Revd Kathryn Robinson RIP

On Tuesday I attended the funeral of The Revd Kathryn Robinson at St John's Leytonstone, where Kathryn had been curate and Associate Minister. Kathryn and I worked together for four years as Art Advisors for the Barking Episcopal Area.  

When appointed as the Barking Episcopal Area Performing Arts Adviser, Bishop David Hawkins wrote the following in regard to Kathryn and her role:

 

“Historically The Diocese has a history of excellence in the support of the arts. Bishop George Bell of Chichester was a pioneer in relating the arts to Christian worship. In the thirties there was a Chelmsford Diocesan Director of religious drama.

The relationship of the arts to Christian worship, witness and ministry is not in doubt, and involves individuals and churches across all traditions. Whilst there are many examples of excellence and good practice in the Barking Area these are often uncoordinated and would benefit from support and encouragement. There would be benefit from sharing good practice and learning from other people’s experience, both good and less successful.

Last year I initiated a network of fine artists and sculptors under the title commission4mission. It has been my aspiration for several years to initiate a complimentary network of those in the Barking Area engaging with the performing arts. Over the past six years I have come across musicians, directors, mime artists and story tellers of different ages and ethnicities – including a number of clergy. I am aware there will be many more performers within our churches that as yet I do not know.

I have recently identified a self supporting clergy person, The Revd Kathryn Robinson who has experience and professional background in Research and Development and the creative arts. Kathryn is offering to the Barking Area, two days a week to help network, co-ordinate, and promote good practice around the Episcopal Area. She will continue to be supported by St John’s Church Leytonstone where she has served her curacy. She has the backing of her Training Incumbent, Raymond Draper, who is supportive of this project. It is well known that the creative arts, especially at community level, tend to flourish in times of recession. As you know Raymond Draper is our Diocesan Lead Adviser on recession and redundancies. Kathryn’s appointment would therefore complement his particular role within the Diocese. Kathryn will continue to serve at St John’s Leytonstone as an Associate Minister.”

Kathryn and I would meet at Horizon Patisserie in Leytonstone to plan arts activity. We realised early on that, if we worked with a group of churches in an area with an existing arts festival we could easily create church-based arts festivals and make use of synergies in marketing and publicity. This proved to be an exciting and effective model.

We began the Barking Episcopal Area Arts Festival in 2011 which involved quality events from a variety of Arts genre as a way of embracing and celebrating the performing/and visual arts and engaging with local communities, their people and arts culture. The Festival was organised annually but in a different part of the Episcopal Area each year and in parallel with already established community arts festivals. In 2011 the Festival ran in parallel with the Leytonstone Festival, in 2012 with the Woodford Festival and in 2013 with the Heart 4 Harlow Festival.The fourth Festival was called the H’Art Festival and ran in parallel to the Hornchurch Festival of Arts & Heritage.

It was a great pleasure to work with Kathryn, who was insightful, committed, caring and creative. She will be much missed by all who knew her.

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Walthamstow Acoustic Massive - Express Symphony. 

The wonderful experience of being loved and accepted by the Creator of all

John Turnbull's funeral service was held at North Hanwell Baptist Church yesterday. During the service I said:

We loved John firstly because he so obviously cared for and deeply loved Pam, making her incredibly happy, and later, as we came to know him better, also loved him for the man he was; warm, humble, loving, kind, grateful, intelligent and loyal – truly an amazing person. As well as his personal qualities, we all found ways of sharing some of his interests, whether football, food, films, gadgets, books or church.

The love that Pam and John shared and their appreciation of and acceptance of each other grew from their shared experience of being loved and accepted as they are by God. That is the good news of the Christian faith that God loves us so much that he sends his own Son into our world to live and die for us, in order that we can return to relationship with him.

As Paul writes in his letter to the church in Rome (Romans 8. 1, 14-18, 29-39) there is no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus, instead we can behave like God’s very own children, adopted into the bosom of his family, and calling to him, “Father.” He has declared us “not guilty,” filled us with Christ’s goodness, gave us right standing with himself, and promised us his glory. Our wonderful reality is that we really are God’s children and share his treasures—for all God gives to his Son Jesus is now ours too.

