VICAR'S LETTER
17
Sundon Road
Streatley
October 2009
Dear
All
Harvest
brings to the surface a theme that runs through our church’s life and
worship all through the year. The
theme is thankfulness for all that is beautiful in the world.
We
give thanks for the beauty of the world. We do so at Harvest in the wonderfully decorated church.
We do so in our occasional Flower Festivals.
We have done so this year in our programme of local walks and in a
Ladies’ Guild talk that celebrated the beauties to be found in our own
part of the world. Something of that element is present in the decorating of the
church for Easter and it is present week by week (except during Lent) in
the flower displays that grace the Chancel.
We
give thanks for our beautiful world. We also give thanks for beautiful lives.
Every year we tell the story of Jesus.
Every year we celebrate the lives of the Saints.
Compline Group often turns its collective mind to people in whose
lives and work its members have found inspiration.
We tell our Sunday School children and Sunday Club members of the
lives and work of good and holy people both ancient and modern.
In
acknowledging the beauty of the world and the beauty of some of the lives
that have been lived out upon it, we are in turn inspired to do what we
can to leave the world a beautiful place to look at and a more beautiful
place to live in than it was when we found it.
That, in a very modest way, is the point of sending out harvest
gifts. That, in a rather more
substantial way, is the point of both the work of the CARE Committee and
of the church’s resolution that, no matter what, 10% of its income each
year should go to charity.
Harvest
celebrates all the good things that God has done for man.
It prompts us, in return, to make of our lives, in Mother
Teresa’s words, ‘something beautiful for God’.
All
best wishes,
Roger
A Personal Note
For
the last thirty-five years it has been my privilege to be the Vicar of St
Margaret’s, Streatley. They
have been as happy and fulfilling a time as anyone could wish for.
That they have been so is entirely due to the people I have walked
with, to the people I have lived among.
To all those people, past and present, young and old, all I can say
is a very big thank-you.
God
bless, and thanks again,
Roger