“...for the growing good of the world is partly dependant on unhistoric acts: and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the numbers who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
the final words in Middlemarch by George Eliot
‘That’s very good for you Eric, but you do deserve it. You work very hard.’
‘Thanks love. You know there were five other nominations, and I won it on the first ballot.’
‘Really, that’s special, but I’ve always said that you’re so popular. So what does the job mean, and when do you start?’
‘Well it’s just an honorary position, but it’s a very large RSL branch, probably the biggest in the state, and certainly one of the most powerful. So to be president for at least two years with the possibility of another two will introduce me to a lot of the movers and shakers around the town. The business connections I’ll make from it all will be invaluable.’
‘OK, so what happens now?’
‘Well we wait for about two months, I get a bit of a cook’s tour to be shown how it all works, and then there’s the inauguration followed by the handover.’
‘Is there a ceremony?’
‘Oh yeah, this is a pretty major appointment and the handing over is pretty significant.’
‘When does it occur?’
‘Let me check, I did write it down, but where? Oh yeah here ‘tis. It’s at 1.00 pm on Sunday the 16th at the Club Function Room.’
‘Is that the 16th of October?’
‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘Oh no, I think that might be a problem.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘No I think there’s a church convention on that weekend.’
‘What? And I suppose you’re going to go to your bloody church instead of my inauguration?’
‘You know I never want to miss church. You know how important it is to me.’
‘Oh, I know alright, everything goes out the window if it gets in the way of that precious bloody church!’
‘You don’t have to be so angry Eric.’
‘No why should I? I’ve just been given the prestigious honour of being elected president of the city’s biggest and most important RSL Club, and my very religious wife doesn’t thinks it’s worth being there for me. Have you any idea how humiliating it will be if I’m there as the only husband who’s wife couldn’t bother attending? So don’t tell me not to be angry!’
‘Well you should know by now just how important church is to me.’
In that last declaration there lay the central tension of what was slowly and surely poisoning Eric’s marriage. But to understand why that is the case we actually need to go back in time about 20 years.
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It was January 1945 and Sydney was one of the liveliest of places to be. It was mid summer, it was towards the end of the war, although nobody knew then that the end was near. The days and nights there were hot and full of activity. There was no unemployment. Everybody had a wage. Multitudes of American servicemen overflowed the place and demanded that all potential entertainment facilities be up and running for their much needed use. The feeling and the vibe of the town was very different to anything before because the fact of potential death in action was an ever present reality that lay just one or two days travel away from all the fun. For most servicemen this recreation leave could really be their last. As a consequence some latent hedonism brushed away a lot of previously observed modesty, and it simultaneously loosened the screws on more than a few moral compasses. The common outcry from the local Aussies who ended up no match for the US military’s spending power was, ‘these bloody Americans are over-paid, over-sexed and over here!’
Eric was doing his part, just like everybody else. The Cockatoo Island Dockyard was the most important battleship repair site in the southern hemisphere and was at full capacity because of its closeness to the battle for the Pacific. Eric was a junior accountant in the shipyard’s office, and while such a lowly position might not be many serviceman’s ideal way to spend the war, the fact was that WW2 was the biggest military event ever, and everybody’s role, no matter how trivial, was important. What was equally important for Eric and his mates was the fact that they were close to the heart of Sydney. This meant that at the end of each day the entertainment precinct was absolutely buzzing and was “The Place To Be” every night of the week – in spite of all those bloody Americans! It was a quite unique time in the history of Sydney.
As is usually the case in the chaos of wartime, because so many males are tied up in combat duties, the demand for female labour was also huge. This is where a lovely young girl from country New South Wales came to the ‘Rockin’ Sydney to serve her country as best she could. Her name was Helen. She was a junior officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She was a little naive by the current Sydney standards, but she was a good worker, a calm and steady personality, and was very easy to get on with. As a result she fitted comfortably into that particular cultural experiment and melted into the social environment. After several months of jaw dropping wows she gradually, like Eric, came to enjoy the almost permanent party atmosphere and imbibed ever increasing amounts of all the fun and frivolity.
