News

RECTOR’S JULY LETTER      


 July:- Boots, Gardening and the End of Term.   


 I want to start this month by thanking everyone who joined in to make two events a great success.  On Saturday 17^th June, there was a Great Get Together at St James’ Church in memory of MP Jo Cox.  The aim was to prepare for our Scarecrow Festival in September.  Groups of people muscled in to clean hundreds of welly boots for individuals or families to plant up for display around the village in September.  There are still some left.  If you would like to plant up a boot, please contact Jan Bellingham on 01279 724247.  Then on Sunday 18^th June, we had a Church Gardening day where folk from the church and the community joined forces to give our churchyard a tidy up.  The results were impressive and it should now be much easier for our force of volunteers to keep it in trim.  If you would like to help on a regular or occasional basis please contact Roger Burridge on 01279 444870.   


 July marks the end of the school year when children and young people in our schools, colleges and universities face new challenges as they leave familiar places of education and prepare the face the new, be that a new class teacher, a new school or higher education establishment, or entering the world of work for the first time.  Please pray for all of them as they go through what can be quite scary times.   


 What is perhaps upper most in our minds at the moment is the series of tragedies we have witnessed in London, Manchester and, most recently at the Grenfell Tower.  These events leave us with many unanswered questions.  Could the perpetrators of the atrocities have been stopped before they struck?  Could the emergency services have reacted more quickly?  How did the fire start and how did it spread so quickly?  Those who have suffered in these tragedies are understandably desperate for answers to their questions.  We stand with them and assure them of our thoughts and prayers through this difficult time.  


 July also brings the feast of one of our Patron Saints, St James the Great on 25^th of the month.  James was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus.  After Jesus had gone he was one of the leaders of the early Church.  About ten years later he was murdered at the instigation of King Herod Agrippa who tried unsuccessfully to wipe out the church.  St James reminds us of two things.  Firstly, some truths are so important that they are worth dying for.  Secondly, he reminds us that we live in a world where minorities are still persecuted by powerful forces, sometimes for religious reasons, sometimes for political ones.  We would all like to live in a world where we can practice our own beliefs without fear of persecution.  That will only happen when we strive to protect the rights of all people who hold beliefs different to our own.  Tolerance is not agreeing with everyone.  It is allowing others the freedom to be different from us.   


 Anthony Giles, Rector.   
  From the Registers 
Baptisms 
4^th June High Wych Betty Mary Jordan 
11^th June High Wych Charlotte Lillian Duncan    
Weddings:  
27^th May High Wych Fiona Lee & Nicholas Bliss 
24^th June Gilston Josephine Schønwald & Joe Moxom         
Funerals  
23^rd May Interment of Ashes High Wych Joan Wilkinson. 
 25^th May Interment of Ashes High Wych Jean Olive Pedder.        

News

RECTOR’S JUNE LETTER      
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s! (Matthew 22: 21)
  
 I have been looking back at what I wrote in May 2015 just before the last General Election.  My approach hasn’t changed.  Part of being a good citizen is to participate in the democratic process.  That means turning out to vote at all elections.  People vote for different reasons.  You may vote on a particular issue or because you want a particular person to live in 10 Downing Street.  This time it may just be over Brexit.  Whatever our approach, we have a civic duty to register to vote and exercise our vote.  Otherwise, we have no right to complain about the outcome.    
 Of course, what Jesus said in Matthew 22 did not end with the quote above.  The full quotation is “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  Yes, we have our civic duty but we also have a higher duty.  For Christians and other religious believers, that is a duty to God to seek his will for our lives and to follow it.  Others may see it as a duty to a wider humanity, to do good rather than evil, to leave the world a better place than we found it.  We all need to work out what that higher duty means for us as we live out our lives day by day.   
 This moth we celebrate two major festivals in church.  Sunday 4^th June is Pentecost. Pentecost was originally a Jewish Pilgrim Festival fifty days after Passover, when Jews from all over the world travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate.  It falls ten days after Ascension Day when we celebrate Jesus being taken back into heaven.  According to Acts chapter 2, the room where the disciples were gathered began to shake, there was the sound of a great wind and tongues of flame appeared on their heads.  There began to speak in strange languages and rushed out into the street telling people about Jesus.  Instead of speaking Aramaic, their local language, they were speaking in the many home languages of people from all over the known world.  The Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Church and the spreading of the Christian Gospel had begun.   
 One week late on June 11^th we celebrate Trinity Sunday when we remind ourselves of how Christians learned to understand God as one God in three person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We then start what we call Ordinary Time which lasts all the way through to October.  It is a time to grow in faith and put into practice all we have learned and celebrate through Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.   
Anthony Giles, Rector.   
  From the Registers
Baptisms  23^rd April High Wych Emilia Violet Lily Fletcher   
  Funerals 2^nd May Funeral and Burial High Wych Sheila Marie Rose 10^th May Burial High Wych Richard Erie Cofield