Advent Photo # 21 Journey

'Journey'
   Like the 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' video from last Christmas, here is what's been reported as street artist Banksy's Christmas card. What it has in common with said video, is the theme of what it would look like if Joseph and Mary made their journey to Bethlehem today. The Gaza Wall provides a significant barrier for the one whose journey did actually include seeking asylum in Egypt. Like here in Australia in recent times. The 'problem' is only a problem because political leaders have made it one... Since John Howard took what was a rich vein of multiculturalism in Australia's history through European and Asian migration and 'boat pople' and made it a problem [rather than challenging Pauline Hanson directly] that has to be 'stopped'... so we now have the inhumane political football that is 'stopping the boats'!!The other reason we have this 'problem' is it does fit a proportion of the Aussie population to adopt this attitude and prejudice.
   Nobody wants to see people in peril at sea but that's how desperate people are to 'make the journey' and serious processing through the UNHCR in Asia would be way more cost effective than our current cruelty and airbrushing.
   In the biblical story of journey the authors place Jesus story firmly in Jewish history and mirroring how relaibly God has engaged before by threading JC through Egypt and into later freedom, under Roman repression and plotting a revolution and calling us all into a journey of offering justice, compassion, grace and hope in community, using everyone's gifts & service to contribute to a world lived 'in God's interest'.