My Dear Friends, I have a small room in my vicarage which is my ‘workspace’. It’s used for different purposes, an ‘office’ when I do official things, a ‘study’ when I… well… study, and a ‘studio’ when I need a creative space to paint. I have a wonderful Trinity of uses for my small, relatively dark, and often cold little room. My desk is jammed up against the window (north facing) so I get some daylight during the day, and there are several lamps for evening work. I often visit the workspaces of my clergy colleagues. There I often find serious, book lined walls, piles of papers and desktop computers looking like air traffic control. I’m glad for them but this isn’t my way - your vicar is less studious I’m afraid. If you knock at my door, I may answer it with a paint brush in hand rather than a heavy theological tome. Of course I do engage in theology, but usually I find a creative way of thinking about God. I’m writing about this because I want to encourage us all that being a Christian takes many different forms, there is no ‘right’ way of being a vicar any more than there is a ‘right’ way of being a Christian – we are all different, and we find God in different ways. God loves us all, and we can love him as we simply walk in nature, paint a picture, dig the garden, go for a run (I NEVER do this). However you spend your time, spend a little bit of it thinking about God, doing theology. As we approach Easter and move into spring, the most important message I have to offer is that God loves you - especially you - in all your wonderful and lovely difference. I say this over and over in church and where else I go, because it’s fundamental to our existence as human beings to know that we are loved by God. love and blessings. Linda
2nd April MAUNDY THURSDAY *With our friends at Newbold Pacey 5.00PM Feast of the Last Supper with washing of hands 3rd April GOOD FRIDAY Charlecote 2.00PM Devotional Hour Saturday 4th April EASTER EVE Loxley 5.00PM First Light of Easter Sunday 5th April EASTER DAY Hampton Lucy 9.30AM Holy Communion with Baptism Charlecote 11.00AM Holy Communion Loxley 11.00AM Holy Communion Sunday 12th April *With our friends at Newbold Pacey 10.30AM Joint service of Holy Communion Sunday 19th April Hampton Lucy 9.30AM Morning Prayer Charlecote 9.30AM Morning Prayer Loxley 11.00AM Holy Communion Sunday 26th April Charlecote 9.30AM Holy Communion Hampton Lucy 6.00PM Evensong
