Ozzy Rules

Oh, it has been busy and crazy, and life will soon become far crazier.  I look forward to it.  It is late now, and my mind and body are worn down, but I know I must write.  About a week ago I returned from a trip to Melbourne, Australia.  It is a goal of mine to take each member of my family on a vacation.  A few years back I was able to take my dad to London, as he spent a few years there in his youth it was a wondrous place to take him.  More recently I had the opportunity to take my oldest brother Dustin to Australia, one of his dream trips.  His best friend Lisi lives down there, so we flew down to visit him.  All I will say about the trip is an extended excerpt from my journal about our drive down The Great Ocean Road . Wednesday, February 11, the year of our Lord two thousand nine. ...The drive was beautiful, taking us down through beach towns of sea green and white foam waters, winding through  and over hills of vineyards sloping down to the sea among the rolling hills and steeps cascading down to the sea.  We passed through gorgeous farms manicured in the country side and landscaped gardens and endless fields of sheep and cattle.  We drove through dark forests stretching out to oceans and cliffs, walls of trees swallowing the road, the pavement, our car.  We drove down the road, hours of nature and scenery to The Twelve Apostles, rocks eroded out of the dropping cliffs from centuries of battle with the unforgiving sea and quarreling winds, three great elements, land, air, water, warring to destroy the creations they have fashioned, unyielding artists of stone and sand and sky.  It is a glorious place, miles of stretching ocean and near endless white wash against the brushed sand.  God is an Aborigine I think, in His art, His work and creations.    How I love the Ocean, an ocean as this, clear blue and green and white, the waves curled and crested and crashed, lulling and humming like a didgeridoo.  God is an aborigine I think, in His music and instruments, water, sand, and oxygen and wind, some symphony of pleasing songs, an echo.  The land, she speaks to me.  Everywhere I go she speaks and I listen.  There are stories she tells.  Some I cannot understand, but all I am grateful for and keep these stories, sacked inside me.  The Twelve Apostles, they are beautiful, crowns of Australian majesty and surely Apostles they are, guardians of this continent, watchtowers on the southern coast, beacons of the untamed, unknown divine.     We drove from The Twelve Apostles down to a place called Triplet Falls and took a hike, or bush walk through the forest, a jungle of ferns and Eucalyptus.  We bush walked deep down what must have been a ravine, dark in a forest, the canopy hundreds of feet above, bum trees near like the redwoods of California, giants among mere men.  They climbed to a sky they hoarded in, selfish with the sunlight they only allowed to trickle in.  If I could be some bird, or put claws on my hands and feet so I could climb and nest atop some ancient temple of timber and say to him, "brother, I know you."    We travelled down the path, oh glorious trees, gum trees climbing high and ferns down low of all sizes, some like trees, like the palmettos I saw in South Carolina.  The hike culminated at a river and falls pressing through the rock and trees.  We drove down to Otway National Park to spot koalas and saw them all around us, napping in the branches and walking the balance beams of tree limbs to snack on the green of Eucalyptus leaves.  I climbed up low in the trees to be closer, to look into the beads of their eyes and say to them also, "brother, I know you."  Oh, God of great things who made me, these too are yours, and in them I honor you.    We continued down The Great Ocean Road, all mesmerized at the furious calm of the waves and each of the colors.  These sights could never be painted, never captured...Oh ocean, I love you.  Am I leaving you?  Always I will keep you inside.  We watched the sun sink down through the clouds, kissing the water in the western horizon, and we upon those mighty cliffs, and we saw dozens of kangaroos out for food in a green field divided by a calm brook emptying in to the ocean.  They hopped and jumped along and ate, and I watched, enthused and happy...   

  This is what I will say of that trip.  Another great adventure now begins, and adventure I will need to write much of, if only for me.