Home & Away

I was watching “Home & Away” last night and something quite odd struck me on the episode. Those residing outside of Australia, and perhaps the U.K, are perhaps not familiar with the show. It is a soap based on the lives of a range of people ranging from high-school age to their parents and various other local “celebs” such as the police officers, doctor, the old bag who does nothing but gossip and the old guy who has been there for the last twenty-something-years. It’s actually a good quality show, though many would beg to differ… unlike American soapies such as “Bold & The Beautiful” where the acting is made over-dramatic!

One of the long-time characters, Leah, is getting married to the local reverend who has only moved to the Bay (Summer Bay that is!) sometime this, or last, year. The preacher is a big, strong Maori guy, who was taken in as a child by two constantly bickering Chinese that have come to the Bay to visit him, meet his fiancé and finally spring this traditional Chinese thing on them, where if they have ANY omens in those three days that some Chinese-written-paper (sitting on the fridge) is there, then the wedding must be called off.

Leah is a typical Australian-Greek, obviously bought up a Christian, most likely Catholic or Greek Orthodox, and the reverend was obviously bought up with quite a bit of Chinese culture until he decided to enter the ministry. He wears a cassock so obviously belongs to a fairly normal denomination – perhaps Anglican – definetally not Catholic though, for obvious reasons – he is engaged!

So the Chinese mother was getting a tooth ache, which so it turned out was pretty critical. Leah was saying to her fiancé “How is that an omen to us? Why would the wedding need to be called off? You just need to be a man and tell her that its your life” blahdy-blahdy-blah. He, however, took a bit of offence to it, but it seemed to be offence not because these are the beliefs of his mother, but as though they are also his own beliefs.

How can that be if he is a reverend? That would easily fit into the category of occult behaviour! A little hard to get rid of when your parents subscribe to that belief, however, you can be tolerant of others beliefs without believing them yourself!

The Bible says many things on the occult, witchcraft and all those types of practices. Things such as stoning them, burning them, breaking their statues, ruining their whole town, never to be rebuilt or inhabited by The Chosen People (Israelites).

Well I am a Christian. A Catholic. Obviously I believe in it, it isn’t just my culture and heritage, but something I do deeply believe in. However, as a Christian, we preach tolerance to others – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. So I personally have no beef with other religions or the occult, so long as it isn’t harming other people.

I have had my fair share of a shady past with different religions and the occult, when I was growing, learning about myself, and before the life-changing-experience which made me believe in the One True God once again. Still, these things are a part of me, my character, so I was never about to fully renounce these practices. Perhaps the practices of truly believing in any of it, but as for the rest, the rituals and so forth, I really have no problem with. To me, it is more just theatricals. If someone were to ask me to join in on a séance for instance, I would most likely oblige as it would be a bit of fun, and as I don’t actually believe in it, I wouldn’t see this as betraying God. I simply see it more as a bit of harmless fun – theatrics if you life.

You would imagine a reverend would be much more conservative with these things, not involving themselves in any of these practices, however tolerance can be applied. You would not, however, imagine one who gets that uptight when one says how ridiculous it is! Perhaps say something like “It’s their belief, not mine, but I’ll let them do what they want, it can be a bit of fun.” When they try to push it on them, however, how can they just stand there and take it? Wouldn’t you think they would say “No. You can believe that if you so wish, but my religion doesn’t teach things like the sort, so go about doing it if it makes you happy and harms no one, but don’t push it onto me!”

Well, that’s what I thought as the scene in objection came on my television set last night. Sure, it is just a soap, but it now seems that they may not end up getting married all because of this ritual, even though HE is a reverend! If the writers didn’t want them to get married, you would think they could think of a better thing than that, couldn’t you? Play on his religiousity more perhaps? Not just kill him off, have him move or anything just as monotonous. Perhaps he is questioning what God has planned for him? That perhaps this isn’t God’s will? ANYTHING!!! Just something somewhat more believable would be preferably though.