How Pure Am I?

I saw this on Oblivion's blog and just wanted to know! A surprisingly low score for me... I really didn't think I was so depraved!

You Are 36% Pure

You've either done it, thought about it, or at least heard about it. Luckily, there's a few things left for you to try!

How Pure Are You?

Disgusted

Okay, I'm not so sick that I can't be disgusted.

In 2004, an Aboriginal man whose name I won't mention (because it is considered disrespectful within that culture to mention the dead by name) died in police custody on Palm Island.

The senior sergeant involved was the first police officer in Australian history to actually be brought to trial for an Aboriginal death in custody. That is despite the fact that Indigenous deaths in custody are so common that we had a Royal Commission into the issue some years ago.

Palm Island is one of the most troubled Aboriginal communities in Australia. This particular man was arrested for public drunkenness (witnesses dispute that he was drunk) and was dead within one hour of being taken into police custody. At some point, he suffered four broken ribs and a blow that split his liver and he died.

During the pathetic inquiry into the man's death, the sergeant involved picked up the two investigating officers who were flown in, both former colleagues and friends, and they shared a meal and a beer. All very cosy, don't you think?. Then he got to discuss the case further with his various friends in the police force while the inquiry was under way.

I grew up in the Northern Territory, where there are many Indigenous people and we played together as kids. I was oblivious to the way they were treated by white society. But when I lived in Western Australia in the 1990s, I woke up a bit when a young man died in custody and 18 police officers refused to give evidece on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves.

I rejoiced when that sergeant was finally put on trial. I honestly thought the case was pretty clear. People who haven't been assaulted don't usually end up with broken ribs and a ruptured liver within one hour of arrest, do they?

But now the court has found that he was innocent all the time! Hundreds of Aboriginal people have died in custody (more than one hundred since that Royal Commision) and yet only once police officer has been tried and he was acquitted.

I am truly disgusted. There is no justice.

Meltdown

Emily, the Big Dude and the Little Dude have colds.

We are in one of those whole-of-family meltdowns, where everyone is sick and everything turns to chaos because the mother is out of action.

Hope to be back soon.

Intensity

Another great sex date tonight.

There is something quite mysterious about sex - why it sometimes works so well and sometimes doesn't. But also what makes the difference.

One moment, we were having a very pleasant time but nothing remarkable. Then, having climbed on top of him, I helped him inside me and started kissing his chest. And suddenly, we were making love with an intensity we haven't had for a long time.

There was nowhere else I wanted to be.

I do love that man.

Let's Call It Saturday

Saturdays are becoming our sex date nights now that I am working on Fridays.

But when Saturday came, with the preparations for the thanksgiving ceremony, we just left it too late. We rescheduled to last night, but the Big Dude just seemed too unwell. So I assumed that the sex window had closed for this week.

Tonight, though, after dinner, my Big Dude laughingly said, "Is it Saturday, yet?

"We could call it Saturday", I replied.

My Big Dude removed his clothes and mine with real enthusiasm and it become a lovely, languorous, sensual Saturday.

Thanksgiving II

The thanksgiving service today was beautiful.

When I told the story behind the Little Dude, about him as an IVF baby and our experience of infertility, it was quite surprising to me just how interested people were.

Then the Big Dude described how, at one point, he was a 19 year old with fairly conventional expectations of his life (marriage, family, children, mortgage), only to find himself, a year later, a young veteran from the Vietnam War, avoiding all those things. Becoming reconciled, as a middle aged man, to the idea that he would never have them, until meeting me. And now he was giving thanks for such a change in his life.

There were tears glistening in the eyes of the congregation. And they were so kind. We had "blessing cards" for the congregation to fill out with a prayer or blessing, and people went to such trouble to write something meaningful. And afterwards, several people thanked us for giving our story and especially sharing about infertility, telling us the stories in their own families.

Then we had a great lunch with our Little Dude's godparents (my former community members) and other friends. And my other housemate had sent us a surprise poem frm overseas. All our kids played together and they were a beautiful sight.

I am happy. It's been such a happy day.

Sometimes happiness seems so fragile. You don't have to do much to stuff it up and lose it. But, while you have it, it seems like what life is all about - children, love, friendship, kindness, faith.

Sometimes it seems more beautiful because its so fragile.

For the last twenty-four hours, I have found myself humming that Living Proof song over and over again:

Wel, now all that's sure on the boulevard
Is that life is just a house of cards
As fragile as each and every breath
Of this boy sleeping in our bed
Tonight let's lie beneath these eaves
Just a close band of happy thieves
And when that train comes, we'll get on board
And steal what we can from the treasures of the Lord
It's been a long drought, baby
Tonight the rain's pouring down on our roof
Looking for a little bit of God's mercy
I found living proof.

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow, we will be having a blessing and thanksgiving service at our church, giving thanks for our Little Dude. Neither of us are really believers in child baptism, but I truly do want to give thanks.

Because I am grateful for him. Part of the reason I am so grateful is that he is an IVF child.

Like most people, I assumed that I would be able to have a child if and when I was ready. It was a very dark time when it really hit home that it might not be possible. There are times in your life when it is very hard to believe in a loving or merciful God. I know that there were times when I just couldn't pray. It was too painful to ask God for something that I wanted so much and that I knew might never happen.

I would never claim that people who have experienced infertility or gone through fertility treatment, like we did, love their children more. But I can say that I have a very sharp appreciation, a very intense joy in our son. Sometimes the memory of how close we came to not being able to have him is like a shadow that makes the light within him seem very bright.

I am truly thankful for our son. And I am truly thankful that my partner, who saw so much of death during his service in Vietnam, can now help to nurture a new life.

We will be playing a song at this service, Bruce Springsteen's "Living Proof". It's a song he wrote about the birth of his own child after a very painful and disillusioning period in his life. He calls his son a little piece of the Lord's undying light and says that when he looks at him:

It was all the beauty that I could take
Like the missing words to some prayer
that I could never make
In a world so hard and dirty
so fouled and confused
Looking for a little bit of God's mercy
I found living proof.

I know just what he means.