The Joy Of Outlawed Carols

Updated for the Collection of Essays due to be published by John Stapleton

The Joy Of Outlawed Carols

It was twilight when I reached her. She was sitting on a blanket with her two young boys as the choir sang carols from the Cenotaph.

Myself and a helper were distributing programs and candy canes, carrying a tub full of donations. There were around four hundred people here, mostly families, but not all. The vaccinated and the unvaccinated coming together to celebrate, as Australians always do at this time of year, Carols by Candlelight.

As I handed her a program so she could sing along, she knew my name and I could see she was upset.

“Do you want a hug?” I asked. “They’re free.”

So she stood up, and in my arms, she broke.

But, before we go on, why were we here?

I think it was Saturday morning. We were in front of Parliament House, hugging and smiling at each other as we arrived, with our flags and our signs and our megaphones hanging off our shoulders like well-fired weapons. Before us and on the steps, the police were lined up, their masks on and their hands covered in blue gloves, all theater to show the world that we were the diseased.

In response, we had set up our own army: the Free Hug Army. A small brigade, constituted mainly of grandmothers, who would walk down the edges of the Saturday marches offering hugs to the masked-up people. Often, these grandmothers would receive almost a hundred hugs per march. Sometimes I saw men towering and trembling over these little grandmothers, before they’d launch forward and not hug, but clutch them, as though this senior lady was saving them, from what?

One man who is seared into my memory took so long to hug Tracy, our greatest hugger, that I felt I could hear his soul wrestling with itself. His girlfriend was holding his hand and trying to hold him back. You could almost hear her say, “You have to do the right thing.” But before him, this tiny older lady was holding out her arms. “But my grandmother is offering me a hug.”

Tracey won. Tracey won a lot.

I was in a park, resting with all the other marchers, when I was approached by an emissary from an underground Catholic group. They were after our help. Dan Andrews had declared that this Christmas, unvaccinated children wouldn’t be allowed to attend this year’s Carols by Candlelight.

Their plan was to set up a renegade event to which everyone was welcome to attend, and they not only wanted us to help organize it, but they wanted Damien Richardson and me to QC it.

We agreed.

The park was in Clarinda. Bradley Marshall, who looked and sang like an angel, was setting up the speakers with his father and his uncle, on a concrete gazebo. He would be joined later by Paul Kasper. Together they had composed the song ‘Rise,’ which they had sung on the steps of Parliament and on the stages of some of the largest marches.

They were beloved.

They would also be joined by a choir of young hardcore Christians, who each had a book full of old hymns. Tonight we were going back to basics.

It was odd to be walking through the crowd, welcoming people, hugging and smiling and revving everyone up, while also keeping an eye on those passing. Would the police really turn up and arrest us? If they did, what would we do? For there were children everywhere.

With only moments before we began, the choir left.

The word from the Catholic group behind all this was that one of them had been called by the Archbishop and they had been warned off. And so they left.

Suddenly we had a crowd, candles, children, but no choir.

Tracy, our greatest Free Hugger

So I decided to tell the crowd what had happened and asked if any of them could sing.

I could have cried with joy as here and there people stood up and came forward.

And so, with a new choir formed, and thanks to the previous choir leaving their hymn books behind, we began the festivities.
Previous to Covid, I’d never had much of a relationship with God, but if God was anywhere that night, he was here listening to Bradley lead the choir, as we all sang along.

After all the songs were sung, Damien and I were hugging people before the stage. It was easy for me, for I was holding up one of our Free Hugs signs, but Damien didn’t like holding the sign so I used to secretly hold it above his head.

This series of moments was fun because I believe we all knew we had all worked together to create something precious. Something perhaps even the angels would speak about.

But then, before Damien and me, were all these little children. They looked puzzled because I don’t think they’d seen adults hugging before. These were the children who were growing up under the rules of social distancing.

So I bent down to them and asked, “Would you like a hug?”
And not only did they smile and nod, but they raised their hands, and so Damien and I spent some time hugging them all.
But early in the evening, as Damien QC’d and the singers sang, I was walking around the crowd with a bucket full of Christmas candy canes and a soul that was singing.

It was then that I came across a single mum with two young boys.
After allowing me to give her boys some lollies, she stood and gave me a hug then said she was going crazy.

She’d had to take two jabs to keep her job, to keep a roof over the heads of these two boys, but that wasn’t why she so upset.

She told me she felt like everyone at work had gone crazy, and she couldn’t talk. She didn't believe anyone of it, but she couldn’t share these thoughts with anyone, not even her family.

And so the loneliness was driving her here, where in my arms, and under these ancient hymns, and because she knew there was nothing I could but listen, she cried.

Michael
Dec 2021

Updated for the Collection of Essays due to be published by John Stapleton