Mentor post #1

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the subject of this post.

U2 Album, 'The Unforgettable Fire' ... Release Date: October 1984

A Sort of Homecoming

And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance.

And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, 'desire' time
And your earth moves beneath your own dream landscape.

On borderland we run.
I'll be there, I'll be there tonight
A high-road, a high-road out from here.

The city walls are all come down
The dust a smoke screen all around
See faces ploughed like fields that once
Gave no resistance.

And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill as the valleys explode
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of it's own.

O com-away, o com-away, o-com, o com-away, I say I
O com-away, o com-away, o-com, o com-away, I say I

Oh, oh on borderland we run
And still we run, we run and don't look back
I'll be there, I'll be there
Tonight, tonight

I'll be there tonight, I believe
I'll be there so high
I'll be there tonight, tonight.

Oh com-away, I say, o com-away, I say.

The wind will crack in winter time
This bomb-blast lightning waltz.
No spoken words, just a scream
Tonight we'll build a bridge across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again tonight.

And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance.
Oh, don't sorrow, no don't weep
For tonight at last I am coming home.
I am coming home.

Two days ago I sent an email message via Facebook trying to find some details of a man called Felix Elias. I had worked with Felix during 1988 at a Youth/Psychiatric Outpatient drop-in centre run by the St Vincent de Paul Society in the Canberra suburb of Manuka. This part of Canberra is considered well off but is close to a number of public housing areas and the drop-in was always very busy. I wanted to get in touch with Felix because he was an inspirational person to me when we were work mates and his example of gentle simple living has been a constant sirocco in my consciousness ever since. 

I had known of Felix for some years before I began working with him. He ran the SVdP bookshop and worked with homeless men at a shelter run out of the same building as the bookshop. It was also a meeting place where we left for the children's holiday camps that I volunteered on from 1982 - 1990. Felix had a reputation for being a bit of a grump and not many people wanted much to do with him at the time. However, in 1988 I was employed by Vinnies to work as assistant manager, to Felix's manager, of the drop-in service. Felix did have a gruff way about him to be sure, he was a hard worker and looked to me to be likewise. Unfortunately I didn't poses Felix's energy and I felt my time was better spent talking with the clients and there were many times we didn't see eye to eye about the best way to deal with the clients we worked with. 

This was also a time when my short marriage to the mother of my son was entering its final stages, and despite our glaring energy and generational differences, Felix proved to be a compassionate and understanding friend that helped me through an extremely rocky point in my life. But more than this, the story of his life was one that as time fertilised his seeds of wisdom into bloom in my life his story became a touchstone for the possibilities of simplicity and commitment to community.

I had for almost a year wanted to get in touch with him and tell him how much his care and concern had meant to me, and how much I often thought of him and told his story to people, but unfortunately I received word that Felix died on October 27, 2008 (two and a half weeks ago). I am gutted by the lousy timing ... I am finding a strong desire to be in touch with these important figures from my past but they are dying too quickly and I fear I have missed the boat. So, for Felix, I will tell his story here ...

Felix had been a well off man, he worked as a factory manager and was very comfortable in his life. Travelling home one day he was involved in a terrible car accident that badly injured everyone in the car including his wife and children. This accident caused him to re-evaluate his life and as a consequence he decided to follow a vocation and from that point on he worked for the St Vincent de Paul for the rest of his working life. I don't know when he first started working for Vinnies or even all of the jobs he had for them over time; what I do know is that he also volunteered for Vinnies in his off time and was also a very devout family and religious man. I got to know him during our short working time together and knew one of his sons through the Aussie Rules football team we played for in Canberra. I met his family and saw the way he put his meagre earnings from Vinnies to work to keep his family fed, clothed and housed. 

I have found his example to be more and more inspiring as I get older, his modesty, belief and all the other inspiring things I've described about Felix make me want to emulate him in many ways ... In fact he's one of the reasons (amongst others) that I've always wanted chooks. When I rail against the status anxiety and commodification of our personal worth that seems to be the compulsive thought process of society I often think of Felix, his story becomes the exemplar of another way, a possibility outside of convention. 

I may have romanticized this man and his values but that's my particular reading of Felix and his impact on my life. I am comfortable with that and in the shadow of his life there is hope. I hope his faith gave him solace as he crossed the solitary threshold at the end of his life and I hope he is resting in the peace he believed in. 

Vale Felix.

And your heart beats so slow

Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance.
Oh, don't sorrow, no don't weep
For tonight at last I am coming home.
I am coming home.