SIX BILLION AND STILL COUNTING.

SIX BILLION AND STILL COUNTING.

My dad didn’t tell us boys- Peter, Mark, Terry, David, Denis many stories. But the few he did made a great impression on me.

There was one that gave me such a lift.  Dad must have been caught up in the block buster books of the time, Beau Geste, Beau Sabreur and a bunch others by the star author, C.P Wren. I was thrilled by the 1939 movie production of Beau Geste, such a “rattling good yarn”. The fact that dad had made me one of the characters in the book in his story telling,  and now I could see myself on screen blew my ego to enormous proportions. Yes, it was ME, Digby, who fired those warning shots at the oncoming relief column to Fort Zinderneuf which had been wiped out with me the only surviving French foreign Legionnaire. I was able to carry out my elder brother’s wish of a “Vikings’ funeral’ when I set the fort aflame, blew a last bugle tribute before disappearing over the back wall and escaping to find my way back to the family home in England.  Fantastic.  Did my dad think I was that much of a hero?

I was certainly fired with a passionate interest in story which would carry right through my life. Now, in our simple two bedroom bungalow at Meadowbank books were pretty scarce. In fact I was impressed by a series called the MASTERFUL MONK, a wonderful gift to dad from his eldest sister, Anastatia, or Sr. Mary Honorine. Where on earth she could have got the money to purchase such a prize still has me wondering. The nuns generally were even poorer than the Brothers!

It was at school that the interest gathered momentum. The most pleasant part of a generally dull and anxious day was when Brother Wilbred or Salvius oar Firmus would take down the boys’ novel for some serial reading. It was generally used as a “carrot” to induce better behaviour and it was like a clap of thunder when a scowling teacher would announce:

 “Well, we wont be having our story today.”

 But over the years we frolicked in that weird world of Toad and Badger in ‘Wind in the Willows’ or strode the poop deck with peg-legged cut-throated Captain Kidd, or revelled in the fantastic freedom of those three castaway boys in ‘Coral Island’.

There was even a little trading among the boys. Biggles was our ultimate hero in Captain W.E Johns series. Along with Ginger and Algy we grew wings and engaged in dog fights with the Huns and thrilled to so many nail biting adventures in Egypt or the Amazon. It was a fantastic boys’ world we lived in. We couldn’t believe it when Biggles was finally killed. How could this be? But in BIGGLES FAILS TO RETURN our worst nightmares were realised. Or were they? Little did we know of the wondrous resuscitative powers of the author. Yes, he did returns and our world tilted back into normal angle again.

My appetite was not easily slaked. It was my mate Bobby Smiley, just up the street, who introduced me to Cottrell’s Library in

Rowe Street

, Eastwood.  But there was a catch to borrowing from this treasure house. You had to pay. So, was it a “tray”- thruppence or three pence or was it a ‘zac’ or sixpence to borrow a book? In any case that cost burnt a hole in any finances and we Murphs were poor. I supposed my mushy-hearted mum was worn down by my wails and surrendered enough to keep me content and at bay. Today, I just can’t get over the marvellous resource that local libraries have become. And it’s all FREE.

At  Mittagong, in our high school years, there was a small glass plated cabinet or class ‘library’. It was generally locked up.  However, access was not all that difficult and I reckon I took good advantage of that. I seem to remember that we enjoyed serial readings in lower secondary as well. In fact, one book made such an impression on me that I vowed to share it if ever I became a teacher. It was “With Morgan on the Main’. More later.

With the broadening of literature in final years the study of novels became an important aspect. You tended to ‘borrow’ the set book that other classes were studying- a most pleasant way to lend books. ‘Captains Courageous’ and ‘We of the Never Never’ were such fare. I was not all that thrilled when we got this immense but certainly ‘lightweight’ Charles Dickens’ classic PICKWICK PAPERS to study in Leaving Certificate. But I did get to like it and romp along with all the entertaining escapades that had been  features in the TIMES of London as weekly entertainment.

