Emily Hayes (& Mitch Forbes) on learning to listen

Emily Hayes is the minister at Alice Springs Uniting Church. Mitch and Will met Emily towards the end of 2023 at a gathering and began a fascinating conversation which they pick up in this episode, exploring things like calling, discernment, and a spirituality of place and deep listening. 

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Transcript

Will: Welcome back, friends, enemies, whoever you are, listening to the Spiritual Misfits podcast. You know, some people like to spite listen, so there might be some people out there, I do that sometimes to other podcasts, where you listen and you're kind of like, you're a bit like, oh, this person, they make me so annoyed, but I can't look away.

Anyway, welcome back wherever you've come from. Today on the [00:01:00] pod, we have special guest Emily Hayes. Welcome, Emily.

Emily: Thank you. It's good to be here.

Will: And we have returning guest Mitch Forbes. Welcome, Mitch.

Mitch: Well, howdy, howdy. Thanks for having me.

Will: Always a pleasure. So a little bit of backstory here and basic roadmap, although we could go many different directions, but a few months ago towards the end of last year, Mitch and I got asked to go to like a retreat of ministers in the Uniting Church, and we were asked to share some thoughts around the Uniting Church from the outside sort of giving our, our view to these insiders, some of them, you know, kind of recently insiders.

Emily might be able to give us a bit more context on, on what was going on there, but in essence, Emily was in the room and afterwards. You know, we had this kind of like, uh, just an open conversation with people in the room about the Uniting Church, kind of from the outside, from the inside, from different angles, and [00:02:00] then we hung out afterwards and stayed up, stayed a bit later and just had a great chat with Emily, which was largely about her context in the Northern Territory, and at that time it was pre referendum, and we were talking a bit about some of the differences in terms of how the referendum conversation was unfolding.

I guess in more urban areas compared to in the territory. And then Emily went away. She listened to a few podcast episodes. She's like, I love the podcast. I'd love to, I'd love to come on sometime. I was like, that'd be, that'd be awesome. And I thought we could kind of talk, we kind of tap into both of these themes, almost pick up our conversation from that night again, because now Mitch is no longer a UCA outsider.

He's on the inside. I'm the only one here who's still kind of an outsider, but I'm getting sucked in. But without wanting to alienate listeners, I want to talk a little bit about some of those different dynamics as well as you know, like, it still really pains me that a few months on from the referendum.

Which obviously has a whole [00:03:00] swirl of emotions but that conversation has kind of, I don't know, been a bit overshadowed or has kind of died down and I'd be keen to hear from Emily's perspective, what, what it feels like kind of in the wake of that as someone on the ground in community where some of those conversations are a little bit less. So, there's a little bit of setup, but to begin with, Emily, why don't you give us a little bit of your backstory? Did you grow up in the Uniting Church or did you grow up in other, you know, areas of faith land, church land and maybe let us know when, if ever, you felt like a spiritual misfit along the way.

Emily: Sure. So I grew up in the Anglican church actually, the in Sydney. So I was born in Sydney. My mother when I was born was And she, uh, discovered she was having twins, uh, quite unexpectedly. [00:04:00] And so she sort of decided that she wasn't able to care for twins and that she would adopt them out.

But When we were born, she changed her mind on that, but was completely unprepared given that she so she hadn't bought anything or had a home or anything, but it was actually the Anglican minister and his wife who came and took her in and cared for her and for us, uh, in the first, uh, months and years, uh, as we, uh, grew.

And so There's a lot about the Sydney Anglican Church that I wouldn't necessarily feel at home with anymore. But of course, I wasn't, you know, I can't remember that experience, but I guess it's formative and who I am. And despite the sense that, you know, the church can sometimes be judgmental on situations like that we My mother in particular was not treated like that.

She was very much. So I guess probably, you know, as I grew up and, [00:05:00] uh, went in and out of churches a little bit as a teenager, as people do we, you know, we lived in public housing and Um, uh, like it often is, there was, you know, uh, things to get involved with, uh, there my mother always went to church and, uh, that space, funnily enough, again, was always a space that I could go in and out of and always found, you know, welcome and acceptance.

And so again, even though I've. struggled theologically with lots of things. I've actually always just found this church a very welcoming nonjudgmental place actually. So yeah. But currently, yeah, yes. In the Uniting Church. I found only found the Uniting Church probably about eight years ago.

So I moved to Alice Springs 15 years ago. And sort of did what people often [00:06:00] do when they come to a new town, as I went to all the churches and didn't find one that I sort of found myself wanting to worship in. But and so I ended up with the Quakers and there was only about four, sometimes six of us at the most, but we would just gather and if anyone's familiar with how Quakers worship.

They just really sit in silence. Traditionally the idea was is that you'd sit in silence and listen for God. And then people would be so so hear the voice of God that they would quake. Hence where the Quaker thing comes from. But nowadays that's kind of rare and mostly it's just. meetings are sort of silent.

Will: They need to rename. What, what are they, what do they bodily, uh, do now?

Emily: so the actual name is the Religious Society of Friends. And,

Will: Oh, that's

Emily: know, if you become a member, you move from being like a lowercase F friend to a capital F friend.

Will: I love that.

Emily: love. I never became

Mitch: way to just [00:07:00] differentiate just a little bit between the insiders and the outsiders. You've got the same name, but

Emily: Even Quakers have a way. But it was such a gift. It was actually such a gift to learn to sit in silence for an hour. And we met at a place. here in Alice Springs called Campfire in the Heart, which is just a beautiful space. And I guess alongside that, I was at that time also coming to know a lot of Aboriginal people and a bit more about Aboriginal ways of being in the world.

And, uh, certainly Being quiet and sitting still on country is very much part of that. And so having that once a week to do that was, was a beautiful thing, but but I guess I had a child and then I wanted something where a place that she could go and, uh, sitting in silence for an hour isn't what usually a Two year old is up for and I guess also I wanted a bigger community and stuff to be a part of.

So at that time my friend Steve Bevis had just come and was taken on the minister role at the United Church. And so I went back in and [00:08:00] yeah, almost immediately had this feeling of Like, how have I not found the United Church before? Like, just found my kind of theological home in terms of I mean, obviously the United Church's sort of openness to, you know, women in ministry was important.

The whole The thing that really moved me was the, the whole Uniting an Aboriginal Island to Christian Congress and the, you know, covenant that the Uniting Church has with the Congress. And then I, I read the preamble to the basis of union and then the basis of union. And I was just like, this is like

Will: for people who

Emily: this is me.

This is where I belong.

Mitch: where have you been all my life?

Emily: exactly. It was a bit like that. So.

Will: for people who aren't familiar, could you quickly sketch out what that is? Like for people in other denominations, there's some language there that's maybe a little bit insider. But what What is unique about the Congress, for example, and how the Uniting Church have engaged in [00:09:00] relationships across First Nations and, you know, non indigenous people?

