yellow sands pulling, grabbing and swallowing whatever it could then spewing it back again, I was drawn into its compelling tow.
Thousands just like me shaped and unshaped, different yet all the same species sojourned towards it like a trek to Mecca and would demand an audience with it surrounded by golden sands cusping its edge. We came to watch and peruse, to sample and squander, to be seen and to have the day deplete us, every ounce of pure energy exhausted by this tireless and ageless sea. Exquisite and exotic beauties would parade the hot sand, endless rows of bronzed and chocolate mannequins lay still baked and crusted with thin layers of salt as they lie motionless in the sun on coloured canvases. Radios carried the flirty and sensual sounds of the beach boys, while frivolities on the beach perpetuated as frisbees dashed from one end of the unencumbered Aussie sand to the other, beach balls bounced and flew against the bluest skies whilst a kaleidoscope of beach umbrellas studded and promenaded the beach. Eskies filled with icy coke, bottled ready to be popped which quenched a tide of thirsts, ice creams on sticks ran down the fingers and arms of children, tongues madly racing to capture every last drop of melted vanilla streams. Zinc cream pasted thick over lips and noses to prevent scorching and burning. Bronzed feet flicked up grains of sand as the gentle breeze would carry them back to the collective and wet revealing speedos were worn by shaped Aussie males and children. Bikinis were filled to overflowing as though the rest of the costume was to be purchased at the next lay by payment. Coconut oil lavished the bodies of women and girls roasting them in the gorgeous sun, the scent was heavenly, memorable like that of an Hawaiian Island. The sounds were contagious as laughter resounded throughout the surf as it thundered down onto the sands, it was perfect in every way. I never grew tired of the beach and all its pleasures. The smell of pies and sauce littered our senses, the aroma was hypnotic and the local kiosk had lines banked up to the hot asphalt. Hot chips and sauce, fish and chips splashed with vinegar, with the sound of seagulls squabbling over the random discarded potato chip! The people came in droves to worship, laying at the alter of its power thrashing the seabed floor. Seaweed tangled around ankles and the screams of fear from what had ensnared them beneath the cool depths.
Macho teens paraded the beach with their sun bleached blonde hair. These surfers would nonchalantly carry their waxed boards down to the waters edge and enter the cool sea with prose, diving onto their boards they would paddle out beyond the breakers. The rest of us inadequate, would lay on the polystyrene boards obtained with a meal for a buck from Colonel Sanders and doing the best we could to catch a wave. We'd emerge from the water with rashes on our simple chests from the constant rubbing of flesh from the now cracked board.
Girls had eyes constantly on them like fly's stuck to the backs of heavy sweaty men. They flirted around as if owning everyone's adoration whilst their white butt cheeks began to emerge from those slinky bikini's as though they had deliberately fallen just a little, enough to distinguish where the white's of their skin met with their sultry tans.
But as for me the buckets and castles were in my eye line watching those mounds of soundly formed shapes only then to be demolished as we jumped on top of them. Holes were dug on the shore to be filled by the ocean as the tide turned and filled them to overflowing. These were simpler times, times when a family consisted of a hard working father and a stay at home mother with two or more children picnicking together. Families took walks together over the shell crusted rock pools, children poking at toad fish with sticks. Mobile phones didn't encroach on our times together nor did foul language lavish itself upon our ears. Body language was meek without anger or violence, courtesy and manners were well implemented and rapport was common place amongst us all. Children scoured the beach unattended to find shells and dig for crabs whilst parents went for romantic walks and took short cool dips. Where else could you walk the coastlines under the blue skies of freedom in such a wonderful land such as ours. It was a simple time, we were all younger then! Our youth was spent innocently exploring the soul of our continent.......The Beach.

My Living Testimony - Part 6

Liberated

Heb 4:12
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two edged sword
and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.

