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In October's magazine:

Many of our church-members suffered in last summer's floods.  David King was one of them, being flooded out of his house not once but twice.

Hanna Woodall explores the Old Testament prophets - "not so much foretelling as forth-telling."

Fiona Brown provides our monthly Music Notes.

Liz Stranks was one of those who went to this year's Greenbelt Festival.

And finally two of our church staff write about interests of theirs:  the Vicar about beer, and the Youth Minister about cars.

 

THE FLOOD (JUNE 23RD)

Many of us suffered in the summer floods, but David & Felicity King were particularly badly hit.

I woke from a deep sleep to the sound of running water and looked at the clock, 5.40 am.  I jumped out of bed and opened the curtains to a picture of broken wall, muddy water and chaos.  Panic!  What next? Thoughts rushed to a house full of people (four paying-guests and my wife Felicity’s elderly aunt) and panic overcame me, together with a dry mouth and a tightening of stomach muscles.  I shouted, “Felicity, we’re flooding”.  We both quickly dressed and rushed down to the kitchen to find water already creeping in under the door.

What next?  We raised the alarm to the guests and Auntie, and then we grabbed a few items to take upstairs – photos and new curtains (Felicity) and the laptop (me)!  The guests were now aware and concerned over their cars, rightly so as they were awash.

Then a cry of pain from Felicity; she had slipped at the bottom of the stairs and was lying in a heap on the flooded floor:  “I think I have dislocated my shoulder”.  I helped her slowly upstairs to a bedroom, conscious of rising floodwater and concerned guests.  Auntie, a retired nursing-sister, took charge.  Emergency services were called and within thirty minutes an inflatable dinghy sailed into the garden containing two paramedic girls and two burly men.  The men carried the girls into the house with much good humour and fun.  They confirmed that Felicity had indeed dislocated her shoulder and pumped her full of morphine, easing the considerable pain.  It was decided to take her to Cheltenham General, but how?  The waters had started to recede, so it was decided to take her out to the waiting ambulance on a “floating walkway”.  It was found to be too wobbly, so the two burly men waded out with Felicity sitting on a sort of sedan chair.  Hospital was finally reached after a lengthy journey on flooded roads.

Meanwhile, I tried to placate the guests – surprising what “there will be no charge for your stay” can do to help!  The waters continued to recede, and at 10.00 am came a marvellous surprise in the form of Peter and his colleagues from The White Hart, who arrived to offer their assistance.  They immediately set to work and cleared all furniture from house to garage and all other items into the garden.  Peter’s kitchen staff arrived with food and drink.  What stars they all were!  Other kind locals offered their help in many different ways as the morning proceeded – one splendid man just got quietly to work with a pressure washer and was invaluable.  Our overnight guests were still around and always seemed to be first in the queue for any food or drink!

Felicity and Auntie arrived back by taxi in the early afternoon having missed most of the action.

We were both so moved and grateful for the generosity, help and genuine kindness of the local community.  How blessed we are to live in Winchcombe.

Then to the next flood of July 20th affecting so many more people in so many ways.  A repeat performance.  We had a higher level of water in the house but few contents left to spoil and we were safely housed in Greet – how fortunate we were compared with so many.

David King

PROPHETS

A prophet is not so much someone who announces the future, as someone who speaks in the name of God – someone who has been made part of God’s plans and sees through God’s eyes. The prophets usually have an intense experience of God’s call to them; think of Isaiah and his vision in the temple, think of Jeremiah and his conviction that even though he suffered so much for speaking God’s word, he would literally explode if he didn’t. From the time of their calling everything speaks to the prophets about God: the branch of an almond tree in flower or a boiling pot, even married life or enemy invasion. All these things are ways that God communicates his word to them. In this way the prophets teach us to read God’s word in our own lives, to interpret his action in the everyday.

The prophets have a crucial role to play in the story of Israel. They were often counter–cultural and roundly despised because their message was so unpopular. As Christians we need to hear the ‘prophetic voices’ of our own time, those who are on the outside, those who say things that aren’t very popular especially about the church. Those are the voices we need to hear.

In the Old Testament the prophets call God’s people back to their covenant roots. They announce God’s judgement on Israelite idolatry and social injustice; they also speak of God’s restoring love, which will redeem them from judgement. The most important and devastating historical event in Israel’s history was the Exile: the faithful city of Jerusalem was captured by Babylon and the great and the good were carted off into captivity. The Israelites were in danger of losing their identity, their faith and any future hope. The prophets interpreted this as God’s judgement on the sinfulness of Israel, but God’s judgement was always mitigated by mercy. In the glorious poetic verses describing God’s restoration we see the beauty of his mercy. During and after the exile the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Ezra and Nehemiah were vital in helping the people come to terms with their experience and see God’s hand in their circumstances.