Emily: Oh, trying to do this quickly. So in 1982 Aboriginal Christians, uh, within the United Church and also, I guess, others who weren't necessarily you know, really wanted to have their own, uh, church and their own space where they could, you know, uh, lead it and be in ministry. And so they set up the the, what they called the Congress.

And the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, to be correct. And then sort of forgotten the exact date, but somewhere in the early nineties the, the Uniting and Aboriginal Islander Christian Congress and the Uniting Church of Australia entered into what they call a covenant relationship.

And there was a. During the assembly the moderator of the, uh, United Church in Australia and the president of the Congress spoke to each other and it's quite an extraordinary

Will: Mm.

Emily: conversation [00:10:00] that they have that's been recorded and and then in 2009, I think the preamble to our constitution was written, uh, which is again, another document that sort of yeah, it was deeply moving.

And I think the Uniting Church has, it's just so uniquely influenced by the Congress and by the fact that they, you know, are separate, but because that was their choice, we didn't, you know but. Every sort of decision that we make on aboriginal issues and things comes from there, and I think that's a really unique

Will: Yeah. Would it, would it be fair to say, the way I've looked at it, is the Uniting Church with that Congress is almost like a version of what the voice to Parliament was intended to be. In a sense, within the Uniting Church's structure, it is this body that, that has, uh, a genuine [00:11:00] consultation on all of those issues that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Like, would you say that there is some comparison there?

Emily: yeah, at its best, at its best, like not to say you know, like any relationship, there have been moments where, you know we've got this really right. And there are times when, when we haven't but yeah, at its best, that would be, that would be the ideal wouldn't that, yeah, that, that they are a voice to us as a church about how we you know, respond to the Aboriginal people as well as, you know, I guess.

For me, it's, yeah, deeply informed my Christianity in terms of yeah, the way I understand the relationship between Christians and land and throughout the scriptures, all of that stuff in particular. So yes,

Will: And no

Emily: not exactly the same, but a fair enough comparison to make. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly when it came to

Will: would have that

Emily: to Congress about how do you want the church to respond, you know, and we followed their [00:12:00] lead in that response.

Will: super interesting. So I just wanna, I got a couple quick questions, uh, in terms of filling in your backstory. When you moved to Alice Springs, was that straight from Sydney and was that its own kind of culture shock experience? Did you almost feel like the misfit experience in terms of adjusting to a very different lifestyle or what, what was that move like?

Emily: Uh, yeah, so I did move to Alice from Sydney. I had done a bit of traveling so it's been a couple of years in Peru and stuff in between kind of finishing school and moving to Alice. And yeah, like a lot of people, I sort of had come with the intention that maybe we'd be here for, you know, a year or two and I had just finished university at the time and my teaching was my first degree and it seemed like a good place to, to come and, and do that.

So yeah, we came. And now here we still are

Will: Yeah.

Emily: years [00:13:00] later. And that, again, that's a pretty common story here. Some people, you know, come and can't get out fast enough and others of it, it just gets under our skin. Yeah. Sorry. You

Mitch: what is it? Why is it, how is it so intoxicating for people? Because I, yeah, I know heaps of people, like you said, heaps of people have had that same story, who've gone and intended to go for a year and then found themselves there. Yeah, for basically ever.

Emily: I mean, look, the country, the country. itself, I think around Alice Springs is just so extraordinarily beautiful in a, you know, in a, in a non showy way, like, it's not like staying on Sydney Harbor or something, but so you have this very different experience, you know, like you stand under, I mean, the mountain ranges around Alice Springs, you know, they are the oldest mountain ranges in the world.

And then we live amongst the oldest living country in the world. And so there's something about that. And then, I mean, I don't know, on a more mystical sense, I think there is [00:14:00] something about our like I've been, I've been recently sort of preaching on you know, Jesus's baptism and then the temptation of Jesus in this sense that, you know, Jesus is baptized in this wild place and then goes into this, the spirit leads him into this other really wild place.

And, you know, Alice Springs is a wild place. And yeah, some people. Yeah, can't get out fast enough, but yeah, for some of us, it's, it really pulls. And I think there's a spiritual sense in that for me that I can't fully explain either. But yeah,

Will: Hmm. It's beautiful. So you started engaging like from, from the small Quaker gathering, sitting in silence, bit difficult with a young child. To finding the Uniting Church and feeling like, Oh my goodness, how have I not known about this? I've found kind of a bit of a spiritual home, a lot of resonance here.

What were the steps that then led you to being the minister at the Uniting Church at Alice? Fill in some of that backstory and then maybe give us a bit of a picture of what your community looks like. What does it actually mean to be the minister there? What's your community look like?[00:15:00]

Emily: So I went to a funeral, this sounds terrible, but I went to a funeral and I was, I didn't know the woman she had attended the church, but had been at the Time and place here. It's called old timers. So she'd been living at old timers for a couple of years. So I didn't really know her personally, but I went to her funeral and, and they were talking a lot about her life.

I was just. You know, again, deeply moved and anyway, she was a deacon. So again, in Uniting Church land we have ministers of the word, which is sort of, you know, you kind of normal ministers and deacons. And and I thought, Oh, I wonder, like, I didn't know at that point. I was like, I wonder how one becomes a deacon.

Cause like. This one's amazing. And there's something about her. I just had this sense of like, she sounds like me. I felt this relationship with this person, you know? And and again, if they had said she was a minister that just, I just, it never would have crossed my mind in a million years to like, but because they'd use this word deacon.[00:16:00]

So I was like, Oh, maybe I could do that. Right. Anyway. So I started going on this track and then sort of found out that a deacon is a minister and a minister is a deacon. And anyway, that's debatable. There are some United Church people

Will: is the intention of a deacon to be Is the intention of the deacon to be outside of the congregation? Like the deacon is more like almost a community chaplain, like type of role?

Emily: right. Someone once put it as in the deacons sort of, so the ministers of the word try to get the, work in the congregations to get the congregations to look out and the deacons work in the communities to get them to look in, which I thought was a nice definition, but again, ultimately these days.

You have kind of deacons in congregations and you have ministers of the word in chaplaincy roles. And so, but,

Will: blurry.

Emily: but for me personally, I think there was some sense of, yeah, had they said the word minister, I couldn't have come at that. That just was not who I understood myself to be again, potentially growing up in Sydney, Anglican land where like [00:17:00] women just, you just never saw women in ministry.

So there was no way I. Could have understood that as something that I could potentially do, you know, as well as some of my own messiness and brokenness and stuff that I just would not have thought that was something I could do. But yes, so I just started asking some questions about this Deakin thing and somehow somewhere along the line.

I was doing a period of discernment going, Oh my gosh, how did I get here? But, you know, then did the period of discernment and yeah, I'm still sitting here going, Oh my gosh, how did I get here? But you know, somehow here I

Mitch: Hmm.

Will: Period of discernment, also uniting church language that, and cause I'm now like progressively Becoming sort of on the inside and on the outside, on the edge of the inside or the edge of the outside, however you want to look at it. I'm like picking out this language, but for people who are like, what is a period of discernment?

