‘I call you friends’ – this was the title of the Ordination retreat held at Sheldon. The text for the retreat was taken from John 15: 9-17.  I share with you a small part of our retreat.

We were shown a copy of an icon which dates from the 8^th century of Christ with Abba Mena (there are many prints and the icon can be viewed on line). The original icon is hanging in the Louvre in Paris. The French, however, title the icon ‘Christ and His Friend’.

The text from John’s Gospel reads ‘I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because  I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my father’. (John15:15)

The icon depicts Christ with his arm around the friend.  The friend is Abba Mena; he can be seen to represent each one of us. Jesus does not face his friend, rather he stands alongside him; he accompanies him, sharing the burdens of his life. ‘Christ no longer calls us servants but friends’.  The second striking thing about this icon is the position of the eyes. Christ has an eye on his friend and another looking out. This gives us an insight on how we all need to have one eye focused on Christ and one looking out to those in our care, to our neighbours and friends.  As John 15:12 reads; ‘This is my commandment that you love one another’.

The icon shows Christ holding the scriptures; God’s word, the word that tells of the love between God and humanity. We are like the friend in the icon who is holding a small scroll which is rolled up, God’s loving plan not yet fully revealed. Another fascinating detail of this icon is that Christ is depicted without feet. The friend has feet; it is we who are being sent out.  ‘As the Father has sent me so I send you’. (John 20:21)

There is a silence (as in all icons) to be discovered in this icon; both Jesus and his friend’s mouths are closed. The friend, however, is drawn with very prominent ears. We are the listeners of Christ; the silence in the icon is a prayerful silence.  Prayer is the very essence of our relationship with God.

I am writing this piece in early October; however, it will be read in November when churches across our Mission community and throughout the country will be commemorating the ending of World War 1 one hundred years ago. As we remember and pay our respects to all those who went to war, to the horror that they endured and to the many thousands who did not return home, like the icon, as we have one eye focused on Christ and one on our neighbour, so we pray for peace and reconciliation in our world today.

Lord strengthen our hearts, hands and minds to work together for peace; to see you in one another, and to seek your kingdom above all things, that your will may be done, and your kingdom come, through Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen

(Church of England resources)

^{The Very Reverend Dr Christopher Hardwick, Vicar of Tavistock, Gulworthy and Brent Tor writes:}

^{Healing into Trust}

 ^“Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.” (John 5:2-9)

We can picture the scene at the pool in Bethzatha, and the desperately plaintive cry of the man by the pool: “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up”.  This is the cry of someone who is deeply alone, who has had no friend to help him for 38 years – we see how easy it is for suffering, and sickness, and weakness, to marginalize and isolate people.  But why does Jesus choose this particular man, above all others at the pool, to heal? Perhaps he is more seriously ill or has been there longer.  Or perhaps it is this person who reflects something of Jesus’s own destiny.  In a world where everything is given to the quick and the strong, surely this man, who cries out of darkness and desperation “I have no one”, reflects the fallen and broken world with which Jesus finally identifies when he cries from the Cross “Why have you forsaken me?” In the world of rivalry and competition around that small healing pool in Jerusalem, we see someone on the margins of life – without hope, and in need – yet overlooked by those around him. There is always someone before him.  But into this situation comes Jesus.  And Jesus heals him, and in doing so breaks the vicious and remorseless logic of competition and marginalization.  Now the last shall be first.  It is pure gift.  In this healing miracle we glimpse the intimacy of the God who is close to us and who brings hope to all who suffer.  This intimacy and healing is pure gift, and it is closer to us than anything we can imagine.

Jesus brings healing and wholeness to a person who seeks his help.  But how do we understand God’s healing in our own lives?  In a very real sense our lives are a mystery.  We can be hurt, we can suffer, and in so many different ways.  In the story we have heard it was when the waters were “stirred up” that the sick were healed.  Here the earlier translation of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible is better, for there the verse reads: “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is troubled” (RSV Jn 5:7).  Similarly, in our own lives, it is often when we are anxious or troubled that we can be healed – even though we do not know the way in which God will do this.  Jesus asked the man by the pool “do you want to be healed?” and he indicated his willingness to be helped – his willingness to place his trust in Jesus – and he was healed.  In a similar way when we, or those for whom we pray, are troubled or suffer in any way, we are invited to place our trust in Jesus, to seek his help and his blessing – to let his love into the most painful places of our lives – whether in body, mind or spirit.  It is then we may begin to experience healing.

