Author Archives: Simon Marsh

About Simon Marsh

Anglican parish priest in Bramhall, Stockport, UK

THE HEART OF YOU

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YOU WERE good at it
No doubt about it
The things you did and were
The things you wrote and said
They came, then, right out of the
Heart of you
Ah
They said
Who’d have thought it
Eh?
A gentle, gracious, humane
Overseer

And you could be good at it again
No doubt about it
If the things you do and are
The things you write and say
Come right out of the
Heart of you
Ah
They’d say
Who’d have thought it
Eh?
A gentle, gracious, humane
Seer overseer
Here, today

simonmarsh, 5/12

audio file here

AFTER THE STORM

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Glad that I live am I;
that the sky is blue;
glad for the country lanes,
and the fall of dew.

After the sun, the rain,
after the rain, the sun;
this is the way of life,
till the work be done.

Lizette W Reese

STORM AND TEMPEST rocked yesterday’s glory, and it was fiercely cold, so this morning’s birdsong and the illuminated oak in the vicarage garden are all the more welcome, and I can “hear” assembly at my primary school, 45 years ago, belting out “Glad that I live am I” …

GLORY

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WATCHING GLORY unfold in every facet of life and death is the blessed occupation of all human beings. The opportunities I’ve been given for just such a seeing in 30 years as a priest have brought me incalculable blessing. Glory unfolds everywhere. And as though the glory unfolding in our own lives were not blessing enough, we get to see it unfolding all around us as well. If we have eyes to see. If we have ears to hear.

Today I’ve greeted and laughed and prayed and baptised and celebrated Eucharist and cried with a couple of hundred people. Our wonderful Youth Group provided a cooked breakfast mid-morning. A sausage and bacon bap at any time is good news for me, but served this morning by marvellously giving and lovely young people, in parish rooms literally buzzing with life and laughter, though the winds were howling and the rains were drenching, it was glory writ large. “Never been here before” said a young Dad at the Baptism. “But it’s like coming home.” A bit like some of Jan Dean’s poetry that, “like coming home”.

In an hour and a half in our local Hospice this afternoon I met Glory that’s touchable. Many years ago I met Dame Cicely Saunders, the Mother Founder of the modern Hospice movement. I thought her a Christ-figure par excellence. And I felt her Spirit present this afternoon, and in the midst of laughter and tears and lovingly proffered chocolate closed my eyes, in the quiet company of the smallest of assemblies, and simply breathed peace. “In life, in death …” Glory in the air. Glory in the living and in the sick and in the dying and in the young volunteers whose smiles lit up the room – and the faces of the people to whom they lovingly ministered.

Prayer. No words necessary. Just prayer in the air. Thank God for Dame Cicely. Thank God for Hospices. Thank God for giving young people. Thank God for our churchwarden Sue, for many years the Manager of said Hospice, and now, in company with a huge team, bringing something of the hospitality of Hospice right into the Heart of our parish church. Old and young. Old apostles and the newly baptised. Light. Song. Silence. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, giggles and nodding off to sleep in between. Glory.

And then a couple of hours in the cinema – Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Should you find yourself there (and I hope you do) you may remember, in many a scene, that I suggested to you tonight that right there you’ll see example after example of … Glory. Unfolding everywhere, right in the midst of life’s mysteries and vicissitudes, joy, pain, growing, coming and going. Swimming upstream. Salmon leap. And it makes our hearts swell, and we glimpse a day when “All shall be well, yea, and all manner of things shall be well” …

PENANCE?

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IT’S A GLORIOUS DAY in Cumbria, albeit still decidedly chilly. My always-waiting books and armchair are too frequently my default position after the little household jobs, haircut, shopping etc on Saturday mornings, up here, away from the busyness and routine of Vicarage life. That’s not good on two counts: the first, that this is a spectacularly beautiful part of the world and it’s daft to come here and not to see any of it. The second, that I woke up stiff as a board this morning and just know, in the way that one does just know such things sometimes, that it’s blooming-well time I shifted my idle self and took some exercise. And I did. And now I’m (slightly) less stiff. And my head has cleared. And I’ve decided that though we humans generally reckon sheep are silly, they’re not.

