VICAR'S LETTER
17
Sundon Road
Streatley
January, 2009
Dear
All
As
already announced to the PCC and in church, I have very tentatively
pencilled into my diary a retirement date of October 4th
(Harvest Festival) this year. This date is not set in stone, and announcing it now is more
a way of saying we are crossing the starting line rather than defining the
location of the finishing post.
It
allows us to begin making arrangements for the interregnum, that period
– often up to a year – when a church is without a vicar.
I appreciate that the departure of a vicar can be an unsettling
time for a parish, especially when the departing vicar has hung around for
as long a time as this one, and so, in the January letter, I thought I
might offer a musical word of consolation.
I
supply the words; you supply the vocals:
When
I was just a little lad,
I asked my mother “What will I be?
Will I drive engines? Will I
teach kids?”
Here’s what she said to me.
“Que
sera, sera. Whatever will be
will be.
The future’s not ours to see. Que
sera sera.
When
I had grown to be quite big
I told my girl friend what I would be.
Gob-smacked and dumbstruck, pale as a ghost,
Here’s what she said to me.
“Que
sera, sera …….”
When
I first put my collar on,
I asked my vicar, “What shall I be?
Must I run youth groups? Must
I hold babes?”
Here’s what he said to me.
“Que
sera, sera …….”
When
I had finished at church one,
I asked my bishop where I should be.
“Please, Lord, not Luton. It’s
not my scene.”
Here’s what he said to me.
“Que
sera, sera …….”
When
I had been here half my life
I asked my Father, “What now for me?
Where do I go now? What do I
do?
Here’s what he said to me.
“Que
sera, sera …….”
The
moral of this little tale for both priest and people I take to be a faint
echo of the point made in the poem quoted by George VI in his famous
Christmas message:
“Put
your hand in the hand of God.
That
shall be to you better than light
And safer than a known way.”
Certainly
some such approach has brought me a fuller, happier, and more rewarding
life than anything I would have imagined for myself.
Happy
New Year,
Roger
PS
There’s one more verse:
When
I grew old and lost my teeth
I asked my Father, “What will they get?
Will he be handsome? Will she
be bold?”
Here’s what he said to me.
“Que
sera, sera. Whatever will be
will be.
The
future’s not ours to see. Que
sera sera.