Eremos

This issue has much food for thought—and fodder for feeling. On the centre pages, in a meditation on flood, drought and fire and the hope expressed in the Noah story, George Emeleus explores our front cover image of a stained glass window in Sydney’s Great Synagogue. Victoria and Queensland have experienced flood and fire first-hand this year, and as time passes the task of recovery takes its toll on country and grieving people. Poets Anne Elvey and Jeremy Nelson follow this meditation with reflections on, respectively, the ‘tracks of living’ we contemplate on our hands (in Crisp Air), and the gift of the Child to which we must return (in A Song for Epiphany). Acceptance, resilience and remembrance of promise are all ingredients of necessary hope.

But to begin at the beginning, Hedley Beare sets the mood by looking through a glass not so much darkly as clearly, questioning the extent to which we always take the opportunity to do this when offered. David Ranson then examines paradox and how we are challenged by its truth and transformed when we welcome it. Peter Willis extols what may eventually become the ancient art of letter writing and writes warmly of the friendship he enjoys through it. William Emilsen outlines the marks of what the gospel is, and what the gospel is not, as he ponders a statement in the New Testament’s 2 Timothy: 2.8.

In a personal sharing of his own life experience, Greg Latemore recounts the failing powers of his ageing mother, and what he knows it means for him but can only guess what it means to her. Bruce Wilson reviews Hedley Beare’s latest book, God-in-the-Present-Moment: Prayer in the 21st Century, and Phillipa Leonard writes about the recent Eremos retreat at Bundeena in Sydney’s Royal National Park. Finally, a well-travelled and well-read Sue Emeleus contributes her column on books.

In the movie, The Reader, the lecturer asks his class: ‘Does a book change with every reader?’ He answers himself with a resounding ‘Yes’. And so it is with Eremos magazine. What you bring to it from your own faith experience sparks a creative dialogue which at its best inspires deeper thought and feeling. I hope each contribution in this issue has that effect on you, but even if just a few do, or only one does, the magazine will have been worthwhile. Your comments and feedback are very welcome.

Content is the most important part of any publication but the magazine’s livery—or layout—impacts upon the mood in which you open and read it.  Eremos was very blessed in 1991 in having Peter and Jan Campbell, of CampbellBarnett design studio, set up the elegant architecture of its pages. I have used their design up until now with software which finally progressed beyond its use-by date. This issue is the first I have produced with a new, up-to-date program—a necessary change as old hardware collapsed. I hope I have preserved the magazine’s visual identity so precisely that you won’t notice the difference.

Jacquie Pryor