PRIEST's LETTER

We have turned the year.

 Whilst we are still in the midst of winter, the amount of daylight each day is increasing.   Christmas in the northern hemisphere falls just as the daylight begins to lengthen.   It's as if the placing of Christmas speaks to us through the growing daylight that God in Christ is with us, the Light of the World is with us both in the darkest times and as the daylight grows.

 This winter I've been reading Katherine May's book, Wintering, in which she writes about physical and metaphorical winters, and about how to endure sometimes and how to enjoy sometimes.

 She writes well and widely.   In her examination of wintering she touches on things spiritual.   Here she talks about prayer, "By closing my eyes, however briefly, and resting my thoughts on the core of my perception, I can gain some of the peace that meditation brings me.   I have come to think of it as prayer, although I ask for nothing, and speak to no one within it.   It is a profoundly non-verbal experience, a sharp breath of pure being amid a forest of words.   It is an untangling, a moment to feel the true ache of desire, the gentle wash of self-compassion, the heart-swell of thanks, the tick tick tick of existence.   It is a moment when, alone, I feel most connected with others.   I can feel entirely separate in a crowd of people, but closing my eyes, I can feel as though I have walked into a river of all consciousness, bathed in common humanity."

 May we all find something of that peace and experience of our common humanity, whether it may be for us alone or with others, in church or community or home.

Happy New Year,

God bless

Love Peter

Canon Peter Greenwood