The Grasping the Nettle online conference (Through a Glass Darkly) has just concluded with the third and final lecture from Professor Alister McGrath.  It was a superb series of talks where he grappled with the fascinating interplay between science and religion, the limitations of perspective and our ‘toolbox’ of ways of understanding reality.  Visit the Grasping the Nettle website (graspingthenettle.org) to catch up if you missed this excellent series of lectures.  Well worth listening to all three and visit the WATCH space on the website.

The sessions were chaired by the Very Rev Dr Angus Morrison.

Update from Beirut

Many of you will remember Rev Dr Rima Nasrallah who preached in the Old Parish and at Eddleston in August 2019.   She keeps in touch with news from NEST.  This month’s email came with particularly sad news….  I remember Rev Savag Trashian very well.  

The situation in Lebanon is very unstable. We are unable to form a government or agree on a way forward. The country is experiencing chaos and lawlessness. The interest in help and reconstruction decreased dramatically yet so many people are still homeless and many are still sliding under the poverty line. Educational institutions are teaching online and trying to catch up with the academic year which means that many of the young people who were volunteering in the first few days are now off the streets. 

Our Churches are still in ruins and many institutions are dysfunctional. Since Sunday some villages and towns are under strict lockdown and this is paralyzing us even further. 

We as a community experienced a great shock this weekend. One of our graduates/student Rev. Sevag Trashian age 41, passed away suddenly due to a heart attack. He was a perfectly healthy man and very active. We do not understand what happened. For me, this news is extra sad. He was working with me towards his Sacred Theology Master for the past 5 years, I met with him every week for three hours and our friendship extended beyond the classroom. Sevag was the pastor of a local Armenian Evangelical Church (you probably remember him….. We had his funeral yesterday in a Church with no windows and demolished sides and walls. It was so sad! Misery upon misery. 

I am sorry to send only bad news. We cling to our Christian hope. 

Blessings, 

Rima

Recent reports from our friends at NEST to follow

PASTORAL LETTER


Dear Friends,

Here we are seven months or so into our Covid situation, and sometimes the whole thing seems like a roller coaster. Numbers down, then up again. The threat hanging over us of a renewed period of restriction with all the family and individual angst that brings with it. The building is not open for Sunday Worship, but elsewhere in this magazine you will find an article describing the things that are alive and well around church in spite of the building being closed.

As always, I am grateful for the little stories I hear of individual care and concern expressed for friends and neighbours – especially those who need particular thought. Thank you for making a difference.

After a year spent as our Interim Moderator, Very Revd Finlay Macdonald, during which he has brought the church to the brink of important steps in the way ahead, has demitted the post. Rather in the style of Moses, who had to hand over to Joshua for the final push across the Jordan. (He will be reading this and laughing at his Locum’s flights of fancy.) More to be said, but for the moment these two. Finlay’s work in preparing the way for a stable move forward has been wonderful to behold. His many acts of wisdom and kindness (some of them unseen) have brought positive enhancement to the situation. Secondly, as a colleague, I pay tribute to Finlay’s kind friendship and guidance. He has made my time here a great and enjoyable experience.

On my own front, I continue as Locum for the meantime. I have to take two months (unpaid) leave of absence to undergo treatment for Prostate Cancer – and they will start on the 15th October. It may be that I will be able to be back for Christmas. I realise that the timing could have been more helpful. But there we are.

When a new Interim Moderator is appointed, it will be up to him or her to determine practical steps on the way forward. But in the meantime, Pamela and I and the Kirk Sessions will continue to serve the people of God in the best way possible.

Grace and peace,

John