I watched the two-hour Vatican ceremony, the requiem for Pope Francis, with Mass celebrated in sunshine in St Peter’s Square in front of the Basilica. It was April 20th, 2025. Here a crowd of around 150 thousand people prayed together. There was silence, there was mourning, there was song and there was ritual to honour … Continue reading Francis

This is the first time I have attempted to write a story while it is unfolding. More than a month ago now Anne Goldfeld, a long-time friend who lives in Boston, sent a message. ‘When can we talk, face to face online?’ Of course we can talk immediately. We have been friends since we both … Continue reading Saving Lives in Brutal Times

I walk along the Yarra River through the seasons of the year. Each season has a beauty of its own. People come from across Melbourne to walk, or bike, along the river’s edge as if in pilgrimage, and mutter ‘G’day’ as they pass one another. An immense government funded project is underway to make this … Continue reading What Next

The year was 1945. I was a ten years old that year, old enough to understand the horror of  Hiroshima, to remember the newspaper images of young soldiers with limbs amputated, to learn about the holocaust, to watch the pain of our neighbour’s children when their father, a prisoner of war, returned a different man, … Continue reading Human Rights Day

A young woman who came to Australia because she could not stay safely in her own country talks to me as I water my garden; I hear her worries and her hopes. No matter how hard she works there will never be the chance for her to work in the profession she had chosen. She … Continue reading Battlers All

Long ago, while close to war and atrocity, I learned that every act of goodness, every sign of beauty, must be noticed, remembered and treasured. It is happening again. Consider the orange tree that I have inherited. Until the time that Spring emerges in its fullness, I forget the joy of the perfume of orange … Continue reading One Tiny Garden

Bob Maat is a good friend, a good man. I met him on the Thai Cambodian border thirty-six years ago. He was a faithful mentor to me in my shell shock, as I struggled to work in this place. In those early days I learned that the sound of shells thudding on the frontline of … Continue reading A Letter From Bob

Paris, France. As I write my screen is showing images of the Olympics. The city is, of course, jam-packed with athletes at the peak of their performance, all straining to compete better than they ever have before. They gather in national groups united and excited in the rain sodden opening. I remember Melbourne and the … Continue reading PARIS

 Teilhard de Chardin was born in 1881 in Auvergne, France. He walked the hills with his father, digging for stones and fossils, uncovering the ancient story of this land on which they lived. Teilhard later wrote that the wonder and amazement that this stirred in him became as much part of him as the colour … Continue reading Born Before His Time

Let me write you a story that I should have written long ago. It starts early in 1975. The city of Phnom Penh in Cambodia is seriously overcrowded with families from the countryside fleeing from war, seeking safety wherever they can find it.  The Khmer Rouge rebel army is pushing towards the capital and controls … Continue reading Cathedral of the Ricefields

See this. It is Battambang town in northwestern Cambodia at a specific time in history. It is 1992. Before Pol Pot times Battambang was a university town and those with a good education, those who were young students in those days romanticise it. I can understand. A river flows right through the heart of it. … Continue reading Wisdom

As you reach a ripe old age in my country each new health professional who meets you has a file of your medical history. Mine is a hefty document. Most medics thumb through it quickly. This medic, not my regular GP, is not thumbing. She is pondering. ‘You lived close to war when working in … Continue reading Silence the Guns

Imagine a campfire, up north in Queensland.  There is a canopy of stars, and the flicker of flames. Family and friends are here; there’s been good tucker. It is 1966. The host is Kev Carmody, already well known for his published albums of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island songs. Paul Kelly, a song writer from … Continue reading From Little Things

I am writing in ‘back to school’ week. Summer holidays are over. I sit with a newly arrived family from South East Asia, father, mother and a lively, shy six-year-old boy in the office of the school Principal. It is late afternoon already and school starts tomorrow. The principal and his assistant give total attention … Continue reading The Way Things Change

I was nineteen, living and teaching in the small town of Loch in South Gippsland. It was my first venture away from Huntington Grove East Coburg, away from family, away from friends. When I was sixteen, I had signed a bond with the State Education Department. I would earn as I learned to be a … Continue reading We Were Young

