Earthquake in New Zealand, hundreds dead. Earthquake tsunami and nuclear threat in Japan, thousands dead. Civil war in Libya, huge disruption in Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia the list goes on and on – all this disruption in our world and to add to the doom and gloom the Lectionary readings are coming from Jeremiah – is this the end of the world as we know it?
The news at the moment just isn’t too good – one could be excused for thinking that maybe God has gone on holiday.
But look again.
The Japanese people are astounding the world with their behaviour to each other. Locals are sharing their scant supplies of food, water and bedding with refugees.
Workers at the nuclear plant at Fukushima are battling – at huge risk to their own lives, trying to cool the damaged reactors. One sent an email to his family asking them to continue to live well – “I wont be home for some time” he said.
As I write, Comic Relief has just announced the biggest ever contribution in their 23 year history – and this in a recession ravaged Britain! People have still managed to remember those poorer and more disadvantaged than themselves.
Acts of random kindness in all the stricken areas of our world are happening all the time but of course the media don’t always report them. Bad news sells more newspapers.
We as Christians must remember that we have the Good News – Easter is coming and we remember that Jesus is risen from the dead.
We continue our Lent journey in the Benefice with our Lent course on “Not a Tame Lion” which has started in Perranuthnoe and Ludgvan. It’s a very challenging course and I am sure we will all get a lot out of our study together.
Christianity Explored continues in the Cutty Sark in Marazion and plans are being finalised for our grand Palm Sunday parade. What a day that will be. We are doing a completely new thing and trusting God for a good turnout and a blessed time together as a Benefice.
This is something I hear more and more – that we now feel more like a Benefice and the more we do together the more we get to know and love each other. Sacred Space in Marazion, supported by all our churches continues to give those attending a peaceful and uplifting half hour each day – a really good discipline to take just that half an hour and refresh ourselves in God’s peace. I am sure you will want to join me in thanking Nigel, Penny and all those who make this such a wonderful experience – thank you one and all.
We have started our prayer meetings for “When Dom comes” and look forward to having Dom and Hannah join our community after his Ordination in July.
What a lot to look forward to. No – God has not gone on holiday – He is working in His world through ordinary people - just like you and me. He always has and He always will – may we, during this Lenten period, just give Him the time and space in our lives to lead us into a deeper relationship with Him.
Thought I would close with a bit of humour and a reminder just how great our God is.
A priest is driving to London and gets stopped for speeding near Swindon. The policeman smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?" "Just water," says the priest, fingers crossed. The policeman says, "Then why do I smell wine?" The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"
May God Bless you and yours for this coming Easter Season.
Rev Beth Whyte
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Monday, 28 February 2011
March 2011 Newsletter
Feasting and Fasting
‘The Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all nations of the world: a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine’ (Isaiah 25:6).
It seems strange to encourage you to ‘Feast’ in this coming Season of Lent, which we usually associate with ‘fasting’, denial and Jesus’ refusal to ‘turn stones to bread’ in the wilderness, despite his hunger (Matthew 4:3-4).
The Medieval Calendar was constantly punctuated by ‘high days and holy days’, days of ‘fasting’ and abstinence as well as days of ‘feasting’ (particularly on a Saints Day or a Sunday). All the rich colour and variety of that Medieval pattern of life and work, of denial and celebration, has been lost to us more than six centuries on: perhaps, the only things that still remain is the tradition of having fish on Fridays (‘fasting’ as Friday is the Day of Our Lord’s death) and the Family Roast on Sunday (‘feasting’ on the Day of Our Lord’s Resurrection). So just donning ‘sackcloth and ashes’ for the forty day Season of Lent and making ourselves miserable is not ‘the kind of fasting God requires’ (Isaiah 58:3-5).
In Lent, we have an opportunity to strip away all that has accrued to us over this past year (a spiritual ‘Springclean’) to concentrate on what truly matters, our relationship with God and to deepen our walk with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. By following Jesus into the wilderness and to watch his temptations, we can better understand our own temptations in life, and so, Lent, as well as being a time of ‘fasting’, can be a time of ‘feasting’ too, as we draw nearer to Christ and his life lived for us.
