Clarion Online
June 2008 - a selection of articles
PCC Digest of May meeting
Sermon - Sarah Lenton
Sermon - Graham Holderness
Father Kevin Morris writes: June, the month of Festival
During the month of June we hold our Church Fete which takes place over two days on Acton Green (opposite the church) and a two-week Arts Festival. The Bedford Park Festival is a magnificent achievement by our congregation and something of which we ought to be truly proud. It stretches out into the community and involves a great many people in our locality.
At the time of the first Festival, the then Bishop of London wrote to the first Vicar that such a Festival would give an opportunity for the “church to be at the centre of the community.” Indeed, as the Festival has developed and grown I think that has happened. It is good to be reminded of the original aims:
to foster a sense of community among us, to celebrate the arts, and to raise money for the repair and upkeep of St Michael’s. We also now support various other charities and this year we have chosen a new charity, Musequality, which has been set up by local musician and long-time Festival supporter, David Juritz.
Musequality
The charity was set up to take music projects to some of the poorest children in the developing world.
“Our aim is not to produce professional musicians but to give vulnerable children the chance to learn skills that offer them a route out of poverty, lifting them off the streets and away from the risks of drug culture, violence and crime. Anyone who has played a musical instrument, or sung in a choir or group, knows that it teaches skills that are valuable in other aspects of life. In particular it:
• enhances education – teaching numeracy, pattern recognition, goal setting, problem-solving;
• builds social skills – discipline, working in a team, leadership, negotiating, compromise, making conversation;
• develops personal qualities – self-belief, self-confidence, self-esteem, ambition, a sense of identity;
• demonstrates the benefits of working hard – individual effort brings individual rewards and benefits the group as a whole;
• challenges prejudices – in societies where gender inequalities exist, it gives girls a chance to demonstrate equality.
The developing world desperately needs qualified and able teachers, doctors, farmers, lawyers, scientists, business people, decision-makers and leaders – drawn from their own communities. If it is to have those people in the future it needs – today – to help its young people develop the essential skills and qualities that will enable them to turn their lives around and fill these and other important roles.
Communal music-making teaches those skills and qualities. That’s where Musequality comes in. By setting up and supporting community music projects, we give children the chance to change their lives. And there is plenty of evidence, from countries such as Venezuela which runs a national music scheme that it works.”
Worship
As a church-run Festival, it seems to me vitally important, (and what makes us so different from so many other arts and music festivals) that liturgical worship forms a significant part of it. Worship is sometimes explained as a corruption of “giving worth to” (“worthship.”) In other words, it is about that which really matters to us on a profound level: the people and values which shape our lives, the people or things on which we spend our time and energy on, that which involves all, or at least a great deal, of our love and thinking. The Scriptures warn us that we can easily become what
we worship. One can see it in those who have particular addictions to drink, gambling or sex. It is very easy to be shaped by what we worship, so much so that it devours our life.
In the first chapter of his letter to the Christians in Rome, St Paul makes a remarkable statement. It comes after an inventory of the world’s moral chaos – envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip, idolatry, sexual perversion. Why this bad behaviour? Is it because people don’t follow the law? Is it because we don’t lead our lives in accordance with the Bible? Is it because affluence and immorality go hand-in-hand? Well, I guess we hear these reasons given by many people today for the moral malaise of our society, but for St Paul, it was because people gave glory to the world and to human creations, that they ought to give only to God.
“They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal beings, or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” (Rom. 1:23). Someone has translated the Greek text here as, “They sang doxologies (glory = doxa) to creatures that only ought to be sung to the Creator.” In other words, bad behaviour begins in bad doxology.
It is a fascinating view of ethics: Bad behaviour begins with bad praise, or, in other words, bad behaviour begins with what we believe to be of worth.
The Festival
I hope the Festival manages through our fiesta days on the Green, and through celebrating the Arts together in this community, to encourage, stimulate and challenge each of us to find again what is worthwhile in life. This is the beginning of true worship. I hope we can find in our experiences together in this act of Festival the personal resources to find a new depth to life and a new commitment to transform the lives of those in need both in our own communities and further afield.
May God bless us as we Festival together.
Corpus Christi and the blessing of Altar Kneelers
The Feast of the Thanksgiving for the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is a major Festival at St Michael’s, attracting representatives from churches all over Chiswick and further afield. There were eight con-celebrant priests this year and the preacher was our neighbour, Fr Simon Brandes, the new Vicar of St Nicholas, Chiswick, who gave an inspiring and passionate sermon on the meaning of Our Lord’s command to “Do this in remembrance of me.” The outdoor procession was a moving witness, with an air of a Mediterranean fiesta about it, as people gathered outside the
Tabard in silence as the procession passed by. At the beginning of the Mass, the Vicar blessed four new altar kneelers which had been newly made by members of the congregation, who had sent months with their tapestries – “every stitch a prayer.”
