Scotch College

Continuing conversationsChaplain’s Reflection

It was my children who introduced me to the writings of David Malouf.

His books seemed to always be on the VCE reading list, and with children doing their VCE in ’88, ’90, ’92, ’94 and ’96 I came to my first of David Malouf writings. An Imaginary Life, Fly away Peter and Remembering Babylon stand out. Imagine my surprise when I looked for these books on the shelves only to discover that my children, all of whom have left home, had taken these books with them! Among my three remaining volumes the oldest is my 1997 copy of The Conversations at Curlow Creek which my youngest child gave me as a gift, inscribed ‘with fond memories’.

As I read the Colossian passage set for the assembly Bible reading this morning (Colossians 4:2-6) I was startled at the links with page one of The Conversations. If you’ve read it you’ll remember that it begins as Adair, the officer, enters the darkened cell of Daniel Carney, the bushranger whose execution he has been sent to supervise. Adair calls for a light and wonders ‘What is it about us, what is it about me, that we are so divided against ourselves?’ Carney thought Adair might be a Priest. He is not. ‘There were only two priests in the whole god-forsaken colony’ we are informed. It is, after all, 1827.

The Colossian letter-a letter from a different prison – has reconciliation as its great theme. God’s purpose is to reconcile the world to himself through Christ. Through Christ’s death God destroys the alienating and divisive walls that separate people. This message dominates the opening of the letter. This purpose of God was ‘secret’ for long ages past, but now has been ‘revealed’. ‘God has made you his friends, in order to bring you, holy, pure and faultless into his presence’ (1:22).

Earlier in the Term the boys had heard Rev Watson speak on the importance of reconciliation, especially as if affects Australia and her indigenous people. In this, as in all damaged relationships, there is a ‘whispering in our hearts’.

A whispering that suggests none of us is holy, pure and faultless? For me the most beautiful part of David Malouf’s exquisitely written book is in the dawning of the fateful day when, gazing at the creek glinting through the bush, Carney asks:

“‘Could I ask you a favour, sir? It’s the last’.
Adair shifted his head
‘Could I, like, splash a bit of water over me face an’ that?
Wash. I’d feel –’”

In the pages that follows we are witness the washing of a condemned man and it’s impact on the police troopers and the officer. It is an exquisite depiction of a man being washed clean. It is a baptism. As he is cleansed the others feel their filth and grime.

By baptism we are washed and enter God’s family (2:12). In his ancient prison the apostle Paul must have wondered if the Colossian believers would play their part. He urges them to pray that he would make the message clear and that they would commend that message by making their every communication ‘pleasant and interesting’ (4:6). What a great aim this is! To carry to a broken and divided humanity the lyrical and gracious secret the hope that rings with authenticity that emanates from the cross of Christ.

Later, Adair finds comfort in ‘something he cannot measure yet’ while eating a piece of broken bread handed to him by a clown faced boy. May God’s comfort and communion bear each of us ‘into his presence’.

Graham Bradbeer