Vicar’s Letter September 2026

Over the course of the summer I managed to get some reading done.

I ended up reading a recent novel by an Italian author. It made for an interesting read, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

The main characters, a young couple, Anna and Tom, hail from a southern European city but have made their home in the grimy, hipster-cool, in-vogue, artisan and wonderfully creative city of Berlin.

They are, on one level, living the dream. Cool city, great apartment with wonderful interior design, flexible jobs, great social lives. They’ve got their aesthetic, their style and so much of their lives is curated to perfection….

And yet….. could it be that paradise isn’t all it was expected to be?

And off the novel goes. Where the novel goes isn’t what I’m particularly interested in so much as the premise. I love Berlin, about a decade ago I had week in Berlin by myself, visiting galleries, graffiti landmarks, places used in movies and walking the streets.

Berlin, would be my fantasy city to live in- having spent many of my formative years in Germany I kind of imagined in some alternative universe I’d have moved there in my early twenties.

What the novel got me thinking about was ambition, dreams, possibilities, risk, reality and how wherever we live, whatever we fill our homes and diaries with, wherever and whatever we eat, ultimately none of it is guaranteed to give us greater meaning, and even beyond this, all of it will in some way inevitably bring with it disappointment.Unsurprisingly this led me to think about where purpose and meaning might be found. Even more unsurprisingly, these questions led me to contemplate Jesus. The challenge all faith traditions leave us with is a question. Where might we encounter meaning and purpose for our lives?

Perhaps for you, that might be living in an arty area of Berlin, perhaps it might be something different. As we say in the Watson household, “The world is your lobster”, so keeping asking questions.

Peace.

Tim