The prophetic voice always calls the people back to basics, back to their faith in God, back to true worship, and back to his commandments. Their voice often competes with much pagan religion which was attractive to the Israelites and lured them into idolatry.  You only need to think of Elijah on Mount Carmel calling the Israelites away from the worshipping the Baals (divinised forces of nature). The name Elijah is a version of Eli – yahu, ‘my God is Yahweh’. So even his name is a message. Elijah made a choice for Yahweh (the ‘God Who Is’) and wants his people to do the same.

The prophets kept reminding the Israelites about their calling to be part of God’s redeeming purposes for humanity. They were to remember the early covenant Yahweh made with Abraham; they were always called to bless the nations of the world; in Isaiah, Israel’s role as “servant to the nations” is clearly described in the Servant Songs.

Many of the prophets condemn social injustice – exploitation of the poor by those in privileged positions. Their message has much relevance still in our world today where we in the west seem to be able to live quite happily in the full knowledge that our wealth makes others poor and miserable. If you read Amos or Hosea you’ll be astonished at how important the relationship is between faith and righteous living.  God called the Israelites to reflect his character, by keeping his covenant and walking in his ways. So often in the prophets, God’s people are criticised for obeying religious rituals and making sacrifices in the temple while their way of living harmed so many and they didn’t take care of the orphan, the widow or the oppressed.  

Through the prophets the people came to realise that their God wasn’t just one of many tribal gods, but that He was The sovereign God of the universe, the Creator and Sustainer of all things and of all nations.

The prophets spoke God’s word in specific historical contexts, during a time of significant political, military, economic and social upheaval. There were enormous shifts in the balance of power on the international scene, especially between the Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians and Persians. However their writings are very important for us today as they often deal with not just the historical future of Israel but the ultimate future of human destiny. Their visions of humanity’s ultimate redemption, when all creation is in harmony, is a frequent image in their writings and some of the Bible’s most beautiful poetry captures the glory of a future promised to us by God.  

Hanna Woodall

MUSIC NOTES

At the time of writing, we are looking forward to working with Ian Dale and his choir at Dumbleton on September 30th (10.30 am).  The organ there has been refurbished, and it will be lovely both to play and hear it.  Ian will be playing several trumpet voluntaries with organ accompaniment, as well as conducting and sharing the organ-playing with me.

We will be travelling a rather shorter distance, to the Methodist church, on October 28th for the 10.30 am service, but not travelling at all to the Deanery Evensong, which is in St. Peter’s on the same day.  We will be singing Stanford’s C-Major setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, Joubert’s atmospheric anthem ‘O Lorde, the maker of al thing’ and responses by the late John Sanders.  We hope to use the Sanders responses for other full evensongs later in the year.

We are looking forward to Harvest Festival on Sunday 7th, when as well as the All-Age Worship in the morning we will have Full Evensong.  We hope to include Bach’s version of  ‘Now thank we all our God’ in the evening.

We are enjoying rehearsing several new and other long-forgotten anthems: Ave Maria - Rachmaninov, This is the Record of John - Gibbons, Three Eastern Kings - Teague, The Shepherd’s Pipe Carol - Rutter.

It was a great pleasure to hear that Lawrence Keeling (a chorister at St. Peter’s for a year) is now Head Chorister at Gloucester Cathedral. Congratulations to Lawrence and good luck to him!

Fiona Brown

GREENBELT 2007 - HEAVEN IN ORDINARY

This summer more of our church-members than ever before went to the 'Greenbelt' arts festival at Cheltenham Racecourse. One of them was Liz Stranks.

Greenbelt had always been something that I wanted to experience and when Hanna first started to talk about it at the beginning of the year I thought this would be the year to try.  Katherine expressed great interest from the start – I think it was the hint of Glastonbury – and so it was an easy decision to make.

So typically me: make the decision, really think it through later ... haven’t camped for over twenty years, what if it rained, what if the children changed their minds?  This wasn’t something I wanted to have to force them to go to – keep your options open, borrow a tent, buy the weekend-pass on the door!

Bank Holiday weekend approached and the weather was set to be glorious.  Weekend pass purchased; we joined the queue to the campsite.  This gave us a great chance to meet up with the rest of our group to begin to make plans; what to see, do, buy; the options appeared endless, the Festival Guide more like an annual entertainment guide than the guide for a weekend.  The young people were naturals, already discussing what they were going to get up to.

We finally got in to the campsite and found a St Peter’s corner (and yes, we were on the racecourse).  Evening mealtime was set for 5.00 pm (be back or miss out) and they’re off ... what no curfew?

This for me was the highlight; being able to give our youngsters true freedom with the knowledge they were in a safe environment, Heaven in Ordinary.

