Our need to know keeps us from learning so much…

Cover of "Native Wisdom for White Minds"
Cover of Native Wisdom for White Minds

Begin to care for nature and nature cares for you, in unsuspected ways – Bill Neidjie, Aboriginal elder and author of Kakadu Man.

On the eve of the climax of the great angst – the PM’s announcement of the details of the Carbon Tax package – we hear more wisdom from the earth’s indigenous peoples.

In our sophistication we need to know the “payoff” for each new initiative – even when returning to conservation principles. All our questions need to be answered.

Native Wisdom for White Minds makes the point that such questions never arise with indigenous peoples. Where the care of nature is concerned they simply start the necessary action. Our “need to know” often stops us from beginning.

First & Last Peoples

 

What is an Aboriginal view concerning asylum seekers? Ironically, while mainstream Australia quakes at the prospect of the “great invasion” by leaky boats, our first peoples (who have an outstanding and legitimate claim to having been invaded by “boat people”) are more accommodating. Here is a brilliant speech by Lowitja O’Donoghue: Return to Afghanistan: resettlement or refoulment?.  Temporary Protection Visas are history now, but they are replaced by an even more draconian detention regime and the “Malaysian” solution which reignites the threat of dangerous refoulment (returning refugees to the place of origin).
Is it only those who have experienced oppression that can show compassion for the oppressed? I believe not – but in this NAIDOC week we can reflect on what makes us human together – and it often takes those whom we soporifically marginalise to wake us up.

Indigenous Australians taking the next step – Eureka Street

Indigenous Australians taking the next step – Eureka Street.

Continuing reflections on NAIDOC week, this article describes a personal odyssey that reminds me very much of the ‘listening journey’ myself and some others undertook in the same region three years ago. Resilience and optimism against the background of the challenges of cultural deprivation and restoration had a strong impact on us. The NAIDOC poster for this year is powerful. We have several festooning the church hall right now.

Reflections on indigenous medicine…

Failure to appreciate the importance of indigenous belief and practice lies behind the limited success of various Western health interventions in the Third World.

– Cluny and La’avasa Macpherson (Samoa)

So reads this morning’s offering from Native Wisdom for White Minds. As NAIDOC week unfolds I reflect on the various indigenous remedies I have used to keep minor ailments at bay. Recently I have ministered to folk who are augmenting mainstream medicine for serious life-threatening illness with bush remedies that have stood the test of thousands of years – to good effect.

The reconciliation process presumes an openness to sharing wisdom. The heavy handedness of the Northern Territory intervention over recent years has failed to appreciate this. At least now there is an acknowledgement of the need to “consult” with eldership groups in remote communities. Whether this will allow enough space to listen to the Aboriginal wisdom of holistic approaches to indigenous health challenges remains to be seen.

Yarning over dot painting…

… is a pathway to reconciliation, according to Don, a Noongar artist working in the NAIDOC tent in the centre of Subiaco this week. This was in response to my sharing the information that my church was working with Reconciliation Australia on a Reconciliation Action Plan. I was fascinated with the intricately patterned painting he was working on. “The dots are like people” he said as he daubed a new row of white dots against a tawny red background. It occurred to me what a peaceful, meditative process this seemed. Also central and recognisable were the birds-eye view of adults and children sitting in a circle, telling stories and passing on lore.

Louise, a Wongai woman, was working on a vividly coloured painting. The central pillar of red and yellow flame were bound on one side by an azure blue and the other by a deep brown. Dots were being daubed along the separation of colours. “Its a corroboree I experienced when I was five years old,” she said. I remarked on the vivid colours. She told how a blind fellow participated in some classes she shared as a student. When asked how he could tell colours, he said he could tell by the vibrations. This made sense to me as someone who is partially colour blind and have to rely on a sixth sense when matching the clothes I wear.

This took place in the first lunch hour gathering in Subi this week. Each lunch hour for the remainder of the week will see sharing of Noongar language, gumnut painting, bush tucker and tapping sticks. More important, however, will be the opportunities for passersby just to pause and have a yarn over a spot of billy tea and damper.