When we have that experience of being loved and accepted by the Creator of all, then we are able to share that same love and acceptance with others, as Pam and John did, in their marriage. How is it that someone like John who had spent the majority of his life as a bachelor, was able to love so fully and extravagantly when he found the one on whom he wished to lavish his love? It was because he had already received a similarly extravagant love himself through his relationship with Christ and that had freed him to love Pam as she deserves to be loved.

As Emma said, John, all of us adored you because you adored Pam. We were so pleased she had found somebody who made her so happy and we loved you all the more for it.

You might imagine that having loved in this way would make parting, through death, even harder. While the loss that is felt at John’s passing cannot and should be minimised, the love, that enabled Pam and John to love each other as they did, remains. The love of Christ is as extravagant and free for Pam, and any who receive it, and, as Paul says at the end of our reading, is a love that continues beyond death and is therefore a love from which John, and ourselves in future, cannot be separated:

‘For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.’

That is reality for John in the here and now. Death has not separated him from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us. The love that freed him to love Pam as he did remains with him now and his experience of it is fuller and deeper for having gone through death into eternal life with God. We can, one day, join him in that experience of being swept up by and living in love. I know that there is nothing that would please John more than for each one of us to have the assurance that that love is there for us too.

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God Sent His Son.

Past Life - Present Mission (2.1)

Interspersed among the Chapters of 'Past Life - Present Mission' were personal reflections and stories from the research period. These are the reflections/stories from Chapter 1:

Weathered wood

On my personal Celtic Pilgrimage of Discovery I was, at one point, on a beach in South Uist, one of the Western Isles, way out in the Atlantic Ocean. It was low tide. There was a great sense of the Presence of God. A sense of a massive God whose Presence provided the wonderful world that I was perceiving and responding to. At the water's edge I saw a little wooden object, a piece of weathered wood that looked like a dolphin. As I picked it up and considered it – there, at low tide, left by the mighty Atlantic - I felt it was a symbol of a mighty God who has limitless power and resources. A God who works in our lives to get rid of the rubbish and the unnecessary baggage, rather like this piece of weathered wood where all the soft wood had rotted away leaving only the hardwood and a unique shape. So, the God whose presence could be felt in our lives sends us, or allows us, to go through deep waters that we might become like this piece of weathered hardwood. Some time later a member of St Edmund’s Tysley had a major operation, which we knew was serious. Her husband suggested a particular time for me to visit in hospital. I felt at such a loss to know how to respond and, in the end, took this little symbol of God's presence, His love and His way of working in our lives and gave it to this lady, explaining how and where I got it. From that point on it remained with her until the Lord took her to be with him. On at least one occasion whilst she was in hospital she told her doctors what this object symbolised for her. Her funeral occurred part way through the ‘Woven Cord’ programme and was a moment at which members of St Edmund’s realised that, as with Celtic Christians, they were open to the reality and nearness of death and the presence of the spiritual world in a way that was not apparent in the surrounding community.


Spiritual Visions

From the beginning of January 1996, for a period of at least eight to ten weeks I received a series of visionary experiences, some of which reached a climax before a PCC Away Day. For the previous 40 years since I became an adult, I had had a few visionary experiences, six to eight at the most, so they were very occasional. I would describe them as being able to enter into the spiritual dimension that surrounded a current situation. In the past and again now, they involved descriptive awareness about the people in the vision, and their actions. The majority related developmentally to where I was ‘at’, including a limited prophetic discernment about my future.

Three days before the PCC Away Day I awoke late into the night and the matter of the Away Day came strongly to mind. I was aware of God’s Presence and being in the spiritual dimension. I then had visionary pictures of five people who would be attending the Away Day. Each picture was clear and the sense or meaning of the vision was definite. In addition the sense was somehow impressed upon me that the Lord wanted to look at our pattern of relationships as His people at St. Edmund’s.

At the afternoon session of the Away Day, I shared generally about the visionary experience. After discussion, everyone agreed that if ‘they’ were one of the five, they would be willing for the vision to be openly shared. This then took place, and it was a deeply moving experience. It was experiential in terms of the awareness of God’s Presence walking amongst His people. This led immediately into a service of Holy Communion. It was clear that one central action of the Lord in this matter was to put His hand on our relationships, our need to change in specific ways and to be able to receive spiritual gifts from Him. Inevitably, any spiritual challenge about relationships and what we are deep within, can make us feel vulnerable but what the Lord was offering through the pain was precious and was linked to our potential.

