The ‘Liyarn’ way forward

Fr Dan O’Donovan, Beagle Bay WA, writes about the intersection between the Indigenous and biblical understandings of ancestor and traditional knowledge.

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]The Yawiiru-Wa1majarri-Nyu1-Nyii word ‘liyarn’ means the interior life of mind, heart and soul, which governs the body. Indigenous Australians from of old have been very much a Liyarn people. A people of inner feeling and conviction.

In the liyarn way of life, mind, heart and soul lead and direct all the five bodily senses: the sense of sight (eyes), hearing (ears), touch, taste and smell. When the bodily senses take command over the liyarn, then things go-wrong, and all sorts of sorry things happen. At Ytiendiimii, right now, it is alive, this liyarn vision. That old gut-knowledge, alive and well.

Kiimanjayi Walker is presently among the ancestors, still able to speak, from among his people, we can hear him in a mystical way. In a long World-War Letter, The Mvstical Bodv (1943), Pope Pius XII said: The Church which, already conceived, came forth from the side of the second Adam in his sleep upon the cross, first showed itself before the eyes of the world on the great day of Pentecost.

He too was talking about a young body, one that went violently to join the ancestors. Jesus’ countryman says: ‘Miriam my mother’, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean.’

All three Abrahamic Religions, (Jews, Christians, Muslims) are Spiritual Semites, and belong, in freedom, together.

What then is that Mystical Body? What, or who, the ‘second Adam’?

As in one body, says Paul of Tarsus in the Bible, we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same work to do. So we, though many, are one Body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

The ‘second Adam’ is Jesus the Christ (or the Anointed One), who establishes new beginnings in the Spirit of the Father.

A brief Christian theology, for Indigenous Australians today

With the passage of time, the thinking of a people grows. Experience and discovery bring to birth new understandings. Carrying with them their sacred past, people find themselves being enriched by views other than their own. This is known as the development of doctrine. This means sorting out in their heart what is good and true and hence of continuing value, and what is no longer helpful, and is better left behind. It is a bit like religious house-keeping. Making this easier is God’s gift, or ‘grace’, to a searching people. This is known as discernment of spirits.

Nature religions, which are history’s earliest, meet up with religions which, in different parts of the world, have grown through different stages of understanding, feeling the strong, sweet touch of the super-natural working in their inner soul.

So, there is nature, (cosmos or universe) and the super-natural

The religions which, from earliest times, have evolved in this great Southern Land are seen today as highly refined workings of the human mind and heart, under grace. Not closed but open to ever-new discovery and spiritual constructive achievement. It is called ‘the kinship system’, in which Indigenous Australians have shown themselves to be masters. It is wide-reaching as the cosmos itself, and open to an as yet unrecognised beyond. It travels along ‘songlines’.

Three Bible passages, tell the story of Jesus, with something like a traditional Indigenous flavour of being ancestor-conscious, but passing over into the new. That is why we call this the Indigenous Passover. A painful move at first, a hard journey but, even more, rewarding.

Let us now praise our leaders in their generations: leaders of the people in their deliberations and understanding of learning, wise in their words of instruction. Those who composed musical tunes and set forth verses. Clever ones with resources, living peaceably in their Land (Sirach, ch.44).

All these were honoured in their generations, sang Ben-Sirach, and were the glory of their times.

There are some of them who have left a name, so that all now declare their praise, and there are some who have no remembrance of them, who have perished as though they had not lived. They have become as though they had not been born, and so their children after them.

But these were liyarn people whose good deeds have not been forgotten. Their prosperity will remain with their descendants and their inheritance to their children’s children. Their descendants stand by the Law of their time, their children also, for their sake. Their posterity will continue forever, and their glory will not be blotted out.

Their bodies were buried in peace and their name lives to all generations. People will declare their wisdom and their descendants today still proclaim their praise.

Descendants of a nation  

Abraham was the great father of nations, and no one has been found like him in glory. He kept the Law of the Most High God and was taken into treaty-covenant with him. He established that covenant in his flesh by circumcision, and when he was tested with his young son he was found faithful.

Therefore, the Lord God, ‘Yahweh’, his name all-holy, assured him by an oath that all people would be blessed through his descendants, that he would multiply like the dust of the earth, and exalt his people like the stars.

To Isaac he gave the same assurance for the sake of Abraham, his father. From his descendants the Lord-God brought forth a man of inner power and fiery speech, who found favour in the sight of all, and was beloved by God and man – Moses, whose memory is blessed. He made him equal in glory to the holy ones, and on Mount Sinai gave him the ten commandments of a new Law. This story is told in Exodus.

Now in this Southern Land there came invaders from another country, greedy to take possession. But Jandamara fought bravely against them, as a sign held up, and he stood his ground until he too died and was buried.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of them all, of whom the world was not worthy wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all of these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

John and Jesus

In those days came John the Baptiser, preaching in the desert of Judea: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 3).

Now, John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then many were baptised by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them: You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the anger to come? Bear fruit that comes from repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our father’, for I tell you, the Lord God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in to the fire. I baptise you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into the grain-shed, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?”, but Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all the Law”. Thus he consented.

And when Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water, and behold the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, our ancestors, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus our common ancestor, as perfector and mediator of our faith, who, for joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hatred against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted (Letter to the Hebrews, ch.11).

This is the One of whom it is said by John the apostle: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life. The life that was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you, the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete.

We have now reached a deep river, (Jordan, Mississippi, two powerfully evocative symbols of liberation from slavery.) Only, now people have to take it into their liyarn, to pass over, or, cross. [/s2If]