John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Peter's funny picnic

Would you go on a picnic with Peter?  Look at the food he he laid out on his picnic blanket: four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air..... Would you eat any of those? 

- from yesterday's talks, Peter's funny picnic. The family service featured a 'real' picnic including camel pie, crocodile soup, tiger sandwich, and vulture vol-au-vent. 

Knowing the master's voice

... Peter the betrayer was like a lamb who had gone astray, a rueful ruminant torn between his love for his Lord and his fear of powerful others. But some time later Peter the loved and protected follower of God found himself transformed into a healer, a worker of a miracle which brought back from death his sister in Christ, Tabitha. 

The transformation came because Peter knew his master’s voice. And on that misty morning three days after the crucifixion, breathless, having run to see for himself the empty tomb where Jesus had laid, Peter recalled the words which Jesus had taught him: that the Son of Man would be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and after three days  would rise again. [Luke 24.7] And each day and each night since, Peter’s head span with the wonder of knowing that Jesus was alive, had conquered death.   

Because he had listened well to Jesus in the time he spent with him Peter knew his master’s voice - and in the reawakening which the resurrection wrought in his life Peter remembered that Jesus had once called him ‘the rock, on which I will build my church’ [Matthew 16.18]. And hearing and believing, Peter set about that work of building the community of believers together. ...

From my first sermon at Whitegate and Little Budworth. Knowing the master's voice, today.

 

Signed, sealed and delivered

Installed last night as Vicar of Whitegate and Little Budworth. The next stage of this fascinating journey (ordained ministry) begins here. 

On leaving Lydford

Sometimes in life you have to try new things, or risk being forever haunted by thoughts of what might have been. It turned out to be a very good move in so many ways: lovely place to live, gentler pace of life (despite having five parishes to attend to), welcoming, decent people. A privilege, really, to be able to live for 27+ months in an area most other people only manage to visit on holiday. So good to be able to nip into Cornwall on a day off, pop over to Totnes for a bit of 'alternative' shopping.
But in the end the distance from the North-West, family and friends, proved too much. And so today we follow the Pickfords van up the M5/M6 to start over in Whitegate, Cheshire. I'm filling my time while the removal men load, and Diana and Amy pay their last visit to Tavistock, reflecting a little on our time here.
One thing that I will always value from this Devon experience is gaining a deeper appreciation of country life, which we embraced a little by spending time with farmers at work and at market; when we bought Lily our cairn terrier and daily walks on High Down, in all weathers, ensued; by being around villages where issues of access and ownership were real and at times raw; and simply by going with the flow of the year, the communal life, in which the little ancient churches and their modest congregations play a key role. Out of my depth at times, ankle-deep in muck among bullocks or helping out at an agricultural show, trying to pick up the nuances in understated Devonian conversations; but relishing the learning.
I'm glad that our next home is in a similar environment, and am looking forward to continuing in rural life (though a different sort of 'rural' in Cheshire salt country).
My ministry has benefitted from being stripped-back to basics in Devon: being an unknown and peripheral in the diocese, I was not tempted by any distractions (psychogeographical or otherwise) to remove my head and heart from the main things: listening to, and loving people, offering them some quality teaching and preaching, serving them properly. I regained perspective here, found myself redirected, back on track, no pretensions.
Like you'd expect from any rural break, I feel refreshed from my time away in deep country, deepest England. Head cleared, now ready for another new beginning.
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