I woke up this morning with two images my friend and colleague Alan shared with me yesterday.

Oasis is like the dome-covering outside the Adelaide Entertainment Centre that gives shelter to the guests as they come and go, or mill around as groups gathering before or after the show.

In my mind, I see the dome complementing the centre; it adds to the experience of the big night out inside the centre itself.

Alan pointed out that the Oasis Team are like the posts that hold up the shelter, each grounded in their faith tradition.

I’m thinking that the dome could be held up by hot air balloons! We’ve had a few of those that come and go, a bit like the ultra-nationalist pro-Brexit campaigners! But what is more enduring in the long run, I think, has to have passed the tests of history.

The second.
The university may be like a car-making plant – if one part is making the chassis, another the body, the electronics, the painting and so forth, Oasis is like the engine. Without an engine, the car doesn’t go anywhere, unless you’re prepared to push it! As our colleagues at MoTiv in Delft identified some time ago, motivation is at the heart of both the creative process of universities and within the nature of religion and spirituality.

Advances in technology make car-making and the car itself more efficient.

Oasis is at the stage it is at because it has adapted to changing contexts and is still exploring new technologies, as it were, that respond to new contexts of spiritual sustenance.

I wonder what images spark your imagination?