Bacon butties for breakfast, honey sandwiches for tea .......

Transformations?

Constant change?

Nothing stays the same, everything is always changing.

This morning we were chatting over the breakfast table with Joe.

The subject of Bacon Sandwiches came up. Apparently many vegetarians take the same view of Bacon Sandwiches as Lenny Bruce, who once famously remarked that Bacon was the only Kosher part of a pig.

Maybe the animal inhabitants of Chez Purcell Smith will soon expand to  include a pig but for now the reason that Joe was discussing Breakfast over a cup of tea at 8 30 am was that he had delivered two Bee Hives so, hopefully soon, I will be writing about Shotley Fields as Rupert Brooke wrote about his beloved Grantchester:

 .................. for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea? 

I'm not entirely sure about the lies and truth and pain as so far and hopefully into the future there have not been too many lies and very little pain other than the pain of growing ever older.

But then even Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are growing ever older and so maybe I should take a leaf out of their (song) book and as I am gardening or parish visiting or even saying evensong at ten to three, sing:

Well I am a King Bee
Want you to be my Queen
Well I am a King Bee
Want you to be my Queen
Together we can make honey
The world has never seen
Well, buzz awhile

Or maybe not?

But the idea of adding Snod's Honey to our normal coffee morning offering of Snod's Eggs in aid of church funds might go down well and in the Autumn if the Parish Council apple press is in action we might have Snod's Cider on sale at the annual beer festival.

All in all this quiet corner of Northumberland, just a half hours drive from the centre of Newcastle is acquiring a reputation of being somewhat idyllic as the house nestles behind its own Spinney and the Greater Spotted Woodpecker hammers away at the trees with a marching beat to ensure that the Squirrels march through the Spinney in quick time with the free range chickens.

I find myself wondering what changes might be called for and how the Church can become the servant of the servants of God in a place  like this.

The occasional offices of course do provide occasion for pastoral support, ministry and outreach the job of a Parish Priest has always seemed to me to be a very special privilege. Whether in the intimate moments of life affecting parishioners, whether it be baptising the newly born, celebrating the sacrament of marriage or taking a funeral, a parish priest becomes almost an honorary member of a particular family at a time of particular vulnerability.
Next week I have a meeting scheduled with the Archdeacon to discuss the future of rural ministry in this part of the Rural Northumberland I have no idea of the possible agenda of this meeting but I can imagine how the discussion might unfold.

The immediate impact on St John’s will I am sure be limited but what will become apparent I suspect is how the longer term future might have to be imagined.

To take one example: Local Ministry:

I understand that Local Ministry Development Teams have largely been phased out in the Diocese, there is no longer a Local Ministry Development Officer what however is being discussed is what are now called in the rural context Ministry and Mission Teams the aims of which are: 

‘thinking afresh about what we do and how we do it. Making changes, trying to keep what is good and equip ourselves for a healthy and sustainable future’. ‘With services in every parish every week, confident, growing congregations, and parishes and benefices that support and care for each other’.

So I am thinking afresh .........

Transformations?

Constant change?

Nothing stays the same, everything is always changing.

But that's for another blog on another day, watch this space!










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Are you sitting comfortably then I will begin ........

  Do you remember  Listen with Mother  the programme always opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin".   My memory of it brings back strong emotions as I recall as a young child how the ritual involved a sense of snuggling down on my mother’s knee to hear the story being read.   In our psalm today, psalm 34 we are invited to say with the psalmist at verse 8, Happy are those who take refuge in him.   The idea of taking refuge involves quite literally hiding yourself in God or in your parents love.   Which is why I found myself transported back in time to the memory of hiding myself in my Mother’s protection as I was asked ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’   This image of a small child wrapped in it’s Mother’s arms, protected, warm, loved, the sense of being happy, as the psalmist invites us to imagine the possibility of taking refuge in God.   Of being protected, warm and loved which brings with it a deep sense of cont...
Read more

To Theophilus friend of God ......

  People who like quizzes might prefer me to begin with a question such as: Who wrote a quarter of the New Testament? The answer is of course St Luke. Luke the Evangelist wrote both the Gospel that bears his name but also the Acts of the Apostles. As an evangelist Luke was writing from the perspective of a historian about events that he had not witnessed personally. However his writing in the Acts of the Apostles suggests that he was describing activities in which he was involved. Luke indicates that he was not an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel he does 'repeatedly' use the word 'we' in describing the missionary journeys that he presumably undertook with Paul and which he describes in the Acts of the Apostles. In Colossians Paul writes: Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.  A near contemporary historian, Epiphanious, suggests that Luke could have been one of the seventy we read about in the Gospel set for the Feast of St Luke. As ...
Read more

Conviviality and a personal history .........

  There are many synonyms:  friendliness, geniality, affability, amiability, congeniality, good humour, cordiality, warmth, warm-heartedness, good nature, sociability, gregariousness, clubbability, companionability, cheerfulness, cheeriness, good cheer, joviality, jollity, gaiety, liveliness, festivity, bonhomie. And one rather sad antonym: unfriendliness.   In interdiac the definition of conviviality has three elements drawn from an understanding of the social and community aspects of life in the Iberian Peninsula where Moslems were able to live freely and openly with their Jewish and Christian neighbours.   The conviviality of life in 19 th  Century Paris with its free and unconstrained conversation.   The work and writings of Ivan Illich in which he described the transformation of relationships between people and their environment and technology.   In Manchester in the early 1970’s I worked in an inner-city environment which was scheduled ...
Read more