And there is much for us to ‘feast’ on in our Benefice this Lent. After the United Benefice Ash Wednesday 9 March Service at Perranuthnoe, where those who would like to can receive the Imposition of Ashes, the following day (Thursday 10 March) Lent Sacred Space begins at Marazion and will run throughout Lent most days (except Sundays & Mondays) at 4pm until Maundy Thursday. If you need a time of solace and reflection, please drop into Marazion anyday. We shall be following a lively new translation of St Matthew’s Gospel by Tom Wright for our daily Bible Readings in Sacred Space.
The following Wednesdays (beginning 16 March) at both 11am at Perranuthnoe and 7pm at Ludgvan our Lent Course begins. ‘Not A Tame Lion’ is a Lent course based on the writings, thinking and films of C.S. Lewis: we shall be watching film clips from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ films and the story of C.S.Lewis’ late blossoming love to Joy Gresham) to explore the rich ‘feast’ of Lewis’ writings and imagination to draw us closer to the life of Jesus and his call and meaning and purpose in our lives. We will be considering themes of loss, suffering, God’s absence and Resurrection.
Wednesday 17 March (and subsequent Wednesdays) will see some fine soups
(I remember from last year) at Marazion for the Lent Lunches and there will also be a Lent lunch after the Sunday Service on 13 March at Ludgvan and at Perranuthnoe after the AGM and Celebration Service on 20 March. Many of the proceeds from these more frugal and restrained meals will go to our Benefice Lent Appeal: through the lunches and by saving the money we would otherwise spend on indulgences (chocolate, alcohol etc we give up during Lent) we hope to raise £750.00 to ‘Send a Cow’ to an African village and to do ‘the kind of fasting God requires (Isaiah 58:6).
Lent is this strange mixture of ‘fasting’, but also ‘feasting’ on God too. May we recapture something of the ancient monks’ understanding of both celebration and denial, resistance and joy in our Benefice this Lent. May we have a good ‘Feast’ and a good ‘Fast’ in Lent 2011 and come well-prepared, well-fed , watered and nurtured to celebrate the greatest ‘Feast’ of them all: the Passion, Death & Resurrection of Jesus in Holy Week and on Easter Day.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay (Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
‘The Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all nations of the world: a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine’ (Isaiah 25:6).
It seems strange to encourage you to ‘Feast’ in this coming Season of Lent, which we usually associate with ‘fasting’, denial and Jesus’ refusal to ‘turn stones to bread’ in the wilderness, despite his hunger (Matthew 4:3-4).
The Medieval Calendar was constantly punctuated by ‘high days and holy days’, days of ‘fasting’ and abstinence as well as days of ‘feasting’ (particularly on a Saints Day or a Sunday). All the rich colour and variety of that Medieval pattern of life and work, of denial and celebration, has been lost to us more than six centuries on: perhaps, the only things that still remain is the tradition of having fish on Fridays (‘fasting’ as Friday is the Day of Our Lord’s death) and the Family Roast on Sunday (‘feasting’ on the Day of Our Lord’s Resurrection). So just donning ‘sackcloth and ashes’ for the forty day Season of Lent and making ourselves miserable is not ‘the kind of fasting God requires’ (Isaiah 58:3-5).
In Lent, we have an opportunity to strip away all that has accrued to us over this past year (a spiritual ‘Springclean’) to concentrate on what truly matters, our relationship with God and to deepen our walk with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. By following Jesus into the wilderness and to watch his temptations, we can better understand our own temptations in life, and so, Lent, as well as being a time of ‘fasting’, can be a time of ‘feasting’ too, as we draw nearer to Christ and his life lived for us.
And there is much for us to ‘feast’ on in our Benefice this Lent. After the United Benefice Ash Wednesday 9 March Service at Perranuthnoe, where those who would like to can receive the Imposition of Ashes, the following day (Thursday 10 March) Lent Sacred Space begins at Marazion and will run throughout Lent most days (except Sundays & Mondays) at 4pm until Maundy Thursday. If you need a time of solace and reflection, please drop into Marazion anyday. We shall be following a lively new translation of St Matthew’s Gospel by Tom Wright for our daily Bible Readings in Sacred Space.
