Wherever you go take the weather with you ......

Speaking and writing and about the weather is a very English thing to do but in this era of increased attention to and awareness of global warming and its denial, the weather is definitely on most peoples agenda.

As Crowded House sang in 1991:

Walking 'round the room singing Stormy Weather
At 57 Mount Pleasant Street
Now it's the same room but every thing's different
You can fight the sleep but not the dream

The question of Global Warming is fraught with contradictions.

On any given day it seems there can be a wide range of weather events, too hot to garden in the morning followed by a need to don a sweater by early afternoon.

Weather that is simply windier and wetter than can be remembered with winters increasingly milder.

But, as with Brexit (about which we try not to speak) Global warming is part of a wider political debate.

Things ain't cookin' in my kitchen
Strange affliction wash over me
Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire
Couldn't conquer the blue sky

Just as right wing politicians on the whole resist, it seems, globalisation and the centralisation of powers including common currencies, the dismantling of borders and freedom of movement so right wing politicians generally reject the view that global warming is a post industrial phenomenon, resulting directly from industrial processes, greenhouse gases and pollution.

There is, of course, a view that weather is cyclical, that it comes in phases and stages and the worst winters can be seen every so many years followed by hotter summers, heatwaves and droughts.

But that said the reservoir emptied during the winter and then refilled as early and mid summer storms swept over the headwaters of the River Derwent that feeds it.

The meeting of local clergy took place after morning prayers with the Bishop of Berwick in St John's, Shotley.

After the bacon sandwiches had been prepared and eaten the local clergy meeting, called a chapter,
held a discussion about agendas for forthcoming meetings. 

Brexit was suggested, as in, what is the Christian response to a nation having a nervous breakdown?

There's a small boat made of china
Going nowhere on the mantlepiece
Do I lie like a loungeroom lizard
Or do I sing like a bird released

When that suggestion fell at the first fence climate change was proposed.

But it does seem to me that both these issues are symptoms of wider dissatisfaction in society as Bertold Brecht warned in The Rise and Fall of Arturo Ui 'the bitch that bore him is in heat again' which seemed to me, to be a remarkably appropriate quotation on the morning that The Guardian reported the US President's comments to a group of Democratic Congresswomen.

When Racism becomes so institutionalised that the leaders of the nations refer to their congressional colleagues in such terms then frankly: 'You know you're in trouble'!

So we dig deep in our own small corner of rural Northumberland, conveniently situated on the border with Durham, and seek to fulfil our vocation as a church.

On Saturday we pitched 'God's Tent' in our churchyard, there is a wider project in the Diocese but it was felt that we could and should do our own thing in Shotley Fields so we have the first pitching was considered a success and the next pitching is planned to invite all those who have been baptised in the last year or two to join us for a reflection on God's purposes for individual lives and communities in DH8.

Everywhere you go you always take the weather,
Take the weather, the weather with you 

So we will have to remember to take the weather with us but depending on the weather on the day we choose climate change might come up or even possibly Brexit.

We  are also planning a great new initiative a Forest Sunday School in the Vicarage Spinney which again will enable the children to map out and access new takes on old stories, re-imagining parables as happened last Sunday with the good Samaritan or as the sticker had it 'Samaritan' (GOOD) and at least we could keep dry in the Tent.

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