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Dave Bainbridge & David Fitzgerald - Life Journey.

Praying for those with lived experience of dementia

Last Friday I took the funeral of Jean Bateman, a long-time member of St John's Seven Kings and Ward Sister at Chadwell Heath Hospital, while yesterday I led the Memorial Service for Dame Mary Glen Haig at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

One key connection, besides a shared involvement in healthcare, between the two services was the onset of dementia in the latter years of both whose lives we celebrated. In the prayers which drew the various threads of Dame Mary's Memorial Service together I prayed for those who experience dementia and those who are alongside providing care. This prayer was particularly appreciated by those who attended the service from Vale House, where Dame Mary lived for the final two years of her life.  

Their sense that prayer for those with dementia and those who are carers was unusual is an indication of the need for the Dementia Friends awareness campaign, which is also being taken into churches. St Martin's has already held one moving and informative evening on the theme of lived experience of dementia, and is planning more such evenings.

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Edward Elgar - Nimrod.

Parish ministry

I don't normally post about day-to-day parish ministry but am very aware in this my first week back from my sabbatical of what is involved. Additionally I've had a meeting with a potential ordinand today and have therefore been talking about my understanding of ministry.

So, just for the record and as a one-off post, today, as a fairly typical day in the life of a parish priest, has involved: leading our midweek Holy Communion service; a meeting to plan interviews for the vacancy in our Playgroup; a meeting to discuss ministry with a potential ordinand; passing the time of day with centre users; two hospital visits; and one home visit. I also have a meeting scheduled for later this evening to plan a renewal of vows service for a couple on their wedding anniversary.

In the course of these activities I've met with 20 parishioners (some members of the congregation, others not), prayed about one person's carpal tunnel condition and another's MS, collected and tested a CD for playing during a funeral on Friday, passed on a message about our Contact Centre, advised a family on how to access NHS Chaplains, and listened to people unpacking issues related to landlords and caring. Unusually I've done almost no administration today other than to send an email thanking those who provided cover during my sabbatical. Most of the above was local but I've visited two different hospitals, so have driven 12 miles in the course of the day.

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The Alarm - Absolute Reality.

Public service and servant leadership

Yesterday I took the funeral of Marjorie Watson who had been awarded an MBE in 1997 for services to the Frank Knox Fellowships and to the Kennedy Memorial Trust.  The Kennedy Scholarship is an academic award for study at Harvard and MIT while The Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship programme provides funding for students from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom to conduct graduate study at Harvard University.

A tribute made at the time she was awarded her MBE noted Marjorie's "extraordinary concern for the welfare of the young people despatched to Harvard and MIT under these programmes. Nothing was too much trouble for Marjorie and the friendships she made have endured deep into the professional lives of the former scholars. Miss Watson's work was her life."

Frances Cairncross, Rector of Exeter College Oxford, who, as a former Trustee of the KMT, had worked with Marjorie gave a tribute and I said the following:

People with a public service ethos wish to give something to the wider public or community through their work. Majorie was one of those people. Her work at the Kennedy Memorial Trust involved enabling others to take up scholarships to study in America. Many of those who were given these opportunities returned saying:

·        "The Scholarship was life transforming for me."

·        "It was a hugely enriching time socially and culturally and one that I will never forget"

·        "The Scholarship was... the catalyst to a career that has exceeded my wildest dreams."

·        "The Kennedy Scholarship has really meant the world to me."

Many have gone on to distinguish themselves in academia, public service, the professions, politics, the media, business and other varied careers. Majorie was among those who enabled that to happen for many of those scholars.

Robert K. Greenleaf, drawing no doubt on the teaching and example of Jesus, has written of the difference between those who aspire to leadership to satisfy their own personal ends and those who aspire to leadership in order to serve others.  “The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first [leader] to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test … is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.  Caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built.

Public service of this type characterized Marjorie’s working life and is, as Greenleaf suggests, the rock upon which a good society is built while Jesus suggests that it is also the rock upon which the kingdom of God is built.