The following Wednesdays (beginning 16 March) at both 11am at Perranuthnoe and 7pm at Ludgvan our Lent Course begins. ‘Not A Tame Lion’ is a Lent course based on the writings, thinking and films of C.S. Lewis: we shall be watching film clips from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ films and the story of C.S.Lewis’ late blossoming love to Joy Gresham) to explore the rich ‘feast’ of Lewis’ writings and imagination to draw us closer to the life of Jesus and his call and meaning and purpose in our lives. We will be considering themes of loss, suffering, God’s absence and Resurrection.
Wednesday 17 March (and subsequent Wednesdays) will see some fine soups
(I remember from last year) at Marazion for the Lent Lunches and there will also be a Lent lunch after the Sunday Service on 13 March at Ludgvan and at Perranuthnoe after the AGM and Celebration Service on 20 March. Many of the proceeds from these more frugal and restrained meals will go to our Benefice Lent Appeal: through the lunches and by saving the money we would otherwise spend on indulgences (chocolate, alcohol etc we give up during Lent) we hope to raise £750.00 to ‘Send a Cow’ to an African village and to do ‘the kind of fasting God requires (Isaiah 58:6).
Lent is this strange mixture of ‘fasting’, but also ‘feasting’ on God too. May we recapture something of the ancient monks’ understanding of both celebration and denial, resistance and joy in our Benefice this Lent. May we have a good ‘Feast’ and a good ‘Fast’ in Lent 2011 and come well-prepared, well-fed , watered and nurtured to celebrate the greatest ‘Feast’ of them all: the Passion, Death & Resurrection of Jesus in Holy Week and on Easter Day.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay (Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
February 2011 Newsletter
‘Christianity Explored’
As the New Year dawns upon us, and the festivities and joy of Christmas recedes into distant memory, it is good to take up a new challenge, and to do a new thing.
I came upon a new and exciting course, run by a Cornishman and a rugby man, Rico Tice, called ‘Christianity Explored’. The course will run for ten weeks, beginning on Friday 4 February (and Fridays following) at the Cutty Sark Pub in Marazion. The idea of the Course is to meet for mid-morning coffee or tea in the pleasant setting of the Cutty Sark Large Room at 10.45am, watch a lively and modern DVD together that will challenge many peoples’ assumptions or commonly-held views of Christianity, and over the next hour, until 12 noon, to engage with them.
Over the ten weeks, in Marazion, we will explore the questions that cut to the heart of Christianity: who was Jesus? Why did He come? What is involved in following Him? It is an opportunity to ask questions, however simple or difficult they are, and we will do it by looking at the shortest account of Jesus Life, the Gospel of Mark.
It is good to have the opportunity to come together, to discuss with others the nature of our faith, to better grasp what it is in our Christian faith we are following and believing in.
In Ludgvan and Perranuthnoe over the Autumn, and also finishing in February, we have been looking at the Mission of the Early Church and considering our own Mission as a Church Today, through studying ‘The Acts of the Apostles’, and, soon, look out for our Lent Courses there, beginning in March. But it will be good to have a Course, specifically based in Marazion (and we are hoping our friends from Marazion Chapel will join us), but open to everyone in the Benefice, and especially to those wanting an opportunity to explore and go a bit deeper into our faith, and an opportunity to question and engage with the doubts and unanswered questions we have about Christianity and the nature of Jesus in a clear and systematic way.
If you are free on Friday mornings, please come along (and if you can’t make every session come to the ones you can). Go on, do a new thing in 2011.
Happy February Exploring,
Revd Nigel Marns
As the New Year dawns upon us, and the festivities and joy of Christmas recedes into distant memory, it is good to take up a new challenge, and to do a new thing.
