Somewhere between Heaven and Morrisons .........

On Saturday (Petertide) there was an Ordination in the Diocese of Newcastle.

A former member of the Congregation here was to be made Deacon obviously people were interested in supporting him and so a Charabanc was hired and we had a lovely day in Newcastle.

Because the postman had taken a parcel back to the sorting office, a parcel we needed that day, on Saturday we made an early morning run through to the sorting office which opened at 7 00 am.

Returning home we travelled along Rotary Way through Consett and right there in the centre of town next to Morrison's and opposite the site of the steel works, standing in the centre of the dual carriageway, was a deer.

We slowed down and stopped, the deer stood and watched us as we watched the deer.

It was a lovely morning and the sight of the deer made it an exceptionally lovely morning, despite the driver who having failed to overtake us then tried to undertake us causing the deer to flee into the foliage on the side of the dual carriageway and disappear we hope into safety the image stayed with us.

Somewhere between heaven and Morrison's a deer stood on the site that had been home to heavy engineering, steel smelting, cradles of molten slag scorching the night sky red, maybe the sign marking the sight was, after all, appropriately named: Genesis?

The remaking of community is a challenge facing society at large and the church in  particular.

Consett is such a community, built around steel, once the steelworks closed it has been courageously remaking itself, rebuilding, new industrial estates, new businesses, much more self employment and where the steel works stood a Tesco store almost next door to Morrison's.

With the rebuilding has come much more housing, estate after estate, suggesting that like so many other communities Consett has become a commuting town with people travelling long distances to work in Newcastle, Gateshead and Durham.

Here in Snods Edge our contribution to the rebuilding and remaking of community were the trade fairs that were run in the Church Hall, offering new enterprises the opportunity to establish their brands, promote their products and services and begin to find their feet in an uncertain world.

But more widely the church is struggling to make the space it needs for its voice to be heard.  At meeting after meeting I hear the same litany: falling congregations, a wall of disbelief offering a barrier between church and world, less and less money, fewer and fewer clergy, more for congregations to do as they grow older.

I am torn between two responses: simply getting on with saying my prayers and hope that 'all things will be well' and thinking that there needs to be a major collapse before there can be any possibility of resurrection.

Meanwhile I find some consolation in the fellowship of the Church of which I am a part and of course in the liturgy and as a poet (manque) in the spoken word, which is also the word that builds community.

The sight of a deer besides Morrison's on a dual carriage way in the centre of Consett made me think of Psalm 42

1 As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, "Where is your God?" 4 I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.
5 Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God. 6 I am deeply depressed; therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me. 8 The Lord will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night- a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God, my rock, "Why have You forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy's oppression?" 10 My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, "Where is your God?" 11 Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God



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