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In March's magazine:

In this month's foreword, Jane Wain reflects on Mothering Sunday;

an anonymous contributor writes about her experience of depression;

The Prayer for the Month has a Lenten flavour;

Fiona Brown supplies our usual monthly Music Notes, and Nikki Arthy writes about a visit by some Swedish Christians.  Then, from further afield, we bring news of a Christian family in Iraq.

And finally there are the usual series of jokes - you either love them or loathe them!

 

FOREWORD

Mothering Sunday

We’ve just returned from a long walk in the warm sunshine on Cleeve Hill. We started from Postlip House and walked across the back lawns flooded with bright yellow aconites which reminded me of my mum – she loved ‘the first flowers of spring’ and planted them in successive manse gardens.  It was an unusual walk as we were accompanied by six springer spaniels that, true to form were tearing around, sniffing here and there, rolling in smelly things and delighting in muddy water at the wash pool.  I am not sure the four girls who were sprayed with muddy cold water as the dogs jumped out were as delighted however!  Last year Cody, our dog, had a litter of puppies and I had arranged a reunion dog walk.  

Having worked on farms and had two children myself you would have thought the birth of puppies would be nothing unusual.  It was however a very memorable and special night which I shared with my daughter Jennie.  

The puppies were each born in a sack.  As they appeared Cody hurriedly nibbled the membrane to release the puppy.  Then with speed and rough jerks she set about eating the cord.  We looked on in horror – her hurried violent actions made us think she was eating the puppy, but skilfully she stopped an inch from its body.  She then continued to lick the puppy roughly, turning it this way and that until it started to breathe.

How did she know how to do all that?  She had no pre-natal classes, no ‘gospel according to Miriam Stoppard’, and no advice from her mother.  It was all sheer instinct.

If only motherhood for humans was all sheer instinct!  But it’s not like that.  As well as the rich experiences and joyful times, there are exhausting nights of endless crying when we don’t know what is wrong; days when you really don’t want to read it, “again!!”; afternoons when you just want to sleep instead of building Lego models.  There are moments of regret when words are said or something happens that you wished hadn’t.  Questions to be answered, rules to be laid down, boundaries to establish.  How much easier it is to buy a packet of sweets at the check-out than endure pouting faces and whining all the way home.  Do you let them stay out until midnight –  “everyone else is!” – or do you stick to your guns?

In spite of new technology, disposable nappies and the claimed advent of ‘new man’, one in four British mothers think that being a mother is significantly harder than it was for their own mothers. Three in four fear they are bringing up children in a world more dangerous than a generation ago.

This month we celebrate Mothering Sunday on the 18th, the fourth Sunday in Lent. No one really knows how the tradition started, but we know that from the 16th century, people who lived in little villages went “a-mothering” to the nearest big church – the Mother Church.

Youngsters ‘in service’ were rarely allowed to visit their family, one such day was Mothering Sunday.

We give thanks to God who gives us new birth, and for the Church which, like a mother, nurtures us in the life of the Spirit. We also give thanks for our own human mothers and for the joy which motherhood can bring.  However we also pray for, and hold in our thoughts, those who on Mother’s Day –

- mourn their mother’s untimely death.
- grieve their inability to bear children.
- have no happy memories of their mothers
- wish they could love their children
- feel inadequate and blame themselves for failures
- wish they could feed their children or make them well
- have watched their children die
- have been rejected by their children.

Let us celebrate and rejoice in the love of our mothers and being a mother where we can, and celebrate Mothering Sunday by thanking all those who ‘mother’ us – a caring role that doesn’t depend on gender or on being a parent. A great deal of mothering goes on in our parish and yet there is not always the opportunity to say thank you.

Jane Wain

DEPRESSION

Depression is the illness of loss. When you’re depressed you lose hope, energy, purpose, joy, self-confidence, concentration, appetite, sleep, libido and the ability to relate. One in five of us will suffer from depression at some stage in our lives and the WHO estimates that by 2020, depression will be the biggest global health concern after chronic heart disease.  I write as a sufferer of clinical depression and hope to reflect a little on how my illness affects my faith.

We’ve all felt down, or blue, or in the doldrums but ‘depression’ is a term often misused to describe a transient unhappiness. Real depression is an intense, persistent, overwhelming sadness, it causes you to feel helpless and hopeless. You simply can’t ‘pull yourself together’ or resort to the ‘stiff upper lip’. When I had my severe depressive episode (commonly known as a nervous breakdown) I simply did not feel like me at all.  My whole personality disappeared into a void. I was dead inside and could hardly function. I did things mechanically, like caring for the children, without any sense of purpose or joy. Even making toast seemed like climbing a mountain. My life and perspective had narrowed until all I could think about was how bad I felt all the time. I was thankful that suicide was always an option. It’s not that sufferers of depression don’t want to live, they just don’t want to live with depression.

