Tuesday 24th March

At this time the words of Julian of Norwich a 14th Century Nun and mystic are of great comfort to me. “All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well. These words don’t spring from a sort of fatuous hope that it will work out alright in the end but from a deep rooted knowledge of God’s character and goodness, and a firmly rooted trust in his love for his people and his power to care for us.

There have been a few occasions in my life where there has been a quantum leap; a change in my perceived reality: The day my parents told us they were divorcing our lives changed for ever. When I realised that my poor health meant I had to give up nursing and heard God calling me into ministry, again things changed profoundly and last night when the Prime Minister told everyone who possibly could to stay at home there was again, a quantum shift.

We have never known life to be like this. It is frightening, we are anxious, we cannot see where this is taking us, we may be angry or very sad; or we simply might not believe what is happening is true. “This is a terrible dream and soon I will wake up to normality.” All perfectly normal responses to the loss we are facing of social interaction and community as we understand it.

However you are feeling you are not alone. We are all part of this community and the church of God, though closed at the moment, something unthinkable to me, the church of God is still alive and well and living right here in the midst of our communities. We are praying in our homes. I am praying constantly for our communities and leading worship in The Rectory and if you have any concerns you would like to be prayed for please contact me either via this web site or on my email rector@thefourchurchbenefice.org

I am fortunate because in my isolation I have a faithful loving companion in my cat Erik, who is entering into our new world with patience and living it with me

Erik practicing Social Distancing