TASK Newsletter No. 19

Welcome to our regular TASK mail out on news from around Seven Kings, including feedback from our first regular monthly supporters session, news on the upcoming library opening, an interesting idea from our founder and former leading member, Cllr. Ali Hai, on declaring Goodmayes Park a 'village' to help preserve its distinctive character; and some other nuggets from further afield. So, read on.

Supporters meeting

TASK is now committed to holding an open monthly supporters meeting, which aims to bring local people together and to agree our campaign focus for the next few months. The first session, in June, held in the garden of St. John's Church, with a healthy 9 attendees, included a mix of established supporters and some very welcome new faces.

The session was entirely focused on setting out attendees key issues for future action, which included the:

• Lack of youth facilities locally;
• New library;
• Long-term use of the lorry park;
• Crossrail;
• likely- further- expansion of the private rented sector here following new housing benefit caps which will see many tenants priced out of many inner London boroughs;
• parking;
• campaigning for a new swimming pool;
• policing; and
• supporting local businesses
  

We are hoping that August’s meeting will allow for us to decide where we most want to invest our energies this autumn, and as ever, we would like as many of you to be there to be part of our conversation. If you have other issues you would like us to raise, remember that it is not too late so email me your thoughts, or just come along on the night.

The next supporters’ session is on Monday August 2, from 7-8pm at St. John’s Church, which sits at the junction of St.John’s Road and Aldborough Road South.

Area 5 meeting: Monday July 26 at 7.15pm/Barley Lane School

Redbridge Council Area 5 committee meetings bring together all the councillors from Seven Kings, Goodmayes and Chadwell Heath Wards every 8 weeks or so to consider local issues, and to give local citizens a chance to have their say on how they would like their neighbourhood to develop and grow.

With two thirds of the area 5 councillors newly elected, we are hoping for a more easy going and welcoming approach. So, come along, see how local democracy Redbridge-style works, and maybe chip in yourselves. On the agenda this time is an innovative item from the Goodmayes councillor team looking to protect the distinctive character of attractive Edwardian housing near Goodmayes Park by way of declaring it a designated residential precinct they would like to call Goodmayes Village.

Seven Kings Library opening: July 26 at 2pm

It is now just a week away. The culmination of our three year cross-community campaign to get a library back here in Seven Kings, to right the injustice of the 1992 Carnegie Library closure and ‘sell off’.

Initially, the politicians said it could not be done but a massive petition and door to door campaigning eventually helped change their minds, leading to Monday’s historic opening. The formal ribbon cutting by Council leader Keith Prince happens at 2pm, with normal opening starting at 9 am on Tuesday July 27th. Do pop by for both if you are around.

The new Seven Kings library is at 679 High Road, between Costcutter and Asha Jewellers.

It is all very exciting stuff, and is happening just in time for the summer holidays so local youngsters can take part in the legendary summer reading scheme on their doorsteps for the first time in a generation. We are also delighted that at least one of the new staff team lives locally and that the library has special Seven Kings friendly opening hours including early mornings, late nights and- for the first time ever in a Redbridge library- Sundays.

As TASK see it, distinctive arrangements for a distinctive place.

Lorry park school plan: latest news

Word reaches us that a planning application has been lodged by the borough for portkabin classrooms on the lorry park, the last major development plot in the area and one that TASK has campaigned should be dedicated to community use, such as a permanent library, hall and/ or pool.

Our enquiries with the borough planning department reveal a two year proposal for classrooms and play space for the John Barker referral unit, serving pupils removed from mainstream education.

TASK will be scrutinising the proposals carefully to ensure that our long- term preference is not thwarted, and to ensure that any even temporary use allows for a high quality and appropriate development.

As ever, we welcome your views

Your Square Mile website

This is an interesting new idea from the government, picked up in yesterday’s Sunday Times, which flags plans to develop a nationwide website called Your Square Mile this autumn, allowing for more local involvement in community projects. The site will apparently cover all 94,000 square miles in the UK, and will allow a whole range of community transactions from details of local clean ups and volunteering to promoting discount services, reading groups and babysitting opportunities. A prototype scheme in Southwark, the Southwark Circle, now run independently of the council, and even offers locals access to both volunteer and charged DIY and care services, in a project they call “the neighbourly way to sort the everyday”.