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Lou Reed - The Day John Kennedy Died. 

Improvisation: The ability to create something spiritual

Here are some thoughts I dropped into a funeral address recently for a man who had been a big fan of trad jazz:

St Paul says that God’s children are those who are led through life by God’s Spirit (Romans 8). Jesus said that God’s Spirit is like the wind which “blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going” (John 3. 7 - 8).

Being led by God’s Spirit is a lot like improvising in jazz; you take the tune into yourself and you allow it to take you to places you wouldn’t otherwise go. The essence of jazz is improvisation; you take a traditional tune and do your own thing with it. Sonny Rollins once said, “Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one’s own.”

Another aspect of jazz is that however far out you go when improvising you always return home to the tune at the end. In this passage St Paul says the same thing. Wherever God’s Spirit may lead us in life, we return to God at our end knowing him as Father and sharing the glory and blessings that Jesus himself enjoys.

There is a lot more on improvisation and faith to be found in my co-authored book, The Secret Chord.

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Sonny Rollins - There Is No Greater Love.

How music makes us feel (2)

This morning I took the funeral service of a parishioner who had been an active member of the Michael Ball fan club and, as a result, incorporated the titles of many songs recorded by Michael Ball into the tribute I gave as part of the service. This was appreciated by many of those present, including other fan club members, who not only recognised the songs this lady loved but also the connections with her own life story.  

All this was a reminder to me that people can identify very deeply with songs. We see this in the way that people choose particular songs to mark major milestones in their lives (like weddings or funerals). We see it in the way that teenagers will play one song over and over and over again and we see it in the way that concerts can become corporate singalongs as the crowd knows all the words and takes over the singing from the band.

We do all this because there is something in the combination of the music and lyrics that connects deeply with what we are thinking and feeling at that time. When that connection is made the link can stay with us for a lifetime. Great songs therefore are not propaganda or sermons they are essentially about empathy and making emotional or intellectual connections that reveal to us something about ourselves and our world. In other words, the best songs are like epiphanies; moments of revelation in ordinary life which reveal something of either the wonder or the depravity of life.

For more on epiphanies and music, try reading 'The Secret Chord', the book I have co-authored with Peter Banks.

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Michael Ball - Bring Him Home.

Fearfully and wonderfully made

Today I gave a funeral address based on aspects of creativity and making:

There’s a song called ‘Lights’ by one of my favourite singers, Victoria Williams, in which she reflects on the experience of making things. Whatever you are making, she sings, “you wanna make something good,” something that you can look on that will give you lots of pleasure. But then she reflects on what happens when this thing you’ve made turns out wrong in some way, not quite perfect, and she says that you still love it just the same because it is some thing that you made.

Those of us who make things ourselves – whether it’s dresses or rocking horses or whatever – will probably know that feeling. The maker knows where the flaws are in the things she or he has made. Others might not be able to spot them but we know and it bothers us but what we’ve made may well be wonderful nevertheless.

In the song, Victoria Williams likens this experience to that of God and his creation, human beings. Psalm 139 tells us that we are created by God, fearfully and wonderfully made, and we are wonderful as a result.

That was true of ____ and you loved the wonderful person – fearfully and wonderfully made – that she was. In our prayers, we have been thanking God for making her the way he did; for giving her the gifts and talents that he did – her needlework skills in particular but, more so even than those, the way in which she showed her love for each one of you.

The reading from Wisdom 11. 24 - 25 then reminds, like Victoria Williams’ song, that God loves everything – everyone – that he has made. As a result, the Christian hope is that, in God, all he has made lasts and endures and continues. That is the hope that I wish to share with you today. Just as you will always treasure the wedding dresses ____ made or the rocking horses ________ has made, so God also keeps and treasures those he has made, including ____.

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Victoria Williams - Lights.

Spiritual Life column

This is my latest Spiritual Life column as published in today's Ilford Recorder:

Richard Baxter has recently had an installation at Southend Museum where each day an unglazed replica of a pot from a different era of human history is submerged in water to be viewed as it decomposes; from the ground you were taken, you are dust and to dust you shall return!


