World Water Day is a United Nations observance highlighting the need for sustainable use and sourcing of water around the world. This year it is held on Friday 22 March. Heather Dowling shares these resources to help you stay informed.
Category: Stories & Feature Articles
By Father Rod Bower, Penguin Books, 2018.
Born to a young unmarried mother through to his adoption, Father Rod Bower shares his struggles to establish his identity in the midst of bullying and his stepfather’s early death. He finds acceptance within Anglo-Catholicism, eventually going to seminary, ordination and appointment to the Gosford Parish with a deep passion for social justice.
His theology of billboard signs reveals a deep empathy for Jesus’ mission to the marginalised which in the modern context involves challenging attitudes towards ‘illegal’ asylum seekers, Islam, LGBTQ and climate change. Fr Rod Bower demonstrates how billboards gives the church a platform for sharing the Gospel in the public square, exposing the ethical failings of Parliament.
By Peter FitzSimons, Hatchette Australia, 2018
When the Murray-Darling River system is news, raising questions about how well we know our own environment, Peter FitzSimons’ Burke and Wills has particular relevance. FitzSimons tells of their expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860–1861. He makes it possible to have an empathetic response to the participants, with their strengths and weaknesses, hubris and blindness.
Australia is a very urbanised nation, despite traditions about the ‘bush’. Part of the romance of the bush is that others go there and we did not have to learn the hard lessons about the environment they faced. Europeans also mostly had closed minds to what Indigenous Australians could teach them. It remains so.
Given the jealousies and characters of the participants, it is amazing that the expedition managed to achieve its goal. The party had separated and established a base camp at Cooper’s Creek, so a smaller group could travel faster and reach the goal. It was tragic to miss the rendezvous (by hours) which led to the deaths of Burke and Wills. They were so close.
In Australia, Harmony Week recognises the United Nation’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It is a time where Australians come together to celebrate our multicultural society. Read on for five great ways to celebrate Harmony Week, from Friday 15 to Thursday 21 March.
Imagine if you had never read or heard the message of the Bible in your own language. That is the reality for Australia’s Indigenous community. Although more than half of Indigenous people are Christians, very few have read or heard the Bible in their ‘heart’ language.
Katrina Tjitayi is from the Pitjantjatjara community, in central Australia. She is working on a translation of the whole Bible into Pitjantjatjara.
On Mission Games is getting ready to gear up for another great year of sport, games, fun and discipleship.
The Uniting Church WA has participated in the games for a number of years as the U-Team, in the Emerging Youth Games (EYG) and State Youth Games (SYG) events.
Aged care and retirement may be the new growth industry for rural communities in the future. People who have spent most of their life in rural and regional areas tend to want to retire and remain where they are, close to family, friends and familiar surroundings.
The opening of a new multi-million dollar Primary Health Care Centre in the Wheatbelt town of Cunderdin, along with eight new Age Appropriate Houses, will be a major boost to services that can be provided to the local people and those from adjoining communities.
After the success of the inaugural Deep Listening Festival last year, the event will continue to explore issues faced by communities that are not always talked about openly. This year it will focus on homelessness and multiculturalism as people seek to find a home and place of belonging and acceptance.
It will be a great weekend of storytelling, art, music, workshops and spirituality with the theme ‘Finding a place to call home’, on Friday night 5, and all day Saturday 6 April at Margaret River Uniting Church.
Bidyadanga’s La Grant Remote Community School, within an Aboriginal community 180km south of Broome, approached Good Samaritan Industries (GSI) last year, for attire for their end of year ball. GSI is a Uniting Church WA agency providing employment opportunities for people living with disability, largely through their opshops around the state.
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The ‘how’ of caring
In the church, we talk a lot about loving and caring. It is core to the message of the gospel.
God cares, Jesus modelled compassionate care, and we are called to follow his example.
In recent months, after the death of my daughter, I have been reflecting on the care I have received and the carelessness of some forms of caring and non-caring. It seems to be that sometimes when we think we are caring we are in fact bruising people. Caring is an art; let me give a few examples.