I have never felt so alone, or so unreachable. I wasn’t really aware of God’s presence but although I had no language to pray with, my soul turned to Him as my only hope. God’s Spirit within me interceded with ‘sighs too deep for words’ (Romans 8:26). The psalms became truer for me than they’d ever been:

‘I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
I am like those who have no help,
Like those forsaken among the dead,
Like the slain that lie in the grave,
Like those whom you remember no more…’ from Psalm 88

‘God don’t let go of me or I shall be lost forever. If I go into free fall I shall never be found!’ is all I could pray.

Anxiety, (depression’s second cousin), and free-floating panic attacks are part of the package. An overwhelming dread and terror grips you without warning or pattern. This is often how agoraphobia starts and I often found myself paralysed with fear in Tesco’s. My panic attacks meant no groceries.

Depression can be reactive, triggered by a traumatic experience, or it can be endogenous, without a clear cause; it’s physiological as much as it is psychological. A biological malfunction occurs in the brain chemistry which is why medication is so effective. Depression can be treated in various ways, apart from medication: there’s cognitive therapy, psychotherapy, and alternative therapies like St John’s Wort. I responded well to the pills.

During my depressive episodes I had to go through the motions of living for many weeks. I prayed that God would hold me, but can’t say I actually felt his presence. With hindsight I can see my cries for help were answered. Slowly with medication, the support of the mental-health team and of course family and friends I made my recovery into the light again. It was slow, but gently God led me into life once more.

During recovery I spent many weeks with other mentally ill people.  We’d sit in the smoking room and smoke each other’s cigarettes and compare symptoms and medication. I was humbled by some of the suffering I witnessed; life-long battles with schizophrenia and manic-depression and yet in that room there was such solidarity and empathy.

I sometimes think about my depression. Why me?  Does God really know how I feel? Does he really heal? Is there really any value to suffering? You know, all those big questions we all have.

I always come back to the cross of Christ. Nothing else makes sense. When I think about the cross I know that Christ has willingly, out of love for us, stepped into the deepest pit of human suffering, and that must include my depression. There is no human misery that he doesn’t know. That gives our God such integrity. He has lived suffering and died in it.

His glorious resurrection means we can trust his healing and life-giving, transforming power. God transformed my suffering until it became empathy and out of it I could minister to others’ need. My ‘pit experience’ means I can sit alongside others who are suffering from mental illness or emotional trauma.  Sufferers experience much shame.  I can witness to the possibility of recovery and maybe I can bring hope. It may not amount to much but it can make all the difference.
I have found talking openly about depression explodes its stigma, and allows others to show their vulnerability. Depression is in my family, it is something I’ve lived with since childhood. I’ve been in and out of the pit a few times but know the truth of resurrection. My depression helped me understand the suicidal and distressed in my voluntary work as a Samaritan. I believe it enhances my usefulness; for there is strength in weakness. I wish I’d never had to endure it but I can see how God transforms and uses even the most hopeless situation to spread his light.

Through his brokenness God heals. Through his death he gives life. This is the meaning of his suffering and it is the meaning of ours.

He cannot heal who has not suffered much,
for only Sorrow sorrow understands
They will not come for healing at our touch
who have not seen the scars upon our hands.
                                                   (Stigmata by E. M. Poteat)

 

PRAYER FOR THE MONTH

Lent – a time for growth, as the days lengthen and the sun grows stronger. A time for growth in our relationship with God: a time for being, rather than doing – or not doing.

The author, Ben Okri wrote:

‘I think we need more
of the wordless
in our lives
We need more stillness
More of a sense of wonder,
A feeling for the mystery of life.’

We need more silence – more stillness in God’s presence – in our prayers.  These words of Ann Lewin may help us

‘You do not need to
Look for anything, just
Look.
You do not have to
listen for specific sounds, just
Listen.
You do not have to
accomplish anything, just
Be.
And in the
Looking, and in the
Listening, and in the
Being, find
Me.’

We might begin our time of prayer with this prayer of St John of the Cross.


O God, I commend to you this time and ask you to bless and to strengthen me in my heartfelt search for that silence and stillness in which I pray I shall find you and you will find me.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

John Sutcliffe

MUSIC NOTES

The Choir had two social events to cheer up February: the adults’ dinner (at Cleeve Hill Golf Club this time – it took a golf-loving tenor to think of this excellent venue) and the juniors’ ice-skating trip.  Nineteen junior members of the Choir went skating at the Links Centre, Swindon, and had great fun.  Those who were complete beginners particularly benefited from a fifteen-minute coaching session from a professional.

