The
Passionate Life ~ the
Prophetic Voice in Ministering
The following is the text of Peter Griffin's paper
presented at the North Sydney at
this SIP gathering on Monday 18th May 2009
I’d
like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners whom I believe to be
the Birrabirragal people of the Eora nation.
At the outset, I need to say that Ministry is a term that I do not
identify with and therefore am greatly tempted to say that, except for the
obvious Sacramental obligations of a minister, I am inclined to interpret
the word negatively.
One of the reasons for this is my suspicion that ministry is too
easily confused with the
notion of giving something – and giving is inevitably encased in an
invisible shroud of power – not the least aspect of which is
the power to create identity- all too easily internalized by both
giver and receiver.
Ministry also has the overtone of superiority - of a have and have
not. I suspect too, that while both participants are subject to the
seduction of their world view being consumed by such a relationship, it is
arguably the giver, the one with the power, who is more at risk.
Something
Thomas Merton said many years ago came back to me as I was thinking about
this. Merton, it is true was commenting on the relationship between white
America and the descendents of the Negro slaves :
“
For some unknown reason, the white man does not seem to realize
that he has been rather closely observed for the last two centuries…He
(the White man) does not seem to realize that they know a great deal about
him, and, in fact, understand him in
some ways better than he understands himself.”
I make these remarks, firstly, because ministry has this
considerable power to define reality in terms of a certain relationship,
and there are many assumptions which are not at all spiritual but rather,
cultural, in disguise- particularly the disguise of orthodoxy. In
Australia the culture of Western civilization, carried in the portmanteau
of religion has unwound the Aboriginal culture at whatever point of
contact that has occurred. What has followed is nothing less than the loss
of soul of the Aboriginal person, as surely as the loss of land.
And secondly, even when this loss of soul of the Aboriginal person
is lamented, it is rare to observe a recognition of the loss of soul of
the Western non Aboriginal person that has been unknowingly dissolved
concurrently.
In an article called De-Serving Poor People, written as far back as
the 70’s, Ted Kennedy recalls that Lilla Watson confided that she sees
no hope in engaging with white people unless she knows that they
themselves recognize that their own freedom is bound up with hers. We need
to know the truth of this observation, not only at a deep level, but by
living it. This challenge does, as well, give me the opportunity to
acknowledge the elephant in the room on the subject of ministry:
In that same article Ted Kennedy uses, in turn, the cutting
observations of Oscar Wilde from the letter “The Soul of Man under
Socialism”. Wilde observes that the remedies applied those afflicted
with altruism in seeking to alleviate the suffering of the poor, do not
cure the disease, they merely prolong it.
Further, that the proper aim should be to try to reconstruct society
on such a basis that poverty is impossible. Charity, says Wilde, creates a
multitude of sins. (one of which is as I have suggest, to create a
comforting identity for the giver and a disempowering one, for the
receiver). Lastly , what Wilde laments most of all about altruism, is the
lack of mutuality.
I once asked Ted Kennedy to tell me what indeed is the proper role
of “whitey” in relation to “the blacks” (which by way, was the
term that he used for the Aboriginal people, because , as he experienced
it, was the one term that they consistently chose for themselves).
His answer, was swift and in
my view, inspired by both his own compassion and the
Gospel :
“Get out of their way”.
We might recall that to scandalize means to create an obstacle . to
block the way. To stifle life. Surely there are many blockages inexorably
placed in the way of Aboriginal people.
I
want to make just three brief points that convey my own reflections on
ministry, based on my experience or more accurately, observations
,admitting, as I do that the elephant of social change is not really part
of my working agenda.
Firstly, somewhere in the middle of the dozen or more years of
prolonged adolescence between High School and the School of Marriage in
1981 at Redfern, I had spent a year on a W.A mission outpost called Balgo.
After this experience, I came to the conclusion that ministry is not
something that you do “somewhere else” – in a foreign place.
Ministry, to the degree that the word has any validity at all, is
something that happens authentically where you are committed to being
“at home”. A person’s primary ministry is where they live. It is
therefore very important not to go somewhere in order to “do”
something, but to go somewhere to be a part of it – and by being a part
of it, contribute from what you are.
Secondly, I am loathe to admit it publicly that when I, with my
undesconstructed Romanised Catholic formation, first heard Ted Kennedy’s
sermons – to put it simply, I thought he was a heretic. He wasn’t
keeping “to the book”. It was clear that his fundamental reference
point was the people, not the book. Clearly, Ted had a deep love for those
whom he often referred to as “more sinned against than sinning”. It
was by being touched by many lives, very often characterized by tragedy,
that changed him as a pastor and a priest of the Church. He had thrown in
his lot with the people and made hard decisions that meant a parting of
the ways between himself and many others.
There are two strategic options that face those who would minister
to people who don’t fit into the accepted categories: (we use the word,
marginalized). One strategic option is to bring such people from the
margins into what we insist is the right place (where we are). But they
are the ones who must change. We are the holders of the keys and the
rules……..
The
other strategic option is much less charted course.
I would suggest that it is the ones that choose the unchartered
course are the ones who periodically bring the Church back ON COURSE.
If you accept people as they are, and, worse still, try to minister
to them where they actually are and not where you want them to be, then
you find yourself giving welcome to actual sinners, long before they cease
to be that which you consider to be unacceptable.
Here
is my second point about ministry : it’s character and indeed its
quality will be indelibly marked by the fundamental love of one or the
other : either the people or the book of rules.
And
thirdly, and here I do not in any way wish to either exaggerate,
or worse, romanticize my own experience of this. It is to say, that my own
understanding of the urban Aboriginal population is that, in the main,
they are, as a group, a people born into structural violence.
It
is also my understanding that, should a non Aboriginal person come into
some measure of acceptance by such a person, then there will inevitably
come the opportunity to experience and to share in some way, the aftermath
of that structural violence.
I
think that we should not shy away from this. It is a delicate and long
term task to find the point of balance between authentic, legitimate
support, and respectful and supportive distance. But it is no easy matter,
and like many a Gospel imperative, we need constant reminding to allow our
lives to be less insular.
In rounding off these remarks, I am aware that there are many
contemporary issues that I have not referred to. May I finish by saying
that just this afternoon I was
asked by Clare Maguire to extend an open invitation to anyone who might be
free on the Last Sunday of each month to come for a cup of tea after
having joined the community at 10.00 a.m Mass or afterwards, from about
10.45 a.m. onwards. You will be most welcome.
p.s,
Subsequent to the presentation
of the talk, a very experienced and long term member of the community,
Sr. Joan Hamilton, now resident in Melbourne, made the following comments :
a)
“What has followed is nothing less than the loss of soul of the Aboriginal
person, as surely as the loss of land.”
Just
a quick observation. I feel a number of Aboriginal people I know would react
strongly to this blanket statement/judgement about the state of their
spirituality, that you make here about their strength of inner spirit or lack of
it, their connection to the Creator Spirit, to Creation itself, to connection to
Country, morality etc. if you know what I mean………
b)
One other comment if you can bear with me :
Could
you finish with a mention of how important it is to keep thinking up ways to
keep Reconciliation on the table, (As Rudd did say the Apology was only the
start…. though he is too otherwise caught up to give the time to address the
other 52 or so recommendations of The Bringing the Children Home Report.)
Keep
the requests to Rudd and Jenny Macklin to revise the NTI legislation.….”
