From the Parish Priest
Dear Friends
Sometimes things can be so familiar we need something of a jolt to notice their importance and significance. These past few weeks I have come to a new understanding of a very familiar bible passage, which I have known by heart since I was a small boy.
Psalm 121 is one of the most beloved of all the psalms… I will lift up my eyes to the hills…. It is even quoted in The Sound of Music!! I have said it and sung it thousands of times, but I never really thought about its context. And how important something was.
It is only in the past few weeks, when we have been subject to what feels like the hottest weather I can remember, that I have thought seriously about the words… The Lord is your shade at your right hand, So that the sun does not hurt you by day…
Too much sun is not a good thing, and although we are used to the idea of God being described in terms of light and brightness, here is an example of God being described in terms of darkness and shade as a protection from the sun.
Everyone’s relationship with God is, to a certain extent, influenced by the context of their lives, and there understanding, description, and experience of God may be very different to ours, but that does not make it invalid.
So I do hope that all of us will keep safe this summer, both from the excessive and oppressive heat that we have recently been subject to, but also from the dangerous misunderstanding that God is only understood from our point of view.
Jesus challenged his listeners to think beyond their own experience and backgrounds in many of his parables and by his pastoral encounters and miracles. It is vitally important that the church looks for God’s wisdom and power in all things, rather than limits it to what we think we know.
With love and prayers,
Philip