Reflection on Australia Day starts with country
Our country. The land and its people, us. It is from the land that all life begins, grows and dies. Our lives are nourished, challenged and taken by country.
‘I love a sunburnt country… Core of my heart, my country!’ (‘My Country’ by Dorothea Mackellar)
The Australian land is divine for many of us. It is ultimately in and through the land that I believe we truly find God. People with country at heart echo and live God’s calling for us all. They are the sunrise, the highest peaks and the refreshing cool waters. They hold solutions for the floods, droughts, bushfires and other natural disasters.
So many of us love this sunburnt country absolutely to the core.
The challenge for many of us is to: Celebrate Australia Day for what Australia is, stands for, and tries to encompass. Allow for past pains and present flaws, because at our core we are good people with good intentions. Allow for errors and mistakes that are trying to be rectified, that’s Australian.
Personally, my ancestry is primarily British and French. It probably also includes some Australian aboriginal lineage from Tasmania. Yet to be confirmed, but all indicators are pointing this way.
The genuineness of all peoples who follow the Australian values will need to continue their fight for equality of all. The rich, talented and gifted in all fields will need to share more. The poor and suffering will be open to receiving assistance, education, health and opportunities.
Dorothea Mackellar’s ‘My Country’ says it all. Written at the beginning of the 20th century by a third generation Australian who was missing Australia while on a trip to England, the poem highlights so much of ‘her beauty and her terror [Australia’s]’.
MUST SEE the moving, heart-felt video of the ‘My Country’ song by 18 years old, Christine Roberts published and sung in 1967 and released on CBS. Includes art works by famous Australian artist, Russell Drysdale. Along with a short backstory interview with Dorothea Mackellar by Christine just before her death.
Happy Australia Day!
Text and images 2, 3 and 4 © Copyright 2018 Bryan W Foster
Video of Christine’s song:
http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/104826/?id=104826
Art (examples) by Russell Drysdale: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/…
‘I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror The wide brown land for me!’ (extract from ‘My Country’)
‘My Country’ poem: http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm
‘Colour’ poem: http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/colour.htm
Website: http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/