Dear Inner Circle,

“Is that really you?” It’s a funny question and I was so tempted to claim that I wasn’t really me. “Graham Long?” he asked. “Guilty as charged” I replied. “Well I never thought that I’d actually ever meet you even though I’m your friend on Facebook.” The man offered a handshake and introduced himself as “Eddie, the Big Issue seller from Brisbane”. “Gosh” I said, “Are you the Eddie, the Big Issue seller from Brisbane?” It was a fun way to get our warm discussion going. Eddie has always known about Wayside and he follows closely all our posts on Facebook. He came to Sydney partly just to check us out. I gave him a guided tour of Wayside just now. He just loved seeing Aboriginal people with their own space and busy preparing some food. He was blown away by our rooftop garden. It was lovely to hear him begin to wonder about how he could help transport some of our ideas to Brisbane. It gave me a big kick to see how all our staff members greet Eddie with the same dignity we’d afford the Premier or any other person of importance. I’m pleased to tell you that I’ve met Eddie the Big Issue seller from Brisbane and he’s a lovely bloke.

On Father’s Day I was quite touched by how many people claimed me as their Dad. What an honour! My own daughter sent me a message that said, “Without me, this would just be another day for you! You’re welcome.” Although she wasn’t in church, she suddenly appeared for communion, took the bread, gave me a kiss and said, “Happy Father’s Day” and then walked straight out the door again. I love my girl.

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Dear Inner Circle,

The more we become masters of experience, the less is our power to enter into relation. We live in an age that has turned our spirit into a means of enjoyment for the self. That which ought to be supple and flexible, to make connections with others, has hardened and divided the world into the realm of feelings and the realm of all other things. Our ingrown spirits, like ingrown toenails, keep us focused upon that which, if we were well, would be of no consequence. With our heads up our bums, constantly analysing how we feel about matters past, we become easy as sheep to manage and we’re inclined to buy anything or sign up for anything when someone proclaims, “I’m excited”.

There is nothing much more human than a conversation. Believe it or not, I think they are a rare thing. There is a lot of “syllable exchange” – you give me 20 syllables and I’ll give you 20 syllables and we’ll be satisfied while the count is even. There is no lack of talking, selling, sharing of how we feel, telling off and unloading, but not a lot of conversation. I’ve become quite used to sitting in a group where people are facing one another and conducting three of four unrelated chats. What a miracle when among all the talk, a conversation takes place. I had a conversation with a young man yesterday who walked into my office and said, “I’ve lost my ‘mojo’”. We began with the familiar theme of, “If I don’t feel good, something must be dreadfully wrong”. As he extracted his focus from his inner life and we looked around, it became clear that an important relationship was rocky and needed some investigation and repair. I believe this young man couldn’t diagnose his troubled relationship because he couldn’t entertain the idea that it might end, yet he was almost already blaming himself for the failure that was yet to occur, or which might never occur.

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Dear Inner Circle,

A state of blind fear overtook me the first time I had to conduct a funeral with zero information about the deceased person. I’ve had to do it so often now that I’ve learned to take my queues from the people in front of me. Normally at a Wayside funeral, plenty of people are willing to speak about the life of the deceased person – even those who have never met the person are often keen to share with us how they might have felt, should they have met them; it’s an endearing feature of a Wayside funeral. At the funeral I conducted on Monday however, not too many of those gathered knew the woman deceased. They had gathered instead to support her partner, who is a softly spoken, gentle man, grieving deeply for the loss of his loved one. If our dear man couldn’t speak, I was going to be in trouble.

We discovered that the woman and her partner had met at Wayside. They fell in love and ran off to the country where they enjoyed each other’s company until she became terminally ill. The man is a character out of a Henry Lawson short story. He’s a man who for many years has lived out of his car when in the city, but spends most of his time in the countryside, travelling from farm to farm, doing odd jobs until he’s saved enough to travel on to another farm. One look at this rather short man and you know he’d be more at home around a camp fire, smoking and telling stories than living in the city. He has the most faithful little dog in the world. If he commands the dog to ‘stay’, it will wait all day until the man returns. The woman was escaping domestic violence when they met. She brought an entirely unexpected dose of colour and fun into our dear friend's life. He talked of all manner of animals who shared their living space. He spoke of sheep with painted toe nails. He spoke of an adopted goanna that would knock on the door with its nose when it needed attention. We laughed, we cried and we held hands around the altar. We said...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

“I’m sick of being good enough to sleep with but not good enough to be with” said a young woman in my office yesterday. The words didn’t come from anger but from a profound brokenness. She told me that she’d been crying for three solid days and as soon as she stepped into my office, a new wave of grief hit so that every word was convulsed rather than said. A lover had just moved out and given a lecture about how he didn’t want to be, “in a relationship”. It became clear that the pain belonged not just to the events of this week but to the accumulated pain of ten years and at least five such unhappy endings. This young woman was perfectly groomed, in expensive looking clothes and had a pretty face. My son would have said she was, “hot” and not only so, her inner and outer beauty was stunning. Yet, she proclaimed herself to be the girl “that no one will love”.

