From Rev'd Louise

Monthly reflection

July 2024 Peak Pilgrimage - Completed!

A few weeks ago, Richard and I and Rusty completed the Peak Pilgrimage route from Ilam to Eyam. As we ‘collected’ each church, I recognised in myself a simple and possibly childish delight at collecting each stamp and sticker!

How long has it taken us? Well, I guess that depends on how you measure it! We first came to Youlgrave in 2015 and learned of the existence of the Peak Pilgrimage soon afterwards, assuring ourselves that we would complete it. We finally promised ourselves that we would make it a high priority at the beginning of last year, only to be thwarted by our elderly dog who could not walk very far and whom we loved far too much to leave behind. Rusty joined us at the end of February this year and we decided that getting a few days free, to walk the pilgrimage in one go simply wasn’t going to happen. So it has taken us a few Saturdays, and one Bank Holiday Monday, walking for a few hours a time around puppy training classes and other commitments. But at last we’ve done it! And would we recommend you give it a go in whatever way works for you? Definitely.

Pilgrimages mean many things to many people. For us, as Bob Jackson suggests in the Peak Pilgrimage guide, it was certainly a holiday, a chance to enjoy each other’s company, to enjoy the churches along the route, and yes to enjoy something of the holy, both through the simple pleasure of walking and through the time set aside from everyday commitments.

The thirteen Peak Pilgrimage churches cover a very wide variety of styles, from the huge to the tiny, from the grand to the simple. Although all special in their own individual ways, I think that what was most special for me was simply the fact that all were open and welcoming, nearly always including messages of welcome to pilgrims, and quite a few with invitations to help ourselves to various forms of refreshments.

Highlights of the walking itself undoubtedly included the wild flowers along the Tissington Trail, and watching a small herd of deer cross our path just a few yards away, as we climbed out of Baslow. And we appreciated the mix of time alone, and conversations with the many people along the route, from people in churches, to fellow pilgrims, to those with whom we just shared a few words as we passed in opposite directions, remembering especially the group with whom we shared laughter and commiserations as we passed in opposite directions through a large sea of almost knee deep mud, and compared notes about which route might be fractionally better than the rest!

Whatever your equivalent of our Peak Pilgrimage, my prayer for us all is that we all find time for fun and laughter, for ourselves and others, and opportunity for God to reach out and meet us in time set aside from our usual distractions.

If you would like to sign up to receive a daily reflection, or to receive the regular newsletters from churches and Christian groups across Hope Valley, please go to https://mailchi.mp/96d81b43cee5/sign-up-for-daily-reflection or https://mailchi.mp/cbb9a512a36e/hope-valley-christians-newsletter or email me on [email protected] and I can sign you up.

June 2024 Churches Count on Nature

During June, the Church of England is encouraging all churches to take part in Love Your Burial Ground Week and Churches Count on Nature (8-16 June) where everyone is invited to explore their churchyards or burial grounds for wildlife and help to survey what they find.

The Rt Rev’d Graham Usher, the Church of England’s Lead Bishop for the Environment, said, “I hope many congregations will take part in Love Your Burial Ground Week and Churches Count on Nature. It is a great way to engage local people with the biodiversity around them, as well as offer a missional invitation to become involved with the life of their local church.”

Relatively untouched by modern agricultural practices, and usually managed with a gentler touch than gardens, churchyards and burial grounds can be places where nature is still able to thrive. Locally we are blessed that local churches have worked with the High Peak Borough Council to develop more environmentally sensitive ways to manage closed churchyards, resulting in increasing numbers of flowers, insects and birds. Throughout June the Church of England, in partnership with the conservation charity Caring for God’s Acre, is running a series of webinars on ways to care for the land we have dedicated to God. Caring for God’s Acre has numerous resources https://www.caringforgodsacre.org.uk/get-involved/resources-for-love-your-burial-ground-week-and-churches-count-on-nature-events/ to help people get involved with caring and recording, including a downloadable ‘Starter Guide’ in its ‘Things to do’ section, showing the common species we can expect to find in most churchyards, together with details about how to record what we find.

In a secular sense, we know that enabling nature to thrive is good for us, with measurable benefits for mental well-being, food security, and mitigating some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis. But people still ask me if it matters theologically. In other words, why should Christians care? I believe there are two main reasons, one simple and one more profound. At at simple level, whether we look globally or locally, it is the poorest people who are affected most by the consequences of biodiversity loss: by poorer air and water quality, by increasing food prices and by decreasing mental well-being. As Christians we are called to love our neighbour, with a particular care for the less fortunate. At a more profound level, the natural world is God’s beloved creation, revealing his image and sustained by his life just as we are. Theology and science tell us the same truth – that when we hurt part of the body, every part suffers. Personally I am certain that how we treat the life which God created and loves is one of the clearest evidences of our love for God himself.

So this June, my prayer for us all is that appreciation of all of God’s creation will be a regular part of our prayer, and that we will all be encouraged to reflect on steps that we can take to ‘tread more lightly.’

May 2024 Thy Kingdom Come

In May this year, from Ascension to Pentecost (9th - 19th May) Christians around the world will pray particularly for the love of Jesus to be better known, around the world, around our communities and families, and within ourselves.

Christians pray regularly ‘Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,’ but maybe we reflect less often on what that means. Since it began in 2016, the annual Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative has grown into a prayer movement uniting over a million Christians in prayer around the world, in nearly 90% of countries worldwide, and across 85 different denominations and traditions. Each person, each church, is encouraged to pray in their own way, but united in the prayer ‘that those who have not yet heard the Good News of Jesus Christ and his love for the world, will hear it for themselves and respond and follow him.’*

But what is prayer? When I was a Street Pastor, one of the questions we were asked regularly was, ‘How can I pray? Tell me how to pray.’ We often used to respond that wanting to pray is itself prayer, that there are probably as many different ways to pray as there are people praying, and that if you don’t know how to pray, simply tell God that you want to pray but don’t know how to, and let him guide you.

Many of us may have heard prayer described as ‘talking to God,’ and certainly our prayer will include telling God – out loud or in silence - about the people and situations that are important to us, though God already knows everything we can tell him. But I prefer to think of prayer as a conversation with God, in the way that we may share time with a friend who knows us well. There will be times when we talk to them, time when we listen to them, and times when we are simply silent together, enjoying one another’s company. But what we certainly do need, I believe, are those times when our focus is on our friend rather than on something else. I have known people who tell me that they find it easiest to pray when they are alone and silent, those who prefer to pray in a group of others praying too. Those who tell me they pray when they are washing up, or walking the dog, or dancing, or singing, or playing music, or looking at art, or making something. The list is endless, and as varied as we are.

One thing that I have learned from my own prayer life is that prayer does not usually ‘just happen.’ I have to set aside those times and places, where I intend to pray, and I have keep the discipline of doing so, even when prayer feels difficult, as it is at times for every Christian I have ever known. So my prayer for us all is that this year we will find something from the Thy Kingdom Come initiative that ‘works’ for us, that encourages us in our prayer or, if we feel we have never prayed before, encourages us to ‘give it a go.’
*quote from the Thy Kingdom Come website https://www.thykingdomcome.global/