ETERNITY!

                                          

When the new Millennium burst into life in the year 2000, it came to life midst an explosion of fireworks lighting up the magnificence of our fabulous Sydney harbour.

The harbour that boasts both our famous 'Arched' Harbour Bridge and of course our distinctly designed Opera House. 

                                                   Wow! What a sight!  I thought as I watched the display from the comfort of my armchair in front of my television in my home on the Gold Coast.

The colorful show went for half an hour or so, and then the fireworks dimmed a little to allow the word  'Eternity'  to gradually loom forward as it glowed through the residue of the firework's drifting smoke.

 The huge letters written in yellow lights were strung across the centre of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 All was quiet and still, thousands of people gasped at this huge and brightly lit word.... 

'ETERNITY'...

beaming high up into the smokey sky bursting to it's full capacity

 to light our way into the

 New Millennium, the year 2000! 

  

                                       

      ' Eternity ' 

   
Arthur Stace wrote the word Eternity 500,000 times in and around Sydney and it's surrounding suburbs. For around thirty years. Each day at four thirty am he would rise from his bed, eat a meagre breakfast, pray to his God for guidence and the whereabouts for him to write his precious word

ETERNITY

  He wrote it mainly on footpaths, walls, or anywhere his yellow chalk would adhere.  

ETERNITY would appear mysteriously and unexpected anywhere, in any suburb throughout Sydney, and beyond

.
Nobody seemed to mind as they stared at this word ETERNITY.  It was not looked upon as vandalism, after all it was a beautiful word and meaning.

              Arthur Stace was born of two alcholic parents. He had little or no schooling. He could not read or write, but after hearing the evangelist John Ridley preach on the meaning of ETERNITY

 he became so engrossed and moved by the sermon that he decided to write this precious word where ever he could.

 First he had to learn how to write ETERNITY, and his first few attempts were almost unreadable, but after many years of repeated practise his ETERNITY resulted in almost fluid perfection. But, even with this achievment, he could barely write his own name.

 ETERNITY was all he needed, and all he wanted.

In 1967, at the age of 82, Arthur Stace died in a Sydney nursing home.  He had written his beloved word 500.000 times.

They called him Mr ETERNITY.

                        

   In 1977 a brass inscription was unveiled in a paving stone near the Sydney Square Waterfall. In the familiar copperplate it reads. 
                                       
                      
                                             ETERNITY.

                                                
                           HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!