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September and early October are the months of Harvest Festival and Thanksgiving. It is hard for us in our modern world to realise its importance. We live in beautiful countryside with farms nearby, but still we go whenever we feel like it to the village shop, a farm shop or the nearest supermarket. When what we want is not on offer, we are grumpy. I always wonder at how many varieties of coffee are now available in a large supermarket – when millions in our world cannot put basic food on their table!

In contrast, prior to the C20th, how good or bad your local harvest turned out, was crucial – and if a harvest failed throughout the land, famine was a reality. It is worth remembering the potato famine in Ireland was in the mid-C19th, (just 50 years before my father was born); and famine is still sadly a reality in parts of the world today. And then we moan when our particular variety of coffee bean is not in stock or has gone up in price.

When the Harvest was good and successfully gathered in, the whole community would heave a collective sigh of relief – and it would be a genuine thanksgiving: a time of thanking God followed by a first class party with the whole village involved, just as the whole village would have been involved in bringing in the Harvest. Looking back leads to the danger of romanticising all that, (whilst at the same time forgetting the acute distress of the years when the crops failed).  But genuine thanksgiving and thankfulness are one of the keys to having a healthy mind and spirit.

Those who have to endure my Assemblies at our lovely Primary School know I don’t like “MMs” – which stands in my vocabulary for “Moaning Minnies”. Behind the humour, though, is a very serious spiritual point. This is not just about having a good (or bad) day, about feeling good – it is about an attitude to life. Why is it that I meet people who have had a lot of grief and distress in their lives and yet are thankful and caring of others; whilst others I meet – sometimes for whom, on the outside at least, things seemingly having gone swimmingly well – are full of moans and focussed only on themselves?

Thankfulness is something to be cultivated and nurtured – like a precious garden plant or crop. My faith reminds me everyday that God loves me and walks with me: lately, I have been reading about the lovely Roman Catholic understanding of Guardian Angels. Jesus on the night before the worst day possible, took bread “and gave thanks”.

Faith is sometimes made very complex, but at its heart it is very simple – God’s love shown and lived by Jesus, through death into resurrection, walking with me and sustaining me. Every morning on opening St Mary’s church I say a simple and beautiful Collect from the Morning Prayer Service: “Thank you for bringing me safely to the beginning of this day, keep me from falling into sin or running into danger, order me in all my doings and guide me to do always what is right in your sight, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

And whilst on the subject of giving thanks, thank you to all who are working so hard to make our Harvest Festival community thanksgivings an enjoyment for all we have.

Peter

The older I get, the more I find there is to learn from the book of Genesis which is, of course, the first Book in the Old Testament. The pre-history stories – the creation, the fall, Noah and his ark, the tower of Babel and so on, continue to inspire because they can speak to every generation.

Some people of faith – Christian and Jewish – take them literally; and that is fine. Some do not; and I am in this second category. I believe them to be true on a much more profound level. I love rereading Othello  or Macbeth, not only because the writing is sublime, but because they point to timeless truth: in the case of those two plays, the truth of what happens if you let jealousy or ambition take over your life.

And so, the famous opening chapters of Genesis dealing with Creation sets out our relationship to God, to one another, to the animal kingdom and to the earth itself. If we learnt to live by that story a little better, our world would not be facing many of the challenges it currently does.

I want, though, to focus on the next bit which is known as The Fall (Genesis Chapter 3) – sin leading to disaster. It is both a brilliant and forensic analysis as to how bad things happen and their consequences. It can also help us, therefore, in trying to live a good and loving life.

It begins with God saying to Adam and Eve you can eat of anything in the garden except from the one tree. What then happens is the one tree that most interests them is the forbidden one!! And the wrong starts with listening to the other side, the dark side giving justification for wrong-doing. And this is followed by contemplation of the wrong fruit: “seeing it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired.” The eating/wrong-doing that then takes place leads to shame, (“the eyes of both were opened and they saw they were naked”), followed by blaming one another and falling out.

I like to think that anyone of Christian faith, other faith or of no faith who reflected deeply on that story would take away profound truth. So much of war or falling out in families is due to wanting something you should not have – evil people manipulating the dark side of life, turning people sometimes to hatred of others. Wrong-doing so often starts with justification and once you are thinking about it, you are half-way there to the actual deed! The result: division and blame.