They are a marvellous addition to our worship, the “Holy, Holy, Holy” of these kneelers reflecting the same words high up on the chancel screen and reminding us of the holy presence of God as we receive the sacrament each week. Many thanks to all who laboured to the glory of God, to provide us with such a wonderful gift.
News from the front!
We are very saddened by the malicious damage done to our Stained Glass windows in church, which have been part of our church for nearly a hundred years. And for the perpetrators of the crime. It is hard for us to understand why they did it. It happened sometime around Bank Holiday Monday. Four windows in all were affected.
We found that the basement to our Parish Hall had been flooded by a leak from one of the Hall toilets. This meant that Art Exhibition boards were all contaminated and so was the Tombola stand. Very many thanks to our Church Wardens and John Scott and his team for disinfecting the boards and repainting them and averting what could have been a major disaster.
Our Parish Office was broken into the last weekend of May. Fortunately, there was very little stolen and very little damage done.
- 000 -
Retrospective
Eileen McGregor
The month of May started with Ascension Day. This was celebrated with a service for children after school, followed by a Choral Eucharist in the evening which was enriched by some fine singing from the choir. The second Sunday of May was the Feast of Pentecost when we marked the birthday of the Church. Later in the month we celebrated Corpus Christi and welcomed as our preacher for the occasion Father Simon Brandes, the new vicar of St Nicholas Chiswick.
May saw the return of the West London Bach Consort and Players after their winter break. They are now over half-way through singing the entire cycle of Bach’s cantatas, which provide a marvellously reflective way to round off a Sunday evening after Evensong. There was a retiring collection in aid of the Upper Room which was generously supported by the audience.
The Charities Group was busy during Christian Aid week. They organised collections in church and at the tube station which, together with the money raised in January at our Quiz Supper, realised a healthy sum for this worthy cause.
Preparations are now well underway for Green Days and the Bedford Park Festival which starts with the Art Exhibition Preview on Friday June 6th. We are hoping the weather on Green Days will be a little drier and warmer than it has been recently. For the past two years I have commented on the above average rainfall we’ve had during May. This year has been very similar but again it has failed to dampen our spirits and done wonders for the church garden, cared for so well by Susan Hunt and her team. We look forward to a very green, and hopefully sunny, Green Days!
- 000 -
Livability
An article collected by Carol Douglas
This is a name or sign you may come to recognise in the future. It is the new charity founded by the joinder of two former charities—John Groom and the Shaftesbury Society—which merged in 2007 and took the name in April 2008.
To mark the occasion, and the work of Livability, a service of celebration was held in Westminster Abbey at noon on Tuesday April 22nd 2008. The service was led by the Dean of Westminster Abbey (The Very Reverend John Hall), who also gave the address. The Patron of the charity, HRH The Princess Royal, was in attendance, as was the Lord Mayor of Westminster.
As we entered the west door we were greeted by the pre-service music; near the door, the young drummers from the Victoria Education Centre and Sports College, Poole, Dorset, (all of whom were in wheelchairs) and up by the great screen, the London Community Gospel Choir, who were just getting into “O Happy Day” followed by a selection of other gospel songs. The whole Choir and Nave were packed with both the able bodied and those who had one or more disability.
Also amongst those taking part was Canon Roger Royle, himself a vice President of Livability. Under the heading “Testimony”, he interviewed two young people who are residents of the charity living in their own specially equipped accommodation. They are supported, of course, but can live independent lives and have part-time jobs. (John Groom’s Housing Association is part of the charity and is now known as Livability Housing.)
During the service the epistle was read by Princess Anne and the Gospel by the President of Churches Together in England. Prayers were led by various members of the charity. At the close the Princess Royal was presented with a bouquet of flowers by a young chair-bound girl and we left the cathedral to the strains of the Toccata from Widor’s Symphony No. 5 and peals from the Abbey’s bells.
A fitting tribute to the start of a new era for the work begun over 160 years ago by two great Christian Gentlemen. (John Groom was a young apprentice silversmith when he decided to dedicate himself to changing the future for the impoverished and disabled people he saw around him. The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury was one of England’s greatest social reformers with concerns which included education, public health and improved working conditions).
Website www.livability.org.uk