Monday, September 07, 2026
Red belly black snake
Last year we were minding Pickles our daughter’s and grandsons beagle in our small backyard. I had built a small dam one brick high at the back door of our garage to stop overflow rainwater flowing through where my library is stacked. To protect the little dam I had a piece of vinyl to keep rainwater out and to protect the surface whenever to brought the lawn mower over it. And there was pickles barking at the vinyl. I lifted the vinyl and found a red bellied black snake under the vinyl between the garage back door and the little brickwork dam. It became aggressive. Super aggressive. Quickly I got Pickles and Lorelle inside the kitchen glass sliding door. The black snake was about two metres long. It had flattened its neck out and it had begun blindly attacking and biting anything close to it as it travelled up the ramp to us safely behind the glass sliding door. It bit at the brickwork of the house time after time after time in its blind aggression before it took itself off under a fence and away. I have had a similar experience with churches and their power structures. Whenever sinful behaviour is exposed the organisation goes on the attack, blindly biting at anything that might cause the person harm. I have opposed child sexual abuse (pedophiles and pedophile rings) since becoming aware of it in the early 2000’s. I opposed permitting a charged and gaoled and recently released pedophile to conduct a funeral in a church he formerly pastored. I opposed letting off someone where ASIC had in a judgement suggested that he had been involved in a conspiracy to steal $ 4.3 million from a superannuation fund. Always, blindly, the organisations attack aggressively. “He is a troublemaker, don’t employ him!” Words spoken to a church or churches, resulting in my working interdenominationally over the last 17 years. “Exclude him! He might be….” And no one ever asks for proof of the accusers. It is bullying in its most evil and horrendous form. And like a glass sliding door, like a brick wall between me and the blindly attacking redbelly black snake stands the Lord.
