To quote local comedian Tom Gleeson, I have been thinking a lot about herpes zoster this week. I now have a personal encounter with this virus of the third kind, and unfortunately, it has targeted an optic nerve. This has left me slightly ‘marked’, sore, light-sensitive, and feverish. I am on antivirals, but like most, it is a matter of following the course of the infection and letting things be.
Another year is added, and with it, the quiet burden of time.
It is also the season of Annual Meetings in this part of Victoria. Reports are gathered, words assembled, and in the calmer moments, I find myself shaping what must be said.
The lectionary, as if by providence, offers a treasury of words for such a gathering. This week, I offer my Annual Report, formed by these readings, not as presider, but as one who is called to speak and to listen.
In a place where the years are many and the days are measured by quiet growth, it is a gift to encourage, build up, and receive the bountiful goodness God gives.
What if the annual meeting of the Church is not an audit of holiness, but a summons to see our common life through a completely new lens?
The Annual Meeting is not an audit of holiness.
This year at St Peter’s by the Lake has been an experience of encouragement and metanoia, an invitation to see life and faith anew. We have gathered in worship, in music, in care for one another. We have known the realities of ageing, of lassitude, of the pressures that come with change. Yet through it all, gratitude endures: for those who serve, for those who remember, for the gift of community. May we continue to build one another up in faith, hope, and love.
