Rescued by an angel!

We thought that you might like to know what we’ve been up to for the last fortnight and also about our encounter with an ‘angel’ – but more about that particular event later!

Roger has been enjoying having the space to spend much of each day reading around the topic of ‘Shame and the Cross’.  In a nutshell, he’s looking at how the way we often talk about  Jesus’ death and resurrection misses out something significant.  Christians generally understand that, through this event at the cross, we know that our sins are forgiven, that we no longer need to feel guilty about our wrong actions, thoughts, etc. and so are set free.  And yet, we may not truly feel free because we may also be held back through feelings of shame – perhaps as the result of something that someone has done to us, or deeply held beliefs that we are inadequate in some way.  The question that Roger is exploring is whether the Cross can help us to deal with these feelings of shame and liberate us from them.  If you want to read in more detail about this, Roger has started a blog about this which you can read here

Leintwardine – one of the nine parishes in the Wigmore Abbey group

Jo has enjoyed travelling around Herefordshire visiting clergy and the diocesan offices in Hereford and Ludlow, talking about the practicalities of ministry where a vicar/rector has multiple parishes.  Yesterday she visited one vicar who has nine parishes to look after!  She’s found it interesting to discover how ministry in these places is changing and how lay people are increasingly involved in leading worship and other aspects of the church’s life.  Rural ministry is clearly different in some ways to ministry in urban Manchester because the communities are different, but as churches in Manchester diocese move from having their own dedicated vicar there are some valuable lessons about local ministry that we can learn from places like Herefordshire.  Alongside this, Jo’s reading has been about ministry and leadership, particularly around issues of collaborative working and developing lay people’s ministries.

Jo’s also enjoyed gardening most days, cooking with local Herefordshire foods (particularly apples and quinces and also foraged haws to make Spicy Haw Ketchup) and doing various crafts.  The sabbatical has been good for us in that we’ve found time to get chance to do the things that we enjoy doing and that have often got squeezed out of our lives.  Hopefully when we return, we’ll be able to make space for some of these things.

We’ve also been busy buying Christmas presents and taking them to our families as we won’t see any of them over Christmas.  This has been fun but can easily become all-consuming – you might like look at this Introduction to Advent as a reminder about what the coming weeks are really all about.

 

It’s a hard life being a cat!

Whiskey is enjoying her sabbatical in Leominster and has learnt to be a proficient mouser – finding a ready supply in the garden hedges and in the orchard across the road.  From time to time, she brings us gifts of mice – sometimes alive and sometimes not so alive!  She can’t understand why we reject her gifts and put them back  in the garden and so later she will return with the same mouse to see if we are more appreciative.  She also brings back live mice while we are out and we’ve found them cowering in  corners hiding from her.  A habit that will have to change when we get back to Manchester!!

The Cambridge women!

And finally….. the angel!  Or perhaps the Good Samaritan.  Last Friday we travelled to Wales to visit Jo’s brother Simon, his wife Jacqui and their daughter Espe.  They live about 20 miles from Aberwystwyth and we had a lovely time with them.  It takes about two and a half hours to drive there (it’s not actually that far but the roads are slow) and so it was dark by the time we got back into Herefordshire.  About ten miles from Leominster we suddenly heard an ominous noise – it soon became obvious we’d got a puncture and couldn’t drive any further.  We were just beyond a bend on a narrow road with no sign of any houses nearby.   Realising that it would be too dangerous to try and fix the wheel ourselves because of the narrow road, we got our our phones to call the rescue service, only to find that we had no signal!  

Just as we were deciding what to do – which way to walk to get help and how to make sure that no-one drove into us if they came round the bend too quickly to see our hazard lights – a car drew up.  A man got out and asked what the problem was and when we explained he said ‘Don’t worry – I’ll fix it for you’ and he changed the wheel for us then and there, and then just got back in his car and drove off.  We have no idea who he was but he certainly rescued us from a difficult situation and in the end we were only delayed by twenty minutes.