Letter
from Rose
October/November
2012
Dear
Friends,
While
out driving recently, I noticed that the leaves on the trees were
beginning to change – the sign that autumn was approaching – the
time for summer was almost over. I began to think about change, how
sometimes it creeps up on us almost without us knowing then on other
occasions it can hit us with a suddenness that makes us reel back as
we experience it.
I
recently led my first service at St John the Baptist Church, in
Wolverley where I referred to the change that we are all at this
moment beginning to feel as we negotiate our way through the
retirement of a much loved Vicar and colleague Geoffrey Shilvock from
both Wolverley and St Peter’s Cookley, and the changes that are
beginning to experience within the Kidderminster Parish Church Team
as we all move towards the formation of the new Kidderminster Ismere
Team that will include seven churches and the areas we serve.
At
the service I quoted from a book written by The Chief Rabbi Jonathan
Sacks, a powerful writer and broadcaster for many years.
The
book is ‘Celebrating Life – finding happiness in unexpected
places’ and in it there is a passage on ‘turning strangers into
friends.’
In
it he says –
‘In one of the
synagogues where I used to worship there were several millionaires.
Sitting alongside them was the man who sold newspapers in Piccadilly
Circus, and another who lived alone and always turned up with holes
in his shoes and patches on his clothes………
There
was always a fair sprinkling of lively people in their eighties and
nineties……..
They would come each week, and often each day, to give thanks for being alive and as often as not to exchange the latest gossip of who had fallen out with whom……’
Then he asked – ‘What brought us together? Not power or exchange.
Just the need regularly to remind ourselves of who we are, what we belong to, the faith we share, the story of which our lives are part………’
All of us, no matter
who we are or where we are, are part of the community of faith, part
of the family of God’.
Yes,
we are all living through a time of change –
a time of change in our world –
a time of change in our world –
a
time of change in our country –
a
time of change in our churches too.
The
change within our churches, some may feel has been forced on us, but
it is happening and it is up to us as ‘the community of faith, part
of the family of God’ to work through this change together for the
benefit of all the people in the seven areas we belong to and care
for - seven areas that are coming together in the service of the one
God.
St
Teresa of Avila wrote this prayer:
‘Christ has no
body now on earth but ours,
no hands but ours,
no feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes
through which must look our Christ’s compassion on the world.
Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.
Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.
Ours
are the hands with which he is to bless us now.
Jesus
never promised that things would be easy if we follow Him, but he did
promise that he would always be there for us and sent us the Spirit
to help us.
With
God’s blessings as we journey through change together.
Revd. Rose
Lawley
From
the Parish Registers
Christenings
Max
William Turvey; 2nd
September at St. Peter’s, Cookley
Oliver
William Slym; 9th
September at St. Peter’s, Cookley
Eva-Mai
Pocierznicki; 23rd
September at St. Peter’s, Cookley
Connor
John Price; 30th
September at St. Peter’s, Cookley
Kimberley
Elsie Williams-Young; 30th
September at St. John’s, Wolverley
Weddings
Andrew
Baker and Laura Oliver; 1st
September at St. John’s, Wolverley
Lee
Davies and Kelly Taylor; 8th
September at St. Peter’s, Cookley
Neal
Addison and Nicola Jones; 15th
September at St. John’s, Wolverley
Christopher
Tibbetts and Gemma Powell; 15th
September at St. Peter’s, Cookley
Funerals
Robin
Humble of Cookley; 29th
August at Stourbridge Crematorium
Maureen
Addison of Wolverley; 11th
September at Stourbridge Crematorium
Audrey
Peace of Cookley; 14th
September at Stourbridge Crematorium
Steven
Michael Jones; 27th
September at St. Peter’s, Cookley
