Paul The Comedian, The Papal Preacher And Patmos

To Windmill Farm Conference Centre and Adventure Camp Site, Oxfordshire, UK for the Community of Aidan and Hilda’s Annual Gathering, which was packed to capacity. Its theme was Releasing our God-given Creativity. The childrens’ participation led by Amber Cole and team was brilliant. Saturday night was laughter night with comedian Paul Kerensa, who also writes for BBC shows such as Miranda and Top Gear. There were workshops on storytelling, comedy, creative prayer, stitch-work, photography and pastel art. The whole week-end was bathed in varied styles of creative prayer patterns.

Back on Lindisfarne three pilgrims arrived. They had come from Iona and would journey on to Durham and Whitby. They asked for a copy of my book on Hilda of Whitby which I duly signed. They had been in Norway when Graham and Ruth Booth were on their recent speaking tour there. The Scots lady had also spoken in Norway – but in Norsk! Her friend had been abbess of a Dominican Order in Oslo. She rejoiced, as do Lutherans, in the teaching about our reconciliation with creation through the Divine Logos. Could this be a major theme in next year's commemorations of the Reformation in 1517, especially in the light of these remarks by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of the Papal Household:' It is vital for the whole Church that this opportunity is not wasted by people remaining prisoners of the past, trying to establish each other's rights and wrongs'.?

A book then popped through my door. It was Patmos: Three Days, Two Men, One Extra-ordinary Conversation by my friend C. Baxter Kruger. In this searingly honest and riveting novel he (who is named Aidan) becomes part of a vision conversation with John on Patmos Isle. John, who wrote in his Gospel of the Loving Three Eternally Communing, in his Epistles of how we are to reflect that loving communion, and in his Apocalypse of how the devastations of a hurting planet are ultimately brought into harmony with the Lamb slain before the cosmos was created, is still alive. He learns from Aidan about the church councils when the Creeds were formulated, about the schisms in the Western Church and its theology that focuses on separation more than union, and reflects on these Christendom inadequacies in the light of what he SEES. This book unfolds profoundly important insights for the healing of the fissures - to this CA&H is also committed

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