Dear Scargillians
We have just had a very lovely week with Roy Searle reflecting on ‘Sabbath’ and this weekend John Pritchard helping us around the discipline of ‘Thankfulness’. It has been a rich few days, so thank you for your prayers and loving support.
In May we said goodbye to Helen B, Xavier and Anna B.
Anna B came to us from Hungary for three months and she was a ray of sunshine, a taste of spring, a truly beautiful member of community.
We are very grateful to Xavier for his valuable contribution to community life, and he speaks of Scargill very much as being his home in this country. Please do pray for him as he settles into a new job and for his family back in Pakistan.
Helen B would have been known to many of you and has done a number of stints on community over the last ten years. We are very grateful for all the many ways she has enriched guests and community, and during her last time here being such a support to Hilary in the Kitchen. We wish her every blessing in her new adventure.
As we have said goodbye to three members of community, over the last two weeks we have now welcomed five members of community (I will mention this again in the next update). So, please pray for community as we say goodbye and welcome new community into our rhythm of life.
On Monday 26th June there is an Online Quiet Day. You can book through the website.
And 8-9pm on Tuesday 27th June we would like to welcome you to a Community Praise and Prayer in the Chapel which you will be able to Zoom into, tickets are free – book here. It would be lovely to welcome as many of you as possible to join us for this.
Here below is Di’s latest reflection, which should be read with a cup of tea! Enjoy!
Do you remember the Tea advert that took many of us back to 1937:
I like a nice cup of tea in the morning,
For to start the day, you see!
And at half past eleven,
Well my idea of heaven
Is a nice cup of tea!
Well, as soon as I saw this painting I knew it was to be my inspiration. Here is a cup and saucer with teaspoon. Just a cup and saucer with teaspoon? Perhaps not! You see I was immediately struck by the beauty of such a simple painting. The light and shade with shining teaspoon is a delight, whilst the slightly off-centre of the cup in the saucer as well as the saucer in the composition was intriguing; as was the absence of a table, or even any tea! Did this give life to the composition? Possibly, I have read it does, but what gave me life were the myriad of thoughts, images, memories filling by head and my heart.
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge ask these questions about the painting:
What can you imagine drinking from this cup, and what would you eat with it?
Would you share it with someone?
What conversations can you imagine (whilst) you eat and drink?
I don’t know what your answers will be but for me there is of course tea – good old Yorkshire Tea with the occasional Earl Grey, Jasmine or Peppermint (hopefully using loose tea). As to what you might eat with it, well, when at Scargill there is always cake! And always someone to share it with. Offering tea and cake is so simple yet it is the pivot around which we gather to meet old friends, welcome new friends, share highs and lows or just sit in peaceful company.
Tom Lubbock writing for The Independent’s Great Art Series says
‘This achievement of the still life has a moral dimension. It expresses a religious or democratic belief in the value of humble, everyday things. It says that the ordinary, and perhaps especially the ordinary, is glorious…’
How wonderful to read the words ordinary and glorious in the same sentence. I have often said, and know I have read, that one of the great themes that run through the Bible is how a great God takes ordinary people and does extraordinary things with them to accomplish his miraculous purpose. And here at Scargill I feel we ‘do’ ordinary well, ordinary with the love of God at the centre, that reveals God’s glory. And community is not defined by walls, geography or community membership, we are bound by a common belief that where-ever we are ‘lives shared, lives transformed with Jesus at the centre’ is there for everyone. The longer I am here the more I realise it is the little act of kindness, the passing smile or remark that has a profound effect upon both guests and community. As well as being the face, the hands, the feet of Jesus we are also His ‘cups of tea’, we are God’s welcome inviting others to belong.
So next time you sit down to a cup of tea, remember it is no ordinary cup of tea but an invitation to become part of God’s great plan. How exciting is that!
With love and prayers from