Tower and Town, April 2021

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Clergy Letter

Lent, amongst other things, is a gift of simplification. Life can be so full in different ways, even in lockdown. Full of concern, full of hope, full of longing, full of dreams of sunny days or holidays… The list goes on, of course and no personal inventory of our preoccupations will ever be quite the same as someone else’s. We are unique!

But in great love, the Lord invites us to come before him and spend time reflecting on what we do, what we give our time and attention and money to, the dreams we dream and the things that ‘trip us up’. Many of us will be quite a bit fed up with the personal space that life has afforded us recently but others of us will be greatly anticipating some more personal space, like parents seeing their children returning to school on the day that I write…

In Lent, we are presented with the gift of time to come before God, to pray and listen to his Word and to ask Him: what have you shown me recently? Has lockdown afforded me insight into how I want my life to be different? What in my life is good and that I want more of? How will I help make that happen? What is not good and needs to decrease or be ruthlessly written out of my life? How brave am I about this?

The Psalmist writes:

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1.1-3)

Learning yet again to be people who are in the world but not of it is a very Lenten thing. Take these verses as part of your inspiration to do this, and may God bless you.

In Christ with you, in Marlborough.

Pete Sainsbury