Just who spotted who first across the dance floor in that nightclub was the subject of quite a few jokes between them over the ensuing months as their relationship quickly grew. Just like many other new linkages it evolved in the context of endless nights of dancing to that swing music, the weekend pub-crawls, the wit and charm of some antipodean salon-type refinement, and the intoxication and magic of an Australian summer. It was all very heady when the sheer madness of newly found love, desire, romance, the unreal nature of a world war, plus the immortality of youth, descended into the hearts of the participants. The macrocosm of war permeated the microcosm of ordinary Aussie life in a truly existential way. When peace eventually came the prospects were that everybody involved would have to begrudgingly melt back into normal life. Many of the recently formed couples began the process of some soul-searching. Were they all just a bit carried away by the excitement and cheer, or was there maybe a bit more to these newly established relationships? Eric and Helen agreed that they should take things cautiously, but equally agreed that it did feel like something special.
The ensuing year or two involved some new jobs by each person, and in different parts of the country, with the result of much emotional pining. After a prudent duration of time, combined with sound advice from parents, both parties agreed that it was now obvious that they needed to take the next important step and pursue domesticity and a future together. Where they finally settled down ended up being much further away from their extended families than either would have liked, but post war restoration by this stage was growing though not yet in full swing, and opportunities didn’t magically appear any more in the older more established ways. Eric’s job in the bank while a bit tedious did give them stability, and when they purchased their first very modest cottage in the ragged, outer, back-blocks of their new city Helen’s role of housekeeper and potential mother was automatically assumed.
Just when the loneliness, isolation, long distance from family, and Eric’s expectations for Helen’s future began to gnaw away at her sole wasn’t that clear. The starkness of her life without a scintilla of that superficial war-time excitement meant her assessment of just what her life was meant to be about became full of some profound doubts. While Eric’s days gave him the satisfaction of work and a future career, Helen’s endless outer suburban days of nothingness, domestic drudgery, and expectations meant her existential questions drilled firmly down into her soul. Then almost inevitably she stumbled on to some dormant questions that she hadn’t confronted in her private thoughts for quite a few years. The memories of past peace associated with church and a children’s Sunday school began to drip on to the dry emptiness that had recently come to lurk inside her. It was an emptiness she had always felt but had never articulated because in Australia you never discuss religion or politics. The drip slowly became a trickle, then a stream, and then a big flow. When that positive pregnancy test happened it became an event that infused into her the new and awesome responsibilities that she was now carrying. The big flow then became a flood that saturated all her conscious and subconscious questioning. One day as she rummaged among her childhood possessions she found the Bible that she had been gifted as a young Sunday school attendee all those years ago. She began reading all the once familiar passages from her upbringing. As the peaceful assurance found in those passages rekindled some dormant fire that was in her – a calm, quiet, and restful forgiveness re-established itself, and put all the fun and frivolity of those more recent years into their proper context.
Anyone who has discovered Grace will understand the profound revolution that it produces in you, and that was now occurring in Helen. It turns your thinking upside down and rearranges your values in ways that those who don’t share your new experience will never understand. Just like the millions and millions of times it has happened before, Helen prayed, read her Bible, and gave her life back to what she had once known but had ignored all through the hurly-burly of her recent life.
Eric for his part did wonder what was going on. Why did she suddenly give up smoking? Her lack of swearing started to be noticeable. And why out of the blue did she stop sharing their end of day couple of beers? It didn’t trouble him too much because he was of that generationwhere it was all about him. While he was able to live just how he wanted not much else mattered. A woman’s duty was to make a home, pop out the odd couple of kids, and most significantly look after the all-important man of the house. So while Helen’s life, mind and soul were going through some stellar changes, as long as she continued to focus on Eric’s needs none of what was new in her life troubled him. When she started asking about churches in the area he still continued to miss the signals.
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The brand of Christian religion that Helen was initiated into is not relevant other than it was one of those who thought that they were right, and by definition, that everybody else was wrong. Helen did discover the truth that is the Gospel however and she rightly believed it must make you want to be a better person. It’s all about how you live your life when no one’s watching. For her relationship with Eric this meant that their former pastimes like dancing, smoking, drinking alcohol, going to clubs and pubs, and not attending church at every possible opportunity were now seen as sinful. These former habits of course were all the things that they shared in their whirlwind romance and against the backdrop that was wartime Sydney. Basically Eric married what he thought was a certain kind of person and ended up with someone who turned out to be the complete opposite.
