Ministry Team Letter for the Month

​​​

​

​

Dear Friends,

 

Out for a walk with a friend earlier this week the world - well our bit of it at least - was suddenly full of skylarks.

 

We stopped; stood still; drystone wall to the left, rough grass to the right, and watched, and listened. For a few minutes we didn’t speak or move, totally present to what the moment had given.

 

Before long the skylarks landed in the grass and we walked on, sharing thoughts prompted by the display, and thinking that maybe summer is on the way again. Those few moments have stayed with me as I have gone through this week. There is something very special in even a small experience of something beautiful or unexpected commanding every bit of our attention: something sacred, perhaps. So often, we seem to move quickly through life, not giving ourselves time to stop and to notice; not allowing ourselves to be fully present in this moment.

 

One of my spiritual heroes is a French Jesuit priest who was around in the 18th century. His name was John Pierre de Caussade and he talked about something called the sacrament of the present moment. The idea is that every moment is holy and given by God and that if you accept that, you will meet God in that moment. 

I love the idea that it is in living in the moment that we encounter God.

 

There is a popular Buddhist teacher Thich Naht Hanh who says "when you're doing the washing up, do the washing up.” What he is saying is that if you pay attention to what you are doing in any given moment, and live in that moment, that is where you will find joy, or what I would call, the holy.

 

As we approach Easter, many of us hope to encounter God as we think about the big stories of Christianity; the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that is a good thing to do. But I think it is also good to remember that we can encounter God in the small things too; washing dishes - or feet; stopping to watch the birds of the air; being up for finding the holy in all of God’s created world. 

 

Yours in Christ,   

        

                  Revd Hilary Bond