From the VicarDear Friends.
Technology is a mixed blessing as we’ve discovered in our use of a laptop, data projector and screen in our church services. Just now, having composed and completed a letter to go in this spot on our website and having saved what I’d written it disappeared into the `ether` never to appear again. So here I am (having resisted the temptation to blow a gasket - a good thing to do [resist temptation that is] at the beginning of the season of Lent) having another ‘go’.
It’s a great privilege (as well as being an awesome responsibility and an impossible job) to be the Vicar of a Parish. Just this morning as I was out and about’ having a doctor’s appointment and picking up some necessary groceries I bumped into all sorts of people with whom I was able to engage. A young Mum with, two young children in the doctor’s surgery - and as they walked away one of the children whispered to her Mum ‘That’s the Vicar!’ In the supermarket I had a long chat with a church member about a couple of issues which concerned her, and then I bumped into another parishioner whom I’d met after a funeral service which I’d conducted.
On my way home I made a pastoral visit and as I was about to get into my car I met a former regular worshipper with whom I was able to have a significant conversation. Driving home and about to turn into my driveway I saw someone else who I knew on the other side of the road.~ (and so after executing a rather nifty ‘u-turn’ managed to catch up and have a lovely chat by the roadside.
Walking into my home I remarked to my wife how ‘buoyed-up’ I felt after my morning’s excursion, in stark contrast to how ‘weighed-down’ I’d felt yesterday. Yesterday, concerns about ‘administration and planning’ and ‘strategy’ had preoccupied me. Today I was doing what I feel called to do - engaging with people ‘one to one’ with them where they are, in simple and practical ways seeking to share the love of the God of Love.
We’re at the beginning of the Church’s season of Lent; a time of preparation for the commemoration and celebration of the ‘passion’ (sufferings) and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is God ‘in the flesh’, God become a human being Who lived a fully human life as it’s supposed to be lived, in order that by His death and Resurrection He might make a way for you and me to fully participate in relationship with the Triune God of Love. (For more on what this might mean please have a look at my ‘blog.’).
Yours, in the Love of the God Who is Love,
John H. Walker
Vicar
