Category: Love

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Getting off the never-ending ride – CCUC Pastoral Letter

Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ

Well, the rollercoaster that we call life continues to roll on. It sometimes feels like a never-ending-ride, one day blends or even collides with the next, one moment you are doing okay and then yet another twist or turn enters your life.

For some of us we have not yet found the off switch for our ‘fight or flight mode’ that was triggered by the traumatic season we are living in. Marie and I have the pleasure of being in on a webinar (seminar delivered via the web) on this very topic of trauma. It is very interesting because Sandra Sellmer-Kersten made this very point – “that some of us have had the part of our brain that protects us from danger, the amygdala, triggered in this season and its still firing”. So, she says, we will find ourselves in either fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (become ultra compliant) mode, or a mixture of all of the above, until we can find a way to ‘deal with’ the trauma that has triggered us. You might say this is some psychological mumbo-jumbo but I regret to say its a well attested ‘fact of life’, like death and taxes. Continue reading “Getting off the never-ending ride – CCUC Pastoral Letter”

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CCUC Weekly Pastoral Letter 19th April

Jesus, the resurrected one, enters a locked room and says, ‘Peace be with you’. Can you imagine the disbelief and the exhilaration of that moment for the disciples as they gather scared and thrown off completely by the circumstances that have transpired since Jesus death. Their Rabonni is not there – in fact he is nowhere to be found, he has outgrown the tomb, it has served its purpose and now – now what?

I have a bit to say about the ‘now what’ in our ‘gathered church online’ service this week. For some you might watch it live or later and for some you’ll get the message delivered to you. But for all of you I want to say…. the world the disciples found themselves in was a confusing and chaotic place – a place lacking ‘peace’ ( by that I don’t mean the absence of chaos and confusion). This situation is not so unfamiliar to us. We are faced with questions like – where is Jesus? What now? Is it possible that Jesus really has risen and has inaugurated a new way of being? Can I believe the reports of others who claim to have encountered Jesus personally? Continue reading “CCUC Weekly Pastoral Letter 19th April”