From dream to reality
“Sorry, I can’t speak with you right now. Please leave a message …”
It was the third time in a week that we’d tried to catch each other, and still no luck.
It seemed like even a chat by phone wasn’t going to work, let alone an hour for a coffee and a chance to debrief our lives. It was really more sad than frustrating. The “tyranny of the urgent” seemed to have crept into every part of our lives and I wasn’t sure that it was an improvement at all.
The realisation that this is normal for most of us was very sobering for me. How could we reclaim times of sharing — the glad and the bad of trying to balance husbands, kids, jobs, homes, school, sport, sickness, time for ourselves. Regular times filled with laughter, fun, advice, encouragement and support with friends who understand. Women are good at this — we love it, we look forward to it, but we just don’t have time.
My dream, for many years, has been to build that sense of belonging and acceptance amongst the women of Pittwater Uniting Church (PUC), a unity and community, a ‘one-ness’ across all the congregations. We experience it each year at our retreat and wish that it could continue afterwards. Was there a way that we could get to know each other more deeply without having to add more meetings to already overfull lives?
At the beginning of last year I drafted a vision for a Shimmer online magazine that would, through providing articles of excellence:
- Create a unity and community for the women of PUC across the ages.
- Foster a sense of caring and belonging by offering teaching and testimony from women in our church.
- Build faith and trust through honest sharing.
- Provide a forum for using the creative gifts of women in PUC.
- Continue to advocate for our sisters in need around the globe.
- Play a part in fulfilling the vision of Shimmer to inspire women to reflect God’s heart and release God’s radiance, beauty and power in our lives to change our world.
A magazine could draw us together without being a time/management burden.
All we needed was someone with a passionate heart and editorial gifting to lead a team that could bring the dream to reality. I’m thrilled that Emma Watson is that person, and that she has drawn a team of gifted women around her.
My prayer is that this magazine will play a looked-forward-to part in building the sister community that we dream of at PUC. And that you will all feel free to contribute for consideration by the editor anything that you think might encourage others.
