Dear Friends of Eastern Europe Renewal:

The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

Here is a short report on the time in England.

Alastair Gordon, the UCCF worker with Arts students in London proved a very gracious and generous host for a weekend in London. Ally is a painter and took me round to museums and galleries. In the Tate Modern we began an ongoing discussion on "self-referentialism" and "other-referentialism" in art, society, Theology and the animal kingdom. These terms are growing in my mind as very useful ways to express a fundamental polarity in reality. Our cultures seem to me to be moving in the direction of a pervading self-referentialism, concentrating on authenticating and expressing myself in terms of myself. The character of God and the nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ seem to be in the opposite direction. This is discussed in my lectures called "The Three Circles". Now there is a new way of expressing things and relating them to the art world. Many thanks to God and to Ally for this very worthwhile weekend in London.

Sunday evening Ally and I drove down to L'Abri in Hampshire, where Marsh Moyle of SEN in Bratislava and I did a week of team teaching. At first the students were rather uneasy and critical partly because they were not hearing things they expected to hear. After a couple of days, we adjusted to each other and many had a very profitable time. It was a joy to be in a L'Abri community and environment again. A great variety of people are deeply blessed there. At the Friday evening public lecture I could give the lecture on Preisner's "Requiem for my friend" called "Music faces death". It is basically a guided listening. We had a rich time together and I became more convinced of the value of this composition.

All during this time I had an infection in my jaw and needed a bit of emergency oral surgery the day after getting home to remove a pea-size abscess and one of 3 roots from a molar. Now I have stitches in my mouth and a bad cold and am trying to get in shape for flying to Ljubljana on Sunday. Thank you if you remember to pray about this. I am trusting God to provide the money to pay for the surgery.

May the Lord bless and keep you.

Yours in Christ,

Ellis

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Copyright © 2006 Ellis Potter.