Observing a two minutes silence on November 11th?

This is an interesting article from the London Evening Standard:

Two-minute silence ‘very important’

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23767234-two-minute-silence-very-important.do

The British public overwhelmingly believes that observing a two-minute silence to remember fallen troops on Armistice Day is still important, a survey revealed today.

Research for the Royal British Legion found that 80% of adults felt it was “very important” to continue maintaining the silence and another 14% said it was “fairly important”.

Support for the silence was nearly universal among those aged 35 to 44, at 99%.

Younger people are almost as likely to observe the silence as the older generation – 74% of those aged 16 to 24 said they were certain or very likely to fall silent at 11am tomorrow, compared with 76% of those aged 65 and over.

Stuart Gendall, the Legion’s director of corporate communications, said: “The results show an astonishing support for the silence, but perhaps not so astonishing when set against the terrible cost of conflict this year in Afghanistan.

“The silence is now as much about the Afghan generation as it is for the Armistice generation.”

The two-minute silence was first observed 90 years ago this year at the request of King George V.

It was held on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1919 to coincide with the signing of the Armistice which ended the First World War a year earlier.

The last three veterans of the 1914-18 conflict living in the UK – William Stone, 108, Henry Allingham, 113, and Harry Patch, 111 – all died this year.

The Legion has campaigned to have the two-minute silence restored to a more prominent place in remembrance ceremonies.

Tomorrow morning it is holding two events, in London’s Trafalgar Square and Swansea’s Castle Square, for those who want to observe the silence with other people.

* Ipsos-Mori surveyed 1,054 British adults aged 16 and over between November 6 and 8.

Do you agree it is important to keep a two minutes silence on November 11th as well as on Remembrance Sunday?

MCMXIV.

by Philip Larkin

(9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985)

Those long uneven lines

Standing as patiently

As if they were stretched outside

The Oval or Villa Park,

the crowns of hats, the sun

on moustached archaic faces

Grinning as if it were all

An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the  shut shops, the bleached

Established names on the sunblinds,

The farthings and sovereigns,

And dark-clothed children at play

Called after kings and queens,

The tin advertisements

For cocoa and twist, and the pubs

Wide open all day…

And the countryside not caring:

The pace names all hazed over

With flowering grasses, and fields

Shadowing Domesday lines

Under wheat’s restless silence;

The differently dressed servants

With tiny rooms in huge houses,

The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,

Never before or since,

As changed itself to past

Without a word..the men

Leaving the gardens tidy,

The thousands of marriages,

Lasting a little while longer:

Never such innocence again.

Kids talk for Remembrance Sunday

What you do is this.

Take the letters:

S

L

I

N

G

and ask those present how you might get from SLING ( an old fashioned weapon) to

P

E

A

C

E

by changing one letter at a time – AND with having a spare

T

at the ready.

One answer is:

SLING

SLANG

SLANT

PLANT

PLANE

PLACE

PEACE.

Good with Micah 4:

Introduction:

The prophet Micah lived in the later part of the 8^th Century BC.

He was from a country town in Judah, the southern Kingdom of the Jewish people. He was convinced that because his people had turned away from God, some kind of national disaster would strike.

But his words contained a lot of hope. He paints a picture of universal peace in Gods loving kingdom. A world where weapons such a swords and pears would be turned into ploughs and pruning hooks, useful tools, not weapons made for war. He paints the picture of a world where nations would not learn war anymore. Written 2,700 years ago – it carries a very modern message.

Verses from Micah  chapter Four:

The Lords Universal Reign of Peace

In the days to come God will settle disputes among the nations

Among the great powers near and far.

They will hamper their swords into ploughs

And their spears into pruning knives

Nations will never again go war,

Never prepare for battle again.

Everyone will live in peace

Among his own vineyards and fig trees

And no-one will make him afraid

The Lord Almighty God has promised this.

This is the word of The Lord.

Thanks Be To God.

A Sermon for Remembrance Sunday

Here, if it be of any interest to readers, is my draft sermon for Remembrance Sunday at Little Paxton Church. It is a mixture of ideas and thoughts from previous years, but including some valuable reserach which the late Derek Eyres from Little Paxton carried out last year just before he died. I hope the sermon may be of hope to those of you looking for some thoughts for this unique sunday. I must acknowledge that the reflection on Jesus’ encounter with Pilate came from another author some years ago – but I cannot now remember who.

I recently visted Madingley American Cemetery  and discovered that  around the  base of the flagpole the words are the words: “To you from failing hands we throw the torch – be yours to hold it high”.

You may know that those words come from one of the most  famous poems to emerge from World War I, namely “In Flanders Fields” written  by the Canadian physician John McCrae, who himself died while serving in a field hospital in Belgium.
“To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high”.
The poem continues:
“If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

And so it has always seemed incredibly important to me to honour this day of Remembrance in ways that are sincere, reverent and which always try to make sense of the suffering that millions of individuals and communities went through and go through who are caught up in war.

The thing that strikes me about the Madingley Cemetery is the  size of it and the large numbers of young men it  honours. It was established in 1943 and is the only USA WW11 burial ground in England. There are 3,812 American military buried there  each with a white cross marking their place and on the wall running from the entrance to the chapel are inscribed the names of 5,126 Americans who died but whose remains were never found.

Most of these died in the Battle of the Atlantic or in the strategic air bombardment of Northwest Europe during World War II. Along the Wall are four statues representing a Soldier, a Sailor, an Airman and a Coast Guard in their typical uniforms and weapons.

If you stand and look at the crosses you can imagine that each represents a young person – some were very young- who had lived and breathed and had hopes and fears just like us. When we reflect on the huge numbers of civilians and military personal who were killed in the two wars of the last century it can feel impossible to begin to conceive  of all the suffering physical and emotional and mental that people went through. There are so many stories of bravery that could be told of those who lived through the wars of the 20^th century – and those who didn’t make it. But how today can we make sense of the vast amount of suffering and indeed the ongoing suffering of those caught up in modern day wars?

In the weeks before he died in December of last year, Derek Eyres did some extensive research into the lives of  some of those who died from our local communities. One was Rifleman Samuel Irons. Sam as he was known, was born into the Irons family in Diddington and brought up by an aunt in Eynesbury. He was an old soldier, having served in the Boer War. He was on reserve for five years until 1913 and then worked at Little Paxton papermills. In 1912 he married Mill Lillian Ashpole from Little Paxton  but when war broke out in 1914 Sam, who had already served his country with much bravery,  rejoined his old regiment the 2^nd battalion, The Kings Royal Rifle Corps.

In May 1915 he wrote to his wife:

My dearest wife,

I am keeping quite well  and hope all at home are the same.

We are in trenches again and only 50-80 yards off the Germans. Our fellows could hear them singing in the morning as plain as anything. Of course they keep firing at us all the time and we let them have something back you may be sure.

My thoughts are always about you and wondering if you are keeping well. I suppose the things are looking nice at home now and I hope you will have a good crop of potatoes, as I know things are very dear at home. You must go out as much as possible and enjoy yourself. We are having some lovely weather here again now but all the same I would rather be at home with you. Of course we know some of us must be out here or we should have those bounders over in England. May God keep you and protect you from all harm. Your loving  husband, Sam.

On May 31^st 1915 – just days after he wrote that letter, Sam was killed in action and was buried in Woburn Abbey Cemetery in Calais.

Rifleman Arthur Withey wrote to Mrs Irons:

I am sorry to have to inform you that I was present at the time of your husband’s death if you have not heard from the war office that he was killed on May 31^st. I am glad to say he died a true and brave death and did not suffer any pain. I send all his comrades’ deepest sympathy as he was very much liked in the company. Hoping that God will give you health and strength in your sad bereavement. I was requested by Sam if anything should happen to him to let you know.

Rifleman Withey himself died in action on 16^th January 1918.

These brief but touching insights into the all too human stories of bravery and grief were   repeated millions of times over during the major conflicts of the last century – and just as tragically are being repeated day after day as young men and women are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Watching films can one of the way to bring truth home and recently I watched a film called Jarhead - portraying war mainly as waiting for something to happen.

The film is set in the Gulf War of 1991, and it’s about Marines( called jarheads)  doing their tour of duty in the desert. What you remember from it is the bafflement of those young men trying to make sense of going to war ‘in a country they don’t understand against an enemy they can’t see for a cause they don’t fully fathom’.  You feel the disorientating effects of the relentless heat and the vast lonely desert spaces, and that strange alchemy that I guess only fighting men and women know: the boredom, the tension, the fear as the waiting goes on and on, the sudden rush when the action finally erupts.

At the end of 1916, the year of the Battle of the Somme  the poet Robert Graves looked back on his experiences as a soldier.  It’s much the same as Jarhead, only foggy, cold and wet.  ‘This is a dreary flat place… with the intolerable boredom of mess and not enough work to do, and people waiting their turn to go out again.  No one is at his best here… The year is dying of atrophy… and the war is settling down on everyone – a hopeless, never-shifting burden.  While newspapers and politicians yell and brandish their arms, the dead rot in their French graves, and the maimed hobble about the streets.’

The question is, and always has been, what meaning attaches to the lives and experiences of men and women in war, caught up in huge impersonal forces over which they have so little control?   what meaning attaches to their deaths?

‘What passing bells for those who die like cattle?’ wrote another soldier-poet Wilfred Owen – not to insult his fellow soldiers whom he loved dearly, but to point out that when slaughter is relentless and indiscriminate, we need to give even more value to each individual, recognise the humanity of each as someone’s parent, someone’s child, someone’s sibling, colleague and friend.

Remembrance Sunday focuses very sharply this contrast between the terrible and merciless forces of armed conflict and the lives and destinies of the individual human beings who are caught up in them.  And this is one way of reading the final week of Jesus’ life as he endures the ordeals of his passion and goes to his death on the cross.

Thinking about his last week we can glimpse how he too was the victim of huge impersonal forces beyond any one human being’s ultimate control.

The encounter between Christ and Pilate in St John’s Gospel is one of the great scenes not only of the Bible but in all literature.  In it two world-views collide head-on: two empires, two cities, two kinds of power.  There is the Reich Pilate stands for, established through violence, the force of arms and imperial hegemony; and there is the kingdom of Jesus that is ‘not from this world’ but is based on the truth he has come to bear witness to.

There is no meeting between these two cities, and there is never any doubt as to the outcome in Jesus’ case.  He dies as the victim of what human beings do to one another without end.  Yet for St John, death is Jesus’ destiny.  It is not quite as we had thought, that Jesus is the helpless victim.  Far from it. It is rather that death is his chosen path.

He has power to lay down his life, he says, and power to take it up again.  Indeed, the person on trial in our reading is not Jesus at all.  It’s Pilate, and the world-order he represents.  And Jesus’ decision to walk the path of suffering and embrace death is precisely the source of his authority and his kingship.  It is how he bears witness to the truth.  Which is why, at the cross, he is able to cry out in triumph, ‘It is accomplished!’

Living and dying purposefully – isn’t that at the heart of our observance today?  When we see on thousands of war memorials the names of the fallen beneath the words of Jesus, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’, we are face to face with the wish, the belief, that somehow, apparently pointless avoidable suffering can be given meaning by associating it with the purposeful suffering of Jesus.

I doubt that we would want to use the older language of ‘the glorious dead’ today: our memories of pride and gratitude are too coloured by a sense of the pity of war, the waste of human lives, the tragedy of a broken world, our ambivalence about the motives of politicians whose decisions sometimes slide us too easily into armed conflict.  We are too aware, in a way that previous generations perhaps weren’t, of the despair of so many of the world’s peoples: innocent civilians whom the correct jargon callously calls the ‘collateral damage’ of war; the poor who are always its forgotten casualties.

But we do want to say (and a nation is in a pitiable condition if it cannot say it) that those who died in the service of their country did so purposefully and not in vain.  That is to give to their deaths something of the meaning we crave.  And it is to glimpse how ‘God is for the suffering people’ as the great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, himself executed by the Nazis just before the end of the Second World War for his courageous stand against Hitler.

Ecce Homo says Pilate as he presents Jesus to the crowd: ‘behold the man!’ – for the Son of Man in his suffering is every human being in pain, every victim for whom there is no way back from the shadow of death, only through it to what lies beyond.  For if we can begin to see how human suffering is interpreted and given meaning by the passion and resurrection of Jesus, we can begin to glimpse the wonderful truth so well expressed in our final hymn, and that changes everything:

And when human hearts are breaking / Under sorrow’s iron rod,

Then they find that selfsame aching / Deep within the heart of God.

Today pride and pain walk hand in hand.  We would not be truly human if we did not remember with pain.  We would not be good citizens if we did not remember with pride.  Pride and pain meet with passion, and today should be a day of passion.  But it’s not our own passion that is the real truth of today, but the passion of Jesus who was obedient to death.  This is the truth by which we live and die, that gives meaning to our bafflement, and courage under the ‘hopeless, never-shifting burden’ of war that our planet has borne for so long.  We bring our memories to the cross of the man who did not die in vain.  And that changes everything.  It makes it possible to sing, as we shall do presently, ‘God is love, so Love for ever o’er the universe must reign’.  It gives us back our hope.

 

 

Living on the job

Sometimes it can feel that us clergy are always in church – I know churchwardens can feel like that as well. Many a time I have heard it said

” I ought to bring my bed and stay in here”

 

Well…..how abut this?

 

And if a bath is needed when there…

 

It could save a lot on the upkeep of parsonage houses and I believe years ago some clergy did live in a room above the porch. It might mean I was never late as well…..

 

But back to serious thoughts – it is time to think about Sundays sermon for Remembrance Sunday – never an easy task. The prize shall be another episode of Autumn Watch at 8.30am…

 

Dddington has a rare mention in “The Telegraph”- a fine tribute to an elegant lady

Todays Daily Telegraph carried a fine tribute to the late Joan Furbank who died aged 92 years  on 30th October. Joan had lived at Diddington for many years until 1993 – and right up until her death was still sharing her great  gift of flower arranging – as the article says, she had given St Laurence Church one of her finest pedestal arrangements this Harvest time. Joan was a lovely elegant lady who will be greatly missed by everyone who knew her. The article also mentions her work during the war with the American Servicemen at Diddington Hospital ( mentioned on paxtonvic August 6th)

The Telegraph tribute:

A leading light in the National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies (NAFAS), she gave demonstrations up and down the country, winning numerous awards for her signature “pedestal” displays. A woman of boundless energy and generosity, and always immaculately chic, Joan Furbank delighted in creating floral decorations for friends’ weddings and church Harvest Festivals, clambering up ladders in her high heels to add the finishing touches.

Born Joan Ellen Ellerbeck on September 2 1917 at Hurst Green, Sussex, she was the daughter of a farmer who later prospered as a market gardener at Sandy, in Bedfordshire; he also had interests in haulage and property.

Joan attended Bedford Modern School for Girls. After a course at Sandons School of Hairdressing in Bedford, she started her own salon, called McGregor’s. During the Second World War she carried out voluntary work at a 500-bed hospital for wounded American servicemen at the village of Diddington, in Cambridgeshire; many of the patients had damaged hands and fingers, and Joan often wrote their letters home.

In 1946 she married a farmer, Ken Furbank, and they moved to Manor Farm, Diddington, where she was to live for the next 47 years. Despite the pressures of being a farmer’s wife, Joan Furbank was a tireless worker for good causes. She also had an inexhaustible enthusiasm for racing (she had an account with a bookmaker, but bet modestly), bridge, poker and, above all, entertaining. She was an excellent cook and a generous hostess, and her parties at Diddington were famous.

Her passion for flower-arranging developed in the 1950s, and she became an active member of NAFAS, which was founded in 1959 and now has more than 100,000 members. Joan Furbank, who was entirely self-taught, always insisted that it was unnecessary to spend large amounts of money to produce a stunning display; she emphasised the importance of foliage, to which she would add the appropriate flowers and colours.

In 1967 she won, with one of her famous pedestal arrangements, the award for best exhibit at the annual Royal Show at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire, and was invited to display in the Royal Pavilion.

Her husband died in 1979, but Joan Furbank remained in their large house at Diddington until 1993, when she moved to a flat in Huntingdon.

Despite suffering bouts of ill health, she remained as energetic as ever at the bridge table, in her entertaining and, of course, flower-arranging. Only a few weeks ago, one of her unmistakable creations adorned the Harvest Festival at St Lawrence’s Church, Diddington.

Joan Furbank, who died on October 30, is survived by her son.

 

Feeling ruff

One way to increase numbers at Dddington

Snake alive!

Bringing Dave to heal – at last!

Thanks to Pam D for the pics from Diddington Pet Service.

Latest Archbishops’ communique on swine ‘flu

Text of the Archbishops’ communiqué – 30th October 2009

SWINE FLU : STATEMENT FROM THE ARCHBISHOPS TO THE COLLEGE

OF BISHOPS

 

Following our statement in September this year, we have reviewed the situation in light of the latest advice from the Department of Health

Their latest update, issued last night, shows that the number of new cases has risen.  There were 78,000 new cases in England this week with 751 people currently hospitalised. The additional information now available confirms earlier guidance that children under 16 are significantly more susceptible to the virus, and up to 30% may fall ill during this second wave. Deaths worldwide have increased by 12% this week. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) believes that about 520,000 people have been infected by swine flu in England since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The vaccination programme in this country has started this week.  The plan is to offer it to all at risk groups by the end of November.

In the light of this, our recommendation, made on 22nd July 2009 to those presiding at Holy Communion in parishes and dioceses, remains unchanged.

 

It remains important

a)         to encourage everyone to recognise that the Church has a responsibility to take public health considerations seriously and

b)         to ensure communication around the Church is good so that we don’t appear at sixes and sevens, and

c)         to remember that responsible practice in these areas is not primarily about protecting ourselves but about avoiding transmitting infection unwittingly to others.

In the light of this rapidly changing situation, we do not believe this is the time to issue fresh advice.  We are keeping in regular contact with the Department of Health and will continue to consider all relevant information.

We will review our own advice in a month’s time. Until then, we would encourage you to continue to show patience and to pray for all those affected.

 

+  Rowan Cantuar                                                                +  Sentamu Ebor

 

Paxtonvic thinks that it is  sensible to continue with precautions especially  with regard to the chalice. But I do ask the question – at what point may it seem ” safe” to return  to the common cup?

Homily for the Commemoration of All Souls

Sermon for All Souls – November 1^st 2009  at  Little Paxton

We have to admit, if we are honest, that change is the one thing that we cannot avoid in our lives.  “ One thing is here to stay” – as the saying goes – “ And that is change”

For some people, change is a depressing word, a negative word, a threatening word.

I often hear people saying that so many things have changed – that  life styles have changed out of all recognition from the times when they were young.  Many feel that the  morals of society have changed for the worst. That life isn’t as safe and carefree as it was  50 years ago. That people aren’t as caring as they used to be. That we are destroying the earth we live on and so on.

With a negative outlook on change can go a sense of decay and of things  running down.

One of the  most popular hymn at funerals is “Abide with me “ which has those words in – “change and decay in all around I see”  There are some really lovely words in the hymn of comfort and encouragement. But the linking of change with decay perhaps isn’t always helpful .

For the person  for whom change feels threatening,  it is most likely that one of emotions that is around for that person is loss. Change often means loosing something very precious, loosing the familiar. Loosing that which feels safe and comfortable. None of us ever wants to feel loss,  and  the wide range of emotions that loss and bereavement brings. – anger, profound sadness, confusion and disbelief.

Change on the other hand doesn’t necessarily have to be all about decay and sadness and loss, though those things might be there to start with.

Take the  never ending  cycles  of the seasons. We know, as surely as the sun courses across the sky, that the seasons continue in their cyclic pattern The leaves fall off the branches in the autumn, they sink down into the earth, making the soil even richer  for next years growth.

Maybe some of you are enjoying the BBC TV Autumn Watch programme on Friday nights. This Friday we saw just how essential the whole process of decay is on a woodland floor – old leaves, bark, dead insects and animals  all going to make  the rich fabric of  fertile soil from which new life in a woodland grows. The cycle of life and death  and death leading to new life is a key feature of the raw world of nature.

We have had a remarkably warm and benign autumn so far – but the forecasters tell us that it is all about to change.

If the seasons teach us anything it is that death  and decay does not have the last word.  For we know with utter certainty that the days will lengthen againafter winter, , and there will appear that day when the temperatures will begin to rise again and the first green will peak through the frozen earth. The dance of creation will continue for yet another  year as the fields will team with life.

Change is  inbuilt, is inherent within nature and indeed within our human bodies and our souls. We never stay still for long.  It’s not how God intended us to be. Change might be associated  with decay – yes. But without change there can be no growth, no new beginnings and no new life. All would become stale. This I believe is as true for us as individuals as it is for the church and for communities.

Many of you here tonight will have been through  some recent changes in your lives – not least your loss of a loved one. For some  of you  that change will have been sudden, leaving you with no time to prepare and adjust to the change. Others of you may have had time to adjust to loosing your loved one, though that can hardly be said to be any easier when the actual moment of death comes.

Our mortality is something we may care not to think about, but it is inevitable, as inevitable as the leaves turn at autumn time.  And maybe if all we had to comfort ourselves was the inevitability of it all, then living might indeed feel bleak. And when faced with the death of a loved one, or if contemplating our own end, if we thought that was truly the end – then there wouldn’t be a lot of hope in the equation.  But the Christian faith  I encourages us to believe there is far more than we can possibly imagine.

The Christian view  on the fact of death and dying is rather awesome. It offers  us  something which, if accepted can transform the way we negotiate the death of our loved ones – and indeed face our own mortality. It wont cut out the grieving process – this natural human reaction to loss must be journeyed through with all the love and support which  hopefully is on offer from those around us.

But allow the powerful message of resurrection  to mingle with grief and see how  heavy burdens might be lifted from our hearts.

