Hope. Healing. Harmony
2021 Summer School
Our world never needed hope, healing and harmony more than it does now. The
fact that our summer school was held on the zoom platform was in itself indicative
of the situation we are living in, when all our lives are more precarious and things
change from day to day. We were fortunate to have excellent speakers and a
good gathering of our members , including Anthony Das in India and Chris
Garland in Australia. We could also see Ruth and Subash’s new baby,
Rajendra. Together we shared a day of listening, learning, being challenged and
also being refreshed.
Stephen Skinner was our first speaker on ‘Harmony for the Future of the Earth.’
He made it very clear that harmony involves wholeness, connection and
relationship, all qualities of God who is pure love. Harmony however cannot be
reached easily, we only have to look at the state of the earth to see that.
Harmony has to be worked for in partnership with the great connector, the Holy
Spirit.
Jenny Brown and Anne-Marie Aygeman both work at Christian Aid. Their
presentation included a video of Amanda Gorman reciting her poem ‘Open Your
Eyes.’ We were asked if our planet was worth fighting for and surely we all
agreed that it is even though in the climate crisis we face the biggest crisis ever.
Jenny and Anne-Marie looked at what we can do including stopping the use of
fossil fuels developing resilient crops, planting trees, caring for the Amazon and
supporting young people in their campaigns. We plan to create educational and
worship resources. There is .poverty, inequality and fear, but yes, there is also
hope .
Inderjit Bhogal has a long history of work with refugees which has given hope
and a new life to many. He was a leader in the creation of cities of sanctuary and
now challenges us all to create churches of sanctuary and hospitality. We must
learn what it means to seek sanctuary, we must embed a welcome and the
inclusion of refugees and other vulnerable people into our community lives, we
must share our vision and what we achieve as widely as we can. We are all
members of the human race and must never forget it.
Adam Boulter is a painter and also an Anglican priest. He is a long-standing
friend of Christians Aware and has been very kind in sharing his artworks. He is
currently Dean of Toliara in Madagascar and we are learning about the people and
communities there. He presented many of his own paintings at summer school
and also, very generously, shared some of his working drawings with us. He said
that artists are people who notice the world and artists of faith notice what God is
doing in the world. He challenged everyone to draw and to write poems.
The presentations, together with Rowan Williams's September webinar on
"Climate, Justice and Christian Vision" are available on our You Tube
channel. Just push the button to reach them.
Our summer school next year will be from July 18 - 22, 2022 at Parcevall
Hall in the Yorkshire Dales.
There are also buttons linking to the two newest book we have published;
Timothy Biles's "It's the Journey" reflecting his experiences of life in lands
dominated by the Moslems of Pakistan, the Hindus of India, the Buddhists
of Sri Lanka and the Jews of Israel-Palestine; Brian Macdonald-Milne's
"Seeing Peace in the Pacific", the story of conflict and Christianity in the
Central Solomon Islands.
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Also flyers for recently published books from Christians Aware "Just
Food: Food and Farming for a Sustainable Future", and "Rosa" by Susi
Bechhofer, can be viewed via the button below.
Please continue to send post to: Christians Aware
2 Saxby Street, Leicester LE2 0ND. We have a forwarding
arrangement to our new (temporary) office.
tel 01162540770
