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Seven Whole Days - Clergy Comments
OUR CALLING UNDER GOD is the title of the latest initiative by the Bishops of Winchester in the Diocese,
and is to be launched at a consultation on 1st April. It follows on from their Pastoral Letter in 2005 and
two archidiaconal consultations with clergy and parish representatives since.
Two ideas at least undergird what the Bishops hope will be the outcome of their taking the lead:
vocation and providence.
Everyone has one or many callings. They may alter or deepen over time, because of interior pressures or external
demands. But we pursue what is right for us in our lives with others and in our responsibilities towards them.
We soon discover whether a person is rattling down the right size groove for them, as, indeed, I do in my own life.
Too much energy is wasted in trying to maintain inappropriate systems of living. Radical review and new
plans and assessment of resources can realise a vocation as unexpected as the next day holds possibilities
for growth, as yet unknown, as the sun comes up.
Trusting is the motor of living providentially. A traditional concept, providence has a lot going for it.
It means risking the abandonment of neurotic concerns and puts in its place a sense of perspective on domestic
and personal agendas, in a world of global poverty and warming. For people of faith (and therefore potentially
for all human beings) it means acknowledging our liberating dependence on the Creator. The more we trust
trustworthy and trusting people, the freer we are to take adventurous
journeys in our many callings to love and serve others and to care for the planet.
That is the paradox of providence and vocation. It is at the heart of Easter, Ascension,
Pentecost and the loving exchange within the life of God the Trinity: the lover and the
beloved and the love flowing between them
Ian Tomlinson, Rector, April-May 2006
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Village Centre News - Christian Comment
As I say elsewhere, this is the last time that I will write this piece. So what is the ‘Christian Comment’
that I want to leave you with? What is it that presses in on me as I write this on Maundy Thursday, at the
start of the Easter celebrations?
I am sure that you will at least have seen photographs of the huge and impressive statue of Jesus that stands
high above Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It towers over the city as if in welcome, embrace and blessing. This is
not an image of a man hanging in agony on a cross but rather an image of a man in the shape of a cross. We
need to hold these two images in tension.
The first is not only a symbol of injustice and evil but also of a man willing to go to this far for love,
demonstrating the lengths to which self denying, committed love will go. In doing so Jesus reveals God
to us as the source of endless love, forever welling up and pouring out into the world.
The second image is also of Jesus revealing God to us - but this time with arms opened wide to welcome,
embrace and bless the world, just as we might do when a child we love runs to greet us.
This, I think, is the image and message that I want to leave with you. The image of Jesus beyond the cross,
arm opened wide so that he takes the shape of the cross and shows us that it is only through selfless love
that the world can be healed and saved - and that it is only the grace and power of God that makes it possible.
Brian Tims, Shipton Bellinger, May-June 2006
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