Letting of steam....

...it does us good to get rid of excess energy from time to time! I've nearly reached my first 100 miles of the 1000 mile challenge, only 904 miles to go! Who knew with a bit of focus a new pattern could be embedded! It has been refreshing and renewing to get outside and breath.

Plugged into my Pray as You Go app and Lectio 360 and podcasts, stomping along has been invigorating. The fug and lethargy of midwinter is receding; being cooped up inside has been released and it is good when the day gets longer, second by second.

One of the main themes of both prayer apps have been the instillation of stillness within our prayer life. Making space for quiet and contemplation. We on this journey together have been used to making space for just that. But we have had so much of being shackled to our interiors that those spaces can become stale. It has been brought home to me how fixed, in quite a short time those spaces became stale. What it took was an tiny attitude change of actually 'doing something' and getting out to realise how stale I had become. Change and challenge in this instance has been good. I needed to get out of myself to seek the outside and company to realise that it is only when we are together in communion; in both senses that togetherness and relearning to be together is good.

Our prayerful routines of going to church in a building had been interrupted again, and it has thrown some of us off-balance. Luckily I've had the chance to listen to BBC Radio 4 Sunday Worship and the Funeral of Desmond Tutu (so joyful an occasion despite it's sorrow) and the Service of Wonder. Attend Evensong at the Cathedral, celebrate sung Eucharist at Polebrook and lead Morning Prayer at Benefield. It's not my usual routine, but this change of pattern has been helpful in letting off the steam of frustration. Asthma, takes your breath away and the cold constricts the tubes to your lungs and you can't take in the air you want. In a sense our recent restrictions has been like that want for air, you can't get the breath of prayer you need from the source which has been usual to you, so you take what you can get. That in itself is a lesson. We cannot always get what we want, and when our usual fare is removed we become disgruntled and unsettled. Personally I have used this unsettled period to discern what it is that God is asking me to do, where to go and how that might happen. I have become used to the awareness that this is going to be responded to in God's good time. Interestingly the gaps that I have found in my diary have begun to get filled with good things that I hadn't even thought about...of course I believe God did, and that is why the time of rest was placed in front of me because it looks like I might get busy again. This time on working on liturgical cloth both here in Oundle and at the Cathedral. It is something to pray into, and at this present moment I haven't a clue what that is going to be, but I have a pretty strong feeling Himself has!

Amongst all that I'm striding out for the British Heart Foundation 60th Birthday Fundraiser...for me that is the 1000 mile challenge, every step, every penny together with others doing the same is going to help. My parents both died of heart failure related issues, every step is going towards helping others having to deal with heartbreak. I have high blood pressure, and it was only through a heart attack scare in 2011 that it was found out I had unregulated bonkers high blood pressure! So far so good it is manageable and one of the reasons I don't work full time as that was one moment way too scary to recall, an ambulance ride I don't wish to repeat! Every step, in keeping the ticker on the right beat eh? It's all we can do to keep the rhythm going for others, especially when they didn't have a chance...

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/caroline-hawkins7

2003 and 2013 were years embedded with me forever when they both died. It has taken some time to get used to the idea of them not being there and not a day goes by when I don't have a smile and precious moment of how much they would have giggled at my shananigans! Their memories are in my backpack, along with tommy soup and a cheese sandwich!

I am hoping that we will be able to go back into church from next Friday morning that is the 28th January ready for Celtic Morning Prayers to start at 9.30. Please keep an eye out on the St Peter's newsletter which will have an up-date. Unless the sky falls in I will be at St Peters Church, Oundle for prayers next Friday morning!

Peace be with you friends <><

Caroline :)

PS - Here is sermon text from last week on The Wedding at Cana alongside the image relating to the subject...

Veronase, Wedding at Cana, Louvre

"...

Benefield Sermon - 16th January 2022

John 2: 1-11 (Wedding in Cana) and Psalm 36.6-10

Collect for 2nd Sunday of Epiphany

Eternal Lord,

our beginning and our end:

bring us with the whole creation

to your glory, hidden through past ages

and made known

in Jesus Christ our Lord

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, my Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen

The Wedding in Cana John 2: 1-11

We say we have had an epiphany. We are in the season of epiphany and it is only on reading this text John 2:1-11 that I had my own eyes awakened and realised the joy within.