Jesus used the reality of death to teach us about life and the questions he posed include how to live well in the face of the reality of death. The artist Matt Lamb, formerly a funeral director, tells a tale of a man he buried who focused his whole life on working to become a company director only to die of a heart attack at the beginning of his first board meeting in that role. Do those things we are aiming for in this life have meaning in the face of the reality of our death?


Jesus’ crucifixion puts the reality of death (coupled with the promise of resurrection) at the very heart of the Christian faith in a way that is not the case in a society dedicated to prolonging life and avoiding pain. Therefore, one role that we have as Christians is to seek to come alongside people to provide support at times when the reality of death hits home. When we honestly face the reality of death, Jesus’ life, death and teaching say to us, it changes what we value and the way we choose to live in the here and now.


St Paul writes that faith, hope and love remain, while Eugene Peterson paraphrases the final lines of Jesus’ story about weeds and wheat as follows: "… ripe, holy lives will mature and adorn the kingdom of their Father. Are you listening to this? Really listening?"


A version of this piece has also been posted as my latest Gospel Reflection on the website of Mission in London's Economy and can be read by clicking here.


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REM - Everybody Hurts.

The miracle of prayer

There are times in ministry when you are taken aback by things that you didn’t expect to hear. Last Saturday at the end of our conversation to plan a funeral was one of those times, as the lady I was speaking to told me about her experience of prayer. She said that prayer is simply having a conversation with God and that God is always there for us to talk to. Having that conversation, talking with God, she said, brings comfort.

I’ve spent quite a bit of my ordained ministry talking to people in churches about prayer as an ongoing conversation with God and they don’t always get it, perhaps because they are more used to the set prayers that you find in many services. So, to talk to this lady and find that she already understood was hugely encouraging.

The Bible is actually full to overflowing with stories of people who talk to God. Abraham and Moses have arguments with God. Job complains about the unfair things that happen to him in his life. Jesus questions whether going to the cross is the only way to achieve salvation. The Psalmist yells out to God, yells with all his might, yells at the top of his lungs, and then finds that God listens.

That is part of what St Paul was writing about in verses from his letter to the Church at Philippi:


"Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the centre of your life." (Philippians 4. 6 and 7)

He says that instead of letting worry eat us up we can do something positive with our worries by turning them into prayers; by simply starting to talk to God about whatever is going on for us. Whatever is affecting us, bugging us, or getting us down.

When we do that, it doesn’t magically change the situation. It does suddenly make everything right. But what does changes is us and our attitude towards whatever is going on. St Paul says that a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle us down. That, instead of our worries being at the centre of our lives, Christ will displace the worry enabling us to cope and get through. It's wonderful when that happens. It is the miracle of prayer.

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Aretha Franklin - I Say A Little Prayer.

Inspired for service (2)

I spent yesterday trying to inspire others to serve and care through an assembly and a funeral. For the assembly I used material from Unicef:

Durga is 12 years old. She is an orphan and of the Sikh faith. A few years ago a relative borrowed money from an important family. In repayment he gave them Durga. She became ‘bonded’ to the family. A bonded labourer pays off a loan with their labour. But it is not just the loan but also the interest on the loan. Durga’s labour was valued at 50 Rupees a month (£0.88), because the family fed and clothed her. She would never have been able to pay off the loan but would have had to work for the family for life, never receiving any money.

Durga worked as housemaid and nanny in the large household. But the grown-up daughter of the house took a dislike to Durga and bullied her. One day she poured kerosene over Durga and set it alight. Fortunately, Durga acted swifty and dashed water from the sink over herself so she only has superficial burns. The family put ointment on her burns and locked her up. From a window, Durga attracted the attention of a newspaper journalist. He persuaded the family to release Durga from her bond on the condition that he would not write about the incident.

The journalist brought Durga to Mokhila Camp, near Hyderabad. It is like a boarding school which the state government has provided for children who have never been to school. Durga said, “I am so happy to be at the school. I can learn and help with the school. I can be a teacher or anything, I don’t have to be a servant all my life.”

The Convention on the Rights of the Child says that: children should not be separated from their parents unless it is for their own good; governments should protect children from work that is dangerous or might harm their health or their education; and children should be protected from any activities that could harm their development.

