Vacation Stories: Special Events

We went to two special events while we were in Melbourne. The first was a special speaker in the Melbourne Convention Centre (a wonderful huge building), and the second was a musical play in a downtown theatre.

I’ll start with the theatre. As we drove into the city on our first morning, Lois saw the advertisements for “Come from Away.” She immediately started campaigning for us to go see it: “The remarkable true story of the small town that welcomed the world.” Gander, Newfoundland is a small town, the furthest east on the North American coast as planes fly across the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of about 10,000 people, they become hosts to 6,700 passengers and 38 civilian aircraft forced to land when the USA and Canada closed their airspace following the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 in 2001. “Come from Away” tells their story.

It is perhaps ironic that we left Canada and went to Australia to watch a play set in our eastern-most province, but I have to say the play was superb. A blend of humour and the ordinary struggle of daily life set in the unique context of Newfoundlander hospitality and outsider wonder. As the population was almost doubled overnight, the people thrown together discovered resources they may not have realised were buried within, and together they worked out a deeply human and powerful response to great tragedy.

One small vignette: I enjoyed watching the passenger from New York billeted with a Gander family, as he moved from suspicion that everyone was ready to mug him to suspicion that they would just steal his wallet to a recognition that they were simply ready to be his friends. Our family is in debt to Lois for insisting that we go to see this delightful comedy-drama. I know that I am relatively unsophisticated in theatre, but I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

The special speaker was Jonathan Haidt, professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU. An organization called Think Inc brought Haidt to Melbourne for a lecture on July 21, “Moral Psychology in an Age of Outrage”. Haidt has taken on a number of “moral leaders” in North American culture, from religious leaders to progressives, in an effort to help us suspend judgment while hearing the other.

I resonate with Haidt’s thoughts, although I may be one of those leaders in a church setting (as an associate pastor in a local church) he is seeking to rein in. In the many difficult conversations we need to have in our society (from sexual ethics to creation care), I have watched in dismay as people dismiss those with whom they disagree as moral reprobates. The cry “Lock her up” comes from one particular political context, but it expresses the way people all across the spectrum respond to those “on the other side”. Such “moral outrage” is counterproductive and often simply wrong.

One of his observations in the question and answer time struck me. Progressives generally have championed being open to people of all kinds and conservatives have generally wanted people to stay in their own place. Surprisingly, then, Haidt observed that he has been vilified by progressives and treated respectfully by conservatives when disagreeing with them. Current political currents in the USA make this observation a surprise – the Republican Party does not specialise in respectful interaction at the moment. Haidt’s observation of his own experience reminds us that highly public figures are not necessarily a good measure of the totality of any movement. I think he was asking for more of that respectful response from both sides.

Two very different events, both enjoyed and appreciated, and both part of a wonderful trip down under.