Keep watching this space for more.

That’s it for now. Keep sending us your local stories, ideas and suggestions.

Chris Connelley

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Tom Jones - Did Trouble Me.

Women and the Church

Maude Royden, Elsie Chamberlain, Isabella Gilmore, Betty Ridley, Una Kroll, Christian Howard, Monica Furlong, Joyce Bennett, Florence Li Tim-Oi, Constance Coltman, Margaret Webster.

Have you heard of any of them? I found out about these women through the website of Women and the Church (or WATCH) who point out that though they were all icons in the campaign to get women ordained, as with many women’s lives, they are in the ‘hidden gallery’ of history.

To give you a very brief flavour of some of their stories: "Elsie Chamberlain was the first female full chaplain in the RAF; Una Kroll famously shouted, ‘We asked for bread and you gave us a stone’ (a reference to Matthew 7. 7-11) when in 1978 the General Synod refused to allow women to be ordained, creating the momentum for the Movement for the Ordination of Women to be formed; and Florence Li Tim-Oi was the first female Anglican priest, ordained during the war to serve behind Japanese lines in China."

WATCH argue that, although women have been a majority in the church, they have mostly been hidden in the background, carrying out children’s work, making tea, cleaning, in the office, caring for neighbours, letting the vicar know when someone needs a visit. In other words, fulfilling the sort of role that Martha was playing in our Gospel reading (Luke 10. 38-end) today.

Martha opened her home to Jesus and his disciples. Providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on this example, the rabbis say that taking care of guests is greater then receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them. So, Jesus’ words to Martha are not a denigration of the role she is fulfilling, which has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture, but point instead to an alternative role which has led to the point that we have currently reached in the Church of England of seeking to ordain women, not just as priests, but as bishops.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. This was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females. Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirms Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently puts people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8. 1-3. Throughout his Gospel Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

This sense of the equality of men and women in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church, has inspired women throughout Church history to active service of our Lord and to leadership roles within his Church. Including the many women whose ministries we celebrate and remember in relation to the history of St Margaret's Barking.

The example of commitment to Christ, despite mockery, torture, and martyrdom, which is found in the story of St Margaret of Antioch led to her becoming one of the most popular saints among the laity in medieval England with more than 250 churches dedicated to her. Many churches housed side altars or images of St Margaret and had guilds dedicated to her. Her story also became one of the most common subjects for wall paintings in England.

St Ethelburga was the first Abbess of Barking Abbey and epitomises a strong woman who exemplifies the virtues of committed social action and self-sacrifice. She is especially noted for her heroic conduct in caring for the sick during an outbreak of the plague in 664 which eventually killed her and most of her community. During this time she is said to have had a vision of a light "brighter than the sun at noonday" which inspired her and her community to works of great compassion in caring for others. The Venerable Bede wrote of her: "her life is known to have been such that no person who knew her ought to question but that the heavenly kingdom was opened to her, when she departed this world."

We can rightly add to that list, of inspiring women associated with this church, Pat Nappin; who was the first woman Honorary Secretary of the Central Reader’s Council of the Church of England appointed in recognition of her vision and commitment which enabled her to see through a number of significant developments in Reader ministry.

These, and other women (including those named by WATCH), are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because current campaign to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England is not about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, is about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

Mary shows all of us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning. Martha shows us all the value of welcome, hospitality and service. Margaret, the ability to remain true to Jesus despite great opposition and personal suffering. Ethelburga, the inspiration of sacrificial leadership in times of crisis and need. Pat, of the vision needed to bring about significant change and development.

The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that each one provides and through that the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; a daughter, like Margaret, in conflict with her father; a sister, like Ethelburga, given prominence as a result of family favours; and a Reader with a national role, like Pat, who continues to immerse herself in local ministry.

What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of you here in Barking.

A Patronal Festival is a time to reflect on the example of the Patron Saint of this church but only as inspiration to live as saints ourselves. Current developments in the Church of England, our Gospel reading for today, and the significant ministries exercised by women associated with this church have all led to my focus today on the ministry of women but, again, only as a inspiration to us all to work towards and work within the full equality of women and men in the Church that sees us all as being saints.