But what does this really mean? We may feel in some way that God has let us down, that we have been forsaken, that God really isn’t at work in our lives.  With all the pressures and pains of life a God who cares for us, who nurtures us, who heals, who wants us to be fully perfected, may seem very distant – and difficult, if not impossible, to believe in or trust. I think we need to begin with an affirmation.  We need to affirm that God not only creates us, but sustains us throughout our lives.  We need also to affirm that we live in God’s world, in his kingdom, and that Jesus is alive and active.  In the language of the church, we need to affirm that Jesus Christ redeems us – that he will make us perfect in a way that we cannot now fully understand.  It is at this point in our thinking that our reasoning and rational thought are left behind, and faith takes over.  Because what lies ahead for us is a mystery.  Our healing, our being made whole, our perfection, is a healing into trust.  Trust in God.  Although we may not always realise that we are slowly changing, God nurtures us and sustains us.  As we journey in his kingdom he is perfecting us – in mind, body and spirit.

This is our hope; it is our healing into trust.

Chris Hardwick

What a summer we have had. Some like it hot and they have surely had it these past few months, but the sky is rather ‘grey’ as I write this so change could be on the way as we move into autumn, but perhaps we shall be blessed by an ‘Indian Summer’.

Some of you will know that Joy and I have recently returned from a short stay in India, near Chennai, better known to many of us from our old school atlas, where much was coloured in pink, as Madras. We were there for the beach wedding of Joy’s adopted nephew, and the backdrop of the Indian Ocean made it especially special and to be remembered, together with cows strolling along the beach! A very different society with such extremes and still much poverty, but Joy could see considerable change had taken place since her last stay there nearly twenty years ago, but change for 1.4 billion people is not that easy to hasten along.

We in this country are used to the changing seasons and enjoy that change, most of us having a season that we love best; which is yours, I wonder? When I spent ten years teaching Physics in Cyprus the changing seasons were not so obvious, and a summer of 45°C in Nicosia was best avoided, with a flight back to Tavistock and then needing the central heating! But what of the changes and uncertainties in our lives?

Moving into September presents changes and uncertainties for many people. New beginnings for our children as they may move on to a different school or start higher education or work for the first time. New uncertainties for some of us of the ‘older generation’ as we retire, or as we begin to experience changes in our health or find ourselves alone or more dependent upon others. Last week I attended three funerals on consecutive days, and at times like that we come face to face with the fragility of our lives.

So how do we face these times of change and uncertainty? For those of us who have a sure faith and hope in the one true and living God, although these situations may not disappear, we have the promise that we shall not pass through those ‘troubled waters’ on our own but have the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, to be with us. And we also have the fellowship of our Christian brothers and sisters to walk beside us along our pilgrim path, and we can all pray for one another.

Remember the advice given by Solomon when writing those beautiful proverbs (3v5), “Trust in the Lord with all your heart”, and also that special invitation and promise of our Lord Jesus (Mtt 11v28), “Come unto me all who labour and are heavy laden, and you will find rest for your souls”.

God has adopted us, who have put our faith and trust in Jesus, as His children, and He has also given to us a sure hope, a hope of eternal life, together with a mansion that Jesus has gone to prepare for us in His presence (John 14), and the promise of new beginnings when all things shall be made new (Rev 21v5).

Let us then take comfort and join in the beautiful nineteenth century hymn by Edward Mote:

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,

Oh, may I then in Him be found,

Clothed in His righteousness alone,

Faultless to stand before the throne!

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.

With such a hope set before us, brothers and sisters, let us enter the new season coming upon us with a confidence and comfort that we are not alone, knowing that we are special to God our Father, and that we can become a blessing to those around us even through the changes and uncertainties that we may have to face.

Take care, or if you can, as Bishop Robert has said, “Take risks for God”.

My love to you all as we work together and seek to advance our Lord’s kingdom.

Reverend Mike Loader, Assistant Priest, Tavistock, Gulworthy and Brentor.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies (1871-1940), who wrote as W H Davies, was a Welsh poet and prose writer who is best known for two works, his early ‘Autobiography of a Super-Tramp’, which detailed his life as a hobo in the United States from 1893 to 1899, and the short poem ‘Leisure’, which appeared in his “Songs of Joy and Others” in 1911.

