麻豆约拍

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Bishop David Walker

Good Morning.

The week between Christmas and New Year is a strange one. Many people have worked through at least part of these last few days, ensuring essential services, from hospitals to helplines, remain functioning. Others have staggered back into work, enjoying only the briefest of breaks, to restore public transport, staff leisure facilities, and to throw open the doors of shops and stores for what now begins far too early to still be designated as 鈥淛anuary Sales鈥�. In most years, for people like me, whose working lives revolve around meetings, these days are blissfully devoid of diary dates. Yet for others, especially those forced to spend them away from friends and family, they can number among the loneliest days of the year.

This week highlights the very different pressures we face in our distinct walks of life. In so doing, it invites us to imagine ourselves in others鈥� shoes, to recognise that our experience of Christmas is only partial. It challenges us to find empathy with those who are unlike ourselves. It draws me to think of those serving overseas in military service, of prisoners, separated from their families, as penalty for their crimes, of patients too sick to be discharged from hospital, of refugees seeking sanctuary far from their native country, and of those who dwell in care and nursing homes.

And such empathy calls me to prayer.

Heavenly Father, I hold before you those whose last few days have been very different from mine. Those who will end this week tired after demanding work, or depressed by days of isolation. Those who long to see loved ones, and those separated by distance or duty. May your love reach out to embrace them, even where that love is not known or recognised.

Amen.