The news received on Friday of the events at Pericoe last week came as a terrible shock to all of us.
This incident will affect each of us in lots of different ways.
As I contemplated this news, I considered how our relationships with other people, and our own self image, are so fragile and if handled in inappropriate ways can cause much pain to others and ourselves.
As a committed Christian, I read in the Bible that God is deeply concerned about the way we handle relationships.
One of the meetings of Jesus with a teacher of the Jewish Law is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In this meeting, the teacher is trying to justify his way of understanding the Law and tries to get Jesus to justify his understanding.
He asks Jesus to name the most important of all the commandments. Jesus sees through this bloke and sums up the Law in the following statements.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength....Love your neighbour as you love yourself."
The Bible teaches that we can only have right relationships with others and a right self-image if our relationship with God Almighty is right.
At this difficult time let each of us consider the basis on which we have a relationship with God, others and ourselves.