This year is coming to its end, my December posting is precisely the 25th day before Christmas. While I hope and pray that my friends and family will experience peace and love during this Christmas of 2023, we all know that this is not the total story of the first Christmas. Mary and Joseph, whose … Continue reading peace justice LOVE

On October 14th Hamer Hall was full to capacity as we waited for the performance of Eumeralla. Four minutes before it was to begin, news that the Referendum had already produced a resounding NO spread through the crowd. Deborah Cheetham AO, first Nations Woman, renowned singer and composer, stepped to the front of the stage. … Continue reading Some Sing in Language

This great grandfather of mine brought my name to Australia, through his grandson, my father, Joe Healy. Daniel Healy was his name. I first heard his story when I was very young … heard it with pride I must admit. My great grandfather was Irish through and through, Irish with a great resentment of the … Continue reading The Healy Name

There is a story that I cannot put on the web with names attached. You will understand as you read it. For safety I will tell it using only he or him. It is 1989. On my first working day in Site 2 I meet him.  He is a medic and battlefield surgeon, but he … Continue reading Without Naming Names

Hun Manet, son of Hun Sen the Prime Minister of Cambodia, will step into the role of Prime Minister on August 22nd this year. Manet is 44 years old. How can I make sense of this transition? The only time I met Hun Sen face to face he was very young. I heard him say, … Continue reading What Now Cambodia

I yearn for bushland and wild Australian beaches.  Without doubt this fascination started early in my life. As my proud parents pushed their first child, me, in a pram among the gum trees near our East Coburg home they would say, ‘Take deep breaths, smell the bush. Isn’t it lovely?’ We spent our holidays in … Continue reading From The Heart

At a time when I needed some medical care in hospital, I read words translated from Aramaic. ‘Blessed are those whose passion is sparked by deep, abiding purpose.’ I was being treated by a specialist who put his whole focus on curing me. He is thorough and persistent. There is no doubt that he understands … Continue reading I Must Remember This

 It was a journey of a lifetime, this undertaking of three weeks and two days in Cambodia. It was a string of encounters with people who are significant in my life, but whom I am unlikely to ever see again. What I record here may give you a sense of this. == There is a … Continue reading Cambodia 2023

This is not a story about Cambodia, it is a story from Cambodia. I am once more listening to the hopes and dreams of Cambodian friends and colleagues. I am in Battambang in North Western Cambodia.  Once more I am breathing the aroma of steaming rice and the aroma of frangipani flowers. Once more I … Continue reading From Small Beginnings Restoring Life

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this site may contain names, images and/or voices of people who have since passed away. We wish not to cause any offence.” I met her under the fig tree where, in 1997, friends gathered in the backyard of the small house in Thornbury. She would … Continue reading Under The Fig Tree

In a far distant time, in this city of Melbourne and State of Victoria, there was a high-pressure campaign to recruit teachers. The year is 1950. Joan Healy is 15 years old. She travels to her secondary school my tram. Standing in the crowd, strap-hanging, this tall, shy, awkward young girl is at eye level … Continue reading To Be a Teacher

War-torn Battambang town in the early nineteen nineties was a place of violence. Weapons of war were everywhere. Early one morning as I sat sipping my usual cup of coffee at the little tin table near the market a Cambodian boy, perhaps 16 years old, slumped down beside me, put his AK 47 and rocket … Continue reading For Peace Sake

A good friend of mine, Joan Hamilton, has stories that I need to hear. Joan lived among First Peoples in Redfern in the ‘old-days’ with Mum Shirl; she then shared in the struggles of the Barkindji people in Wilcannia for many years. She learned what it means to battle against grim odds and later in … Continue reading The Time has Come

One of my friends from Cambodia times, sent a message with a request. Kevin Malone is now working with a Karuk tribal man from the redwood forests of northern California; his name is Terry Supahan. Kevin tells us that Terry will travel through Melbourne with a Californian group interested in ecological restoration. Kevin has convinced … Continue reading A friend of Kevin Malone

My front window reaches from ceiling to a half metre from the floor. The road beyond my mini garden is narrow and quiet; on the opposite side there is an ancient towering Chinese Elm. Its dark triple-trunk and spreading branches are there in front of me whenever I look to the light. At night the … Continue reading As the World Tilts