Confessions of a Free Range Prolapsed Catholic

Dear Mr Prime Minister, It is 4.16 am on 21/3/2020 and I am unable to go back to sleep. I write when this happens. I am writing to you. I wrote to you at the time of the bushfires and received a response listing all the fabulous, wonderful, brilliant things you seem to think you…

Four ten a.m. and I am awake and itchy! Its not an outside itch! Its an inside itch that is running rampant from the top of my brain to the bottom of my belly. Its almost as if I have been taken over by some stirring up of nerves and sensitivities and it’s doing my…

For the last few days I have been thinking that “ the world” or perhaps “my world” needs to just pause. How long? Five minutes, ten minutes? I’m not sure. Just a pause. The world seems to have gone mad and I don’t recognise it! So many messages! Drought, flood, fire, virus and this latest…

I worked as a teacher for more than forty years. I loved my work. I had a good career with hard won opportunity. Our family was financially secure thanks to my salary and each of our children received opportunities to grow academically, emotionally and spiritually. Each of them is an adult making positive contributions to…

In an attempt to distract myself from the Prime Minister, I have been doing some personal historical reflection. I found 30 or more of my journals in a recent clean up and sorting out of bookshelves. One in particular, my first, I had been searching for since attending the ceremony at the Garden of Innocents…

I am beginning this without being able to come up with a suitable title! On December 20th I wrote about the fire north of my home. My fears for my daughter and her family. The awfulness/awefilled-ness of my world which had turned orange and air that was acrid with the smell of burning bush! My…

Everything is oppressive at the moment! The agony and horror of the fires and the extraordinary heat. The frustration of watching our country’s leader remind us that “that’s what Dad’s do” as explanation for not returning to the country after the tragedy in New Zealand and the destruction and carnage of the bushfires. Its hot.…

                                                                  On November 10th, 2018 the Chapel at St Joseph’s Lochinvar was terribly damaged by smoke after a long smouldering fire, which started…

My best friend suffers from and lives with CRPS , Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.  An energetic, intelligent, force of nature herself, she is frequently and for extended periods of time, forced to a screaming halt by pain that comes from nowhere, inexplicable and incapacitating. At its height she cannot stand being touched where ever the…