Hello Friends,
Well the season of glad songs has come and yes I can hear the cooing of the turtle dove, watch the white expanse of corellas on the grass and be astounded at the antics of the galahs on the telephone wires or the gum trees beside the house. If I go down the Bourke road I know I will see some bustards strutting proudly beside the road and if I am lucky some brolgas dancing. The emus with their chicks and wedge tail eagles are very commonplace although I was lucky enough to see three eagles sitting beside some road kill on the Charleville road this week.
Not all nature is appreciated by the farmers especially when it comes to wild dogs or dingoes. As you pass some of the properties you notice the feral animals shot by the farmer strung on a tree at the entrance to the property. You can understand this when you view the damage to sheep from these feral animals.
With all the rain the wildflowers are blooming in great abundance. I stopped and picked a vase full of white flowers and thought they looked great in the kitchen until I noticed that there seemed to be a smell like rotten potatoes. Yes, it was the flowers and aren’t they better in the field. On some of my journeys I often stop and walk over to have a closer look. Once you get off the main road you are confronted with masses more flowers clothed in white, yellow, pink or purple.
Life continues in the same quiet way with funerals interpersed throughout the weeks. There was an aboriginal funeral last week with 250 people attending. I walked into the church before the service and noticed that the people organising the setup for the power point eulogy had found the large computer screen we use for services and were setting up SKYPE. Their hope was that it would work and Aunty could watch the proceedings from her hospital bed in Toowoomba and we would watch Aunty in her nightgown. I really didn’t want to cope with the power point on one side and Aunty on the other. My prayers were answered and it didn’t work. This did not stop people using SKYPE on their phones. They held the phones hight in the air to ‘catch the action’. This continued at the cemetery where I was asked to speak to Aunty on the phone. Neither of us seemed to hear what the other was saying.
Last Saturday I had a funeral in Yowah where the opal fields are located. Around 65 people live in the town and this swells to 200 during winter. There are only four graves in the stony, red sand of the cemetery and in the starkness of it all I felt so close to the Creator of our beautiful universe. If you continue past the cemetery and drive to the top of the Bluff you can see forever into the distance. After the service we all gathered at the local Hall for a great country spread and shared yarns about the lady who died. In these small communities people have to work together as you depend on each other so much. It brings out the best in people.
When I was there the week before the funeral I met Doctor Jim Drum. His real name is Peter and he loves in this order - cattle dogs, mining and doctoring. He owns a couple of mines in Yowah and has bought another mine. At present he teaches at the School of Medicine in Herston although he was working for the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service). He relates with such ease to the people of Yowah.
On my arrival home from the Yowah funeral I found that a young man of 20 had suicided early in the morning. So tragic for his mother who kept saying, “If only he could come back and I could take his place.” I cannot begin to imagine how she must feel, her son dead and she was called to identify the body. Queensland Health sent in a team of Mental-Health workers to assist the family. Meetings continued all through the weekend and counselling plans were put in place for various family members just in case they were needed.
Meanwhile we at the Sacred Heart Parish prayed that they would have the strength and resilience to get through this trying time. We also tried to do some practical things for the family. At the funeral the family and friends filled in the grave. There were four shovels and people took turns. After the grave was three quarter’s full, the front end loader came in to repeat the process. It was a large funeral with around 500 people attending.
Now the heat is here once again and the greenness is disappearing, so once again it is blue sky, red sand and yellow grass and dry cracked earth which is quite disappointing. It was 50 degrees inside a parked car yesterday in the heat of the day. You can see why people die in these summer months. If you don’t water each day you lose your plants - I may have lost some established trees because I was a little lax. This is one reason why I hate to leave town.
At the end of November we shall close the second hand goods store until the beginning of February. What a blessing it will be to have some extra time. I am counting down - only three more openings and we are done. We have spent the last two Friday nights cutting rags to sell to the local garages.
Now for the breaking news. Last Friday night my neighbours from across the road came down to tell me that another neighbour had just killed a large brown snake coming out of my yard. In fact she chopped it in half - the blood is still on the footpath! They told me she had thrown it in the bin. By the time I arrived home there was no snake in the bin. I found a dead galah which I threw in the bin. By morning it also had disappeared. Perhaps we have an aspiring taxidermist in out midst. People say that the snakes are on the move and that they would even come into the house. When you meet these snakes as you drive on the road they rear right up as the car draws near.
Well this is it for this time. My hope is that wherever you are it is a place of blessing and a place of grace.
Blessings,
Maureen
Sr Maureen Andrews MFIC (Missionary Franciscan of the Immaculate Conception) is the Pastoral Leader at Sacred Heart Church, Cunnamulla in Queensland. 
*Cunnamulla is located 972km west of Brisbane and 120km north of the NSW border, Cunnamulla is the administrative centre for the vast Paroo Shire. The town of Cunnamulla, which is the largest of the four towns in the Paroo Shire, is situated on the banks of the Warrego River and is the southern starting point on the Matilda Highway. Other towns include Wyandra, Eulo and Yowah. The population of about 1500 is an integrated community of indigenous and non-indigenous people. Cunnamulla is known for its famous character the Cunnamulla Fella, brought to life by Stan Coster lyrics and later immortalized in song by the late Slim Dusty.