The most practical things I take from this particular story is that, in our world, there is good and bad: but we have choice and, once we start giving way to the bad, there is likely to be trouble. Once Othello allows Iago to poison his mind, his relationship with Desdemona is going to fail – and please note Shakespeare gives a living image to that particular form of darkness “the green eyed monster”; once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth give way to “vaulting ambition”, the result is murder, a country divided and their eventual deaths. Their hopes for power and all that goes with it, ends with possibly the most despairing lines in all Shakespeare:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The other great practical truth I take from this Genesis passage which wise men and women have passed on throughout the generations, is that wrong-doing starts with letting your mind think about that which is best left alone – a seed is sown. The place to stop wrong-doing is to avoid even thinking about it: “I wish I had that,” “that person looks very beautiful or handsome” and, and, and……The apple when they looked at it was pleasant to the eye!!

So, for me, these ancient stories are not only true in that deepest of senses; but have so much to teach about good and loving living. Time perhaps to dust down those early chapters of Genesis and think what their wisdom has to teach us in our day.

Peter

I read recently a book called A Field guide to the English Clergy by Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie. It was not the most highbrow book in the library; but was very entertaining as there have been some pretty unusual and eccentric clergy over the years.

Take for example the Revd Robert Hawker (1803 – 1875) who appeared to have a dual calling both as a priest and a mermaid: he fashioned a wig out of seaweed, wrapped an oilskin around his legs and then, every evening, rowed a boat out into Bude harbour where he sat on a rock and sang. Having somehow successfully completed his training as a curate in Bude, he became vicar of Morwenstow where he was often seen wearing a bright purple coat, a blue fisherman’s jersey and red trousers. He lived with a collection of ten cats who would follow him to church, until, one Sunday, one of his feline housemates was publicly excommunicated for “mousing” on a Sunday. If you visit Morwenstow today you can still visit “Hawker’s Hut” – the smallest property owned by the National Trust and built by this reverend gentleman.

Or take Revd Thomas Patten, Vicar of Seasalter: he was famous for preaching incredibly long sermons which would only end when a member of the congregation offered to buy him drinks at the local pub, at which point he would immediately end the sermon, speak a rushed blessing, leave the pulpit and head for the bar. He also made a deal with the local smuggling fraternity: he warned them of the whereabouts of excise officers, in return for which he had a well-stocked cellar with fine wines and brandy.

Evidence for both, though, is that they were loved by their parishioners, despite their oddities, because they tried in God’s name to show God’s love to their communities – and surely that is a calling we could all commit ourselves too, whatever our spiritual journey.  And these eccentricities also point to a rich way of life – our modern world seems keen to squeeze out such unusual behaviour, yet something is surely lost.

In my last parish in Jersey, I did a lot of churchyard research and have just finished a book on those buried there. It involved, in the first place, going out at night with a torch and holding it at a 90 degree angle to the grave – that enabled often the picking out of old names on a memorial which could not be read in daylight. I later discovered that these nocturnal meanderings had caused much amusement

One of the great privileges of being a Rector is that it does give time for being a mermaid or deciphering graves in the dark – in a busy world where many jobs do not allow what might be thought such a luxury – and literature is littered with Anglican clergy writing journals and diaries, books on natural science and local history. But perhaps not such a luxury: the church stands for the love of God revealed by Jesus Christ and whether it be recording the beauty of nature and the changing seasons, or recording stories of people now long gone, or even just deciphering old graves and bringing lost names to light – long may that eccentric tradition continue.

Peter

The month of May saw two connected events: one local and one worldwide. The first was the Young Person’s Art Show in St Mary’s church. The second was Pentecost Sunday, (otherwise known as Whitsun).

Pentecost – remembering the coming of the Holy Spirit to the first disciples – is associated with many Christian ideas, above all else God and God’s love working in our own lives and inspiring us. And creativity is behind artwork and behind art is inspiration – which is why the church, when it is working well, has always been a patron of the arts. (When it is not working well, it supresses art and creativity – a very good book and film on that theme is The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco).

The best-known poem I know about God’s creativity and Pentecost is by my old favourite – RS Thomas. It is difficult, but I think it is reflecting on the way suddenly, when we feel dry and withered, something starts humming and off we go. I also like it (and indeed the poet himself) because he often refers to “the machine” referring to modern technology in negative terms – I too think so much modern technology can be stifling and yet he writes three lines from the bottom as he does – reminding me I too might on occasion be guilty of supressing creativity!

Suddenly

Suddenly after long silence

he has become voluble.

He addresses me from a myriad

directions with the fluency

of water, the articulateness

of green leaves; and in the genes,

too, the components

of my existence. The rock,

so long speechless, is the library

of his poetry. He sings to me

in the chain-saw, writes

with the surgeon’s hand

on the skin’s parchment messages

of healing. The weather

is his mind’s turbine

driving the earth’s bulk round

and around on its remedial

journey. I have no need

to despair; as at

some second Pentecost

of a Gentile, I listen to the things

round me: weeds, stones, instruments,

the machine itself, all

speaking to me in the vernacular

of the purposes of One who is.

