February 2008

Dear Friends

 

With the date of Easter Sunday this year falling on 23 March, which is earlier than any of us has ever experienced, or indeed any of us is likely ever to experience in the future either, (although it can actually fall on 22 March – can anyone let me know when last this happened, or indeed when next it will?!), there is a real feeling that the new year is just whizzing past!  Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on 6 Feb, which just about gives me the chance to put in a word for the Lent Study Groups, looking at the Lord’s Prayer.  In case you are not aware, the chance is given every two years for friends from across the various Hitchin churches to meet in homes to learn and share together, and you are encouraged to consider this – full details are still available in church.

 

Thus it would seem especially appropriate this month to find a word to help us to maintain our balance, to help us to regulate our lives, and not to feel that the year is spinning away faster and faster.  Our church text speaks of God’s promised gift of peace, and Lent is perhaps above all the season for reflection, for quiet, for taking time out, in order to prepare for Easter, for the great story at the heart of our faith of Jesus’ death upon the cross and his rising from the grave.

 

At such a time, especially this year, the opening words of Kenneth Grahame’s wonderful tale The Wind in the Willows seem to have a really helpful pointer.  One if the leading characters in the story is Mole who, as I’m sure you will recall, has been busy:  indeed

 

“the Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little home.  First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of white-wash;  till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back, and weary arms.  Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.  It was small wonder then that he suddenly flung down his brushes on the floor, said, ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without waiting even to put on his coat.  Something up above was calling him imperiously so he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go!  Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

“‘This is fine!’, he said to himself.  ‘This is better than whitewashing!’  The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.”

 

So the scene is set for the unfolding story, the journey, the adventure, the delight, the friendships – and it all serves to remind me of what’s important, and what may be less important, as we make our way on our unfolding story. 

 

With my love and prayers in this month and this season, in this busy and fast-flowing year, your friend and pastor,

 

Andrew