My name derives from two places, both relating to my spiritual journey in life.
I was pretty much areligious as a child and adolescent. I just didn't believe in anything religious at all. I think I was a fundamentally decent and moral person (as much as any kid could be) but there was no firm basis to it. I attended Church from the time I was ten until or so because I was expected to at school, but I didn't take it seriously and I stopped going as soon as I could.
I'd been orphaned just before my tenth birthday, and as I entered my late teens, I was angry with the very idea of God - how could a loving God have taken so much from me. I didn't believe He existed, but if He did, I wanted nothing to do with him.
I had been to the Shrine of Remembrance - the big war memorial here in Melbourne - and on my way home, I found myself outside the large Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne, opposite the train station. It was raining and I knew I had a while until I could catch a train, so I went into the Cathedral. And I sat down. This was mid 1975. And as I sat there, I found myself asking the question of why would a loving God take my parents. And an answer came to me. Showed me how much I'd been given, not just what was taken - and made me realise that the last thing my parents would have wanted was me focusing on what I had lost.
So that's the 1975.
The Naturalman - 15 years later in the lead up to the first Gulf War. I knew there was a decent chance I was going to be deployed, and my oldest kid's school invited me to attend a prayer service they were having because of the threat of war. I went. And in their chapel, I heard a hymn.
Never before and never, ever again will these waters part
For any woman, child or natural man, Quite like you
It wasn't a great hymn by any means, but it hit me right between the eyes. It felt like I was being offered my one and only chance. I became a Christian that day.
Later that same week, I met a man who had served with my father - and he told me about a prayer my father had carried with him in war - and which he had been carrying as he died.
Stay with me, God. The night is dark
The night is cold. My little spark
Of courage dies. The night is long
Be with me, God, and make me strong
I love a game. I love a fight
I hate the dark. I love the light
I love my child. I love my wife
I am no coward. I love life
Life with its change of mood and shade
I want to live. I'm not afraid
But me and mine are hard to part
Oh, unknown God, lift up my heart
You stilled the waters at Dunkirk
And saved Your Servants. All Your work
Is wonderful, dear God. You strode
Before us down that dreadful road
We were alone and hope had fled
We loved our country and our dead
And could not shame them so we stayed
The course and were not - much - afraid
Dear God that nightmare road! And then
That sea! We got there - we were men
My eyes were blind, my feet were torn
My soul sang like a bird at dawn!
I know that death is but a door
I know what we are fighting for
Peace for the kids. Our brothers freed
A kinder world. A cleaner breed
I'm but the son my mother bore
A simple man and nothing more
But God of strength and gentleness
Be pleased to make me nothing less
Help me O God, when Death is near
To mock the haggard face of fear
That when I fall - if fall I must -
My soul may triumph in the dust.
He told me that my father's favourite lines in that had been:
I'm but the son my mother bore
A simple man and nothing more
But God of strength and gentleness
Be pleased to make me nothing less
And that for that reason his mates had called him Simpleman.
That coupled with the hymn I'd heard - I became Naturalman in my own mind.
1975 was the start of my journey to God. Naturalman is the middle.
Everything else is in progress.
