Three Days Of Festival
The general public came in the afternoon. The beautiful Wellspring Centre at Ashburton, Melbourne sponsored three days of talks, workshops, art and harp-accompanied prayer times, which they advertised as Groundworks Celtic Spirituality Festival. I gave talks on Celtic spirituality, healing the land, and three sessions on our Way of Life. Real fruit is coming from this. Wendy Lyons has agreed to contact anyone in Victoria who wishes to explore this, and a minister hopes to introduce the Igniting the Flame course in her church. Wellspring people are the salt of the earth. Before returning Brent, Sue, Wendy and I who had driven from Geelong, visited Vicki Demmer, who we first met on Holy Island, in hospital
The following day I spoke to church planting students at Whitley College about my experience of church planting at Bowthorpe and ways in which church plants may connect up to become part of a village of God, and we joined Belinda's brother Dan and his family on a beach.
Next day we visited the Monastery of the Transfiguration at Teesdale. Their accommodation units are nearly complete and work has begun on their large oratory. We joined them for prayer, lunch, and holy conversation. This included thoughts about how the dark and the light side of the Shadow in Old Testament characters is revealed in the texts of Scripture. The brothers and sisters here have become real friends with locals. 'I belong here but I don't believe' said one of them. Self-emptying and friendship are practised here. On the way home we stopped at Brent and Belinda's doctor who has given me excellent pain management prescriptions.
