And it's a hard rain's gonna fall.....

Some thoughts about the terrible tragedy unfolding in Victoria, where at least 173 people have perished in a holocaust of untameable proportions...
Living here in Geelong we are not too far away from potential disaster; fires visited and decimated here in 1983, and people remember only too well how traumatic it can be.
I listen to the ABC broadcasts, read the papers and chat on facebook all day long- trying to feel connected to these poor people wandering about in their soot and ashes; bereft, burnt and heartbroken, they have lost everything that defined their lives. Many have lost loved ones as well, and in the most dramatic and horrific circumstances. To lose loved ones suddenly is bad enough, but in an inferno is traumatic beyond belief. One can only guess at what they have suffered as they died- trapped, starved of oxygen, burning, in agony and beyond help. No wonder the living look shell shocked and dumbstruck.

Watching them, hearing their stories, I am awash with the sense of helplessness, the grief and total vulnerability they now have to deal with. They are dependent for food, for clothing, for toiletries, for shelter, for dignity itself.
But that is the beauty of what is happening , especially in the recovery centre that is the village of Whittlesea. I'm sure there are others out there, but Whittlesea is getting all the publicity and media, as the area around there and Kinglake,(and Marysville, Strathewen )are where the fires ripped through without warning and with a voracity that was unparalleled anywhere. Villages were literally wiped off the earth.
The people of Whittlesea, where the fire largely left them unscathed, have opened themselves up to the homeless and scorched, and has become a hub of beneficence and succour. People are being reunited there with loved ones and neighbours they thought they might have lost.They are having their basic needs taken care of. There they are speaking to counsellors, to one another and to the media about their respective ordeals. While some of them will leave never to return, others are rallying and shoring one another up, and perhaps considering how they might one day rebuild their community and carry on as an entity again.

But they are still a community. They are functioning.
Yesterday I thought I was jealous of them, and wishing I was a part of what had happened. How perverse of me!
I wondered if I was a bit mental for feeling this way.
But then I realised today it was their community I was jealous of.

Lately I have been feeling a surge of zeal for the ideals of community- of maybe establishing a garden where I could help in the sharing of God's love and healing with the wider community, and people who were disenfranchised; dealing with poverty and loneliness.
I really want to share my vision and somehow stir up some sort of enthusiasm in my peers at church, to get them on board with the idea of gardening and communal sharing that would maybe appeal and draw people into the church, and ultimately into faith in Christ.

I know my 'surge' of zeal, my passion may be somewhat uninformed, but hopefully isn't too far wrong from what God wants (from me, at least). I am not an expert gardener, but I do enjoy being in the garden, and am excited about producing actual food in the garden. I do think that simple, outdoor manual work, done in community with others, is a great healing tool for the mind, body and soul. I can think of a few people now, who might benefit from this sort of activity.

I hope that somewhere, sometime this year I will find a channel for this dream of mine. I hope I can find some other people who might catch the vision and join me in my quest to see a "Healing Garden" established somewhere, I'm hoping as a part of my church's outreach into the community.
Hearing about the suffering in the fire affected areas I feel like I want to be there to help, to listen and to comfort. I am further encouraged in the idea that Chaplaincy and pastoral care are what God is leading me and guiding me into.