Author: Lucy Llewellyn

Friends,

In recent days, Revd David Donald Scott (visiting preacher and film shower, Sunday 19^th November) posted the following piece https://daviddonaldscott.blogspot.co

“I am not sure whether our most recent ‘Statistics for Mission’ have been published but I read a report by Ed Thornton about the figures for the Church of England. There were three areas highlighted – attendance at worship, social action and age profile.

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(pic left) St Andrew’s, Newcastle – (pic right) St Andrew’s, Jerusalem

Friends,

Happy St Andrew’s Day, and particularly to the members of our linked charge at St Andrew’s, Newcastle

https://www.standrewskirknewcastle.org

Also in mind, St Andrew’s Church in Jerusalem; built as a memorial to Scottish soldiers who died in Palestine in the First World War. (The Church of Scotland has had a presence in the Holy Land since the late 19th century, initially through its medical mission in Tiberias.) Today, Thursday 30th November, the Friends of St Andrew’s, Jerusalem will hold their annual service at St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh. The service, will be livestreamed from 2pm, led by the Very Rev Dr Andrew McLellan, convener of The Friends of St Andrew’s.

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Prayer space & sketching at Festival of Silence

Friends,

“A moment to reflect on beauty; to slow down; a restorative day; wonderfully gentle and helpful. A good silence. Silence is powerful. Silence, I have leant today, is empowering. Silence is God healing.”

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Friends,

Time is transfigured, opened out
and ample,
It touches on eternity. I stay
Awhile within this quiet church: its simple

Furnishings, and storied windows say
More to me of heaven than the pale
Abstractions of theology. A day

Spent in an empty church has been as full
Of goodness as an age elsewhere. I feel
Its peace refresh me like a holy well.

Malcolm Guite, from David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms

Almost two years after the idea was suggested, the Festival of Silence takes place at St Columba’s this Saturday. It certainly represents a step into the unknown. At its heart is the belief that our beautiful building holds a silence that is precious. As a visitor commented: “The silence is already here. It is up to us if we want to enter it.”

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Friends,

Sometimes when you haven’t heard of someone before, then a name is mentioned twice in close succession from independent sources, you get the sense that you should pay attention. Recently, the name of Howard Zinn, an American historian, playwright and philosopher cropped up days apart, via a book and a blog. In a week when a visitor to St Columba’s observed: “The world seems to be on fire at the moment.” In a week preparing for Remembrance Sunday, with its summons to look back and look forward – to remember, then to determine to live well – in a week such as this, I hope Zinn’s words might be an encouragement.

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Friends,

November is sometimes referred to as “The month of the dead”, with All Saints Day on 1st November, All Souls Day on 2nd November and Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday nearest to 11th November when we remember those who have died in two world wars and numerous conflicts since 1945.

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“There is nothing to fear in choosing a period of solitude.” So write Malcolm Doney and Martin Wroe, joint authors of Hold On Let Go: How To Find Your Life. “At the kitchen table, with the radio turned off. In the bedroom, when everyone else has left the flat, smartphone exiled. A lunchtime walk from the office, turning through the doors of that building we rarely look twice at.” Doney and Wroe reference Michael Palin, former Monty Python member, taking a lunch break after being cross-examined in a court case in London. Not permitted to talk to anyone, he wanted somewhere to sit quietly and get himself together. Unable to find a seat that didn’t involve eating, drinking or some commercial transaction, he stumbled upon the Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West in the heart of Fleet Street. “I was never so grateful for a place of repose, an oasis of peace and quiet in the midst of the mayhem,” Palin said.

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