Posts by Lynne Pickersgill

Good morning! It’s good to be here!

Over these past few weeks we have all had to adjust to using different methods of being together. But being together is what we are achieving week by week.

Although we may sound and look different, we can still join as a community.

Although the building is closed, Church is still very much open for business.
It did occur to me that us being in an imposed lockdown certainly has an impact on our 5 senses.

Touch – We are not able to touch our loved ones. Hugging is a no-no, whilst those hands need to be washed more often.

Sight – We cannot just go and see our friends, or family. We have been given boundaries and rules. Perhaps we have become too confined to our own four walls.

Hearing – How often does the phone ring? When we read words on a text or email, but cannot hear the voice of the one who sent it.

Taste – we have no appetite to eat alone. A shared meal becomes something some us have had to avoid.

Smell – I have particularly missed the smell of being in the church. The heady mix of incense and fresh flowers usually hang in the air at this season.

“Thank goodness that’s over with!” a colleague of mine said that as one year we packed away the Christmas decorations in our office.

Christmas has gone in the blink of an eye, the retailers know it, the programme schedulers know it. The lights and decorations may have been packed up for another year (or will be ) but still, the crib scene remains.

The season does not end so abruptly here. We still have an opportunity to gaze at the crib scene. Today marks not an ending, but a beginning of another journey.

Today we begin the Epiphany season – shifting from rejoicing at God’s coming among us to reflecting on what it means – to us and to the life of the world.

We know well the story from the gospel of the Wise Men or Magi who first visited the Christ Child to “pay homage”, but what did it mean then and what does it mean for us now?