All those rights were broken in Durga’s life. That is unjust and she needed the help of the journalist and the state government to bring her justice. We all have these rights but social injustice still exists and to put that right people and organisations are needed to bring about social justice. An 11-year-old boy called Alan Barry wrote a poem about the Human Rights Act, which makes the point that for social justice to come we all need to play our part:

Human Rights

I am not very old
But I think I understand
How the Human Rights Act
Would work throughout the land.

Freedom within the law
To work and think and pray.
To speak out against injustice
Which many suffer from each day.

I am still a child
But I think I know what’s right,
Like standing up for friends
When a bully wants to fight.

We must all work together
To create a better place.
So that all people, everywhere
Can have a living space.

Life is very precious.
We all have much to give.
We must care for one another
And must live and let live.

Alan Barry (age 11)

Have a look at your hands. Your hands can be the hands of God if you use them to help those in need. St Teresa of Avila said:

'Christ has no body on earth but yours;Yours are the only hands with which he can do his work,Yours are the only feet with which he can go about the world,Yours are the only eyes through which his compassion can shine upon a troubled world.Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Some of you were at the Solid:Remix event at Chelmsford Cathedral recently where lots of young people said that they what to use the lives and talents to serve God and other people. The granddaughter of one of the ladies in my church has the ambition of being an ambassador for peace in the world and is training with an MP in Parliament at the moment to help in fulfilling that ambition. Lots of the young people that we hear about in the media seem to just to want to make money or become famous for themselves but there are also lots of young people wanting to help others and make a difference in the world. Which will you be?

For the funeral I used the story of Ruth:

The story of Ruth, of which we have just heard the beginning, is a wonderful story of the benefits and joy of caring for others, even in the midst of tragedy. Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi lost all their close family members but chose to stay together and care for one another even though there was the opportunity to go their separate ways.

Difficult circumstances and tragedy can be the prompt or spur for real acts of care, as we have seen recently in news stories of neighbours caring for elderly folk made housebound in the snow and in the financial response that there have been to the suffering being endured by the people in Haiti.

We know that Fred and Ivy also knew tragedy in their lives, particularly through the untimely deaths of their two children Ivy and Fred. Such heartbreak can cause people to look inward and shut themselves off from others and from God, but that was not the response of Fred and Ivy who continued to love and support each other, to care for Ivy’s parents in their old age and, then, Fred cared faithfully for Ivy as she approached death.

Ruth and Naomi returned to Naomi’s home where Ruth’s care for her mother-in-law was recognised and rewarded by Boaz, a landowner, who firstly found ways to support the two women and later married Ruth bringing an end to the poverty in which they had lived since the tragedy of their husband’s deaths.

Similarly, the need that Fred and Ivy had in their lives to receive support and care, as well as to give it, was also recognised. Their Cambridgeshire cousins stayed in regular contact, as did their long-time friends Sylvia and Roy. Closer to their home in Ilford, Fred was also to receive care and support from Janet and Gill.

Janet was put in touch with Fred and Ivy by Gordon Tarry, then the Vicar of St John’s, and initially helped Fred with moving into their bungalow on Aldborough Road while Ivy was in hospital. After Ivy’s death, Fred met Gill by attending the lunch club at the Downshall Centre. Since those times, the pair of them, supported by their families, have consistently kept an eye on Fred and have helped him find the support that he needed in his final days through the care that was provided at Rosewood Lodge and Woodlands.

St Teresa of Avila said that: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world.Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” People may ask where was God in the tragedies that we have mentioned this afternoon; the deaths of Ruth and Naomi’s husbands; the untimely deaths of Fred and Ivy’s children; the horrendous loss of life in Haiti. Where is God? God is in the hands and feet, eyes and ears, the bodies of those that he inspires to go and care for those in need.

In talking with Janet about Fred, she said, “The Bible says that people should not live alone. We can’t always be close to those who need care. Others can be a substitute. Just keeping an eye on another is not to be sneezed at.” As we offer practical care to those nearby and the support of remaining in regular contact with those further away, we are the hands and feet, the eyes and ears of God in this world. Fred and Ivy were the hands of God as they cared for Ivy’s parents and they received God’s love and care through those that God inspired to support them in their times of need.

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Larry Norman - I Am A Servant.