I came upon a new and exciting course, run by a Cornishman and a rugby man, Rico Tice, called ‘Christianity Explored’. The course will run for ten weeks, beginning on Friday 4 February (and Fridays following) at the Cutty Sark Pub in Marazion. The idea of the Course is to meet for mid-morning coffee or tea in the pleasant setting of the Cutty Sark Large Room at 10.45am, watch a lively and modern DVD together that will challenge many peoples’ assumptions or commonly-held views of Christianity, and over the next hour, until 12 noon, to engage with them.
Over the ten weeks, in Marazion, we will explore the questions that cut to the heart of Christianity: who was Jesus? Why did He come? What is involved in following Him? It is an opportunity to ask questions, however simple or difficult they are, and we will do it by looking at the shortest account of Jesus Life, the Gospel of Mark.
It is good to have the opportunity to come together, to discuss with others the nature of our faith, to better grasp what it is in our Christian faith we are following and believing in.
In Ludgvan and Perranuthnoe over the Autumn, and also finishing in February, we have been looking at the Mission of the Early Church and considering our own Mission as a Church Today, through studying ‘The Acts of the Apostles’, and, soon, look out for our Lent Courses there, beginning in March. But it will be good to have a Course, specifically based in Marazion (and we are hoping our friends from Marazion Chapel will join us), but open to everyone in the Benefice, and especially to those wanting an opportunity to explore and go a bit deeper into our faith, and an opportunity to question and engage with the doubts and unanswered questions we have about Christianity and the nature of Jesus in a clear and systematic way.
If you are free on Friday mornings, please come along (and if you can’t make every session come to the ones you can). Go on, do a new thing in 2011.
Happy February Exploring,
Revd Nigel Marns
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Jan 2011 Newsletter
January 2011 - Newsletter
The story of the wise men coming to Jesus and his parents is often part of the children's school nativity plays. In truth it represents something that happened well after his birth. It is recorded by Matthew in his very conservative Jewish Gospel. For he understands the messianic significance of these strange visitors from other nations. The prophetic tradition pointed to the time when the Gentile world would come to be part of the new world order that messiah would bring. The nations will become part of his rule of peace. These travelers from unknown lands in the East, no doubt following the spice route were magi, students of the stars, and through such study hoping to chart the fortunes of men, nations and the world order. They had spotted a fresh heavenly body, perhaps a comet, though we shall be unable to verify the details now. One thing is clear that whatever they saw spoke to them of a royal birth. Out there a new king was born. Their journey was made under the enthusiasm of finding a king. In doing so they stirred up a hornets' nest in Herod's court. For Herod was a paranoid dictator who faced continual threats on his life and was capable of horrific reprisals on any who sought to depose him. A possible rival to his legitimacy seemed a danger he could not ignore. There was a birth, but that of a child in ordinary circumstances, born to a local craftsman and his teenage wife. They brought strange gifts, we are told, to do with the life and death of a kingly personage. Afraid of Herod and maybe his interrogation techniques they made good their journey home. In later years they may have reflected on their quest and perhaps, as in TS Elliott's poem, questioned the real value of their journey and the significance of the ordinary family they found.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worse time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
The poem continues-
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
For Christian believers this story becomes the foundation for a great season in the church year as they reflect on the significant influence of the gospel on the world. We call this time of the year Epiphany, indicating that the child is no ordinary man but is shown to the world as its rescuer. His light shines out to a world of need, to people who walk in darkness and to dwellers in the sad land where the very shadow of death falls on all. He is the light to lighten the Gentiles. His light is the true light that lightens every man in the world .
It may well be that Holman Hunt's great painting, entitled ' the Light of the World', springs to mind. It shows Jesus holding a lantern in what is a very English orchard . The influence of the Christ child knows no boundaries so that this very English Victorian artist can, in another millennium, claim that he who is light of the world transforms his age and his contemporaries. This Jesus is our contemporary, too, and we begin the new year by recognizing that he is here for us and 2011 can be a journey with him for us ,our church and our society.
