Australia: day seven

This morning we visited the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress’ center in Geelong, called Narana Creations. We engaged a wonderful — albeit sobering and at times deeply painful — presentation about aboriginal history, cultures and current media practices in Australia, and then took a “walk about” in the bush, amidst a lovely garden area of native vegetation. I took a ton of pictures and will try to create a website of pictures to link to when I get home.

We had lunch at the center, which included focaccia sandwiches of emu, crocodile or kangaroo. I tried the emu sandwich, which mostly tasted like venison. Afterwards we drove on the bus to the ferry, went across the bay, and then ended up at Peter's house. It was lovely -- reminding me of the Not So Big House books -- and he and Marilyn have an amazing garden. I was sad that I had taken so many pictures earlier, because my battery had died by then, and I couldn't take pictures of their garden or of the ocean. They live about a five minutes walk from the ocean, and we walked over to stand on the bluffs and watch as the sun set (behind us). It was perfectly gorgeous, and my soul took a deep, big breath watching the surf and the vivid green patches of vegetation strewn amongst the sandy bluffs.

At Peter's we held our final session as the Commission, which included a really funny and poignant powerpoint he had done with pictures from our previous meetings. This group has been such an incredible experience for me, and I will really miss it. I have been so privileged to travel and learn with them, and will need to work to make sure that I use what I've learned and share it well. We really have been part of a major research paradigm shift in the study of media, religion and culture. Now comes the hard part, at least for me, of ensuring that that shift is adequately embedded in religious education research and practice.