Category: Blog

John’s Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

November 2019

As autumn takes hold the year cycles on towards winter. We defy the dark evenings by lighting bonfires, we deny the cold by burning fuel indoors. And the life of the church cycles on also, into a time of remembering – lost loved ones at All Souls, the saints of the ages at All Saints, and with the war-weary world, those lost in conflicts at Remembrance. May God hold us, in our remembering.

The life of the church cycles on in other ways. Last month the people of Austwick were reminded of the financial costs of running our churches and invited to reconsider our giving. It’s an invitation extended to all for whom the church remains important in these times of great change. Most of us are caught in another cycle – sometimes called The Cash Triangle – a process leading from Education to Mortgage to Pension which then, through the generations, cycles around again. The church exists in this cycle, and is open-eyed about the ways it affects us; but the church also invites us into another cycle of life – in which a search for the Spiritual / Sacred / Mystical leads on into a place of Healing and Wholeness, and deeper on into a place of Acceptance and Love in community – which then, through the generations, cycles around again. 

In Leeds Diocese we are committed to a programme called Leading Your Church into Growth. We do so open-eyed to the reality of diminishing attendence, deteriorating finances and a decreasing, increasingly stretched paid workforce, a ‘spiral of decline which we may have learned to manage but not to reverse’ (Bob Jackson). We can be a fatally self-apologetic body: ’faintly embarrassed by the suggestion that there might be something more to life, it seems the Church of England thinks God is the ultimate ‘good chap’.’ (Jeremy Paxman). But there is confidence that the C of E  continues to be an amazing network of thousands of local churches, expressing and supporting community – let’s be bold and say sharing the love of God – practically and in traditional and new ways of worship, with the generations. 

Yes, it can feel like winter is approaching – but we live in faith that after winter comes spring, as we unapologetically commit to defying the darkness, and take steps to keep the lights shining.

 

A harvest poem in troubled times

 

Harvest gives perspective

On this troubled world we’re in

A world, some say, in chaos 

While others speak of sin

 

There is so much anxiety

On the direction where we’re going

There is so much uncertainty

No easy way of knowing

 

So it’s good to get together here

With family and friends

To mark another season

As another harvest ends

 

And think just how much stronger

People are together

Holding each other closely

Through every kind of weather

 

And consider how creation

Keeps us together too

How lambing, seedtime, harvest

Bring life to me and you

 

So in these days where questions

Round every corner meet us

Let’s not let Brexit worries

Weigh on us and defeat us

 

Harvest gives us trust

In wider, deeper things

In each other, in the eternal

Those things which make us sing

 

Prorogation, segregation, 

Whatever else prevails

We’ve always got each other and 

We’ve always got the Dales

 

John Davies

14 September 2019

Keasden Harvest Supper

John’s Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

September 2019

What is the force that drives nature? What makes flowers flourish, what is the creative force causing health and growth in the crops and creatures we celebrate at Harvest time? It’s a mystery to us – which maybe only poetry can express. 

Dylan Thomas explored this mystery in his classic verse, The force that through the green fuse drives the flower. In it he makes deep connections between himself and the force behind nature: whilst keenly aware of how his mortality also disconnects him from that force and from the rest of nature:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower 

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees 

Is my destroyer. 

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose 

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. 

Thomas (aged 19 when he wrote) says: there is a force behind nature. But ‘I am dumb’ to express it, I can¹t explain it, in my earthbound, death-bound body I can’t quite grasp it. 

No lack of certainty, however, from the poet who wrote Psalm 104. ‘Praise the Lord, my soul. … The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent… He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind… He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.’ Observant Jews begin each day’s worship with these words.

Harvest can be a bit of a mystery to us in its invitation to us to find ways to give thanks for the force that drives nature, to celebrate the creative force which makes us, the crops and creatures grow. Harvest prompts us to consider how closely we ourselves are tied into nature and its cycles. How we are members of ‘the Community of Creation’ (a phrase of Richard Bauckham) alongside every other creature and plant and element on earth.

Whether we feel confident to name the force that drives nature, or speechless at this mystery, Harvest invites us to spend time wondering about it. 

