EXPERIENCING FAITH

It gives me much pleasure, on behalf of Presbytery, to say thank you to Clifford Arthur Walker for 15½ years of service, that is to say ‘paid’ work, to the Presbytery of Tasmania. His actual preaching was over a period of 62 years.

A few weeks ago I was privileged, along with some 60 others, to attend a day with Padraig O’Tuama, “Spirituality in a Changing World”.

I have been looking for feminine images of God and have been disappointed by a lack of contemporary Christian feminine images in the Uniting Church in Australia.

Then one day I happened upon an image of Trinity by Hildegard von Bingen and although I still don’t know an awful lot about her or her life, I know she painted the “Trinity in Unity” with a beautiful blue Christ in the centre of golden and a silver circles which are representative of the Holy Spirit and God the Father.

May we all be able to find the sunset in turbulent times, knowing that at some point the plane will land and circumstances will again become calm.

Observers of this process are concerned there is no mechanism for refreshing the pool of candidates with ‘outliers’, people who can bring new insights to existing problems and become the focus for dealing with unforeseen situations.

“As we have people who influenced us in our faith growth, we are influencers for others – whether we know it or not.”