May God bless your New Year,
Noel Michell
The story of the wise men coming to Jesus and his parents is often part of the children's school nativity plays. In truth it represents something that happened well after his birth. It is recorded by Matthew in his very conservative Jewish Gospel. For he understands the messianic significance of these strange visitors from other nations. The prophetic tradition pointed to the time when the Gentile world would come to be part of the new world order that messiah would bring. The nations will become part of his rule of peace. These travelers from unknown lands in the East, no doubt following the spice route were magi, students of the stars, and through such study hoping to chart the fortunes of men, nations and the world order. They had spotted a fresh heavenly body, perhaps a comet, though we shall be unable to verify the details now. One thing is clear that whatever they saw spoke to them of a royal birth. Out there a new king was born. Their journey was made under the enthusiasm of finding a king. In doing so they stirred up a hornets' nest in Herod's court. For Herod was a paranoid dictator who faced continual threats on his life and was capable of horrific reprisals on any who sought to depose him. A possible rival to his legitimacy seemed a danger he could not ignore. There was a birth, but that of a child in ordinary circumstances, born to a local craftsman and his teenage wife. They brought strange gifts, we are told, to do with the life and death of a kingly personage. Afraid of Herod and maybe his interrogation techniques they made good their journey home. In later years they may have reflected on their quest and perhaps, as in TS Elliott's poem, questioned the real value of their journey and the significance of the ordinary family they found.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worse time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
The poem continues-
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
For Christian believers this story becomes the foundation for a great season in the church year as they reflect on the significant influence of the gospel on the world. We call this time of the year Epiphany, indicating that the child is no ordinary man but is shown to the world as its rescuer. His light shines out to a world of need, to people who walk in darkness and to dwellers in the sad land where the very shadow of death falls on all. He is the light to lighten the Gentiles. His light is the true light that lightens every man in the world .
It may well be that Holman Hunt's great painting, entitled ' the Light of the World', springs to mind. It shows Jesus holding a lantern in what is a very English orchard . The influence of the Christ child knows no boundaries so that this very English Victorian artist can, in another millennium, claim that he who is light of the world transforms his age and his contemporaries. This Jesus is our contemporary, too, and we begin the new year by recognizing that he is here for us and 2011 can be a journey with him for us ,our church and our society.
May God bless your New Year,
Noel Michell
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
December Newsletter
‘A New Star’
And Winter fell. All at once it was Winter. All of a sudden the nights seemed very dark. Suddenly we were caught in huge raging storms and floods and bitter cold came upon us. Our lives so often reflect the change in the seasons, don’t they? We can go along quite merrily and happily, and then darkness falls. When Winter comes, our mood turns to a more sombre timbre too. The troubles of our world seem as ‘dark portents’ and press more heavily upon us; life becomes more of a struggle to battle through each day.
However, the coming of the bleak mid-winter is not all ‘doom and gloom’! One of the joys of the encroaching darkness is gazing up at the night sky. Here in Cornwall, we can pick out many constellations and patterns, and, on a clear night, the sky seems completely full of so many bright and gleaming stars.
How amazing it must have been for those three astrologers, two thousand years ago, gazing through their telescopes, and studying and charting the planets and their movements, to suddenly come upon ‘a New Star’ in the night sky, a new light, unrecorded and unrecognised before, much like when we come upon a previously undiscovered mammal in a rainforest or an aerial photograph reveals a previously hidden archaeological settlement in a field. No wonder these first Wise Men hurriedly loaded up their goods and chattels and their camels and horses in such haste, and went on a journey to discover what this ‘New Star’ might mean.
The kings can lead us to discover what Advent is all about: Darkness may fall; Winter may come; but, yet, ‘a New Star’ appears in the sky to lead us and entice us on a journey of discovery. In Advent we can become modern day wise men and women, not shut away in the ‘doom and gloom’ of Winter days and nights, but Advent journeyers, waiting for ‘the Light’ to come to us, to follow ‘the New Star’ that comes to light up the darkness of the night sky and our world in a ‘New Way’ and offering us a bright future in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is coming into the world.
