Dear Friends,
I hope that you have enjoyed the Summer and feel refreshed as we start the beginning of the new Methodist year. One thing that has remained constant throughout the Summer is the Coffee Morning on Friday. Thank you to all who serve the teas and coffees on Fridays and to all those who bring others along to it. If you do not come, then please do – we look forward to seeing you there.
When I was a young teenager, the album ‘War of the Worlds’ was released – perhaps some of you remember it. One of the songs has been going through my mind recently – ‘Forever Autumn’. It is a song I often think of at this time of year, as it begins, ‘The Summer sun is fading as the year grows old, and darker days are drawing near’. How true! It doesn’t seem possible that we are nearly in Autumn already. However, in the context of where the song comes, the words that precede the song are what really hit me this year, ‘I fought my way along roads packed with refugees, the homeless, burdened with boxes and bundles containing their valuables…’
As we see all that is happening around this world and in our own nation, how our hearts break. As we see on the news, refugees from so many different countries, and now, this week, the tragic flooding in Nepal/Tibet, we pray and lift the situations up to the Lord. Yet we know that so often what we are witnessing is a result of humanity’s greed, exploitation, history and so on. If we don’t know how to pray, I often think that hymn 719 from Singing the Faith can be used as a starting point. We pray for peace, but God’s peace.
I do hope that in the coming weeks you will have the opportunity to sit quietly with the Lord, to be still and allow him to speak to you, so that as we pray, we pray the things on his heart.
With love,
Jane