Opening in Prayer at the Canberra Freedom Rally, February 12, 2022

It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and it was such a privilege to open the rally in prayer. Even so, I have to share my backstory with you for you to understand the impact it all had on me when I went out on stage.

I spent the Friday night at Binacrombi and left at 8 am to head to Canberra, which is normally not much more than a two-hour trip. I’d been told that I was opening the rally in prayer at 11.30 am and I’d chosen a hotel that I thought was only a few minutes walk from Parliament House, where we were meeting. I’d made two mistakes.

Firstly, I hadn’t taken account of the extra traffic heading to Canberra that morning. By the time I arrived at my hotel, it was almost 11 am. Secondly, the hotel was not where I had envisaged. Indeed, when I checked on Google Maps, it said that the walk to the rallying point would take me 56 minutes!

I dropped my things in my hotel room and headed straight back to the car. I was about to get in and saw a group wearing United Australia Party hats (as I was) who said to me, “Don’t bother driving. There are an extra half a million cars in Canberra today. You won’t find a parking spot anywhere between our hotel and the rally”.

The team encouraged me to walk with them. I said it could take an hour. They nodded. I told them I was due to open the rally in prayer in half an hour. They shrugged. So … I took the only other option available to me. I ran.

I must have looked quite a sight - a sixty year-old man, dressed in a green monastic smock, holding a processional cross in one hand, jogging through the streets of Canberra towards Parliament House. My head was down, concentrating on the road ahead. I could see that I was passing a lot of people but I really wasn’t overly conscious of the size of the crowd as I was too focused on my destination. I made it to the stage in 25 minutes.

I found the entrance at the back of the stage and was told, “Sorry. You can’t go up. There are too many people up there.” I said, “I’m opening in prayer in 5 minutes”. The security guy wasn’t convinced but, thankfully, someone up on stage soon recognised me and said, “Dave, get on up here!”, at which point I mounted the stage and looked out on a sea of half a million faces …!

“Dave, you’re on”, someone said. “Thanks”, I said, and I don’t think I’d now remember what happened after that, except that, thankfully, it was recorded on video.

I feel it was one of the greatest privileges of my life thus far – opening in prayer at the largest rally ever held in the Australian capital. It may have been the largest rally ever held on Australian soil, though I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that I have never experienced anything like it, and not only because of the size of the crowd, but because of their warmth and compassion and spirituality!

Dave

http://www.fatherdave.org