Dear Congregation,
Our watchword for August is found in Mk 9,50:
Have salt within yourselves and live at peace with each other!
These words Jesus speaks to his audience after reminding the listeners that salt which has lost its taste is useless, and will be thrown away. We know that salt is a preservative, used over the centuries to ward off decay and rot. Discord and strife, of all sorts, is another kind of rot that destroys human relationships and sets people up against one another. Rot of relationships can only be countered by having “salt within us”, by having the remedy not applied unto the physical body, but upon the psychological and spiritual body, which entertains and maintains both the
relationships and either the salt or the rot of strife and discord.
It is part of life in the real world that we, being different in temperament and interests, vested and otherwise, have differences of opinion from our brothers and sisters. It simply cannot be otherwise, unless we were mindless clones of one another. The important question is: How do we deal with our differences! Having “salt within” could mean that we resolve that we will be respectful of one another’s differences, both in regard to the person that bears the opinion and in the substance of the opinion. We could also make an effort to first understand what the other person is trying to say (careful listening and confirming that my understanding
is indeed correct), before expecting the other person to listen to me. I
could also make sure that I have been understood correctly by asking questions regarding what I have just said. Now we are ready to talk to each other without misunderstanding one another before we even started! Careful analysis may show that we have more in common than we have differences. And on the real differences we might just agree to differ or even find a pragmatic way of dealing with them. “Have salt within yourselves!”

Kind regards,
Pastor Peter

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s
special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called
you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”