Winter in the Workplace. Revd Dr Jenny McKay Well, what a year 2020 was! This time last year we were receiving sporadic reports of a few outbreaks of a new flu virus in Asia, but little did the general public know what that would really mean for the year ahead. Dave and I had returned at the end of January from a snowshoe holiday in France although there was little snow in the Southern French Alps due to changes in seasonal snowfall and we had to climb quite high to see any. That was our last holiday abroad. Then, in February, a number of us in work had to fly out to Portugal for a Lab Leaders’ Meeting and we were starting to feel a bit nervous as colleagues from Korea, Japan and Italy were told not to fly due to escalating flu cases. By the end of the week, those of us who had managed the trip were feeling decidedly anxious and there was a real feeling of foreboding in the airport on the trip back home where everyone just wanted to get home safely in time. In time for what? We didn’t know but it was an almost apocalyptic feeling. In fact, while in Portugal I had also learned that Cransley High School had been shut due to coronavirus fears after Italy ski-trip pupils were showing flu-like symptoms. The disease was now literally on our doorstep! Almost one year ago, who could have imagined that people would be working from home, life would carry on and those of us who had always been present and “needed” in the laboratory were now confined to home? On the 4th Sunday of Advent I talked about the song “Lord of The Dance” by Sydney Carter. In it, Jesus dances through people’s lives, inviting them to join him. Sydney also wrote another powerful song about this dancing God, and the danger of trying to trap him, or keep him still. It’s called “The Bird of Heaven” and it tells us that if we try to hold God down or control him, that we will “look again tomorrow, and he will be gone.” You, like me, may not like to be constrained at home but during this pandemic the Holy Spirit has certainly not been constrained within church buildings, and we’ve seen time and again how the church has adapted with new types of services, social media and many people who may never have thought much about Christianity are now really asking questions about faith.All of us with faith are being looked at to answer questions about why this pandemic has happened and what it all means. Sometimes it can be difficult to feel ready for these challenging questions. However, think about Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was and is an inspiration. An ordinary woman chosen to fulfil God’s purpose for his people. As Luke tells us, the angel appeared to her and said “you are the favoured one!” Because Mary loved God and followed Him she had the confidence to agree. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled’ she said.Whatever happens this year, where ever we are, whatever place or time, God calls us to follow Jesus and to let him guide our steps into the unknown future. I try and remember that when being a presence in the workplace even if that is virtual! If we dare to open our hearts to God, and to the world around us, and to the difference God can make in people’s lives, the dance of 2021 will go on.Blessings to you all, Jenny
From the Vicar At the time of writing, it is still unclear as to exactly what the tiered restrictions will be that follow the ending of the temporary lockdown on 2nd December, but I would like to reassure all readers that, notwithstanding any indications to the contrary, Christmas will not be cancelled! It has been interesting, to say the least, to have observed the way in which large sections of the media understand and appreciate the importance and the significance of Christmas – or should I say “the festive season” or “the December celebrations”. We all know and appreciate the huge importance of the Christmas season for the economy, and for families and communities across the country in the “bleak mid-winter” of Covid-19 restrictions and the continuing suffering and death for so many people – all the more reason therefore for us to remind people of, and celebrate, the joy and the hope that is at the very heart of Christmas – the birth of the Messiah – God with us. This, as we all know, is the true “reason for the season” and some of us will be celebrating this in Church (God willing), others online or listening to the radio or watching the television – whatever situation we find ourselves in we will be celebrating and giving thanks for the birth of the Christ Child – neither plague nor pandemic can prevent this – nor even Oliver Cromwell! I do not underestimate how different this Christmas will be for hundreds of millions of Christians throughout the world – but I will take great comfort in the celebration of a Festival which, in a strange way that we’ve begun to appreciate more during these long and difficult months of lockdowns, awful suffering and different restrictions, may well take on far greater significance and meaning for Christians, and others, everywhere. Difficulties and disappointments there will certainly be, and I do not want to gloss over these with glib platitudes – but our faith and hope as Christians is, or should be, far deeper and much more resilient than anything that can be thrown at us, including the current pandemic and all the problems associated with it. St Paul put this so wonderfully and powerfully into words in his letter to the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8) – nor Covid-19!<span style="font-size: 1rem;">So, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing this Christmas, let me remind everyone of one of my favourite lines from one of the most well known and loved Christmas Carols “In the bleak mid-winter” by Christina Rossetti, which I’m sure we’ll all hear at some time over Christmas: “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb; if I were a wise man I would do my part, yet what I can I give him: give my heart”. Give our hearts this Christmastide – to God, to the Christ Child and to one another.</span> On behalf of all the Ministry Team (to whom, along with the many workers and helpers in our Church community, on your behalf, I would like to pay tribute, for their enthusiastic willingness to take on all the challenges that came in the wake of Covid-19 and the lockdowns, and continue!) – best wishes for a truly happy, peaceful, blessed and safe Christmas. Happy Christmas! And here’s to 2021! The Revd Alec Brown.
