[Rough draft of an early chapter in my new book, Questions & Responses, to be published later this year, 2014] 

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It’s 4.05 am April 18, 2014, and I’ve just been awakened by three experiences: a loud sound, a very recent memory,  and a deep feeling of amazement and grief… 

* The sound of heavy rain – a rarity recently in our dry city of Melbourne, Australia;

* A memory from yesterday, Good Friday. It was a beautiful ecumenical service. We then wandered around the block to engage in an abbreviated Stations of the Cross.

I met a retired mainline church pastor for the first time and heard [again]: ‘You’re not *the* Rowland Croucher are you?’ (To which I lamely responded: Google tells me I’m the only one on the planet at the moment, spelt that way…’). We’ll come back to that *the* in a couple of paragraphs…

and

* A feeling of grief for the loved ones of hundreds of students, plus teachers and crew of the Korean ferry  Sewol which hit something in the Yellow Sea a few days ago and sank.  

Reports said one of those rescued from the ferry, Kang Min-gyu, vice principal of the high school whose students made up the majority of those aboard, had committed suicide.

Kang was found hanged near the gymnasium on Jindo island where family members of the victims were gathering, police said, leaving a note that read: “Please hold me responsible for all of this. I pushed for the school excursion. Cremate my body and spread my ashes over the ship sinking site. I may become a teacher again in the afterlife for the students whose bodies have yet to be found.”

The 69-year-old captain, Lee Jun-Seok, faces five counts including negligence of duty and violation of maritime law. Lee, who was taken into custody, was reportedly among the first to leave the stricken vessel.

A surviving student said the ferry operator made an announcement asking   passengers to ‘Stay Where You Are’. He didn’t hear any announcement telling passengers to escape…

~~

‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE!’

I got out of bed, put on a couple of layers of warm clothing, and began reminiscing/writing.

From adolescence I’ve been a pain in the [whatever] because I’ve challenged people NOT to stay where they were, especially if there may be valid alternatives to their belief-system.

‘Questions aren’t bad’ I used to say to the elders in our Brethren Assembly [‘Assembly’ = ‘church’, but we didn’t use ‘churchy’ words because we’d ‘come out of the churches’ and we – alone – had ‘the truth’].

The elders didn’t know what to do with stirrers like me. One of those good people used to reply: ‘Rowland, don’t ask questions, just believe!’

I wrote a page-full of questions when a visiting Brethren Teaching Elder was coming to our group for a ‘Question and Answer’ evening. Mr. Tom Carson, a nice and scholarly man, did his best with them.

Questions like: ‘How is it that some our heroes – people like the missionary Hudson Taylor, and the man-of-faith George Muller – did so well when they didn’t agree with some of the things Brethren teach?’ [Verbal response: ‘Ah, but imagine how much more effective they would have been if they’d been enlightened, as we are…’ Visual response: eyes in my direction which sort-of said ‘How’s that for a good answer, young Rowland?’].

‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE’

When I left high school and went to the University of Sydney, I got some insights into the ‘Stay Where You Are’ phenomenon. Change can be threatening for humans, our Psychology professor told us. Especially changing your mind about something. The idea that it was OK to question ideas you imbibed with your mother’s milk – my mother was easily the most formative influence in my life in its first decade – confirmed my attitude-of-dissent.

(Later I was to return to the University of Sydney to do a Master’s degree in Social Psychology, majoring on a study of  ‘the Diffusion of Innovations’, especially in religious organisations. More about that later…).

So ‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE’ can be a recipe for intellectual as well as physical death.

Why did that announcement come over the ship’s P/A system? Simplest answer: if people in a perceived emergency run around to save themselves it might cause a riot, and RIOTS ARE BAD. Disorder, chaos, must be avoided at all costs (even, apparently,  at the cost of human lives).

Fast forward to the last year or so. I have a Facebook page which asks lots of questions. My 5000 or so friends have – mostly – got used to this nasty habit of mine (but when the questions get too many/hot I’m ‘defriended’ by some nervous people, so there are always a few vacancies on the Friends’ list). Occasionally a conservative person will post something like: ‘Rowland, you’ve lived for three quarters of a century: isn’t it time you found some answers? Do you really have to keep stirring?’

Yes, I do.

And yes, I *have* found some answers, but

I still have a deep-seated horror of Bad Answers to Good Questions.

Yesterday’s ‘Age’ newspaper [18/4/2014, p.34] published an obituary for one of my political heroes, the Independent Senator Brian Harradine, who died last week. ‘What,’ my friends ask, ‘Do you actually agree with the views of this very conservative Catholic?’ My response: ‘Often no, but I like his attitude.’ He refused to be ‘boxed-in’ on many issues, and took his job as a federal politician very seriously. ‘He [often] brooded over policy decisions for days and weeks, consulting widely. His decisions often took people by surprise. He argued for what he believed in whether or not it polled well… [His were] principled stances’. He didn’t like the idea of a consumption tax (it would ‘discriminate against and hurt the poor’.) He worried that ‘Australia was giving priority to trade over China’s human rights record and that women in third world countries wanted clean drinking water and help with basic material health before abortion… In 1975 Harradine [had been] expelled from the Australian Labor Party for claiming the ALP had links to the Communist movement. However, this gave him the publicity to be elected to the Senate that year and he was successful in every election until he retired in 2005.’

He was truly independent: ‘He drank “silver tea” – a concoction of hot water and milk. He was frugal with himself and generous with others… He had that rare ability to fully engage with whoever he was speaking to and would greet cleaning staff the same way he would colleagues. He also took an active interest in the lives of his staff and their families…’

I like that man!

But, again, no, I don’t like some aspects of his [Catholic] conservatism – which probably had something to do with the fact that ‘he is survived by his second wife, Marion, his six children, her seven children and many grandchildren’).

‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE’!

As the economic storm clouds gathered in terms of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the advice from Australia’s Federal Treasury was: ‘Go early, go hard, and go households’. Fortunately our [Labor] government did just that, and I’m proud that our country weathered the storm better than any other…

[More to come…]