A letter from Will for the Redbourn Common Round

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I wonder what your favourite Christmas present was this year?  I was hoping for a jab which, in my mind, would have been the best present any of us could receive at the moment.  But I’m way down the list so perhaps that will be an Easter present for me instead.

But my favourite present this year was actually an ice cream machine.  The fact that the weather is cold and miserable and we’re in December makes it seem such a frivolous choice.  But after all we’ve been going through in the pandemic, somehow the incongruity has made it all the more fun.  Another gift to go with it, wrapped separately but from the same people, provided an ice cream recipe book from a famous ice cream duo in Vermont, USA (you may know who I’m talking about).

It will be really fun to try the recipes and different combinations but it is also, somehow, such a hopeful present.  It is a gift that looks forward to warmer weather and better times – which, quite frankly, is all we can do at the moment.  We long for life to become less restricted, scary and stressful and for us to be able to enjoy things with fun and laughter and other people.  It will happen but it feels a long way off at the moment.

And as I think about gifts and of things that are a long way off, I’m reminded of the Epiphany story and the magi and their long journey bearing gifts to bring to Jesus.  Theirs was not an easy path either, but a long and dangerous trek experiencing vulnerability in the face of power, and insecurity and thinly veiled threat, which, in this story, is represented in the person of Herod.  And yet the magi, these mystical Kingly astronomers and seekers, persisted and were rewarded with great joy as they finally reached what they had been searching for and came to an encounter with the infant Jesus.  They brought with them odd gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh that each said something about who Jesus was and what his life will come to be about.  And then the magi depart, and head for home but in a different direction and on another path, symbolising the way their lives have changed course through this encounter.

Like everybody, I long achingly for the end of the pandemic and for the risks to subside and for us to be able to hug and laugh and enjoy the company of others without having to count to see if the group is too big.  And my new ice cream maker symbolises something of that joy and longing.  But like the magi, I also don’t want us to settle back into the old, well worn pathways of our lives.  We can’t go back to where we were, we must travel on, yes, but on a changed tack with a renewed sense of what matters most in life, and with changed horizons and perspectives.

The pandemic has painfully taught us and starkly reminded us of the things that matter most in life – health, family and friends, human contact, prayer, truth, trust, peace and kindness towards others.  These are true gifts to cherish now and everyday as we seek to take our lives and I hope, the life of our whole nation, in a different direction.

May 2021 be for you, and your loved ones, a year of blessing, health and more freedom as we journey on a different path together.

Yours

Will

Following the Government announcement last weekend, we are delighted to announce that St Mary’s will re-open from tomorrow – Monday 15 June – for individual prayer.

In order for us to be able to do this safely and well, there will need to be some strictly adhered guidance to keep you and others as safe as possible:

1. The church will be open from 10.00am to 5.00pm each and every day.
2. The nave will be open for people to stand or sit but please do not enter the aisles and chancel which will be out of bounds to limit the areas which need cleaning. To assist in this, all hassocks, pew runners and books have been removed for the time being.
3. Cleaning will take place regularly to minimise the risk of passing infection but please use the hand sanitiser available and please avoid unnecessary touching of surfaces wherever possible.
4. Please do not congregate there in groups or the church will have to be closed again.
5. Please maintain social distancing at all times.
6. The memorial book will be opened and turned each day but please do not touch the glass case.
7. There will be the opportunity to light a candle if you wish but please only touch the candle you are lighting.
8. You may like to make a donation for the candle at the votive stand or using the contactless donation terminal in the church.
9. Please keep a reverent quiet in the church so that those who wish to pray can do so without interruption.
10. This is a small first step which I hope you, like me, will welcome and cherish. Public acts of worship are not permitted for the time being and our services will continue to be broadcast for the foreseeable future until we receive further guidance and recommendations from the Government and the Diocese of St Albans.