Gosh the world has changed but I think it's a tougher world on women who long for stability and for children. When I was young, if you touched a girl’s bra strap, you were automatically engaged to be married. I was raised in a ridiculous, extreme culture but today I think we’re at another extreme and it’s a tough world. If I could coach young people today, I’d encourage them to say at the beginning of a relationship, “Slow up, this is not going to be easy! This is going to be expensive! This is going to cost time and energy and I expect you’ll gladly embrace the cost and want to tell the world of our love. You’re going to have to try hard to prove you’re a worthy mate.” When intimacy is easily won, it can be easily lost. A partner can opt out whenever it’s inconvenient and be confident that there will be another bus coming along in five minutes. Woo, I’m sounding like an old man. Speaking of old men, I noticed that ABC 702 were advertising the inner circle on their web page with the hashtag “#thedadyouneverhad”. Yet more proof these...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

A scientist once told me that the human act of standing upright was quite a feat. I’ve just been observing how difficult it can be. There is a fellow at our front door suffering from a double whammy of a body that can’t stop moving and a complete loss of balance. He’s trying to put some things into a bag and I’m at a loss to describe how difficult this task must be for him. He’s fallen over several times in the past few minutes, but he can’t stay still even once fallen. The worst feature of his situation is that all of the body movements are contorted in unnatural moves that look for all the world like he’s a puppet being manipulated by strings. A bloke walked past him just now and muttered, “Mate you were better on heroin than this sh**”. Not only will ice lead to an early death but it will make of your precious moments, miserable. As I write I’m comforted to see two staff members heading over to the man. There couldn’t be safer hands for this man than are lovingly applied here. I love all our people, but the staff and volunteers in our Community Services Centre on our ground floor are all angels among us.

Just a few feet away, the most beautiful thing is happening before my eyes. A few weeks ago I told you of a relatively young woman who is near her end. I’ve seen a wonderful outpouring of love lavished on this dear lady. I’ve seen our dear Una do some breathtaking things as a way of fulfilling a last wish when death is imminent. Una has a tough job at Wayside. She is responsible for a team of staff and volunteers and every day she has to be tough as boots and soft as mush. Una can bark in her heavy Scottish accent and she has a stare that would frighten a Labrador out of a butchers shop. Yet few hearts are so big, so soft and so generous. Our dying lady is just now sitting in our café, looking most unwell. Una stepped up to her and began to brush her hair. I just witnessed bliss. Our darling terminal lady...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

The treasure of this country does not lie under the ground but is to be found in our schools. I haven’t stepped foot into a school since my kids were little and last week I spoke across NSW in 12 schools. Actually I stopped counting after school three but I think it was 12 schools. We frequently hear expressions of despair about our young but to actually tour our schools and meet our kids would fill anyone with hope and optimism. I was blown away by the beauty and the character of the hundreds of kids I met. Surely education should be the first priority for investment by our governments and teaching should be esteemed as among the highest of professions. The NSW Australian of the Year crew are to be congratulated for turning an annual award into an event that inspires hundreds of school children. The tour itself in my view was more important than the award. We raced from school to school from Annandale to Wagga Wagga. Award winners, Jules, Genevieve, Cory and I had only just met on Wednesday and yet we worked as a well practiced team born out of mutual respect. It became obvious along the way that I was a city boy. In Temora (I think) I asked a kid what kind of farm he lived on. He said that his dad grows canola and wheat. “Any animals?” I asked. “He has a thousand head of sheep” he said. I then asked, “Does he have any whole sheep or just heads?” The look on the little boy’s face was priceless.

A tough little nut said to me just now, “I know you’re a hard man”. “Not only am I not a hard man” I said, “my only trick is that I am a tower of weakness for people”. “Well you’d look down on me” he said. “Are you fighting something big?” I asked. He began to weep and we sat on a bench at the front of our building. He told me why he’d served a long prison sentence. Most everyone I know holds something against themselves. It shows in how quickly we are to look down on someone else. If we can make a judgement...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

In a tiny living room this week I was a guest at a birthday party. Actually, I was the complete guest list. A precious old lady throws a party for herself at this time each year and I’m not sure how many people are invited but generally I’m the only one who attends. There have been years when there were two or three of us who gather to celebrate the life of this gorgeous old thing. At one point she asked me if I would like some savoury biscuits with french onion dip. I politely declined but it caused her to yell at the top of her frail voice, “Then I will have bought them for nothing!” I was served a few small biscuits with a blob of dip in a saucer and I ate them all, including the soggy few that had sat in water.

