March Letter
Dear Friends,            
 If you are in the supermarket at the beginning of March you’ll be encouraged to buy lemon and sugar to make your pancakes ‘traditional’ – 60 years ago that’s as much as we did to our cooked pancakes!  Shrove Tuesday is on March 5^th and we’ll repeat last years Pancake Party in Gilston and Eastwick village hall, Pye Corner, from 4.30 – 6.00 p.m. Last year we were lucky in having half term – this year we’ll have fun after school.  Games and activities and tea – sweet and savoury pancakes. The ‘golden’ frying pans will be back for the winners of the tossing competitions. 
 Long ago, Shrove Tuesday was the day people went to be forgiven [shriven] before the 40 days of the Lent fast which started the next day. It was the day we ate all the nice things while we were allowed to! Some countries have developed a Mardi Gras [Fat Tuesday] carnival around it.  The next day is Ash Wednesday and there is a service at St. James at 7.30 p.m, which reminds us that we are a way off being the sort of human beings we are meant to be - we’ll go to the altar to have an ash cross placed on our foreheads as a reminder that we are very fragile, very transient - here today and gone tomorrow – the priest says ‘remember you are dust, to dust you shall return; turn from sin and be faithful to Christ,’ someone marks the priest too.’                                          
The next 40 days we will spend time thinking and working on our spiritual lives through a choice of fasting, prayer, Bible study and practical service to the community.  Sometimes we know something is limiting us and we do something about that, whether its too many glasses of wine, comfort eating, too much screen time or shopping. There are many things that pull our lives out of balance and replace God.  Joining a Lent group is a choice for many, because it includes focused prayer, some bible, lots of discussion and a chance to get to know folk. Often the conversations will bring up things we can do to help others. We will meet in The Rectory [CM210DT] on Monday afternoons 1.30 –3.00p.m  OR  Wednesday evenings 7.30- 9.00 p.m.  followed by refreshments for those who can stay. We are going to use a course called ‘Living Fruitfully’ which has examples of how Christians living in the Middle East help those of any religion or none, to find help and hope in freeing themselves from poverty and injustice.  Wherever we live, there are worries in our own lives - but for the six weeks before Easter in Lent 2019, we’ll spend some time thinking about some of the small groups, which make a difference to lives in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza. The charity ‘Embrace the Middle East’ works with partner organisations in these countries - so help goes direct to help people who are in desperate need.  In hospitals and medical centres, in provision for the deaf and blind, in services for Syrian refugees, in some fun and friendship for children abused or neglected.  The stories are real and touching. Everyone is welcome to join us.                
 God’s Blessings on you and yours Rev Wendy  
 Dennis Wilden Lomax formerly of High Wych, died 7/01/2017.   Interred in St. James 6^th Feb 2019.