Looking in the visitor's book is always interesting wherever one goes.  Sometimes you might spot a 'famous' name, sometimes you can laugh or frown at some little ditty or piece of graffiti.  Just occasionally, in a village church such as St Luke's, you'll see something that connects you with someone you have never met and with the kind of meaning of 'church' that Revd Noreen Russell describes in this week's Newsletter.

The latest occasion was a few days ago, when a glance in the visitor's book showed an entry from two people who now live many miles away from Tittensor.  The entry simply said that they had married at St Luke's 54 years earlier to the day and were very pleased to be able to come in and look around.  They are not the first couple to have made that type of entry and in fact I have been privileged to be in the church, 'out of service hours', when some couples have come in for a visit and a slightly nervous chat, many years after their marriage there.

Deciding to make the effort to go back to 'where it all began' is a big decision and speaks of the impact on two lives that their marriage has had.  When people marry relatively young, they usually cannot know what life will bring them.  As they stand or kneel there on their wedding day, repeating the vows that their vicar quietly supplies them with, the sheer stress that their lives will put those vows under cannot be guessed at.  For some, that will lead to break-up, for others the tragedy of losing a partner early in their married life, for others the grief of losing a partner of many years....the list is endless.  Families might arrive and eventually leave home, or they might not, another stress for the couple as individuals or together.

However, no matter whether one has photos or videos of one's wedding, or even just the memory, the power of the place and of the words spoken stay with one.  You may keep your vows or you may break them but the power of the occasion will remain.

That is one aspect of the word church that stays with you.  Even the most outspoken person can find themself almost whispering their vows or even tripping over their own name in the moment.  That's a measure of the commitment that you can feel you're making.  Why is this?  It's just a few people, usually your friends and relatives, who are gathering together in an old building whilst you say some words, isn't it?  Well, it turns out that it isn't.  That day, in that place, that house of God, that place where many have done the same as you and then brought their children there to be christened, where they have said goodbye to people they have loved, that day has been a huge staging post in their life.  The marriage ceremony talks about two becoming one but you can feel that moment happening and afterwards, you learn what it means as the days and years pass by.

Does that feeling fade?  Maybe, for some.  For others, they discover that they want to come back, 54 years later to the day, to remember together the time when they swore before God and the congregation that they would love one another until death parted them.  May God go with that couple who wrote that entry in the St Luke's visitor's book.  Amen.