Trade Wind


The eucalyptus was growing darker in colour. Leaves and limbs stood nearly black, giving the tree sharp definition even against the darkening storm-cloud behind. The swirling nimbo-cumulus filled the sky almost down to the horizon where a small sliver of grey light brightened the line of charcoal sea. Smaller trees bent to the will of the winds and the foliage of the big tree was ruffled, as if the tree tried to stay aloof from the coming storm.

The sandy path seemed to lead directly into the surf. Tousle-headed low scrub filled both sides of the path. A few brittle twigs cracked and fell to the ground. The gathering darkness brought with it the heaviness of moisture in the air.

The watching warrior felt within for any signs of life nearby. There were no magpies singing or seagulls squawking. The animal kingdom was silent as if there were not enough breath for voice. They were invisible, too: Bunyitch sensed snakes huddled in holes, possums and birds sheltered under the umbrellas of the eucalypt foliage, wading birds and wallabies pressed into thickets of mallee. The path was evidence of people, but they, along with their fellow creatures, were for now invisible, and silent. Bunyitch could not feel any of his mob with his mind.

The trees, though, knew that such compressed energy would some time be released, and they too waited.

Far off, where the great roiling cloud met the black line of the sea, and where the small sliver of light brightened the world, there was movement; movement contrary to the movement of wind and cloud. It appeared first as a little white dot bobbing westwards along the horizon. It appeared to be skating the line, neither part of the sky nor part of the sea.

As Bunyitch focussed and waited for the seeing to come, as he had been taught, he could make out a shape – a thick black horizontal line surmounted by squares of white. At this distance the shape was smaller than his fingernail.

A wadullah canoe,’ he thought, and worried. This was the first one that Bunyitch had seen, and despite his stillness he could feel the worry of the elders almost as clearly as if sitting around the fire and listening to them discuss the coming of the ghosts. The ghosts on board just one of their ships like the one now labouring in the bay numbered more than the total of the handful of family groups that comprised his mob. And they had seen half a dozen of these big canoes in the bay and off the wild sea coast since the last moon.

If these ghosts were allowed to come ashore to stay, none of the elders could tell the impact their arrival would make on the Wardan people; but there would be an impact, and a heavy one. The elders had pointed out to Bunyitch that their canoes were made so large not by magic, but by human skill. His people could use that skill and share their own. The ghosts seemed to have little sight or hearing and could not sense each other across the country. The elders believed these were skills they could fruitfully trade. On the other hand, the Wardan had heard from beyond the far boundaries of Noongar country that where the ghosts had come ashore in other places they had taken women and caused wars.

Bunyitch was indistinguishable from the trunk of the tree next to him, lightly leaning on two spears, his khaki heel pressed against the black skin of the side of his knee.  He could stand guard here for ever.

A feeling of alien distress crowded out any sense of friends. Looking out into the bay, Bunyitch watched as the lines of the brigantine resolved themselves. Huge waves were throwing themselves at the ship, some tearing at the great sails. The warrior could see the tiny ghosts running back and forth on the deck, and he felt their cries. Any sound from this distance was drowned out by a large crack, followed by a sheet of white lightning and the deep boom which made the warrior’s thighs tremble.

All seemed to explode as the trees wildly bent and swayed, rain dropped like hard stones, and the cloud turned itself inside and out again. The warrior knew the power of these storms across the bay, but he himself was unmoved. He looked to where the horizon had been a moment before and waited – calmly amongst the agitation of the storm – for his seeing to return.

The boat was now closer and heaving horribly in the huge waves. Bunyitch closed his eyes and felt for the power of the storm. The wind, which had started in the west, now turned savagely south and waves like huge rolls of darkness carried the boat haplessly towards the warrior.

The wadullah canoe seemed to be racing towards him. The ghosts now were screaming, running, kneeling, and grabbing one another and the rigging and stays, their terror hitting against Bunyitch’s calm mind like a white wall. The canoe seemed one moment to be travelling faster than the monster wave following behind it. Next moment, the whole ship had turned at right angles and was barrelling under the curl of the wave like a surfer bent on earning a ten for technique.

The warrior closed his eyes again and felt inward. He made a great effort. When he opened his eyes again, no wadullah canoe was to be seen. It had not broken up in the surf or on the hard beach. It was not among the waves subsiding after the peak of the storm. He had sent it back to where it came from.

Who shouldn’t you talk to?


Address for Lent 3 (March 15) 2020
St George’s Anglican Church, Dunsborough

Gospel: John 4:5- 42

Tribal identity

I’m a proud Noongar woman. I belong to this country. And I know how to open the gnamma hole to get water. I know what to sing to the spirits. I shout loudly to tell them that I’m coming. I’m about to throw sand down the gnamma hole to purify the water, when this wadulah man appears.

He’s a wadulah and he’s a man.

Gnamma – courtesty W.A. Museum

He thinks he knows everything, and he thinks he owns our country. But he waits, back where I called the spirits, and says to me, respectful-like: ‘Can you get me some water, Aunty?’

