On Monday and Tuesday I was lucky enough to be at St Clements Retreat, Galong, just outside of Harden. The focus of the retreat was the virtues of faith, hope and love. Specifically the scripture from 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NRSVCEE) 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

We were blessed with warm weather to start with and then a cold snap that added to the quiet and peaceful nature of the experience. Most importantly we had time. Time to read, time to reflect, time to focus on scripture, time to talk about our own faith journey.

There were several moments of encounter for me. As is often the case, it is very hard to describe what happened and how profoundly it affected me but I did get to create my own definitions for faith, hope and love. In my humble opinion…

Faith... isn’t a constant state of belief but rather a sort of faithfulness, a loyalty to the moments we have had faith.

Hope…knowing that the symphony of our lives is yet unfinished.

Love… the proof of love is innate in our very existence because we are created in the image of God and God is love.

May you find faith, hope and love in your everyday experiences.

God bless,