View from the Vicarage: Leaving – and getting ready…

The word has certainly got around that I am in my last months before retirement – just over two months / 9 weeks to go. “How do you feel about it?” lots of people are asking. Quite apprehensive, is my answer. I’ve lived here far longer than anywhere else in my life – nearly 32 years in Shotley Bridge; eight years before that just down the valley in High Spen (down but also up the hill, so at approximately the same altitude). So wherever I go, it will be different – starting a new life at 70.

One thing I have never experienced is what it is like to live in a house with double-glazing! Now it looks as though I will be moving to a new-build house. So perhaps I will learn to live with fewer than four layers of clothing. Even more than the change in the sort of house I will have will be the difference in the community. There’s so much that’s special about the villages where we live and the whole of the larger town of Consett – itself really a huge village where even if you don’t really know people, you can nevertheless talk with them. And hopefully get on with them!

There won’t be a community as such on a new housing estate. But there will be the opportunity to build a community. I gather the plan is to move all the residents of my new road into their new homes at the same time. So we will all be on an equal footing – except I wonder how much older I will be than all the rest! 

Already I am having to think of what I can take with me – and even more, what I need to get rid of. Difficult, when I still haven’t sorted through many of the things from the family home which I have just sold! And not just possessions. Planning my diary for the coming month, I have been deleting all the “recurring” events which makeup the bulk of my diary – now from the beginning of July it is almost empty. That’s scary – but also an opportunity; how can I use that time?

That’s a challenge to all of us – at whatever stage of life. When Jesus leaves the Disciples at the time of his Ascension, he leaves nothing by way of material possessions – but he does promise them his Holy Spirit. It’s in his power and presence that we are called to live.

Martin Jackson

This is an item from the May issue of our Parish Magazine - click here for the online edition

Holy Week at St. Cuthbert's Church

 

Holy Week at St. John's Church

 

Mothering Sunday - 15 March

 

Learning from Nazareth

We’ve only just started the year, and already I’m having to think about Lent! I always welcome this time of year as one when I can set my rhythm anew, establish a fresh discipline and make the time to listen to what God is saying to me.

On another page I’ve made some suggestions as to the elements of a Lenten discipline that might be helpful to people. It’s often just a matter of tackling those things we know we ought to do – and the period of just over six weeks which Lent takes up gives us that time-frame to do it. Like the 40 days which Jesus spends in the wilderness – you can make a start with a target date already prescribed.

A “Lent Course” can be helpful in this respect. Something where someone has already done the groundwork in helping us think / learn / pray – and where we can join in with other people, so that we know we’re not on our own. But our usual provider of such courses, USPG, doesn’t seem to have come up with one yet – and other offerings as yet seem thin.

So I’m proposing a course which we can’t complete in the five weeks available during Lent – something you might want to carry on for the two further weeks of the course – and beyond. It’s a course based on the book, The City is my Monastery by Richard Carter. It came out of his consideration of what he should be doing at a particular point in his life. Should he leave his work as a parish priest in a busy city parish? Should he join a monastery or move into some other form of the “religious life.” His conclusion was that he needed to continue in the city – but with a fresh rhythm. And it was a way of life he would pursue with others – not alone. From this there has grown the Nazareth Community and a wider dispersed group known as the Companions of Nazareth. They follow a Rule of Life based on 7 S’s – to live with Silence; with Service; with Scripture; with Sacrament; with Sharing; with Sabbath; and “Staying with…” (steadfastness, truth, suffering, love). The book is available for anyone who would like to buy it. But there’s also a course which I can share. I hope you’ll join me in exploring how it might speak to us.  

Martin Jackson

This is the "View from the Vicarage," taken from the February issue of our Parish Magazine - follow the link to read more!

And here's a link to the book on which the course is based.

Christmas at St. Cuthbert's Church, Shotley Bridge

 

Christmas at St. John's Church, Castleside