I’m a bit surprised. I’ve never heard a wadulah ask before. For anything. If they know where the gnamma hole is they rip the top off and help themselves.

I’m a bit suspicious too.

‘What wadulah asks a Noongar woman to get him a drink?’ I ask.

 ‘If you knew who was asking you,’ he says, ‘you would ask him for living water.’

‘Where would you get living water?’ I ask him, ‘You got no gnamma hole and you got no spirits here. Our ancestors told us how the gnamma hole was made, and how the Wagul passed through the country. You’re not greater than the ancestors, are you?’

He said, ‘When you drink your water you get thirsty again.  But whoever drinks the water I give will never get thirsty again. The water I give will be a water-hole gushing up to eternal life.’

I didn’t know whether to laugh or run away from this wadulah.

‘You’d better give me some of your water,’ I says, ‘so I don’t have to come out to the gnamma hole to get it no more.’

So he said to me, ‘Go and get your husband and come back here.’

‘Ain’t got no husband.’

He says, ‘Too right you’ve got no husband. You’ve had five husbands. But the man you’re living with now is not your Law husband.’

I swallowed. ‘Uncle, you must be a prophet. Our ancestors called on the spirits on this mountain and you wadulahs say people should worship in church.’

He replied, ‘Believe me, Aunty, time is coming when you will worship the Father not on this hill nor in church. You worship spirits you do not know. We worship God because he brings salvation. But time is coming when true worshippers will worship the Father in a real true spirit. The Father is looking out for people to be his true worshippers. God is spirit.’

I says, ‘The Mission told us Christ will come and when he comes, he will tell us everything.’

Then he turns to me and puts it to me: ‘I, this one talking to you, I am he. ‘

Just then, his followers came back. They looked shocked to see him talking to me, but they didn’t say to me, ‘What are you after?’ or to him ‘Why are you speaking with her?’

I dropped my water-can and ran down into the camp shouting to everyone, ‘I’ve met someone who’s told me everything I’ve ever done. Could he be Christ? Whoever he is, he’s made me proud of being me!’

********

Jesus made a habit of embracing people he shouldn’t.

For the woman at the well in Sychar, there are three reasons he shouldn’t speak to her.

First, she’s a woman. It was unthinkable for a man to talk to an unaccompanied woman in public. Think Saudi Arabia today, only more restrictive.  It wasn’t a matter of waiting for an introduction, men just did not talk to someone else’s woman. But Jesus did.

Second, she’s a Samaritan. The Jews were supposed to hate Samaritans. When most of the Jews were taken off into exile in Babylon, the Samaritans were left behind. Even then, they weren’t as high status as other Jews. But while the Jews were away, the Samaritans started to marry out. So they were neither Jews nor foreigners, despised by both. Jews would go to great lengths not to speak to Samaritans. They avoided even travelling through Samaria, although it was the shorter route from Jerusalem to the Galilee. But Jesus spoke to this Samaritan.

Map: courtesy Spend A Year with Jesus

Third, the woman was probably morally unclean. She was fetching water in the heat of noon, presumably because the other women would not associate with her. The village saw her as an adulteress because her previous husbands had divorced her. Morally clean folk do not talk to morally unclean folk. But Jesus did.

Just as he embraced lepers, who were outside proper society. Just as he engaged with Gentiles, who were not Jews, and therefore beyond the boundary of social interaction. Just as he laid his hands on dead people who were unclean and told them to live: the widow of Nain’s son, the 12-year-old girl in Jericho, his close friend Lazarus.

There is so much to unpack in this story of the woman at the well. But this morning I would like to reduce it to just one challenge.

Jesus made a habit of embracing people he shouldn’t, and their lives were transformed for the better. Who are the people who you shouldn’t embrace? The people who are outside our social world change as society changes. In the nineteen eighties, people didn’t embrace folk with AIDS. It was thought to be contagious. And yet courageous people did and made their lives better. Up until the 19th Century, you didn’t embrace lepers. Yet people like Saint Damien in Hawaii lived with lepers and turned their hell into a loving community.

Who are the untouchables for you today? It might be the homeless man begging near Coles. It might be the druggie creating a fuss at the Op. Shop. It might be someone who has abused children. It might be a family member or neighbour who is estranged from you, probably by their fault, of course.

Two things are certain: if you follow Jesus, you are invited to follow him in embracing people you shouldn’t. Engage them. Talk to them. Treat them as human beings.

Secondly, if you embrace these untouchables, your care will transform them.

For Jesus has embraced you and is transforming you too.

Death in Paris


This blog honours St Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor and seventh Minister-General of the Franciscan Order. Mind Journeys is taken from the title of Bonaventure’s work on mysticism, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (The Journey of the Mind into God).

I also hope that I honour Bonaventure with Death in Paris: A Fiction which appears in this month’s issue of Lacuna, the online journal of historical fiction. In this entertainment, one Brother Giovanni works with Brother Thomas d’Aquino to solve a murder threatening the French king. It’s that sort of story, and I think, one of my best.

Click here to read the story.