Vasilios Theodorakis – An Online Author

If you happened to walk into our house, you would be assaulted by a myriad of books – sci-fi, poetry, sociology, psychology, political science, teaching and extremely uncool encyclopedias.

Then there’s the vintage board games, toys and manual typewriters; the music collection with a who’s who of the 60s, 70s and 80s; DVDs galore – now that all the retailers sell popular titles and TV series for under $10.

There’s 30 years of PCs, Macs and software; furniture that spans 7 decades; a stucco house that was built in the 1950s and has barely changed; the Hills Hoist cloths line; a mixture of native trees, veggies and lawn; the second love of my life – my kayak – the first of course being my wife, Helen.

Finally, we both have long hair, wear daggy cloths, love architecture and good design but have never felt the need to possess flashy things ourselves – or maybe that’s because we’ve never had a lot of money!

We critique all things political within the Australian and Pacific context; love cartoons, sitcoms from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s as well as British comedy; refuse to support the use, abuse and slaughter of other sentient beings and only consume nutritional food that has a minimal impact on the planet.

All in all, our culture is that of popular culture, yet there are those who look at my name and still presume my culture to be something altogether different. My identity is based on a mainstream (politically green) Australian footing and my moral/ethical boundaries defined by my Orthodox Christian religion.

At the age of 42, I am very comfortable with this combination. The amalgam of influences that has gone in to make the “me” is rich – a complex weave with many happy memories – especially from the 1980s and the last ten years of my marriage. I am under no illusions however that my culture is anything but popular culture, especially popular English speaking culture. I was born in Australia and bar three months of my life, have lived that entire time upon her shores. For better or worse I live the English language, think in it and revel in playing with its vocabulary and structure.

There is only one thing that is missing – my religion refuses to put down roots in this country and refuses to recognise the legitimacy of people like me. The Orthodox Christian Church treats us as though we are invisible.

All my life I have fought this attitude – it is dysfunctional and has a destructive effect on any well balanced human being. It asks one to denounce one’s actual experience and culture and adopt a culture that has no relevance to one’s everyday life. Needless to say, this has resulted in the bulk of my family and peers walking away from Orthodox Christianity all together.

Lets put aside the obvious hinderence for a moment, i.e. that its current liturgies are not accessible to English speaking mainstream Australians. The other major obstacle to participation is its ethnic based Churches and the bulk of it’s ethnic based people who are down right unwelcoming. The Church in Australia has become a closed club rather than the universal Church that Christ established – what an institutional mess!

(There are many reasons as to why this happened but the biggest contributor is that the Orthodox Faith did not establish itself in this country the way it traditionally established itself in other countries – i.e. through missionary churches.)

Unlike Bishop Kallistos Ware, who as an Anglican (in the UK) walked into an Orthodox Church and felt at home, if the average spiritually interested Australian walks into any of these ethnic based churches, at best they’ll get dirty looks, at worst they’ll be confronted and ushered out. So much for following Christ’s example of welcoming all! What is even more perplexing, is that this structure continues to baptise mainstream Australians into itself, even though there are very few places across the continent where English speakers can worship and even fewer places where they can experience a sense of belonging!

The only thing I take comfort from is that the current situation is a heresy according to Orthodoxy’s own dictum – Phyletism – which says that any church established in a new land should be operated in the language of that land – this principal has always been in our canons. The hope therefore continues to be, that in addition to these ethnic based parishes, missionary (English speaking) parishes will one day be built in this country. In a nation based on democracy and choice, one should be able to worship in the language in which they think – Indigenous, Slavic, European or English.

In the meantime, I am happy with who I am, love that I’m a product of popular culture drawn from more than five decades and that my first language is English. I have no intention of changing any of this to accommodate the short sightedness of the current administration controlling my religion.

Thus, were you to walk into our humble abode – you’ll find ABC’s Radio National blaring in the background not SBS; reruns of Seinfield and The Simpsons on TV not Inspector Rex and guitar based rock (from the 80s) streaming out of our CD player not suicidal Aegean music. You’ll also find numerous icons of the great martyrs and saints of the Church, crosses from holy places like Mount Athos and a sanctuary with an oil candle and incensor.

This is how my kind live – we do not live as Europeans, Brits or Asians, we live as Australians whose religion goes back 2000 years and is known as Orthodox Christianity – so get used to it, we’re not about to disappear anytime soon!

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

I’ll be taking a break from blog postings for a period of two weeks – I’ve decided to take some time off for holidays.

The next scheduled posting will be a poem that should appear here on Friday 10th July 2009.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – June 2009

Over the years, I’ve met lots of different personality types – some good and some not so good. :) Both have inspired various poems and short pieces which are slowly appearing on this blog.

In July 1988 I was working with a wonderful young woman at David Jones (Queen Street Store – Brisbane) who epitomized spunk and whom everyone liked. This poem was written for her during the month of July but was meant as a 1988 Christmas present. What I can’t remember, is whether I was daft/courageous enough to give it to her, or whether I just filed it away amongst the rest of my material. The poem was called – Someone Special

My highlighted author for the week is great novelist: Earnest Hemmingway

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – June 2009

This week’s poem is from the Growing Up anthology, written in July 1988. Its called – A Princess Today

It touches on the idea that modern western women can be feminine and take advantage of all life’s options.

