From Revd Canon Jane Thompson

I love June! It maybe just me, but personally June is one of the most hopeful months of the year! The weather is warming up, the days are at their longest, the trees at their greenest and there is still the hope of warmth and being outdoors for months to come.

For our youngsters, those in year 6 have finished their SATs - the fun of their last half term at primary school in full-swing: trips, sports day, the school fête and the time to cement those long-standing friendships. All this activity alongside the excitement - and natural nervousness, building towards September’s next step.

Our older young people have finished university exams - and are heading home for the summer – and undoubtedly jobs to supplement their next academic year; while, of course, our teens are still head-down, with GCSEs and A’ levels in full-swing… sadly often with warm weather, that they can’t enjoy… quite yet…

Wherever we sit in the generations, summer is a season when life blossoms, when we get to live “life to the max”, and there is hope.

As I write we are still in the Easter season, between Ascension Day and the celebrations of Pentecost. Pentecost is when Jesus was back with his Father and his Spirit and the Holy Spirit was sent by God to us, to be a constant, continual presence alongside. A presence with us, beside us, in the good times and the tough… with us during the exams, as well as in the celebrations and long summer after!

As we pray for Anthony as he is ordained priest and for Rev Ann Devereux as she prepares to join us in King’s Somborne, I pray too that your summer is hope-filled - with a sense of God’s presence with you and, during this beautiful summer month, may you experience life in all its fullness, “life to the max”.

God bless,

Jane