Advent has many themes: coloured reflective purple, candles in the darkness, watching and waiting, preparing. But what are we preparing ourselves for? December can be full of extreme busyness, but, if we are true travellers and wise men and women, we will also take time to watch and wait for Jesus to reveal himself to us in ‘a New Way’ this Advent-tide, just like he did in the appearance of ‘the New Star’ in the sky two thousand years ago. Whether it be in your own private prayer-times and meditations this Advent or whether you join us for ‘Advent Sacred Space’ at All Saints, Marazion from 4-4.30pm on Saturdays and Wednesdays for a time of quiet meditation and preparation, we pray that, in the depth of this dark Winter, we will also give time to preparing our hearts to receive ‘the New Thing’ that God wants to reveal to us. As the prophet Isaiah predicted: ‘I am doing ‘a new thing’. Do you not perceive it’?
Happy Advent travelling and best wishes in all your preparations,
Revd. Nigel Marns
Rector United Benefice of Mounts Bay
And Winter fell. All at once it was Winter. All of a sudden the nights seemed very dark. Suddenly we were caught in huge raging storms and floods and bitter cold came upon us. Our lives so often reflect the change in the seasons, don’t they? We can go along quite merrily and happily, and then darkness falls. When Winter comes, our mood turns to a more sombre timbre too. The troubles of our world seem as ‘dark portents’ and press more heavily upon us; life becomes more of a struggle to battle through each day.
However, the coming of the bleak mid-winter is not all ‘doom and gloom’! One of the joys of the encroaching darkness is gazing up at the night sky. Here in Cornwall, we can pick out many constellations and patterns, and, on a clear night, the sky seems completely full of so many bright and gleaming stars.
How amazing it must have been for those three astrologers, two thousand years ago, gazing through their telescopes, and studying and charting the planets and their movements, to suddenly come upon ‘a New Star’ in the night sky, a new light, unrecorded and unrecognised before, much like when we come upon a previously undiscovered mammal in a rainforest or an aerial photograph reveals a previously hidden archaeological settlement in a field. No wonder these first Wise Men hurriedly loaded up their goods and chattels and their camels and horses in such haste, and went on a journey to discover what this ‘New Star’ might mean.
The kings can lead us to discover what Advent is all about: Darkness may fall; Winter may come; but, yet, ‘a New Star’ appears in the sky to lead us and entice us on a journey of discovery. In Advent we can become modern day wise men and women, not shut away in the ‘doom and gloom’ of Winter days and nights, but Advent journeyers, waiting for ‘the Light’ to come to us, to follow ‘the New Star’ that comes to light up the darkness of the night sky and our world in a ‘New Way’ and offering us a bright future in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is coming into the world.
Advent has many themes: coloured reflective purple, candles in the darkness, watching and waiting, preparing. But what are we preparing ourselves for? December can be full of extreme busyness, but, if we are true travellers and wise men and women, we will also take time to watch and wait for Jesus to reveal himself to us in ‘a New Way’ this Advent-tide, just like he did in the appearance of ‘the New Star’ in the sky two thousand years ago. Whether it be in your own private prayer-times and meditations this Advent or whether you join us for ‘Advent Sacred Space’ at All Saints, Marazion from 4-4.30pm on Saturdays and Wednesdays for a time of quiet meditation and preparation, we pray that, in the depth of this dark Winter, we will also give time to preparing our hearts to receive ‘the New Thing’ that God wants to reveal to us. As the prophet Isaiah predicted: ‘I am doing ‘a new thing’. Do you not perceive it’?
Happy Advent travelling and best wishes in all your preparations,
Revd. Nigel Marns
Rector United Benefice of Mounts Bay
Sunday, 7 November 2010
November Newsletter
Dear Friends,
One of the many benefits of living in a place like this, is the awareness you have of the changing seasons. We once had to live for several years in the centre of a big city, where the only real signs of late Autumn were a build-up of soggy leaves in the gutters, the shop lights coming on early and an occasional glimpse of a magnificent sunset behind a tower block. Here though, the signs of the year’s turning are everywhere. You can smell it in the air. You can see it in the glorious, low, slanting light; the lengthening shadows; and in the way the countryside reveals itself, showing its underlying structure and bare bones. Even the lights around the bay have a sharpness and a brightness on late October and November nights that they didn’t have a couple of months ago. Real country people seem to have an innate sense of all this. My Dad used to say that he could ‘feel backend coming on’, and there was, in that, a reassuring sense that the natural rhythm of the year was working itself out, as it always had. I think the turning of the Church’s year too, has more of a natural feeling in communities like ours. This year, we are celebrating the Feast of All Souls with a service in Ludgvan Church on the day the clocks go back, so dusk will already be gathering as the service gets underway. It seems a fitting start to our season of remembrance, beginning, as it does, with remembrance of our individual losses, and climaxing with the numerically far greater loss we mark on the 11th and on Remembrance Sunday itself. It’s a time of year I find overwhelmingly moving, and it takes us towards Advent in an appropriately reflective mood.