This is where it goes a bit haywire and that poisonous central tension alluded to earlier began to impact his comfortable domesticity. For the chauvinistic Eric it forced him to do a bit of soul searching, and sadly like most males of his generation nothing like this had ever happened before – either to them, their parents, their friends, nor anyone they knew. If it had happened to someone somewhere nobody ever discussed it. Therefore there was no language, values, or principles there that they could call on to guide them through this unexpected labyrinth of issues. They ended up going to that well-credentialed, tried and tested, and socially acceptable solution to pretty much any existential crisis – alcohol. It asks nothing of the stressed out soul and gives back just about everything that soul desires. Unless you become addicted, then everything changes. Sadly within Eric's genetic inheritance lay the propensity for alcoholism. This became the defining reality of the rest of his whole life – tragedy piled on top of tragedy. The line of least resistance worked its evil corruption successfully yet again. On the other hand Eric was no victim. He made his own choices. He could have made different ones, but his chauvinism was undoubtedly the norm for then. When nothing in your formative environment supplies you with a set of tools to help in this kind of decision making, and everything you’ve absorbed supplies you with the exact opposite, it can become very problematic.
Helen’s method of dealing with this new relationship crisis also required some examination. And this is where her reaction to Eric’s inauguration into his new role with hthe RSL offers a couple of compelling insights. Eric did manage to keep his excessive drinking successfully out of public view for a long time, hence his election as club president. He turned out to be a quite successful functioning alcoholic.
The first thing Helen should have acknowledged is that the world is full of different kinds of Christians. At the extreme end some will let a loved one die for the sake of a blood transfusion. In less extreme faith there are those like Helen who see habits like smoking, dancing or drinking in moderation as sinful and the works of the devil. These people forget that King David danced and danced (2nd Samuel 6:14). Proverbs 31 says that a soul who is suffering should drink wine to forget his difficult circumstances. And the Bible is totally silent on the issue of smoking. The great and highly respected 19th century evangelist Charles Spurgeon, who tried unsuccessfully to quit many many times, ultimately declared that he smoked to glory of God.
Are there no Jehovah Witnesses who are devout? Did none of the followers of Jim Jones sincerely believe? The conservative Christians who are so rigorous in their pursuit of what they deem to be behavioural purity have forgotten The Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7 Jesus makes reference to eyes blinded by specks of sawdust compared to eyes blurred by planks. It also declares that we shouldn’t judge others lest we face that same judgment of ourselves. Plenty of the faithful drink in moderation and see nothing wrong with dancing. The facts are that there are many believers who act in ways that others find difficult. In the end there is none among us who has the right to judge anyone else in matters of personal choices about faith. None of has the whole picture of another’s life. We all should believe that only God has the full perspective (1st Samuel 16:7) because that is what the Bible teaches, and ultimately it is only logical.
Helen had the right to pursue any brand of faith she wished to. And she was equally at liberty to abstain from anything she believes the Bible sanctions against. Eric had no right to force her to do things that were against her conscience as many males have done historically. To be fair to him his “enlightenment” did extend to at least that. This was something his own father could never understand about his son's marriage. Wives are like children and should be seen and not heard. She also had the responsibility of being sensitive to the beliefs of others whose liberty is of equal value. If someone asked her then she should have reasons for her choices, but if nobody asked then she should keep it to herself and let her actions do the talking. Perhaps Helen might have said to Eric that she had made a choice which meant in the future she was going to be quite a bit different to the Helen he thought she was, but that she also respected his individuality and his moral compass. If they were going to have a meaningful future together perhaps they both should cut each other a bit of slack.
Did this happen? All we have is Eric’s life-time reaction which in the end was not praiseworthy. What if Helen had skipped church on this one occasion and brought the kids to watch their special dad receive a level of esteem and recognition only given to a select few, what change might that have made to Eric’s self concept and his respect for his wife? He would have appeared a very lonely soul on such an auspicious day. And who knows what such a wonderfully positive affirmation might have made to his battle with the bottle?
And that pregnancy mentioned earlier. Well, they had a boy and they called him Peter. He spent most of his adult life unraveling the consequences of an totally absent, always drunk father. In a curious and ironic final twist, when Eric’s liver finally gave up the fight, and he was facing his certain demise he, completely of his own volition, became a baptized member of the little church Helen had remained faithful to for the rest of her life. One could say that this was simply because he knew he was facing death and such a reality sharpens one’s focus, and shines a bright light on matters eternal? Or alternatively it might have been because after her early years of dogmatism Helen came to let her actions be her witness. She ended up living a life of quiet patience, humility, graciousness and tolerance. Who knows in the end what difference that made to Eric? Fortunately only God knows the heart, and only He has the right to pass judgment.
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