Reflections from Ikara- Flinders Ranges
Who is Jesus? It is easy for us to respond that Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour, the Messiah, the Crucified one, The Way, the Truth and the Life. These responses are founded in the Bible which is deemed to be the inspired word of God. The work of colonial missionaries was to inculcate Aboriginal people into this exclusive manifestation of Christ. This work was completed in a wholly Euro-centric way with Salvation and Civilization being synonymous. Missionary zeal manifested in control of resources, forcing Aboriginal people to resist their own language, cultural practices, even family, to receive basic food, clothing and accommodation, distributed at the whim of mission managers and local, western, employers. This is the essence of the life experienced by the Andymatha people that I heard from this weekend.
It is apparent that there is a failure of ethics in this practice of recent history. It seems that there are broader experiences of Christ that can be open to us. Invitations that have not been broadly accepted to date.
European Christianity has deconstructed faith, itemizing even the elements of the Godhead, formulating a ‘correct’ passage to God, instigating a hierarchy in worship, and separating the spiritual from the ecclesial. Colonization has spread a singular form of knowledge and understanding that has led to minimization of curiosity, the generation of fear of the unknown or unknowable, and instigating a stranglehold over teaching and learning. In broad terms Indigenous culture and spirituality invite an interrelated, interactive, relational, reciprocal, form of life as described and shared during this time on Country (Yarta). In this manifestation of God connection with Country, culture, language, and knowledge are prioritized and celebrated. Eons of survival, flourishing, and continuity, offer reassurance that although the future can never be known, it can be adapted to, accommodated, and secured.
This narrow, western expression of Christianity, at the exclusion of other expressions of faith, is expressed in this poem.
This resentment is represented by my poem
‘PO@MO’
(pissed off at missing out)
I am so very pissed off.
I am angry, anxious, and awestruck at the temerity of strangers
Who rocked up, stormed through the door, and sat down, uninvited, at table.
What of courtesy?
Manners,
Gentlemanliness,
All those elements attributed to a Man Of Good Breading?
How can it be that no one could see?
Who determined that white was right?
I am so very pissed off.
A simple pause.
An act of integrity,
A chance to absorb all that was before them.
The humility to see, to say, to know
That there was lots to know.
I am so very sad.
‘What could have beens’ are fruitless,
But, what could have been if ?
Rather than a new settlement full of
Fear and anger
War and destruction
Ecological disaster and terms of torture
What could have been?,
An expanded settlement
Collaboration, community
Relationship and reciprocity
Harmony and enhancement.
What could have been indeed,
If termination were treaty
Ignorance was curiosity
Genocide was getting on.
I am so pissed off that
Through fear and ignorance,
we are all missing out
On what could have been.
Loretta Tyler-Moss Excerpts from Yarta Wandatha Reflections.