Listening by Dave Mckay Mckay (best summer books .TXT) 📕

Sheree and Bobbi

Sheree started by focussing on the New Age movement. She was aided by a young Aboriginal woman from Queensland, named Bobbi, who had a university degree, and who had done social work amongst various Aboriginal communities around that state. The two were like sisters, with abundant enthusiasm for the work that they were doing.

Some of Chaim's Quaker connections were the first to join in with what these women had started. Together, they attended everything from Rainbow Gatherings to country music festivals, where they would participate, help out (for free, of course), or set up an area where they would make themselves available for one-on-one conversation, therapeutic massage, or free workshops on learning to listen.

After only three weeks of this, Sheree and Bobbi felt that they could leave what they had started, for the others to carry on, and they themselves took off for Tokyo, from where they were able to reach out to Japan and Korea over the next six months.

David and Charmane

David's partner was a twelve-year-old girl named Charmane, who came from the Northern Territory. Like any other twelve-year-old, Charmane was full of energy and curiosity; but at the same time, she was unusually quiet. Ben and David had been encouraged by her mother, Rose, to take her with them, because Rose herself could not leave her other children. She had insisted that Charmane could see and feel the same things that she felt and saw. Over the ensuing months, David came to recognise the truth in this. Charmane had a spiritual maturity that amazed and impressed him.

"I've scouted out four different church services for us to attend tomorrow," David said on the first Saturday after he and Charmane had been teamed up. The young girl said nothing. She just folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows politely.

"We need to look for opportunities to talk to the people; can you watch for that tomorrow?"

Charmane said nothing; but David hardly noticed.

"The first two churches let people give testimonies during the meeting. I can do that. But the others, we'll have to wait till after the meetings finish, and then start up talk with people coming out of the service."

It went like this for three weeks, with David making plans and Charmane's reticence being ignored. On the third week, Charmane just got up and walked out of the service. David had been waiting for a chance to speak, and now he was going to miss it, to chase after Charmane and see what was bothering her.

He caught up with her in a park not far from the church. She was sitting on the ground, pulling out blades of grass and chewing on them.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "I was just gonna speak when you walked out."

"Ya ain't s'posed ta be talkin' jist yet," Charmane replied. "'Member? Listening?"

"Yeah, that's what we're trying to tell them about. Don't you want others to know about listening too?"

"Hey, but they ain't listenin' either, are they?"

David had to admit that they had not achieved anything in the past three weeks. Several arguments, maybe, but no converts.

Just then, Charmane jumped to her feet and raced over to the playground area of the park. She took a seat in a swing next to one occupied by a boy about her own age. David did not know what to do or say, so he just watched... and listened for a change.

"You come from round here?" the boy asked.

"Nah," Charmane replied.

"Where ya from?"

"Up near Rockhampton."

"So what're ya doin' down here?"

"Lookin' for people."

"What sort of people?"

"People who wants ta listen to God."

There was silence for a while, and then the boy spoke.

"You sound like my dad. He's over there at the picnic table."

Needless to say, by the end of the afternoon, David and Charmane had found their first convert. They stayed away from churches for the next two weeks and just listened. Near the end of the two weeks, they met someone else who was looking for what they had to offer; and about the same time, they both had a conviction that their target audience was not to be in Australia. They, too, were needed in China.

They flew to Guangzhou, in southern China. For the next six months, they never came in direct contact with either Ming or Carl. Instead, they were led to Christian believers, most of whom were connected with underground churches, scattered across the country. David rented a room in Hong Kong, where he worked during the week producing literature for themselves and for the other five 'tribes', as the groups came to be called. Charmane stayed with believers in Guangzhou.

* * *

It took a while before each of the six teams came to realise just how rapidly their movement was growing. Their own efforts were miniscule by comparison to the exponential growth that was coming from the people whom they kept bumping into and then leaving in their wake. In just six months, they had grown to more than fifty thousand people in Australasia and the islands of the Pacific, and they were still growing.

There were links between each of them, including access to an Internet site which Chaim had set up, but on the whole it was just their mutual commitment to 'listening' that seemed to keep them together.

(Table of Contents)

Chapter Fifteen-- Chaim Learns to Hear

Chaim struggled to climb the steep, slippery side of the canyon. For a few steps he would make progress, and then a branch would break off in his hand, or his foot would slip, and he would slide back down the muddy track toward the swirling waters below. So far he had been able, each time, to stop himself before being washed away; but the water level was rising and he was no closer to escape. To make matters worse, the torrential downpour seemed to be increasing now, rather than abating.