So, to you the saints in Barking, the faithful in Christ Jesus: grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

(Sermon preached at St Margaret's Barking for the Festival of St Margaret).

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Laurent Mignard Duke Orchestra - Something 'bout believing.

New Church Art Trail (2)

The new Church Art Trail created by our local cluster of Anglican churches is currently featured in the Ilford Recorder, Yellow Advertiser and on the Neighbourhood Love website. The Yellow Advertiser article can be found here and the Neighbour Love information here. Links to the Art Trail leaflet are also here and here.

The newest works featured in the Trail, the Stations of the Crown of Thorns, a series of 'Stations of the Cross' created by Henry Shelton for St Paul's Goodmayes as a commission gained through commission4mission, are to be blessed and dedicated by the Bishop of Barking on tomorrow at 4.00pm.

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Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch - I'll Fly Away.

Rock Choir

We are following the success of Rock Choir™ with interest here at St John's Seven Kings because one of our members, Vida Small, is involved and sang in their recent Hammersmith Apollo gig (along with something like 2,500 others!).

Created in 2005 by director Caroline Redman Lusher, Rock Choir™ is the first choir to offer a very different experience in contrast to the traditional classical or community choir, pioneering a new approach to singing and entertainment for the general public to experience. It offers fun and entertaining weekly rehearsals using contemporary well-known hit songs but with an exhilarating range of original vocal arrangements and performance elements which appeal to both the member taking part and the audience watching.

Rock Choir™’s first album Rock Choir Vol. 1 features the voices of 1,000 Rock Choir™ members singing well-loved songs including Can’t Hurry Love, Valerie, Walking on Broken Glass and Something Inside So Strong. The album has been described by the Head of A&R for Universal’s label, Decca Records, Tom Lewis, as “The feel-good album of the year.” Profits from the track Something Inside So Strong go to the UK charity Refuge.

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Rock Choir - Dancing in the Street.

Windows on the world (111)

Seven Kings, 2010

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Leonard Cohen - If It Be Your Will.

Praise in the Park (4)

Captain John Smith with the Salvation Army Band of the Ilford Corp

Monica Abdala of Redbridge Street Pastors

Fr. Benjamin Rutt-Field leading the event

Churches in Redbridge joined together today for Praise on the Green at St Peter's Aldborough Hatch. The event, which in the past has been held in Seven Kings Park, was moved this year because of new Council charges and regulations but still attracted 70 people from churches including Holy Trinity Barkingside, Ilford Corps Salvation Army, Seven Kings Methodist Church, Seven Kings United Free Church, St John's Seven Kings, St Paul's Goodmayes, St Peter's Aldborough Hatch and St Teresa's Newbury Park.

The Salvation Army band of the Ilford Corps led by Captain John Smith played a wide selection of popular hymns including: Kum Ba Yah, Lord of the Dance, Sing Hosanna, Thine Be The Glory, and To God Be The Glory, among others. A selection of local ministers led prayers and Monica Abdala spoke about the concern of Redbridge Street Pastors to engage on the streets with young people who feel themselves to be excluded and marginalised.

The Salvation Army is an international Christian church working in 118 countries worldwide. As a registered charity, The Salvation Army demonstrates its Christian principles through social action and is one of the largest, most diverse providers of social welfare in the world.

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Rock Choir - Joyful Joyful.

The Good Samaritan: Gun or Gift?

The Good Samaritan is a gun. At least, it is in the Hellboy series of films.

Hellboy is a comic book character created by Mike Mignola who has then appeared in two films directed by Guillermo del Toro. In these stories, Hellboy is a demon brought to Earth as an infant by Nazi occultists but is discovered and brought up by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who forms the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense for which Hellboy fights against dark forces of evil. In the stories, he is identified as the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator."

In these stories this gun was given to Hellboy at a young age by the Torch of Liberty and it is named ‘The Samaritan’ after Jesus’ parable. The gun was built specially to fight evil and supernatural enemies. Its metal was formed from silver church bells, nails from the crucifixion of Jesus, various blessed chalices, and other forms of silver and copper (known elements for fighting evil) with its handle being carved from the cross to which Jesus was nailed.

