The Welland-Fosse Benefice: Prayers and Notices

 Sunday 4 July 2021:  Trinity V

 

• Please remember in your prayers those who are sick: Ray Bailey, Sylvia Martin, Derek & Margaret Barker, Sussie Clements, Judith Piggott, Jane Williams, John and Tricia Williams. Pray too for the departed. especially Julia Stokes.
• Zoom Morning Prayer continues on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8.30 am with Compline on Thursday at 6pm
• Next Sunday we are in church at South Luffenham at 9.30am and 11am in Barrowden and on Zoom.

 

 

SOUTH LUFFENHAM:

Sunday 11th July Morning Worship  (AR)
Sunday 25th July Holy Communion  (CA) 

‘Still Time’ every Friday 10.30-11.00. All welcome to join us for silent prayer. 

 

 

MEDITATION: Wimbledon

 

Is there another Eden in South-West London, where the grass is forever green, the colours subdued, the behaviour genteel and the fruits of the earth (mainly strawberries) are to be found in abundance? Why, there is even a firmament which covers the earth and divides the rain above from the sweating grass and the perspiring competitors below! There are the beasts of the earth – big cats who have been here before – who command great reverence and substantial fees, in contrast to the poorly-seeded who may get trampled underfoot.

 

For Wimbledon, we can substitute Wembley, Twickenham, Ascott, Wentworth, Cowes or even your own family or back garden. No site is quite perfect and certainly the inequalities of life are magnified at Wimbledon, but it is entertaining for all that.

 

However, the game is the thing. At Wimbledon it must be terrifying for the unseeded to come up against the big cats early in the championship. The warm-up is gentle but when the game begins in earnest, the shots must be bewildering to the novice. How does anyone place a lob so accurately in the corner or the cross-shot at such an acute angle or the drop shot so controlled?

 

Without the game, the unseeded will not learn, and the constraints of the ground will continue to be frustrating. Engagement is critical for growth.

 

As at Wimbledon for the non-seeded, so with all of us in whatever situation we find ourselves: playing games, taming the garden, the children, the spouse, the pet. If we don’t engage, we shrink.  So it is with God, to release the metaphor. He has placed us here. He provides us with the court ‘and it was very good’. But it does have constraints and there are some rules, even though the lines seem to be increasingly blurred. He surrounds us with supporters, family, fellow pilgrims. They urge us on, but we have to engage. To turn our backs upon God is to ignore the game, the joy of life. He will exercise us and surprise us with those amazing shots. His game is tantalising, mystifying, sometimes infuriating. However challenging, such engagement separates us from the animal kingdom: we stand upright to respond to that divine challenge. At the end of the day, what else is there to play for?

 

See wellandfosse.org for much more information, including contact details for

The Very Rev Christopher Armstrong and the churchwardens