Dear Friends

I know this might be a strange question to begin the Vicar’s letter with but… we are missing quite a few wine glasses, has anybody got any church wine glasses at home? If you have, can you bring them back, we’re a bit desperate. Thanks.

How do you respond to change? If you are like me, who seems to hold contradictory responses, I am both excited by change and fearful of it. How I manage the tension between these seeming contradictions effects how I respond to the world around and my own mental well being. Of course, we are all effected by change in different ways, what I might joyfully embrace as change for the good, others might reject as a move too far. Over the years we have witnessed nationally and internationally aggressive and sometimes violent responses to the prospect of change. Fear seems a common motivational force in much of this response. Fear of a new ideology, or a dominant ideology taking over. Fear of a loss of national, local, or individual identity.  Anger at not being consulted, and a sense of helplessness also fuels our resentment.  Is this just a phase, a hiccup we have just got to ride out? Or are we heading towards some kind of world re-defining epoch such as an international confrontation? 

Perhaps a common element in all of the above is hope, or a desperate lack of it. People need to believe in a hopeful future. Of course there is much we as individuals can do to effect the course of our lives, but honestly for the majority, there is much we cannot effect on our own and we rely on others.St Paul tells us in his letter to the Church in Rome that hope is not deceptive because Christ died for us. This is such an important contribution to the debate. Christ died, St Paul says for us. he didn’t die for himself. Obedient to the Father he offers his life for the life of the world. Perhaps we need to stop looking only to ourselves and our own personal advancement and agendas and look rather to the other. Its only through good communication that security is advanced and good communication is dependent on our looking beyond ourselves to the others who surround us.

Simon