March 2025
Hello Everyone
All through dark, wet January we waited – then we caught sight of small white blobs struggling to push up from beneath sodden brown leaves. With more daylight and even sunshine in February, snow drops opened out, daffodils danced and crocuses emerged from the winter debris of our gardens. Now, St David’s Day March 1st, spring is here!
So it has always been – summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, just as God promised in the first book of the bible. As a nation, we have been slowly waking up to the responsibilities laid on us humans at creation. We now understand that to mean we are to care for all creation, right across our
“Global Village”. Other nations have known this for ages but there are sceptics who do not accept that us humans are damaging our planet as global warming increases.
For those of us who do accept this awareness, what should our response be?
How can you and I make a difference to a world wide situation?
We can make a start at home, indoors and outdoors, by only buying and using what we need rather than anything we want. We can reuse, recycle, give away, or share our possessions.
It is great to see and hear of the many initiatives locally and wider afield where we have learned to work together to repair, renew and cooperate with God’s creation.
If we cannot “do” any of these things, we can pray for those who can - that they will persevere and all of us see renewal, repair and cooperation spread through our lives and our communities. We can all make a difference.
Also part of Spring is Christian observance of Lent. Some give up eating this or that for the six weeks of Lent. Others do something extra, like studying part of the bible. What will you choose to do this Lent?
We can all make a difference – so let’s do it!
Rev Mary Godin (Cleeve Prior)
From the Vicar: Q What does the vicar actually DO with her time?
Recently I had some business cards printed. The logo in the middle of the card shows an arch of green and white leaves, with something like a stylised person standing underneath. I chose it because it reminded me of our Benefice logo – which shows a tree on the banks of a river, which could represent the Vale’s heritage of orchards by the banks of the River Avon, but also of the verse in the Bible describing “..a river whose streams make glad the city of God”. The logo on my cards reminds me of all of this- and there is something about the way that the human figure is standing with their arms outstretched up towards the leaves reminds me of a juggler- which is pretty appropriate since I seem to spend a lot of my time juggling very different concerns and roles.
These vary hugely from week to week, and from season to season -though there are – thankfully – some things that form a bedrock, running steadily, forming the rhythm of my days. With January behind us, Christmas decorations all packed away, our Epiphany celebrations have finished (look out for “2025 +C M B +” chalked on or near your church doorway, reminding us of the journey of the Wise Men to see the Holy Family). Instead I am preparing to meet all our wedding couples on the Saturday of Valentine’s weekend, with a team of helpers to give them some information about the legal processes, together with wedding bells, flowers, music systems etc – all the different things that can go into a wedding in one of our churches to make it a memorable day for them.
Right on that day’s heels will come Ash Wednesday, and the start of Lent which gives us the chance to do a sort of mental clear-out, ask ourselves some hard questions about our lives, and try to give some honest answers -to ourselves, and to God, about what really matters. It can be life changing! In amongst all the drama and extra services and events in Lent, Holy Week and Easter, I will also be talking with our 5 sets of church wardens and treasurers preparing for our annual parish meetings which take place just after Easter. Mixed in with all of this, there are meetings with each wedding couple to help them prepare for their big day, with baptism families for their baptism services on Sundays – (most take place in the afternoon, though some christenings happen as part of our regular Sunday services at our different churches.) Then there are regular Sunday services & other events to prepare for as well, plus meetings with our Benefice worship team members.
I also meet regularly with each of our 3 school principals when we plan dates when I can come in to take assemblies, or be in school to support students and staff for key events. I am often asked to come and talk to a class -which could be anything from “What is a font?” to “Tell us about why you wear those funny clothes on Sunday.”
Given that I look after 5 congregations and 6 church buildings, serve as a school governor & on 3 trust boards, a lot of work has to be done by phone, or messaging and emails, across our whole Benefice and with staff at the Diocesan office in Worcester. I work with our worship team, our dedicated church wardens and treasurers to make sure that our churches can stay open and services can take place as planned. But mixed in with all the admin, all the joys and worries, all the emails and phone calls, whether I am out dog-walking or calling in to see someone, all the 101 plates that I juggle as your minister, all this is underpinned by a steady rhythm of prayer, of listening & responding as best as I can to the heart-beat of God’s love for all of us here in this place. God bless you in all that you are juggling with in your life. Jo Fielding Revjo.eastvale@gmail.com Tel 07561823135
January 2025
…that time of year when we look back on the year just past and when we all regret the excesses of the Christmas season, making resolutions to eat less, drink less and lose weight! I wonder how many of us get to the end of the month without breaking our New Year’s resolutions?
