Lent
All our plans for Lent were laid out the Lent Brochure 2012 handed out in church on Sunday 19th and 26th. If you missed your copy there are still some left. They included details of the Lent Course ‘Handing on the Torch’ and the sermon series: ‘Belief in Action’ at 10.30am and ‘Foundations for what we must believe’ at Evensong [which, incidentally, changes time on 25th March when we move into summertime, (hurrah!)] Churches Together in Hampstead are doing the course Hard Sayings which will be followed at our Tuesday group and the Baptist and URC groups.
LOVE LIFE LIVE LENT
Mainly for children, this is definitely the one for me! A slim, easy on the eye booklet suggests 7 tasks for each week of Lent, spiritual, environmental, loving. I found it hard to choose a few examples to print here – they all seemed sas appropriate for adults as for children:
say something nice about someone behind their back
miss a meal and pray instead
talk to someone new at church
put on a jumper, turn down the heat
hug someone who needs it
turn off the tap when you clean your teeth
make someone laugh
There aren’t enough booklets for the adults but you can get them at www.livelent.net for £1.
Hassocks
If you’d like a Lenten task [other than delivering voluntary rate letters, see below] why not come to our special Saturday morning hassock-mending session on 31st March between 10.30 and 1pm? A rather small group of us have been meeting for years trying to get all the hassocks mended, but we meet on a Wednesday when some of you might not be free, so for Lent I thought we’d put in a Saturday session and see if that’s more convenient for anyone. We provide materials and sew in the church [so be prepared to be not very warm if it’s a cold day]. We don’t ‘Stitch-and-Bitch’ but we do chat, it’s really quite friendly. Why not give it a go? No commitment tokeep it up after Lent, though of course we hope you will!
Rubbish
is becoming a problem. In the last few weeks people appear to be dumping their garden rubbish in the container in the ABG and, even more worryingly, dumping other rubbish by our new bins. Sometimes it’s large quantities of cardboard, sometimes black sacks, often with solid objects in them which clearly aren’t appropriate for the ordinary dustcart rounds. CAN YOU HELP? It all seems to happen at night and over the weekend. If you’re passing the church and see anyone putting rubbish in either place please discreetly take their vehicle registration – unless we find out who’s doing it we can’t stop them.
Do you home brew?
We are looking for eye-catching donation boxes to use at the Flower Festival – we want transparent containers with a small enough opening to prevent hands reaching in but not so small we can’t get all those lovely £20 notes out at the end! Carboys, preferably around 5 gallon size, might be very suitable – does anyone have any they won’t be using in June?
Read any good books lately?
I’m reading ‘The Gift of Years, Growing Old Gracefully’1 by Joan Chittister. Growing old disgracefully might be more fun – we all, well, all of a certain age, know Jenny Joseph’s poem ‘When I am old’ and I came across ‘Hell’s Geriatrics’ a website apparently sponsored by Harley Davidson on which I found “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways – Chardonnay in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming – Woo Hoo! What a Ride!”
Statistics tell us there are as many retired people as there are children, though how helpful that is, I’m not sure; that we’re a burden on the health service; that voluntary services couldn’t manage without us; that we have more disposable income than other age groups and therefore should be targetted by advertisers, and also, to quote Chittister
“Scientists have discovered that older people, while not as quick computationally as younger people, do think just as well, but differently – with more depth, more reflection, more philosophical awareness.”
Chittister finishes each chapter with two summaries, a Burden and a Blessing, two ways of looking at the subject under discussion.
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in a different dress
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.2
It’s a refreshing look at ageing; I recommend it for all those leisured moments we should have in retirement – fortunately it’s in very short chapters so you might just squeeze one in between one volunteering opportunity and the next!
If you’ve been particularly enthused by a book you’ve ready lately why not share it with us – send in a review [not too long, please, an average magazine page is around 340 words] and we’ll print it.
March
Judy East