W E LCO M E F R O M T H E G E N E R A L S E C R E TA RY
Connection and Care L
REV. JANE FRY GENERAL SECRETARY THE GENERAL SECRETARY IS APPOINTED BY THE SYNOD TO PROVIDE LEADERSHIP TO THE CHURCH BY ACTIVELY ENGAGING IN STRATEGIC THINKING ABOUT THE LIFE, DIRECTION, VISION AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH.
ately I’ve been remembering two people who were attached to a Uniting Church. Two unrelated individuals, two quite different life stories both of whom ended up separated from their families and effectively alone in the world. Hence, perhaps, their attachment to the church. I use the word ‘attached’ because ‘connected’, ‘included’, ‘befriended’ and other similar words aren’t quite right. I acknowledge that both were quite challenging – one person could be an absolute pest and the other was so trapped in his own grief and sadness that it was hard to get words out of him. There’s more to their stories, of course, I mention them because they were so alone in the world when they died.
we now live. In a book titled ‘The Life of I: The New Culture of Narcissism’, Alice Manne comments "Popular culture, in its relentless embrace of the addictions of consumerism, seduces ordinary people". Individualism, materialism, consumerism are dominant, inescapable threads in our cultural landscape and we’re all, consciously or unconsciously, tangled in them. So tangled perhaps that it’s become increasingly difficult to see or sense what might have been lost along the way and it now takes increasingly powerful wake up calls to remind us that we belong to each other, we need each other and to remind us of the blessing and gift of being connected in community.
As we look back on the last two years of pandemic disruption and restriction and remember what it felt like to be separated from family and community, I’ve been very conscious of the very many people in residential aged care settings who CONNECTION have no family or no family AND CARE FOR contact. For such people, EACH OTHER ARE the community of their FUNDAMENTAL TO particular setting - made OUR WELLBEING up of staff and other I have a – possibly idealistic – residents – is life-giving and expectation that the church should life-saving. The pandemic has ‘get’ this. After all, we live in a story that both revealed and intensified the says it’s not about ‘you’, it’s actually more systemic problems in the way aged care about ‘us’. We have been gathered into is delivered in this country. It bothers me (a community to live differently together, to be lot) that there is so little sign of any intention ‘a fellowship of reconciliation through which to seriously address these issues emanating Christ may work and bear witness to himself’ from those who have responsibility. (Basis of Union par.3) We’ve all learned over the last two years how One of the most profound ways that the vulnerable we are when our ability to connect church witnesses to Jesus Christ is when and care for each other is constrained or it reaches beyond its buildings to offer cut off. Human beings are social animals hospitality and genuine community as a – connection and care for each other are reminder that we are not alone, we are fundamental to our wellbeing, not an optional all in this together; when it provides a nice-to-have. We appear to notice this most caring sanctuary for those who are alone powerfully whenever community comes in this world, so they don’t die alone and together in response to a threat or disaster disconnected from the human family. And, as we experienced in the 2019 bushfire yes, it’s sometimes uncomfortable, painful, disaster and, right now, in the response to and costly. devastating floods in northern NSW. At such times, our dependance on the generosity It's Ash Wednesday in the week that I’m and compassion of others is recognised, writing this – the beginning of Lent when appreciated and celebrated for the enormous we usually talk of giving something up. gift – blessing – that it is. Coffee, chocolate, wine are frequently favourite sacrifices. As we ‘give up’ this It always strikes me that the gift of community Lent, could we also reflect on what we might should be remarked upon as something ‘give to’ forming and fostering a connected, unusual, strange, surprising. I surmise that loving community as a reminder for our this reaction reflects the highly individualized, disconnected, forgetful world? self-absorbed, self-obsessed culture in which
insights
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