As Advent approaches, I love the sense you get of things drawing to a close and yet being filled with expectancy. These few weeks that are marked out by the Church as a time of inward renewal and preparation for Christmas, always seem like a gift – a precious opportunity to spiritually re-tune ourselves before getting swept up into the busyness of the festive season. It’s more than just recharging our batteries. There is a quietness and a stillness about this time of year that helps us to tap into the quietness and stillness that is at the very heart of prayer, and prayer of course, is at the heart of our relationship with God. So accept the gift of Advent. Make the most of the opportunity it offers to press the pause button, however briefly, and spend some quiet time with God. The poet RS Thomas describes how essential such time is:
‘…the silence in the mind is when we live best, within listening distance of the silence we call God…’
I hope that’s what this coming Advent will mean for you – a time when you learn to live more ‘within listening distance of the silence we call God’.
Yours with love, Lilian
One of the many benefits of living in a place like this, is the awareness you have of the changing seasons. We once had to live for several years in the centre of a big city, where the only real signs of late Autumn were a build-up of soggy leaves in the gutters, the shop lights coming on early and an occasional glimpse of a magnificent sunset behind a tower block. Here though, the signs of the year’s turning are everywhere. You can smell it in the air. You can see it in the glorious, low, slanting light; the lengthening shadows; and in the way the countryside reveals itself, showing its underlying structure and bare bones. Even the lights around the bay have a sharpness and a brightness on late October and November nights that they didn’t have a couple of months ago. Real country people seem to have an innate sense of all this. My Dad used to say that he could ‘feel backend coming on’, and there was, in that, a reassuring sense that the natural rhythm of the year was working itself out, as it always had. I think the turning of the Church’s year too, has more of a natural feeling in communities like ours. This year, we are celebrating the Feast of All Souls with a service in Ludgvan Church on the day the clocks go back, so dusk will already be gathering as the service gets underway. It seems a fitting start to our season of remembrance, beginning, as it does, with remembrance of our individual losses, and climaxing with the numerically far greater loss we mark on the 11th and on Remembrance Sunday itself. It’s a time of year I find overwhelmingly moving, and it takes us towards Advent in an appropriately reflective mood.
As Advent approaches, I love the sense you get of things drawing to a close and yet being filled with expectancy. These few weeks that are marked out by the Church as a time of inward renewal and preparation for Christmas, always seem like a gift – a precious opportunity to spiritually re-tune ourselves before getting swept up into the busyness of the festive season. It’s more than just recharging our batteries. There is a quietness and a stillness about this time of year that helps us to tap into the quietness and stillness that is at the very heart of prayer, and prayer of course, is at the heart of our relationship with God. So accept the gift of Advent. Make the most of the opportunity it offers to press the pause button, however briefly, and spend some quiet time with God. The poet RS Thomas describes how essential such time is:
‘…the silence in the mind is when we live best, within listening distance of the silence we call God…’
I hope that’s what this coming Advent will mean for you – a time when you learn to live more ‘within listening distance of the silence we call God’.
Yours with love, Lilian
Friday, 1 October 2010
October Newsletter
All good gifts
The Schools have returned. The roads are much less busy. The days are shortening. The light is fading fast. The nights are noticeably cooler. The leaf fall is all around us. A last burst of warm sun, and the Indian Summer finally fades. Old routines are being revisited, new routines picked up and begun. New interests are taken up. A change of gear and a change of Season is upon us.