His words came from him like power and life to my soul and they discerned and distinguished every thought and intention of my heart unbeknownst to me. I sat their in conflict as my life was revealed, bare and naked, exposed for what I was, twisted and angry, and for what I was causing not only to my self but to the rest of society. I found myself accepting an invitation to good to refuse, a second chance at life, a clean slate, a chance to start a fresh, a chance to right all the wrongs in my life. Finally to be rid of that enslaving narcotic and the orchestrated ensemble that went with it; poverty, paranoia, depression, violence and crime and inevitably death, this was an answer to prayer. I could now be liberated and allowed to be the true person I was intended to be before my endless depravity and corruption. The power of God became a reality to me that night, this was not some cheap fiction that you could purchase at the 711 for a few bucks as a feel good resolve. No, the truth was about to incriminate but also liberate my world, all I had to do was respond under the conviction of the truth.
The pastor stepped down to a level playing field from the pulpit so all eyes were fixed at the same horizon, there was total silence and the altar as it was called was made open to anyone that needed Jesus in their lives. For those who would freely submit to His authority and power, to begin a new life with Jesus at the helm and to be washed clean by the sacrifice of His blood then receive the free gift of God, eternal life! A life within a Kingdom of peace, of goodness and of right action, all the while having this supernatural God and His son taking the greatest care of you and blessing you with all of His Kingdoms riches both naturally and spiritually. Now tell me, who could refuse that? To be accepted and loved by someone I didn't know really didn't impress me that much but the sentiment of that kind of love and acceptance was a deal clincher. I wanted to be loved and accepted without conditions and ridicule, don't we all? I needed to change and be rid of the rage and guilt which had all but devoured me.
I was struck by the power of God out of my seat, my hand I noticed was raised already in response to the Pastors request and I made my way down to the front of the church, where the unseen altar was. I knew that you offered up sacrifices upon an altar but I couldn't see one. Later it fell into place that this was where spiritually I laid down my life in surrender. I didn't even give a second thought to all those eyes upon my back! I needed this Salvation desperately. I was about to get a second chance at life and receive a new life of what is now know as Faith and love and of power! Power to overcome the tragedy's and failures of life without God, the power to resurrect the dead in me; decency, love, forgiveness and justice! I have since faced the giants in my life with His wisdom and grace from above, a grace that also extends itself to others and finally having experienced it first hand; mercy. Mercy is a funny thing, compassionate yet full of empathy and love identifying with weaknesses and distress, all the while allowing His love at your disposal to ooze indiscriminately towards others. I passionately hated people and I was good at it, it was easier to blame and hate everyone instead of the handful that actually had hurt me and so consistently let me down throughout my life. Don't they say; once bitten twice shy?

As I stood there while every eye was closed and every head bowed I inched forward to align the toes of my shoes with the two other pair out on the floor that stood beside me that night. I felt an arm come across my shoulder from my right but immediately I shrugged off the intrusion and stood alone. Vulnerable and alone I wasn't going to be anybody's fool as I stood there naked. I was so easy to read, a tough guy and afraid of what was going to happen. The pastor saw right through my gruff demeanor then he gently laid his hand on my shoulder. He spoke so softly to me so as no one else could hear. It was intimate and personal and the tension in my shoulders released their grip, every muscle relaxed and fell down my back like a pack of staged domino's collapsing. He asked the inevitable! Will you make Jesus the Lord and Saviour of your life? Do you want to be free of the burdens of sin and receive His forgiveness, Salvation and Eternal life? There was no quandary or hesitation, I wanted Him and I had waited which seemed a lifetime for this difference, this was my time......I said YES! I prayed a prayer with the pastor of repentance, acknowledging my sin and disobedience to God and His word. The pastor began to pray quietly yet with power and what seemed to be aggression. I felt something strange happening but closed my eyes as I accepted what was taking place.
