Our Spiritual Life
In this section we invite you to read and reflect on the thoughts, prayers, beliefs and visions of clergy and parishioners of St John's Church in the past, present and future.The Wind from God swept over the Water
In the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the water. Genesis 1:1-2
Lake Burley Griffin’s peaceful vista with encompassing parkland is a place of restoration not far from our parish church. Yet on some days the placid appearance of the Lake is beaten by a wind that stirs its life, whipping up waves and reminding us that creative life has calm and chaos, order and serendipity, peace and surprise. Nietzsche said that ‘You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star’. Just as the Lake remains both a place of restoration and untamed life, so our Parish is a sanctuary and an open door to the needs of the world, which may buffet us and yet create a future ‘what eye has not seen or ear heard’.
Spiritual writer Gerard Hughes described that our life journey ‘will always be accompanied by some measure of uncertainty, pain and confusion. Those negative feelings are the nudgings of God.’ The Spirit’s ‘nudgings’ are integral to being a child of God and part of God’s created order even as it may seem at times there is more chaos than calm in our hearts. Jesus said to Nicodemus, a religious teacher of law and order; ‘You must be born from above. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is, with everyone born of the Spirit.’ (John 3:7-8)
Greg Thompson
Rector, 2005-2007