Holding Light together

Being from a family of teachers, one of the gifts I have received is an insatiable desire to learn. And I am always learning more about what it is to be human – whole and flourishing. To be healthy community; healthy church. What it is to be a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia.

In recent times, I have learned a hard truth of the ways we can be human that are not healthy; ways of being community that diminish flourishing; ways of being church that are less faithful, less courageous, lower in integrity that I would hope we could be.

Over the years I have heard, and I have told, stories of inhumanity on a grosser scale than what I experienced. But I experienced enough to glimpse a little further into the darkness, and to understand the strength of the Divine light, and the importance of the humans who choose to hold that light in the dark for friend and stranger. I have hope and trust in the humans here as bearers of Divine light.

In each new place, I have found I need to learn how to be me, how to be a Minister in Placement here, now. How who I have been and what I have learned might be expressed, useful, effective in collaboration with this community, its members, in this season.

So I begin again, that initial period of learning, discerning who we might be for each other, with each other; how we will be present beside each other, for our mutual flourishing and witnessing to the Divine light.

Because the theme of my learning how to be human has long been our mutuality – we are only fully human with each other, only whole together, only free when we are all free.

A further theme of my learning in this current season is presence. In posture and practice, to enable me to be more fully present with the Sacred, with you, with myself. To be still and attentive. To be.

When I offered to the nominating committee for Christ Church to be present – a reliable, consistent, available presence with and alongside you here – members at the table visibly sat forward. Yes, please. That, we would like.

So I begin, with a commitment to be present, and to nurture my posture and practice for attentive, consistent, presence with God and with you, Christ Church Wayville.

Let’s hold the Divine light together, and see how life may flourish.