Last year at the URC Silence & Retreats Network annual April conference in Windermere, my role as editor of Windows and national core group member came to an end. This year I will be handing over my role as Wessex Link, so it has meant saying goodbye to travelling companions of many years. This is not easy, however brief the encounters or infrequent the contact, there is a sense of loss of community. The freedom given by others in acceptance of who we are, not demanding who they would like us to be, goes beyond, and indeed embraces, all our individual uniqueness, differences and emotions. And there is no loss without an infilling. Like the tide coming in and going out. A natural flowing from one place to another, one community to another - the ocean is the same, the shoreline is still there. It is just that different areas are exposed at different times giving a provisionality to life, yet at the same time a permanence of being one in the whole. Next March as I 'retire' from the active URC ministry there will undoubtedly be the same sense of loss we experience together. Yet it will be infilled as we will continue in community in a fresh and different way. The new sign outside the Church, improves our image and gives up to date information about services and quiet days to passers-by. Thanks to John Spencer for organising the freshly painted doors to the Church, following our decision at AGM. Taking care of our property is an important part of our offering to friends and visitors and evidence of our concern to ensure the continuing witness in the area and our praise to God.

Our financial resources are likely to be severely tested in the coming year, and we ask for your prayers and active support as our community faces up to a difficult situation. and how to respond.

The creativity in the Centre takes another step forward as we offer a Taster Day for CARM (the Creative Arts Retreat Movement). On Saturday July 21 an Art Tutor and Chaplain from CARM will join us for a 'Taster Day' - do book early and enjoy experiencing something of the pleasure of the Painting and Prayer weeks on offer. We rejoice with Sheila Mitchell, now one of their Art Tutors, as she leads three different weeks this year in Wales, Northumberland and France.

Grace and Peace Keith

==> beginning of newsletter

EVENING SERVICE THEMES FOR REFLECTION

A Lord's Prayer for Justice

What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6 v 8)

Theme for all three reflections based on 'A Lord's Prayer for justice' from Seeking Spirituality by Ronald Rolheiser

Our Father..... who always stands with the weak, the powerless, the poor, the abandoned, the sick, the aged, the very young, the unborn and those who, by victim of circumstance, bear the heat of the day.

Who art in heaven..... where everything will be reversed, where the first will be last and the last first, but where all will be well and every manner of being will be well.

Hallowed be your name.... May we always acknowledge your holiness, respecting that your ways are not our ways, your standards not our standards. May the reverence we give your name pull us out of the selfishness that prevents us from seeing the pain of our neighbour

Your kingdom come..... help us to create a world where, beyond our own needs and hurts, we will do justice, love tenderly, and walk humbly with you and each other

Your will be done.... open our freedom to let you in so that the complete mutuality that characterises your life might flow through our veins and thus the life that we help generate may radiate your equal love for all and your special love for the poor

On earth as in heaven.......may the work of our hands, the temples and structures we build in this world, reflect the temple and structure of your glory so that the joy, graciousness, tenderness, and justice of heaven will show forth within all of our structures on earth

Give... life and love to us and help us to see always everything as gift. Help us to know that nothing comes to us by right and that we must give because we have been given to. Help us to realise that we must give to the poor, not because they need it, but because our own health depends on upon our giving to them.

Us ... the truly plural us. Give not just to our own but to everyone, including those who are very different than the narrow us. Give your gifts to all of us equally

This day.... not tomorrow. Do not let us push things off into some indefinite future so that we can continue to live justified lives in the face of injustice because we can make good excuses for our inactivity

Our daily bread...... so that each person in the world may have enough food, enough clean water, enough clean air, adequate health care, and sufficient access to education so as to have the sustenance for a healthy life. Teach us to give from our sustenance and not just from our surplus

And forgive us our trespasses....forgive us our blindness towards our neighbour, our self-preoccupation, our racism, our sexism, and our incurable propensity to worry only about ourselves and our own. Forgive us our capacity to watch the evening news and do nothing about it

As we forgive those who trespass against us.... help us to forgive those who victimise us. Help us to mellow out in spirit, to not grow bitter with age, to forgive the imperfect parents and systems that wounded, cursed and ignored us.

And do not put as to the test..... do not judge us only by whether we have fed the hungry, given clothing to the naked, visited the sick, or tried to mend the systems that victimised the poor. Spare us this test for none of us can stand before your gospel scrutiny. Give us instead more days to mend our ways, our selfishness, and our systems

But deliver us from evil... that is, from the blindness that lets us continue to participate in anonymous systems within which we need not see who gets less as we get more. Amen

April 22nd - Reflections based on Luke 24 v 13-32

1. The Emmaus Road
2. The Invitation
3. The Return

Musical Reflection by James Shearer: Psalm 46 'God is our refuge and strength".

==> beginning of newsletter

Looking back on a Lenten Adventure

In fact 10 or so people embarked and continued on a "Lenten Adventure", which is the title of a book by David Rhodes. Based loosely on the Lord's Prayer, each day in the book there is a real life story, which might be about drainpipes, the mayor expecting the arriving bishop to be in a 1st class carriage, the naval ship’s catapult used to bury an old car at sea or the German soldier who discovers the name of the French soldier he has killed. The book would move on to a reflection about each incident. Each week's meeting, we would each mention ' the incident that meant most to us. And each week we had a different musical setting of the Lord's Prayer - which we would either sing or listen to.

There would also be some silence and reflection on an everyday object that Keith would place in the centre of the table - a bowl or a loaf of bread - which some would relate to every day life or others to Holy Week. Naturally this would just be the starting point .......

The details of the book are: "Lenten Adventure: daily reflections from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day" by David Rhodes, publ SPCK.

Julian Gallop

==> beginning of newsletter

Disclaimer

==> beginning of newsletter