What are they talking about? I mean, there's, in one sense, a period of discernment just sounds like a bit of time, [00:18:00] uh, you know, trying to figure things out. But, uh, it's quite a formal term. In the Uniting Church, it really refers to, uh, something a little bit more maybe elevated than just a casual, uh, period of discernment in other spaces.

The question for either of you, cause Mitch, you're now, you're, you're in, you're, you're making your way in, but what, what is this period of discernment in the Uniting Church? What, what does that actually look like? What place does that hold?

Mitch: I think that's you, Emily. One of the one of the things about coming in as a,

Emily: said Mitch.

Mitch: no, no, no. I mean, one of the things about being an ordained Baptist minister and coming across is I get to skip all that stuff. So I was I could just come straight in whilst I'm in and become a minister without having to do any of the peer discernment or any of the official channels.

I was at a course learning how to Marry people in the Uniting Church a couple of weeks ago, and I was talking to another Baptist guy who's, who's coming [00:19:00] across. And he hadn't quite, uh, he didn't like go through for ordination, hadn't quite become a minister in the Baptist church. So he's got to do like the period of discernment and everything.

And I was like, Oh mate, you could have skipped it. If you just happened to go one step further in the Baptist, they would have just welcomed you. There's other stuff that you have to do before they welcome you. But none of, yeah, none of bits.

Emily: Oh, but I loved it. It was, I loved that year. Like, I just think it's a, I mean, again, maybe because it was, I hadn't been thinking about this my whole life. Like it kind of came a bit out of the blue for me. I mean, you know, I now look back on life and think, Oh, okay. Right. But I really appreciated having that year to actually and have someone mentor me through this process and have to just feel really like, no, like this is a call, right?

Like, I'm not just sort of feeling like, yeah, one day I had, I was at this funeral one day and yeah, I had this sense. So, you know, I'm a minister the [00:20:00] next day, right? Like actually spending the time to fully, discern that I really valued and, you know, again, within this context, you can do periods of discernments people, they offer it to you as a, almost like something you can do if there was some other thing you really wanted to spend time discerning again.

Most people who do it, it is, uh, thinking about ministry, but I, I really valued it and and still do, I still think about things that happened in that year and felt like it was a valuable thing to put aside, but yeah, I hadn't come from another denomination and so I know that it could be frustrating if it is something that you'd been thinking about your whole life and had already started and done, felt that sense of call and then to then kind of have to do it again.

But yeah. But yeah, I tried to see it as a, as a real gift. Yeah.

Will: I think this is an interesting one as a, like, you know, again, as someone looking, kind of looking in at the Uniting Church. And thinking about the broader, [00:21:00] uh, I'm often thinking about the broader kind of, I guess, capital C church in Australia. And there's a part of me that probably due to my personality, and maybe in part due to my kind of Baptist upbringing maybe I want to move a little quicker.

And maybe if I was more, even more charismatic, you know, I've got the kind of little baptocostal impulses that the more kind of, of the, of the costal that you have, maybe the more you're like, no, like God spoken, just go for it. Just do it. And I'm, I wonder how much that enables, uh, and empowers immature decision making leadership, et cetera.

But then there's this other part of me that's kind of like, you know not saying it's right or wrong, but one critique that one could have of the Uniting Church is that slow moving, slow to change, let's try and like actually kind of, you know, put the, put the foot on the accelerator a little bit. So just observing, I, I, I don't have a dog in the fight, really, but I'm like, this is one of those [00:22:00] things that you can look at it and see a great wisdom in it, but potentially I could see where maybe some people might go does that unnecessarily slow down or hinder certain processes, but I don't know, Mitch, I know you have, you have, uh, thoughts and reflections on this.

Mitch: Oh, I mean, kind of. I think, I think what you said, Emily, makes a sense, like, that, that it taking just some time to slow down, you know, to actually sit and be quiet. It was interesting when you were talking about your story and you were saying about the Quakers and just sitting in, in quiet, and just sitting in silence, a friend of mine who ended up at the little church that I ran before starting here and still run.

The thing that made him stick around was, it was so simple. We just did like, we do two minutes of silence, like every, every, every week. And that's it, just two minutes of silence. And he said, you were literally the first church that I went to. That wasn't filled with noise. He said every other church I went to was just every minute was filled with noise.

There was someone speaking at you. There was music playing. You know, even during the offering, there was like music or something. Right. And he just [00:23:00] said, I just, I couldn't, I'd never had a chance to gather my thoughts. And he said, this is the only place I went to where there was just a moment of silence.

So I mean, I think when you're saying that, like just taking a break and. And people not feeling like they're in a hurry you know, to have to get to the end of like, whatever journey that they're on, I think is really important. So I kind of, I do resonate with all that. And when you were saying, Will, about, you know, like enabling immature leaders, I think we saw that in the Baptist world all the time, right?

Like someone who was pretty gifted would get celebrated really, really quickly and elevated really quickly. And they'd be speaking at conferences and be at different places. And heaps of them end up, you know, like they don't last particularly long in ministry. And And in some ways, I think the reality of what it's like hits them after after the celebrity has faded a little bit, all of a sudden, you're like, oh, wow, like, this is actually kind of tricky.

So I see a lot of sense in in taking it slow. My critique, like, or my question comes in with. the kind of idea of call, I think. And maybe this is temperamental or in, in just my personality. [00:24:00] Like I don't, I actually don't, like I have never felt like a really strong call to be a minister. I think I'm relatively good at it and I've worked.

Like, frickin hard to try to get good at it, a couple of aspects of it at least. I often say I'm good at two, I'm really good at two things, like literally that's all. Being with people and then talking with people is probably the only two things I can do. They happen to be good ministry skills, apparently.

But yeah, the idea of course, I think I could always talk myself out of it, like I, I read, this isn't like a humble brag or anything, but I've been uh, reading, is it Satra? Is it Satri? Is that, how do you say his name Will? Satra? Jean

Will: don't know, I've heard people almost not pronounce any of the last letters, like Sa

Mitch: Satra.

Will: Sa tra. Sa tra. Sa tra, mate.

Mitch: like he said something that really resonated with me, where he talked about like everything being just out. Subjective experience of an, uh, like of an event, like something that happened, but everything is really our subjective experience. And he actually talks about someone who's, who, [00:25:00] who went into ministry.

So a Jesuit. And he tells this, the Jesuit told him this story where he's like, he failed at business. He failed at family. Like he failed at friends. Like he was just terrible at all these things. And in the end, like. he kind of sat down and he, he believed that God had called him, you know, into ministry. So he was bad at these things because he would be uniquely gifted for this other thing, which is like ministry.

But since that was like, well, I mean, he, another reasonable conclusion to come to would have been to sit there in despair. Like you're just terrible at everything. He's like, that wouldn't be a completely bad, like, I mean, he's an atheist, you know, he doesn't believe in. You know, any signs or anything. So I take that the greatest help.

