From the Chaplains

I felt very blessed and enriched indeed this week. On Tuesday, the College had a visit from the Principal and staff from the school on Milingimbi Island. Milingimbi sits off the coast of North-East Arnhem land.

The hope is that a friendship and partnership of mutual learning will be able to grow between our two schools.

We began the day with a simple chapel service together. We prayed, sang and read the Scriptures in both English and in Djambarrapuyŋu, one of the Yolngu dialects spoken in the community.

One of the things I love about working at Pymble is the great diversity of cultures and languages that are represented by our students.

Diversity brings richness and learning. It encourages openness to the ‘other’.

In chapel we reflected with our Yolngu visitors, who are themselves strong and faithful Christians, that the love of God as revealed to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ breaks through all cultural and language barriers. When people are united in their faith in Jesus, there is an incredibly strong connection between them, despite all differences.

As Paul wrote to the people of Galatia in about 50 CE:

It is through faith that all of you are God’s children in union with Christ Jesus. You were baptised into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself. So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are the descendants of Abraham and will receive what God has promised.

Galatians 3:26-29

Paul’s words would have shocked his readers.

In a world dominated by the harsh Roman empire, where slave ownership was commonplace,  where women had few rights and where there was a sharp divide between Jew and Gentile – “you are all one in union with Christ Jesus”? That was, and still is, a radical statement.

In most ways, Pymble and the Milingimbi school could not be more different. But on Tuesday we sat down together as brothers and sisters in Christ; lit a candle together, prayed and sang together, and began the journey of learning from each other. Most of the learning, I suspect, will be on our side, as Yolngu people have already had to learn to navigate Western culture as well as hold onto their own.

I thank God for all the diversity of languages , faiths, cultures and traditions represented by the students and staff at Pymble, and for the space that is made here for us to learn from and listen to the ‘other’. 

Edwina O’Brien

Assistant Chaplain