New beginnings need familiarity and consistency and when things change unexpectedly we are shaken. For this reason it is unwise to journey alone without someone to help us as a shepherd does her sheep.
The lesson of the cross is that the answer to the world’s pain is to wear it. It is only when we learn to pray for those who hurt us that we will cease paasing on their pain and become like Christ to a hurting world.
We are not able to always sepnd time ‘in the Trysting Place’ of a quiet enclosure and often find ourselves thrust into a busy noisy world. Each of us must aim to find ways of taking our quiet place with us so that we can hear God’s love song clearly.
When faced with inevitable change and trying to discern what of the new to embrace and what of the old to retain our aim must be to choose only those things which draw us closer to love.
To learn that God loves to watch us do what we love to do to prosper the work of the Gospel brings a great freedom and makes ‘drudgery divine’.
‘Praying without ceasing’ and ‘rejoicing in the Lord always’ can seem to be a counsel of perfection. However unless we manage to carry our ‘Trysting Place’ with us the world wil remain lost and loveless.
We are not meant to fight out the ‘fidgets of our faith’ alone. Each of us is enriched if we can find a ‘Trysting Place’ and a trusted freind where and with whom we may find rest for our souls.
Be it our Baptismal Promises or the words of a Solemn Profession all these words welcome us into the same Family of God. We must use them to remind us to fall more in love with our Beloved and with each other.
Speaking God’s Word hurts, but it also hurts to keep silent. Learning when to speak and when to keep silent is always a Chance to Die.
The Body of Christ shines brighter when we learn to not insist on always having something to say on everything and that we do not always have to have the first or last word in every conversation.
Suffolk Vicar 