Our Rector Writes......

The problem with being a clergy-person is that your life constantly flashes before your very eyes. We are now, as I write, at the end of October, with the All Souls services and the Remembrance Day services about to take place....and suddenly I remember the magazine letter for December! My thought swiftly shift to Christmas, and so, here I sit, with the summer still in my heart, knowing that I have to write a letter which is relevant to the festive season. But I only have to look in my diary to see the various organisations who are already well advanced in their booking of the churches for this Christmas, and when I switched on the Internet, it reminded me that there were just 54 shopping days to go - and, of course, that includes Sundays now!

Like many other children, I expect that my grandchildren have begun the glorious task of going through the catalogues as they prepare their lists for Father Christmas. Already my heart is warming to the task, and will be warmed further in the next four weeks when all of our churches will be holding their respective Christmas Fayres. Of all the things we do at our churches, there is none that compares with the sense of well-being brought by these Christmas events. As I go along to them, I guess the excitement I experienced as a child comes alive again - it is such a magical time. Charles Dickens felt it when he wrote:

‘Christmas comes but once a year - which is unhappily true - for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round, we shall begin to make this earth a very different place.’

But perhaps Charles Dickens was speaking about a different Christmas than the one we know now. Many people I speak to, talk about the expense, the stress and the extravagance Christmas has come to mean for them. For all of us it is so easy to get caught up in the consumerism of Christmas. So often a Christmas present is judged by what it cost, rather than the thought which went into it. So often the celebrations of Christmas are about hiding away from the realities of life, rather than finding something in its message which will give us the hope and the strength to face those realities with renewed vigour.

Elizabeth Goudge wrote something in the preface to ‘the Christmas Book’ which we all need to hang on to, and which, as Christians, should be imparting to all those around us. She wrote:

And here is the Christmas we should be looking forward to and celebrating and passing on to all those around us, who are being brought down by the pressures their circumstances seem to bring upon them. The presents, the lights, the good wishes are all reflections of the great gift of which Christmas is telling us - telling us of God’s great gift to each one of us, his love for each one of us, - or as Sir John Betjeman has powerfully put it:

‘No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air........(or even in a candle-lit church!)

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

can with this single truth compare -

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in bread and wine’

And suddenly, on this October evening, I find myself looking forward to Christmas. It is the heart of our message to the world. Let us all feel it, and share it with all whom we may meet.

May God meet us in all the celebrations, the memories and even in the chores. Through it all, may his hope inspire us and enfold us.

God bless you.

A happy Christmas and a joyful knowledge of God’s love for you be in every part of it.

David

An end...... and a beginning

T.S.Eliot wrote about ends and beginnings in his poem ‘Little Gidding’:

What we call a beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

And we are at an end and a beginning in relation to our Parish magazine.

As you will know, this is the last issue that Liz Vernon will edit and put together, as she feels that the time has come to relinquish that particular responsibility. We all owe her a great gratitude for the enormous work she has given to the magazine over many years. She has many wonderful talents, and has used many of those talents to provide us with a parish magazine of exceptional quality during her time as editor. Our magazine has been appreciated my many people, both church-goers and non-church-goers, thanks to the range and variety she has sought to provide for us each month. We have been truly blest by her work and unfailing commitment in producing the monthly magazine. In addition she has been involved in the practicalities of assembling it, and at Stoney Stanton, running the distribution aspect of it. We could not have had anyone who could have put so much into it or done it so well. So thank-you, Liz, for all that you have done for the magazine over the years, and the amazing quality you have given us.

But, alongside the end, we have the beginning also.

I am most grateful to Sandie and Dee Johnson, who have volunteered to  edit the magazine in the future. It is a very new venture for them, and we wish them well in the task. I know that we are all grateful to you for taking on such an enormous task, and we will be both supportive and understanding in those early stages as you come to terms with the process.