Dear Friends
Thank you for all your continued love, support and prayers.
The building work seems to be going very well, and we have a really good relationship with all the contractors and workers that are coming on site.
Thank you for your prayers regarding the Chaplain interviews, we had four lovely candidates and we will hopefully be able to let you know the outcome in the near future.
On Community we have welcomed and said goodbye to a few people, which I will go into more detail on within a future update. The big news is that Wendy, who manages group bookings and is our Youth Co-Ordinator, will be leaving at the end of August to become a Methodist Primary Schools’ Chaplain within the Methodist North Yorkshire Dales Circuit. This is a wonderful opportunity for Wendy and brings together many of the gifts that have been developed over the years, as well as her heart for young people. Please pray for her.
So, we will be looking for a new member of Community who would like to join us as Youth Co-ordinator (half time) as well as someone to be part of the Admin Team. There will be an official advert going out, but if you know somebody now then please pass on this information.
In May there are opportunities to join us online for a Pentecost Quiet Day (Thu 25th May), and also for a Renew Refresh Restore Weekend on a Pentecost theme (Fri 26th to Sun 28th May) which will be led by Felicity Lawson and myself.
Here is Di’s reflection on Dandelions. Enjoy!
As a child dandelions were considered a weed, an unwanted pest preventing the perfect lawn, although as children we enjoyed playing clock with them, blowing the ‘puffball’ very, very carefully, very, very gently hoping to reach 12 o’clock!
So is a dandelion a weed or a beautiful flower? Answer: A dandelion may well be considered a weed in a garden but I have discovered it is a beautiful flower along the hedgerow and in the fields.
Whether you love them or hate them, dandelions are among the most familiar plants in the world, most of us can identify them at a glance. Before the invention of lawns, people acclaimed golden flowers and lion-toothed leaves as a versatile food, medicine and magic; gardeners would often weed out the grass to make room for the dandelion! But somewhere in the twentieth century, it was decided that the dandelion was a weed.
Now the R H S consider Dandelions ‘worth tolerating where possible’ because ‘they have many herbal uses and are a good early source of nectar and pollen for insects’. ‘Worth tolerating where possible’ is quite a dismissive sentence really. But it got me thinking that God doesn’t just tolerate us or dismiss any of us. Each one of us is worth more than many sparrows, more than all the flowers of the field, more than the Dandelions along the road, more than we dare to hope. God’s love is absolute and unconditional.
I was also intrigued to read that Dandelions have wide-spreading roots, which sink into the soil going deeper and deeper up to 15 feet!!! – which is perhaps why they are so difficult to eradicate from our gardens! We too are called to put down roots. Jeremiah in Chapter 29 instructs the exiles to ‘Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry, have sons and daughters…’ In other words, set down roots even in their exile. Matthew 13 / Luke 8 tell the story of the farmer that who scattered seeds, some of which fell on good ground, were able to put down roots and produced a hundred times as many seeds. A challenge for each of us.
One of the challenges of community life is constantly saying hello and goodbye, both of which we are doing this week. As they leave or arrive perhaps the Dandelion will lighten their steps, whichever way they are travelling, and that like the Dandelion they too will be able to lay down roots and settle into their new communities.
Anyway, here in North Yorkshire there are masses of Dandelions; there is not only an abundance along all the verges but the fields are full of them, as Phil might say, ‘lavished’ by their bright yellow flowers. William Wordsworth writes about the sheer joy that can be found in the beauty of God’s creation in his poem ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’. Try reading it replacing daffodils with dandelions – they are most certainly not a weed here.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden dandelions;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the dandelions.
[WIlliam Wordsworth]
With love and prayers from