So apparently it’s ‘un-Australian’ to hoard toilet paper and anything else you can get your hands on that may later be in demand.

It’s un-Australian to fight in super-markets and abuse people in your quest to get there first.

It’s un-Australian to behave badly… Except I’ve seen the carnage. I’ve been to the shops and seen the empty shelves.

What if we’re kidding ourselves? What if its actually more us than we would ever want to admit?

What if we suck?

I’m serious. Could it be that we hold ourselves in a little too high esteem sometimes? Of course there are people out there doing the right thing, but their nationality has nothing to do with it.

I heard the other day an English commentator saying that they ‘pull together in hard times’ because that’s what it means to be British. Couldn’t we simply substitute British with Australian?… Brazilian? Spanish?… Don’t we all like to think that we all work together when it really matters?

Perception and reality are two different things though. We can tell ourselves a story and not live up to it.

Or we can turn the ship around and be the story we tell ourselves. But I’m banking on that being tricky without a vision of a world where others matter more than ourselves. When Jesus prayed ‘your kingdom come on earth as in heaven’ this is what he had in mind – and it has nothing to do with nationality.