Smoke...

Smoke. Thick, white, choking smoke hangs over the whole city, probably over most of the state. The bushfires in this exceptionally hot drought year are storming out of control across eastern Victoria. Firefighters are doing their best, but the weather predictors are saying there will not be a heavy rain to put out the fires for another five months. One person has already been killed, several injured. Millions of dollars worth of property has been destroyed. The news is full of nothing else, and if we could forget what was going on, even for a moment, just looking out the window would remind us. The smoke is still here, hundreds of kilometres away.

In the meantime, shopping for Christmas continues.

It seems odd, perhaps even obscene, that despite the ruination and death taking place at the other end of the state, that here we are ignoring the smoke and doing Christmas shopping. We can go to bars, have coffee, window-shop and try on shoes just as if it were a normal day. Why not?

Besides, what else is there to do? I am not a firefighter, not an environmental planner, not a bush or fire expert. People are not yet in need of doctors, of emergency relief or accommodation. The reality is that there is nothing for me to do for them.

So I continue my Christmas shopping. And every time I look at the sky, at the obscured and dulled sun, I pray for rain. Lord, you send your sun and your rain on the just and the unjust. Send us now the rain...