New Year New Horizons

Have you ever stood on a beach, maybe early in the morning, and looked over
to where the sea and sky meets? (Sounds like an advert for north Norfolk!)
You see the horizon, and ,whatever you may be feeling, it reminds you
that there is a lot more out there besides your little life, no matter how full of
excitement or full of sorrow it is. Seeing the vastness of a horizon, can lead us
out beyond ourselves, and for a moment at least you get some perspective. I love
those moments, and have needed them on many occasions. I was wondering,
as we move into 2012. What do you see on the horizon of a New Year ahead?
Are you hopeful? Excited? Scared? Or, even, been there done that…
so whatever! When we look forward nowadays, it’s easier to be a bit cynical
because we feel we can’t rely on anything or anyone. So it is easier to keep to
oneself and just get on with making the best out of what each day brings.
Then I read a story or I talk to someone for whom a new year has brought
situations were their life has changed pretty radically for the better. It’s like they
have seen a horizon, which has made them realize, there must be more than
what they have known up till now.
Take Bear Gryllis, for example, from all those adventure documentaries.
Macho man! Yet when asked about things to do with Faith he spoke about what
he really wanted and believed. He said, “Christianity is not about religion. It’s
about being held, about being forgiven. It’s about finding joy and finding home.
We all want that, but nobody wants religion. Why do people turn away from
faith? They’re not; they’re turning away from religion most of the time. I’ve
yet to meet anyone who doesn’t want to be forgiven or held or find peace or
joy in their life. We try loads of other stuff – we think booze or foxy women or
whatever will fill it – but it doesn’t fill the hole.”
It’s easier to be cynical of course than to be open to new possibilities. But like
seeing a bigger horizon, being open to new possibilities may well mean that life
begins to mean more.
Maybe seeing a new horizon for you might be exploring what life is all about
or letting go of some cynicism and honestly exploring Christianity.
Whatever you do, take some time out over this
next month go to the beach and let the horizon call
you to some new perspective.

Alpha is a Great course!

We just had a lovely day away with our Alpha for seniors group. There were 18,(some couldn't come because of illness)
It was was so good to see a group of people who had committed themselves to looking more at the Good News, and to see a genuine hunger in them for the presence and reality of God's presence.

I guess it made me think a fresh about how many times people have criticised the course. There are theological objections, objections about the process, objections about how people are pushed in to a time frame for conversion etc. I understand some of this, and realize that all of us are on a journey with God which is not the same for each person. I realize that at times Alpha can seem quite a canned model A-B-C boom. Yet I have never found it like this. I think it depends on the leader of the course, and the ethos that is under girding it in any given area and context.
I have always found it inspiring to see people move forward in their experience of God, and of the wonder of being in relationship with the one who loves us so deeply in the midst of our ordinary, and pretty broken lives.
I have always been amazed how people want the course to continue, and how they find not only faith, but acceptance, and community.
Most of our group were from 65 to 92. There some parts of the course which we didn't focus on. Yet one thing we really felt God speak to us about , is the challenge of praying for the next generation, and passing on the Gospel story. All of them can pray for children and grandchildren, all of them can bearers of the Good News.
If they get that, empowered by the Holy Spirit, then yet another Alpha course has done what it said on the tin.
I am looking forward to another in the New Year.

announcement of engagement

Mr M Hill and Miss A Stewart.

The engagement is announced between
Marcus, son of Mr and Mrs Jeremy Hill of Peyton Hall, Suffolk
and Anna, daughter of Rev and Mrs William Stewart, The Vicarage
Loddon, Norfolk.

WOOP WOOP!!!!!!!! JOY, CAN"T WAIT!!! GOD IS GOOD !!

Pray for the older generation

God constantly surprises us. We arrived in this beautiful area of Loddon in South Norfolk, in the Chet Valley. We have found a congregation of people who love God and want to grow in Him. Too often we think that elderly and rural are a combination which means the end of the road for live and seeing growth and exciting Faith. Not so.
If we look at the scriptures we are often confronted with the reality that it is the elders who must pass on the faith, who are called to tell the story and point to God's annointing. Take Paul's reminder to Timothy that he needed to keep living out from the faith he came to have through his Mother and Grandmother. We are doing an Alpha for seniors course at present. Twenty four older people who want to get to know the Lord or to know him better.
Let's pray fro the elders in our community that they would become the boiler rooms of faith for a new generation.

The call is in the Journey

Brendans Boat originally uploaded by Jeyfell


My understanding of the early Irish Monks is that some of them (at least-the Evangelists among them) made their superiors so mad.
As the Spring and Summer came round,something in them called them to head off and start bringing the Good news to all kinds of places outside the monastic settlement!! How undisciplined of them!
The whole theme of Journey has engaged me of late.I have always been a fan of the Brendan boat image.I guess spending so many Summers on the Dingle peninsula,and looking across to the vast sea of the Atlantic I could see how the journeyman in Brendan and others called them to take the Gospel where ever the Holy Spirit would lead them.
That is one of the great themes surrounding the Brendan boat image,that the wind-so symbolic of the Holy Spirit would fill their sails and take them they knew not where.

A dear friend of mine recently reminded me of a prophetic word he had for my wife and I.He was remembering this Brendan Boat image,and felt that God was saying to us that the calling was in the journey.
The thing is we so often talk in terms of the Lord calling us-here or there and we go in obedience,and that does indeed happen,and we have great confidence in this.
Yet I have come to realise that we are more often like Abraham.The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that he simply obeyed God even though he didn`t know where he was going.This is alot more hairy. Apparently on old medieval maps,where they didn`t know what existed they put the words,"there do be monsters here".There you go-we are called to go,and in the going,in the journey we learn more of what the Lord has for us.WE learn about God ,the world and ourselves.We need to decide either to look at the supposed monsters or to keep our eyes on the one who calls us.
In Acts,the early Church obeyed the promptings of the Spirit and called out Barnabas and Saul for the work God had for them to do(Acts 13.1-3).WE read that they placed their hands on them and sent them off!! Sent them Orff?? Where ?To whom? I don`t see any blueprint,but as they responded the next thing we learn is that guided by the Holy Spirit they start in Seleucia and then end up in Cyprus.
The call is in the journey.
What I am seeing afresh is the need to go through each door the Lord opens.There will be so many loose ends and questions.However we just need to go,keeping our eyes on the one who holds us in the midst of our life.
Thats the best place to be-even though it feels very Hairy.

Getting God`s Perspective Daily

Prayer that is regular confounds both self-importance and the wiles of the world.It is so easy for good people to confuse their own work with the work of creation.It is so easy to come to believe that what we do is so much more important than what we are.It is so easy to simply get too busy to grow...To committ ourselves to this century`s demand for product and action until the product consumes us and the actions exhaust us and we can no longer even remember why we set out to do them in the first place.
Regularity in prayer cures all that.

Living The Rule of Benedict today.
Joan Chittister,OSB

Life gets like this sometimes!