Pilgrim

 The world must seem a scary place at the moment.  Russia is a growing threat, the current leadership in USA appears to be unreliable, there is an increase in hatred and violence all over the world.  People are threatened by the impacts of Climate change, migration levels and financial inequity.   I was talking with a good friend yesterday and we got onto the topic of how crazy things are and they mentioned something that their daughter had said.  Essentially, they were asking a valid question of why did God allow the Bondi Beach shooting to happen.  It is a question that has been asked before of course over time.  But it remains a good question and one that on the surface would appear to be difficult to answer.  Certainly, the God who is all powerful and all seeing and yet stands by while innocent people are killed is definitely not a god who I would bow down to, or even accept.     It got me thinking of how I would answer tha...

Just over a month ago, I spoke about trust being at the heart of our relationship with ourselves and with God.   We spoke about the importance of seeing beyond someone’s role to the individual themselves, to see people as people, persons created by God in his own image, and we know what the Bible says quite explicitly about his creation.   God saw it and he saw that it was good.   And then there was the referendum, and Oh so quickly the country forgot about all that trust stuff, and we have lined up in opposing camps looking distrustingly over at the other.   On the day some people remembered the disgusting loss of human life that is called the Battle of the Somme, others found themselves in new trenches, looking over no man’s land in fear and shock and wondering what the other side would do.   There has been a consequential rise in hate crime, a Pandora’s box has been opened and now people are trying to find ways of dealing with deeply felt beliefs and ove...