Old Hills Malvern Churches Vicar’s Letter – July 2024
Dear Friends,
In my less-wise moments, I would like to think that I am indispensable, but thankfully I am aware that I am not. Many of us like to think that our work/home/group of friends etc would grind to a shuddering halt and collapse into chaos the moment we were absent. It looks as if the parishes & wider Deanery survived my recent visit to the USA on retreat and thankfully all was well at home with my family too. They put up with a lot of things, with the way ministry is today, so I hope they had a good break from those hassles and pressures too! Clergy are often not very good at taking time off, and I know of colleagues that work on regardless of their real need for a break. We think we are too important to absent ourselves and so we treat ourselves as unimportant. But we all need holidays or times on retreat.
For our children at our three church schools, they will soon have their summer holidays that could well bring trepidation to the parents, carers, and grandparents: Will there be a play scheme to look after the kids whilst I have to work? How will we cope with 6 weeks out of routine? For some children, in Year 6, this is a big holiday after a big ending as we say Goodbye and Good Luck to them as their educational adventure continues into a new school, or college settling after the summer break. It was lovely spending time with them at Lifepath at Great Malvern Priory (always a highlight and a special big thank you to our parish volunteers that helped out) and it will be great to present them with their Leaver’s Bible in the End of Year Assemblies before the end of term, and the start of those Summer Holidays.
Holidays in particular are about much more than recreation. They serve an important role in our re-creation. This role was at the heart of the foundation of the first National Parks; the realisation that people need spaces which allow them to be re-created, remade. These spaces help repair the “wear and tear” of daily living; recognising that just as our bodies are continually replacing worn and damaged cells, so we need to repair our tired minds, emotions, and souls. Christians see this in a God who was not only at the heart of creation as a one-off event, but who goes on creating and re-creating; “Behold, I make all things new,” (Revelation 21:5). Maybe that’s because God did not view us as some battery-powered machine to be set loose and allowed to run about until our batteries ran out, but as a more fragile vessel to be nurtured and re-formed as we live and grow.
This summer, regardless of whether you have had a holiday or not already, throw off that “Protestant Work Ethic” (it’s neither Protestant nor Christian anyway) and enjoy a bit of re-creation with your recreation. Ensure you find some time to enjoy your Holy Days (guess what … that’s where the word holiday comes from!).
Blessings – Gary