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Vicar's Letter - May 2012 |
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Dear Friends,
I write this having just returned from my 5th Annual Meeting since Barbara and I came to Boyatt Wood and I am reminded of the reading from the Old Testament:
| Ecclesiastes 3 begins: |
For everything there is a season, |
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a time for every activity under heaven |
Throughout our own lives, if we look back and reflect, we will also see a pattern of seasons, some being more difficult than others. We may not understand these seasons and perhaps they are not meant for us to understand, but simply to know, that who ever we are, these seasons are a
pattern for all of us and they will occur throughout our lives.
We may not be able to choose any particular season to our lives, as the highs and the lows will occur when they occur, but I do believe that we can choose how we want to react to how those seasons effect us.
In the same way, I believe that we can choose how we react to negativity, hate, insult, unfairness and general bad neighbourliness and that how we react to such, is a measure of how far we have travelled on our spiritual journey.
Jesus said:
But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to
those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt
you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also.
These things are not easy but they are things that we are called to do.
Every year at this time I look forward with renewed optimism. When my time finishes in Boyatt Wood (as some day it will) it would be good to be able to say (for at least some of our time here) . . . .
. . . we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun . . .
May God bless you all.
Brian
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Vicar's Letter - April 2012 |
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Dear Friends
Our annual church meeting (APCM) is almost upon us again and gives us an opportunity, not only to review what we have been up to, but also to look forward with hope, optimism and a sense that God is in charge.
For the Anglican Communion as a whole, we will lose our leader of the last ten years Archbishop Rowan Williams. His leadership has been exercised through a very difficult period for the Anglican Communion in general.
I personally give thanks for Archbishop Rowan’s leadership over this time. He has shown immense integrity and intellect in his desire to keep the Anglican Church together, through its seemingly enormous difficulties. After all, if the church is to be a light to the world, surely that is demonstrated more clearly in how we are able to live together in the difficult times, rather than the good. Thank you Rowan.
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Vicar's Letter - January 2012 |
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We are already more than half way through January and as that old saying goes: time and tide waits for no one.
It’s a strange thing ”time” simply because, although we know that it seems to remain constant (i.e. seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc) the way that we spend our time seems to effect the way it goes.
If you are in a rush, and you have just missed your bus, or are stuck in a traffic jam, then a few minutes can seem like hours. If you are having a great time with family and friends then hours can just disappear like minutes.
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Vicar's Letter - March 2012 |
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Dear Friends,
I’ve just come from an assembly at the Junior School based on the word “ASPIRE”. All three of our schools in the parish, Shakespeare Infants, Juniors and Crestwood have taken the word “ASPIRE” as a sort of vision statement on how they want their school to be.
“ASPIRE” means to desire with eagerness something high or great and what all three schools seek to do is to be the best schools that they can be.
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Vicar's Letter - December 2011 |
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Dear Friends,
The nights are drawing rapidly in and it will not be long now until the shortest day of the year (21st Dec) and Christmas will be over. First though we will enter the season of “Advent”.
Derived from the Latin word, Adventus, which means “coming” or
“arrival”, it signals a time of “expectant waiting”. It also marks the beginning of the new church year on Advent Sunday (27th Nov.). But as we approach Advent, I wonder what it is that each of us may be waiting for?
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Vicars Monthly Letter