I mention all this because what has occurred in the use made of Jesus’ parable in the Hellboy stories is that the meaning and point of Jesus’ parable has been completely reversed. The parable challenges us to love our neighbour and, through the story he tells, Jesus specifically identifies our neighbours as being those in need; more specifically still those who have been attacked by others.

Hellboy, by contrast, uses a gun called ‘The Samaritan’ made from elements of the cross and church silver to attack and to kill others. There is no love of enemies in what he does instead he is engaged in a fight to the death with the forces of evil. So, invoking the Samaritan and Christ’s death in what he is doing is a complete reversal of the parable and of the meaning of the crucifixion.

Coming across this misuse and misunderstanding of the parable led me to question whether there are other ways in which we misunderstand and misuse this parable. One way in which I think we can do this is that we overlook the extent to which Jews and Samaritans were enemies, partly because they were people of different faiths.

When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well they discussed aspects of their different faiths, in particular the different locations where worship took place in their different faiths. Jesus’ disciples were shocked to find him talking with this woman, in part, because she was a Samaritan; the writer of John’s Gospel tells us that Jews did not associate with Samaritans. In Luke 9 we read of James and John taking the Hellboy route by wanting to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village which had not welcomed Jesus. Their response reveals the enmity which existed between Jews and Samaritans. So the parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable about relationships between people of different faiths who are also enemies. It may even have been the case that Jesus began composing the story in response to this incident with James and John.

Dinah Roe Kendall has painted a version of the Good Samaritan which sets the story in South Africa at the time of apartheid. Doing so is an accurate parallel with the kinds of emotions and cultural practices that were at place in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans and it shows up clearly the sting in the denouement of Jesus’ story. Jesus didn’t illustrate his point - that people of every race, colour, class, creed, faith, sexuality, and level of ability are our neighbours – by telling a story in which a Jew was kind to someone else. Instead, he told a story in which a Jew receives help from a person who was his enemy. The equivalent in Kendall’s painting is of the black man helping the white man who represents the people that have oppressed him and his people.

So Kendall’s version of the story brings out part of the sting in the tail that Jesus gives this story; the sense of receiving help from the person who is your enemy. What her version doesn’t deal with, however, is the idea that the enemy who helps is someone of another faith. The Jews were God’s chosen people and a light to the other nations and faith, so what would have been expected from this story would have been for the Jew in the story to bring the light of faith to the Samaritan. But that is not how Jesus’ story unfolds. Instead, the person who is one of God’s chosen people receives from the person of another faith.

To find a contemporary equivalent for this aspect of the story, we have to think about relationships in this country between Christians and those of other faiths, and within these relationships, recognise that relationships between Christians and Muslims are those which are currently most conflicted with some Christians believing that Islam represents a threat to the Church and Western civilization.

Within this context, the parable of the Good Samaritan challenges Christians as to what we can receive from those of other faiths and, particularly, those who we might view as enemies. Jesus says to us through this parable that loving our neighbours is not simply about what we can give to others but also about what we receive from others. If our focus is just on what we can give then we are in a paternalistic relationship with our neighbours or enemies. If our focus is just on what we can give then we are saying we hold all the aces and we will generously share some of them with you. In other words, we remain in a position of power and influence. Immediately we acknowledge that we can receive from our neighbours or enemies, then the balance of power shifts and we make ourselves vulnerable. In this parable, Jesus says that that is where true love is to be found and it is something that he went on to demonstrate by making himself vulnerable and open to and through death on the cross.

So, where have we got to with all this? We began with Hellboy and the idea of blowing our enemies out of the water using the Samaritan in order to see that that is the absolute reverse of Jesus’ teaching in this parable. From there we thought about the aspect of the story that is to do with our neighbour as being those in need.

But that aspect of the parable does not get to the heart of the parable because our neighbour is also portrayed here as being our enemy, and more than that an enemy of another faith. But even Jesus’ teachings about love for enemies don’t get us to the heart of what he is portraying in this story because, if love for enemies just means our giving to others then we remain in the moral ascendency towards them.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the twist in the tail is that one of God’s chosen people receives help from his enemy who is of another faith, Jesus is taking us deeper still into the heart of love and saying that we will not truly love our neighbour until we understand and accept that we have much to receive from those that we perceive to be our enemies. In other words, true love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give.

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30 Seconds To Mars - A Beautiful Lie.