John’s Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

August 2019

 

Of the many eccentric clerics Revd Robert Hawker stands out. Dressed in a claret-coloured coat, a blue fisherman's jersey, long sea-boots, a pink brimless hat and a poncho made from a yellow horse blanket, Hawker talked to birds,  invited his nine cats into church and kept a pig as a pet. Apparently Hawker also had a penchant for dressing up as a mermaid, and he excommunicated his cat for mousing on Sundays. He is also credited for inventing the Harvest Festival Service.

Hawker ministered on the north Cornish coast parish of Morwenstow from 1834 to 1875. A desolate spot where waves thrashed against the rocks hundreds of feet below the church, Morwenstow was a haven for smugglers and wreckers. But it’s mostly farming country and if you go there today, above the sea cliffs you’ll find the uplands alive with crops and livestock. 

In 1843 Revd Hawker introduced a harvest thanksgiving service to his Morwenstow congregation. He put up a notice reading, "Let us gather together in the chancel of our church, and there receive, in the bread of the new corn, that blessed sacrament which was ordained to strengthen and refresh our souls.”

Of course, for countless centuries farmers have gathered to give thanks for their harvest. But Hawker’s pioneering Harvest Festival turned it into the fixture we know today, just as at Christmas we’re indebted to his contemporary J. M. Neale, who pioneered the carol service.

Unafraid of breaking the mould, Hawker had the imagination to connect the spirit of his community to the praise of God for his generous provision, and he was bold enough to make of this connection a new form of service – which has endured.  

Today we’re trying something new to help people connect with land and all of creation – Forest Church, it’s called, a service mostly outdoors which can take whatever shape suits the people and the place where it happens. In September and October each of our churches will hold our traditional Harvest services as always, and also, on 25th August at Keasden Church (7pm) we will have a first go at Forest Church ourselves. Everyone’s welcome – and you’re also welcome to a planning session on Monday 12th August at Keasden Church (7pm) where we’ll decide how to shape our Forest Church into something which really suits our people and our place.

 

John’s Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

July 2019

“I often hear adults say: ‘We need to give the next generation hope’. But I don’t want your hope. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I do. Every day. And want you to act. I want you to behave like our house is on fire. Because it is.” Many have been moved by the urgency in Greta Thunberg’s speeches (this one given to the  World Economic Forum in Davos last January), and – having been sidelined for decades – the way we treat the natural world is now undoubtedly the defining issue of our times. 

Recently, Leeds City Council committed to make Leeds carbon neutral by 2030. And the Diocese of Leeds published a Diocesan Environmental Policy urging churches to adapt their model for use in each parish. We’ve have had some lively and engaged discussions as a result – not least because members of our farming community rightly challenged the assumptions made in the Leeds document about the sustainability of vegan and vegetarian food over meat. Round here, arguments based on industrial-scale beef farming figures aren’t relevant – and I am using far more greenhouse gas buying tofu from Morrisons than getting local lamb from a nearby farm shop. 

There’s a lot to celebrate about the close relationship our agricultural parishes have with creation through the everyday activities on our farms, and in our worship, like at lambing and harvest times. There’s sustainability built into the ‘make-do-and-mend’ approach to farming and everyday life. There’s ‘localism’ everywhere here, where farmers help each other in their work on the land, where PCCs use local tradespeople and local materials in maintaining our building and land, where parishioners use local shops – where some even work as volunteers in the case of Clapham Village Store. Want to see a churchyard where wildflowers are encouraged and the ecology of plant, insect and animal life is thriving? Look no further then Keasden, which has been practicing this for years.

As sustainability expert Mike Berners-Lee told the audience at a packed Settle Methodist Church recently, ‘There is No Planet B’. Christians recognise our responsibility to care for the Earth so that human life and all God’s creatures may be sustained in harmony. We can respond to all of this creatively, without fear or falling-out, starting from where we are.

 

John's Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

June 2019

John’s Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

May 2019

The Queen said to Alice, ‘I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.’ ‘I can’t believe that!’ said Alice.

I remember once visiting a nursing home where in the lounge an aged lady beckoned me over to her, drew my ear close to her mouth and said to me secretively but proudly, “I’m a hundred and ninety years old, you know.” “Are you really?” I said, playing along. “You look good for your age.” 

