Gum trees, bush fire and a resilient faith

Tender shoots of fresh gum leaves are beginning to sprout on the blackened trunks of the trees after the bushfires.

The burnt and ashen native forest is transforming itself from wild terror to a green and renewed strand of life.

I am driving along the Pacific Highway just north of Newcastle. In parts, the bush is showing both its amazing recovery from fires last year and the signs of torture amid the flames that raced through the area — scorched and twisted road signs, black tree trunks, blistered branches and leaves.

There is something remarkable about the Australian bush, how it regenerates after fire. Gum tree and banksia somehow endure the scorching heat and instinctively know how to grow again.

There are even some kinds of native flora that require a bushfire for seed pods to open, enabling seeds to drop into the charcoal-enriched soil and produce a new generation of plants.

Christian preachers often use the charred gum tree sprouting shoots as an illustration for new life. That's all right as far as it goes. But maybe there is more to be drawn from this special attribute of the eucalyptus.

Quite clearly the trees I saw did not die in the fiery torment. But they were tested, disfigured, scorched. They are wonderfully resilient.

In some ways our situation as Christians in our society seems under a test. Times are changing and many of the things once taken for granted have passed away. Different labels have been given to this process, like "post modernism", "generation X", "the information age" and so on.

So, Christianity is changing — or at least how it is expressed and understood — but it's far from dead.

The substance of our common faith may be the same but as we look into the Christianity of our new millennium we will see a faith not so much organised around the institutional church, organised worship or even designated leaders.

Quite simply, the experiment we know as "the church" is profoundly changing — and we just don't know yet how faith in Jesus will be revealed in the future.

This sort of change calls for resilience; resilience but not blind rejection of what is happening around us. A resilient faith allows us to "keep growing in our faith" through an openness to what is happening around us, even if it is challenging and, at times, threatening.

Much is made of the return to nostalgia — like the re-appearance of the VW bug, the miracle of an Elvis song hitting the top of the charts ("A little less conversation") and the sudden re-discovery of "mashed potatoes" by top chefs.

But notice how each of these icons of the past comes with significant modifications — they are redesigned, re-styled or mixed with new ingredients. It's old stuff done in a new way.

Our modern faith calls for resilience. God is doing a new thing and it's not to be missed. Just look at the gum tree after fire — putting forth new shoots, growing a new future, but always with the blackened growth rings to recall the past.

PS: Since this reflection was written bushfire has engulfed Canberra and surrounding regions. Maybe more fires will hit other areas. This underlines all the more our vulnerability as humans. For families now recovering after loss in such fires, be assured the whole Uniting Church is praying alongside you as the fragile new, green shoots of recovery and resilience begin to grow.

Kim Cain is Media Officer for the Victorian Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia.