1) Wednesday Home Group
Nov 4th, 2020 07:00 PM London
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2) Friday Morning Prayer, 9.00am
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3) Friday night prayer Time TBA
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Earlier this year, a member of the community in Billingsley made a record of all the headstones in the graveyard. This is now on our church webpage, https://www.stmarys-billingsley.org.uk/graveyard-project/. The inscriptions are usually simple; a name, the date of death and perhaps a short inscription. Sometimes we do have more to help bring the deceased alive. In the north-east corner of the graveyard, a memorial to 7-year old Eliza Mary Davies is topped by a statue of an angel; the grieving parents have added, “Girlie”, the pet name of their beloved daughter to the inscription. It is a grave I find very moving. But the memorials we have remember only a fraction of the departed who lie in the grave yard, which has been used for nearly 900 years. Over that time, Billingsley’s departed must run into the thousands; this small patch of ground is their last resting place.
The start of November is when the church remembers the departed. We start with All Saints, those who have been judged to have led lives of particular merit. The following day is All Souls, we move from the spiritual superheroes to the rest of us. It is probably as well not to make too much of the difference; the New Testament often refers to all believers as saints. But how can we possibly remember all those who lie buried in our local churchyards, the vast majority of which we can never name? Well, in all honesty, we are probably most likely to think of our own loved ones, or perhaps at a stretch, people like Eliza, whose lives have been reconstructed by historians. But the Christian church has the perspective of eternity, of a God who is everlasting and whose love is everlasting. At All Souls, alongside our own memories we can give thanks for a God for whom every person who has ever lived, every soul, matters.
1) Wednesday Home Group
Oct 26th, 2020 07:00 PM London
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Meeting ID: 359 285 1895
2) Friday Morning Prayer, 9.00am
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Meeting ID: 359 285 1895
3) Friday night prayer
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Jesus summed up our duty to those around us in just five words; “love your neighbour as yourself”. As a good Jew, he was in fact quoting from the Old Testament; a line from the Book of Leviticus. The words are beautifully simple, but so hard to put into practice. Jesus famously expanded on who our neighbour might be in the parable of the Good Samaritan, a call to look beyond those who we naturally want to identify with and help. Leviticus takes 27 chapters to amplify who its author(s) thought our neighbours are and how we should love them. It’s not always a thrilling read, but a theme does goes through it; to look after “the alien”, because “I am the Lord your God”. God’s love is not restricted to those in the holy huddle. So Jesus calls us to live in the “Kingdom of God”, that place where God is. It has been called the Kingdom for those who love. Which is fine, except for the fact that I’m not particularly loveable and, if I’m being honest, I don’t always like the people around me. I suspect I’m not alone in feeling this. We are human; we are fallen humans and what happens when the Kingdom of God is fully complete is different from where we are in the here-and-now.
But there is hope. We are called to love people; not necessarily to like them and I think there is a difference. We can recognise short-comings, both in ourselves and others, that there may be mutual incompatibility in our relationships. But we can always pray for each other. An 18th century spiritual writer, William Law, wrote “There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him”. Well, I’m not sure it is quite that simple, but we can always pray; love is something we can work at. So perhaps there is a challenge for us; let’s follow Jesus’s words this week, by picking someone we don’t like and praying for them, however you understand prayer.
1) Wednesday Home Group
Oct 21st, 2020 07:00 PM London
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Meeting ID: 359 285 189
2) Friday Morning Prayer, 9.00am
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Meeting ID: 359 285 1895
3) Friday night prayer
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Holding paradoxes
The news from Covid is not good; we are slipping back and are already seeing a second wave. As I write this, the Welsh Assembly are proposing a second lockdown across the whole principality and it is possible that we may eventually follow them. Then there is Brexit and the saga of a trading deal…. It is difficult to escape the gloom and foreboding that is on the television, the radio and in the papers. Perhaps we should not even try to do this; “bad times are just around the corner”, as Noel Coward sang and sooner or later we are going to have to unpack our troubles from our old kit bag and grimace.
The Autumn colours are very fine. Even in the drizzle of a Friday afternoon, I admired them. And today, I slipped into Billingsley Church and was struck by the sunlight streaming in through the window, picking out the poppy display on the altar. The light in Billingsley church is a joy, particularly since one of our congregation cleaned the windows. What a wonderful world!
Of course, both sets of emotions are true and we need to hold them together, even if they seem to clash. Life is nuanced, full of contradictions and there is nothing new in this; it is a major theme in the Bible. In the Old Testament in particular, the people of Israel struggled to understand God’s purpose in their world. This can be seen especially in the Psalms, especially the “psalms of lament”. These do not hide from the dark side of life; they are often angry at the events which happen to innocent people. But they balance this with a trust that, however bad things are, God has not abandoned them; his loving-kindness endures for ever. There is a lesson for us. We should not ignore the darkness, we should recognise and rage against it. But at the same time, we draw hope that God is with us; darkness will never have the final word.
(This is inspired by a recent Thought for Day, by the Rev Lucy Winkett; if you want to listen to the original version, rather than my musings arising from it, you can find it at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08vdn7m )
Touch in and out of times of Covid.
A couple of weeks ago, my attention was caught by a news item about research on the importance of touch. It seems that during lock-down, one of things that people living alone most missed was being touched by loved ones. Perhaps this should not have come as surprise. Touch is at the centre of many deep emotional experiences, from what the prayer book rather coyly calls the “tenderness of sexual union”, the hug between a parent and child to holding someone’s hand in illness or as they leave this life. It also has more negative associations; it is used to assert power over another person, to abuse and dominate them. Jesus knew the importance of touch; when he healed people there was invariably physical content. Sometimes, as with the case of the woman with menstrual bleeding, the initiative came from the person who wanted to be healed; for such people, it was enough to just touch his clothing.
Perhaps in recognition of the importance of physical contact, the Church of England service of Holy Communion has space where people can offer each other “a sign of peace”; in most congregations, this means shaking hands, embracing or even kissing others in the congregation. This needs to be done with sensitivity; I feel uncomfortable about being overly intimate with a person I do not know well, but it does have powerful symbolism when carried out appropriately.
But now, for most of us, touch is back off the agenda. As the second wave of Covid begins to bite and the range of our permitted contacts shrink, we again must find ways of caring at a physical distance. I have no answers to this, other than to suggest that it makes it all the more important to keep in contact with those around us; speaking in person if that is safe and lawful, otherwise by phone, letter or computer. These cannot replace physical touch, but it is the best that we can do. Perhaps we can take some comfort for the fact that for the past 2000 years, God has used virtual touch to reach out to people!
Dear All,
Details of events this coming week are below: all are welcome! Please pass these invitations on to anyone who you think might be interested. Please note I am restarting a home group, to replace the Wednesday catch-up. My idea is that each session will be self-contained, so feel free to drop in and out as you wish. We will start by looking at some of the ideas from Holy Habits on “Eating together”; you may wish to have a packet of crisps to hand as we do this….
David
1) Wednesday Home Group
Oct 14th, 2020 07:00 PM London
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Meeting ID: 359 285 1895
2) Friday Morning Prayer, 9.00am
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Meeting ID: 359 285 1895
3) Friday night prayer
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I’ve read that when a shepherd died and came to be buried, a handful of wool would be put alongside him in the coffin. The idea was that, come the last trumpet and the resurrection of the dead, the shepherd would emerge clutching the wool to show that when everybody else had been in church, he had a genuine reason why he was rarely there; he had to be with his sheep, to do his job. I don’t know how true this is, still less am I convinced of the theology behind it, but it is an instructive story.
As a vicar, I am very much aware that one of the things I do on a Sunday is to count the congregation in church. Well, of course, I hope people will attend the services I take and that what I say and do may help them in their faith, wherever they may be on that particular journey. But it is all to easy to become a Sunday-only vicar, or indeed a Sunday-only Christian. A couple of months ago, when all our church buildings were closed, I reproduced a cartoon entitled “where the church is”. It showed a street in a city, with a series of arrows pointing, apparently random at people or at shops, offices or factories. Next to each arrow was that same caption “the church is here”. It made the point that wherever we go, God is present and we so we can find God anywhere and at any time. If I bring anything distinctive to my work as a vicar, it is because I work full time outside the church, as scientist and university lecturer. I don’t wear my clerical collar when I am at work; simply a cross lapel badge to remind myself in times of stress of the faith I try to practice. I take inspiration from a fellow worker-priest, who has spoken of how his computer on his desk at work becomes his altar, as he prays for his work colleagues. But this isn’t something just restricted to the minority of volunteer vicars; the cartoon in the church times was pointing out that it something that all Christians should aspire to. Perhaps as a church we do not do enough to celebrate what people do when they are not in church on a Sunday; we don’t need a clerical collar or a tuft of wool to take our faith out into where we work and live.
Dear All,
Details of events this coming week are below: all are welcome! Please pass these invitations on to anyone who you think might be interested.
1) Wednesday evening catch-up
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Meeting ID: 359 285 1895
NB I will shortly be turning this into an online home group; details to follow.
2) Friday Morning Prayer, 9.00am
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3592851895?pwd=cksyL0t5TlhFUURRenpxMG9yQTVhUT09
Meeting ID: 359 285 1895
3) Friday night prayer
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 359 285 1895