MSIA Minister, Margaret Sinclair New, reached the age of 100 in August of 2019.\u00a0 Age-wise, she is the oldest living MSIA Minister.\u00a0 Margaret was born on the 10th of August of 1919.\u00a0 She was ordained on the 23rd of August of 1995, at the age of 76.<\/p>\n
Here is an impromptu interview taken from conversations at Margaret\u2019s 100th<\/sup> birthday celebration attended by Paget Aisling, Nathalie Franks, Isabel New (Margaret\u2019s daughter), Lars Forsberg and Sam Westmacott.\u00a0\u00a0Isabel asked Margaret what it’s like to be the oldest MSIA Minister and have your oldest birthday.\u00a0 She laughed, and then said what is below.<\/p>\n Q: How did you come to be involved with MSIA?<\/strong><\/p>\n Margaret:<\/strong>\u00a0 I became interested in joining MSIA after reading books given to me by my daughter (Isabel New).\u00a0 Subsequently I went to an MSIA Open Seminar\/Open House event. Somebody, who I\u2019ve never seen again since, asked me how long had I been in MSIA.\u00a0 I replied, \u2018I\u2019m not a member but my husband has just died and I can\u2019t come to a decision because he didn\u2019t subscribe to religious activities\/spiritual teachings.\u2019\u00a0 This man replied \u2018But you are on your own now and you should come to your own decision about it and not be influenced by that.\u2019\u00a0 From that, I came to the conclusion that I was only hanging back because of what my late husband said about my daughter, \u2018she\u2019ll get you in the end.\u2019<\/p>\n I decided to involve myself so that I could make an informed decision for myself \u2013 and went onto Discourses.\u00a0 Subsequently, a PAT I became available and I made the decision to participate as I saw it as an opportunity to explore the Teachings further and to get to know the people better.<\/p>\n Q:\u00a0 I think you\u2019ve told me before that PAT I was instrumental in you becoming a Minister. Can you explain to us what happened there?<\/strong><\/p>\n Margaret:<\/strong>\u00a0 Early on, another participant at the training made a bee-line for me and I immediately felt a deep connection and overwhelming desire to help her and meet her needs.\u00a0 During the course of the week, I was also partnered at one time with a lady who was herself experiencing considerable emotional distress.\u00a0 Once again, I felt moved to comfort her.\u00a0 Later, I was partnered with another lady with whom I had a deep intellectual rapport.\u00a0 As a consequence of these three quite different encounters, I experienced a great sense of belonging and empathy with the values that I saw being expressed.\u00a0 I was aware that I was learning something about myself, and I felt moved to participate further and discover more.<\/p>\n Before the week ended Paul Hunting, who was assisting, approached me and asked me why I was not a Minister.\u00a0 I explained that I had not long been in the Movement and hadn\u2019t yet received my first initiation.\u00a0 And he said \u2018You should be a Minister.\u2019\u00a0 I was surprised that:<\/p>\n So I continued to work with myself until the opportunity presented itself for me to be ordained, which happened in 1995 at the One Accord Training in Brighton.\u00a0 Paul Kaye was the one who ordained me.<\/p>\n Q:\u00a0 So in the 24 years since you became a Minister what do you think it means to you now?<\/strong><\/p>\n Margaret:<\/strong>\u00a0 The opportunity to help, support and nourish other people.\u00a0 Whereas in the past I may have engaged with people by virtue of an established relationship or my role with that person, once I became a Minister I found that the opportunities to serve other people increased:\u00a0 more people seemed to seek me out and, that part of my nature which is giving, grew as a consequence and my own spirit was nourished.\u00a0\u00a0 As I nourished others, so I was nourished \u2013 I think its called karma.<\/p>\n Q:\u00a0 You\u2019ve recently had a milestone birthday \u2013 in fact you\u2019re the oldest MSIA Minister on the planet at the present time.\u00a0 How do you feel about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Margaret:\u00a0<\/strong> It\u2019s only really now that I\u2019ve reached 100 that I can appreciate it\u2019s actually quite a long time.\u00a0 When I was living it, time didn\u2019t seem to have the same significance (as when I look back on it).\u00a0 I have done more looking back as a consequence of being 100, and have seen that life has had its testing times.\u00a0 But they were overshadowed by the love and support I\u2019ve received from my family and many friends, both in MSIA and elsewhere, through the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MSIA Minister, Margaret Sinclair New, reached the age of 100 in August of 2019.\u00a0 Age-wise, she is the oldest living MSIA Minister.\u00a0 Margaret was born on the 10th of August of 1919.\u00a0 She was ordained on the 23rd of August of 1995, at the age of 76. Here is an impromptu interview taken from conversations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":109314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,5397,257],"tags":[89,1364,115],"class_list":["post-109306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-ministry-in-action","category-ndh-archives","tag-msia","tag-service","tag-spirit"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n