From the Chaplains

Keep the Fire Burning! 

What is your fire? Your passion? What drives and inspires you? 

For many people, it is their faith and love for their family. Passion for a particular justice cause. A strong desire to share knowledge and understanding.  

If you have been on the campus this week, you will have noticed the colourful displays and flags that have been set up to celebrate NAIDOC Week. On Tuesday, the First Nations students led the Year 5 to 12 students and staff in a NAIDOC assembly  – a proud celebration of culture and history, as well as a hopeful looking forward to a strong future.

The NAIDOC theme this year is ‘Keeping the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud’. The ‘fire’ is culture – and everything that comes with culture: stories, histories, knowledge of the land, rivers and sea, language, songlines, kinship, lore, law and community.

The artwork on the NAIDOC poster this year is titled ‘Urapun Muy’, from the Kalaw Kawaw Ya dialect of the Top Western Islands of the Torres Strait. It means ‘One Fire’.

Artist Deb Belyea explains:

“The title of this work pays homage to Torres Strait Islanders and Aboriginal people everywhere, as we all have that one fire: our passion for our culture.

In this work, I have depicted the hands of our ancestors that have carefully dropped a burning ember on to a fire. This ember burns hot with intensity, stoking the flames, as it combines with the new fire.

The linear detail shows the energy and power as cultural knowledge is transferred from our ancestors to us today. Culture is the fire that gives us knowledge, wisdom and purpose.

It is our responsibility to maintain, practise, and pass on our fire to our future generations.

After all, Culture keeps us Blak, Loud and Proud.

Below is the prayer from our NAIDOC Assembly on Tuesday.

Seven different First Nations from south-eastern Australia, including the Darramuragal, the people on whose land our College stands, use the name ‘Baiame’ for the Creator God or Spirit.

The stories say that at Mt Yengo, Baiame stepped down out of the sky to create the land, the animals, birds, rivers, waterholes, and the Law. All of Creation.

Baiame, Creator Spirit, Creator God

You stepped down from the sky to be near to us

You created all things – the sparking mineral rocks, the intricate insects, the roaring rivers and the cooling northerly winds.

You created fire –

Fire that warms our bones.

Fire that cooks our food.

Fire that keeps us safe.

Fire that sends signals to others far away.

Fire that gives us smoke, to cleanse and heal.

We sit together around the fire that burns steadily in the dark, and listen as stories are told, and retold, and retold.

Create in us, Creator God, a steadily burning fire.

Keep the fire burning, Spirit, and the coals warm.

Pride in our cultures.

Strength in our languages.

Staring into the flames.

Keep the fire burning, Oh God.

Amen.

Edwina O’Brien

Assistant College Chaplain