From the Chaplains

This week was a sad one as we remembered the three boarders, Alanda (Lans) Clark, Jane Gay and Prudence (Prue) Papworth, who lost their lives tragically in a plane crash in 1993 over the June long weekend. This year marked the 30-year anniversary of their deaths, and so we held a Chapel service on Tuesday evening with Boarders, ex-Boarders, family and friends. It was a beautiful remembrance and made one realise the comforting presence of God amid our troubles and grief.

Today we celebrated World Oceans Day and, besides wearing blue, challenged our staff and students to think carefully about the waters that surround us as an Island nation. Oceans and the depths teeming with life and habitat for so many creatures that often are at the plight of human choices, made in selfishness and with greed.

We spoke about the positive outcomes around nude foods vs plastics, the wider impact on the environment of rubbish in the ocean, the life cycle of whales and other majestic beings threatened and violated in the name of human existence. We reflected on how water is in our blood and gives us breath, and on the Christian sacrament of baptism perhaps likened to other rituals of initiation, performed with water and symbolising dying to our sin and rising again in Christ.

When we consider the handiwork of our Creator God, we wonder and respect, treating carefully and with consideration that which we have been endowed with. We listen to the wisdom of First Nations elders and their care of the water and its nurturing spirit.

Here is the Call to Worship we used in Chapel where we invited the oceans and all its beings to worship with us.  May the blessing of an almost end of term mean rest is to come and family hopefully nurtured, and in all of the complexities of life, may we be generous and giving as our Heavenly Father and Mother is. This call to worship was from a Uniting Church liturgical resource:

The deep sea currents and coral reefs, the mountain peaks on the ocean floor.

All: We call the swirling seas to celebrate with us.

The icebergs that break off from the South Pole, the calm waters that caress the equator.

All: We join all ocean life in songs of praise.

Whales and dolphins dancing on the surface, and choirs of angel fish assembled below.

All: We summon the seashore to magnify the Lord,

The pelican, the stingray, the silver gull,

All: the white caps and waves that splash in praise.

Oceans, seas and watery deeps,

All: Celebrate with all that lives within you,

and roar in praise with us today.

All: Roar, ocean, roar! Roar, roar in praise.

Reverend Punam Bent

College Chaplain