edit: change of pace seemed to require a change of scenery. hope its ok! 
now i am a surrender newbie. i had very little idea what i was in for other than knowing that some people that i really respect would have things to say, things that i needed to hear. i had no idea that so much of surrender would focus on our indigenous brothers and sisters, and after 3 days… i feel so ignorant. not knowing, not looking, not having any interest at all. assuming that their situation is normal, better now, assuming that it is fixed… or even that it is ok for the aboriginal community to occupy the country the way they do now. i guess if i’m honest i saw it similar to the way other people groups, even around victoria, occupy certain areas by… almost… default. (seriously, i feel SO foolish writing this, and i do plead ignorance for the past, but, i need to be as transparent as i can). Two hundred years is just SO not a long time… with the way people work i’m surprised ANYTHING can happen in two hundred years. But in two hundred years we have systematically pissed on a culture that is so rich, that we should be so LUCKY as to share the space of these amazing people.
not only have i walked away with an entirely different perspective on indigenous life (world wide to some extent). not only do i now have a thirst to understand what the heck is going on! What is it about this “intervention” thing, why was it initiated, and why has it been allowed to so greatly bring pain and a feeling of disgrace to these proud people. Do the policy writers not understand the people that they are legislating? I feel like i have heard and understood only a fraction of what these guys are about in the three days we had together, but even that long is enough to make me feel utter disbelief that this could still happen. Were these rules just made as a sudden reaction, blanket policy… rather than… i dunno… at least SOMETHING that is well thought out…
if anything here doesn’t make much sense, please understand that i am still investigating what its all about. but then even google isn’t exactly forthcoming with information… ah well. i’ll get there. just need more time.
then there is the issue of real reconciliation… and being able to take on board how not being alive during the peak of the mess, while not making me guilty as such, does not allow me to shirk responsibility entirely either. And even if we are somewhat “innocent”, Graham Paulson knocked it on the head when he illustrated the Father’s process/definition of reconciliation. By our standards, even on a small scale, the party in the wrong, the individual who did the hurting, the SOURCE of the conflict, are to be the ones who recognize the wrongs, who turn around, and who apologize profusely and grovel at the victim’s feet… you know? If you wrong me, I’m not gonna go anywhere near you until you see the error of your ways!
But as Graham pointed out, the Cross tells SUCH a different story. God didn’t wrong us. God didn’t owe us an apology… but HE created a way for us to be reconciled. HE BECAME the way to be reconciled.
“God initiated the reconciliation process”
side note: HECK
That is some big love. I don’t know where this puts me. I don’t know how I’m going to fit into this story. But I am at least going to make myself available any way I can.
The other side of this for me has been finding myself asking all sorts of questions about myself. Who I am has so far been a question of today, my struggles, my victories, my beliefs etc… A product of my own effort, today… what I have found while “finding myself”… how I have become an individual apart from the family that raised me. And look… its clear to me, that this IS part of it… SO much a part of it.
But I have never really taken the time to discover, or even just ask about my history. History is such a vital part of Aboriginal culture, the way, the stories. As is respect… almost reverence… for their elders. And yet, for me, I find myself in the (probably not unique) position where it has taken me nearly 25 years to even bother to commit to memory my own cultural background… I only really found myself asking a matter of months ago. I don’t feel bad about it, I don’t think it is expected… or normal… I don’t know? I don’t even mind if I don’t have a heroic, fascinating, mystical or even sordid family history. If it really is as ordinary… or “normal”… as I have known it to be… but I can’t imagine that to be entirely true. I feel like I’ve got up to so much, and learnt so much in my 25 years… surely others of my clan have got up to more!
Now don’t take my family as people who don’t share. My grandparents have shared plenty! I mean, I used to garden as frequently as weekly with my Poppa (those of you who know me well will still be taken back by the image of me gardening weekly… but stay with me) and he always has stories. But now I recognize their importance, and I want to know more, I want it to go back further, I just don’t know if that kind of information exists anywhere… Ah well… Just means that there are people to see, places to go! (Maybe it’ll have the double edged benefit of allowing me to be a good son/nephew/grandchild who see’s my extended family more frequently than twice annually too! We shall see… the other possibility is that I’ll just make myself MORE busy than I am now… which didn’t seem possible)
I need to finish up again now… please don’t expect this to be a daily-thing either… but I do need to get it out while it is still fresh.
All I know is that now, I find myself still feeling ignorant and yet frustrated by a lack of information about some really important stuff. I find myself intrigued by and hopefully more respectful of history, (which is a big deal for a “man of science” like me [read: HUGE NERD]) I had already been coming to terms with the importance of the input of other generations, but now the scope is seemingly infinitely larger… there are SO MANY generations after all… and all of them can be learnt from. I find myself part welsh, part scottish, a little bit french, and not even remotely dutch, and asking questions that I never have before. What is my ancestry? What are our stories? What are MY stories? What were our victories? What is our burden/shame? Are there skeletons in the closet? Does anybody know? Will I ever know? I have no idea…
Catch ya soon.
