Bishop John

Following an ABC interview (see blog article 29 June re Day 4) I received the following encouragement,

Dear Bishop John,

I watched with interest the item on the ABC news on Friday concerning heritage buildings and the church. I want to say thank you for all you are doing to make the church relevant for today. As much as I love the old buildings I believe it is much more important to look after the living rather than the dead. I want to encourage you to keep going in providing the buildings suitable to reaching the people of today. I worship at St. Peters in St. Leonards, Launceston. I know that you are very supportive of our efforts to transform our church property in order to minister to the community we are part of. Again thank you for your courage to embrace change and your commitment to seeing the church reach others with the gospel.

Don

The difficult issue of the use and preservation of church buildings in our mission to build the church and the kingdom of God is likely to be with us until the Lord returns. I believe that the issue runs to our view of ‘Church’ and our discipleship. In response to recent inaccurate claims about church buildings I noted in ‘From the Bishop’s Desk’ some building news for our encouragement,

major new facilities for ministry have recently been completed at Kingston and Riverlinks, . . . contractors are working as I write on significant developments at Burnie, Smithton and the Cathedral, and . . . there are at least three more developments in the planning stage. Each of these is driven by our shared focus on mission and reflects current understandings of ministry in the 21st century. The list above does not include the multitude of smaller, commitment-driven projects of refurbishment which cross the desk of my Registrar on an almost daily basis.

Our purpose as disciples of Christ is to build the kingdom of God and his Church, the people of God, to the glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Article from Sydney noting that this year Youthworks Publishing under the imprints of Blue Bottle Books and Anglican Press Australia, has four of a possible eight books shortlisted for the Australian Christian Book of the Year awards – and they are rightly proud of it 🙂   Interesting article and comments.

Madeleine L’Engle’s poetry continues to inspire, challenge and encourage my walk with Christ. Her collection, ‘The Ordering of Love’ will nurture the 3 day Bishop’s retreat, ‘Walking in Holiness’ I am leading next week. It was fun to discover that Rebecca, who helped me with the retreat materials, is also an aficionado of Madeleine L’Engle. The ‘First Coming’ on page 242 of this collection was read at a devotional led by my then chaplain, Laurie McIntyre. This introduced me to her gift to us. The poem’s final stanza,

‘We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!’

Her collection can be said to encompass all of life’s great treasures as it includes two poems, about donkeys! Me biased? Well, why not?  🙂

I also enjoy Les Murray who ranks among Australia’s great poets. Like Madeleine L’Engle his Christian faith shines through and is well highlighted in a recent article from Michael Jensen, ‘Les Murray, to the glory of God’,

‘Murray dedicates his poetry these days ‘To the Glory of God’. Like Gerard Manley Hopkins, what he means by this is most evident in his descriptions of nature, where he is able to find the glorious essence of the creator shining out of every creature.’

It seems that Tasmania and the UK have a euthanasia push on at the moment. The Telegraph UK has good coverage and reports that some of Britain’s most senior legal figures and religious leaders have added their voices to the growing disquiet over proposals that could pave the way to the legalisation of euthanasia. They aim to stop a Lords amendment that they fear would pave the way to “legalising euthanasia”.

Interesting comment on the role of religious leaders in British parliamentary system and this,

‘There has been much reticence among religious leaders in general and the 26 Lords Spiritual who sit in the House of Lords in particular about getting involved in this debate again. They fear that the euthanasia lobby would like nothing better than to characterise the issue as a simple choice between religion and secularism.’

Closer to home a report from Melbourne quoting Roman Catholic Bishop Prowse,

“I see nothing ennobling, no validation of human dignity, in suicide. We must do all we can to make the benefits of palliative care accessible.”

Bishop Prowse said that palliative care gives tremendous comfort and support to the terminally ill.

Mr Larkins, Chief Executive Officer of Palliative Care Victoria, told The Age recently that feedback from loved ones of palliative care patients showed a 98 percent to 99 percent satisfaction with treatment.

Notes of a six day trip to the West Coast and North-West Tasmania