AMAZING GRACE
Edited by Bill “Swampy” Marsh; ABC Books; $23.95
Reviewed by Terry Oberg
THE outback is a significant part of the Australian identity. For an urbanised nation this is incongruous but, none the less, valid.
It has produced real-life characters and, for our poets, storytellers, painters and musicians, rural life has been a mine of people, incidents and legends on which they have worked their artistry.
Bill “Swampy” Marsh is one of these talents who has used this treasure.
Amazing Grace is an anthology of short stories celebrating the religious dimension of the outback.
This editor interviewed scores of priests, ministers, nurses and sundry others to capture a unique brand of Christianity, the Gospel as lived in the bush.
His approach is ecumenical, with most of the main branches of Christ’s followers being represented.
A frustrating omission is that the reader never knows whose story is being read.
For reasons best known to himself, “Swampy” presents his 65 anecdotes anonymously.
I read this collection around the time of Gough Whitlam’s death. The praise that accompanied his passing was not reflected in “A Simple Death” whose unidentified author asserted the former Australian Prime Minister’s motives in granting independence to New Guinea in 1975 were less than honourable.
An Aboriginal woman in paying tribute to a teacher bemoans the present state of her fellow indigenes beset by drugs, alcohol and crime that were not common in her youth.
Did you know that the generous land grants to discharged white members of the armed forces were not available to Aboriginal people who fought in the Second World War?
None of these interesting observations are accompanied by a name which, no doubt, would add to authenticity.
The foundation of the early Jesuit missions in Asia was the integration of Christianity and the local culture. This same idea is apparent as many of these outback St Pauls worked to unite the Dreamtime with the Gospel.
Despite the identities of the narrators being secret, the characters who enliven these stories are flesh and blood.
One such is Father Long, a Catholic priest in the Kalgoorlie gold fields.
His naivety was exploited to reveal a dishonest gold plot.
The sham was discovered and the young cleric left town in disgrace and went to an early death at 27.
The importance of school visitation is emphasised, noting that one Baptist minister visited 165 schools in 1942.
The Second World War brought extra responsibility to these gallant Christian evangelists.
Home visitation, especially to females whose children or husbands were missing in action or confirmed dead, became as necessary as they were common.
Running through these tales of outback pastors is a heightened sense of vocation.
Unanimously all felt a call not just to spread God’s word but to do it in this specific locale, the lonely, terrible beats of the Australian outback.
“Swampy” develops both central ideas, the secular and religious dimensions of our nation, by collecting these stories that capture the tone and spirituality of our outback.
