Dear Members
Next year 2012 Eremos Institute reaches an important milestone as it celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. This period of time has been one of rapid change in our culture, which if anything, sees an increase in spirituality within the context of a complex multicultural Australia.
The Eremos Council wants to celebrate this achievement while taking the opportunity to imagine the future. As we plan we are looking for feedback about how best to do that within our resources and in ways to maximise participation by members. We welcome your responses, interest, and an indication if are interested to volunteer some time and skills to help shape this event or series of events. Specifically, we need a chairperson for the 30th Anniversary event/s and a team of to assist. Are you in a position to take on the role of chairperson for this project? Or be part of a team? Living in Sydney is not a prerequisite. Please indicate your interest to Kate Scholl in being part of such a project…. The Eremos Council meets on 17th November and would appreciate feedback to Kate by 16th November.
If you have any ideas you’d like to offer, please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments below.
Congratulations to all who have contributed to almost 30 years of dialogue, inspiration, shared learning and values with and through Eremos. To celebrate, I would love to see a conference or “moveable feast” around Australia that focuses on the relevance of the sacred to some of the big issues of our time: how would our thinking and priorities change if we could truly see life as sacred – and view our human family as intimately interdependent? I’d also love to see us discuss the question publicly: “What good is God?” in order to restate and reclaim what IS good (connecting, supportive, transforming – even enlightening) in religious or spiritual life, as well as what is positively transformative about a relationship to life that is centred in God. While religion and “God” are the source of horror for many, or just irrelevant, these are themes that I believe have the potential to change for the better how we think and live. I raise many of them in my book, Seeking the Sacred. Looking forward to a fruitful time of discussion and sharing!
Stephanie Dowrick, writer. Also Interfaith Minister at Pitt Street Uniting. http://www.stephaniedowrick.com e: uhn@stephaniedowrick.com
‘Life as sacred’ and ‘what good is God?’ are brilliant theme ideas.. Thank you Stephanie! I agree that these kinds of conversations can be transformative in terms of our everyday practices. My name is also Stephanie and I have recently come on board as Events and Development Officer for Eremos. Apologies for the (2 month!!) delay in approving your generous response to this post! I’m not sure who is receiving the notifications of comments posted to this blog but we’ll iron out the kinks asap. Thanks again for your thoughts and encouragement.
Lovely to meet you yesterday evening Stephanie – and now this appears. I think we are destined to dialogue!! Would love to have some of these kinds of discussions/events supported. I think a good number from my congregation (broadly) would be interested. Stay in touch!!
It seems a good idea to celebrate. Eremos has lasted longer than imagined, and done marvellous things in all that time. I do thank you all on the Council.for your leadership.
I don’t really have any bright ideas as yet – but my thoughts are it would be great to have a meeting/weekend surrounded by desert, wilderness, or at least some non-urban Australian scenery. Perhaps Rob Brennan would be able to suggest somewhere he has seen on one of his trips? Central Australia springs to mind of course – the Campfire of the Heart place? it would be more equitable in terms of distance for all but the Alice Springs members, not too Sydney based, but maybe for the same reason the costs might be prohibitive to too many people.
There is a large modern conference centre at Hill End now, and then there is the place at Mudgee that Val Webb’s daughter manages….do others know of good places in natural scenery where we could get together? Linda Turton
Yes! Let’s celebrate
Hi Linda, Stephanie here… thank you for your ideas. Central Australia would be beautiful, but as you say perhaps too costly for many people. There are a few retreats in the works already for this year… some nearer to Sydney and possibly one in Bathurst. We’ll add Mudgee in to the pot of ideas too and see how we go.Thank you so much for replying to this post. Sorry it’s taken so long for your comment to go live. We’re still getting the hang of this blog blog blog… Eremos blog… here we go blogging! 
Congratulations and many thanks to all who have contributed to the shelf on my bookcase where I hold my treasured copies of the Eremos Newsletter. I began my subscription with issue 28 and the newsletter has followed me from Melbourne to Papua New Guinea and then settled with me in Brisbane. Soime copies I know are still unread and others are well thumbed. I have just opened that very first edition I received back in 1989 to read the editorial by Colin Alcock. Colin writes of the enigmatic need for the “normal” people to become “sick” in solidarity with the values of community and spirituality. and here we are 30 + years later where in popular parlance among some young people ‘sick” is the word for good and cool!!! The cover of this edition is William Blake’s “Humanity Asleep”, which remains a haunting and challenging image of our world overwhelmed by exploitation of land and peoples. So my hope and gift for this anniversary year is to write something for the newsletter that has nurtured the spirit of life in me for so many years.
Tony
Great to hear about your journey with Eremos, thanks Tony! Looking forward to reading your anniversary gift to the Eremos magazine! -Stephanie