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Latest letter from our bi-monthly magazine "parishlife" from Alastair, our vicar.
My head is whirling with changes at the moment. I guess primarily, for us personally, there is the change of having a new baby in the house. Simeon Christopher was born on March 25th and is a delight, but also leaves us a little ragged round the edges. It's a whole different game looking after a new baby when there's already a pre-school child on the scene!
In our churches we have a change too - of churchwardens - one new warden (Jim Crawford) at St Laurence's and two new wardens (Cathy Arnott and Julia Agar) at St Luke's). I have never known St Luke's without Margaret and Valerie in their roles as wardens and it will be a learning process for us all. Old chapters of church life end and new ones begin.
Then there are the political changes (or perhaps not?) that are going on as I write. What will be the outcome of the post-election discussions on power-sharing, etc? Perhaps you will know by the time this goes to press, but at the moment it's all up in the air. Will we have a new prime minister? If so it looks like it will be from one of the same two parties who have been in government all my life. Is that really a change at all? You might argue it isn't change enough. Or will the discussions lead to a new electoral system which will break the hold these parties have in the 'first past the post system'. No political system is perfect, I know, but personally I have grown somewhat disillusioned over the years knowing that if the two main parties agree on some policy I want changed, I have no political voice, and, if I do vote for somebody who agrees with me, my vote will count for nothing. However, to depart to a new electoral system would be a step into the unknown - perhaps a scary change itself.
"Change and decay in all about I see" is perhaps particularly obvious with the passing of generations and those we love. We might think particularly of the sad passing of Canon Tubbs. Old chapters come to an end, new ones begin - generations come and generations go. I remember looking up at Durham cathedral once and suddenly being struck by the fact that, obviously really, no one who had worked on that magnificent building was now alive; and one day, I and everyone I have ever known will have gone the same way, and eventually all but a very few will pass from human memory entirely. We are just passing through.
Now while most in our culture would find that a depressing thought, I actually find it rather comforting. It gives me a sense of perspective, that tells me that most, if not all, the things that I might get so stressed out or upset about really don't matter all that much in the great scheme of things.
Perhaps that's why I'm so drawn to mountains and hills. They are in my DNA in some strange way. There's rarely a day when I don't catch my thoughts drifting to some high ridge I'm longing to get up again. (That might sound like an odd change of subject, but it makes perfect sense to me!) In the midst of all the changes of life - some good, some bad, some neutral - what could be more solid than a mountain? When I go walking in the Lakes, for example, the views before me are virtually unchanged since before man ever walked on this earth. They laugh at Durham cathedral and all our human achievements, do mountains. When I think of the time it took for the rivers and streams to carve out those valleys I can feel very small and so can all my problems.
Perhaps that is part of the reason people in the Bible often meet God on mountains. Moses on Mount Sinai is an obvious one. Moses (at age 80+) always seems to be climbing up mountains to talk to God and at the age of about 120 climbs up a mountain to die. Elijah famously met God on a mountain in the 'sound of sheer silence' as the 'still small voice' is probably best translated (1 Kings 19:12). Jesus seemed to often slide off to high places to pray and the disciples saw something astonishing in Jesus as they went up the mount of Transfiguration (probably Mount Hermon) with him. And it was on a mountain that the disciples were given the Great Commission by the risen Jesus (Matt.28). I'm sure I could find many more examples.
Yet in God's eyes even mountains are temporary. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or the earth and the world were formed, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." (Psalm 90) Do we really think that all these changes matter all that much to God? I think there is a sort of holy, loving indifference in the heart of God to many of the things we get so upset about. How can they matter to God? It is simply a question of scale.
And yet I also believe that these things do matter to God - but only because they matter to us - because God loves us. The passing of whole generations, in one sense, is nothing at all to God. But in another sense it means a great deal, because he loves every one of us. Indeed Jesus once said not even a sparrow falls to the ground and dies without God knowing it. And so I believe we can bring all these changes and trials that trouble us to God. Not because God cares all that much about who governs a country or how a church is run - but because we care, because it affects our lives, and God cares for us.
God Bless You.
Alastair
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