As a new and energetic teacher I tried to integrate much enrichment into a highly structured school day where the emphasis was on “getting results” especially in public examinations. Music, both singing and appreciation found its place. In fact, many years later, the wife of one of my friends surprised me when she revealed that she would hear John singing away and ask

“Where did you learn that song?”

His reply “Des taught us those songs at school.”

Now I would have to admit that the accent was on enjoying the songs and the concert items that followed. We would perform in the impressive Shire Hall with a certain bravura. On Saint Pat’s Day the bracket of songs had to be Irish of course. Our Irish Augustinian priests would mist up when the boys sang “Oft in the Stilly Night” or “The Kerry Dance”.  Now I did not possess a baton but I was rather a flourishing conductor. The real truth of my expertise with choirs emerged some years later when I joined battle with some dozen other Marist schools in Sydney. I never once made it to the finals in Sydney Town Hall.

Oh, yes, and there were the stories. Following a great tradition I loved reading a wide range of novels. In fact I discovered WITH MORGAN ON THE MAIN. I realised then how desperately anti-catholic it was when the British buccaneers used Spanish monks and nuns as human shields as they stormed some Caribbean  treasure city to rape and pillage with such despicable gusto!! I had to expurgate and censor on the trot. It was decades later, that  Ettore Brunello, a prosperous Dentist, met me and said

“Remember that book about pirates Brother? That is one of my best books ever.”

It was in teaching Religion, or Religious Instruction that I attempted to make best use of telling stories. In truth, there were very few books to assist teachers. The staple fare was thirty minutes on Catechism, explanation and rote learning and another thirsty minutes around midday for Doctrine!! I can weep when I think of the unrelenting boredom and later rejection that accompanies this brainless, but ‘hallowed’ approach. So, stories did at least give some interest. I scanned and garnered as many as I could from all sorts of sources to add some point and understanding.

Later, I would develop my own stories, being creative to weave around a particular topic to throw light and situate in the students’ world. Very strange that it never did strike me this was the way of the master genius of story tellers- Jesus.  I’m still astounded at the power of his THE LOST SON, THE GOOD SAMARITAN, THE UNGRATEFUL SERVANT and so many more that continue to amaze with the mystery that they reveal.

It was in the late 70s that I ‘met’ a charismatic storyteller who was to impact so powerfully on my spirituality. He was a smiling, engaging Jesuit from India, Tony de Mellow SJ. His was a gentle prophet leading into a world of great acceptance and understanding of all faiths and people.  He also led me to a commitment to contemplative prayer. He was a rare combination- a mix of Asian and European, Indian and Portuguese who could draw from a huge range of resources so easily. His stories come from Buddhist, Muslim, Sufi, Jewish, Christian sources. He has a ‘wicked’ sense of humour as well and will merrily prick the preposterous posing of powerful people, be they Imans, Rabbis, priests and even the pope! He’s really like a court jester. Sadly and stupidly in my opinion, Rome decided to corral him at a late stage and on certain book shelves he was taken into custody. He followed my other hero, Teilhard de Chardin. But I’d feel confident that he’s still cracking jokes ‘up there’ and heaven forbid there are any humourless curia types as company.

All this peaked when I chose a topic for my major paper in the Masters’ course I followed at Fordham University in New York. My choice flowed naturally from this long love of story and very directly from the Scripture course I had followed MARK’S GOSPEL. Now, we might have had a curmudgeon of a teacher, who loved the women but treated the few males, specially me, with disdain in our class. But he ‘knew his stuff’ and I gained much from the course. I still resent the fact that he hit me with a B+ while I’d been getting straight A s. But then, as an ex Redemptorist, who had terrorised Marists up along the Hudson at Esopus why should he like me any more? Besides, in the Oral he administered, my first experience of such assessment, he was clearly distracted as his wife had just had their second child!!

One of the smash hits in New York that season staggered the critics. There were no props, just one player, she sat on a high stool, in the spotlight and told a 2000 year old story that mesmerised the 600 audience for ninety minutes. It was MARK’S GOSPEL, word for word from the King James Bible. Now, if anything proves the power of story and the genius of ‘Mark’ that surely does.

