Moving On

Yesterday I took my final assembly as a College Chaplain at St Edward's Church of England School and was given a wonderful send off by staff and students. This is what I said in the assembly:

I’m currently running the confirmation preparation course for our group of churches and in it we start off with the idea that life is a journey on which we can go together with God. The starting point for going on a journey through life with God is baptism and when people are baptised in church we use these three things – oil, light and water – to think about how we start out on the journey. The sign of the cross is made on our forehead to mark us as belonging to God, we are given a lighted candle symbolising the light of Christ that has come into our lives, and water is poured over us as a sign of dying to our old life and rising into a new life together with God.

These three symbols aren’t just for starting out on the journey, though, they are also about the way we can move on. Oil gets things moving again when they have got stuck, light is about seeing the way forward clearly, and water is about going with the flow of God’s Spirit.

This is the time of year when many of us – me included – are getting ready to move on in different ways; leaving day meant that some who had been here are no longer here while in the new academic year we will be a year further on with new and different challenges to face. In whatever way we may be moving on, these symbols of oil, light and water can help to remind that God goes with us on the journey.

Here is a meditation which reminds of their significance.

Oil …

bleeding

from the pressurised

crushed

and wounded

to

free us up

lubricate

our rusting

static lives

and

facilitate

our ever moving

onward

forward

Godward

Light …

revealing our past

lighting our future

shining like a lighthouse

in our storms

burning like a warning beacon

in our wars

warming like the sun

on our journeying

glowing like a fire

through gaps and cracks

in shattered, splintered lives

Water …

cleansing our grubbiness

reviving our tiredness

refreshing our thirstiness

nurturing our liveliness

babbling communication

rippling out our influences

May we -

baptised in water,

anointed by oil,

lit by the Spirit -

live and move freely

like a babbling brook

speaking life

to parched ground

leaping boulders and barriers

sparkling in the ever present

light of the Sun.

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St Edward's School - Cardboard Testimonies.