Dear Inner Circle,

Chatting to a fellow at the front of our Op Shop I suddenly noticed some colourful flowers. I’m not the most observant person in the world, but I was pretty sure that the flowers must have been planted overnight. We don’t have volunteers who tend the garden overnight and this was a mystery. I didn’t mention the flowers but my face must have communicated some confusion. “Do you know Clover Moore?” the man asked. “Sure I do,” I replied. “Well, you should ring her and thank her for the flowers” he said. “Gosh,” I said with an ever increasing sense of mystery, “Why would Clover donate a single little bed of flowers like that?” “Oh,” said the man, “She doesn’t know she made the donation!” It suddenly occurred to me that the City of Sydney has had rather wonderful flower displays erected in the main street. If Clover or anyone from the City of Sydney is reading this, I offer my apology for your “donation”.

A weedy little bloke approached me just a moment ago. “Graham! I haven’t seen you in a year!” I was wondering if we had ever met, when he helped me by saying that I had officiated at his wedding ceremony. Slowly his face seemed approximately familiar, although the woman at his side seemed not to fit with my memory of the bloke. He quickly explained, in front of the woman, that his marriage had lasted only weeks. The necks and shoulders and arms of both people looked like they were covered with what we used to call “hickies” when I was young. Either these two had been involved in some extreme kissing or both of them had fallen into a pit of set rabbit traps. To my astonishment and still without introducing me to the woman at his side, he explained how many women had fallen pregnant to him in the past year. I stopped the conversation in order to introduce myself to the woman and to learn her name. It turns out this relationship was just days old and yet I could see its end looming. I walked away...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

A 13-year-old boy came to Wayside with his Mum yesterday. He had just completed his Bar Mitzvah and had chosen to give the money raised on the occasion to Wayside. Not only so but he had managed to get a lot of toiletries and other things that we love here and I had the honour of meeting him and accepting this gift. I really enjoyed sharing something of how important a Bar Mitzvah is to a Jewish family and I was keen to hear all that was required of him for the event and what it meant to him. Religious or not, you have to admit that the Jewish people know how to do this rite of passage placing both a burden and a large parcel of dignity onto young, developing shoulders. Thank you Benjamin, “Son of my right hand”. If you keep your faith married to your sense of compassion for humanity, you will indeed be a blessing to your religious community and to Australia.

A rare breed of man sat in my office this morning. I have his permission to tell this story. This is a man with a superior intellect who has made much wealth because of his ability to analyse a situation and then act according to reason. Rare indeed. Most of us use our intellect to rationalise what we have already done. So this fellow has a younger brother who married a woman who is by any measure, narcissistic. He has watched his brother collapse from being a fun-loving fellow to a hollowed-out shell as he attempts to meet the impossible demands of his wife. The brother has gone without many things while the wife has a shoe collection that requires its own room. The bottom line is that my friend, after careful analysis, had decided that his brother should leave his wife. He expressed his view to his brother, and as a result the relationship with the brother is close to collapse. The older brother cannot understand why his younger brother wouldn’t be responsive to the application of his considerable intellect. Once the analysis is made, what possible cause could there be not to...[read more]

Dear Inner Circle,

Standing on the footpath and talking to some of our visitors, a well-dressed man walked up with a warm smile and said, “Do you remember me?” I replied, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before in my life.” He gave me a friendly punch on my upper arm and said, “You’re a character!” Apparently I’m a character, with dementia.

It was dark when I left last night and there were a lot of people around. Our Twilight Team had their hands full. It took me a while, as it always does, to be out of the front door and walking up the road. A young, fit looking man who has been around Wayside for a couple of months came up to me. He’s a friendly, likeable bloke, and although we have greeted each other several times, I know nothing of his back story. In passing I said, “Are you sleeping rough tonight?” “Yeah,” he said and a wave of despair came over him. He put his arms around me. In my arms his voice broke and he said so that only I could hear, “I’m so sick of waking up.”

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Dear Inner Circle,

The Governor of NSW, General David Hurley, put a medal on my chest last Friday afternoon and proclaimed it official – I have Amazing Mates. I requested that I be allowed 15,000 guests at the ceremony but was strictly limited to three. Having Robyn, my daughter, Mandy, and my eldest granddaughter, Paityn at my side meant the world to me. I made one mistake on the day. I told my daughter to book us into the kind of restaurant I would normally avoid so that for this one occasion, we wouldn’t worry about the cost. My daughter took us to a place that was not only a cultural shock, but I may need counselling for some months yet. The menu on one side had a lot of choices, none of which I understood. The other side of the menu was called “Devastation” or something similar. It’s the only time I’ve seen a menu that anticipates the moment when you get the bill. With this choice, you are served everything on the page. A couple of times I was served a large plate with what looked like a small pile of bird seed with a few squirts of something that didn’t look like food. I asked our waiter what it was that was on my plate but he answered me in French. I don’t speak French but I’m pretty sure he told me that my plate had been put into a bird cage for an hour and then the contents were arranged by their star chef. He then said, “Bon Appetite” which being translated from French means, “Our bird wasn’t very well today”.

In the morning on the same day I went to the intensive care unit at Prince of Wales Hospital where one of our dearest Aboriginal friends was dying. Our Senior Aboriginal Worker, Mon, was already at his bedside. Mon’s tenderness with our brother stopped me in my tracks. I’d already had a busy day with quite a big day ahead but I stopped, captured by the awesome sight of love. Our dear brother was a dark-skinned, handsome-faced man who somehow carried thousands of years of pride, hurt and wisdom in his face. He...[read more]

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]