Sinner and Saint

Well we got stuck into Romans 7:15-25 this morning.

It prompted Ken (second row on the right) to rise and recite something he knew by heart from G. A. Studdert Kennedy, a WWI army padre:

Sinner and Saint

A Sermon in a Billet

OUR Padre, ‘e says I’m a sinner,
And John Bull says I’m a saint,
And they’re both of ’em bound to be liars,
For I’m neither of them, I ain’t.
I’m a man, and a man’s a mixture,
Right down from ‘is very birth,
For part ov ‘im comes from ‘eaven.
And part ov ‘im comes from earth.
There’s nothing in man that’s perfect.
And nothing that’s all complete;
E’s nubbat a big beginning.
From ‘is ‘ead to the soles of ‘is feet.
There’s summat as draws ‘im uppards.
And summat as drags ‘im down,
And the consekence is, ‘e wobbles,
‘Twixt muck and a golden crown.

G. A. Studdert Kennedy

Battling the self within…

One of tomorrow’s texts, Romans 7:15-25a, contains Paul’s self-revelation of the battle within. Like all of us, he so often fails to achieve the high ideals that he’s sold on. Woe is him! But it is his faith in Christ that rescues him from despair.

Nevertheless, the reality Paul describes readily attracts the label “hypocrites” upon those who seek to follow the Way.  Why? In the eyes of some critics I have heard, it’s because followers can’t ever hope to live up to the kind of selfless love that Jesus inspires. Funny, I thought the word had more to do  with its base meaning – “actor” thus “someone who pretends” they are something they are not.

I see Paul and most followers of my acquaintance doing the exact opposite – they are giving us the real deal – not some pious showmanship. The faith in Jesus that Paul says rescues him from despair is not some magic bullet either. It’s hard work focusing attention and awareness on what the desert guides of the third century of the Church called logismoi (literally “self-talk”). Continual focus on the call of Jesus helps us to discern, question and challenge the “self-talk” that leads to multiple defeat.

Whether we are hypocrites within or without the Church, such self-attention is indispensable firepower in the constant self-battles we face.

Beginning of the Great Revival – a movie review

This Chinese blockbuster had only one patron in the large Cinema 4 at the local multiplex this morning. This is the second time in a few weeks where I’ve been the sole customer – it says something about my choice of movies, I suppose!

Large attendances in China, I am led to understand, are manipulated by the temporary banning of other new releases and enforced attendances by schools and other groups. The acting is stiff and the story line disjointed, presupposing knowledge of the details of the historic fall of the last imperial dynasty (1911) and the official birth of the Chinese Communist Party (1st July, 1921). What a coincidence to be watching this in such solitary fashion on its 90th anniversary, for which the film was commissioned!

The ideological irony of such cinematography is highly apparent. Much was made of the education and the student basis of the revolution and the injustice perpetrated by the power brokers to suppress the freedom being sought. Fast forward to Tiananmen Square six decades on and we see the liberated repeating history, but this time as oppressors.

I appreciated a greater understanding of the Japanese role in China during this time and the significance of the Shandong problem in the Treaty of Versailles, something I had been vaguely aware of but not had a complete handle on. But, as I say, one needs to come to this movie with some historical appreciation – first, to be able to fill in the gaps in the jumpy story-line, and secondly, to be able to filter what many would see as little but propaganda.

Won’t give it a score as unfavourable reviews are blocked in China!

Time for something light…

Lawyers for the Department of Transport were busily preparing their case in defense of the charge relating to the station owner’s lost prize Brahman bull. It had gone missing around the same time that the weekly train had gone through and, as far as the squatter was concerned, there was only one conclusion.

The government’s young top gun lawyer swung a deal, and the station owner was willing to settle out of court for half his claim. After he had signed the deal and the cheque was in his hands, the brash young lawyer, proud of his efforts, said, “Well, I can now tell you, off the record, that the driver had dozed off and the stoker was attending to something at the back of the tender!”

The squatter replied, “Crikey, and here was I worried about how I was going to say to the court that my bull came home this morning!”