Australian Thoughts at the Weekend - 25th April, 2009.

Australian Thoughts at the Weekend - 25th April, 2009.

ANZAC DAY

This morning my alarm sounded at 3.45am. I quickly showered and dressed , and drank a cup of coffee. At 4.15am I drove to my workplace, Greenslopes Private Hospital, where I would read the prayers in an ANZAC Dawn Service. Greenslopes Hospital was built by the Australian Army in the early years of World War 2. For many years it served servicemen and ex-servicemen as a government owned and operated hospital. It is now Australia’s largest private hospital owned by Ramsay Health Care and it is a major provider to the veteran community. (http://www.greenslopesprivate.com.au)
I arrived a little after 5am and I headed to Anzac Memorial where already many people were standing, as all the seats were taken, as they waited for the 5.30am commencement. About 1200 people will attend the service and after the service many will move to the adjacent open air car park where probably 900 will sit down for a hot breakfast, prepared by the hospital chefs.
As I drove I thought about the many ANZAC Services I had attended. I tried to count the number but the best I could do was calculate it by my age. Many years I have attended three or four. As a school boy, there was always the school ANZAC Service, and added to that once I joined the Corps Band when I was about 10, there was three parades and services on Anzac Day. I reckoned I had attended close to 200 Anzac Services. Today, it will be only two. After the Anzac Day Service and breakfast, I drove back home and then to join our Corps Band and Timbrellists in an Anzac March and then to accompanied the hymns and play the National Anthems of New Zealand and Australia at the community commemoration service.
The Services are formal and traditional. An official website gives guidance as to what can or should happen: http://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac/anzac_tradition.htm or http://www.anzacday.org.au/ .
The Dawn Service is timed in many places to commence at 4.28am. It was at that pre-dawn hour that the ANZACS landed at Gallipoli on the 25th April, 1915. At the Hospital where I am the Chaplain Coordinator, the service commenced at 5.30am which was still about 35 minutes before the sun rose. If you would like an emailed copy of the order of service, please email your request to OzThoughts at Ozthoughts@yahoo.com.au .
This year Australia’s national broadcaster (The Australian Broadcasting Commission – ABC ) has provided an interactive experience about the WW1 ANZAC
landing at Gallipoli, on 25 April 1915. It is called “Gallipoli – The First Day. You can access it here : http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/gallipoli .

Some years ago I had to speak at a 4.28am Dawn Anzac Service in our community, here at Southport on the Gold Coast. It is estimated that well over 1,000 people gathered in the darkness to remember before the sun rose. The following is the address I gave on that occasion.
Anzac Day Dawn Service
We stand here this morning in the pre-dawn darkness on this ANZAC Day. We look towards another day as it dawns. A day loaded with possibilities faces because of the freedoms we enjoy. We face the future of this great Country. Today, these precious moments are the beginning of the future.
Today is a different day. Here in the morning we look eagerly ahead. However, as we face this day., it is good to stop a while.
We often half turn and look back over our shoulder but today is a day to turn fully around and face the past.
We face the past which has shaped today and shapes our future. We face the past and remember. We face the past and are humbled by those who have gone before. We face the past and say thanks.
Today we stop especially to remember.
We remember those young ANZACS of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who in those pre dawn hours stepped onto a foreign shore. They fought bravely and many fell there not to get up. In our minds they still stand tall for what they believed.
We remember those who went before the Anzacs. We remember those who proudly wore the name “Australia” as they went to fight in the Boer War.
We remember others from the Great War of 1914-1918, those who faced various foes in the War of 1939 – 1945. We remember to Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Vietnam, East Timor and those who have served and still serve in the Iraq and Afghanistan, and in many other places.
As we remember we don’t ask why....
We remember the Spirit of the Anzacs. “The Spirit of ANZAC is an intangible thing. It is unseen, unpredictable, and an unquenchable thirst for justice, freedom and peace…

The Spirit of ANZAC is a cornerstone which underpins our Australian image, way of life and indeed is an integral part of our heritage”.

The Spirit of ANZAC was suggested by official war historian C.E.W. Bean to have 'stood, and still stands, for reckless valour in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance that will never own defeat.'

The Spirit of ANZAC was epitomised in the deeds of Simpson with his donkey at Gallipoli - comradeship, courage and sacrifice: others before self.
It also encompasses the laughter, the pride and the love of life that is in every Australian. To really understand this Spirit one must delve back into our country's past.

This is not the place for a detailed History lesson ...it is a day of looking back at the key indicators in the History of our nation. History not written in books but history written in the lives of men and women as they fought and died and some returned from the battle fields so far away.

It is a day of capturing in History values and traditions to which we hold.

