Paul Clark column Christmas 2023

In January 2020 I was holidaying in New Zealand, oblivious, like the rest of the world, to what we were about to face.

Who could have foreseen it? All the things that we thought were relegated to history, repeating – pandemic, European war, inflation – and now we add a Middle Eastern crisis to the mix.

I can see why so many are turning off the news. It can be overwhelming and depressing. This news platform is one I can commend.

When the news ‘out there’ gets hard, you need good news close to home. You need healthy, strong community around you.

On this website, you’ll find lots of opportunities to find community. Grab hold of those opportunities.

As we head to the Christmas season, I also desperately hang onto the fact that it was in the conflicted Middle East, to a minority people suffering oppression, that a defenceless, vulnerable baby was born, to an unmarried couple who were couch surfing.

Yet kings came from the East to worship him and declare him the Prince of Peace. I find it so powerful that God sought to transform our world not by becoming a King, but by becoming a child. I’ll follow that lead.

Merry Christmas. 

Paul Clark is a Minister at Redcliffe Uniting Church