Engaging with the community
A quiet space for a story at St Columba weekend.
Denise brought her harp to the St Columba weekend.
Taize worship at Pyengana's St Columba weekend
Engaging with the community
St Columba Day was celebrated for the first time last year in an effort to engage with the Pyengana community.
The concept was a simple one: that we worship together in St Michael's and All Angels; enjoy a shared lunch at the appropriately named Holy Cow Café and do a Falls walk to honour Columba in the chill of the afternoon.
This year it was expanded to a two day event, including a poetry and harp session followed by a candlelight Taizé service of sung chant, prayer and silence and a Bush Dance.
The weekend has been in anyone's terms a success.
While some in 'the church' question what a weekend of secular and religious activities can offer to believers and non-believers alike, it is in the sacredness of the 'everyday' that God is ever present. It is in seeing God in the eyes of the stranger that we are paradoxically both challenged and blessed.
It's vital to remember that God with meticulous love and care, created every single person for salvation, not just the ones who 'fit our mould.'
In candlelight, in silence and in the chanting God drew near. In shared space, in poetry, harp; in laughter and in the rhythm of dance, God moved and spoke and for a time, we were one and will be again.
So too in the brightness of sun-filled worship, God was behind us, within us and before us as we fearlessly flung wide our arms in a gesture of love and inclusion. We are all one community in Christ, travelling forward together on our journey home.
Isabel Telford For Break O' Day Anglican Parish, St Helens in North East Tasmania