Dear Friends
Di and I have now been back a week from our sabbatical, and it feels very good to be back. The Leadership and Community have lived well during this time, and we are very grateful to them. We look forward to sharing about our sabbatical adventures.
Over the last week, Community has grown a bit. We are currently a wonderfully international community and have recently welcomed new members from Poland, India, Kenya, Hungary and Sweden. Looking ahead, we realise that challenging times are before us as we know that Community will be changing a great deal in the Autumn. Very soon we will be saying goodbye to Hilary and Ivan who have been wonderful members of Community over the last six years – journeying with us through the challenges of Covid. They have been a loving, fun and deeply caring presence. We will most certainly miss them. Please pray for them as they begin a new adventure.
If you have anyone in mind who you think would be good to join the Scargill Community adventure – do ask them, in the first instance, to fill out an inquiry form on the ‘Join Community’ page on the website here: https://old.scargillmovement.org/join-community/
We will be soon entering into our Summerfest programme which is a beautiful inter-generational experience. Please pray for those guests who will be coming and the Community as we welcome them.
Here is Di’s reflection on our time in Fetlar, (One of the Shetland islands). Enjoy!
Diane writes:
Genesis 28 – Jacob’s dream at Bethel – God says ‘Know that I am with you and will keep with you wherever you go’.
These reflections during our sabbatical have helped me focus on home. Initially where home was, where it currently is and where it is to be! As the days and weeks went by, I have become more and more aware of ‘home; and all that the word encompasses. And, whilst visiting Sweden, I found a book with the nifty title: ‘From The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ by Shoshana Zuboff, and read ‘Home is where we know and where we are known, where we love and are beloved. Home is mastery, voice and sanctuary: part freedom, part flourishing… part refuge, part prospect.’ … ‘The sense of home slipping away provokes an unbearable yearning.’
Here was a far more eloquent way of articulating my restless thoughts, of verbalizing my wishes and yearnings with even an explanation of why:
‘It is in the nature of human attachment that every journey and expulsion sets into motion the search for home… finding home is one of our most profound needs…There is a universally shared ache to return to the place we left behind or to find a new home in which our hopes for the future can nest and grow. ‘
But now I find that home has become more as a constant presence rather than a place. You see our sabbatical slowly morphed into being a pilgrimage. We have sought God, sought refreshment, sought guidance. It has been a time to acknowledge the past, to accept the present, to hope and dream dreams for the future.
Why pilgrimage? Cintra Pemberton wrote in Soulfaring: ‘Pilgrim people are always on the move, on an interior or literal journey, always seeking that which will draw them closer to their God, seeking that which is Holy.’ And if Psalm 90 opens with these words – ‘Our Lord, in all the generations you have been our home!’ then home is where God is and God is here, with us, now and always.
If that is true, Phil Cousineau in ‘The Art of Pilgrimage’ writes ‘What matters most on your journey is how deeply you see, how attentively you hear, how richly the encounters are felt in your heart and soul’.
A reminder that we can see God in the ordinary, in the here and now. That we can be ‘at home’ with God wherever we are. As Bridget Macauley wrote: the ‘presence of God is not simply encased in the past and in historical tradition, nor merely hoped for in a prophetic future. We follow God in the here and now with all that our lives are full of, with all that trips us up, with all that makes us laugh, with the mess, the muddle and even the mundane’ because this is where God is – the holy here and now!
We bought this painting, ‘Journey Prayer’ in Shetland Mainland, at the conclusion of our Sabbatical but not our pilgrimage! There is much symbolism to take in, including that of the Orca or Killer Whale, perhaps surprising to be there, but the Orca features strongly in the mythologies of indigenous cultures and interestingly the Native Orca Symbol symbolizes family, romance, longevity, harmony, travel, community and protection. He is said to protect those who travel away from home, and to lead them back when the time comes.
So, we have returned physically home but my pilgrimage continues. It will I am sure continue as I write these reflections with you all in mind. As I look around to see where God has been present, and perhaps where he hasn’t and notice what that means for me, for us today. Always, I have been gently drawn closer to my God.
With love and prayers from