After the others had been sent on their way, and the home unit had been sold, Chaim had travelled to Sydney, and then hiked out into the Blue Mountains, in an effort to get closer to God.

It was exciting to see something happening that was so obviously supernatural. Encouraging reports were coming in from the six "tribal judges", as he had started to call them. But the problem for Chaim was that he could not see where it was heading. Here was this wonderful worldwide movement of people doing nice things for everybody--and attracting a lot of attention for doing it--but it seemed to end there. Add to that the fact that the movement was counting on him to give them answers--answers that he did not have.

Before he left Newcastle, he had discovered a website in England. where he learned about a similar movement happening in the Western Hemisphere. He had contacted the people to learn more, but was disappointed to discover that they were unashamedly Christian, from start to finish.

That was fine for them, but what he was leading was much bigger than that. It allowed for people from all religions to work together without trying to convert one another. It would be a betrayal of what he stood for if he allowed this movement to be turned into just another Christian sect.

In fact, he could already sense tensions between himself and David Hartley, the group's only committed Christian. David was more flexible than most Christians Chaim knew, but he suffered from the same tendency to assume Christian superiority.

And then there was Mashallah, who also looked for a messiah, but as with David, it came with the trappings of religious bigotry that represented the Muslim point of view.

Vaishnu was different. He was more open to other beliefs, and, although he also looked for a messiah, he was not so prone to raise the topic of the Kalki Avatar.

What Chaim went up into the mountains to find was a way to overcome all of these differences, and to get the more religious elements of his movement to let go of their fundamentalism.

And then the rains had started. Just a drizzle at first, growing into a gentle shower. But then it changed to a catastrophic cloudburst and, what had seemed like a comfortable sanctuary with a pond in the middle and mountains on three sides before the storm came, had suddenly filled with water that could not escape quickly enough through the deep gully that became a waterfall at the open end of the canyon.

As the waters continued to rise, Chaim had moved farther up into the canyon itself. Now he was totally boxed in. It was only a matter of time before he would be drawn into the muddy water and swept over the falls. Suddenly, he found himself praying for help, something he had never really done before, even after he had started listening more seriously to God.

"Please God! A tree. A rock. Anything to get me out of here," he prayed, as he clamoured again up the muddy bank. Instead of what he had prayed for, he grabbed a clump of grass that gave way and sent him plummetting down the bank once more. This time he did not stop at the edge. He slid into the water and was drawn under. His heavy hiking boots and wet clothing added to his inability to surface. This appeared to be the end, for him and for his hopes of finding the answers he had sought. As his oxygen ran out, he felt a strange peacefulness. His mind filled with a blinding light.

And then, just as he felt certain that he was dying, there was a rumbling from under the ground, and a powerful change in the movement of the water. Where it had been flowing over the falls at the open end of the canyon, rocks began to tumble, and the ground began to open. The entire cliff face that had caused the flood to build up behind it, collapsed, and tons of water rushed through the opening, pulling Chaim with it.

As he was about to be swept down the ravine to his death, his body crashed into a huge fallen tree that spanned the gap and was now the only obstacle to the water's escape. The crash forced water from his flooded lungs. Chaim clung there, watching the water race down the ravine below him. He was not out of trouble yet, but at least he could breathe again.

"Thank you!" he shouted between coughs and splutters. "Oh thank you!" and then he looked around. He might be able to climb across the fallen tree to the rocks on either side, but both ends of the tree were lodged in rocks over which the water was still running strongly, from the sides of the canyon and down into the ravine. Unless the rain stopped, he would never be able to walk on those rocks without being swept over.

"Gotta stop the rain," he said to himself, and just as he did, the rain stopped, as quickly as if someone had turned off a tap. One moment it was gushing down so heavily that it was difficult to see through, and the next instant, nothing. He looked up and a hole appeared in the clouds, with the sun shining brightly through.

Chaim started to laugh almost hysterically, as he hoisted himself up onto the top of the tree. Then, hugging it as he progressed, he moved toward the nearest end, where the flow of water was already beginning to slow down. He took several minutes to cover the distance, and by the time he reached the rocks, they were almost dry. The sun was shining brightly now. He scrambled to a higher perch and then threw himself on the ground, bruised, shaken, and exhausted, but alive nevertheless.

"So what was that all about?" he exclaimed unashamedly and thankfully to God. He had no doubt that the rains had stopped in response to his mutterings, but he wanted to be sure.

"Start!" he said quietly, and the downpour immediately returned.

"No! Stop! I didn't mean that!" he shouted. And the rains stopped, as they had before.

"Okay, so what does all of this mean?" Chaim asked himself and God at the same time, when his