In another context in another place words which will help us today as we think of the Spirit of ANZAC

That I can tell you in one word--tradition! (Tevye - Anatevka)

"Because of our tradition we have kept our balance for many, many years.
"Because of our tradition everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.
"For without tradition our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof!"
"A fiddler on the roof, sounds crazy, heh?

Sounds crazy? ...

Someone speaking of the Anzac Spirit said it is madness
The sun invades our bodies and makes us 'mad'; mad for freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to live and think as you will
But the Spirit of ANZAC is not confined to the battlefield. It lives in the schools, on the sports fields, in fact all over these great countries of Australia and New Zealand.
Yes! The sun invades our bodies and makes us 'mad'; mad for freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to live and think as you will.
This day as we look back we turn to look ahead…
We may be touched with sadness and tinged with madness but we love those freedoms.... freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to live and think as you will.
As we think of freedom I think there is another word that comes to mind. ..Well two words that have become linked as one…the words “fair dinkum”
Those that went to war and those who stayed at home supporting them loved the freedom to be fair dinkum…
The stories I hear of Aussie soldiers particularly they put the “fair dinkum” test to those they met.
We all have our stories. The stories we have been told the stories we love to tell.
When the Diggers came back here, they put the same test to those who came to live along side them. To the English who came and worked in the factories and mines, to the Italians who bent their backs in the cane fields of the north, to the many, many nationalities who could proudly say they worked in the Snowy Mountain Scheme and in so many other places. We wondered and we tested them but they have proved “fair dinkum.”
I laughed when I was teaching a high school class in Liverpool, Sydney. The son of an Italian migrant from Calabria said I don’t think these Vietnamese should be coming they are taking our jobs. We laughed together as I reminded him the same was said about the Italians.
Some years ago, I had in my circle of Salvation Army friends a Vietnam War veteran who came home hating the Vietnamese. He kept it pretty quiet but it bubbled away within him. He built a new house and moved in. One day, a very wet day, he was picking up his children from school and his daughter asked him if they could give her friend a ride home, as she lived in the same street. A little Vietnamese kid got in the car. For his own kid’s sake he did not say anything. Later that evening, there came the knock on the door, the Vietnamese kid’s father had come to say thanks. Hate bubbled quickly but the bubble burst in a warm handshake. My friend said in telling the story “He seems to be “fair dinkum” and then went on to tell of the success this new citizen, his new friend was making in this new country.
What is the test of being “fair dinkum”? We can look back and learn lessons from the past. Being fair dinkum is the putting of that we believe to be right and good for others and the general good before ourselves.
Recently we have celebrated Easter. One of the little incidents but big in meaning was the Roman soldier who stood by the cross where Jesus hung dead and said “surely this was the Son of God!” He was saying this Jesus is fair dinkum. Jesus is what he claimed to be.
On Anzac Day every Australian and New Zealand citizen and those who are guests in our lands can enjoy the fair dinkum Spirit of ANZAC. “A warm, tender, fiery, even melancholy ideal that nurtures intense patriotism in the innermost soul of every body. Many foundation ANZACs died, but their glorious challenge to catch the thrown torch shouts loud and strong to all. Their goal was freedom for the land they loved”.
“The Spirit of ANZAC is invincible. It is the flame that burns forevermore in the heart of every true Australian and New Zealander. Today we stand safe and free, clothed with all the privileges and rights of citizens in these great free countries. And all these things - liberty, security, opportunity, and the privileges of citizenship - we owe to those men and women who fought, endured, suffered, and died for us and for their country. Their deeds and their sacrifices gave us the invincible, the intangible, the Spirit of ANZAC”.
PRAYER:
God of love and liberty, we bring our thanks this day for the peace and security we enjoy, which was won for us through the courage and devotion of those who gave their lives in time of war. We pray that their labour and sacrifice may not be in vain, but that their spirit may live on in us and in generations to come. That the liberty, truth and justice which they sought to preserve may be seen and known in all the nations upon earth.
We pray too for those who have suffered because of war and those who continue to suffer. I pray your comforting hand be upon them today. We pray for those who live inland s which are still experiencing the terrors of war, that they may know peace in their hearts, homes and lands. This we pray in the name of the one who gave his life for the sake of the world, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,
That where there is hatred, I may bring love;
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
That where there is error, I may bring truth;
That where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
That where there is despair, I may bring hope;
That where there is darkness, I may bring light;
That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Divine Master,
Grant that i may not so much seek
To be comforted . . .as to give comfort
To be understood . . .as to understand,
To be loved . . . as to love
For it is in giving . . .that we receive,
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned,
It is in dying . . .that we are born to eternal life


The Salvation Army of Australia in War see:

Soldiers of the Cross: http://www.anzacday.org.au/spirit/cross/index.html

For general information about ANZAC Day see the same site:
www.anzacday.org.au

Australian War Memorial: One of the world's great museums :
www.awm.gov.au

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