‘Leisure’ is only fourteen lines long, and is comprised of seven rhyming couplets

The repeated ‘no time’, which appears in every couplet, rings like a bell in this carefully crafted poem which takes the reader through a catalogue of occasions on which the excuse of ‘no time’ prevents one from enjoying life to the full.

The second to fourth couplets refer to the natural world and have most relevance to the rural reader who is likely to encounter boughs, woods and streams in the course of their day. They are salutary reminders that the privilege of living in the countryside is largely wasted if one does not pause and allow its sights and sounds to do their work on one’s feelings and emotions.

The fifth and sixth couplets take the principle of ‘standing and staring’ to the highly recommended pastime of people-watching.

The title of ‘Leisure’ is an interesting one, because the poem is a call to create leisure by taking the decision to ‘stand and stare’. Davies wrote these words more than a hundred years ago and they are even more relevant today than when he penned them. Most people seem to be ‘full of care’ most of the time and many complain that they have no time for leisure. However, few would disagree with Davies’s conclusion that their life is impoverished because they do not make the effort to switch off and absorb the world around them.

We are now in the height of the holiday season and I do hope we all have given ourselves time to take a break even if we are not going away on holiday. We live in a most beautiful county which gives us that opportunity to stand and stare, to take time to see what is really going on around us and to enjoy God’s creation in all its beauty.

My husband, when we have taken a short flight and fly below the clouds, says this is what God must see, beautifully tended fields with not a weed or a thistle in sight, animals enjoying their pastures, trees and gardens showing themselves at their best, the sand and the sea sparkling as we pass over, tiny houses full of people leading different lives, and the buildings of our towns and cities portrayed at night by light pollution.

Jesus took time to stand and stare, took time out from the busyness of life and the clamouring of the people. Many of his parables and teachings were taken from observing what was going on around him and we often read that Jesus took himself to a quiet place to pray or to set out on the sea to get away from the crowds to find a time of rest and recuperation.

We all need to take time to stand and stare, switch off our phones for at least a week, tell ourselves to switch off our I-pads and computers, have conversations with our nearest and dearest, enjoy a meal with friends without any distractions, but above all we need to find time just to be and make contact with our inner self and with God.

A month ago I was in Dubrovnik, a beautiful place with delightful people who have had more than their share of troubles in the past. It was a sweltering day so I left my friends to find peace, tranquillity and a cooling breeze by taking a short trip in a small boat with ten other people around the islands. I was so looking forward to the space this short time would give me. I smiled at my fellow passengers and settled back to enjoy the peace and tranquillity. A gentleman to my left started to talk to me; he was an American on holiday and we started to talk about the world situation. For some reason I asked if he was a Christian and the flood gates opened; he had many troubles on his mind and this holiday was to be a time to ‘stand and stare’ and to find God. Other people in the boat listened into our conversation, and before long prayers for all different reasons were being said around the boat. We had all been given that time of leisure, that time to ‘stand and stare’ and pray together in the most beautiful of settings. We all hugged each other as we left the boat to go our different ways. God had been in our midst and we had found him.

This summer take time to ‘stand and stare’ and see what happens. Thank God for the many blessings he gives us day by day, find within your leisure time that time to commune with God and pray, and you will find that God is in all that we see and hear around us.

Love to you all

Reverend. Sue (Assistant Curate)

My God father was a real man of the countryside who grew up in the Slad valley in Gloucestershire along with Laurie Lee, the author of Cider with Rosie, and they both had a real love of poetry. When he died I inherited some of his books and now and again I look through them and sometime ago I came across the poem ‘Ash Wednesday’ by TS Eliot.

In 1928, TS Eliot is contemplating becoming a Christian. He is apprehensive, and records his thoughts in the poem ‘Ash Wednesday’, asking that God’s judgment not rest too heavily upon him. He feels that he is not worthy of God’s love, and that the world is too unsettled, too noisy for a person to hear God. He refers to Our Lord as St John does, ‘the Word’, and writes, ‘Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled about the centre of the silent Word’.

The Word speaks in the silence of our hearts, when we are still and quiet. For nine months he prepares in Mary’s womb and, in the whispered prayers of the Eucharist, as the priest embraces the altar and we prepare for his arrival at the words of consecration, he sends before him a stillness. This quietude is the embrace of birth and new life, but also the silence of the grave, the rock that seals our Lord’s tomb while the moonlight cuts shadows across the door of the Holy Sepulchre. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. As Eliot puts it, this is the ‘desert in a garden’, a ‘dream crossed twilight between birth and dying’. Our Lord is risen, but he also carries with him always the marks of crucifixion.

