Benefice of South Tawton with Belstone

Services February 2005
Please be assured of a warm welcome at all our services

8:30 a.m. Holy Communion, South Zeal (modern)
9:30 a.m. Family Communion, Belstone
11:00 a.m. Matins, South Tawton

Sunday 13 th - Lent 1

8:30 a.m. Holy Communion, ( 1662 Said) Sticklepath
9:30 a.m. Parish Communion , South Tawton (Guest Preacher David Fitter USPG)
(9:30 a.m. Junior Church at South Tawton)
11:15 a.m. Parish Communion, Belstone (Guest Preacher David Fitter USPG)

Sunday 20 th - Lent 2

8:30 a.m. Holy Communion, ( 1662 Said) South Zeal
9:30 a.m. Junior Church at Church House, South Tawton
10:00 a.m . Benefice Communion, South Tawton
6:30 p.m. Taize Service, South Zeal

Sunday 27 th - Lent 3

8:30 Holy Communion, ( 1662 Said) Sticklepath
9:30 a.m. Family Communion, South Tawton
11:15 a.m. Parish Communion, Belstone
6:30 p.m. Evensong with Hymns, Sticklepath

Sunday MARCH 6 TH - MOTHERING SUNDAY

8:30 a.m. Holy Communion, South Zeal (modern)
9:30 a.m. Family Communion, Belstone
11:00 a.m. Family Communion , South Tawton

Rectory Ramblings February 2005

Sitting in my study with pen in hand the snowdrops are out in the Rectory garden, signs of spring, of the turning of the earth towards the sun, new growth after a dormant winter. Since Boxing Day our thoughts have been elsewhere in places where we may have enjoyed holidays, places with names that have become familiar in news broadcasts and reports since the Tsunami Disaster in South East Asia. C. S. Lewis wrote that pain is God's megaphone to a deaf world. Certainly the world has heard clearly of the terrible suffering caused by the earthquake and resulting Tsunami wave, and the world has responded with tremendous giving of money action and prayers.

Theorising can seem heartless in the face of any pain and suffering BUT such disasters on a global scale and suffering for individuals in what we might describe as 'everyday life' call us to ask questions concerning life and death and if we are religious people to ask where God is in such events. Here I can only touch on some thoughts and ideas.

We may wonder why a Creator God has designed a world that is capable of such destruction. There is no doubt that Natural Law built into such a creation is vital to our existence. The suspension of gravity when a child falls off a cliff or the suspension of impenetrability of matter when an elderly person is hit by a car would lead us to be living in a world that one possibly could not visualise or imagine.

Neither could we possiblibly ask for a world where constraint was placed on individual freedom to avoid such dangers. Ours is a world of beauty and diversity for good and ill. Some would raise the question of necessary pain which guards us and warns us and there would need to be a debate over what is normal or abnormal in human existence and the recognition that sadness in life is often dwarfed by experience of excessive goodness.

I have no clear-cut answers and I am not here to defend God. When I was a Hospice chaplain I came to believe that sometimes the only thing God could do was to sit with us in our pain. We may want more of him, however, it may be that his identification with us in suffering is the very best that he can offer, a sign of his love, a sign of hope and new life as are the snowdrops in the garden.

Michael

MEETINGS AND SERVICES

•  February 2 nd Holy Communion, 7 p.m. Belstone
        (Presentation of Christ in the Temple)

•  February 3 rd Deanery Synod 7 p.m. Okehampton

•  February 8 th Belstone PCC

•  February 9 th Holy Communion 7 p.m. Sticklepath (Ash Wednesday)

•  February 15 th Meditation for Lent, 7 p.m. St. Mary's South Zeal

•  February 22nd Meditation for Lent, 7 p.m. St. Mary's South Zeal

•  February 23 rd Joint PCC Meeting, 7:30 p.m. Church House, South Tawton

•  MARCH 1st Meditation for Lent, 7 p.m. St. Mary's South Zeal