January can be a depressing month. The excitement and stresses of Christmas are over. Our rooms look bare once the cards have been taken down…Christmas trees look forlorn, devoid of all their trimmings. It can be an anticlimax. And the weather is usually pretty miserable too! But January is also the beginning of something new…a new year…and no one knows what this year will bring. It may be that 2025 holds some important event for us….a big birthday or anniversary…children taking important exams or applying for university places…a change of house or job or career. In the life of our diocese it will probably mean a new Bishop.
Some people view change with suspicion but change can be good and positive change can bring growth and renewal. By making new year’s resolutions we are hoping to bring about change but often our good intentions are about making life better for ourselves. Maybe this year we can think about making life better for others, perhaps sponsoring a child in India, or buying an Oxfam alternative gift….buying a goat, or training a teacher. Perhaps the money you save by keeping your resolutions to eat and/or drink less could be put to such good uses! We can also make a difference to farmers in poor countries by buying fairly traded products - and to our own farmers by buying local.
So once again we go into a new year, not knowing what it will hold for us. One thing of which I am certain is that, whatever lies in store for us in 2025, God will be with us, guiding us, strengthening us, comforting us, challenging us. We may break the promises we make to ourselves at the beginning of a new year but God will never break his promise to us, the promise to be with us, always.
I hope that 2025 will be a good and peaceful year for you all.
Every blessing to you and those you love.
Susan (retired priest in the East Vale and Avon Benefice)
december Thoughts on Christmas
Hi everyone
I’m writing this mid-November, but it must be time to start getting things ready for Christmas; out walking with the dog earlier today I saw the first Christmas tree on display in a nearby garden, the lights shining so brightly in the gathering dusk – it looked really lovely and very cheering to anyone walking past.
Christmas “to do” lists! Do you have one? When I was a child, “getting ready for Christmas” was all about opening the numbered door on our Advent Calendar (which I often had to share with my little sister), and looking forward to the Christmas party on the last day of term after the carol service and Nativity Play the day before. Advent Calendars years ago were all pretty similar, with little variation between them. Glitter or not, chocolates behind the doors or not, and some fairly trad pictures of a suspiciously clean stable with Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus and a couple of animals looking on, plus a few blue-eyed fair-haired angels up on the stable roof. But these days there is so much more variety! Pop-up or slot-together calendars, calendars with anything from varieties of gin or make-up -to Lego or even coffee pods. There are calendars covered in snowmen, or dogs wearing tartan scarves, calendars with Christmas gonks or trains, calendars decorated with superheroes or snowflakes. You can go full Mary -and-Joseph-and-the-wee-donkey or avoid absolutely any mention of “the reason for the season” if that’s the way you want to do things. I think it’s great that there is so much more choice, allowing everyone who wants to, to find some way of counting down the days in a style that puts a smile on your face when you open that little door. An Advent calendar is designed to give you a moment of happiness, feel that positive sense of anticipation –completely opposite to that stress which can gather when Grown-up You looks at the “To Do” list.
And yet whatever age we are, Advent is about getting ready for Christmas. It’s about clearing space – physical or spiritual, so you can look forward with joy and excitement to the birth of a baby who was - and still is – the sign that God is with us, that God loves us, cares about us, and wants to be with us where we are, This is such good news that the Church goes right on telling that story any way we can – because it is a story that we believe is still worth telling, which the world still needs to hear. This year we are telling it with candle-lit carol services and Nativities in the traditional way – but you can also open our doors at various places and times in the Advent season to cheer the arrival of Mary & Joseph in Cleeve Prior, (Friday 6th) join a posse of “Celebrating Santas” (Sunday 8th December), dress up at an “DIY Nativity” (22nd) or help tell the story of the Nosy Mouse on Christmas Day itself.
If you want to find out more, have a look at our website for details of all our events across the 6 churches https://eastvaleavon.com/. Whichever of our doors you open, whatever reason you have for coming in, you will be warmly welcomed.
On behalf of all our congregations across the Vale, I wish you a very happy Christmas, and a peaceful New Year.
Jo Fielding, Priest in Charge, East Vale & Avon Benefice.