Hello everyone,
There was something particularly special about this Easter – not quite sure what, one of those times when something becomes ‘more than the sum of its parts’. And that despite the very bad weather on Easter Sunday. One of the door people told me that the most people attended (113) since we started counting for fire drill purposes. For those of you who were away, the orders of service are up on the website with reflections where they existed.
Jim Cunningham will be leading the Gathering this coming weekend (28th) and will reflect on one occasion when the disciples had to adjust to the ‘new normal’ in their lives.
Some who have relatively recently started attending St Andrew’s, want their ‘new normal’ to include joining this community in a more formal way than simply turning up. We will be exploring what that means for them in the next few weeks. Then at a communion service soon afterwards we will welcome them into the connections they have chosen. (May’s a bit soon, June is Queen’s Birthday weekend, but we can sort something out).
Others may be wondering too what they should do. Make sure you get hold of a welcome booklet pack (at the back of the church and on the website) and read it through. Get in touch with me at minister@standrews.org.nz and we can have a group get together as well as one-on-one meetings to sort out the details. Everyone is equally welcome at St Andrew’s – each one chooses the level at which they will connect.
I leave you with Malcolm Guite’s fifteenth sonnet for the Lenten Stations of the Cross
XV Easter Dawn
He blesses every love which weeps and grieves
And now he blesses hers who stood and wept
And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s
Last touching place, but watched as low light crept
Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs
A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.
She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,
Or recognise the Gardener standing there.
She hardly hears his gentle question ‘Why,
Why are you weeping?’, or sees the play of light
That brightens as she chokes out her reply
‘They took my love away, my day is night’
And then she hears her name, she hears Love say
The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day
Whatever you are doing this week may Love which is Easter’s mainspring resonates in your life.
Susan
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