But he's like, Oh, that's a reasonable conclusion. You can, you can, you know, you can read that from, from either angle. And I was like, there is something true about that. That feeling. I feel like I could always talk myself out of it being like me having heard from God and being called into something. So this is, I mean, this is where I yeah.

So I have a sense like that. I feel generally called. To be a presence of, you know, uh, [00:26:00] faith, hope and love or grace and peace or you know, generosity and kindness, whatever language you want to hear. But I don't feel a very specific call. I mean, that's not heaps to do with what we were, you know, the PID necessarily, but it's just, that's just me.

What do you guys think of all that? There's a bit of a rant, but yeah, how does that?

Emily: don't get me wrong. I like, I'm like the worst like sitting through synods and presbyteries and even church council meetings and stuff like drive me kind of nuts, the slowness of it all. Like I'm like, and it is part of our role to be part of these things. And so I do get the. Slowness. And, you know, and I have had moments where I've, you know, I think possibly we've lost some people who could have been good people because we would just could not get the right people in the room to show that like, however, yeah.

[00:27:00] For me, that year was good and I do genuinely feel like if I make a decision in a hurry, like every time a little thing happens at church or something and I'm just like, okay, I just, I just need to deal with this issue now. Cause it's stressing me out. I just want to deal with it. It almost always doesn't go well.

Whereas if I can go, I'm just going to sit with this for a couple of days. I'm just not gonna get pulled into this drama. I'm just going to sit and see what, how things emerge and what happens and what might be, it almost always works better. So.

Of that when I'm sitting in front of a tree, I'm just like, no, no, slow is good.

Slow is good, but you know, I think there must be somewhere between that Baptist thing of just, you know, like within a year, you're like, you know, and this, like, I think. There must be some way, you know, we're a little bit too slow and yes, others are a little bit too fast. So [00:28:00] and yeah, look on the sense of cool thing again, that's maybe that's part of my slow thing.

I would just would not trust a like, yeah, as I said, I had this thing that happened at this funeral and it's like, if I sort of went to someone and said, Oh look, I think I had this thing at, you know, and then they sort of said, Oh yeah, you're definitely called in like. I would like you, I'd be questioning that forever.

And that, I think that in and of itself would fall apart, but I don't know, there was something about this year journey. It wasn't about this one moment or this magical thing

But just this sense of looking at my life and who I was and how I got here and just spending time that, yeah, by the end of that, I felt like I could say. And again, I like that, you know, you have to then rock up at a Presbytery and they have to affirm your call. Right. Cause if it was just me in my head, I'd be like, well, no, like, I don't know. But you know, if your Presbytery then says, and then the next step is you have to [00:29:00] find a church that actually wants you.

Mitch: then also, yeah,

Emily: So they've got to have, and so there's feels like there's these checks and balances that I, that then once I'm here, I'm like, okay, well, there was a lot of, Times that this could have not happened. And here we are.

Will: Mm.

Emily: but,

Will: I do think,

Emily: it. It's

Will: maybe it's a generalisation, but I do think probably a significant amount of uh, religious harm in the world today has more to do with skipping over process and trying to move fast. You know, like, yeah, I mean, slow stuff is, is a bit painful and uncomfortable, but I don't, I don't think it necessarily is leading to as much kind of active damage as, as again, like that, you know, at like at least one way to look at it is anyone who can handle that process.

It would weed out certain bad actors that don't have the patience for that. 

Mitch: I [00:30:00] mean, I think finding people, finding people with like gifts and potential and then, then being mentored. Seems to make, like, so much sense to me, right? And finding people who, who are deeply serious, or at least will grow to be deeply serious about it, I think that, that's all the kind of language that seems to really resonate with me, right?

Like, so you're finding someone who's going to, you know, who, yeah, who has, who has potential to grow in the giftedness that would, you know, make them suited to this particular thing. Like, I'm all for that. And that they, they don't see it as a flippant, you know, like it is a kind of serious thing that you're doing and it's going to take.

forever to learn how to do it well and continue to learn how to do it well. Like that all, I mean, I think that's all tied into what we're saying. Yeah, and maybe, I, yeah, I mean, part of me is, is really drawn, I, like, I feel more mystical than I ever have, but then also sometimes I just feel like a proper materialist, or I'm just like, ah, like, we're just meaning making, like, we're just putting language to.

You know, the experiences that we're having, I find myself being quite thoroughly postmodern in that way as [00:31:00]well. But I think like, I think we're converging at that point. Right. Which is to say. You are experiencing this as an individual, but yeah, but having a whole bunch of people see this giftedness in you and then having them walk with you to make sure that you take it seriously and you want to grow in it is kind of like the mechanism by which you, you discover or create you know, some, some really great pastors and leaders, maybe.

So

Will: bit more about your community Emily, and like, yeah, what, what it looks like for you to, to live out your call at this point in time where you are.

Emily: You know, I think, you know, and maybe I am a little bit biased. So, but I do think that Alice Springs United Church is like the best church in the world. So, you know. I, yeah, I love it. I someone did once say our main call there, that, that language again is to, you know, love our congregations.

And I do, I love, I think it's just a [00:32:00] beautiful group of people. And I don't know, practically there's probably about 80 of us. 20 kids or something. So we are truly, truly intergenerational everywhere from, you know, ingestation to you know, late eighties. So, you know, right now I'm literally waiting to hear about a birth and waiting to hear about a death.

Someone's in palliative care. And that is so, I love that, I just love that, and I think that is what ministers, as we do, you know, these birth, deaths and marriages, right, but like, they're important things, you know they are, people have been doing these since forever, right? Like, they are the things of God and creation and so, and We, uh, again, most intercultural to so, I mean, the, the history of Alice Springs is that when the missionaries came, this sort of town was divided up between, you know, the Catholics got, uh, the sort of Alice Springs Arunda people, [00:33:00] and then the Baptists got the Wolperry, Wolperry mob a bit north.

And the Lutherans got Hermannsburg and East, uh, Western Ireland. And so the Uniting Church, well, the Presbyterians at the time got the sort of ended up sort of ministering with the APY lands, which is actually in Northern South Australia. So it's quite away from, uh, Alice Springs and, uh, it's the.

The Congress of the United Aboriginal Islander Congress that we were talking about, you know, they lead their own churches and stuff on the lands. But we do have a couple of uh, Pitindutta people from the AP wildlands in the church who are sort of, they've landed in Alice Springs mostly for renal. So You probably know the scourge of diabetes across this place, you know, it does force people off their homelands and into town.

So, you know, we're really blessed to have sort of about half a dozen Pitindutta people as part of our congregation, too, as well as people who are coming. To and from, you know, the lands and Alice, you know, [00:34:00] join us. And so we, you know, we have the Bible reading in Pitjantjatjara and we sing in Pitjantjatjara and, uh, that is really deeply sort of, again, not huge in numbers, but deeply part of who we are.

