Thoughts for the Week
Sunday 7th March 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Christians no longer believe in a personal, objective, thinking God ‘out there' somewhere. Christians have become a-theists.
Robert Funk
It may seem self-evident that belief in God is the foundation stone on which Christianity is built in. Buddhism is older than Christianity and has existed all this time without belief in any God. So it is possible for RELIGION to exist without belief in God.
Llyod Geering
Nowadays people's love for God finds expression only though love for life, and in their case there isn't any great difference between ‘God' and ‘Life'.
Don Cupitt
God was born in men's minds and has no existence beyond man-made literature and art.
Yaakov Malkin
"We move forward our new conception of God.."
Rabbi Michael Lerner
"If we love god, even though we think he doesn't exist, he will make his existence manifest."
Simon Weil
"Circumstances change. And God changes with them."
Robert Wright
"Many think that because some ideas on ‘God' and religion have had to change, that all shows the full fallacy of it all. But science has changed relentlessly, revising if not discarding old theories, and none of us think of that as an indictment of prejudice."
Robert Wright
Sunday 28th February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Welcome -
You are here. We invite you to absorb what makes St Michael's a unique church in Melbourne.
First, its exterior: a landmark in this city.
Second, its internal quiet space invites an immediate response.
Third, the focus on the pulpit, and its international reputation.
Fourth, the organ and the way it opens you to the world of music.
And the people - we hope you will find them friendly, enjoying their belonging to this special place, knowing -
"We are accepted"
So then join us - join the conversation of what the New Faith can mean for everyone.
VACANCIES
People with a vision for what is possible.
In this 21st Century what is our best vision for ourselves and for humanity.
The New Faith shocks us to realize who we are and what we can become.
The New Faith says there is a Good Spirit in Life and we can be part of that Good Spirit - a spirit of acceptance and tolerance, of openness and growth, of generosity and goodness.
The New Faith does not look for God "up there" in the heavens. The New Faith searches for the God in acts of kindness and happiness, in times of renewal and restoration, in attitudes of genuine affirmation and in experiences of awe and wonder.
The New Faith puts each one of us in the picture frame, and the question underneath -
Are you in the picture as one who wants top embrace a New Faith for the future?
The New Faith reflects the Great Themes of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
He said -
Live life to the fullest possible. Search out ways to flourish. Be part of life in all its fullness.
Look at a mustard seed. Put it in the right environment and it grows into a large tree, and birds enjoy its hospitality. Therefore be like that. Help others be like that.
Put yourself on the pathways that open you to the best psychological and emotional health. Understand your fears and anxieties. Make sure they contribute to your life rather than tyrannize it. Let health and wholeness be your goal from childhood across the lifespan.
Be a good presence in your relationships: compassionate, generous, expansive, intelligent. An intelligent presence makes you alert to the best you can be in your relationships.
Sunday 21st February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
At the deepest level, the NEW FAITH refinds the essential humanity in us, the best and the ugliest, and it draws us towards the best. It reminds us that within ourselves we live in a ‘big country', and someone has to nuture it and create things to make it more beautiful.
"It is only though flow of life in our lives can we direct the flow into lives others."
Winifred Rustforth
"Sometimes when we think we are young and everything before us, a door closes. Sometimes when we think we are old, a door opens onto the most creative period of our lives."
Winifred Rustforth
"Light comes on the heels of darkness."
Dan Yenuko Ali
"In order to grow strong you must first sink your roots into nothingness and learn to face your loneliest loneliness."
Irvin Yalom
"Our task is to convert the future from an enemy to a new opportunity. But we need to remember that in a world of chaos, wildness is always waiting to show itself. We need that faith to face our risks in ways we would not otherwise take."
Peter Bernstein
"We must allow every impression and every germ of emotion to mature by itself, in the dark, indescribable, unconscious realm that cannot be attained by our reason, and we must wait with patience for the birth of a new enlightenment."
Rainer Maria Rilke
Sunday 14th February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Yours is a unique life
Seek to fulfill your dreams
Even if you stumble
The world will still
Embrace you.
Even if failures mount
Even so, the world is beautiful
So begin again.
Keiko Takehashi
"There is grandeur in this view of life."
Charles Darwin
"God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the one who can recognize him in all his disguises. At one moment he is a glass of fresh water, the next your child bouncing on your knees...or perhaps a morning walk."
Nikos Kazantzakis
We live not in a "New Age", but in a time of opportunity - to discover the importance of a Good Presence.
Our inner world is often undeveloped. Often a mystery. Often becomes a tangled confusion. Yet "the inner world is where our own self-knowledge and identity and creative purpose are formed - upon a landscape of faith and fear, of joy and sadness, of inspiration and imagination."
Dr W.B. Stewart Founder of the
Institute of Health and Healing at the
California Pacific Medical Centre.
Sunday 7th February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary education."
(Sam Harris)
"People must now walk a path of faith which is significantly different from all the earlier paths."
Lloyd Geering
"As Christianity moves awkwardly but irreversibly into a new phase in its history, those who are pushing into this frontier often look to the earliest period ...Creeds did not exist then; they are fading in importance now."
Harvey Cox
"Faith starts with awe in the face of mystery."
Harvey Cox
"A life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live."
George Woodberry"The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside of every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and FAITH, which is surely the devil's masterpiece."
(Sam Harris)
"Creeds keep people stalled in the obsolete Age of Belief."
Harvey Cox
"Maybe religion needs to go through a second transformation."
Nicholas Wade
Sunday 31st Januajry 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Young people know they can believe in "something".
Old people wonder if there's "anything" they can believe in.
Young people want more excitement.
Old people are frightened of excitement.
Young people take hold of the present.
Old people worry about the future.
Young people are convinced there are things in life they can do, and they do it.
Older people know there are things in life they can't do, and they don't try.
Young people look for another way.
Older people too often say, ‘There is no way'.
Young people have a lot of fun.
Older people want to have some of that fun.
But don't know how!
Young people want to be honest.
Older people wish they could be.
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven.
Wm. Wordsworth
Sunday 24th January 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Look far
Into the distance.
Over fields, over forests
Beyond the horizon
Continue looking.
Then
You will begin to see the undulations of the earth
That supports all that is.
Invite every corner of this world
Into your heart.
Imagine the lives of individuals you will never meet
And the realities of unknown nations.
Then
You will begin to see a truth of the world
That permeates all that is.
Imagine the great distance
Look far.
Then
You will begin to see a path where we can live together.
Keiko Takahashi, Binary Stars 2010
"Your letter makes up for today's bad weather; within me the sun is shining...outside there is fog and drizzle."
Sigmund Freud
"Every forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind."
J.L. Spalding
"We are called upon to do something new, to confront a no-man's land, to push into a forest where there are no well-worn paths...To live into the future always means to leap into the unknown." But a great deal of forethought and a spot of wisdom can make a very large difference.
Rollo May: The Courage to Create
Australian Poet, Bill Cotter -
Let me look for new things now
Not the old,
Familiar,
For they are gone,
Slowly,
To be sure,
But gone.
...
And
I am left
Alone,
Wishing for the new,
Part clinging
To
The Old.
Australian Poet, Barrie Morley -
Old time's
gone time;
new time's come.
Old fears still lurk behind the tombstones,
hiding from the sun,
of this new season.