Image: Michael (www.creativeorthodox.com).
‘Belonging’
Andrew Collis
Elders’ Orientation
July-August 2024
This is an exciting and challenging time for the SSUC congregation-community-garden.
Something exciting … Something challenging …
We’ve been reflecting on the theme of Belonging/Mirrung, which means more than inclusivity. As Ben Gilmour (Gospel Conversation, July 2024) suggests, belonging connotes commitment, investment, mutual regard/respect, hospitality, family …
Aunty Margaret Campbell (NAIDOC at the NCIE, 2024) speaks of belonging to Country via trees of birth, whose seasonal life repeats cosmic patterns. To belong to Country means loving a certain tree, learning about it, advocating for it – and all the “flying, wriggling, hopping” lifeforms with whom it co-exists.
The ancient image of the vine or tree of life is known to many Wisdom traditions. Jesus (John 15:4-5) invites us to imagine belonging to God, Christ/Country, one another … in terms of entanglement, the bearing of fruit (good works, works of love). The cross of Christ/a is also a budding tree.
Ben Gilmour describes “Christ’s call to healing and restored relationships, emphasising non-possessive belonging, non-commodification, and shared belonging as children/creatures of Creation”.
One faithful way to approach Scripture and Tradition is to be curious about three aspects: (1) Poetics; (2) Ethics; (3) Metaphysics (the “big picture” or the “real”).
(1) Abiding in Christ the Vine has poetic meaning – it is one (precious/sacred) poem/story among many religious/mystical poems/stories about the divine, vines/trees, agriculture … We might consider – by way of song, dance, ritual, lore, language – allusions to branches, leaves, fruit, roots, soil, water, light, air, fertiliser, gardening/farming …
(2) Abiding in Christ the Vine has ethical meaning – it connotes kinship, communal responsibility (over individual ambition), commitment to the common good, equality, creativity under stress, discipleship, membership, social justice, climate justice, human rights, housing rights, Indigenous rights …
(3) Abiding in Christ the Vine has metaphysical meaning – it says something about the reality of the world in which we live, move and have our being. We might use the word “biodiversity” or “sacramentality” … Aunty Margaret speaks of ancestors traveling to Earth via the Milky Way, of trees shedding bark and leaves, of creatures arising from and returning to dust and ashes … of humanity as a custodial species … of life and death … life in the Spirit …
Over the next year, how might we lead, serve and share in ways which affirm this Belonging or Abiding in Christ? How might you celebrate ministry with God’s beloved in South Sydney and beyond? …