We have begun the forty day Lenten journey and seek to identify with Jesus in his wilderness experience, but how do we understand things unless we have contrasts – joy with sorrow, noise with quiet, company with solitude? Each helps to define its mirror image. It can be very easy to make the mistake of regarding Lent as a gloomy miserable time. George Herbert three hundred years before Eliot was writing with irony when he wrote ‘Welcome dear feast of Lent, he loves not temperance or authority’.

Herbert’s use of the word feast is interesting and clever; it makes us sit up and take notice because the usual Lenten word is fast. And here lies the ingenious contrast. The Lenten fast is a feast for the soul—–Lent is about blessing, about walking closely with Jesus, about growing in spiritual maturity and depth. Such things are not a privation but a wonderful affirmation of faith.

Our yearly season of penitence, starting with the ritual of marking our foreheads with ash’ probably seems daft and pointless to those who have no understanding of the Christian faith.

But, in the context of faith in God, the Ash Wednesday ritual and the whole six weeks of Lent, it is an external sign of an inner decision to own up to our own sinful tendencies and a sign of our willingness to look at ourselves critically, and to rededicate ourselves to the values and the way of life of the gospel. Lent, in other words, is about repentance and about the way God changes us and makes us Holy.

In Joel Ch 1 drought had already spread death and despair. Locusts had removed the final vestiges of green, and with them any last lingering hope. A solemn assembly has been called in those drought stricken times to fast and offer sacrifice and pray for God’s mercy, but with this latest disaster, what was the point? The sentence of death was upon them.

The prophet’s message is that it is never too late to return to God. Yet fasting, weeping, tearing garments as a sign of mourning, all will be of no avail unless the people’s hearts are turned. In Hebrew the heart is the seat not only of emotions but of the mind and will, directing attitudes and actions. Forgiveness depends, ultimately, not on their fasting and sacrifice but on the gracious character of  God; it is his grace and mercy, his patience and constant love, it is his desire to bless, not to punish,

When human beings turn away from God and do evil, the consequence in the economy of God is more evil rebounding upon them. Repent is more often used of God than of humankind, not because God changes his mind but because our relationship with him becomes changed. When we turn towards him, his justice comes to us as love not anger.

Lent has the tradition that we should give things up, eat and drink less than we usually do. Fasting has always played a part in all the major religious traditions; at the most basic level fasting lessens our attachment to our ordinary bodily appetite for food and drink and raises our awareness of spiritual hunger, our need for God. The practice of fasting challenges our modern preoccupation with food and eating, and I, probably like many others, will be a bit grumpy as my need and craving for anything sweet bites in.

But as we give up things so should we also take up – put more time aside to pray, to stimulate a desire for God rather than for the various substitutes that are available. The rushed, pressured way of life which people live today, filling every moment with activity and resenting solitude and quiet, all are hostile to inner calm, and prayer, and an awareness of God.

And lastly if we can, we should be more generous with our money and possessions, both to free ourselves from being dependent on money and possessions and to benefit people who are poor and struggling. Simplicity in relation to material things, freedom from compulsions to acquire and accumulate personal possessions, a genuine concern and care for the needs of others, are all habits to take root in us as we get to know God better.

A sort of ‘virtuous circle’ develops when we undertake these spiritual practices, fasting, prayer and almsgiving help clear the way for God, and the more open we are to God’s influence, the more we foster these spiritual attitudes.

Repentance is usually a gradual thing; most people don’t change overnight. Getting closer to God normally involves a constant series of conversations, not a single giant leap. Pray that God will give us the strength we need to turn to him sincerely and wholeheartedly, and that we use this lent as an opportunity to come back to him with all our hearts, as the prophet Joel passionately urges.

I urge you this Lent to walk the forty days with Jesus, come to the Lent groups and take in the film ‘Les Miserables’ which is challenging at times, but leaves much to think about and pray through.

Come to the Lent and Holy Week services, live the liturgy in all its fullness, witness the last hours of Jesus on Good Friday, and come to find a closer more intimate relationship with God.

But our Lenten story is just beginning, with the Wednesday Lenten Ash coming in the form of a cross, that instrument of torture where Jesus died for you and for me, taking the sins of the whole world upon himself so that our sins may be forgiven and whose death bestows upon us a life which is imperishable because, being with God life is eternal.

Sue