Constant Crisis

I’m wondering, as most likely you are too, what the New Year will bring… as I reflect on the year that has been, I can’t help thinking that is was a year marked by CRISIS! Economic, environmental, political and social crisis of one sort or another impacted on each one of us. And yet I also know that there are communities that have been in constant crisis for generations!

Indigenous communities of many countries experience unacceptable levels of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, over representation in prisons and poor unemployment and education outcomes. Yes, this is most definitely a community of peoples in crisis. But do we ever wonder why our Indigenous people are in crisis???

I want you to consider how you would be feeling right NOW if you were taken from your home
and made to live somewhere else. How would you be feeling if you were not permitted to speak your mother tongue. Can you even imagine what it would be like if your children were taken from you, because the authorities believed they would be better off being raised by strangers?

Imagine too, if you were conscripted to fight for the government in war but you were not allowed to have a beer in the local pub. How would you feel if you were not allowed to give birth to your children in a hospital? Then when they grew older, your children were only allowed to attend school until the 4th grade, and that is if the other parents didn’t object to your child being there.

Now tell me, if you will, how would you feel if your government had you and your loved ones under the authority of the National Parks, Wildlife and Fisheries…registered along with the flora and fauna, not even given status as a person but as a native species!!!!

Would you be feeling dispirited??? In crisis???

This is not ancient history..this was the recent reality for the Australian Indigenous
community, the traditional land owners of this country up until 1972!!! Yep, this happened during your life time or at least your parents.

I think, unless we address the issue of what it means to be human and have the decency
to consider one another’s differences with respect and dignity, what is the point of addressing all the other crisis???

Even God himself is not partial when it comes to humans : “For a certainty I perceive that God is not partial, but in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him” (Acts10:34, 35).

Then why can’t we accept one another regardless of the shade of skin we are in??? Just sayin’