Dear All Saints and St. Mary’s
This photo shows a greenly glimmering wood we found ourselves in by the River Dart near Buckfast Abbey - a day or two before the November 2020 lockdown. It reminds me of the mysterious green wood with dark pools discovered by two children in ’The Magician’s Nephew’. If you’re a fan of the Narnia Chronicles by C.S.Lewis you might remember the scene where Polly and Digory find out that if they put on yellow rings and jump into a different pool, they enter a new world. Then by swapping the yellow rings to green ones they get back to the sleepy ‘wood between worlds’.
In her ‘Lectionary Reflections’ the theologian Jane Williams compares the season of Advent to Polly’s ‘Wood between the Worlds’ - or, as Digory prefers to call it, this ‘in-between place’. The children had to actively choose to jump into a different pool to reach a new world.
The Advent Sunday Bible readings all invite us to be active - to be squirrels not sloths, gardeners not gunmen, to seek the light - not cower in the shadows.
In Romans 13:11-14 Paul shakes his readers out of complacency. "Wake up!” he says. "The night is far gone, the day is near!” Be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!
Isaiah rallies God’s people saying ‘Come on! Let's walk in the light of the Lord!’ God's clarion call at Advent urges us to wake up and wage peace, beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.
In Advent we are invited to walk towards the manger by the light of a guiding star to discover the Jesus child. Maybe a vulnerable, beautiful baby, who invites care and protection, can actually teach us how to live more peacefully on God's earth.
Services this Sunday 27th November - The First Sunday of Advent
8:00am | All Saints | Said Holy Communion |
10:00am | St. Mary's | Sung Holy Communion with St.Mary’s Kids |
10:30am | All Saints | Cafe Church on the theme: Why go to church ? |
4:30pm | All Saints | Christingle |
Coming up in the week ahead
Weds 30th Nov | 9am | Celtic Morning Prayer at All Saints Church |
Tues 1st Dec | 10am | Holy Communion at St Mary’s Church |
Sat 3rd Dec | 11am | St. Mary’s Christmas Fair |
Next Sunday 4th December
10.00 – Creative Open Church St Mary’s Church on the theme of Waiting 10.30 – Holy Communion at All Saints Church 18.30 – Veni Emmanuel – Advent Sequence at St Mary’s So many joyful and reflective services to help you get ready for Christmas... This Advent, how you will choose to let the light of love be born in you …? Come, O come Emmanuel! Revd Diane, assistant curate.
________________ Revd Diane Simms Assistant Curate Benefice of All Saints and St Mary Fishponds