The spirituality of winter

What does winter mean to you?  Here at Launde Abbey I keep hearing stories of being snowed in but to be honest at the moment it is more soggy than frosty.

I wonder, is the prospect of snow a hope or a worry for you?  When you think of winter, do you think of crisp, frosty days and hoar frost, or trudging through rain and mud?  Do you look forward to cosy evenings or feel trapped indoors? 

The tradition of chalking the door at Epiphany

The tradition of marking the door of a house at Epiphany (6th January) with a special combination of letters and numbers written in chalk is centuries old, but is experiencing something of a revival.  To follow this tradition as we begin 2022, this is what you write above the door or on the wall nearby:

20 + C + M + B + 22

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, for your work of faith, labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”

The day on 2015 when Bishop Stephen of Ely came to celebrate
both the completion of the reordering project and the ongoing life of the church community.

This piece of writing reflects on my time as vicar of Dry Drayton Church in the Lordsbridge Team of Churches at the point of my leaving after 11 years to take up a new post as Warden of Launde Abbey. It was preached at a service there on 12th September 2021.

The Bible passage behind these reflections is 1 Thessalonians 1:2-10. You can read it in full here.

The last version of Dry Drayton church’s development action plan was headed with these words: “We give thanks to God always for all of you,… remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3). It has seemed to me that it is not just the character of the ancient church community of Thessalonica but the character of this church community that can be described by phrases like these: work of faith, labour of love, and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Now hold that thought and we will come back to it.

He sent them into the towns and villages to say ‘the kingdom of God has come near’

These reflections tell some of the stories of the Lordsbridge Team of Churches since its beginning 11 years ago, the point at which I joined it. At this united Lordsbridge Team service, on 29th August 2021, members of the Lordsbridge Team of Churches gathered to celebrate my ministry across the Lordsbridge benefice and to release me as Team Rector in preparation for my taking up a new post as Warden of Launde Abbey.

The bible reading for the service was Luke 10: 1 -9. You can read it here.

Jesus sent them out into the towns and villages, to every place where he was about to go.  He sent them to lay the groundwork, to open the doors, to create the networks and partnerships with people of peace, to say to those who had ears to hear, ‘The kingdom of God has come near’. 

Ordinations and Curacy across the Lordsbridge Team

From Revd David Newton, Team Vicar in the Lordsbridge Team:

Last weekend ordinations took place across the country. From the Lordsbridge Team of Churches 3 people were ordained deacon. Amy Bland was ordained in Blackburn, Adam Roebuck (who had been on placement with Haslingfield and Comberton) was meant to be ordained in York (delayed to this coming week due to Contact Tracing Isolation), and Chris Westgarth was ordained in Ely!

The connecting power of a ‘thank you’

Growing up in my family we were expected to start the painful work of writing thank you letters the day after Boxing Day.  In my husband’s family thank you’s were, and are, always expressed in person or on the phone. 

A pattern of dying and new life

Perhaps it is because I have reached, dare I say it, mid-life.  Or perhaps it is because of the year or so that we have just had and our still fragile hope for being now beyond it.  Either way, I find that I have been pondering whether the underlying pattern of life is experienced more as a series of losses only or as series of deaths and associated re-births.  In more positive and complacent phases of life, I have focused on the gifts-received side of life.  But this year, loss of various kinds is more front and centre for all of us. 

Call us onward into your purposes and growth

Some of you will have already heard, one way or another, that from the autumn, I am to be the new Warden of Launde Abbey and will therefore be leaving the Lordsbridge Team in September.  Diocese of Ely | Departure Announcement: The Revd Canon Alison Margaret Myers (elydiocese.org)

Trinity, the ‘missio dei’ and the 5 marks of our mission (should we choose to accept it)

Play this tune

Depending on your era, some of you may remember the tune from a TV series in the late 1960s or early 70s, others more recognise it more recently from the Tom Cruise films – another one is due out soon, I understand.

Of course it is the theme of ‘Mission Impossible’- stories about secret agents given a, so called, impossible mission full of dangerous risks to rescue the world, or some part of it.  That tune goes with the phrase used at the start of every story ‘this is your mission, should you choose to accept it’.

A season for the ‘life that gives life’

In the seasons of the Christian year, last Sunday was the Feast of Pentecost and I was surprised to find that last Monday was noted in my Google calendar as Whit Monday.  Whitsun is an older name for Pentecost and until 1972 what is now the Spring Bank holiday fixed at the end of May was instead a holiday taken on Whit Monday.