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Meera Atkinson  Lindsay Parkhill had a religious upbringing but somewhere along the way he lost his faith. It was not until he moved to the Arnhemland region and began his long association with the Indigenous community there that he rediscovered it.
Having spent fifteen years in Arnhemland as a teacher and linguist, Lindsay moved to Melbourne five years ago to study theology. In what he refers to as “returning home,” Lindsay moved back to West Arnhemland in early December last year to take up a newly created position. Based in Jabiru, a mining town and the centre of Kakadu National Park, the posting is as part of a project partnership between three different Uniting Church bodies: Frontier Services; the Northern Regional Council of Congress; and the Pilgrim Presbytery of the Northern Synod.  Covering Minjilang, Croker Island, Warruwi, Goulburn Island, and Maningrida, Lindsay’s role as patrol minister is to resource congregations by supporting Bible study, community ministers, and encouraging Indigenous ministry. He also conducts a regular church service at Jabiru and acts as a community contact for Nungalinya Collage in Darwin.
Lindsay says sense of place is about belonging. “Living and working in Aboriginal communities there is a sense of belonging to an extended family,” he says. “Once one has been working in community for a while, one is given a skin name and becomes integrated in the community. “Aboriginal people cannot conceive of someone not belonging to an extended family so you’re adopted into a family.”
His dislocation to Melbourne revealed that relationship rather than location defines place most. “Going to Melbourne was strange because I didn’t have that sense of belonging. There was a sense of being out of relationship. I can go anywhere in Arnhemland and people can put me in relationship.” As to geographical difference, the two places are worlds apart. “The main thing you notice is the climate,” he says. “Melbourne has five seasons in a day and up here there’s a wet season and a dry season.” And it’s lush country, the tropics. “What strikes visitors most in the wet season is the intensity of the greens. In the wet it rains everyday, downpours, cyclones. In the dry season, day after day of superb blue skies and thirty-degree days. “Up here there are six seasons of transition between the wet and dry and they relate to supply of bush food.” Lindsay says there is a clear distinction in the way he has experienced his faith in the two locations. “Living and working with Aboriginal people who have an innate spirituality helped me to discover my faith, and events took place that helped me realise that there is a mystery to life,” he says. Lindsay feels more spiritually connected up north than in the city down south. “I’m living and working with people who have a sense of place. This is their country. It’s been their country since time immemorial.” He says this history and connection is transforming Indigenous Christianity. “There’s a greater sense of Indigenous worship as opposed to the failed models of the mission,” he says. “There’s an attempt to relate Christian liturgy with Indigenous ceremony and to look at the interface between them. “I think contemporary Christians could learn a lot from this. The sense of spirit in the land and in people’s lives is very strong for Indigenous Christians. It is the sense of the spirit of the land that prevails in people’s lives and worship.” A sense of place, it seems, that honours the relationship of people to the land and to each other.
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