A Forbidden Room

Spirit – Artistry – Community

Community

The Third Man: On the apparent condemnation of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan

Anna McGahan

There was once a man sentenced to capital punishment by the state. The authorities decided to kill him for political reasons, because he undermined their laws with effortless and controversial leadership. They were afraid of a revolution, and afraid of being deemed irrelevant. They managed to convince the governor of the region to approve of the execution, claiming it would apparently please the people, and help cement all their positions of leadership. The governor questioned the prisoner, demanding he explain himself, but the man stayed silent. The governor had heard that this convicted man had in fact encouraged and cared […]

Brown

Anna McGahan

We were in class, Monday night. I’m halfway through my second subject on The Imagination. We were gathered around a tiny projector, linked to our teacher’s iPad, with two disposable water bottles as speakers. It was dark and strangely cosy, tucked in a little room refurbished from the 1920s, oblivious to the craze below on Hollywood Boulevard. We were watching two filmed examples from a play called ‘Fences’, by August Wilson. At the beginning of the scene, a young man, stricken, comes to his father:   CORY:   Can I ask you a question? …  How come you ain’t never liked me? […]

Spare Change

Anna McGahan

The first time we spoke was on a tram to St Kilda. For the first two months of our relationship, a lot of our deeper conversations were on the number 16. Perhaps it is the melting pot of public transport that really excites Him – or renders me restless enough to ask questions and peer into strangers’ faces. Our first conversation was about need. It wasn’t a conversation like something I might have had with my mother, or myself – that was the chill of it – He wasn’t me, and yet he existed, as a voice within me. I was […]

The Tongue of Us (Art and Peace)

Anna McGahan

The first sermon I ever heard was about my tongue. If I was a ship, my tongue was the rudder, steering me. Wherever I was at, I could probably thank or blame my tongue. If my life was burning down around me, my tongue was the spark. It was weird, but it resonated. As I listened, I physically felt the truth to it. My words mattered. Not in a self-help –  ‘speak it out and the universe will manifest it’ – way, but in the nature of integrity. The consequences of choosing a complaint over gratitude, criticism before encouragement, slander instead […]