Letter to the Parish - May 2008

Dear Friends,

Whew! We have made it through another winter. I guess we’ll all have different markers. For me it is the bliss of finishing Evensong on Sunday night and walking out into the light. This year it coincided with a particularly good Choral Evensong -sung together with a visiting choir from St Mathew’s, Ealing.

If it is your thing do drop by -Choral Evensong is now a regular fixture on the fourth Sunday of each month at 6.00pm

So –spring -new beginnings, hope, resurrection. Lots to be thankful for. But there are also always good-byes. All too often through death, but sometimes simply because folk move away.

As a Church family we face a tough one this spring as Joy and David Perrett fly south. We won’t be the only community missing them. This is not the place to list all that they have done to enrich the life of this church, the church in the Deanery and also the Diocese -but I can tell you, it is a very long list. They have contributed their skills and talents very generously and we are hugely grateful, but the real reason we’ll miss them is because of who they are. Theirs are lives of love and faith of a very integrated sort.

There aren’t sharp boundaries between ‘Church’ life and ‘ordinary’ life and therefore they experience all the natural ups and downs of daily living in the context of a vibrant but not annoyingly pious faith.

In a way it is as if they have found a special key. Sorry to go on -but this is one of my passions. Great to see folk on Sunday -but I get very worried when the exact shape, the words, the hymns of the service become of crucial importance to people -as if that is their only contact with God for that week -so it has to be perfect.

We all hope that times of worship together are special and meaningful, but they are only a part of what it means to have a living faith. So I shall miss Joy and David for that maturity of faith which is shown through a character and personality shaped by their love of God. On a personal note I shall also miss one of their greatest gifts -that of encouragement. A word or two of affirmation and appreciation goes a long way!

So God bless you Joy and David -as we are sorry to lose you so your new community will be delighted to welcome you.

With best wishes,