Act Justly, Love Tenderly....

My mother Elvie, who is also a work colleague and good friend, spent last week in hospital having a minor operation on her eye, an attempt to improve her vision following a heammorrage behind her good eye. In short, with macular degeneration causing this deterioration, her vision is severely limited and she's resigned to blindness at some point.

She hadn't felt well for some days before the appointment at St. Vincent's private hospital in Melbourne, having the flu, pain in her abdomen, and nausea, causing lack of appetite. Meredith's GP husband Roger wrote a letter for Elv to take with her detailing her symptoms and making some suggestions for tests. Consequently Elv was in hospital from Monday to Saturday evening having all manner of tests including gastroscopy, colonoscopy etc. She didn't eat all week.

Her eyesight maybe slightly better she says, however they could find no cause for the pain and nausea which remains. But she is now eating. She is so glad to be home, and is throwing herself at her work, which she loves. We talked while we had afternoon tea yesterday. A religious lady, a Baptist historically, she had to fill out a form where you tick boxes. She ticked Baptist on the religion question, thinking it was protocol only, in case you died on them or looked like it.

To her surprise she was visited a couple of days later by a Bappo minister with whom she had much in common in terms of belief, values, and general interest. He was a lovely man who brightened the otherwise arduous and boring week. She didn't expect this in a Catholic hospital. As we spoke I looked at a letter Elv had placed in front of me on the table, where I always sit. It was from George, a Catholic priest who is working in Peru after some years in Chile until a year or so ago. George is Elvie's old friend Pat's nephew (Pat worked for Elvie in the Sth Yarra florist shop from about 1960- 1973 and the two were great friends until Pat died of lung cancer last year). He often brought Pat up to see us at Christmas when he was in Australia, or Lyle and Elvie drove down to Pat's.

The letter was dated last March and I'd read it before. It was interesting to me particularly, having visited Peru with Lib in 2005. I told Elvie I'd write to George after she had, then promply forgot about it. Elv didn't get around to it either, and now her letter writing days are over due to the diminished eyesight, so she passed it back to me.

Now George is one of the nicest blokes you could meet. A huge bear of of a man with an obvious love of good tucker, always a good sign, he's open minded, tolerant of other beliefs, and compassionate to the poverty and misfortune in the third world countries he works. We are not close friends, but I wanted to write to him as I understood from his letters he was having a difficult time in Peru with his superiors and in some cases a less than ideal relationship with parishioners.
I quote some of his most recent letter.

"Last night I and Allan went to hear Fr. Marcos Arana, a diocesan priest from Cajamarca in the north of Peru talk about 'Poverty and Ecology'. The region where he works suffers from a lot of conflict between mining interests, some of them Australian, and small farmers who depend on the water miners contaminate to irrigate their crops. He told us that statistically 86% of all water used in Peru is directed towards agricultural use which is responsible for 2% of the contamination of water in the country. Mining in contrastwhich provides only 2% of the workforce pollutes up to 25% of all water sources in Peru. It seems to be an unhappy coincidence that a lot of the gold sought by miners is found near the available water resources used by agriculturalists who soon find themselves in conflict with the mining consortiums who contaminate the water used by both. Unfortunately too the gov't imposes few controls on the mining companies by way of insisting that they clean up the areas mined afterwards as would happen in the USA or Australia etc., so many small agriculturalists are left unprotected by the very people who should protect them. It's a sad fact of life here in Peru that the Gov't is hellbent on helping outside monied interests maximise their profits often at the expense of local people. At this very moment the Peruvian Gov't is trying to pass a law that will make access to water an economic commodity that can be utilized by those with money rather than as a human right. A lot of social injustice in Peru begins at high levels and that plus the endemic corruption so evident in this country make it hard for the poor who have very little protection before the law. People here have very little faith in the law and gov't institutions. One example of this occurred in the north of Peru recently. Three would be bandits stopped a bus to rob all the passengers. However their luck ran out when the passengers suddenly realised that the three men were only carrying fake guns and toy pistols. They were lynched by the outraged mob and died on the very edge of the road where they would have made their escape had their guns been real. What is the motto here? Don't steal or rob, or only with real guns?

I would like to thank those friends of mine who have sent gifts of money to help me with my mission work. I really appreciate your help and for thinking of me. Anyway, I hope that this brief letter finds you all well in Australia and that the blessings of the risen Lord bring you much joy this Easter.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. George **********.

P.S. Elvie, I trust life is treating you kindly. I keep Lyle in my prayers. I'm sure he's up there with God preparing the banquet."


While Elv was waiting in the foyer at St. V's for her Emerald Taxi she saw some writing on a window. She could make out "Act", so she went over to investigate. The full script said,

"Act Justly,
Love Tenderly,
Walk humbly with your God."

It's from the Bible, Micah 6 verse 8. If people regardless of race, religion, or nationality heeded those 9 words, we'd be close to paradise on Earth.