Human - Pastor's Pen for 1st November 2026

Doing a loop walk in the National Park at St. Clair Lake in central Tasmania, we came across a trail commemorating the Big River tribal group (Larmairremener), their traditional lifeways and their struggle against the British colonisers. When their much diminished group finally trudged into Hobart in 1831, rather than the 'peace and plenty' they were promised, they received transportation and exile to Flinders Island, far from their ancestral lands.

Ethnic cleansing seems to be how Empire operates through the centuries, that and deliberately dislodging people from their homes. We see it in our own times, as West Bank villagers have their water diverted and their olive harvests burned by Israeli settlers, among other indignities and violence.

The majority Christian village of Taybeh has dwindled in population by more than half since the 1980s, as people desperately seek to emmigrate somewhere safer.

There is a better way of being human than the way of discrimination, hate and violence. It is the way of peace that Jesus taught; "Healer of Galilee, you come again and again to permeate our human condition; to take upon yourself all that hurts us." (Peter Millar)

May we, in our small ways, be bringers of Jesus' hope and shalom for the depressed, displaced and distressed in our neighborhood.