from the Director - February 2010

IHello Again

We’ve all been shocked by the tragic killings in Cumbria this month.  I think most people on Holy Island have asked “What if it happened here?”   It’s a scary thought.  How would a small community begin to heal after such a brutal outburst?  In Cumbria many people have gravitated towards the Church for comfort;  and the various churches have provided safe places for people to express their feelings, to find some comfort and to begin to come to terms with their loss:  as well as the huge loss of the people who were killed there is also a widespread loss of some kind of innocence.  The whole area, which had been supremely safe, was, for a time, terribly unsafe, so it will take time and patience and careful healing for people to feel safe again in their own space.

Sometimes our Saturday night worship is attended by only a few people.  Around the time of the Cumbria killings there were six of us, sharing communion.  There were myself and Hazel, local URC people.  There was a Roman Catholic from Yorkshire and a Quaker from further South.  There was also an Anglican from New Zealand and a Canadian from an evangelical church near Montreal.  A huge mix for such a small group and one of the gifts of ministering on Holy Island. 

What particularly struck me that night was a sense of the near presence of Jesus.  This sense is not always so marked but it was something which the very early church experienced after the resurrection, ascension and Pentecost.  The presence of the live Jesus, discerned in worship affirmed Christian belief in the afterlife and in Jesus’ own continuing life after death, for we follow Jesus into that same mysterious experience. 

Meeting with Jesus is a very Now experience as he draws close to us in worship (and whenever we seek to draw close to him) to comfort, guide, heal and teach......... and that is what the church at its best offers to people, a meeting with Jesus, for it is Jesus himself who brings healing and life.  And perhaps that is what the grieving people of Cumbria are discovering for themselves as they gather into Christian sacred spaces -- a healing, comforting meeting with Jesus.

Have a peaceful and safe month.

Barry