Once again it was my privilege to open in prayer at another great freedom rally – Circular Quay, May 15, 2022
It’s a pity the Inner West Review chose to depict pole-vaulting rather than boxing. 😉 Either way, thank you Sarah Maguire for an excellent write-up.
A big thank you to Seja Al Zaidi for this article in the Sydney City Hub on May 15th, 2022
February 12th, 2022. What a privilege it was to give the opening prayer at the most amazing rally I have every been involved in, and possible the largest rally ever held on Australian soil.
It was painful to see the mainline media denigrate this incredible event. If there really were half a million people there, that was 2% of the entire population of the country! Why the politicians aren’t taking us more seriously, I do not know.
Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Rahim.
In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti
And with respect for the traditional custodians of this land, and elders past, present and emerging:
What a wonderful day this is. What a great day for Australia. It is appropriate that we dedicate this day to God in prayer because we recognize that this battle is not simply a political fight but a spiritual war.
Yes, we fight political overreach and, yes, we fight the profits of big pharma and technological intrusion into our privacy but ultimately we fight principalities and powers and dark forces that attempt to rob our children of their future!
This is our battle, and we are the people. We are the front line. We are the people who stood up when others sat down. We are the people who refused to bow to Baal. We are the people who did not buy the lie. We don’t need to wait for anybody else. We are the people we have been waiting for, and this is our time.
God give us strength. God give us wisdom, and for the sake of our children and the generations to come and our beloved country, Australia, God give us victory in the name of the Father the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On February 12, 2022, Canberra saw what was probably the largest rally ever held on Australian soil. Commentators mockingly said that the group had multiple agendas – a bit of freedom, a bit of anti-vax, a bit of Jesus. My experience was the opposite – that the half a million people who gathered there were unified around one common hope – to rescue our country back from totalitarian control.
The highlight for me was John Stephan singing, “You’re the Voice”. This was my highlight, not simply because I love John Stephan’s singing, but because of the way the lyrics summed up the spirit of the event – “We’re not gonna sit in silence. We’re not gonna live with fear.” Watch the video and you’ll see one of the Indigenous elders who was at my side, arm in arm with a non-Indigenous woman, dancing and singing those words together. For me, that summed up the event.
December 12, 2021 – Prince Alfred Park, Sydney
You’ll, forgive me for bringing with me the symbol of the cross today I don’t mean to hijack the icon of the church, but the truth is that the church stole this icon from the Roman Empire many centuries ago. Long before this was a symbol of faith, it was a symbol of death.
You’ll remember that the cross was something you got killed with. It was like a noose or a guillotine, except it was something designed to kill people slowly and painfully and publicly.
Jesus was not the only person to be crucified by the Romans. In fact, if you go back a generation before Christ, after the revolt of Spartacus, the survivors of that slave revolution – six thousand of them – were crucified, and their crosses lined the Via Appia in and out of Rome for 100 kilometres.
You couldn’t leave your home. You couldn’t take your children out for a walk. You couldn’t go shopping without seeing the gruesome reminder everywhere of this symbol, which reminded you that the empire was powerful and that you were nothing, that they had the power of life and death over you and you better do what they say, or you will end up here.
Centuries go by and empires come and go, but systems of power and control continue to be re resurrected. None of us have been crucified, as far as i know. Maybe the worst that’s happened to you is you’ve been embarrassed because you can’t go to the pub with your mates or to the movies or to the coffee shop, or maybe you’ve lost your job, or maybe your business has gone bust and you’ve lost your home. It’s a different shovel. It’s the same crap.
What is great is that the church took this symbol of death and turned it into a symbol of hope, because they believed that there are some people who will just not stay crucified. There are some people, no matter how much you humiliate them and torture them and take from them and kill them, they will rise again!
There are some messages that will not be silenced. There are some movements that cannot be stopped. The light continues to shine in the darkness and the darkness is never going to put it out!
To tell you the truth, I didn’t know if we had it in us. I look back at generations past – I know our indigenous sisters and brothers know what it’s like to fight for their land when they lose their sovereignty. I know my parents and grandparents – they fought in great wars to protect our freedoms. I didn’t know whether we’d be up to it, but it turns out, we are.
We have not bent the knee. We have not given in. We have held the line. We might be on the ropes, but we have not yet hit the canvas. We are still fighting, and this is our time, sisters and brothers. This is our time. This is our time, and we are the people we have been waiting for.
This is the time that our children and grandchildren will look back on one day and say “mum and dad, grandpa and grandpa – they held the line. They stood for something. They made a difference. This is our time. We are the people we have been waiting for.
God give us strength. God give us courage. God give us compassion, one for another, and God grant us victory. In the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit. Amen.
Farewell to our Fight Club in Dulwich Hill
Father Dave’s Old School Boxing Academy trained out of the church hall of Holy Trinity, Dulwich Hill from 1991 to 2021. We trained many champions. More importantly, we saw a great many crazy kids grow into confident adults, and, in a lot of cases, we played a significant role in that process.
December 31, 2021, was where it ended. We had over 3,000 people sign the community petition, asking the church for a stay of execution. None was given. Even so, as my dad used to say, when the work of God is like a flowing stream, and when someone drops a rock in the stream, the water will find a way around it. Our work will continue. We are currently training at the Fight Lab in Tempe with my old friend, Kon Pappy, and we continue to train at Binacrombi bush camp on the weekends. Join us.
Featured below is some footage taken from our last training session.