The congregation, I think, uh, people who, uh, are here because. They felt called to be here using that you sort of don't usually just kind of come and stay just kind of because right, like you sort of feel and so, and they're often away from family and, you know, people do have children and stuff.

So there's this real sense of of family of needing to support each other, right? Because, you know. There aren't grandparents. So there's lots of parents who are now, you know, I'm working Tuesday. So you look after all the kids and then I'll look after them all on Wednesday. And so lovely things like that of like living in each other's worlds, because there's not necessarily other family to do that.

And we're a [00:35:00] small town so we can, we can all see each other within 10 minutes. You know, we're not traveling long distances. So there is a sense of living life together. Not just kind of seeing each other on Sunday morning and you know, that being that, and I see the church as well as absolutely about affirming people's, you know, call to be here and trying to speak the ancient. Words of scripture into this current time as a way to kind of nurture people and encourage people to, you know, Stay and be here and keep going in the hard places and yeah[00:36:00]

Will: One of the things that you sort of started to, uh, touch on a little bit there, which was part of our, what I found to be a really interesting conversation. You know, in King [00:37:00] Cumber on the central coast a few months back we started to talk about you know, the perception of mission and missionaries and how I suppose from a lot of the conversations that I have and a lot of what I see on social media and just in my little neck of the woods, there is this sense that, and, you know, validly so for a lot of Aboriginal people Mission just represents colonization and it represents these kind of you know, there's been some, you know, like I guess sort of uh, there's been some really negative things, and yet you were kind of highlighting that actually for a lot of, a lot of Aboriginal people in Alice and, you know, in the territory, like there's actually a really positive perception of missionaries and of those early missionaries.

And there are actually some stories, some historical stories of particular examples

Than maybe what we think of. But it was just really interesting just to like, I guess, unpack some of the different perceptions there, some of the complexity there, maybe some of the assumptions that we make, and [00:38:00] obviously fully acknowledge that each of us are non Indigenous people.

But I wondered if you wanted to share a little bit about just some of that different perspective that maybe people like us, like me and Mitch were surprised to hear. Maybe others would be surprised to hear in terms of how. Some of those conversations are, uh, where you are.

Emily: yeah, I mean, look, mission history is super complex. And so and you know, often there were, don't get me wrong. There was some not great things that went on between, you know, here with missionaries. But as a general rule, you know this was at a time where, you know, like there were a lot of the missions were set up actually protect people like there were massacres happening.

People, they would come into the missions to like, be safe. And the Annabella mission, the, so the book where Pukatja was set up by a Presbyterian, a man called Dr. Charles do good. [00:39:00] And again, at that time there was a lot of what they called the doggers. So they would, you know, go into. That area the Musgrave Rangers, and they'd kill dingoes and then sell the dingoes.

So that's what they called it. But yeah, they were killing people. They were raping women, like they were not good people. And so there was this way, sense of protecting people from that, as well as, I guess, as culture crept, there was this sense of actually. come in and will protect culture. So people here can keep practicing culture and practicing language and practice.

And you know, even most people hardened against the mission, which will say that, you know, the biblical translation has certainly been a huge part of keeping languages here alive. So much effort has gone into you know, the, the biggest chunks of written is the Bible. So that and then, you know, and do good, you know, at the time the missionaries, they came, they all had to learn language they had to stay.

I mean, that's the main thing we hear now, like, you know, government mob, you [00:40:00] drive in and out in your Toyota, you know, your fake fancy cars, but the missionaries would come and stay and they would live in the caravans and the non acreage, like they'd live with the people and they'd learn their language and they knew them, not the way government.

Goes now, like so few people will stay in communities and and yeah, and when they do, they're not living like the people are. You know so, and look, I'm not either, so like, don't get me wrong. And I mean, I, I watched, I actually watched a documentary recently. You can just, you can Google it and see it on YouTube about when the Pook Church, the Ella Church, but one of the women there a woman called.

I can't pronounce her surname, I'm sorry, but she says, I'm thinking that the missionaries came a long time ago. Why? In their hearts, they loved Anamul deeply. Anamul is how Pitjantjatjara people refer to themselves. It just means people, but there was that sense that actually the missionaries really actually loved and valued us.

[00:41:00] And they have. You know, they love to sing hymns. So Morris Stewart from the Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir, probably lots of people have seen them, you know, he was quite, he was often criticized because Aboriginal people were singing hymns, right. And you know, why are you making them sing hymns?

That's like. songs. And the Aboriginal women would say, no, like these are, they wanted to sing this hymns, right? Boris always says I wanted them to sing African freedom songs, but they wanted to sing hymns in their language. And then they went back to Germany and they sung the hymns in Germany and they see themselves as evangelists to, and they are right.

Like. The German people was so moved like they're singing our songs in this, in their language in this really different way. And so they don't say it as in, Oh, we've been colonized. They actually kind of have come to understand Christianity and their way of understanding [00:42:00] it and their way of singing the hymns.

It's different. It's not just the, they own that. Right. And I think it's a little bit almost You know, like who are we to say, Oh, no, you don't. You just think that because you were calling it.

Mitch: it's a, it's another kind of colonization, right? To say to people, you only like that because you were calling

Will: Hmm. It's condescending.

Emily: So not to say this isn't complicated or there weren't, you know, there were other relationships clearly that also went and you know, there were missionaries who did the wrong thing and, you know and look, it's probably some culture was lost too because of, you know, but I feel like as a general rule and the Aboriginal people that I know and speak to is that they get Christianity and faith and things of the spirit more than life.

The whole government bureaucracy thing like that, just, they can't, there's nothing they can connect to with that, you know? And I mean, you know, the preamble will speak about, you know, and the preamble says we recognize that God was [00:43:00] here before we came, right? Like we didn't bring God, but that will speak about, you know, but the God that was revealing. self to them in, you know, in their culture, in their ceremony, in their language, they've now come to fully understand in Jesus Christ. Right? Like that's the way they understand it. Yeah. Now it's not, obviously that's not every Aboriginal person in central Australia or anything, but

Will: Of course. And that's what I suppose I came away from that conversation that night. Just reminded. About the complexity of, you know, anytime we get into these kind of conversations, even, even words that become, you know, they come to have a lot of meaning attached to them, they hold a lot in shorthand, like a word like colonization.

It now, you know, is, it's immediately a word that like, it holds all this meaning and we think that everybody looks at that word the same way. Now, not at all to defend or advocate for colonization and not at all to take away from, like, the, the people I still [00:44:00] greatly respect, admire, listen to. Who would critique that, you know, whole project and how it's Christian foundations you know, caused a, caused a lot of bad shit around the world.

But it was just a helpful reminder again, not to like impose what I think is like the one unified view on other people when there is a richness and a diversity there. And I find it really interesting, like what you're highlighting there around the. The mistrust of the government versus a level of trust in loving expressions of Christianity and obviously separating that from harmful expressions.

