A Christmas Tree with Spirit

GPO Melbourne. EIIR meaning Queen Elizabeth 2nd. As you come in a crimson welcoming sign greets you with: "Enter here to shop happily ever after. GPO Melbourne." On the left side is a marble frame on which was engraved: "To the glorious Dead. Commonwealth of Australia. Postmaster General's Department. Officers from Victoria who gave their lives in te Great War 1914-1919." Then followed a heroic list of names from Abraham JP to Wilson WK. The list of names would stir some proud, patriotic blood in you, especially if you have the same surname as one of these wartime heroes, Anzacs, diggers. Beside this marble frame memorial was a less honourable wooden frame enclosed in glass. It was an advertisement from IM - French and Italian Design - Lingerie - Sleepwear. Simply the best... undressed. www.imboutique.com.au. There was a picture of a woman in lingerie in provocative pose. On the other wall at the right side was another frame declaring: Postal Hall, established 1918, Hon. William Webster, Postmaster General. Another important name which gets glanced once over and forgotten quickly. Right to its left, another provocative IM advertisement, similar to the one across, was displayed on the same wall. Inside there were lines of shops, boutiques of clothes, shoes, designer labels enclosed in glass like fish tanks There were about three levels of shopping experience in this building, what used to be a gigantic post office. It's pretty much like what they have done to the GPO in Sydney which is not a post office anymore, although it has retained the name GPO (General Post Office). I must admit however that I have not visited it since they have renovated it and transformed it into some commercial enterprise.

Outside GPO Melbourne and Myer, a crowd has queued up to see the Christmas windows. There were statues of tall, lanky elves with brown vests, red shirts, triangular Spock-Vulcan ears. As we passed by outside the cordon that locked in the viewers from the general passing crowd, we could discern the elaborate displays of mechanised, moving dolls, music playing, but I couldn't be bothered paying much attention at this time.

At half past ten in the morning, at the corner of Bourke and Russell Streets, the Asian guy gussied up as an 8-foot tall Christmas tree, with a multi-coloured tinsel skirt and Jamaican cap, complete with the long matted hair, was already spinning his hula hoop for the crowd of by-standers, passers-by, Christmas shoppers, and tourists. He had a note on the ground where the two doll figures stood motionless. It said:

"Greetings to my friends. I am 72 years old and was injured during the Korean War 55 years ago. A bullet went through my leg. You can see if you like. We fought against North Korea under support of U.N. forces. My dream is to establish a church and draw the people of North Korea to God's fold. I've been saving and collecting contributions all around the world for this purpose. Your generosity will glorify God as it helps the furtherance of His work in union with Jesus. Thank you and God bless you. Elder Paik."

This guy's a pastor, I thought to myself amazed. He just kept spinning his white hula hoop. "Are you a pastor?" I asked. He sort of nodded, I think that meant yes but I was still not sure. Then he started preaching. He called me Brother. "Brother…look up Matthew chapter 22 verse 37." This verse declares: You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. He called me again. "Brother… Brother," he hailed as I write down notes. "Brother, John 11 verse 25." This verse declares: I am the Resurrection and the Life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. I asked him how he had been doing this in that place. He said, "Two weeks ago." I asked him what time he started today. He said he started at 10 o’clock and would do it for ten hours straight. Ten hours straight, everyday, I thought about how fit he had become spinning the hula hoop. He said he had been going around Australia. He mentioned about his dream of building a church in North Korea, that he had already saved some money. I asked him where he lives. "Now?," he said, "Near Victoria Park station." I said I live in Sydney. He said he lives in Sydney in Strathfield, and that he’s going back to Sydney. "See you in Sydney," I said, waving a parting gesture with my right hand, and walking off across the road.

I thought about maybe doing something like this, dressing up as someone or something and raising up money for a good cause, even for proclaiming the Kingdom of God. I am deeply impressed with people who are not ashamed of doing something that they believed in, even if it meant doing something demeaning. I guess at some point they’d realize that it is not demeaning at all, and that the nobility or crassness of doing what they’re doing is, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder. At some point, it would only become noble, and the more they are motivated to continue with the mission they have set for themselves. It is good to have a dream; without our dreams, our lives become drab and meaningless. Dreams bring meaning and relevance to our lives which become stale, bland, and lacking purpose, despite all the activities we surround ourselves in. We’d think we’re doing so many things that we are fulfilling our destinies and our purposes, but there really is just one purpose that we need to find ourselves. Until our energies are put into the service of that purpose, we would be wandering in the desert, and that might take more than 40 years the Hebrews spent in the desert: it could be your entire lifetime.

Across the road, we went to McDonalds. I ordered a Double Cheeseburger meal with coffee instead of the usual drinks. I asked if I could get a refill. "Yes, but that’s only for seniors," answered the young sales staff, a boy of Indian appearance in his blue uniform. "I am a senior; but I don’t have the card with me," I blurted out. I am not sure why I said that. I did have a Seniors Club card before, which I cancelled later on. In a sense, what I said was true. But I am far from being a real senior. That will be a few years down still. I got my refill of coffee, but then I wondered: Coffee is really supposed to be bad for you, and yet they encourage older people to have more of that poison. Perhaps the younger people want the older people to leave this world sooner. Strangely I got reminded of the movie Soylent Green where in the future food would be so scarce, nature would be depleted, that people only ate a high-protein biscuit called Soylent Green, but nobody knew what it’s made of. They had a service for dying old men where they got to see movie clips of the past when nature was beautiful with its mountains and lakes and trees. They called this Going Home. The old man would die so peacefully but his burial was strange: He didn’t end up in the ground, or in flames as in a crematorium; rather he went with some conveyor belt and was processed as raw material – for Soylent Green. Has he fulfilled his purpose, which had become the purpose of everybody else… in time. That’s where the protein is from.

I wondered but didn’t really mind while I was enjoying my free cup of coffee, in the same paper cup and same now smudged plastic top that I had earlier. More cups of coffee are my tickets to Going Home perhaps. But I’m not going home yet, not till I do something meaningful like being a Christmas tree with spirit, giving flesh to a dream, fulfilling a real purpose.

24 December 2005