The New Church Of The Counter Culture
Cafe Locked Out Essays Published December 26, 2021 at 1:45 PM
Image MGG
The New Church Of The Counter Culture
Essay By MGG
Against her want, she finally took her daughter to get the jab.
Why?
Her daughter loved dancing, but she wouldn’t be able to attend her classes unless she was vaccinated.
Her daughter hated needles, so her mother held her hand while the vaccinator did their thing. When it was over, the girl looked up and said,
“Okay, now I can dance.”
The Steps of Solace
A few days later, the mother stood before St Paul’s Cathedral. Feeling as though she were falling, she moved to enter, only to be met at the door by two black-uniformed security guards.
They wanted to know if she was fully vaccinated.
She told them she had lost her job, had no future, and only wanted to speak with her God for guidance.
It made no difference. No status, no entry.
“Are you even Christians?” she asked.
“We work for a security firm,” one replied.
The fact that they were Muslims—and it was a fact—stung. Would Muslims stand for Christians barring them from a mosque over a man-made concoction?
The Steps of Solace : Im MGG
Still falling, now burning, she asked, “Then what am I supposed to do?”
They said nothing at first. As she walked away, one called after her, “Follow your path.”
Unsure whether he mocked her, she spun and charged at the gap between them. They closed ranks.
The Prayers of our New Church: Im MGG
“What are you doing?” one asked.
“What does it look like? I’m following the path back to my God.”
Refused again, hurting, she wandered from the State’s largest house of God and found us building a new church on the cold steps of Parliament House.
We had no priests—ours were too scared to come—so anyone could take the megaphone and preach.
Our walls were bedsheets and cardboard scrawled with FREEDOM. Police frowned from the higher steps; we, who owned no ceiling but the sky, welcomed every lost lamb.
You could sit, talk, sing, play, or speak. Food and water arrived from strangers. While government and media called us every name they had, we knew the place was sacred.
These were the Steps of Solace, the possible foundation of our forming church. The lost mother had just joined the parish.
For weeks, protesters came daily. After the Pandemic Bill cleared the lower house, they set up camp. Two weeks they slept there, kettled between orange bollards the council hoped would move them on. Instead, the bollards became pews and walls.
The only church in Victoria that asked no vaccination status.
A church where anyone could hear confession.
She was in her early twenties, dressed like a scientist—plain, functional op-shop clothes that looked old when she bought them. Elbows on knees, she stared down Bourke Street without seeing it.
VIC POL protecting an Anglican Church For us.
“I’m studying chemistry,” she told me. “Next year I was planning to start my PhD, but they won’t let me sit exams unless I’m vaccinated.
I told them I have questions. My lecturers said, In this circumstance you don’t ask questions, you just do. My family says the same.”
“But you’re studying to be a scientist,” I said. “Another word for science is questions.”
She nodded, still staring at the masked trams and masked people. She wasn’t masked. Later, she was gone. I never saw her again.
Then a man appeared, mid-forties, agitated.
“Is this the Steps of Solace?”
Before I could move, others led him to the stone pews so he could spill whatever burden made him cry in the street.
Our dogma was simple: decency. Every Saturday we celebrated mass with a march through the city, the unmasked and mostly unvaccinated walking between those who had chosen to comply.
A church built by the people.
Unofficially named Freedom.
I wonder if Romans sneered “Christian” the way our public sneered “anti-vaxxer,” then “cooker.”
I wonder if the first hymns sounded as defiant as Bradley Marshall and Paul Kasper singing their new protest song, “Rise,” while we crowded around Bradley’s keyboard.
Rise by Paul Kasper and Bradley Marshall
For a time, Billy Aum became our reluctant leader. Amid the scorn, supporters arrived in Ferraris stuffed with pizzas.
Michael, previously an Atheist, but thanks to Covid he chose a new side.
After a long fight, one independent politician flipped—six-hundred-thousand-dollar government “investment” for his pet project—and the Pandemic Bill passed.
Lawyers had warned us. One QC read the draft in bed, was so horrified she got up, moved to the bathroom, and vomited while her husband slept.
Among the new powers:
Incarcerate anyone deemed a danger during a pandemic—no trial.
Hold them for up to two years in the new Wellness Centre at Mickleham, a flat-pack concentration camp.
Once a week you could write the warden begging release; if he approved, the letter went to the Health Minister.
Even if they freed you by mistake, you paid for your own imprisonment.
End of habeas corpus.
Despite four hundred thousand marching down Burke Road, the bill passed.
Next morning police cleared the last of us as a thunderstorm washed away our chalk writing, the crucifixes we’d drawn to fortify our church.
Another Christian Warrior with the cops protecting Parliament House. Im MGG
But it wasn’t the end—only the latest test.
Life was now asking all of us two questions:
What do you want?
When do you want it?
Our answer was Freedom.
Every Saturday we met at Parliament Steps, flags and banners and megaphones. At noon we marched, signs aloft like prayers, chanting those two questions like hymns.
Lyrics and Im - MGG
Similar temporary churches rose across Australia. Together we answered a spiritual call to Canberra and, for a few days, built a cathedral called Epic.
Now, for reasons not all clear, the megaphones are quiet, the flags rolled. The black-sheep flock disperses, leaving the most stubborn.
Edward, Im MGG
Edward—born in Sri Lanka, carpenter—finishes his shift, parks, and letter-drops a thousand leaflets warning about Australia signing sovereignty to the WHO.
Rosemary Marshall and George Kesic plant Forests of Fallen every weekend around Sydney, filming the stories of those still dazed by what the government did. Each sounds like someone looking for a church, a shelter from the storm.
I only wish that, the night before eviction, instead of chalk I’d chiselled one last message into Parliament’s steps—something hard to wash away, simple, powerful:
God help us
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