My body shook and the ground beneath literally quaked! "A battle over my soul was taking place" were the words he used to inform me. I stood there for what appeared to be at least 4 or 5 minutes. He went on to pray for the other two and then returned, he continued to pray fervently over my soul. When he had finished praying I was drained and spent. I had no energy, every single ounce of it was gone, I had no fray left in me.
The auditorium erupted with applause as we went back to our seats and the band played loud and the people sang! Rejoice, Rejoice.....I can't remember the other words. Smiles, hand shakes and congratulations were handed out like cigars from a new father to his family and friends after the birth of his first child. The pastor shook my hand a handsome gesture and slipped me some literature to read later. He also appointed a man to me to answer any questions I might have and to call at any time of day or night.
I had just been "Born Again" A spiritual awakening inside of a corpse doomed and destined for destruction, a spiritual encounter that Humanistic reasoning could not interpret. A new life now existed within me liberated from the flesh. The coexistence of both flesh and spirit in one being. The crowning glory of man to be born again of something pure, holy and supernatural. It was intoxicating!
I left fairly soon after and laid awake for quite some time that night memorizing every moment step by step of the eventful evening. I was proud of the earnest decision I had made, not based upon a whim but upon a well thought out process stemming from a dire call for help one month earlier, to a God I was uncertain existed or cared for me. God responded to the desperation in my heart from the very day I called to Him. Sadly though, it often takes a tragedy to humble mankind before we will call upon the God of Salvation. Many fall to their death through pride.
The next morning elated I jumped out of bed at my new found experience and savored every moment again. Wow! I had slept for the first time I can remember in years like I had been wrapped in pure goose down, thick and soft and slumbered a whole winter. So refreshed, awake and revived. I can breathe freely without that repetitive droning cough and mucus trying to throw itself out from the back of my raw throat and half deflated lungs! but that's not all, what's this! I don't crave a taste (a hit up the arm), I don't want a cigarette or any other drug. I don't feel like a drink! I feel very different, smooth, clean, Alive....I can feel the blood rushing through my veins it almost appears to be cleansed of every impurity that existed just last night, like I've had a transfusion. My tired raspy throat was healed and no longer sore from the excessive consumption of raw alcohol and tobacco.
Physically something had happened to me overnight, my lungs now seemed full of pure oxygen, opening to full capacity, no pollutants inhibiting my intake of a cool deep breath of air. The scales had fallen from my bloodied weary eyes and I could see for the first time so clearly. The day appeared brighter colors sharper and looking at things somehow differently with fresh eyes. This was miraculous! The power of God had rejuvenated my entire body while I slept in comfort and peace. A new creation!
Previously I had escaped the snare of addiction for a short few months. I worked so hard at overcoming the relentless push and desire for the depraved crystal. Six months of pain and hard work to beat and reduce my daily intake to nil. I knew the difficulty in doing so and the powerful drive behind the habit. From the first push of the needle it took a mere three seconds for the drug to circulate through my body and reach my brain, heart and crotch. Oh the potent rush and pungent emotion took my breath away, it was orgasmic a festival for the senses. Towards the final stage of my addiction the drug slowed to a thirty second lapse to reach any part of my senses and I required a lot more drug. My blood was like black mud and would ooze slowly back into the syringe before I would ram it into my torn vein.
After many indiscriminate partners and the fellowship of needles it would have been irresponsible of me not to be blood tested for disease. Hepatitis C, A or B, Aids whatever? I didn't want to put my future bride at risk so I was checked and re checked with nothing to show but pure rich diseased free blood. I had been healed.....
I was more certain than ever of this miracle, this cure, this abrupt end. There was no longer a desire or craving for anything from that moment on.....and in no humanly way was that ever possible. I had been delivered of every drug dependency and now had accepted and experienced first hand the tangibleness of God. It was this power and miracle that I held onto whenever times got tough. For this man, it's not the end of a chapter where I'll ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, but rather scale new heights at the side of my master, off into the sunrise.......where a new day dawns.

