Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson, a Baptist minister claims that the Dame Edna story illustrates so much of modern life, that very often it is confusing where the line between fact and fiction lies.
Some things that happen impinge themselves on your memory. The following story about Dame Edna illustrates how this can happen.
The occasion was a happy event. Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson had been married, the ceremony was indeed lovely, and the Royals had been handed into their various horse drawn carriages and the grand procession was moving off.
Who should be seen by millions around the world, standing on the grassy bank waving 'royally' as these horse drawn carriages went on their way, but none other than Dame Edna and her entourage.
What was memorable about this fleeting moment, was that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and his Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, slightly turned and deliberately waved back to Dame Edna.
As one watching the television as an interested observer, M V Tronson remembers this event as much for the fact that Dame Edna was recognised by the Royals, as the response on Dame Edna's face in that millisecond that the camera captured, a mixture of surprise and delight.
For the uninitiated, this incident gave every appearance that Dame Edna was a figure of reality rather than the theatrical character, one of many comic characters that are the product of the remarkable imagination of Barry Humphries himself.
Although many people in our nation and around the world enjoys the antics of Dame Edna – her shows are very entertaining with their portrayal of "her" opinionated conversations, including a commentary on her friend Madge's disposition. However, in reality it is only that – an entertaining act – a moment of good humour and a chance to laugh at something enjoyable.
One of great issues of life is being able to determine where the boundaries between reality and make-believe start and finish. Advertising for example, presents a world that is largely make-believe, that if only you use this cream, or this hair shampoo, or this 'whatever' your world will become the reality of your dreams.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The advertisers are playing on, or deliberately creating, exactly that confusion between 'fact' and 'fiction'.
"Although a cruise is just an extremely exotic example of any other type of holiday, or indeed short respite, or even becoming immersed in a hobby," comments Mark Tronson, "people need to realise that they are creating two realities for themselves."
The first is that there are many activities that free us from the 'chores' of our daily lives, and humour is one of them and this in itself plays an important respite and relaxing role with each of us.
The other reality is our daily routines.
The Biblical message doesn't decry humour, nor does it suggest curtailing the (honest) entrepreneur, but rather it opens the flood gates to the most astonishing possibilities that life is for living to the full; and the fountain of this living has its original spring in Jesus Christ.
The 'Good Book' illustrates both these situations: the one where something that has every appearance of looking real, is not; and the other where something that doesn't look real – or can't be described in everyday terms as it cannot be seen with one's eye – is in fact, real.
M V Tronson quotes 2 Corinthians 4 verse 18: "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."
