Simon Marsh

Canon Lucy Winkett 

A DOZEN YEARS have passed since a deeply generous Episcopalian parish priest honoured me with the gift of an inscribed (Episcopal) Book of Common Prayer. I’d been invited to preach at the wonderfully celebrated marriage of a friend in the delightful Christ Church, Covington, Louisiana .

Fr Steve’s inscription inspired and touched a nerve in me. “My life is richer for your having visited, and the bonds of our faith are stronger for your being such a grace. Many, many thanks. Shalom. Shalom”.

What an immense kindness. What immense hospitality and graciousness of soul. I struggled to believe that I could have been much of a grace, but the benediction has many times spurred me on to seek to be such a grace … that “the bonds of our faith” might be stronger.

And I’ve since tried actively to seek out people who bear the grace of God to a Church and to a world that are striving now, as always, that the much sought after, and apparently so elusive, “Peace of God” may prevail. And I continually rediscover that there are many such people; many now who grace the world with the angelic blessing “Do not be afraid! I bring you good news”; many who “visit” us and make our lives richer.

Can I name a few? Certainly. Have a look at Archbishop Rowan’s ‘Scriptures in Monotheistic Faith’; and at Maggi Dawn’s Beginnings and Endings; and sit down for a while, close your eyes, and listen to Lucy Winkett’s ‘Our Sound is our Wound’.

Immense hospitality and graciousness of soul: “that the bonds of our faith be stronger.” God is good. Brighter days will dawn as we “seek peace and pursue it”.

 

THERE WILL PROBABLY HAVE BEEN TIMES in your life when you’ve been able to say with the priest and poet, R S Thomas, that God comes

That’s so often how it is with the coming of God. Unannounced simplicity. No immediate expectation that we should behave in a particular way. No expectation that we should speak in an out-of-the-ordinary or convoluted theological language. No expectation that the “saving of souls” will make clearly defined or absolutist demands of human-kind, save for the Divine expectation of the God newly arrived in the back-streets of Bethlehem, that some one might pick up a Christ-child and hold Him close to their heart for to keep the little Chap warm.

This little Jesus teaches you and me how we are to be bridge-builders. This little Jesus is Pontifex — the bridge-maker, Emmanuel, God amongst us, the great High Priest, the Son of the Most High, the sacrifice or Christmas present of Almighty God Himself to His beloved world. This little Jesus is God come among us. We are to be little like Him. We are to be loved and we are to love. We are to be remarkable, at Christmas-time and through all time, for the absence of clamour; knowing that Christ leads His children on to the place where He has now gone. Home.

¹ Suddenly - R S Thomas, COLLECTED POEMS 1945-1990