Synod 2018
The opening sermon by pastor
Emanuele Fiume, based on
Isaiah 59, accusing us all, indi-
vidually and collectively, of not
being truly faithful to the Word
and not prepared to speak up
when politics turn unsavoury,
set the tone for the whole week.
The Waldensian Church pro-
claimed itself a welcoming one,
and thus discussed the under-
lying issue of not just rescuing
migrants at sea, but integrating
the newcomers into Italian Soci-
ety and, if they are Christians, into our Church communities. Once again the
Pope sent the Moderator a letter signed in his own hand assuring the Synod
that he would be praying for them and asking everyone to pray for him.
Waldensian Day 2019
Wesley Church, Cambridge 23 February 2019
The first talk, From Fact to Film to Faith, was a commemoration of Stephen
Hawking, the most famous Cambridge person of recent times, a year after his
death, as told by his first wife Jane in a very poetic and moving way.
Stephen and Jane met on 1 January 1963 when she had just left school,
in St Albans where they both lived, and neither of them could have foreseen
that soon after, aged 21, he would be stricken by what was then an unknown
illness and given less than two years to live; he would outlive the prognosis
by 55 years. Nor too that he would be the father of their three children, would
become the youngest member ever of the Royal Society, receive the highest
honour from the Queen, adulation worldwide and would end up buried in
Westminster Abbey between Newton and Darwin. Who could have foreseen
that their story would become a film?
When, after publishing the best-selling A Brief History of Time, Stephen
became famous, Jane felt that she had to write their real story because she
was the only one who knew the whole truth. She also needed to unburden
herself of everything she had undergone during 30 years of marriage to a
person progressively less and less independent and physically disintegrating.
This was particularly so when their marriage started crumbling. Above all,
though, she felt she had to speak up and reveal the horrors of motor neurone
disease for the affected person and everyone living with him or her.
2