Curate`s Musings Dear friends When I was seriously ill in my last year of University, one of my lecturers sent me a get well card and a book. The book was Anne of Green Gables and she told me that in dark times regressing to childhood was always a good plan. That started a love affair with all things Avonlea. One of my December reads (I managed 6 weeks of non-fiction by the way) is going to be “the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I may even have a CS Lewis fest and read all of the Narnia Chronicles. For those of you who have never read it – four children enter a magical land through a wardrobe. There they find a place that is in the grips of the evil White Witch – a land where it is “always winter and never Christmas.” It is only with the arrival of Father Christmas that you begin to see things are changing and Aslan, the lion, is on the move. For some people today it is always winter and never Christmas This Advent and Christmas will be very different. People have been interviewed who seem to suggest that Christmas won`t be happening. Well it will. God will still walk amongst us. The baby will still be born in the stable. Our extraordinary God will become man and live and love amongst us. Malcolm Guite, the Christian poet, wrote that the true peace and joy of Christmas is a gift, not something we can artificially produce or manufacture. If we have love in our lives then that is such a gift and one that we need to be generous with by extending that love to others. The Church of England`s theme this year is comfort and joy. There is the prayer that Christmas will bring joy and celebration but there is also the acknowledgment that after such a difficult year with people having lost loved ones and livelihoods and not being able to be with loved ones that we need to provide consolation.In Romans 12.15 Paul writes “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” There are so many people who are broken hearted at the moment but we know that Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted and Christmas provides us with a moment of hope.If you or anyone need prayer or someone to talk to or anything practical please let us knowChristina Ps if you would like a good advent read “ Unearthly beauty – Through Advent with the Saints” by Magdalen Smith is really readable.
In spite of the fact that our November services of remembrance – All Souls on 1st and Remembrance Sunday on 8th – have had to be limited in terms of attendance and slightly altered in terms of procedure – there is no question in my mind that they will mean even more than usual to most people this year, given everything we’ve all been through with Covid-19.Commemorations in Marston for the 100th anniversary of the installation of the War Memorial in the former Churchyard have also had to be curtailed, though the Parish Council and a dedicated band of volunteers are doing their best to ensure a “taste” of the celebratory and commemorative elements of the ceremony held in 1920. These included the green archway across the road and assorted displays and exhibitions, as well of course food and drink, and it is clear that the newly installed War Memorial was a symbol of all of this community engagement and collective experience and memory.Although remembering and the month of November are now so firmly established in the psyche and “soul” of the nation – primarily of course on account of the First and Second World Wars – it is worth reflecting on the fact that Christians have always taken the opportunity at this time of the year to remember and give thanks for departed loved ones in the annual Feast of All Souls, which always follows All Saints Day in the Church’s calendar. The festival provides such a strong and for many such a reassuring opportunity, when we are able to “connect” spiritually and emotionally with our loved ones, and all the saints down the ages. We are not of course speaking of either ancestor worship or veneration – but our memories are both strong and loving, and also deeply life affirming. No doubt we all come to these services with different needs and hopes and expectations, but in the reading of names and the lighting of candles, and in the silence, we all join together in a very special, meaningful and powerful way.In his book “England’s Thousand Best Churches” Simon Jenkins describes very movingly an experience he had whilst undertaking research for the book, at the little church of Up Marden – “...a place of delicious remoteness in the Sussex Downs. <span style="font-size: 1rem;">The evening was warm and the gloaming was rising from the valley beneath. Through a churchyard hung low with trees I could sense the air filling with the ghosts of villagers climbing up the hill to that tiny building. I sensed their coming for a thousand years. As they arrived, they hurled their hopes against those walls, wept on altars and filled rafters with their cries. That shed called a church had received their faith, and offered in return a humble consolation. Now mute in death, these people communicated to me as they did to Eliot, ‘tongued with fire beyond the language of the living’. I could not be immune to the spirits of such a place.” (2000, page xxix)</span>Jenkins refers to T.S Eliot and lines from his wonderful poem “Little Gidding” – ‘You are not here to verify, instruct yourself, inform curiosity or carry report. You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid’. In our services of remembrance, and in all our services and visits to the church this month, and always, we kneel, remember and give thanks, and we pray, in a place where prayer has been, and continues to be, valid – to our loving Father in heaven, who hears all the prayers of our hearts.May God bless each one of us in this coming month.The Revd Alec Brown.