We have lurched from Christmas and the joy of Jesus born a babe and looked after by his earthly Holy Family, Mary and Joseph. Towards the awakening of the joy that Jesus is here amongst us. The Wise Men have left the stable and we leapt forward to his baptism by John last week in the lectionary towards his first week of ministry on earth. Jesus is now an adult. It is in John’s Gospel where we see the narrative of change happen. The Wedding at Cana is familiar to many of us. Indeed the sense of occasion a wedding brings is also familiar to many of us, through our own experiences, those of close ones and on TV and film we become aware of the heightened family and community response a wedding brings. This year my own daughter gets married and the sense of family and bringing our loved ones along to share in our joy is a strong human urge. At the time of the Wedding of Cana this was no less a cherished moment, but there was the added frisson that this was not just about the ‘happy couple’ but about the union of two families, not just the immediate family but the joining of two whole family units. In some ways it is like that today. However in Jesus’ time a wedding really was a family affair, one entrenched in law. Not just Jewish tradition but legally binding; and that a feast such as this lasted over several days. If something good happened it affected the whole family unity, and if something not so good happened such us running out of wine at the wedding feast; there could and most likely would have been a long bitter legal battle. Finances for the wedding were bound affairs and to default on something such as the wine running out could bring shame on the two houses and that could have an impact for generations to come on an awful lot of people. However it is the wine in this instance and in context of this period of time that has a dual meaning. Wine in a marriage feast was representative of the emotion of joy, its thirst quenching properties were important but the wine was there to allude to the abundance of joy in union. Abundant wine meant abundant joy and represented the couple. If the wine ran dry at the feast it was seen as indicative of a joyless and dry match.

Mary the mother of Jesus is in attendance, many commentary sources suggest that Jesus and his mother and the disciples are in attendance for several reasons, one being they were close relatives of the family, or another suggestion that Jesus was becoming known as a preacher and it was considered good social etiquette to include a young Rabbi and his cohort amongst the guest list. We can only surmise, however Jesus and his first few disciples are present as valued guests. Mary, as many mothers is alert to her surroundings and is tuned in to something being not quite right, she notices and alerts Jesus to the position that the wine is running out or has even run out. It is a blunder for the family and it’s social place in society is in the balance, it could be ruination to many. She moves to Jesus and tells Him, as any mother would at this period of history as she is addressing the man of the house now, that they have run out of wine. Here there is a gear change as Jesus addresses Mary in quite a marked way…

‘Woman, why do you involve me?’ Jesus replied. ‘My hour has not yet come.’

It is not derogatory, as it was a for of courtesy to address in this way, but it is a shift from Mother. Some translations do state “Lady” and personally this sits better for my reading of this text because Mary has been distanced, her status shifted; she is no longer Mother but a witness to change and a participant in her own right.

Mary his mother has been attuned to her son, from the moment of immaculate conception to birth. She knows He is special, but it is this revelation at this moment that we begin to see the recognition of the awesomeness of God manifest as man in Jesus. Mary knows that Jesus could do something special, she has just learnt, and accepted irstantationously that it has to be done His way. Jesus and Our Father will respond to a request. But it cannot be done on our terms. This is the point, and the point Jesus get’s across. Jesus only responds in obedience to His father, God. In a heartbeat Mary’s response is

“Do whatever He tells you.”

The servants respond, fill the wine jars and the best wine that could possibly flow was joyously shared out in abundance. Any wine left over after the feast could be sold to supplement the new families income, it was a living testament that Jesus had been amongst them and was with them wishing and blessing them on their new journey. Significantly not everyone had noticed the unfolding drama, Mary did. The disciples did and the servants did. Again God’s wonder is revealed to the lowly, a widow women and servants, and the disciples see this happen before their very eyes. Food, drink, and wonder is part of every feast Jesus invites us to be party of. The first of the miracles is a huge ongoing celebration and a union of love and joy and the acting out that the best is yet to come.

In the image you have before you there is a mini copy of the Veronese representation of this story in art. If you go online you can search the Louvre in Paris and see a much bigger version of the image. There are several points of interest.

When we go to a wedding these days or see a wedding represented on film or on TV it is couple centric. Everything revolves around the happy couple. In the Veronese interpretation the couple are on one side, it now becomes Jesus centric and alongside Jesus are his disciples who are placed on the ‘top table’. This configuration alludes to the Last Supper. Above Jesus is the representation of a lamb being sacrificed, this is to nudge us to think about the significance of Jesus as the Sacrificial Lamb. Jesus’s gaze looks straight at us, we are challenged, invited and welcomed to recognise that His way, is the way of joy. If we have need, we have to ask and pray to God first. An ernest prayer will be answered, often in unexpected ways. Ways we cannot even imagine and often with great patience. He is the new Wine, and the best is yet to come in the coming Kingdom of Heaven. The best wine served last..."