The highlighted author for this week is the gothic writer: Mary Shelley

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – June 2009

Staying Invisible and Wisdom Gained, Wisdom Lost… are my last two commentaries for the time being – or so I hope. ;)

Staying Invisible describes a particular lifestyle and how its informed by an Orthodox Christian world view. Wisdom Gained, Wisdom Lost… is a social commentary in regards to how current Western cultures over emphasise the importance of youth at the expense of the elderly.

The author of the week is: Edgar Allen Poe whose life was unfortunately cut short by tuberculosis.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – June 2009

I’ve got a few more commentaries to do next week but after that we should be back to poetry for a while. This week’s piece – Knight Waiting is from the “Growing Up” anthology circa 1988.

It discusses the procrastination experienced by a medieval knight who reaches a fork in the road and can’t decide whether to go left or right.

The highlighted author for this week is the children’s writer: Roald Dahl

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2009

I seem to be going off on tangents at the moment and writing commentaries  on things that have recently come up in conversation about my past. This is not something I intended or intend to continue doing in any big way, but I thought while it is happening, I might as well document the thoughts and put the material up on the blog.

Great Is Truth – is another autobiographical snippet written on Tuesday about why truth and honesty have become such an important part of my life. The piece is filed under the general post category.

The highlighted author for this week is an Orthodox Christian Theologian – Alexander Schmemann whose material I greatly admire. I wish more of his work was available in print, but I am very grateful for the books that have been released.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2009

Over the central doorway of the Forgan Smith Building at the University of Queensland is a quote that reads – “Great is truth and mighty above all things”. The line comes from the Bible’s Apocrypha – I Esdras 4:41. Its Latin equivalent is: Magna est veritas et praevalet, and for centuries appeared on army shields as the acronym M.V.P.

I spent the best part of 8 years at this university, finally leaving with a social work degree (not science) and this quote embedded in my psyche. The idea that truth does matter and is the only thing that can traverse death became an integral part of my worldview. Being honest and encouraging others to do the same was my way of putting the principle into practice – even though it caused me and those around me, all sorts of problems.

When life went horribly wrong in 1991, at the hands of those I most trusted, the need to communicate what really occurred was the only thing that kept me alive. I figured if I died, the other’s lies would have been my epitaph and no one would ever know what really happened to me.

Needless to say I was naive and a bit of a fool. What I didn’t understand, but soon learned, was that relatives (and friends) don’t necessarily care about the truth or want to know the truth. In my case, most of them chose to believe the lies being circulated because the lies were far easier to accept than having their illusion of reality shattered. The liar, who generated the lies, understood this principle well and milked the process for all it was worth. So much so, that even today, most of my family in Melbourne continues to believe this person’s misinformation about what happened in Brisbane in the 1990s – after all, lies are much easier to stomach and much more convenient to share, especially if the truth makes you look bad.

What pains me, is that experiences were turned into a “perspective” and suffering was made “invalid”, “covered up” or “erased” by both the liar and the believers of the lies. In spite of this, I have tried to treat everyone the same (both the good and the bad) and I have no intention of changing this approach. Contrary to popular opinion, I was not “brainwashed by anyone” or convinced to adopt my perspective, but have deliberately chosen not to lie about the events and not to protect the liar’s honour or hide their shameful actions.

I believe that one has to accept that certain things are right and certain things are wrong if one is to adhere to a civilised and moral code of conduct. I also believe that one needs to take responsibility for their actions and the consequences of those actions on others. Honesty should always be part of every human being’s way of life and people need to own up to having done something wrong; otherwise, trust can never develop between individuals.

As might be expected, trust no longer exists in the context I’ve described, and even though the path ahead of me looks no easier than the path behind me, I continue to denounce the lies created by both family and society in general. Presenting the truth is what I’ve come to stand for and if this upsets people (as it has done in the past), then so be it. Were I to cease presenting what I have witnessed, then what I went through in August 1991 (and since) will have been in vain!

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2009

This week’s piece is a poem from 1988 – Eroded Innocence

It investigates the idea of what might lie ahead for one self if one could start over again as an infant.

The highlighted author for this week is the Sci-Fi writer: Alan Dean Foster

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2009

Every generation’s accumulated wisdom has been lost in Western cultures since the 1950s. Why? Because, our over emphasis of youth culture has built into it, the notion of “re-inventing the wheel” or should we say, “re-discovering the wheel” every time there’s a coming of age. This ensures that culture regresses to an infantile and stunted state on a regular basis. By the time one generation has grasped what’s really important in life, the next generation is making all the same mistakes, and refusing to acknowledge that those older than themselves, already know what counts. There’s no passing on of insight from one generation to the next and no learning from past mistakes as we find in other cultures.

A society that doesn’t listen to the wisdom of age and instead looks to its youth for guidance is not sustainable. Its operational basis is that of experiential waste – just look at what happens when it’s taken to extremes like the killing fields in Cambodia. Unfortunately, we are at risk of never becoming a mature society, and if we continue to also taunt nature with our jibes that the planet is our offspring’s to do with as they please – our eradication by the Earth is all but guaranteed. The planet will eventually scratch us off its surface, like a dog scratches off fleas – indiscriminately.

It’s a shame that this is what we’ve become, because this wasn’t always the case in Western countries like Australia. There was a time when we did advance our culture, adding to our civility as gentlemen and ladies, and passing that onto our children – but that was prior to the baby boomers taking over the world, and setting up the current youth orientated standard for all subsequent generations to follow. One can only hope that we’ll eventually produce a generation that challenges the current status quo and begins respecting the insight of its elderly.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2009