Thoughts from The Vicarage with a Garden Party and Bartholomew
Greetings as the Bank Holiday weekend approaches with all that may mean for you and yours! Be it a quiet restful time, sport, the Lambourn Carnival or a break away I wish you an enjoyable weekend and trust the weather will be kind to you.
Welcome to our new readers this week – please feel free to reply with your own thoughts, queries or comments.
Today we remember the apostle St Bartholomew and I rather naughtily found myself in church this morning wondering if he has many namesakes nowadays. Bartholomew has been identified traditionally as Nathanael who featured in our New Testament reading (John 1:43-end) at Morning Prayer today. I like Nathanael as he asks questions, listens, changes his taken for granted assumptions and his thinking as he responds to Philip’s welcoming invitation to come and so becomes a disciple of Jesus.
If you’d like to know more or are searching and wondering please do feel welcome to either have a chat or like Nathanael, come and see on Sunday.
Please find attached Pews News for this coming Sunday August 27th and the week ahead. As usual it contains service times and venues, requests for prayers and the Collects for Sunday. If you know someone who may like to receive it please do pass on a copy. Similarly, please do let me know of others who may like to receive Thoughts and Pews News via email.
All Saints East Garston are welcoming a team of ringers on Saturday 2nd September, 2:30-3:30pm so do listen out for them as they enjoy ringing the bells. The next day Sunday September 3rd there will be a Fund Raiser Garden Party from 2.30 in aid of the Tower Fund. It will be in the grounds of The Manor House with tennis, croquet and swimming all followed by a BBQ. Tickets are available from karen@hackfamily.co.uk – see you there for what promises to be a lovely afternoon! I may even take a dip and get out my tennis racquet! (info attached)
And finally, as we inexorably move towards the end of August – a verse which speaks of the balance of life and makes the point that all things have their season and time.
‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven’ Ecclesiastes 3:1. The writer tells us that there is a need to give time to the important things of life, the things that really matter. Then he famously goes on to unpack the kinds of experiences, we all have as human beings – a time to laugh, a time to cry etc. All suggesting that we should learn to ride with the ebb and flow of life and that busyness and stillness are equal and important.
We sow, we water – but God grows. His wisdom and knowledge are infinitely greater than ours and he works beyond time. So, how does our belief in eternity affect our understanding of time on earth now? Pick up a copy of the Summer edition of Pathways from each church to read an article that ranges from Einstein to David and Bathsheba via St Paul! Thanks to Anna Thomas-Betts for a stimulating and thought provoking read.
God bless
Julie