Sheep take plenty of exercise. They’re fairly focused. And they make time in their lives to sit around quite a bit and contemplate (apparently not too troubled by the fact that their young seem to leap and skip around the place like lambs). Now Simon the sheep is fairly focused, I think, and he does set aside time for contemplation and the all-important silence. It’s just this blessed exercise business. Baa! Health MOT coming up this week so it’s on my mind, because I know it’ll be on the doc’s. Can you hear me? Ooooh yes, doctor, a couple of hours a day, I’d say. Bit of weights, a few rounds of the track, the bike, swimming. Cumberland sausage? No. Only for a treat now and then. Yeah. Not bad at all. (Except I need to go to confession after this consultation!). If only I could remember that a bit of exercise can be positively enjoyable. If only my increasingly creaky old self didn’t look upon exercise as a form of penance!

PROCESS

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… as in that beginning, in every age the same, creation’s Re-creator is keeping hope aflame. From Eden to the desert, the manger to the tomb, each fall becomes a rising, and every grave a womb.

From verse 2: The universe is waiting 
Michael Forster, (born 1946), © 1999 Kevin Mayhew Ltd

REBECCA KOO writes about process. Good religion does too – about becoming. And it takes a lifetime. And falling and rising. Sometimes, even, a feeling like “crawling upon your belly”, wondering, painfully, “what did I do wrong?”. Sometimes knowing exactly, and taking care to learn from the knowing. Sometimes feeling naked. (… so I hid myself). But it’s important we rememember that we’re talking about a “Universe-person” here, about a wholly “catholic” long-haul enterprise, and about every life’s being a necessary part of the Universe’s song. Neither Rome, as they say, nor Universe were built in a day, and process, as Rebecca suggests, comes right across a lifetime, not overnight. “Creation’s Re-creator is keeping hope aflame.”

Religion. From religare. To draw together as one. This is the work of nothing less than Life itself/herself/himself – and our whole lives at (and within) that. So any religious or philosophical assurances about our having no further need to explore, or implore, or pray, or go, or grow, need to be shown the door. Process. That’s the thing. Sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, and every shade in between. “Each fall becomes a rising, and every grave a womb”.

Son, behold thy mother. The procession of life swirls onwards …

MIRFIELD FOR ST MARK

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GLORIOUS SOLEMN MASS for St Mark’s Day in the newly refurbished Church of the Resurrection at Mirfield today. Wonderful, wonderful singing, with a setting to the Lord’s Prayer that must have been composed in Heaven. Perfect harmony, all wonderfully understated and not a hint of musical me, me, me anywhere.

One of our ordinands, Paul Deakin (above right), is in training for the priesthood at the College of the Resurrection. Churchwardens Sue Taylor, Ralph Luxon, and Administrator Janet Ketteringham joined me on an encouragement visit. We were encouraged. Paul – and Mirfield – were the typically hospitable encouragers. Fabulous lunch … thanks to Sandra and the team.

Decluttering. I’m known for it in the parishes I’ve served. There’s quite simply nothing quite so useful as beautiful open space for facilitating beautiful open worship. The newly refurbished Lower and Upper Churches at Mirfield are models of spacious openness. There’s absolutely no mistaking what the Church was built for, no mistaking what the Community is about.

Praise my soul the King of Heaven in incense-laden atmosphere, heavy with prayer and the call to pay attention to the life and work of Evangelists, defies description. And I hope to hear the closing Organ Voluntary some day in Heaven where I imagine it will sound no less profound a note of celebration as it did today. An echoing silence enveloped the House after the closing chords and many simply sat in silence, in a renewed space, in a holy place. And then the aforementioned lunch! A proper Feast Day. My old and very spacious home church, St Mark’s Claughton, would have been proud.