Let me take you to a story in John Chapter 11. There are Martha and Mary, two sisters with very different temperaments. There is  brother Lazarus.  They were a happy family – comfortable home.  Good food. Their door  was  always open to friends. Jesus loved to visit.

Then we read that Lazarus, the beloved brother, is dead. We don’t know why. We don’t know if he had been ill for long. We can imagine that he would have had every tender care from his family that was possible from day one.  During his illness, the sisters  had longed for Jesus to come to them. But he hadn’t. This really is a puzzle as we read that although Jesus knew Lazarus was sick, he still waited two days before visiting.  The sisters had to go through their own Gethsemane experience – and the worst happened- Lazarus died.   Why on earth did Jesus let his friend die? How could he have let this  happen?   We expect to read “ Jesus rushed to his house” But he didn’t.

How often, when a loved one has been very ill have we asked – please, God, come and make him or her better.

By the time Jesus does get there, Lazarus is well and truly dead. He’s been placed in a  tomb  for four days.  Not a lot of hope there.   Jesus we are told groans when he arrives and hears the news about his friend. This is a strong  greek word – equivalent to our sense of deep mourning, that aching of bereavement and loss.  He asks, in his deep pain, to see Lazarus. He comes to the tomb. And no wonder Martha says to him – in modern language – hold on. Think about this. He’s been dead four days. This isn’t pleasant.

The place where Lazarus lay was a dark place of decay. But was it to be a place of new birth – was the tomb  in fact a womb? Across the entrance to the tomb was a stone. Jesus askes for it to be removed. But Martha, in her horror of facing the unimaginable.  Says no.  I’m sure most of us would echo Martha’s No!

But listen!

The Resurrection of Lazarus, Byzantine icon (late 14th — early 15th Century).

There are some words of Jesus. “I am the resurrection and the life. Did I not tell you that if you have faith, you  will see the glory of God? “

He lifts his eyes up to heaven – to God . He gives thanks. He lifts Lazarus up to God – he exposes death to  God’s transforming love.  With a loud voice he shouts

“ Lazarus!  Hither! Out!” Jesus hurls all of his authority into that command.  Come out and live!  Let the power of the  resurrection  flow through you now!

And he that was dead came out, his hands and feet tied with bandages. Jesus said,  “Loose  him and let him go”

Lazarus is free.

Of course, our loved ones don’t come back to physical life as Lazarus did.  This miracle of Jesus, this great sign, was done to show those around him just who he was and how in Gods power, even death can be overcome and new life flood in.

Jesus was to show even  more  remarkably  in a few weeks  time how in Gods power, he too would rise to new life after death.

Herein lies the Christian antidote to our painful awareness of death and decay. To  our grappling with loss and sadness.  For if we can just believe, take that leap of faith, that in Jesus all will be made new, that our loved ones do live on in his power and in his love – then we have such a message of comfort and hope.

The seasons turn – there is nothing we can do but enjoy what we have when we have it. We know things will change. We know life moves on and what may be great and strong and seem permanent does not last for  ever. We are invited to live in the present and drink in all that is good. We are invited to believe that when the end does come, there is new life and rebirth. We have to let go and let God. We have to trust. We have to remember Jesus’  great  promise – I am the resurrection and I am the life. He who comes to me shall never die.  And he who believes in me though he dies, yet shall he live”

May God’s peace and hope be with you all as you journey on with your own precious stories and particular sadness. As surely as spring follows winters coldness, may each of you find the warmth of God and the power of Jesus’ resurrection  sustaining and  guiding you. Amen

Getting ready for All Souls/All Saints

So,  tomorrow, I must apply brain and get prapring for a very important sunday – a mixture of All Saints and All Souls.

Heres a peaceful scene at Little Gidding which I visited on  Wednesday. The sunlight coming through autumn trees on a single grave stone in the churchyard.

“Requiescat in pace“

This old tree is well past its sell by date but is home to teeming insect life and is dramatic in its demise.

snuggled up on the sofa

Nice to see Mike and his girlfriend Lottie for a little while mid week. They bought along their new lap top and showed me how to use one – easy really  as  long as you get used to the integral mouse.  I well remember when my grandparents had their first old black and white TV in the early 1960’s in Bournemouth – what a phenomenal change in our technology since then.

Give me one of these any day though:

 

When the Diocese revamped the vicarage last year, they kindly resurrected the old firplace and now it burns most nights in winter with wood and coal. Love it!

Mike has a fuzzy face some of the time

Im not sure what he will say if he sees this pic! They are back in London now – take care, babes!