We mark this new season, this movement into Autumn, with a Celebration of ‘Life, and Health and Food’, of Creation, and of ‘all good gifts around us’. It is time for the Harvest Thanksgiving Season and, at Harvest, we come to God to thank Him for all his great provision for us, all the food we farm and ‘safely gather in’.
Our focus this Harvest-time is ‘Jesus, the Bread of Life’ (John 6:25-35). After Jesus has provided for his listeners on the hillside at the feeding of the five thousand (harking back to God’s provision of the Israelites with manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16) and pointing forward to the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom to come) Jesus then goes onto say that ‘we cannot live by bread alone’.
As we come to our Harvest Thanksgivings this year we might expand our thoughts to include not just carrots and cauliflowers but all of God’s provision that sustains us. We think of our homes and shelter, our clothes and fuel, our hobbies and employment. But it is not just food and practical things that can sustain us. Things perish. Food can go rotten and stale - as I’ve often found to my cost if I have left Harvest produce unsorted for too long in Church! - However, I always think we had one satisfied customer in the Church mouse who I think relishes this Season of Harvest feasting most of all!
Jesus says there is ‘more to life than food’. Other things sustain us: things like the nurture and love of our friends and family. ‘The bread of life’ also means living in God, living in Jesus, the true ‘bread of life’ can also sustain us and prepare us to live in the light of eternity. Jesus advises us ‘not to work for things that go bad, but for things that last for eternal life’. He says: ‘Those who come to me shall never go hungry. Those who believe in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35).
This Harvest Festival (as the Autumnal light gradually reduces our horizons and as we prepare to hunker down for the Winter ahead) may we also expand our horizons and our thinking to include the many things we can praise God for and his great provision for us in so many ways: certainly to thank Him for our food, but also for so many gifts around us: As Chisholm writes in his famous hymn:
‘Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand has provided.
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.’
Happy Harvest Feasting and festivity,
Revd Nigel Marns
Team Rector
The Schools have returned. The roads are much less busy. The days are shortening. The light is fading fast. The nights are noticeably cooler. The leaf fall is all around us. A last burst of warm sun, and the Indian Summer finally fades. Old routines are being revisited, new routines picked up and begun. New interests are taken up. A change of gear and a change of Season is upon us.
We mark this new season, this movement into Autumn, with a Celebration of ‘Life, and Health and Food’, of Creation, and of ‘all good gifts around us’. It is time for the Harvest Thanksgiving Season and, at Harvest, we come to God to thank Him for all his great provision for us, all the food we farm and ‘safely gather in’.
Our focus this Harvest-time is ‘Jesus, the Bread of Life’ (John 6:25-35). After Jesus has provided for his listeners on the hillside at the feeding of the five thousand (harking back to God’s provision of the Israelites with manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16) and pointing forward to the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom to come) Jesus then goes onto say that ‘we cannot live by bread alone’.
As we come to our Harvest Thanksgivings this year we might expand our thoughts to include not just carrots and cauliflowers but all of God’s provision that sustains us. We think of our homes and shelter, our clothes and fuel, our hobbies and employment. But it is not just food and practical things that can sustain us. Things perish. Food can go rotten and stale - as I’ve often found to my cost if I have left Harvest produce unsorted for too long in Church! - However, I always think we had one satisfied customer in the Church mouse who I think relishes this Season of Harvest feasting most of all!
Jesus says there is ‘more to life than food’. Other things sustain us: things like the nurture and love of our friends and family. ‘The bread of life’ also means living in God, living in Jesus, the true ‘bread of life’ can also sustain us and prepare us to live in the light of eternity. Jesus advises us ‘not to work for things that go bad, but for things that last for eternal life’. He says: ‘Those who come to me shall never go hungry. Those who believe in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35).
This Harvest Festival (as the Autumnal light gradually reduces our horizons and as we prepare to hunker down for the Winter ahead) may we also expand our horizons and our thinking to include the many things we can praise God for and his great provision for us in so many ways: certainly to thank Him for our food, but also for so many gifts around us: As Chisholm writes in his famous hymn:
‘Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand has provided.
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.’
Happy Harvest Feasting and festivity,
Revd Nigel Marns
Team Rector
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