“And something else,” the one-hundred-and-ninety-year-old said to me. “Yes?” “I’m going to give you a donation of a hundred thousand pounds.” “Really?” I replied, “That’s very generous of you.”

“I can’t believe THAT!” said Alice.

Can’t you?” said the Queen in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”

I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”

These days – particularly if we’re in the habit of starting our day with the news – it seems we’re all required to believe six impossible things before breakfast, as mediated to us by tweeting politicians, pay-rolled pundits and ‘reality’ TV stars. In such a slippery world it’s challenging keeping hold of those beliefs we hold dear, those truths we hold self-evident. And yet, though this may sound nonsensical, one of the best ways to do this is to permit ourselves to engage in strange imaginings.

The Judaeo-Christian scriptures invite us to imagine ourselves in a world where, for instance, swords are reinvented as ploughshares, spears as pruning-hooks. And amongst those who have decided to make this their reality are people like Alfie Bradley, an artist who created the 27ft (8m) ‘Knife Angel’ sculpture currently on display at Coventry Cathedral, made from 100,000 blades handed into police across the country. And Alison Cope, who, in the five years since her18-year-old son Joshua was stabbed to death, has since spoken to over 280,000 people in schools, prisons and groups across the country, inviting her audiences to imagine a world without knife crime, and by imagining it, to bring it into being.

During the weekend of the Austwick Street Market this year, Austwick Church is hosting a special Alice in Wonderland themed flower festival. On the Sunday morning we're having a special Alice-themed celebration service. Why not? It’s only by allowing ourselves into a world of strange imaginings that we can start to make seemingly impossible things come wonderfully true.

 

John’s Notes: Parish Magazine editorials

April 2019 

 

This is in praise of all Resurrection People, in celebration of those who never say die. When I say ‘Resurrection People’ I’m thinking of those who have a zest for life: like George, an ex-parishioner of mine who once abseiled 100ft off a local viaduct to raise money for a hospice. He was then aged 91 and had had a triple heart bypass. To avoid any irksome health and safety niggles, on the abseil application form he’d put his age down as ‘Twenty-plus’. Resurrection People are indefatigable.

They are people who don’t give up easily: like my friend Adrian, a vicar in rural North Wales, who on the morning of a winter wedding opened his front door to find that the snow outside was waist deep. To ensure the wedding went ahead he coordinated a magnificent community effort. Over 30 people of all ages turned out to clear the road and remove two feet of snow from the church path; a local councillor borrowed a snowplough; the organist heroically arrived by thumbing two lifts, one of which was on a fire engine. The bride later said, 'There were people with shovels that I didn't even know!’ Yes, Resurrection People are unstoppable.

I’m thinking of those who have a terminal illness but who give their time and energy to supporting and counselling others who are ill themselves; or those who turn their losses into opportunities – like being made redundant later in life who pick themselves up and start a new kind of work altogether. I’m thinking of those who give their lives as medical professionals or as peace-keepers, negotiators, healers and reconcilers in conflicted parts of our country and the world. Educators who refuse to see anyone as a no-hoper, and open up opportunities their students never imagined they’d have. Resurrection People turn dead-endings into fresh starts.

Whether you regard the resurrection of Jesus as an event in history or a myth, it’s undeniable that it has released into the world a power surge of life, a power force for life which makes for the sort of never-say-die attitudes which are the impetus to make new beginnings possible. I think this power flows through us all, it’s the innate Jesus gene we’ve all inherited. Not all Resurrection People are believers – though all followers of Christ will be Resurrection People.

The times we’re living through call for us to never say die. Where powerful forces combine to undercut the institutions which for generations have brought health, welfare, education and cohesion to our villages and towns, where the end of things is in the air: this is the time to activate  the greater power latent in us to stand for life; to use all the gifts and character we have been given to create opportunities to make new beginnings possible. This is our Easter time.

