The year is almost a month old, and we greet you from the first ‘record’ of the year. It won’t be long before we are back in a rhythm of our days, and the months will swing by. The question I wonder about as we engage this year, is how we can honour our experience of life, with all its highs and lows, and discover God within it… and how we can do that authentically, without compromising our connection to the Christian Story. This question presupposes that we experience God, rather than talk about God. Our experience is our primary way of connecting with God and the language we use to describe that is a secondary thing, rather than the focus. And I suspect that this is a risky business, perhaps even dangerous in terms of our preservation of the tradition. That is, ensuring we are authentic to our Gospel story and our experience of God is important.

Risk elicits lots of possible responses – fear and retreat, anger and attack, abandonment, excitement… but primarily I’d like to think that risk invites a response of trust. Trust in a Spirit of God who will always enliven, always draw toward truth. In the cry of the Psalmist, the present experience is being enlivened by the dynamic of the Spirit of God. And in the cry we have to God, we open ourselves to the larger experience of our being in God. And, yes, if there is no reference to Scripture or tradition, then there may be even greater risk. But experience itself is not contained by doctrine but enriching of it. We must take the risks if we are to live. And risk acknowledges our vulnerability and our frailty and people, and calls us to life anyway.

I wonder how the year will unfold, what creative adventure will be before us! I look forward to sharing the journey with you, and as a community exploring the way forward. I hope you can put February 21 in your diary, for our first community conversation of 2010, where we can explore the creative journey before us.