What will my leave-taking message at the Chapel on Moore Street be, and what can I say to make a difference in our lives – both yours and mine?

As our Congregation considers it’s future, some of you are waiting to see what happens, others will find a new church to attend, and after eighteen months of stress, some people are feeling disconnected from the Church. With that in mind I want to fan the flame of faith and remind you that what has taken place is not unprecedented in churches or unusual in the corporate world - we know that, but even so it has been a challenge to our faith. 

The faith I speak of is not belief in doctrine or a person, but faith that recognises what James Fowler, a developmental psychologist identified in his book, Stages of Faith: “Substantive doubt is a part of the life of faith.” Substantive doubt  can happen when our beliefs and identity is challenged, which for us is tied up with what it means to be a Christian and a church in our community. When intelligent, faith-filled, and spiritually grounded people face an uncertain future, it’s not enough to know that change is inevitable. For those feeling disappointed and misrepresented, it is faith that nurses us through the confusion to stand strong and undaunted.

Our church was built on the rich history of Methodist Christians who gave to this community love, kindness, inclusion and generosity. Our call as Christians is to continue that legacy and nurture the seed of faith - it’s a call that transcends the tenure of all the ministers who have served here.

The author of the book of Acts wrote, “In God we live and move and exist  (Acts 17:28), so this morning let’s give some thought to what such a religious sounding statement could mean in the 21^st century.  

One way to understand those words is to say that we exist within a larger reality which is dependent on known physical forces and laws and on human consciousness that we can’t explain. St Paul’s statement expresses this idea in spiritual terms, but the thought is also philosophical – we live and move because of laws, and we exist because existence is made possible.

Life is a gift given by what philosophers refer to as “ground of being,”  which is called ‘God’  by most of the world’s population. You’ve heard me say, I don’t like the word ‘God’  because it’s weighed down by a ton of ancient concepts, but I do like Michael Himes’ claim that: “The word ‘God’  functions like x in algebra. It is a stand-in for the…absolute mystery which grounds and supports all that exists.”

The mystery to which the word ‘God’  refers is beyond any image or concept invented throughout all the ages that we have even a scant knowledge of what ancient people thought and practiced. Having said that, the notion of God as Supreme Being speaks to a very deep human need, which is kind of problematic, because the Divine is always more than our theories and theologies. The sacred is in our ordinary yet extraordinary lives, where consciously, or not, we encounter the omnipresent every day.

Faith adds a layer to this premise when we think of God as the spiritual essence at the heart of creation where awe and wonder tap into the human drive to believe in something greater than ourselves. It’s not possible to be unmoved by magnificence, beauty and sheer power, because it silences the mind, humbles the heart, and reminds us how small we are by comparison.

Wonder, in the Indic tradition doesn’t refer to surprise or curiosity, but to the human reaction to the opportunity to witness divine, heavenly, or exalted phenomena.  [Handbook of Emotions,2^nd ed., Gilford Press. 2000] The news platform, Business Insider  in 2018 posted an interview with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly after he returned from his record-breaking 340-day mission on the International Space Station. Kelly returned with some profound insights into the physical and psychological challenges of extended space travel. Interviewed for the podcast, ‘Success! How I Did It,’  Scott said the experience completely changed his perspective on life: "I think it makes you a more empathetic person, more in touch with humanity and who we are…”

"The planet is incredibly beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful…”  “At night you can see countries with lights, but during the daytime it looks like we are all part of one spaceship, Spaceship Earth.”

Described as ‘saturated with awe,’  scientists have been measuring the ‘Overview Effect,’  which is a term to describe the powerful mental, emotional, and spiritual shift that astronauts experience when they see the Earth from space.

The Overview Effect  was identified by space philosopher Frank White and describes astronauts who return with a renewed faith or on a quest for wisdom, and becoming “evangelists, preaching the gospel of orbit”  [Frank White, author of Overview Effect]

Confined to the planet and concerned as we are with our  little worries, we can still experience awe and wonder. All around us is the ‘inspiring’. This picture was taken in Finland where my son Tim was recently, but we don’t need to travel overseas to gaze, wonder and experience a sense of awe.

Seeing something astonishing, unfathomable or greater than yourself, Julie Baird wrote in Phosphorescence: “When dwarfed by an experience, we are more likely to look to one another and care for one another and feel more connected.” Astronauts have reported ‘empathetic expansion,’  or the ‘caring for others effect.’  Studies show a sense of awe has a remarkable psychological impact; it reduces our feeling of self-importance, expands our sense of belonging, and increases generosity, cooperation, and empathy. 

Roger Jensen, an American pioneer of storm chasing and founder of Storm Track magazine, when asked why he chased storms for fifty years said, “it’s for the awe at what you’re seeing.”  “Confronting…a sense of powers at work and scales of movement that so transcend a single man and overwhelm the senses, one feels intuitively something eternal but ephemeral,  (lasting only a short time.)”

A sense of wonder has long been recognised as one of the principal sources of humanity's belief in the existence of an unseen order to life. Wonder leads to contemplating how vivid displays in the natural world, incredible beauty, grand magnificence, awesome power, and infinitesimally small detail, point to intentionality, a universe that is structured, and has intrinsic value and purpose.

Wonder opens a door to faith beginning in that moment we recognise there must be a reality larger, deeper, and more mysterious than science can at this time measure or explain.

Philosophers see faith as a fundamental orientation that gives structure to one’s existence even though the thing believed in, science can’t fully prove. With the notion that God is limitless, everywhere present and from nowhere absent, our entire lives can be understood as a prayer and a liturgy celebrating the presence of the sacred.

Noel Davis, an Australian poet wrote meditative reflections on nature, silence, spirituality, the divine, and our personal inner lives. In his reflections on the human condition and living within the symphony of creation, his poetry encourages quietness, deep listening, and awaking to Presence.

When the morning opens its palms

and light spills across the hills,

something within us stirs—

a small remembering.

For nature speaks in whispers:

the soft insistence of a river,

the hush of snow on branches,

the pulse of sap beneath bark.

In these ordinary miracles

the divine leans close,

not demanding belief,

only attention.

We meet the sacred

not in what we control,

but in what we allow—

the stillness,

the wonder,

the quiet widening of the heart

that knows without proving

and trusts without seeing.[Noel Davis]

Because I recover from the disappointments and wounds of life in the therapy of nature, I encourage you to do the same. If a walk in the bush is physically beyond you, go to the Mike Dwyer Reserve at Coledale and sit and watch and listen. Dwarfed by the expanse of ocean, wide-open sky, and the power of waves, faith is renewed, and we become more empathetic people, more in touch with humanity and who we are, [Kelly] for “In God we live and move and exist”

As I step down from my role of minister, I invite you as my friends, to take a walk with me, a swim, kayak and camp, or just sit gazing at the vastness of the ocean, or under a tree, and feel the connectedness that only nature can impart.