We have moved into the period of Lent. This season of repentance, reflection and preparation shapes us as people as we look ahead to Easter. It is a subdued and somewhat introspective period in the church year and leads us into examining ourselves and our personal perspectives.

A week or so ago I was given a copy of a new book – a collection of essays addressing the Moral Case for the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It is titled ‘Statements from the Soul’. The contributors write from faith perspectives and do so with passion and energy. 

In the opening essay Stan Grant, journalist, and activist, reflects on his experience of hearing his uncle preach and out of that on the place of suffering and the way that God is present. He comments, ‘Those who profess love of Christ yet turn a deaf ear to the cries of the forsaken must surely ask what their faith is for’ (page 28). 

Writers affirm again and again that the language of the Statement from the Heart is invitational and relational.  It invites a unity and compassionate embrace of the other, that is only possible as we recognise the extent of dispossession and its generational impact. Such a reality invites us into listening to the suffering of the other, being repentant and longing for forgiveness.

I commend this book to you for your Lenten reading. Take time to allow each writer’s contribution to speak into what is means to long for an Australia where the pain and hurt of so many years is, in time, healed and we are all renewed.  

Rev. John Gilmore

President