Bishop Helen-Ann has a message for us in the first Link colour magazine, as below

Following my service of installation as Bishop of Newcastle in April, our Diocesan Director of Education (DDE) mentioned that he’d caught up with my former church primary school headteacher, who he knew from various education meetings over the years.Given Mr Thorndyke had taught me (and then went on to become headteacher of my old school after I left) about 40 years ago, this was a real meeting across the generations.

Paul, our DDE, actually used Mr Thorndyke’s first name in conversation with me, but even now, to me, Mr Thorndyke is definitely still ‘Mr’. Perhaps you have experienced this too: a resistance to the realisation that your teachers have first names and a real life?!

It was very special (all that said) that both Mr Thorndyke from my primary school-days, and Sr Francis who taught me RE at secondary school were both in Newcastle Cathedral on April 22nd. I think it’s fair to say that without either of them, I probably wouldn’t now be your Bishop.

That’s not an exaggeration, rather it is an assertion of the vital importance of the role of education in shaping who we are, and the role a questioning and curious faith plays in this. It’s why our schools, and the community schools so many of our parishes, clergy, and chaplains are connected with are and will be a priority to me in my new role.

Beyond these too, are places of further and higher education, along with many ways that education in its broadest forms shapes our lives and our communities. An enquiring mind in many ways is the basis of faith development and an encounter with God. Jesus taught his disciples to notice things in their daily lives, and to use the raw stuff of life to illustrate God’s love, mercy and justice.

The parables are the building blocks of teaching, and invite us to relate what we see and encounter in our own lives to the bigger story of God’s dealings with the world over the generations. Once, I remember being handed a mustard seed when I arrived at a church service (illustrative of the day’s Gospel reading). Have you ever tried holding onto a single mustard seed? It’s quite tricky!

It served as a reminder of valuing the smallness of things, not just objects but people and places too. A BBC journalist recently posted a short online video of birdsong at dawn in the centre of London. A tiny almost inconsequential thing, but a thing of value and beauty nonetheless, a defiant stand against the fear and anxiety that grips so many people and places in our world. If I do one thing this day, it will be to seek out and celebrate the small; will you join me in this task please? Let me know what you find.

The Rt Revd Dr Helen-Ann Hartley