'what's Happened To Your Uplifting Blogs?'
This week some one emailed me: 'We have missed your blogs since the end of Oct . With these difficult times we need some encouragement and hope and your blogs are very uplifting, please let us know if you are OK ,,,'.
Well, in these difficult times when my area of the world is in lock-down I need encouragement like everyone else. So let's make a resolution to 'encourage one another'!
On November 17 I joined CAH folk across the world in a renewal of vows on Saint Hilda's Day. This was inspiring. And I sent this prayer tweet:Help us to trade with the gifts you have given us, to release the song in human hearts, to develop a merciful heart towards all, and to overcome disease and death with never-ending joy.
Then, I wrote my monthy article for The Holy Island Times which included these words: 'every cloud has a silver lining. Sadness that Open Gate had to be closed yet again and that the staff have had to be on furlough; sadness that the retreat I was to lead on Dying Well had to be cancelled. Yet we tried to embrace the three darkest months as a ‘winter womb’ in which, as at the first Christmas, there may be new birthings.
In early November Scott Brennan took his First Vows on Holy Island by zoom....
Looking forward to what lies beyond the gloom, all people in vows will gather for a zoom retreat in January. Some show amazing creativity. One draws in marginalised people for our awareness and prayers. Another creates an e-book. One person in Australia sent us a video of Aboriginals returning for the first time to the place where their forebears were massacred, fishing and swimming and befriending the Whites who said sorry.'
Today I had a zoom hour with Brent Lyons Lee in Melbourne. Their lockdown has been lifted and they have not had one case of covid in the last week. He has become minister of a socially active Baptist church which sends a letter to their Prime Minister every week. Now that's a thought for the rest of us, whether we have a PM or a President.
We talked about the prevailing values of western and eastern societies, the decline of the West and the rise of China. If narcissism threatens to take over western freedom, pragmatism threatens minorities who do not fit in China. World-wide new monasticism, based on the values of honesty and trust, compassion and the value of every human being because they are made in the Divine image and can become one in Christ is essential to the survival of civilisation.
So thanks for lifting me from the bog to the blog!
