Snapshots

(Beautiful conference site)

Went for IMPACT, a CMDFA (Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship of Australia) annual camp where doctors and med/dental students came from all over Australia to Sydney.


New faces, old friends (like Yoda!) and although nothing "earth-shattering" new, great reminders of what God is doing and generously allows us to partner Him. Themes of mercy, justice, compassion echoed again clear. A refreshing acceptance of Christians with different ways of worship; John Dickson (Sydney Anglican) giving the main address yet also "free worship" at night and "Brethren style" open floor for people to pray and share.


And I went canoeing in this lake!


Anyway,
Over the past 2 years I've began to be more selective in my reading, greatly preferring older or those with a life-story to tell. Looking back at my walk, my perceptions and responses have been sharply redefined by "suffering." I find myself drawn to those who have endured rather than the next big thing on the Christian scene. There is something refining about the fire and something genuine after the pruning.

And so, this is something I find true....

"I think it is important to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situations; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice...We are mistaken when we compare war to "normal life." Life has never been normal....

War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians in the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centred in this world, were always doomed to a final destruction. In ordinary times only a wise man can realise it. Now the stupidest of us knows. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along be living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment to soon.

CS Lewis "Learning in wartime" 1939.

And indeed it is true, for now even me, the stupidest of us, knows.
Thus now I am not disillusioned, but rather was disillusioned before.