But I just think, you know, like a society, society wide, we're at an all time low level of trust, probably in both government and religious institutions. And I find it very fascinating to think about what are some of those stories and memories in different [00:45:00] places where actually there was trust earned through, like you're saying, people staying rather than just coming and going, or people, you know, regardless of what the title was, regardless of what we think about the word missionary.

People who earn their trust through actually being a loving presence in community, which I think is a challenge for the church today, right? Cause you don't get, you no longer have any cultural capital just for being a minister in the way that you might have in generations gone past and your cultural, like that, that trust has to be earned.

It's not something that you just deserve because you bear a certain title or you belong to a certain group. So that's part of what I take from that is like, trust earned lasts a long time in, in the memory of, of people and generations.

Emily: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and again, like, don't hear me say that, you know, because there was these good relate, like, [00:46:00] I'm not in any way justified in the colonial project or anything through that, which I don't think it, you know, it doesn't take away from the damage of colonialism because these.

Relationships are built and it's, you know, it's just, as you said, complex and it's more nuanced than just, you know all of, it's all Christianity's fault. All of, you know, like

More complex yet.

Will: Well, a great example, this is, this is a little bit different, but recently we ran this wonderful day called Future Church Conference with a few friends in Sydney and some podcast listeners traveled from like Queensland and Melbourne and Adelaide to, to come and be part of that day, which was really cool.

One of the talks that day was given by Karen Pack, shout out to Karen, and she has done a whole lot of research. Trying to uncover where the story of Christianity in Australia has been told in a way that completely erases, uh, first of all women but then also it [00:47:00] erases you know, queer women and, and diversities of people.

who are just not in the pages of these books. So, for example, she had done this research where she looked at like, you know, 15 of the, the most, uh, highly regarded books about the history of Christianity in Australia and the ratio of men's names to women's names. And at best, it was one to five. At worst, it was one to 69.

So, you've got some tellings of the story of Christianity in Australia that kind of assume that there were 69 more white dudes involved than women. And I think it's just another one of those examples where it's like, if the way the story is being told is from a particular set of voices and there are all of these other, because then she went in and she's like, here's this woman.

Who was the one woman at the table, you know, decades ago. You have to look really hard to find her. But she was like, you know, in the salvos and doing [00:48:00] incredible things. And like just, you know, an amazing force for good. And it's like, there are kind of these untold stories that don't make it to the, maybe the sensationalized version of how evil and terrible.

The, the Christian project has been, often it's the really ordinary, beautiful stories that kind of get lost to the pages of history because they're kind of, they're, they're ordinary. And, or they're people that we don't want to attribute greatness to. So anyway, sort of side point, but it just makes me think that history is a whole lot more complicated than, than we often think it is.

Emily: Yeah. And I wonder if that trouble is more in the way we've told the history than, like, don't get me wrong, clearly you know, women and men have never been, you know like women have not been at the table enough and those sorts of things. But again, for example, I [00:49:00] think about the Australian Inland Mission, which, you know, the Australian Inland Mission.

There's probably a deep, there's some deep problems there around its relationship with Aboriginal people, that sort of thing. But but, uh, it was for women, it would, if you were a woman in the 1930s and you didn't want to necessarily go down the path of, you know, getting married and having kids and all that sort of thing, and you wanted to live out a calling and you, you know, like you couldn't be a minister and all that sort of thing, but you could be a nurse in the Australian Inland Mission that did.

You know, you were nursing, but you're also living a lot of pastoral care and, you know, potentially, you know, doing all the roles of the minister except potentially preaching. So again, that history is not well told, but it was there and, you know, the early church has the same story around like the desert mothers and one of the reasons it did take off, you know, Christianity moving into homes and stuff.

It was a place. That was not equal for women at all, but compared to the cultures at the time, it was actually offering women valuable alternatives to [00:50:00] just being getting married and being a parent. Right. And but we don't tell those stories and we've got to get better at telling those stories because rather we just go.

Oh, Christianity was the problem. That's why we're all sexist and why women are oppressed. And I'm like, or was the culture sexist and oppressing women? And actually Christianity didn't do a great job, but maybe it did a slightly better job times in spaces, you know Complex.

Will: Complex indeed. So I wanted to ask you you know, one of the reflections I had coming out of the referendum was that the work like, and you know, this has been affirmed to me by conversations with some of my Aboriginal friends, but like, you know white people go, Oh, the referendum failed.

Uh, what do we do now? Tell us what to do now. And the response is, well, we told you what to do and you didn't do it. And In some senses, it's like actually so much of the work revealed to be done in the wake of the referendum is the work of [00:51:00] white people. Like it is the work of becoming more aware and becoming less racist and, uh, you know, trying to come alongside, uh, aboriginal people who have actually been you know, they've had a voice.

They've been calling out, they've been saying what they want and what they need. So yeah, there's this part of me that goes actually, the day after the referendum was not a day for white people just to go, Oh, cool, that fell down. Let's just move on. It's actually a day to go, Oh, man, like, how do I actually be part of generating more conversations around, you know, lifting in the same way that like, it shouldn't always be Women doing all of the carrying of the burden around gender equality and, and progress, like men have to, have to step up to that plate, if that makes sense.

But in, in light of some of those reflections, I'd just be curious about the last few months, what has the feeling been like in a place like Alice, you know, on the ground there, coming out of what was a [00:52:00] very, very, Bitter referendum result, and as it obviously came to the surface in the days after, the support in the territory was overwhelmingly for the voice.

Yeah, what has that actually meant? There's been like a level of media silence, but it's a real thing, with a real shadow that it casts. What have you observed where you are?

Emily: Oh, the referendum. Oh, gosh, I feel like there's not a day goes by where I don't go, Oh, what went wrong? And I think unfortunately, or, you know, for people here like, yeah, for me, as I said, it's not a day where I think about it and I'm just like, oh my God. And it was whereas I think for people here, it sort of goes. Down, it's part of a long hold story and I don't think they necessarily hold it with the same significance.

Say, like, not to say it's, it's not significant to them, but it doesn't necessarily have the [00:53:00] same significance as it does for, you know. I guess people like me where it sort of in my lifetime, it's always felt like up and getting better. And then this was sort of a, wow, like not getting better. Whereas I think for them it is and you know, so there's sort of this, oh, well, you know, we just get up and we keep doing what we've always done.

Right. Like, we're just like, this doesn't mean we're going to stop calling for. Voice treaty truth, right? Like, yes, that phrase has become a thing since 2017 in the early restatement, but essentially since forever, that's what they've been asking for, like always, and they're just still doing that. And I think the truth telling stuff is probably where I think a lot of the energies go, okay, all right.

So this whole voice thing didn't, but yeah, truth telling, which is possibly what, and again, in that process, as. As we do this truth telling journey, you know, and I guess there are some like, maybe that's what needs to happen first. Maybe we all need [00:54:00] to understand this history better and maybe that would have made the difference, you know, I don't know.

