22 October 2007

Dear friends,

We gather at this tree and memorial in the season of spring – a season of hope and newness. We gather with a shared and sorrowful legacy, of having lost someone we love through the use of illicit drugs. It is a time of shared pain that runs deep – the pain of grief in the death of someone close to us, the pointlessness of the deaths of young people with so much life and promise ahead of them, our sorrow and anger at society’s continued marginalization and labeling of drug users. There is much that we remember and carry in ourselves today - much that must be treasured and honoured as we think of those we love.

But there is also hope in being here. There is hope in memory, that the love and legacy of the person we remember and treasure is not lost to the world.

There is hope in feeling whatever it is that we feel today, whether it be sorrow for what is gone, or anger at the policy framework which leaves so many at risk, or conviction that we share a common purpose. Surrounding an experience as multi-layered as losing someone to drugs are intense and complex emotions and reactions. Being present to that complexity is one of the tasks of being a human person, dealing with love and grief and our common responsibility for the shaping of the future.

There is hope in sharing our experience with others. As we share what we have known in our lives, the perspectives that are informed by real engagement with what it means to live with someone using illicit drugs, we develop understanding and compassion. We see that these are not just ethical or political issues, but deeply human realities, and we want to bring that humanity into our society’s attitudes to drugs and drug users.

For ten years I was a minister in central Melbourne. Behind the Collins Street Baptist Church where I worked was a lane which ended with a small parking bay which was on church property. The parking area was dingy and ‘in-under’ a nine story building, but it was off the street and out of sight. It became a popular shooting-up place for addicts. The church struggled with its attitude to this new population who were not the classic target group from which our congregation drew its members. While all around us other building owners in this highly congested (and contested) public space were installing gates, fences and security cameras, the church came to know and understand that these people were our neighbours - in the Biblical sense: those in need who were near us.

We started a free café where these people could have lunch right next to their unofficial shooting gallery. We installed sharps bins and lighting. We provided pastoral support and referral for those needing more assistance. We encouraged mural art and graffiti on the church walls. The graffiti was some of the most astute social commentary I have read. We would, however, not provide drug paraphernalia or supplies to assist in drug use (such as water for mixing drugs) nor allow drug use within the church buildings. Above all we came to know them as our friends, to sense some of our shared frailty and struggles, and to sense the degree of rejection, misunderstanding and criticism that they endured.

When some of them died we were grief stricken, for not only were they our friends but they would sometimes die on the property and be found slumped over a staff member’s cars or lying in a corner. Often we were able to call an ambulance and save a life.

While I was doing this work I visited central Australia and went to Yuendumu an Aboriginal community on the edge of the Tanami Desert, about 280 kilometres NW of Alice Springs. While there I was privileged to go further into the desert, about 500k from Alice Springs, to Mt Theo, where the community was running a rehab program for young petrol sniffers.  There were twenty or so of these kids living on the edge of nowhere with an Aboriginal elder who was teaching them their traditions and law. Sometimes they would run away and walk 500k across the desert to Alice Springs. I was asked to speak to them, and I told them about the people who I knew who used heroin. That was something they couldn’t understand: “Man, that place is only 2k from the MCG – who get involved in drugs when they could be there all the time and soaking up the action?

Wherever we live, whatever our lifestyle enables or prohibits there are challenges and sorrows that we must engage and work through. We find it hard to understand the choices and behavior of those who seem to be different. Yet the truth is that we are wonderfully alike. We all have hopes and dreams. We all have fears and worries. We all make choices about how to deal with life.

The social struggle about how we will respond to drugs remains profoundly alive in Australian society. The recent death of a high profile retired footballer, and the sacking this week of a current AFL player have added to the debate.  In the discussion we hear echoes of the different discourses that try to frame policy: the AFL talking about the ‘illness’ of one of their players, on the other hand the voices calling for zero tolerance.

Behind all of this is another discourse that is even more dangerous, more inimical. It is that the celebrities and ‘role models’ of our culture actually determine the way our society will be – that we have to somehow get them performing or acting the way we want people to behave.  It minimizes the experience and the value of ordinary people, the kind of people we remember here today.

Is the real knowledge, the real wisdom, around drug use and how to manage it to be found on the front pages of the papers and the social life of celebrities? Or is it to be found here in the hearts and minds and stories that surround this tree?

As we remember, and give thanks for the ones we love, and commit ourselves to help shape the future in hope and healing, may the deep and shared experience of this community, the compassion born of love and loss, and the wisdom you carry, give comfort and strength for the journey.

Revd. James Barr

Canberra Baptist Church