I enjoyed the research and putting together my major paper. At that stage there was a surge of interest in ‘narrative’ and it impacted on theology and other fields. I was moderately happy with the result and with summer courses on I submitted to the examiners. Tragically, in that soft September, the sky fell in. My brother, Peter, had died in an accident in Perth West Australia. There was never any question in my mind regards returning, no matter what. I really didn’t want to return and so hustled and hassled around to contact the key person, a wonderful woman, and inspirational professor, Gloria Durka, and explain my plight. A few days later, she contacted me to say the paper had been passed and Congratulations.

There was real agony from Perth as the family had been trying to contact one of the daughters Anne who was in Canada at the time, but where, nobody knew. Anne and her two friends, recent nursing graduates had stayed with me a few weeks before while they ‘did’ the Big Apple. Would I be able to contact her? I forget the details now, but it was like a series of good luck, little miracles while I followed up slender threads and absolutely miraculously I was thrilled to hear her at the end of the line. Quick arrangements saw her flying from Montreal while I jetted out of JFK airport, to link up in Los Angeles and together we made that sad, sad flight across to New Zealand and straight onto Perth for Peter’s funeral.

A few years later, a rich opportunity came my way when I attended a short course in Storytelling at a United Church camp along the Lane Cave River in Sydney. Several performers demonstrated their skills and I was able to select the best approach to suit me. Over the years, I have made so much use of such skills. While consultant at Catholic Education I enjoyed giving courses in Mark’s Gospel and then help skill the teachers in better ways of telling stories.

Probably, my most happy application was during some six years at St. Joseph’s College. While I found there were ‘hard yards’ in teaching RE to Yrs 10 and 11, I enjoyed taking the more receptive younger boys from Yrs 7 and 8 in a bedtime story time. It was an initiative that gave them lots of satisfaction as well. Each evening, I would go to one of the dorms, after the boys had showered and were settling down. So, they would gather around, sitting on the floor or on beds and ‘uncle’ Des would cast his story spell. Generally, I would choose some dramatic Bible story and then rework it in such a way that I was an actor in the story. I was David with my twirling sling, or I was Peter, the blusterer who denied his master but made reconciliation by the lake of Galilee with that miraculous draft of fish. Of course, I had to prepare and often rehearsed as I walked along the Great North Walk by the Lane Cove River. It gave me such a ‘buzz’ as I held those twenty boys in the palm of my hand and could see their eyes gleaming as they transported to Bible lands and times and made encounter. Afterwards we’d join in prayer, generally a decade of the rosary. But first, first we needed intentions, people or events to pray for. It took some will power to stop me cracking a smile as this stream of very boyish petitions would be presented:

“My grandmother’s cat has just died and granny is so upset.”

“We’re still in drought out at Warren, we need rain badly.”

“My big brother is facing a big exam at uni.”

Or as we got closer to the main event of the week, the Saturday rugby matches:

“We’re playing Shore this week. Let’s pray that Mary will help our 13Cs to beat them”.

“I’m in the 13As, and it’s a really big game, we must win this game to win the comp.”

And the stories roll on. It’s SBS that uses the motto SIX BILLION AND STILL COUNTING. I have very little resistance or discipline when I know I should be doing something and there’s a good TV program that just demands my attendance. And top movies leave me no peace until I succumb. The bigger the better. Has anyone bettered David Leane’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, or DR ZHIVAGO, or BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI?

Telling stories in movie form continues to pursue me.

It all goes back to dad’s story of Beau Geste. What a legacy!

And here I am pouring my soul into telling stories that keep bubbling up in some sort of magic spring. At a deeper level, they are my life story. They are my Bible.

And I always use as an introduction to any course on story, the ancient ‘Confucian’  statement”, thanks to Tony De Mello.

The Master chides his disciples who long for dogmatism rather than his usual diet of stories

You have yet to understand my dears,

That the shortest distance between a human being and Truth

Is a story.