Rinaldo

My Living Testimony - Part 5

An Inaugural Truth

I finally caved to the repetitive questioning of when was I ever going to go along to church. I desperately wanted to go but never quite felt ready, ready for what! I didn't know I couldn't explain it. Maybe it was simply knowing I wouldn't be ready for what I was going to hear because it would totally contradict my current lifestyle. Maybe it would assassinate me and I knew that change was inevitable or maybe I knew deep down that the truth was going to hit me like a tonne of bricks, an inaugural truth or something. My life was about to radically change and I was a little frightened of the whole idea, of losing my ideals - life's a party, philosophy's - live for today cause tomorrow we die, influences - the drug culture, associates - thugs alike and now my whole existence would be subject to the truth and everything I had previously known and lived was about to be eradicated, exposed for what it really was, a life of contradictions, falsehoods and under achievements. Really I was quite raw and naive as a human being.

In 1988, May the 15th to be exact at around 6:00pm I attended a Pentecostal (Spirit filled, Born again) service in the outer western suburbs of Sydney. I went to church and I would never be the same ever again! It was different to how I remembered church as a child, with the highly polished hard wooden pews that creaked and wobbled, the hypnotic patterned carpet that I stared at imagining the spear heads and wheels off wagon trains, the small arched doors at either side of the raised pulpit where the pastor would enter the church from and then leave again from disappearing forever from the face of the earth and then miraculously reappearing from the same small wooden door the following Sunday. The choir rows filled with old pursed lipped ladies with bright lipstick, wearing hats and gloves their hymnal books trembling slightly and the robust men with enthusiastic grins as their veins protruded out of their necks singing and white shirts wrestling their stomachs coming untucked and buttons pulled tight threatening to pop open just above their belts. The Pastors wife would sit in the front row with her children all slicked down and handkerchiefs in hand, polished shoes with their heads slightly turned round to smirk at the rest of us children being shushed and threatened if we so even as much as squirm in our seats. I can recall Sunday School, children, cups of tea and the laughter as we all ran around after the services. It seemed to be a lot of fun at times with church picnics and making our own kites out of brown paper and string, having competitions for the best kite, swimming holes at Wattamolla and those elaborate picnic lunches with the checkered table cloths, sandwiches, cakes, scones and huge amounts of watermelon. I can still see those metallic colored cups scratched and worn around the rims, filled with icy cordial. They were good times, innocent times.
Church Camps at Bundeena, in the southern shire of Sydney across the bay from Cronulla were a regular part of church life which took place on creamy sands amongst the gums trees and Boys Brigade camps held annually for the short time that I lived and spent in the South Hurstville Baptist Children's home. I thank God for those years, this is where the seeds of the Lord were sown heavily into my life and took deep root in my heart. The seeds had been lying dormant in my heart over the years whilst all the time only requiring a drop of living water which would cause these to spring back to life in an instant, just like a typically dry Aussie lawn which is parched, dusty and brown with not so much as a blade of grass visible or a single root showing but as soon as a slight rain falls, it's revived seemingly and overnight greens up like a rich Frisian meadow.
I still have the bible I was presented with on my tenth birthday. It was a second, bought new from the bible store because it had a misprint. Really it was only missing part of a scripture which should have been in red letter from the chapter of Luke. Ironically the scripture missing was "Give them something to eat" This certainly has fed me all these years later. The hand writing is still present today from Dad of the children's home who filled in the missing scripture. We all received one that year! Mine was the first to be had as it was my birthday gift and was hand written in by both Mom and Dad. It read "Presented to Rinaldo on your 10th Birthday Love Mom and Dad" Later that year I left to go and live with my grandmother and sister who were in Newcastle.
My bible was my prize possession. It was a children's bible with pictures. The "Revised Standard Version" yep! the RSV, a translation taken and updated from the King James. Although I never understood it I treasured that bible and it followed me through all the years no matter where I lived or what I did, it was with me always. I never read it but I always had it stuffed down at the bottom of my belongings. The crisp white pages had a new leather smell to them, I would often put my nose deep into the book and breathe in the smell of those pages as if they had some magic to them, that somehow it would take me back in time to where I once lived in the children's home and everything that those days stood for and what I had missed about them, especially Mom and Dad. There was not a crease or mark in those thin pages, even though it was a second, it was perfect! God's message came through perfectly to me eventually. Some would say to me; you need to have this version of the bible in print or that one, but if God can speak through an ass, He can speak to me through this bible second. I have every bible in print today, but I just adore this one, it's my favorite and I have always cherished it. It's ratty and torn, the pages are falling out and held together with tape and such, written all through with notes and highlighted, not an inch of white sides are left in it nor the inserts of white blank pages remain, as they now hold deep mysteries which the Lord has revealed to me over the years since being saved. My bible is now going on to 37 years old and has traveled to several countries with me. It has journeyed along side of me throughout my life, it is my witness, perfect and treasured.

The night I arrived at church the strangest thing, the guys were dressed in top hats and tails, black and whites! it was a prank to remember the anniversary of one of the church leaders who was married a year earlier. What a strange place, what have I come to? They're weird yet? I don't know....
It was night, dark and an autumn chill in the air. We were in a factory unit in the industrial areas of Sydney's west. How bizarre! It was freshly painted with banners and slogans painted on the walls - "Born Again Born To Win" They had a band playing, drums and guitars, sax and bass, singers and people raising their hands singing, I thought this was sort of OK. I didn't speak much to anyone, I was stoned and drugged out but I had gone along with my mates mother who thought that this would be the place for me as the Pastor was cool!
He was certainly not what I was expecting. A tall wiry kiwi (New Zealander) in his late thirties with a perm. Blonde and well spoken he had a small gold filling in one of his front teeth. He jumped around that stage, told jokes and smiled the whole way through. I remember sitting their thinking when will this be over so I can go and have another hit and some smoko back where I am comfortable, but I remained and listened closely as he started to preach his message. Still and almost frozen to my chair he spoke right into the very core of my being. The words penetrated through the drugs, through my flesh, through the ugliness of my present life and through the shallow thoughts of my mind right into my heart. Something within me agreed to every word spoken and I was alert and upright in my seat. I had a tremendous awareness of the truth being preached and I wanted it, I needed it, I had come alive whilst I sat in that obscure little factory unit in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fruit loops and nut jobs.

Keep Alert!!

We as a people need to aware of what is happening in the world, Please take the time to look at my other blog. It is a very important hour in the History of Mankind!

http://churchinthe11thhour.blogspot.com/

An Agenda

A scheme is coersion to accomplish one's own agenda and a plan is a guide to lead you in the right direction - There is a future and hope in God's plan.

But Satan's scheme is to have his agenda accomplished through you!

Jer 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope