THE CIRCLE OF GRACE From Local to Global to Local Memoirs of Isobel Antoinette Bishop (nee Milne) 1 THE CIRCLE OF GRACE From Local to Global to Local Table of Contents SYNOPSIS 3 PROLOGUE 4 Chapter 1 Childhood 5 The House at 21 Joubert Street Family Life My Schooling Country Holidays Family Visits My Christian Journey as a Child Girl Guides A Turning Point Chapter 2 Joy 18 Deaconess Training Living in Another Country and Culture: Cleveland Living in Scotland Returning to Australia Life in the Paddington Manse Chapter 3 Pain and Hope: The Ecumenical Institute 36 The Ecumenical Institute A Life Lived Outside Australia Again Chapter 4 To the Villages: the poorest of the poor 48 India: Maliwada The Philippines: Sudtonggan Japan: Oyubari South Korea: Kwangyung Il Ri Venezuela: Cano Negro Death of My Dad East Malaysia: Serusup Canada: Lorne de L’ Acadie Chapter 5 Our Family Returns to Australia 56 Children Returning to Australia Our Return to Australia Chapter 6 My Ordination 57 My Ordination Whyalla Gilgandra Mascot Botany Eastlakes Cabramatta. Chapter 7 Life as a Granny 63 Life as a Granny Some of My Learnings Chapter 8 Trips I Took 1995-2013 67 Chapter 9 Notes on our Family, June 2018 70 Recovering from Hidden Pain, Focusing on Life in the Now EPILOGUE 74 2 SYNOPSIS These Memoirs tell the story of a girl born in Sydney in 1936, after the Great Depression and just before the terrible Second World War was looming onto the world’s horizon. I have written them to describe my life, and how a shy insecure girl grew to become a passionate advocate for justice. I went from life in suburban Gladesville and Hunter’s Hill, to a black community in Cleveland OH. Next, there was a year in an inner-city Glasgow Parish. Then 11 years in Paddington, followed by thirteen years in a Religious Order, living in the ghettos of Chicago, and many villages around the world. Two years in Toronto, travelling all around Canada during this time, gave me a real sense of partnership with the Canadians in the Order. My life was in the mid-way between ups and downs - in some ways happy and with a stable routine; in other ways I felt very uncertain and even anxious. I would describe it as mostly a feeling of low-key anxiety pervading me. What follows is the lows and highs of a life away from my children and my family life. There are aspects of deep emotional wrenching, and yet times of learning and how to be independent and develop resilience. I led a transitory life (my home was wherever my head was on the pillow) - first as a Local Church Consultant across the USA. Then my work took me to the poorest of the poor villages across many countries, as a Teacher and Village Development Consultant. Other transitions describe my Ordination into the Uniting Church as a Minister, leading to Multicultural ministry. There have been many wonderful moments in my life. It is not helpful to say which has been the most fulfilling. The journey has been awesome and sometimes very painful. I have seen many wonders of creation and have also seen extraordinary local people across the globe embrace a new way to see life. My family have loved me and often laughed at me, which has kept me grounded. I will say this about my life- reflecting back on it- I would not try and change any of it, because it has brought me to this point. As a young Mum and Minister’s wife in Cleveland, Glasgow and ‘Paddo’, to a Minister in some tough places, and yet places with good and gracious people. It has been one long journey of self-discovery and mistakes, and adding self-growth to the mix, I hope. Now that it nears its end, I am content to be a co-creative partner with Jim, a loving Mum to my three adult family, and their fine partners, and a Granny to my adorable five grandchildren. What is left is to embrace the days as they come with hope, grace and gratitude. 3 PROLOGUE I am describing my journey from a conservative background into a radical Religious community. This separated me for ten years from my three children. It caused severe emotional hardship to all of us, especially I focus on my children and myself. It caused a total denial of our feelings and severe emotional trauma. Was it worth it? How would family life have been if I had married someone else? Am I a better person or how would I have been different and perhaps a better person without the life I had? Questions without answers. Did we bet on the wrong horse….? My response is in my story as it unfolds. 4 Chapter 1 My Childhood The year 1936 began with the Nation still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. There was a certain numbness pervading the community. People were beginning to recover financially, by picking themselves up, and beginning again. At the beginning of the year King George V died, and was succeeded by his son, King Edward VIII. People began to sense a preparation for War once more, when German troops reoccupied the Rhineland, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and the Treaties of Locarno. Some notable other global events were of the Summer Olympics in Berlin- marking the first live Television coverage of a sports event in world history. These were the same Olympics when Jesse Owens, an African American, upset Hitler, when Jesse won the 100-meter dash. Beryl Markham, an English Aviator, became the first woman to make the East West Solo Transatlantic flight from England to Nova Scotia. In Australia, two very notable indigenous men were born. Both these men grew up to become passionate advocates for their people. In the early 60’s Charles Perkins became an Aboriginal activist, and led a Freedom Ride from Sydney to Moree. Many students from Sydney University joined this bus ride. The aim was to remove the colour bar preventing the local indigenous community from swimming in the swimming pool. Eddie Kiki Mabo was born on Murray Island, and became an indigenous Land Rights campaigner, and was responsible for declaring the fact that Indigenous people had been in Australia for forty to sixty thousand years, and it was not ‘ terra nullius’ or ‘the land belongs to nobody’, as it was commonly termed and believed. This extraordinary effort by Eddie Mabo led to the High Court of Australia making a ruling called the Mabo Decision, 3 June 1992. This Act stated that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have rights to the land, and recognized their unique connection with the land. On September 7th 1936, the last known Thylacine named Benjamin, died in Hobart Zoo. Into this world I was born at 14 Hillcrest Avenue, Gladesville, in the morning (while my Dad was having breakfast), on March 10th, 1936. I was the third daughter of Violet and Jack Milne- my older sister Theodora, and my middle sister Marilyn. The house is still there, and in 2006, my sisters and I made a return visit. When my parents owned it, it was named "Green Isle"- my Mother had Irish roots. It is still a very pleasant house, built about 1920. My childhood was a busy one. Plenty of cut and thrust. I learned very early on that values are important, and that "character" is very important, too. My earliest memory of living at Gladesville focuses on an accident with a ball through a glass window. Marilyn had a golf ball in her hand, and was throwing it to Theodora, and somehow it smashed through the back veranda window, much to the chagrin of our Dad! My very earliest memory of pain was when a small piece of the glass from the window went into the ball of my foot. My Mother asked her chiropodist, a Mr Hand! to dig it out. I still remember the pain of this. I was about two and a half or three. At the Gladesville house we had a path in the centre of the back yard, which led up to the chooks at the very back of the block. There was a lovely trellis with grapes growing all over it in the middle of the pathway, and we girls loved to nibble at the delicious Isabella grapes! My sister Marilyn reminds me now and then of the time I left our house and walked up to the nearest shops- aged no more than three. It was a distance of at least 600 metres - a long way for a small child to go – I was found in the delicatessen- my Mother was asking everyone she met "have you seen a little girl?" (This must be in the genes- as our son Peter, at Paddington, at an even younger age, walked out of a supposedly locked gate, and walked about 200 metres while pushing a teddy bear in a stroller~ escaping from the supervision of the Church Kindergarten staff.) 5 When I was four years and three months old, our family moved to a newly built house in Hunter's Hill. This house was named "Elsinora" after one of my Mother's Father's sheep properties in far western N.S.W. Both my grandfathers and my maternal grandmother were dead by the time I was born, but my Mother saw to it that her family history was well respected and well known by her children. So, from a very early age, I remember what seemed like myriads of cousins from the country coming to spend their weekend leave with us from their boarding school.