All of which takes me back to our Art Show. As I write, it is not yet set up: but I have seen at least some of the artwork at our Primary school – and there is much evidence of creativity. May God’s Spirit of love work in all our lives, may we be addressed from a “myriad of directions” and find that inspiration in the beauty, the people, the goodness and the love which is all around us.

Peter

Stonepillow is a Chichester based charity which empowers homeless people to transform their lives.  Their website is here.

Donations of any kind can be left at The Forge, Reynold’s Lane, or at Carolyn Cole’s house in Sunnybox Lane: just put items in the green bin on her doorstep at the Nook.  Thank you to everyone for making donations.

To contact Carolyn, Stonepillow Co-ordinator, phone 814608 or email bustle2700@gmail.com

I am not the gardening correspondent for the Horticultural Society, but I want to talk about fritillaries and peonies! Both are firm favourites for me and how lucky am I in my garden: at the time of writing there are two little groups of fritillaries – one with seven and one with four flowers. Their delicacy and colour are exquisite. And then I am watching five clumps of peonies sprouting from the ground – one more than last year. Even in the rain they are literally growing about two inches a day. They will not have flowers until the end of the month: they will start tight buds, then bloom and then become gloriously blousy.

My present circumstances have challenged me, what do I see?  That’s is not such a strange question: when you live with someone and a fritillary, for instance, appears in your garden, you can be so excited and busy telling the other person and showing them, that you don’t actually look closely yourself. Now, I just go into the garden and look and focus on the beautiful mauve flower with its delicate tracery and head bowed as in prayer. (Lola comes round with me and tries to work out what I am looking at so intently, but not surprisingly, she doesn’t quite get it). Just looking at something beautiful and for some minutes, is actually an extraordinary and spiritual experience.

When Arthur was baptised at Madehurst on Easter Day, I showed those present one of those pictures in which you can see different things – in this case it was an old woman and a young woman in the same picture. I think there are many different ways of seeing things. The problem in our society is we are pushed into either/or rather than both/and. My picture points to the truth of “both and”. I personally have no problem with all that science teaches me, whilst also seeing pointers to another way of looking at things.

A story I have told over Easter relates to an orthodox church archbishop (Metropolitan Anthony), whilst a curate, going up to an old woman who used to come and just sit in the church every day. Eventually the archbishop-to-be went up to her and asked her what she was doing. Looking at a picture of Jesus in the stained glass she simply said, “I look at him and he looks at me”. Not so different perhaps than my looking in wonder at my group of fritillaries – which I did just before writing this. I am looking forward when the peonies come into flower to watch every stage minutely: tight blud, the opening up and the blousy flower.

The poets always say things better. From Gerard Manley Hopkins Pied Beauty:

Easter Day this year is 31^st March – and knowing our highly efficient distribution team, your April magazine may well drop on your doorstep before Easter Day. It is a day full of hope for Christians, please come and join us!

Easter is a moveable feast. I could try and explain how the date works, but it would probably take 3 pages of the magazine to explain and we would all probably be still none the wiser! But here is an interesting question: if you were competing in “Who wants to be a millionaire”, it would be definitely one of those questions that if answered correctly, would get you a lot of money. The question is, what do the years 2018 and 2029 have in common in relation to Easter? The answer is: on those two years Easter falls on April 1^st. April Fools Day. I think quite a good day for Easter – but not for the reasons those of a cynical nature might think.

In my student days there was a monk and theologian called Harry Williams. One of the books he wrote was called “Tensions” – about all the difficulties we face in life. In the last chapter he looks at gifts God has given us to help cope. One of those gifts he suggests is laughter.

His analysis is good. There are different types – one is nasty, laughing at people. In the gospels we quite often read that people laughed at Jesus – “scoffed”, because it was their defence against Jesus trying to open them up to God’s infinite love, which would have involved big changes in their judgemental attitudes.

There is then laughing with people which is very different and life enhancing and brings us closer to people. It can help change how we see something, give us hope. I remember reading a book on resilience in difficult times and the ability to laugh alongside another and with them, was high up the list of helpful attributes.

Harry Williams emphasises something that surprised me. He said the resurrection was laughter in the heart of God and so April Fool’s Day might be thought the appropriate day for Easter Sunday. The world is often a hard place and Good Friday and events leading up to it were certainly hard places for Jesus. On that first Good Friday, you can just imagine all the good people threatened by Jesus and his openness and all-encompassing love and whose scheming had sent him to his death, going to dinner that night thinking “at last we have got rid of him”. And then, on Easter Day he’s back! God having the last laugh. His way of inclusive love having the last word.

