 The Reverend Graham Long is someone whose life is woven into the fabric of Sydney's inner city, giving it heart and soul. As the pastor at the Wayside Chapel in King's Cross, he cared for the vulnerable, the homeless, and the utterly lost and despairing, offering them shelter and dignity. But maybe, just maybe, those people who seemed so without hope were helping him too. Tonight, he's going to share the story that started it all, beginning with a personal tragedy that starts on the street and leads to a rooftop. Graham Long. Thank you. Like all of us, I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, their elders past and present and emerging. I used to think that I was a fairly resilient person. And I used to say to my wife, you know, I think I could pretty much cop anything except losing one of the kids. And then nine years ago, my son died. He had a cerebral hemorrhage, so he was with us one minute and gone the next. And he left behind three little girls for me to love. It was a beautiful thing. In reaction to that, I had beautiful people around about me offering me holiday homes and all kinds of wonderful things. But I personally sort of went into a bit of an autopilot mode. I didn't actually want to go on a holiday. I think that would have been a terrible thing for me. I wanted the routine and the demands that came with being at the Westside Chapel every day. And we were right in the middle of a fundraising appeal to replace our buildings. Our buildings were 40% condemned. And if we didn't fix them, there were very serious discussions about our continuance. So it was a time that demanded that I be there and I needed to be there. But I was there in autopilot mode. I did what was needful, but I wasn't so much there. Does that make sense to you? Well, a day came when I was running late for an appointment and I hate running late for appointments for any reason at any time. And I suddenly realized that I was having a very fine for an appointment at the big end of town where I was going to bite somebody very wealthy to help us with this building appeal of ours. So of all appointments not to be late for, this was the one. So when I realized this, I got out of my chair and I bounded down our stairs and headed for our front door. And standing in our doorway was one of the shabbiest homeless people I've ever seen. Now I've seen a few. This fellow had a skin disease and you could see in his hair that it wasn't dandruff, it was like cornflakes. And when I got to know him later on, he would scratch his legs and produce a ball of skinness like a golf ball. And his fingernails grew like tree trunks. I forget the name of the disease. But anyway, he was a shabby looking guy. I've never seen him before this day. So I want to get past. So I veered to one side to get past him and he veered to block me. So I veered the other way thinking, you know, you're just making a mistake anyway. He veered to block me again. So I started to rifle through my pockets for a couple of dollars because it's amazing how that fixes almost everything around at Wayside Chapel. But it became clear that he wasn't interested in my money either. And so we ended up standing directly in front of each other and he had this goofy look on his face. Eventually he threw his arms around me and he kissed me on the side of the face and he whispered in my ear, that was from your son. And he snapped me out of autopilot. And suddenly I realized love was everywhere to be found and everywhere in need of me. One more time. Suddenly I realized love was everywhere to be found and everywhere in need of me. And since then I've come to understand that resilience isn't a personal quality. There is no inner box here called resilience that you can fill up and have ready for a rainy day. Resilience is a gift that others will give you if you have an appetite for it. So there is no end to the resilience available to you because it's not deposited in you. But it's for you if you want it. What this fellow taught me was that I flourished best in my marriage. I flourished best with my family. I flourished best in my workplace when I'm necessary, significant and not central. Now I promise Kali I'll tell you a little bit about Wayside and the gong hasn't gone off. Wayside Chapel is just up the road in Kings Cross and we're also at Bondi. We deal with people who walk into the Wayside Chapel and generally walking in on the worst day of their life. And they are usually driven by the question, what can you give me? Because when your life is imploding, that's a driving question. Or there is a related question, how do I get the most for the least? You don't have to be homeless to be driven by that question. But that's a sign that your life is imploding. We do a lot of things with people around food. We don't do free food. We grow food on our roof. People learn how to cook with that. And our philosophy of food is if you wouldn't serve this to the most honored guest, then you won't serve it here. People pay for food, homeless people pay for food. And it's not because we're trying to make money out of them. Most meals are $2. I think our most expensive one, which is a roast, is $4. But we do that because what we want above all is not to fix you but to have a meeting between equals. And there's dignity involved. We want this, when you walk into our place, you never meet somebody with a clipboard, with a bunch of boxes to tick to find out what kind of problem you are. You walk into a cafe. Because we don't want to fix people, we want to meet them. And if somebody walks away from our place feeling met rather than worked on, then we think we've had a very good day. It's about to go. That'll do. Thanks.