The Second Coming of the Sea: Dis/closive Possibilities in Australian Spirituality.

Nancy M. Victorin-Vangerud, Theology, Murdoch University

nvictori@central.murdoch.edu.au

Not surprising, in a recent survey, 66% of Australians responded that they frequently find peace and well-being "in the bush". But the largest group of people - 71% - responded that they find peace and well-being "by the sea". Surprising? Perhaps not. Robert Drewe claims that for at least three generations, Australians have been conducting "a life-long love affair" with the sea. Yet when contemporary writers on Australian spirituality, such as Veronica Brady, David Tacey and Tony Kelly, turn to an Australian sense of place, they turn to the centre, the desert. This paper suggests that Australian spirituality is beginning to recognize a sea-change (shades of Pearl Bay!) in orientation from the desert to the beach as cultural icon. For Tim Winton, the "land’s edge" provides a liminal place of open mystery, since the sea is "the supreme metaphor for change." An emerging, Australian sense of seascape challenges traditional Christian spirituality, which has been shaped by an apocalyptic imagination in which "the sea was no more" (Revelation 21:1). But perhaps this second coming of the sea in Australian spirituality signifies a new unveiling - a dis/closive imagination - that honours the more worldly play of passionate possibilities.