We are looking forward to our biggest challenge in March – we will be singing Evensong in Gloucester Cathedral at 3.00 pm on Sunday 4th.  Do come to the service, and swell the singing of the hymn (‘Jesu, lover of my soul’ to the fine Welsh tune ‘Aberystwyth’).  We will also be singing the beautiful Tudor piece ‘Call to Remembrance’ by Farrant, Stanford’s C major setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (you may remember that we sang the Magnificat at the Advent Carol Service and the Nunc Dimittis at Candlemas), part of Psalm 135 and the magnificent anthem ‘Evening Hymn’ by Balfour Gardiner.  Our accompanist for this Evensong, as on other similar occasions, will be John Wright.

We have just taken delivery of forty-five copies of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ for the Choir, and a hundred copies of the Hallelujah Chorus for the congregation.  This is thanks to a kind bequest from Cyril Houghton.  We are delighted to have our own set of ‘The Messiah’, which can be used during the Lent, Easter, Advent and Christmas seasons if we so wish, and to have so many copies of the Hallelujah Chorus for the use of the congregation on Easter Day.

Fiona Brown

OUR SWEDISH FRIENDS

Last month, parishioners from St Andrew’s, Toddington were delighted to welcome guests from the diocese of Västerås, Sweden. The Bishops of Gloucester and  Västerås have formed a partnership between their dioceses. Its purpose is to allow the dioceses to be involved in exchange visits to share and to learn from each other. The parishes of St Andrew’s, Toddington, St Peter’s Stanway and St George’s, Didbrook with Hailes Church hope to be twinned with a Swedish parish as part of the partnership programme.

The English and Swedish churches have much in common. They also share similar challenges. The Swedish Church is funded through people’s taxes, so is very wealthy. There is a huge number of clergy, excellent social work and innovative youth work. Yet congregations are small. At a dinner to celebrate the partnership, Bishop Claes-bertil talked about the importance of culturally relevant worship in a post-Christian, post-secular society. The challenge for the Swedish Church, as for our own, is to reach 18-35 year olds, the missing generation.

Our Swedish visitors loved seeing St Andrew’s angels, an exhibition of recent parish and Team activities and Toddington Manor. We all enjoyed the service to celebrate the signing of the partnership agreement in Gloucester Cathedral. It was a joyful occasion and a chance to talk further with our Swedish guests. We look forward to furthering friendships and to a return visit to Sweden.

Nikki Arthy

A FAMILY IN IRAQ

Paul & Rebecca, with Sophie (11) and George (9), visited our parish last year. Most of the time, they live in Iraq, supporting the Christian church there. Some of the money which our parish gives to CMS supports their work in that troubled country.

Coming up to the end of January, this winter had been unusually dry – but come February it rained again, followed by more snow on the hills.  The snow does not extend into our garden, however, where some weeks ago Sophie was able to make a snow lioness, inspired by the fact that local people refer to snow lions, not snowmen.  To sculpt a male lion would mean making a mane out of snow.  Sophie drew the line at that, so it was a lioness – with haunting green eyes (made of cucumbers).

Electricity remains a problem, but we have solved our problem of how to use the computer in the daytime without turning on the generator – we now have a great big car battery sitting under Paul’s desk with a charger and transformer next to it.  Recently we have been getting six hours of mains power a night, but other friends are getting two hours only.  There seems no rhyme or reason as to who gets how much electricity, and the situation just underlines how arbitrary the government here seems.  We have recently had a couple of Shia holidays – both announced as public holidays at the last minute, so that people who didn’t listen to the TV or radio the night before ended up going into work, and finding everything closed!

At the moment it is the mid-year holiday and Paul is away doing Bible translation work.  He has been able to travel in our new second-hand car, which is running well and doesn’t need to spend half its time at the garage being mended like the last one.  The children are still doing home-school, despite all the local children being on holiday.  George is delighted that one of the new families here has a boy who likes soccer!  We are the only British family here and the other expat children are American or from down under, not famous soccer-loving countries!  Although we get on very well with all the other families, we are rather taken aback that most of them are not allowed to read Harry Potter (dreadful black magic!); and all of them are being taught that the earth is about 10,000 years old and that the earth was created in six literal days.  This means that we see books in their houses featuring humans and dinosaurs in the same pictures, alive at the same time!!

Next week we are going away for a few days to attend a conference on how to do chronological bible storying, and a friend who has just arrived is going to house-sit for us. Not until I tried to explain to her how things in this housework did I realise how almost everything doesn’t work in the way it’s supposed to!  We have got used to it but it will be a challenge for this lady.



[Names have been changed to protect this family's identity.]

 

AND FINALLY ...

"He often broke into song ... because he couldn't find the key!"

"In democracy your vote counts, but in feudalism your count votes"

 

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