The Holy Modern Day Pilgrimage to Endeavour Hills

According to my religious background, both God and Jesus are there whenever I need them - they are just a prayer away. Actually, that also applies to every other saint including Mary herself. Today, the presence of Mary in the physical sense was unfortunately missed.

So one Lebanese woman told another Lebanese woman who told another Lebanese woman who told my grandmother who told my aunty who told my mother that there was a crying statue of Mary here in Melbourne, an hour away from where we reside. Naturally, my parents deemed it a great idea to, despite the wet weather and the tendency of the car windshield fogging up and needing the air-conditioner to be switched on thus causing an annoyance to my face and my sinuses, drag me along on the one and a half hour trip away from my comfort zone to place me in a strange environment where a statue was personified to the point where it cried.

Now, seeing as everybody seems to get my religion mixed up because of my Middle-Eastern ethnicity, and since September 11 shook everyone's perceptions on Middle-Easterns, I feel that I need to clarify my beliefs before I go on. My father is Catholic, my mother is Greek Orthodox, and I lay somewhere in the middle of those two religions. I celebrate two Easters, two Christmases, two Halloweens, and one birthday, with an additional day of celebration because of my name day. When I was around four years old I was hit by three cars and I managed to survive with a piece of holy bread left in my mouth so I believe a higher order had some part to play in that. I have faith that there is some protective power watching over me, or so I hope, but having said that I do not like to rub my religion in people's faces and I expect the same to be done back to me. 

This pilgrimage, despite my faith, was not a fun one for me. Any university student would agree that winter school occupies all that is left of one's time, and if I am not partaking in any work I am thinking about it, and if I am not thinking about it I am preparing for it, and if I am not preparing for it I am doing it - it is a vicious cycle. Thus, you can probably assume why leaving my house today to venture to a statue was not my fondest of options but it was the only one I had - apparently I am assumed to hate my family if I spend an entire day away - again, something people of Middle-Eastern backgrounds suffer, I mean, understand.

So almost two hours of direct contact with an air-conditioner later, we made it, and to our surprise, not to my surprise though, the house was not open. My grandmother had told my mother that it opens from Thursdays to Sundays, alas it actually opens on Thursday and Sunday. Another carload of faithful Lebanese people parked beside ours. Our families shared their dismays and we drove back home, completely forgetting about the entire journey.

Was it worth the trip? Well, it gave me some headspace but clogged my sinus. It gave me some time away from my computer screen and allowed me some time to listen to my many desired genres of music on my headphones. In modern times, the love of religion is fleeting. I appreciate it for my extended time here, and for the warmth it brings me on days where I fear things. I just wish it preached more on the need for education so that I did not look like an enemy to my family. But I do not expect that - even the government does not seem to understand.