The Goose has landed!
The June issue of St Peter’s quarterly magazine – The Flying Goose – is now available on St Peter’s website (www.stpeterswolvercote.org) or by cutting and pasting this link http://www.stpeterswolvercote.org/wp-content/uploads/Flying-Goose-issue-56-web-version.pdf into your browser. Sadly, due to COVID-19 restrictions, it hasn’t been possible to deliver printed copies around the area. We hope to be back in print for September.
In his last leading article before retirement as Vicar of St Peter’s and All Saints’ Wytham, Revd Charles Draper reflects on the wildernesses and solitary places which we’re currently inhabiting.
“This is a strange time to be writing my farewell article for the Flying Goose. Our Midsummer Festival cancelled, and with it all our opportunities for farewell services and events at St Peter’s and Wytham, means I shall finish work quietly on Sunday 12th July, at a time when we may, possibly, be just starting to open up our churches again…. If anything is happening at church, Jane and I will certainly want to be there, either at St Peter’s or All Saints’, until we move in mid August. We want every opportunity to see people again before we go – albeit from a distance of 2 metres! The churchwardens have kindly said that they will ask us back for a Farewell Service when restrictions are lifted, so we look forward to that.
It’s a strange time to be leaving – and yet I am glad to have been here through the worst of the coronavirus crisis. It has been like plunging into a wilderness experience. Most of us have been at home during the lockdown, but we are especially aware of those who live by themselves and those who are vulnerable. It has meant our congregations being unable to gather for worship or receive Communion, and adapting to church online, or print-outs through the letterbox for those not online. We have especially focused our thoughts and prayers on those in the thick of it, the NHS staff, care workers and other key workers, and above all, on those who are ill and those sadly bereaved.
There is a lot on the “Wilderness Experience” in the Bible and in Christian tradition. The “Wilderness” is a place of being stripped down and, as it were, brought to our knees. It is often a place of discovery, or encounter. If you are able to respond positively to this, it can become a place of renewal.
For me, the experience of Parkinson’s has been a kind of personal wilderness experience. Dealing with the side effects of Parkinson’s – 2 fatigue, anxiety, and occasional mild depression – has led to new discoveries; not only medication, but vigorous exercise, mindfulness, and what I hadn’t expected – a powerful experience of renewal in my personal faith. I have found that the wilderness really can be a place where new shoots, new life and new growth spring up.
Coronavirus has been a struggle, not only for those who have caught the virus, their families, and those who have cared for them, but also for those who have lost their jobs or their livelihood, those who have had to rely on foodbanks to survive, the homeless, and those for whom lockdown has meant being trapped in abusive relationships. It has been a real wilderness for many.
And yet many of us have found positives emerging from this time: a sense of peace and stillness, with reduced traffic and more time, an appreciation of nature – whether the flowers in our gardens or the sound of birdsong – and for some an experience of the kindness of neighbours or a deeper bonding with others in our household.
Perhaps the greatest positive has been the sharp reduction in pollution and carbon emissions – cleaner air and purer water. Some of us are hoping that we won’t go back quite to where we were before – that through this wilderness time we will have learned to live more simply, to appreciate the good things around us, and to care more both for each other and for our planet Earth. Maybe this wilderness could yet be a time of renewal for us and for our world despite, or even because of, the struggle.
My thanks to you all for your support and encouragement throughout these last five years.
Charles”