I have been involved in two events in the past few weeks, which have been particularly uplifting and encouraging. The first was the Lairg Churches Together Summer Club, which attracted about 35 children to Lairg Community Centre from 7th-9th August. The second was the evensong to at which I was licensed as Priest-in Charge of the Episcopal congregations in Dornoch, Lairg and Tain on 20^th August, which packed out St Andrew’s in Tain, somehow fitting in about 90 people. Both attracted large crowds, but I am much more interested in the fact that they were both very much ecumenical events.

The LCT Summer Club employed the talents of Church of Scotland, Free Church, Community Fellowship and Episcopal members to provide a wonderful mix of activity, games, singing, teaching and much more, in a profoundly spirit-filled atmosphere. The adult helpers had as much fun as the children, learned as much as the children and felt God’s love amongst them as much as the children.

“He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’” (Matt 18:2-5)

At my licensing there were clergy from the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church as well as from the Episcopal Church. There were lay people from pretty much every denomination and those who for all I know don’t count themselves as Christians. The 18 strong choir assembled by Jamie Campbell was drawn from many different backgrounds. … And a good time was had by all in (you guessed it) a profoundly spirit-filled atmosphere.

This last was in a week when we had heard so much in the media about division, hatred and prejudice, yet it was the lack of all three that struck me about these two wonderful and well attended events. Both remind us that we have so much more in common that we have dividing us, if only we allow ourselves to see it, to feel it and to live out our oneness in Christ.

At the service last Sunday evening, one of the intercessory prayers was a favourite of mine from the Scottish Prayer Book, that captures my feelings exactly:

O GOD the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and concord: that, as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

May God bless you all no matter who you are.

James

We spent one day this week at the Royal Horticultural Society show at Tatton Park in Cheshire. We were surrounded by the many splendid creations of some of the UK’s finest garden designers. By the time that you read this, the gardens that they worked so lovingly on may well be just a memory, all cleared away with the place where they once were, returned to parkland. For me, there was an artificiality in the gardens, that were put together very cleverly to look ‘mature’, but which if left would probably have looked rather different in a few weeks, when the blooms, timed to perfection, had passed their best.

As the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes says:

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.”

And again:

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done;
    there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”?
It has already been, in the ages before us.
The people of long ago are not remembered,
    nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come
    by those who come after them.”

There was a garden that in a way acknowledged this reality. It was a garden called ‘Remember Me’ which was created to support the Mid-Cheshire Hospitals ‘Everybody knows Somebody’ dementia appeal. The garden focused on evoking memories and was designed to spark memories of the past and trigger communication between those with dementia and their family and carers.

The planting itself represented the deterioration of memory. At one side there was bold colourful drifts of planting reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s, but as one moved around the garden, the planting became more muddled with the colours becoming more muted with only flashes of bold colour representing the occasional recollection, finally a jumble of wild flowers and ‘beds’ of woodruff and camomile. The whole planting symbolising the dementia journey, right through to full-time residential care.

My experience of the RHS show at Tatton has set me reflecting on the ephemeral nature of earthly things and then on what lies at the heart of our existence, on what is not ephemeral. As people of faith, we believe that only God is eternal and that those things that really matter are the things of God. And “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” as John says in his Gospel.

But for a rather fuller description of our lives and how they fit into God’s purpose, we could do a whole lot worse than go back to the writer of Ecclesiastes:

“I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.”

Ultimately people don’t remember, but God does and that is a cause for hope, for joy and for peace.

Blessings
James