Why I love Queanbeyan

As I walk along the streets of Queanbeyan, I sometimes get an overwhelming feeling of thankfulness for my town.

I belong here. I am part of the community. And that’s something to be thankful for.

I haven’t lived here my whole life, but I was born here. My grandmother has lived here my whole life and, as a child, we used to visit her every week. As I grew older, I still visited her, though not as often. Plus, I have lived here for the past 14 years.

I love walking down the street and saying hello to the people that pass me. I love going for a quick dash to the shops and ending up in a long conversation with someone. And every time I go to the local shopping centre, I see at least one person I know. On a busy day, I might be saying hello to someone every five minutes. (There are times I have spent more time talking to people than I have in actually doing the shopping.)

I’m upset about the disappearance of the corner stores. (Originally, there were three corner stores within eight blocks of my house. Now there are none.) I think they fostered a sense of community which isn’t there with the big franchises. That said, I have also gotten to know people at my local Coles or BP.  I can talk to the people serving me with more than just the standard polite conversation you reserve for strangers.

I like knowing that, if anything ever happened and I needed help, there are many people around that I know would help me. When my youngest son was only two, I lost him. I had many people on the street looking for him. (It turns out, he had hidden under a lounge-room chair and fallen asleep!) When my grandmother couldn’t walk earlier this year, one of my neighbours told me she needed help and then went to get my youngest son from tennis. Later on, someone else asked me whether my grandmother was okay. It’s good to know I have neighbours who care.

But it’s not just the people - although they certainly are a big factor in making me feel like I belong. It’s the town itself. For all its faults, it is still a part of me. Or maybe I am a part of it. I know its streets, its stores, its river, its parks, its houses. They form the background of my life. Walking across the bridge to go to church in pink, frilly dresses. My cousins and I sneaking into the showground to play cricket or football. Taking my children for their first day of preschool and then school, the preschool I went to and the school my father went to. Sitting in the park, watching my sons climb trees. Even saying hello to the statue of John Gale every time I pass it with my children. And the unbearable sense of loss every time something changes, closes down, gets demolished or, in the case of Spotlight, moves.

It’s hard to convey this sense of belonging to people who don’t have it. People move around so much nowadays. There was a time when you lived in one town your whole life and all your family surrounded you. My grandmother is the only member of my family who still lives in Queanbeyan. Everyone else has moved. It’s become normal for people to live in a variety of different places. And that’s kind of exciting. Sometimes I wish I could do it too. But at the same time, I am thankful that I am still here. Because I think I get a sense of community that other people fail to even realise they are missing. 

But even if I moved, I would still belong somewhere. I would still belong to the Church. And like a home town, the Church has its faults. It is made up of imperfect people. But it is still a part of me and I am a part of it. And it’s nice to know that. And it’s nice to able to recognise how important that really is.

Good or Bad, Left-wing or Right-wing Christian

I was watching a talk by Tony Abbott for a theology@thepub event on YouTube. And during that talk, Tony Abbott said that people tend to think of Good Christians as those who were more socialist, while bad Christians were those who were more conservative. And in that light, he was considered a bad Christian.

It probably depends which church (or denomination) you belong to. When I was in the Pentecostal Church, I always felt like I was a bad Christian for caring more about injustice and poverty than I did about moral issues.

But the purpose of this blog is not to discuss which Christian is good or bad, but the assumption that one is either a ‘Socialist Christian’ or a ‘Conservative Christian.’ I think it’s because we like to put people somewhere on the political spectrum. Are they left, right or somewhere in between? Then once placed, we expect their views to line up with their place on that political spectrum, rather than with Christ.

I’ve had people speak to me who are convinced that Jesus would vote for the Liberal National Party in Australia (the conservative party). Yet I’ve had people equally adamant that he would vote for Labor. As many people have pointed out, Jesus is not a card-carrying member of either political party. In reality, he would probably agree and disagree with both or either side of politics, depending on the issue being discussed.

And in reality we can agree with different policies from different political parties. And there isn’t necessarily a contradiction between caring about certain left-wing issues and certain right-wing issues. One can care about providing welfare and still want to cut down abortions. One can care about the environment and still want the Lord’s Prayer kept in parliament. One can care about funding for public education and still want school chaplains. One can even agree with giving homosexuals the right to marry without necessarily agreeing that Catholic/Christian adoption agencies should be forced to give them children for adoption.

It is possible to care about social inequalities and recognition of God. It is possible to care about injustice and morals.

Indeed, the bible gives a lot of attention to both. 

Hope for a Fallen World

There are a few things that people aren’t comfortable with nowadays in terms of Christian doctrine. One of them is the Fall or original sin.

I guess there are a few reasons why people don’t like the thought of original sin. One of them is that people like to think they’re good. Another reason is that it seems to offer no hope. We have no chance of doing the right thing if we are fallen human beings. Or perhaps another reason is that we like to tell everyone they’re okay nowadays. Self-help books of full of the kind of pep talk that is designed to make people feel good about themselves. Even Bon Jovi has a line saying ‘Remember that you’re perfect, God makes no mistakes.’ We love to feel good about ourselves nowadays. The only time guilt is allowed is when it’s going to make you go out and buy something. Guilt about germs, yes! Guilt about moral choices, definitely not.

Yet removing the doctrine of original sin may make us feel better about ourselves, but I think it leads to a far more despairing view of the world. If there is no original sin, if there was no fall, then that means this world is exactly the way God intended it to be. We’re all just acting according to God’s plans.

I don’t know about you, but if this world is exactly the way God intended it to be, then something is seriously wrong. We hurt people. We think way too much of ourselves. We look after our own self-interests. We either cause or allow injustice and oppression. We destroy the earth that God has given us. We have turned our back on God, each other and the world we live in.

And I sincerely hope that this is not the way God planned it!

Sometimes when I see something particularly depressing on the news or someone tells me a story about the hurt they have gone through, I think this isn’t the way life is meant to be. And of course, this isn’t the way life was meant to be. God planned a better world. But because he loves us, he gave us free will and we have used that free will to reject God’s plans. We have gone our own way, and the mess we see in the world is a result.

Yet the Fall also offers hope. But although it says human beings are born sinful, the bible always tells us that Christ has died to redeem us. Furthermore, even in the mess we see, the mess we have created, God is present. And He is continuously at work, bringing about his purposes. We may have gone against God’s plans, but God has a new plan - and therefore, a new hope.

If there was no Fall, then it would appear that this world is as good as it gets. If we’re not sinful, then what hope do we really have? But because there was a Fall and there is sin, there is also redemption. And Christ offers hope to a sinful, fallen world. 

Original Sin by Michiel Coxie, ca. 1550