A fellow travelled a long way to visit me to discuss his possible fifth wedding. He told me that he thought there was something in wedding cake that caused women to lose their appetite for physical intimacy. In a way, he was saying that love is an illusory idea and the only comfort in life on offer is the first “discovery” phase of a relationship. One wonders why he would want to go through this cycle yet again. It’s not for me to judge. I think the man feels trapped by his own neediness and that a man’s inborn desire for love is some kind of cosmic joke. I agree that intimacy must be lost, simply because there are clothes to wash, there is shopping to be done, and money to be earned. As we do these everyday things it’s inevitable that we form firm ideas about the one we love. But the other person is always greater than our idea of them. The trick is to turn from our ideas long enough to be captured by the awesome that captured us in the first place. Anyway, I’m only telling you this story so that I can share with you the funniest quote of the week. The man thought he was quoting the bible to me when he said, “A camel cannot live by bread alone”. I love my life.

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Dear Inner Circle,

A woman sat so close to me in the café this morning that to even pick up my cup of coffee was awkward. “Do you have a job?” she asked. “Yes I have a job” I replied. “Do you have a car?” she asked. “Yes” I said, “I have a car”. “Do you have a wife?” was the next question. When I replied, “Yes, I’m married to a lovely woman” my interrogator suddenly lost interest and moved away.

Leslie is a person whose entrance into any room, warms it up. Every day of my life I’m in awe of the team of people who give their lives to serve others at Wayside. Leslie is a youth worker and as she walked in this morning, about ten people all lit up in some way or yelled out, “Hi”. One big boofy fellow got up and gave her a hug. The bloke sitting next to me turned and said, “That big bloke seems to get away with hugging women. I think it's because he’s old and big and he's like everyone’s grandfather. Some blokes” he said, “can’t get away with it because the women just know somehow that it wouldn't be ‘a thing’”. “So” I said, “if you hugged Leslie, would there be ‘a thing’”? He replied through a warm, wide smile, “It would definitely be ‘a thing’ and she’d know it and put me in my place.”

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Dear Inner Circle,

There’s an active death wish as well as a desire for life at work in many people. Early today I had conversation with an impressive woman. With a good partner, a couple of healthy kids and a skyrocketing career, there is never-the-less a yearning desire to move backwards to seek approval from those who never gave it and almost certainly never will. She comes from a large extended family with a history of dysfunction and a blindingly complex history of who did what wrong to whom. The focus of the family was how each action of hurt seemed to be in response to some prior hurtful action. She had a lot of trouble deciding whether she wanted to be right or whether she wanted to be well. I said, “Do you want to look behind or in front?” This woman has put so much energy into forging a new life, it’s surprising that occasionally she gets stuck in a backward look. “I promise you that your future can be a stronger determiner of your present than your past.” Much of modern psychology focuses on analysing the past but for those who are on their way to a new life, there is a sense of destiny to which they are moving with their whole being. Most people making a miraculous turn around can say exactly what their destiny is but they believe in it and they keep their feet pointing forwards. She left me with two clear options. I just sent her a text saying, “Did you choose to be right or did you choose to be well?” and I got one back saying, “Well, all the way.” It’s been a good day already.

Last week I told you of a young fellow with a big frame, “who looks like he could pick up a sheep with one hand and put into his pocket.” I told of how he had bravely moved away from the drug taking that was killing him and had started to work out again in the gym. I said last week that “if we could find him a job, he’ll be on his way and never look back”. I’m over the moon to tell you that two unrelated members of this inner circle wrote...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

Dame Marie Bashir was in our lift yesterday and I saw her put her arms around an aboriginal woman. She said, “Every time I see an aboriginal sister, I just want to say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Dame Marie was here for our celebrations to mark NAIDOC Week. There were few happier places on earth than Wayside yesterday. We were able to peer into a future Australia that will enter into it’s own maturity because it knows that to love the land means to love the people of the land.

A homeless woman rushed through our front door the other day to say that someone had set fire to another homeless person’s mattress. There is a mattress set up near the theatre right behind us. We were about to rush to the fire and the lady said, “Don’t rush, I put the fire out.” She went on to explain that she’d poured all of her wine over the fire. I’m not sure if she was expecting we’d replace her supply of plonk or perhaps nominate her for an Order of Australia.

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