Dale Perkins, Victoria

I’ve read much of the latest edition of ICN and thought I’d raise a few issues we can discuss.

In a way the issue reinforces my reflections i.e. the Winter 2024/25 issue has items re seven people who have died recently, e.g. Gustvio Gutierrez, Vicki Marie, Lois Marcoux, Susannah Paranch, Peter and Remi, Margaret and Tom.

What that generated in my thinking was the realization that it’s the dead people who are important representatives of the Christian faith now. And the real challenge for contemporaries is to follow in their footsteps. Perhaps that’s the same pattern with most religions. However what it also does for me is not see in any of the contemporary stuff happening now anything significant re how the gospel brings life to followers and believers here and right now and into the future.

I’ve really tried to challenge folks today I’m meeting with to describe any current happenings in the world which are worth celebrating and acknowledging … things that are exciting and new expressions of what present-day folks are saying and doing (especially) … that suggests that the animating spirits are very much alive and being incarnated today in our current cultures and societies . We only have examples of what has happened in the past, led by wonderful folks living then.

I think that leads to a current attitude happening now, that the Christian church can only copy stuff that’s happened in the past … they are not innovators or present-day animators. So my urgings of church folks today is to describe things and people alive and active today who are exemplifying what the spirit of the Divine is doing right now and in this time-period today. That’s not to deny that it really didn’t happen yesterday or last year or last century. I feel there’s a real vacuum these days that is caused by not celebrating wonderful things and people present now. Most of the stories and reports we read in the dailies and hear about on TV are terrible accidents and actions which are deadly, vicious and destructive (i.e. “if it bleeds it leads” ) I think that a lot of people come to the place where they can only think of the negative and terrible things that are happening – that’s the ‘normal’ and expected these days because nothing else is possible.

Now I totally understand rectifying this pattern is way beyond what an ICN is capable of addressing. However I really do think the paper needs to focus on some positive, life-giving things that are happening today, somewhere in the world, led by people who say they are “following in the Way of Jesus of Nazareth” and there needs to be less emphasis on highlighting folks who lived long ago. In other words, one of the ideas and attitudes the paper highlights might be positive, personal ways we can proclaim the ‘good news’, in the midst of some serious challenges we’re facing now.

For example, I joined a group of men each Friday morning who have come out of the Hope Lutheran church in Nanaimo, and I keep asking them to raise up some examples of terrific things that are happening these days, and so far I haven’t heard back from any of them. Most are only interested in commenting on current political and social happenings in the country and world. They either aren’t able to see and describe positive things currently happening in Nanaimo and Vancouver Island/BC/Canada/North America/world or they simply don’t consider them important or worth highlighting. So they just focus on the ‘news’ or current political events here or somewhere in the world.