Dear Friends
We do hope this finds you well. It is hard to believe that we are into February!
Thank you for your continued love and support, and particularly for your prayers for new community. Community numbers continue to be an ongoing challenge for us, but we are very glad to welcome Remiel (from Hong Kong), Emily and Richard. We will be having another day of prayer in the near future and we will obviously send you the details as we would really love for you to join in.
You would be very welcome to join us for any of our hybrid or online events which you can find on our website. We are committed to continue our Wednesday 4:30pm Evening Prayer Services and thank you for the encouragements from those of you who have found them really helpful.
We wanted to remind you of the current Free Wills Network offer – please find information below from Clare:
Between January and March this year Scargill Movement is partnering again with the National Free Wills Network (NFWN). This scheme enables an individual or couple to get a simple Will written, free of charge, by a participating solicitor, near to where they live. Your details are forwarded by us to the NFWN who will provide a list of six local participating solicitors from which you can make a choice that works best for you.
There is no obligation of course, but should you choose to leave a gift through this scheme it would be a wonderful legacy to bless the work of Scargill Movement into the future.
If this is of interest, please either email your name and contact details (including address) to legacy@scargillmovement.org
Or alternatively, feel free to call Clare Lambert on 01756 760515.
Those of you who have been waiting again for Di’s reflection, here is the latest one. Enjoy!
Diane writes:
Recently, we have had so many beautiful days here and the other morning was no exception except that it occurred to me how easy it is for us to see God’s beauty, glimpses of God’s glory – we are surrounded by it. BUT, oh how difficult it can be to see it in the city. It is certainly not impossible it just requires a different way of looking.
When at university in Camden I used to cycle from Hackney up and down Holloway Road, which for the most part appeared cold and dreary. Then, one day, our history tutor took us to St Pancras Station and she told us to look up, always look up. For here was our history, in the buildings and their architecture. And looking up, as well as making cycling a little more hazardous, opened for me a new perspective of God’s presence.
But looking up is only part of the story. Laura Knight, one of the most popular English artists of the twentieth century who focused on recording daily life has an exhibition in Milton Keynes which we saw last week when visiting our daughter. The blurb for one of her earlier paintings includes this quote: ‘there was beauty in very simple things if one had eyes to see it.’
Matt Whitney, an artist I have used a few times in my Advent weekends, writes about ‘glimpses of glory’: ‘Riding the bus forces me to wait. It’s in these waiting moments that I seem to have glimpses of glory – kind deeds done amongst strangers crammed into an overcrowded bus, catching a sunset over the Ballard Locks, or the seemingly random flourishes of inspiration that strike me when my mind wanders. Spaces between immanence and transcendence are revealed. I have a heightened sense of spiritual awareness when I ride the bus – such an unlikely place for this to happen! Or is it?’
You see only today I saw this painting, Martin and Rosa Up Front, in our ‘page-a-day gallery calendar 2022′, and it is sitting on our kitchen table next to me whilst I write. Surely here is a very beautiful and tender painting. Peace and warmth called out to me long before I read the title (I had to go and get my glasses!!) then the story behind the picture made it extra special, and guess what, they are sitting on a bus.
Riding the bus causes Matt Whitney to pay more careful attention, to look with undistracted eyes. Laura Knight encourages us to see beauty in the simple things of life and I pray that today all of us will catch a glimpses of God’s Glory where ever we are. God’s spirit is everywhere drawing us in, we need only to look with open eyes and hearts full of expectation. It is not about where we are but about how we look.
WIth love and prayers from