And so there's different things happening here around, you know truth telling circles and trying to come together, you know. I mean, I was so deeply moved recently on Australia Day, actually one of the local people here came to me and said I want to have a day of healing on Australia Day.

You know, and there's lots of names for Australia Day, you know, lots of invasion day, survival day, Australia Day, but he's like, I want it to be a day of healing. I want. Us to come together after last year and, and start healing and I guess he was talking about to me about that because our church is kind of right in the center of town and we have these beautiful grass lawns, kind of that go on to the mall in town.

And so a lot of kind of events kind of happen in that [00:55:00] space because you know, uh, of where we happen to be. And so, yeah, on Australia Day, a small group, you know, it's never big here and it was, you know, hot, but of non Indigenous, Indigenous people sort of came together and talked about, you know, healing and truth and, and what might that look like.

And you know, it was really. It's really beautiful. And I just think that there is this thing at the top you know, and and it all went wrong and it's, but there's still these things happening on the ground, you know, and people coming together and, you know, telling the truth. And, and there's, I think there's some work absolutely for Aboriginal people in that we need to listen to, you know their truth and and what they're saying.

But I think also there's work for us as, you know, non aboriginal people. And one of the things that I've sort of spent the last couple of years doing is sort of, yeah, looking at the history of our church here. And, uh, in particular, John Flynn our church is the John Flynn Memorial [00:56:00] Church. And.

Doing some work on, uh, us telling each other the truth about history a little bit and us talking a bit more about and I think that, that, that's what we, we all need to do actually look at, yeah, the history of our families, the history of our churches, the history of our and. You know, really delve into that.

And again, we need to do that in a really nuanced way because it's complex. Right. Like we can't just be like all white people, you're all bad. And, and all the aboriginal people were just hurt. Right. And like, we've got to look at, you know, there was some really good people trying to do good things that ended up having some really.

Negative effects. And I do think one of the problems that if we come down to heavy on that, you know, like it does turn people off, right. They just go, Oh, you know, you're just making me feel guilty. Or, you know, so how do we do this in a way that holds. [00:57:00] You know the good and the bad together, and it's just really truthful about all of that, you know, I think that is our work post referendum

Mitch: Is there, is there things, Emily, that you can suggest, like for someone like me, I'm just sitting, I'm sitting here at New Lampton Uniting Church and I'm thinking, Oh, I need to, I want to, I need to do some work. How do you, how do you begin exploring the history of a place? I mean, it's probably slightly different here than, than where you are, but what, what do you, yeah.

How do you begin that process to explore your kind of own history?

Emily: and I mean, again, for me, it was the character, like, you know, when you're, when your church is named after John, like, there was this

Mitch: It makes it easy. Yeah.

Emily: you know, I kind of acknowledge that and again, There's a quite it's quite, you know profound here. Like that story of how this church came to be and everything is quite a well known story.

And so then again, I've, you know, dug quite deep into that, but yes, it, I recognize that was an easy [00:58:00] starting point, but yeah, I really like, how did your church come to be there? Like who, how, what, what's the whole history of it? And what who were the people that have been a part of it? And, uh, you know, and I guess one of the other things I was doing is what, like, and this is part of our, that conversation we had, there's this history that we tell about the church and potentially that's well known, but yeah, can we find out what else was happening at the time?

So at the time that you know, uh, So, say for example, the church in Alice Springs that, so it's John Flynn Memorial Church because John Flynn built the first hospital in Alice Springs in 1926, and that's a really well known story, and that's a wonderful thing to build a hospital, you know, don't get me wrong, you know.

But then at the same time that that's happening, there's this really well known story that we all know, right? In 1928, there was this Coniston Massacre. So what stories like in the sake of telling this story, what stories are we not telling? And, [00:59:00] uh, yeah. So I think, I just think that's really like important.

And, you know, again, we build a hospital here and that's great. And it meant people, you know, like It's a good thing to build hospitals. Right. But, and you know, but part of that was we'll build a hospital so that more white people come. And then, you know, two years later, there's a massacre. And so what, what does that mean?

Right. Like, and reflect on that a bit, you know I don't know. So I don't know if that stuff's happening with you, but yeah.

Will: I like what you're pointing to there about like, commit yourself to read the whole history or to listen to the whole as much as you can. Like, look at the good, the bad, the ugly, and don't allow your brain to just want to see it one way. I think that's a real challenge, but I think that's a challenge that more and more, like, culturally, we need to be able to sit with paradox and sit [01:00:00] with complexity and, and both celebrate and grieve in the same time, and I also think it's really beautiful to think about that in the context of, like, whether it's the Quaker circle or sitting on country being guided by people from the oldest surviving culture on the earth who, who know how to listen deeply to country, I think that actually our ability to sit and listen, you know, it's not just truth telling, right?

It's truth hearing. And so it's like how are we actually growing within ourselves the ability to sit for longer, maybe uncomfortable periods of time and, and open ourselves up to the full spectrum of history and place and good, bad, beautiful, ugly, hurting, wounded. And, and seeing that God is kind of infused in, in all of that and, and with us in all of that.

Yeah. I feel like you've painted a really lovely picture of that.

Emily: it for those of us who like, you know, I mean, I, we, I don't, my family, we didn't go back to the convicts. We're kind of, you know, [01:01:00] second wave. And but like, I don't feel a sense of connection to England. Right. So it's like, I have this sort of 150 year history and and so that, like, I've almost feel like this is like the shortest history on, on that.

And so then. When you don't have that connection to necessarily where you've, this is the only land I know. Right. So then to have to confront the reality that, well, my being here is because of the fact that, you know, has had these devastating consequences on these other people, like that's. Yeah, that's really hard.

I get that, but I also think, and again, this is what I just hear over and over from Aboriginal people who were so gracious, you know, like the Uluru statement was all about this, right? Like coming together. And so if we can hear this story, they want to share their knowledge of this land with us.

You know, [01:02:00] Miriam Rose's stuff is all about come and listen deeply, come and find out about this country from us so that, you know. And once, I mean, reconciliation is tricky, right? Cause again, it sort of implies that there was a good relationship, but. If that could be healed, right? Like if we could truly listen and come together and be together, you know, like we could potentially have that connection to this country that they have, like, they're not trying to hoard this to themselves and say, no, you will have to leave now.

I mean, maybe some, but generally my experience with central Australian. know we're here to stay, right? We're not going. And so they're trying to say, come and listen, we have this gift. We want to give you, like, we actually want you to understand this country and to be connected to this country and to know this country's history fully and truly not. We just want to beat you all over the head with a [01:03:00] stick and make you feel bad. Like that's not at all. What's it's about walking together into the future, you know, and yet we just hear it in this really, and you know, we saw that in the referendum, like it's really divisive. You want it to divide us. It's like. I mean, that's, it just breaks my heart because it was the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be about. You know it was coming from this beautiful place of wanting to give and share, not take, and then it, it ended up being misunderstood, you know? 

Mitch: That like, is it the line? It's a, it's a, it's a our culture can be a gift to you or something

Emily: yeah, absolutely.