John’s Notes: Parish Magazine editorials

March 2019 

Justine Sacco made a quip to her small circle of Twitter followers and it ruined her life forever. It was a feeble little joke, in poor taste, sent absent-mindedly at the start of a flight from New York to South Africa. As the plane took off and she slept, the joke ‘went viral’. It seemed the whole world saw it (or at least that sizeable portion of the global population which spends its days tweeting), and the whole world condemned her for it so strongly and insistently that before her plane landed Sacco had been sacked from her PR job: via Twitter, of course. Worse was ahead of her – castigated by her family, barred from hotels and restaurants, publicly reviled, Sacco has never recovered from that episode. This story of disproportionate damnation features in Jon Ronson’s book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. 

Some see such humiliation as a useful way to allow people to right injustices on the internet. Others say it encourages online mobs to destroy the reputation and careers of people or organisations who make perceived slights. Jon Ronson says, “I think social media is robbing us of our empathy, and it's also robbing us of our ability to distinguish between serious and non-serious transgressions. I think we're forgetting that there are human beings on the other end.”

A crowd once brought to Jesus ‘a woman caught in the act of adultery,’ saying, “The Law commands us to stone to death any such woman. What do you say we should do?” Jesus just stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. When the crowd persisted with their question he stood up and said, “Anyone here who has never sinned should throw the first stone at her.” Then he stooped down again to write in the dust. When they heard this, the people began to leave one by one, the older men first, and then the others. Jesus was left alone with the woman standing there in front of him. He sent her on her way with a gentle encouragement to clean up her act. (John 8.1-10)

At a moment of crisis Jesus broke the tension and created space for reflection by writing in the dust. The consequence was an unexpected change in direction, a twist in the tale from which all learned and benefitted and no-one became a killer or victim. I’m certain that long-ago event in the grounds of the Jerusalem Temple has something to say to our situation today.

In our Lent meetings we will take time to reflect together on some of the challenging situations of our times. Things that affect us, in our everyday lives. We’ll be guided by the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery and other scriptures. It’s an opportunity for us to do our own ‘writing in the dust’ and see what comes out of it. Everybody is welcome: do come along to share in the conversation and the contemplation. 

John’s Notes: Parish Magazine Editorials

February 2019 

 

“My life, it’s slipping away,” says Billy Connolly, the Glaswegian comedian who in recent years has been living with the degenerative disease of Parkinson’s. “But it doesn’t frighten me, it’s an adventure. I still get furious, but then I just collapse in laughter.”

You may have seen Billy Connolly’s recent documentary tour of Scotland revisiting the places which shaped him – the Glasgow shipyards, pubs, shops and tenements, contemplating his life in conversation with the people of the place along the way – whilst never shying away from discussing his Parkinsons and the challenge of facing the end of his days. It was an emotional and profound journey he took us on.

I wish my old friend and mentor Jim Hart had embraced death and dying the same way. An active cyclist, a progressive town planner and a Christian missioner of the forgotten edges of our towns and cities (he taught me and many others how to deeply explore ‘our places’, doing our Christian theology ‘on foot’): when Parkinsons hit Jim he couldn’t cope. Losing his ability to hold steady a book or coffee cup, or to take to his motorbike, it was all too much for him. Despite his friends’ many interventions he ended his own life tragically a decade ago.

Joanna Collicutt is a chartered psychologist and Anglican priest in Oxford diocese. Her mother suffered a serious heart attack and at one point was given 48 hours to live. In the event she lived another seven years. She spent those years well, regularly visiting churches to pray privately and prepare herself spiritually for the end of her earthly life. This made a deep impression on Joanna who points out that, unlike many religious traditions, Christianity does not offer a model for how to grow old gracefully. Jesus of Nazareth ‘lived fast and died young’: “The Christian faith does not see later life as a dignified decline into oblivion, but the urgent run-up to its ultimate goal, stepping through the gateway of death to resurrection life.” In the same sort of spirit as Billy Connolly jaunting through Glasgow’s backstreets one last time before he goes.

I do wonder if we had the language to talk more openly about death, and help each other to positively prepare for it, then my friend Jim might have avoided his angry, frustrated end. I’m convinced that he is absolutely held in love, in God. But if only he’d found a way to live all his earthly life to the full, on speaking terms with his coming death.  As Billy Connolly is doing. And Joanna Collicut’s Death+Life project is helping others do the same: www.deathlife.org.uk.