April Greeting.

First may I wish you all a Joyous Eastertide. I hope that the risen Christ filled your hearts with the joy of the resurrection as we all look towards Pentecost.

When I was asked to pen a few lines for the magazine, I realised that it would be published in April. This immediately made me think of Robert Browning’s poem “Home Thoughts from Abroad”. The poet traveled a great deal in Italy in his youth and after marrying Elizabeth Barrett in 1846 the couple quickly moved to Florence to live. The move to Italy was both for Elizabeth’s health, as she was semi-invalid, and to get away from her tyrannical father. It was also in 1846 that Browning wrote the poem.

The poem has a sense of momentary longing for England in April hence the first line, “Oh to be in England now that April’s here”. The poet then reminisces on the appearance of new buds on the trees, shoots around the elm tree and the song of the chaffinch. As the poem develops, Browning moves into the month of May and the increasing sound of birdsong and the joy it brings to the hearer.

The experience of the dawn chorus wakening us before the alarm clock is all too familiar. We know too, this concert is not for our benefit but a mating call, which is the harbinger for nest building and new life. Spring is resurrection from winter and the hope of warm days to come. Of course with global warming and the loss of wildlife, I’m not sure if there is the multitude of birdsong that Browning remembered. Nor perhaps the amount of singing in London’s Camberwell where he lived with his parents before his marriage and the couple’s flight to Italy. But we are still blessed by birdsong each year with each bird having its own particular call.

Resurrection is also at the centre of Easter too, “Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Hallelujah”. What wonder, what questions, what joy the disciples must have had that first Easter. They must have had more questions than certainties and we can only imagine their thoughts and feelings of what lay in the future for them. However, when I read the gospel stories of the resurrection, even with the mystery there is an underlying sense that all will be well. There is a sense of hope and joy that God is indeed doing a new thing and they are part of it and have a role within it. I have no doubt that if this is true for those first disciples. surely that is what Jesus wants for us at Easter. Yes we may have questions and doubts. Sometimes I think I’m pushing a boulder up a hill with my nose, but we should also be living with hope and faith. Hopeful expectation is the Easter message.

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett went to Italy for a new life. They too were seeking freedom and happiness for their love.

Surely we too are invited by the risen Christ also to embrace the Easter blessing. That each day we should endeavour, by taking the challenges, the hopes and joy of the risen Christ into our future, into our world, and announcing in our lives. So often our faith becomes so a part of us that it is business as usual and we lose the excitement and joy that our Christian life can bring. As April reminded Browning of spring in England, let us ask God to remind us of what the resurrection means, life in abundance and in all its fullness.

“Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Hallelujah.”

God bless from Angela

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May Letter - Little Black Bags

Easter has come and gone, and like most clergy families we do what we can to get a bit of rest after the ‘big day’. Normally, that involves walking. One of our favourite places to walk is Gummer’s Howe in the South Lakes - there’s plenty of parking, a well marked track, lots of friendly people in holiday mood, and ‘knock-out’ views over Windermere and across to the Old Man of Coniston. It is always wonderful. This Easter, there was also something else that I am afraid has become a feature of our rural life for the last ten or so years…little black bags all over the place. Mostly, they were neatly tied up at the top. Some were thoughtfully tucked away in-between tree roots and cracks in the dry-stone walls. Others were hanging in the bushes. The most blatant were just by the stile - to be ‘picked up’ when the dog owner returned… maybe…never! Once you start to notice something, you see it everywhere don’t you? Even closer to home!

Some time ago I went on another walk. It took us along a river bank in the Spring sunshine. On that occasion, I went with a big black plastic bag in my pocket. Before long, I had found a ‘black bag’ full of little black bags... as well as an assortment of other old bottles and tins. I took them to the bin by the footpath gate at the start of the walk. I confess the exercise made me feel a bit smug. After fifteen years of working outside in the woods, I am not a fan of the contents of ‘the little black bag’, or of any kind of litter for that matter! In fact, the truth is that I think that it is excellent that it has become socially unacceptable in this country to let our four-footed friends ‘foul’ public footpaths and playgrounds… but isn’t there something a bit strange about going to the trouble of bagging up the problem, and then leaving it somewhere, in full view, where it will then take years to disappear from our beautiful countryside? Apparently, some of the little black bags are biodegradable. That may be the case… but so are the contents… unless you wrap them in a bag!

In the modern phenomenon of the ‘little black bag’ by the path, I think it could be that there is something interesting for us to think about as we travel on from Easter towards the Ascension and Pentecost…and the rest of the year. It is a spiritual lesson. We are all on a journey. It is a path through life. Occasionally things happen that leave a mess – something that doesn’t smell too good – and gets nasty if people step in it. Very often, it is extremely tempting to ‘bag up’ these messy times...put a knot in them...and then hide them somewhere where we hope they will be forgotten. But of course they never are. They don’t go away that easily, and inside the bag the problem remains!

The gospels show us a God who wants to wash our problems down, and, in the process, deal with them once and for all, so that instead of hanging around, they can become useful experiences, and fertile places where new things can grow – after all, in time the messiest of experiences become the manure in which new things do grow. In time, the rain that turns our trials into triumphs is called ‘God’s grace’. The ‘rain of grace’ only starts to fall when we are open and honest… and when forgiveness is in the air.

Looking back, I can easily see plenty of things I have ‘bagged up’ and tried to hide in the bushes - often with a double knot on top! I still do it. But the truth is, it is much better to deal with things as they happen, rather than pretending that they do not matter. It is much better to find a proper home, where you can unpack your problems and let the rain of grace and a good dose of fresh air do its work. When things are working properly that is the role of the church and the body of Christ in our lives. It is an atmosphere which should be safe. When it is, things begin to blossom. There are some signs of that blossoming amongst us at the moment… so ‘Praise God’… He is so good.  

Have a lovely May!

Philip