Lace Curtains and Indigenous Flags

 I have spent the last few days staying with a member of the staff team in my new role at Uniting College in Adelaide. I always find being in someone else's home fascinating. You get to know them on another level just by being in their space. Each bookshelf holds a thousand memories and fridge magnets hold dozens of stories to be told (or not). 

In the dining room of this house was a rustic table that had obviously witnessed many meals, conversations and other homely activities. I sat at the table each morning for breakfast. The first morning I was struck by the view through the window. Delicate lace curtains framed the view of a beautiful lush lawn and shady trees. Part of me felt I was back in Belgium, particularly Bruges, peering out the windows where the beguines had once lived. Partially hidden inside, but somehow firmly connected to the outside world. 

The lawn separated the house from the neighbouring church and visitors came during the day to sit on the grass to rest, refresh, and regroup. Going about my morning breakfast routine I wondered how the women living in beguinages might feel about the visitors constantly peering in their windows from the green outside.

Although I loved studying the beguines and found their stories and works extremely transformative in my life, there has often been a niggle that I was spending so much time engaging in a culture and time so removed from my own. Would it not be more useful to study something related to this country? That is a questions for another day, but my experience in this dining room allowed me to hold the "both and" for a moment in time that was quite profound.

My hosts told me the story of the designer of the Australian Aboriginal flag, Harold Thomas, who once lived in the house. It was at this very table that the flag was designed. I listened intently to the story and wondered whether there were paints, crayons, pencils, clay once spread on this table. Our staff gathering the next day saw one of the signed flags spread on the table ready for our Acknowledgment of Country. 

Somehow, in that moment, at that table, worlds met and all the tensions of different cultures and times were held together. At a table of hospitality, todays and yesterdays, another moment of grace and generosity was created. All of my questions, my wonderings, my tensions were held together in peace and love.