Will

An article by Revd Will Gibbs for the Redbourn Common Round

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When I was little, I can remember my Dad saying on more than one occasion, ‘What’s the point in going off around the world when there are so many amazing places we haven’t seen in this country?’ It might have been prompted by the fact that he was 6 foot 4 and flying in an aeroplane was never going to be a very pleasurable experience for him. Or it might be that with four of us children, going abroad was always going to be quite an expensive exercise for the whole family. Or it might just have been a reflection on his genuine love of this country and its beautiful countryside, history and places.

Whatever the reason, and it may well have been a combination of all of the above, I have many happy memories of holidays in my childhood spent in Cornwall, Devon, Pembrokeshire, on various canals and campsites and some pretty remote parts of Scotland. We always had a good time – despite the vagaries of British weather – and Dad was right; there are some lovely places to visit and see right under our noses.

It meant that the first time I ever went abroad was for a French exchange to Granville in Normandy in Year 7 (as it’s known in new money, but it was always known to me as the First form!). I was 12 years old and I thought it was amazing – I loved the huge ferry, the fun with classmates on the trip with me, the new food to try and even the language. It opened my eyes and since then, I’ve been making up for lost time, travelling as much as I can and enjoying some amazing parts of the world which I’ve been so fortunate to visit.

Well, we won’t be going anywhere overseas this year. We had booked a trip to Lanzarote for two weeks but after several days (quite literally) in a telephone queue we managed to transfer the booking to August 2021. So long did we wait to get through that we’d used all the free calls allowance for the month, and then some, by the 3^rd day of the month and then we had BT on our backs. That trip to the Canaries will feel extra special when we do eventually get to go.

So, for this year we will stay at home. Not perhaps always at home but a day trip here and there, and perhaps a few nights staying somewhere not too far away so we really can switch off and get away from emails and the telephone. In the past we might have been disappointed with this option but not this year. It feels like the right thing to do, and not just because the modern portmanteau words of ‘stay-cation’ and ‘holi-stay’ try and jolly us along about this.

There has been much about the pandemic that has caused us to grieve. There has been the conventional grief of death with a staggering death toll that still rises each day even if, in relative terms, we have been blessed to have been spared the worst of infections and fatalities in our community. We perhaps have had to grieve for our routines and activities and for some, our jobs, savings and livelihoods. For some, the grief has been for special plans that were in place for birthdays, weddings or christenings that have had be put on hold. And we grieve for our sense of freedom – the chance to go where we want, when we want and to meet up with who we want.

But alongside these things, I won’t grieve for my foreign holiday this year. I’ll miss it and I will worry for the many people whose jobs are dependent on travel and hospitality, at home as well as overseas. But I won’t sulk or feel sorry for myself.

I can console myself with lots of positives. If we like our day trips and minibreak then we can go there again so much more easily. And it won’t have cost the earth to get there – financially and environmentally. We can carry on enjoying the sounds and sights of nature that have been so vivid and special this year and that remind us of the huge blessings we enjoy day by day in our lives in this country.

And then there’s coming home. There’s always that lovely moment when you’ve been away – wherever you’ve been – when you pull up on the drive, go through the front door and all the familiar possessions and homeliness come flooding back. We’ve spent a lot of time in our homes lately and that’s not a bad thing really. It challenges our habits of constant movement – from our car-centric lives to our distractibility – which inevitably and regrettably shape our souls. We feel that the restrictions on travel have somehow inhibited us and harmed our freedom – what one writer calls the obsession with space over place.

Instead, if we stay closer to home, and more rooted we might just see and hear and feel the things that we were looking for all along. Because of what is called the incarnation, of God coming into this world in the person of Jesus, we know God in the particular rather than in the abstract. And God still makes himself known to us today through the material and relational: through the natural world when we’re stunned by a red kite soaring overhead or the pathway of a passing snail, when a line of poetry strikes us or a verse leaps from the page.

Whatever you’re doing this summer, and wherever you’re spending it, we can know that we have a home with God and that God is always near, wherever we are.

Will