Mitch: heart. Yeah. I've shared this with you on the podcast

Emily: speaks on the dearie. She, she always talks about that, like come and listen and yeah, but yeah, the Uluru statement says the same thing and, you know, and my friend, John, I've got a friend and we do these things we call spirit journeys. And so people come and they spend a week with John on [01:04:00] country, you know, and he says that, Oh, so I just feel for all you white people in the city there, you know, like you're carrying all these.

Burdens and you're running around all the time and you're so disconnected from country. So come and, and I'll help you

Mitch: it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've shared this on the pod before, but my kids at the local public school there was a a local Aboriginal group and a gathering of students there. And then a couple of years ago, they opened it up just to white kids to come and join to learn. To learn some language and to learn some dances and you know, to start doing a little bit of art and things.

And my kids were so excited. Like they were so pumped to be welcomed and and joined in. And it was that moment where you go, wow, this can be like, this, this could be something. That together, you know, you're welcomed into and that you can celebrate and it can feel like you're part of it, you know, not just on the outside.

And I was like, that's a beautiful, gracious, generous gift to be invited into you know, the oldest continual culture like on the earth to to learn and to understand and to have it, [01:05:00] you know, to have it in some sense be yours as well. And I think that's a, that's a beautiful vision for the future.

And I don't know why anyone wouldn't want that, to be honest. 

Emily: The

Mitch: feel like it takes a cold hearted kind of person to not go, Oh, I would love to like, I'd love to learn that. Yep.

Emily: ranges here. So the the mountain ranges are, they called y dreaming, which is sort of Caterpillar dreaming. And you know, people who were born here are, you know, the, the children are the Y in children, their yip dreaming children Then. You know, when my daughter was born, they're like, Oh yeah, she's a little you perineum, like

Mitch: Yeah. Generosity.

Emily: so generic, right?

Like it's not like, Oh, well no, she's a white person. Right. So like not,

Mitch: Well, we had, we had a Wiradjuri woman living up the road from us and she painted these beautiful paintings and she gave some to my, to my kids. She's since moved, but she said, Oh, come up and I'll teach you how to paint. She said, I'd love to, I can teach you what all these things mean and come up and we'll sit down and we'll kind of paint together.

No, that's just one person. And, you know, I'm not saying, [01:06:00] you know, that that's always appropriate, but it was this generous spirit of going, Oh, like I've, I've done this wonderful thing. I can teach you how to do this wonderful thing and you can be part of it. And my kids were like, their eyes were beaming, they were so excited.

Emily: yeah,

Will: Oh, that's overwhelmingly been my experience too. I mean, I got to go out last year for a day on country with. Uncle Gabby Duncan, who's one of the yeah, Elders in, in our area here on, on Dark and Young Country. And it was such a privilege to be able to go out, there's just a few of us, cause I, like, him, uh, and then a couple of my, kind of, film crew, uh, were basically spending a day kind of capturing some of Uncle Gabby's wisdom, and kind of just creating these little snippets of his stories and his, his knowledge, which was, it was amazing to be invited into that space, but again, just such a generosity of sharing of story, of place, of culture, and I think We could probably, each of us point to different examples of that and it doesn't seem to make sense, right?

Like, it seems like it would be, it would be very logical for there to be a [01:07:00] real, like when, when we have shared culture with you, uh, you have you have exploited and you have harmed and you have stolen. And so we will now keep everything to ourselves, like that would make sense.

Emily: yeah.

Will: there is, uh, like, yeah, a phenomenal embodiment of, uh, a real grace.

In, in that response which is not

Emily: And we're so bad at accepting grace. And I mean, again, one of the. Things I was sort of reflecting on throughout this protest and preaching on, you know, like, obviously that, that whole good Samaritan story, we often tell ourselves as kind of, you know, like, like, as Christians, we have to be good Samaritans to you know, people that we don't like and go along and help them and wherever.

Whereas as I sort of reflected on that story, actually, when Jesus was telling it, he was telling it to the Jews. Right. And so actually. His audience were the people lying on the road and [01:08:00] they were being called to accept help from the Samaritans,

Mitch: good. Preach it. Preach it.

Emily: head in right because these are the ultimate enemies and we can't accept help from them.

And I just think that's where we do not want to be the Jew on the road, accepting help from these people that we have hurt. But actually that's what we've been called to do. And the fact that Jesus was sort of speaking to this. To his, you know, in his culture, 2000 years ago, if you think that this is a hard thing to do, right?

Like it is something that we, it doesn't necessarily come to us naturally, but that's what we need to do. Like,

Mitch: I want to come to your church, Emily. That's a great snippet of a sermon. That sounds amazing.

Emily: thank

Mitch: I'm starting to

Emily: Anytime. We'd love to have you.

Mitch: I'm starting to believe you when you tell us that Alice is the greatest church on earth. I feel like maybe it might just be. It might just be. [01:09:00] So good,

Will: we might wrap up this conversation, but it has been, it's been so good, Emily. And I didn't say this at the beginning, but like, this has been the most long anticipated multiple times scheduled and rescheduled conversation in spiritual misfits history. So thank you to both of

Emily: I'm glad we can get in here. It's been lovely to talk to you, but

Will: Yeah. Well, let's, let's give Emily the last word goes to you as our, as our special guest, what, as you think about. Misfits listening all over the place in every state in, in Australia and in a few other countries as well. You know, what's your generic advice that is appropriate for every single person listening, given that we've spent so much time talking about complexity and nuance and all of that?

Uh, no, really, what's, what would be just like some, some things that are on your heart that you'd want to encourage, uh, anyone to continue to reflect on or sit with?

Emily: I guess, you know, in the, in my context and [01:10:00] here and stuff, I have been thinking a lot about that kind of, that we do, like we need stories that are kind of deeper and older and wiser than us. Right. Like, and that I know. That the church, it's not always a safe place and it's not always an easy place to be in and, and our histories aren't either.

Right. But we have actually only been here for 30 seconds and that to somehow, if we can I think these ancient stories do still have something to say to us. And and I don't. I think I don't want to sort of, and you know, average people would say the same thing to around like their stories, right?

Like listening to these ancient stories and immersing ourselves in these ancient stories and practices as well. You know, the practices of the church are really important and And we can all [01:11:00] fit in that, right? Like they are big enough to include us all, even if sometimes the churches aren't very good at that.

And, you know, part of me is like, maybe the church has started to go wrong when they almost did stop telling those old stories and, you know, just trying to tell this new story and trying to look exactly like everything else in the culture. And, you know. Treat us all like consumers and come along and I'm ranting, but, you know, I guess immerse yourself in the deeper, older, wiser stories.

There's still a lot of wisdom in them and a lot of them to say to us both our ancient scriptures and the ancient scriptures of this place. Yeah.

Will: So good,

Mitch: So good, so good. Will and I are on the next plane.

Will: amazing.

Mitch: We're coming to join. How do we, how do we start?[01:12:00]