Tag: Theology and Spiritual Reflections

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Moderator’s column: You will have trouble

The Nobel Peace prize winner Alexandr Solzhenitsyn knew first-hand the harsh realities of suffering.

He spent over ten years imprisoned in a Soviet gulag. It seems that the daily deprivations of prison life were somehow able to stimulate a creative genius in him. His books are now literary classics.  His novel, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, the book Solzhenitsyn considered his best, focuses on a prisoner, Shukov. This remarkable man accepted horror, pain and suffering as normative. A  typical day would consist of forced labour, tiny rations and brutal guards, with disease and death never far away.

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Messages from the aether: Promoting peace

Every day, we are in a position to create peace in our lives and for the people around us. If you need some positive ways to promote peace, Elsa Samuel recommends these sites.

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6 reasons to bask in nature’s magnificence

Between staring at a computer screen at work, juggling kids, chores, binge-watching Netflix and connecting on social media, we’re spending an average of 80 per cent of our time indoors. Unfortunately, this isn’t doing us or our families any good. Here are some quick, beneficial reasons to unplug and step outside.

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Insight, challenge and inspiration at the Perth Peacemaking Conference

Over the weekend more than 60 people gathered for the Perth Peacemaking Conference to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of the end of WW1.

An impressive range of speakers provided insight, challenge and inspiration as the group considered what has been learnt 100 years on. Are we moving towards a more peaceful world? What can we do to be better peacemakers?

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Editorial: Symbols of peace

As I write this, my 16-year-old nephew is on the trip of his lifetime (so far) on a school exchange in Japan. It was just over a year ago that my family and I were also holidaying in Japan, having an awesome time.

Japan is truly an amazing place. We went during cherry blossom season and there were trees blooming everywhere. We rode bikes through Kyoto, sang karaoke in Osaka and played video games all day in Tokyo.

We also visited the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima. It was there that I was reminded of the story of Sadako Sasaki, the 12-year-old girl who made over 1 000 origami cranes from her hospital bed. Those cranes are now recognised as an international symbol of peace.

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Moderator’s column: When God seems silent

Some years ago I received several prank  calls, the ones where the phone rings and there is no one on the other end.

It was rather unsettling to answer and find silence, when I expected a voice. For some of us, there are times when God appears silent. Maybe we have made an emergency call to God in the form of a desperate prayer and God didn’t seem to answer: we didn’t get the job we hoped for; the health of a loved one did not improve; or the conflict we faced got worse, not better.

In wrestling with God in prayer, we must recognise that God is not a divine Santa Klaus whose main job is to favourably answer all our requests. God is not at our beck and call. Disciples of Christ are invited to serve God and others, rather than behave like religious consumers who think that God should always be serving me.

Sometimes, I think that prayer is paradoxical; God answers prayer and God does not answer prayer. Jesus taught us to have a faith that will move mountains, not just smile at them. In the garden of Gethsemane, perhaps Jesus’ darkest moment before the cross, he agonised about doing God’s will. His trust in God is amazing, he cries out, “Abba Father, all things are possible for you”.

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Suffering, scenery and the sacred

Yerevan, capital of Armenia and Mount Ararat on the background

For two weeks in May I had the marvellous privilege of exploring a fascinating and beautiful country, rich in history and struggle, a place almost undiscovered by tourists: Armenia.  When I told people I was off to Armenia on a self-funded trip most people looked puzzled and said, “Where exactly is Armenia?”

Armenia is in the South Caucasus region, sharing borders with Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The capitol is Yerevan, a city of over a million people, with the awesome snow peaked mountains of Mt Ararat dominating the skyline. The mountain forms an impressive background to Armenia’s ancient past.

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15th Assembly theme: Abundant Grace, Liberating Hope

Newly installed President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Dr Deidre Palmer, outlines why she chose ‘Abundant Grace, Liberating Hope’ to be the 15th Triennial Assembly theme.

As the Uniting Church we have been greatly blessed by the abundant grace of God, calling us into being and shaping our life and mission.

For the 15th Triennial Assembly and the following three years, this theme, ‘Abundant Grace, Liberating Hope’ invites us to live by God’s abundant grace – reflecting God’s generous and overflowing love, in our relationships with one another, in our local community contexts and in our relationships in the wider world.

In a time where we could focus on scarcity – fewer people and less financial resources, God’s gift of abundant grace calls us to be a people who share our gifts, resources, time and energy generously. In a time where our world is overshadowed by violence, hatred and suspicion of the other, the church is called to live an alternative narrative of hope, reconciliation and love.

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And God saw it was good…

At the very beginning of our scripture, we find God creating a world that is ‘very good’. It is clear from the first chapter of Genesis that God created a world for humans, plants and animals alike. God saw to it that all the creatures and human beings were provided for, with the human being charged with being a steward of God’s good creation. This is particularly clear in Genesis 1–2.

Keeping the creation as ‘good’ can be reasonably interpreted as not poisoning or polluting it, as giving due care to the natural needs of domestic food animals, and as preserving the habitat of wild animals. This is further reinforced in Genesis 8, where God makes the same covenant with animals as humans, promising never to destroy the earth again.

It is a sad truth that in our modern, civilised world, we have not kept the creation good. We have allowed synthetic created chemicals to poison our air and our waterways; we have destroyed natural habitats so animal and plant species face extinction; Indigenous peoples have been driven off their land to satisfy large corporations requiring mono crops and oil supplies; and we have allowed the over-fishing of many species.

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Did Jesus survive Easter?

Of course he did! Easter celebrates the faith of the first disciples that Jesus’ death was not the end. God raised him to new life.

He did not survive in the sense of not really dying. For he died in one of the bloodiest ways possible, executed on a cross: dead for all to see. When, as the earliest records tell us, Peter reported that Jesus appeared to him in Galilee, despair turned to hope, disappointment to joy. It generated stories and experiences.

It was not that Jesus was to be found wandering around Galilee or Judea in flesh and blood. Rather they spoke of Jesus appearing and disappearing, clearly understanding his resurrection as like the spiritual resurrections expected at the climax of history.

But what did it mean that God raised Jesus from the dead?

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