The Hatch Herald
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THE HATCH HERALD April 2013 The Monthly Magazine for Members and Friends of St. Anne’s Church Larkshall Road Chingford (CHURCH OF ENGLAND) No. 230 www.stannee4.org.uk 50p SERVICES AT ST ANNE’S DATE TIME SERVICE Sunday 31st March 10:00 Parish Eucharist - Easter Day Friday 5th April 10:00 Communion Sunday 7th April 10:00 Parish Eucharist Friday 12th April 10:00 Communion Sunday 14th April 10:00 Parish Eucharist 11.45 Parish A.G.M. Friday 19th April 10:00 Communion Sunday 21st April 10:00 Informal Eucharist Friday 26th April 10:00 Communion Sunday 28th April 10:00 Parish Eucharist 12:30 Simple Lunch 17:30 Informal Service FORTHCOMING EVENTS April Diary Tuesday 2nd Saturday 4th May 8pm M.L.T. meeting St. Anne’s 60th Anniversary Celebrations, service of thanksgiving followed by a 3 Saturday 6th course diner—Tickets £20 from Lindsey or 10am Mini Market in aid of Mildmay Joanne. Mission Monday 8th Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th July 8pm Plant Committee Arts and Crafts weekend Sunday 14th 11.45 am Parish A.G.M. Regular Church Events Annie's Angels—Tuesdays during term time 1.30 –2.30pm in church Healing centre—2-4pm during term time in the Vestry (see Eira Endlesbury) Study Prayer Lunch –Alternate Wednesdays 12-2.00pm in the Vestry (see Jenny Howland) 2 thanksgiving followed by a dinner – tickets £20. Please come and celebrate with us. Later on in July we are holding a ‘festival of Easter creativity’, but more of that in the next Greetings issue of the Hatch Herald. On a sadder note we lost one of our A happy and holy Easter to each and most faithful parishioners a few weeks ago, to all. Eastertide is a time of renewal, Lily Burnett. As we celebrate the refreshment and well earned rest, may you resurrection of the Lord we pray that as she be blessed with all three. As ever we are lived and died with Christ so to she may busy here at St. Anne’s. Our Year of share in the joy of the resurrection. Exploring Spirituality is moving on apace. During Lent we have had three excellent A lot of work goes into the running guest preachers; Revd Mike Tucker, talking of a parish, especially one that has as many about Baptist Spirituality and what made events as ours does. So could I take this him a Baptist. Bishop David shared thoughts opportunity of thanking everyone who has on Desert Spirituality (the oldest in the contributed so much to keeping The Lord’s Christian Church) and led us in the ‘Jesus corner shop in Chingford Hatch going from Prayer’. On Passion Sunday Rabbi Richard strength to strength. Christ has no hands Jacobi from the Woodford Progressive but ours. so please remember in your Synagogue inspired us with reflections from prayers all those who in so many diverse contemporary Jewish Spirituality and his ways work for the Kingdom here at St. insights on the psalms and creation stories. Anne’s Christians on the whole are probably not aware that in the Hebrew Bible (most English translations are taken from the Greek version) God does not create ‘ex With every blessing this Eastertide nihilo’ – out of nothing – His creation is to order chaos, He broods over the deep. He Jude, Kerry and the children. shapes chaos into ordered being and life so that He may be in relationship with it. Just as an aside; the Hebrew words for ‘create’, ‘bless’ and ‘covenant’ all have the same I BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION stem i.e. their meaning is at root level the same. I have often found writing about the resurrection somewhat difficult. In many On Thursday last Jan Hawkins led us ways it is a subject that I try to avoid – not to think about ‘pilgrimage’. She has that I do not believe in it, of course I do. It is organised many pilgrimages to the Holy rather like belief in the real presence of Land and so with the aid of slides we were Christ in the Eucharist, everything goes able to walk in the footsteps of Christ. swimmingly well until you try to articulate exactly ‘how’ Christ is present. I remember Looking forward we will explore a few years ago a priest friend of mine (over Hindu Spirituality in April and on May 4th a boozy dinner spent discussing matters we celebrate the diamond Jubilee of the theological), concluding; ‘He’s either there Church building. There will be a service of or He aint’! The resurrection of Christ, for 3 me, is similar: He either rose from the dead they did - but the phrase ‘It is not despair or he didn’t. I believe He did and that’s it, which kills us, but hope,’ keeps running ‘nuff said. round my mind. Cleverly the poet presents two alternative ways of viewing human That aside though, there are two existence in one memorable line: A different but connected thoughts that arise recognition that all will end in disaster so from belief in the resurrection. The first is get used to it, get over it and accept it and the ‘what actually happened’ kind of secondly; hope exists though it is all too thought which was covered utterly often dashed and will end as all things must inadequately in the above paragraph; the inevitably in death. Ignoring the poetic second is what does belief in the pessimism, I want to run with the second resurrection mean for us on this side of the alternative; namely that ‘hope’ exists. bar, so to speak. What does it mean in life rather than after it? Christianity is unashamedly utopian. For two thousand years or so, we have It seems to me that if the meaning of consistently believed in a better world to the resurrection is a promise that will only come – not in heaven, but here on earth. kick in after death, then it isn’t terribly We have believed and continue to believe useful now. There is, of course, nothing that there will come a time when wrong with hope in a final fulfilment nor is inequality, injustice, poverty, deprivation there anything wrong with looking forward and servitude will come to an end. Perhaps to it. It is fairly crucial to Christian belief it is because the task seems so great we that at the end of things God will not let us have, at times, tended to put all our go into the abyss of nothingness, rather He religious Easter eggs in the eschatological will take us into Himself in divine eternity. (post-death) basket. Nevertheless that is Like I said, I believe this absolutely but to what we believe. say anything more than that defeats me. So that second thought; what does belief in Without glossing over the the resurrection mean on this side of the extraordinary capacity of the human family bar, must be something other than the to hurt and maim itself – at the time of belief that all will be well when we die – writing two and a half million children have important though that is. been displaced in Syria and are in desperate need of shelter, food and medicine – there Another thought occurs to me. are grounds for hope. And there always Whatever we want to say about the have been. resurrection in this life, must also be grounded in our real experience. Religious One way of thinking about the faith only makes sense of life if it is resurrection in this life is to think of it as a grounded in this life. Theological and gradual movement from death to life, spiritual reflection is all very well but unless rather than as a moment in time prior to there is something we can point to, which all was despair and after which all is something we can experience, something unfettered joy. We forget all too easily just that is real to us, then it can seem to be how far our species has come. In the little more than castles in the air. universal scheme of things we have moved from being ‘animal’ to ‘human’ very quickly. I cannot now recall which poet said it I know I have mentioned this before but it is - though it was probably an ‘off’ day when worth repeating; if you contracted a year 4 into a second, then the dinosaurs were its fullness. It is not so much there is an around for two and a half years – we have ‘event’ which is the resurrection with a been round for just under a day. In the last beginning and an end but there are hour or so we have moved from tribal instances of a process which is the settlements to cities, from an average life resurrection, a process as old as we are and span in the twenties to a life span (at least one that will last for as long as we do. The in this neck of the woods) in the late grace of the resurrection does not begin seventies, early eighties. We may well have with our terminal breath but at the a tendency to behave like monsters but we moment of our conception. have also brought about, learning, science, discovery, ethics, medicine, compassion Let me put some clothes on this and a sense of the sacred worth of human idea. It was within most of our lifetimes life and the earth on which we live. For all that a brave Baptist preacher proclaimed; “I our faults – and they are legion – there has have a dream…” because that was all it was been an overall direction to our human back then – now there is a black President development and that direction has been of the U.S.