John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Eulogy for Auntie Dot

"...Now if Dorothy was sitting next to you in a church pew now, you know that she’d be in your ear making comments like, ‘What’s he saying, I can’t hear him?’ or ‘I don’t agree with that.’ She was loud, Dot, she knew her own mind very well indeed and expressed herself without constraint. This could make her difficult to live with at times - until you realised that often she was right, or at least that she was fighting for something she felt was right. How many residents of Rotary House have received extra help from social services or the NHS because Dorothy has stood up for them; how many Red Cross missions have been strengthened by her determined leadership..."

Click here for my eulogy in celebration of 'that tour-de-force, that force of nature, in our lives, (who) stirred things up, and supported us all so much.'

In the Spirit of Eccentric Hawker - Come to Forest Church

John’s Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

August 2019

 

Morwenstow Church today

Of the many eccentric clerics Revd Robert Hawker stands out. Dressed in a claret-coloured coat, a blue fisherman's jersey, long sea-boots, a pink brimless hat and a poncho made from a yellow horse blanket, Hawker talked to birds,  invited his nine cats into church and kept a pig as a pet. Apparently Hawker also had a penchant for dressing up as a mermaid, and he excommunicated his cat for mousing on Sundays. He is also credited for inventing the Harvest Festival Service.

Hawker ministered on the north Cornish coast parish of Morwenstow from 1834 to 1875. A desolate spot where waves thrashed against the rocks hundreds of feet below the church, Morwenstow was a haven for smugglers and wreckers. But it’s mostly farming country and if you go there today, above the sea cliffs you’ll find the uplands alive with crops and livestock. 

In 1843 Revd Hawker introduced a harvest thanksgiving service to his Morwenstow congregation. He put up a notice reading, "Let us gather together in the chancel of our church, and there receive, in the bread of the new corn, that blessed sacrament which was ordained to strengthen and refresh our souls.”

Of course, for countless centuries farmers have gathered to give thanks for their harvest. But Hawker’s pioneering Harvest Festival turned it into the fixture we know today, just as at Christmas we’re indebted to his contemporary J. M. Neale, who pioneered the carol service.

Unafraid of breaking the mould, Hawker had the imagination to connect the spirit of his community to the praise of God for his generous provision, and he was bold enough to make of this connection a new form of service - which has endured.  

Today we’re trying something new to help people connect with land and all of creation - Forest Church, it’s called, a service mostly outdoors which can take whatever shape suits the people and the place where it happens. In September and October each of our churches will hold our traditional Harvest services as always, and also, on 25th August at Keasden Church (7pm) we will have a first go at Forest Church ourselves. Everyone’s welcome - and you’re also welcome to a planning session on Monday 12th August at Keasden Church (7pm) where we’ll decide how to shape our Forest Church into something which really suits our people and our place.

 

Angela Ashwin: ‘The wine danced’ - a moon landing introduction to communion

I used this passage, paraphrased from a Church Times article  by Angela Ashwin, as my introduction to Communion on Sunday 21 July 2019, on the weekend the world was commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.

‘The wine danced’

DURING the first Moon landing, something remarkable happened: a largely forgotten incident with a deep significance for our understanding of the eucharist and of Christ’s ongoing presence with us. The astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin had completed the final stages of their momentous journey in the Apollo 11 space capsule, which would make them the first human beings to walk on the Moon.

Before they went down the steps to the Moon’s surface, Aldrin took out some consecrated communion bread and wine that had been given to him by his home church. He placed the containers on a small shelf, and contacted ground control at Houston, Texas, inviting all who were listening to keep a moment of silence and contemplate the wonder of this unfolding event. He read some words of Jesus from John 15: “I am the vine, you are the branches . . .” and poured the wine into a chalice. Because the gravity on the Moon is significantly less than that on Earth, the wine swirled and curled its way gracefully up the sides of the cup. In other words, as these men looked at our planet Earth, suspended in space like an exquisite jewel, the wine danced!

For the writer Angela Ashwin this image of communion wine moving mysteriously in the chalice has become a symbol of Christ’s love always flowing towards us. In 2002, she wrote a book around this theme, The Wine Danced. 

“The wine still dances,’ She wrote. “You can’t keep Jesus down! His unquenchable, irrepressible life inspires us still, as he invites us to take the risk of joining the dance of love, which is the dance of God. As friends of Jesus we are taken up into his ongoing work of creating and redeeming the world. All that is asked of us is our consent. Everything else is gift and grace.”

So now, years later, let us sense that Christ is reaching out to us all the more urgently and saying, “Gaze at your planet Earth; look at it in all its fragile beauty, as it appeared to the astronauts from the Moon on that day. And look after it, for life’s sake, for love’s sake, for heaven’s sake.”

The Lord is here!

His Spirit is with us....

Adapted from Angela Ashwin, Lunar Landing Memories, Church Times, 19 July 2019.

 

Creation Care Starts Where We Are

John’s Notes: Parish Newsletter editorials

July 2019

“I often hear adults say: ‘We need to give the next generation hope’. But I don’t want your hope. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I do. Every day. And want you to act. I want you to behave like our house is on fire. Because it is.” Many have been moved by the urgency in Greta Thunberg’s speeches (this one given to the  World Economic Forum in Davos last January), and - having been sidelined for decades - the way we treat the natural world is now undoubtedly the defining issue of our times. 

Recently, Leeds City Council committed to make Leeds carbon neutral by 2030. And the Diocese of Leeds published a Diocesan Environmental Policy urging churches to adapt their model for use in each parish. We’ve have had some lively and engaged discussions as a result - not least because members of our farming community rightly challenged the assumptions made in the Leeds document about the sustainability of vegan and vegetarian food over meat. Round here, arguments based on industrial-scale beef farming figures aren’t relevant - and I am using far more greenhouse gas buying tofu from Morrisons than getting local lamb from a nearby farm shop. 

There’s a lot to celebrate about the close relationship our agricultural parishes have with creation through the everyday activities on our farms, and in our worship, like at lambing and harvest times. There’s sustainability built into the ‘make-do-and-mend’ approach to farming and everyday life. There’s ‘localism’ everywhere here, where farmers help each other in their work on the land, where PCCs use local tradespeople and local materials in maintaining our building and land, where parishioners use local shops - where some even work as volunteers in the case of Clapham Village Store. Want to see a churchyard where wildflowers are encouraged and the ecology of plant, insect and animal life is thriving? Look no further then Keasden, which has been practicing this for years.

As sustainability expert Mike Berners-Lee told the audience at a packed Settle Methodist Church recently, ‘There is No Planet B’. Christians recognise our responsibility to care for the Earth so that human life and all God’s creatures may be sustained in harmony. We can respond to all of this creatively, without fear or falling-out, starting from where we are.