And, finally, three quick thoughts about April Fools.

St Paul suggests to us that we are to be fools for Christ.

He also says the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of humans.

And whilst on this subject, in Shakespeare’s great play King Lear, the only one able to speak the truth to Lear was, of course, the Fool.

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Peter

One of my favourite novels is Any Human Heart by William Boyd – it charts in powerful prose the highs and lows of a man’s life – his griefs and his joys.

Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, through Good Friday and onto Easter Day has the same feel concentrated into just eight Days.

Palm Sunday (24^th March) an apparent high – Jesus is recognised as a great prophet, the crowds come out and palms are scattered – like the original tickertape welcomes that heroes used to get when arriving in New York!

But the darkness swiftly descends. Those forces which simply could not cope with Jesus’ message of inclusive love for all, perhaps especially for the outcasts and marginalised (those whom every society has and demonises), leads to Good Friday: deserted by friends, a kangaroo court and painful and ignominious death on the cross. The crowds that celebrated with him six days before, now hissing and jeering – another constant in history, the easily manipulated crowd!

That, of course, should be the end of the story. But something then happened. It cannot be tied down, but I have no doubt something did happen – because somehow those broken-down failures of followers were turned into a group that changed the world and, by the way, gave their lives for proclaiming their truth “this Jesus whom you crucified is risen”. A mystery certainly, but one that has changed the world.

I always get slightly irked when people tell me Christianity is an escape from reality: “pie in the sky when you die”, because that is not my belief. For me the Christian story rings true to both the highs and the lows of life. We can experience such utter highs when all is good and life so worth living, but most of us sometime or other experience also lows, where darkness seems to have the upper hand.

And for me, the cross holds both together – both the reality of pain and suffering and the hope that love and goodness are stronger and will triumph. That hope has been a foundation for millions upon millions both over the ages and in the present day. As St John says in his glorious prologue to his Gospel: “The light – the light of Christ – shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” Our world seems quite a dark place sometimes both globally and sometimes for us: Holy Week can help lead us into the love of God revealed in Jesus.

I invite all who wish to, to joins us in that walk from Palm Sunday, (where I am delighted to say we are joining with St Richards), through Good Friday, to the glory of Easter Day.

This year Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of Lent, is 14^th February – which, of course, is also St Valentine’s Day.

My first reaction on making the connection was to think that is a bit of a downer: all the romance, positivity and love we think about on Valentine’s Day, doesn’t appear at first sight to go with the seriousness of Lent which for Christians is meant to be a preparation first for the saddest day in the Christian calendar, Good Friday as well, of course, for the glorious day of Easter Sunday.

But the more I thought about this, the more I did see quite an important connection. Jesus’ journey to Good Friday, the day we remember his crucifixion, is a journey of love. It is a curiously overlooked fact and question – why was Jesus put to death? The answer becomes clear by reading any one of the four gospels in its entirety, (something that takes about an hour or so): Jesus proclaimed the inclusive love of God for all people. Not only did he say it but he lived it. As the bible tells us, the good people of the time said angrily “He eats with tax collectors and sinners”!! For so many people that was deeply shocking and offensive, as it challenged their own lack of love and narrow-mindedness. And so, they stitched him up with a kangaroo court of a trial. Even then Jesus showed a depth of love right to the cross itself – whilst being mocked as he was being crucified, saying “Father forgive them for they do not know what they do”.

If all that isn’t about the highest quality of love, what is it? So, this Ash Wednesday, whilst acknowledging the serious nature of the day, I am going to see it also as a celebration of God’s infinite love shown in Jesus.

And then another link came to mind. In the past, we were always encouraged to give up something for Lent, which in my experience used to lead either to failure, which is not a positive feeling, or grumpiness because I wanted that bar of chocolate but could not have it – or indeed both! In more recent years, Chrisitan spiritual writers have suggested, rather than give something up as a symbol of trying to do better, actually to do something positive. And that too is easily linked to loving. Love is not just a romantic idea, but a practical living out of a way of life. So perhaps to think of someone in need of help, or support, or friendship – but somehow, up to now, our busy lives have not quite made the time; or someone with whom we have struggled and whom we find difficult, instead trying to work towards reconciliation or forgiveness.

The love of Valentine’s Day can encompass both the romance AND our living more loving lives, which, for Christians, might well involve looking to, and learning from Jesus, his life and his loving.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Peter