Dear Friends,
Some thank yous
I did some thanks for the harvest festival activities last month and wanted to let you know we managed to raise £1274.00 for the Knight Support homelessness charity and the Red Cross Sudan appeal and we also collected huge amounts of much needed produce for the Whitehawk Foodbank. Thank you again to everybody who helped, worked so hard and contributed so generously. Another harvest linked event in October, organised by Jess and Julia, called Rovingdaen was a wonderful success - well done and thank you!
All Souls to Advent
As we turn from autumn to winter, there are many further feasts and festivals on the horizon plus other opportunities for us to stop and reflect on the past and what is yet to come. We are given the chance to remember and give thanks for the people we love but are now on another shore on Old Souls Night, we then give thanks for the saints of the church on All Saints Day, followed by bonfire night which in turn is followed by Remembrance Sunday and on the 1st of December we enter Advent, that time of waiting and anticipation for Christmas. Details of all of the services linked to these moments in the church and seasonal calendar are provided in this edition of Ovingdean News- please do come along and support them.
Wulf in the Woods
The autumn session of this wonderful new nature club has gone extremely well, fully booked and we have had lots of great feedback. Thank you so much to everyone from across the village who has helped make this a success. The club and its volunteers are having a well deserved rest over the winter months and more details on what is next will be shared in the spring.
Next Generation
We have had a long awaited report from the diocese on our outline proposals and they have been very positive. We are now meeting with the architect to develop detailed costed proposals for the PCC to consider and to form the basis of the formal submissions to the Diocese and relevant planning authorities. To recap, the main proposals include: a new more accessible path from the village green to the Lychgate, a new hospitality / kitchen area in the tower area of the church, the removal of the wooden panels in front of the side arches leading to the chancel and new lighting, sound and projectors. With planning restrictions in place our hopes for solar panels, for example on the nursery roof, will probably have to take a back seat for a while. Work on installing Wifi, improving comfort and other changes such as the new cross I mentioned last month are also being considered or are underway. The installation of the Wifi is essential as we don't have a phone signal in the church and we are struggling with all things technological working as a result… but it is going to be extremely expensive to install.
Some thoughts on Heaven
In the season of All Souls I thought I’d share a few thoughts on heaven. One of my favourite theologians is Paula Gooder, she is a great speaker and is able to communicate complex ideas in really clear ways. Her book on Heaven is both helpful and challenging as she takes the reader back to what the bible says about heaven and life after death, which is in real contrast to the Greek understanding of heaven that many of us hold. She says when people talk to her about their ideas of heaven they have often privatised it and postponed it - it's something I will go to - when I die. This is in contrast to the biblical view which almost never talks about heaven in this way. The message of the bible regarding heaven is that it was created by God so that God could be near us. It's a real realm that is as close to you as you can possibly get, which for the moment you cannot see but can, in time, be entered after death. From Genesis to Revelation we see that heaven and earth are intimately connected - they were created together, they exist together, they will in time come to an end together and the new heaven and earth will finally be created together. Heaven isn't distant, up there, it is right next to us.
Paula explains much more about all of this and what it means for our lives, our bodies and life after death and will try and cover some of these ideas in my sermons in the coming months. She concludes with a very heartfelt reflection after the tragic death of a friend just as she had finished writing her book. She found this passage from Romans especially helpful at this time: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation (in other words nothing at all) will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In her grief Paula realised that things need to happen within our churches that don't happen: We need to start talking about life after death regularly because what normally happens is we wait until somebody dies and this is often the most difficult time to discuss these matters. She says instead we need to be able to passionately and clearly speak about life after death at other times and in ways that mirror the message of Romans 8. That through Jesus there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can separate us from the love of God - not now and not then - and the reason for this is because God is in heaven, right beside us and sharing a love so great that we can barely comprehend it. This closeness of God and of heaven also means of course our loved ones are both close to God and also close to us as well and I take great personal comfort from this.
I hope that is helpful in some way.
All my love
Fr Richard
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