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Crosby Green, West Derby, Liverpool, L12 7JZ
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On this web site you will see that there is a whole range of activities described. You will find a warm welcome to them all.I hope you enjoy your visit to the site and hope to see you at some of our activities.
I am due to take a sabbatical this year. I have earmarked May-July for the purpose. It is laid down that I am expected to undertake a study of a topic in some depth. The present plan is to look at the impact that Landscape has had on Worship and the main trip we’ll be making is to the Orkney Isles to look at the many ancient monuments there, dating back to Neolithic times. I’ll probably also be able to visit some sites nearer home, particularly in Yorkshire and Wales.
Our ancient ancestors were based on the land and so climate and the seasons impacted greatly upon them. All of life had for them a rhythm, the cold of winter giving way to new growth in spring and warm days leading to the all-important harvest time. The whole of our church life is based on such cycles. As I write this, we have just experienced the coldest night of the winter and summer seems a long way away. Christmas has just been celebrated but we all know that Easter and spring will soon be here.
But we are less close to the land and worries about planting crops at the right time to avoid frosts, concerns about rainfall and pests are for other people, often on the other side of the world. One benefit of the current discussion concerning global warming has been the re-awakening in people of the importance of climate, the seasonal rhythm, the landscape.
The writer Robert A. Gillies recently put it this way; ‘Industrial society has lost the capacity to see nature’s forms echoing the plight of humanity through metaphor. The nearest many of us will get to the sense of real fear [as experienced by our ancestor farmers] is the domestic collapse when the freezer breaks down at 4pm on Christmas Eve. But when in due course the sparkling white replacement arrives do we voice a prayer of thanksgiving? I suppose not. Industrial society has lost the need to give praise.’
Through a narrow slit at the entrance of the chamber of Maeshow on Orkney the suns rays lit up a portion of back wall, and on December 24th the islanders could tell that the sun had progressed through the longest night and that spring would come. We have just glimpsed a similar lighting up of the darkness. The coming of the Christ child promises us too that spring will come and the coldest and longest nights of darkness will give way to the warmth of light.
God bless you all as we work for the spring of the Kingdom
Keith Parr
Minister West Derby Methodist Church
E-mail me at:
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