Vicar’s view

Like many I have been deeply upset and troubled by the war in the Ukraine and human suffering that has been inflicted.

We have found ourselves repeatedly drawn back to the profound significance of human relationships. The relational trauma being worked out between nations only emphasises the importance of this.

Maybe we are at last finding a predictable pattern of life in relation to COVID, yet how will our human relating now develop? We have been constrained for so long. We have communicated and interacted where we can, often through unfamiliar channels and increasingly online. How has this changed us? How will things now be, much more in person? How then, shall we live?

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one

The words above from the pen of C S Lewis reflect a moment between two people where there is insight; when one person really sees another, and in turn realises something about themselves. They are not so singular, so unusual, so isolated as they had thought. I suppose one could say that in this moment the two people, in realising their kinship, become not less, but more. They become more themselves, more affirmed in their identities, their personhood.

We are now begining to live the new normal, gathering together and sharing our time together in different ways. We are now thinking how will our churches look after we go through the shaped by God together process.

Let us all continue to grow together in the love of God and work for our churches to shape what God wants us to be.

As wider ways of relating become possible once again, how will this play out between us, and in the many contexts in which we live out our callings? Will others be objects, or will we call each other forth in our full personhood? We shall see.

Blessings

Rick