As the days unfolded we experienced the performing arts (the Bassline Circus a great hit), talks, poetry, comedy, worship, music, film and literature.  Being the novice I often found myself walking in to crowds going in the opposite direction, but where were they going, what was I missing?  Next year I’ll be better at it!  I may volunteer.

In reality there was something; for everyone from children’s activities, mass hymn-sing at the Jesus Arms, henna tattoos and chai tea to meditation and spiritual guidance (with a lot in between).

You could duck out of the God bit, but true enough He was always there.

(I still have my G07 Festival Guide.  If you would like to have a look at it just let me know).

Liz Stranks

IN PRAISE OF BEER

Some churches, such as the Methodists and the Salvation Army, have historically had a negative attitude to drink, based on their experience of working with the victims of drunkenness.  And all churches do well to preach the message that by God’s grace no-one need turn to chemicals to find happiness, or to obliterate sadness.  But none of this is to deny the fact that, in its place, alcohol is one of God’s good gifts to us (Psalm 104: 15).

Indeed, one of my own great pleasures is the modest consumption of good English beer.

If you’ve only ever eaten pre-packaged white bread, or plastic-wrapped imitation Edam, then I wouldn’t expect you to have a high opinion of the glories of bread or cheese.  Similarly some people’s only encounter with beer is that of a dead liquid, given artificial life by the injection of gas in a can or a keg.  Real living beer, by contrast, is a glory and a delight – and a liquid meal full of goodness and taste.

“Real Ale” means beer (fermented malt liquor, given a refreshing astringency by the addition of hops) that is still ‘alive’ – kept fresh, and given a gentle sparkle, by sitting on its own residue of yeast in barrel or bottle.  It takes skill and care to keep properly:  really good beer relies on the publican’s skill as much as the brewer’s.  And every brew is subtly different:  you never have quite the same pint twice – unlike with other homogenized liquids that masquerade as beer or lager, where the price you pay for never having a bad pint is that you never have a really good one either.

In our choking world ‘food miles’ matter – how far your food and drink has travelled, at what expense to the environment.  At our Team Barn Dance earlier this year we served ‘Stanney’ Bitter from a cask brewed less than a quarter of a mile away and delivered by wheelbarrow.  When we drink ‘Jouster’ at the Harvest Home after one of our services there, it’s come less than a mile from the brewery in Greet.

If Jesus had been English (strange that he wasn’t!), he’d have served beer at the Last Supper.  I’m quite sure that there will be some wonderful home-brews in heaven – but there’s no need to wait till then.  Come to one of the many public houses, now blessedly smoke-free, in our parish; and if you see a bald man in a dog-collar having a quiet half-pint in the corner, it will probably be me.

John Partington

A WINNING FORMULA

As many will know, one of my great passions is anything to do with cars and particularly motorsport.  In fact it is poignant to be writing this piece only days after the untimely death of one of my motorsport heroes Colin McRae.

In my youth, I would spend as many Sunday afternoons as possible watching Formula 1, British Touring Cars and the World Rally Championship on the television and even watched Top Gear on Thursdays at 8.30 pm in my room when I wasn’t supposed to!  For me there is something about taking a complicated piece of equipment like a car and engineering it and then pushing it to find the absolute limit.  I even used to get up early in the morning sometimes to watch the grand prix’s when they were broadcast live from places like Japan, Brazil and Australia.  I saw Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill both winning (and in Damon’s case in 1994 also losing) respective F1 world championships.  I still remember watching the day that Ayrton Senna died, and last year, Jenson Button winning his first F1 race as well as the prodigious talent that is Lewis Hamilton.

Few will know that I am a qualified motor mechanic, though I have tried to keep that quiet for obvious reasons!  I still tinker with my own car and my wife, Kate’s and when we had our red convertible sports car (before the dog!) we used to enjoy leisurely drives around the countryside on days off with the roof down.

I have always looked actively for ways to link my passion for all things four-wheeled and my work, and God has provided just such an opportunity.  Winchcombe school recently purchased a Ford Escort on eBay for £30 and even though it’s not likely to win the World Rally Championship any time soon, it will be a great tool to use to teach young people about mechanics, the dangers of cars if misused as well as how road cars and their motorsport counterparts differ.

I have a number of folk involved from many backgrounds.  Kit from Winchcombe Garage has kindly pledged some time, as well as members of vectra-c.com (an owners club for owners of new generation Vauxhall Vectras).  A writer from one of the classic car monthlies, Dave Richards, has pledged involvement; and I am currently in the process of negotiating a trip to the headquarters of a major motor manufacturers works racing team, but I can’t say too much right now.

The club will be after school one night a week and will cater for school years 9-11.  Please pray for us as we begin this exciting project.

Mike Capener

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