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PARALLELS

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THRILLED TO BITS with a new favourite piece of software that’s put the icing on the cake of my return to the wonders of desktop (and all things, actually) Apple. Parallels, like Apple, “just works” and I’m enormously grateful. All the joys of fast modern day Mac and Cloud (iCloud great and still developing, Dropbox fantastic) – and now with the added and stunningly fast ability to run the entire contents of what was my old Laptop PC on super-screen, super-fast iMac – and portable kit too. The people behind developments like these are amazing. Happy bunny.

MUM, DAD & 3 KIDS :)

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MY SISTER SARAH and her husband Keith are off to live in British Columbia, Canada. So Mum, Dad and 3 “kids” assembled today for hugs and a farewell lunch (poor old Keith already gone, and solo-fitting a new bathroom!). We couldn’t remember the last occasion there were just the five of us together – and none of us have changed one iota! No, I mean it! Stop laughing …

Love from Bob, Irene, Simon, Sarah & Nick x

RESTORATION, RENOVATION, RESURRECTION

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Report to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting of Bramhall Parish Church

RESTORATION, renovation and resurrection works have continued in and around our Church buildings in the past year and the works for repointing the Lantern Tower are beginning at the time of our APCM 2012. I am enormously grateful to churchwardens of the recent past, and to those of the present who, together with the PCC and its finance and buildings committee, continue to facilitate works that both maintain and enhance our “house for the Church”. We’ve been very fortunate to have been served by Architects John Prichard,  Chloe Maher and Rebecca Gilbert-Rule.

Ministries generally 

I am also grateful for the ministries of my priest colleagues, Fr David Stoter and the Reverend Ann Hyde. We wish Ann Godspeed as she embarks upon new work at St Martin Low Marple from next month. Sterling service has been given and great works accomplished by Churchwardens Ralph Luxon and Sue Taylor, Ann Walker as PCC Secretary & Graham Knight as Treasurer, our Parochial Church Council, Readers, pastoral team, sidespersons, administrator, sexton, musicians, vergers, florists, gardeners – and by the faithful lives and deeds, in so many areas of church life, of very many members of the church family.

New ministries particularly

Once again I warmly thank and pray God’s continued blessing upon each and all who have responded to Christ’s call to love and service in this place in the past year. (Electoral Roll Officer Frank Bennett reports 470 committed Christians on our Roll at this 2012 Annual Meeting – and 450 persons not on the Roll were present at a St George’s Day service this afternoon, following in the footsteps of 200+ worshippers present this morning. Around 200 names appear on the various lists and rotas for our various ministries of service).

It has been an especial joy to encourage the seeking and discernment processes in the lives of ordinands Paul Deakin (Mirfield College of The Resurrection), Tracy Ward (Diocesan Foundations for Ministry Course and newly appointed Chair of our Pastoral Committee) and Rachael Elizabeth Hunt (hoping to read Theology from September 2012). Their early preaching has been widely appreciated and acclaimed. We’re also delighted to be sponsoring the priestly formation of Franco Asili in the Diocese of Newala, Tanzania.

Newala, Children, Youth & the Arts

Our parish’s link with the Diocese of Newala continues to develop. Part of the development and ministry of our children and youth work, guided and encouraged by leaders Jill Elston, Yvonne Hope and their team, has involved real engagement with the issues facing life in Tanzania, alongside the development of a very popular and delightful puppet ministry.  Association with the Chester Diocesan Arts and Faith network and most recently with artists Wendy Rudd and Stephen Raw have brought blessing, benefit and enormously important vision.

Deeper nearness to God

I continue to thank God for the Resurrection faith, hope and love that are source and sign of warm welcome to those newly born amongst us, whilst also bringing comfort to us all in times of personal illness or other need, and when we have  commended the loved ones who have entered into the deeper fullness of Divine presence. May each of us in this world aspire to a deeper nearness to God – our hope and our inspiration, our joy and our crown.

The wind of God’s Spirit

So: works of restoration, renovation and resurrection have also continued in and around our personal and corporate spiritual lives. The wind of God’s Spirit blows amongst and between us and so we grow and change and live to say: “To God be the glory.”

Eastertide 2012