The Burning Ones
Photo by Parsing Eye on Unsplash
From the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland, to Uluru in the red center, Australia is known for its natural beauty. There are stunning and timeless monuments of nature, and the possibility to behold them has drawn millions of visitors to our shores.
Whilst being ferried from one idyllic spot to another, we might forget that between them lies vast swathes of unforgiving desert. The blue of the reef gives way to the red of the rock, resulting from centuries of being scorched under the unrelenting heat of the sun, then plunged into the freezing cold of the night, only to get scorched again. Australia is about as close to a desert island as it gets. What is more, some parts of the Church in Australia minister in these deserts. To give some perspective, the Catholic diocese of Wilcannia Forbes in western New South Wales covers a landmass the size of Germany and France combined, much of it bush or desert. Clergy must drive for hours just to say mass for parishes sometimes made up of just a handful of people. This ministry is vital, for the desert can drive you mad.
Tim Winton’s The Shepherd’s Hut brings desert and church together in a crossover of young adult, survival, and redemption fiction. The protagonist is the teen outcast Jaxie Clackton, who flees the scene of his butcher father’s accidental death. The professional brutality of this man, dubbed “the Captain”, is matched by…
Read the full article at Humanum Review
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