e-newsletter 10 January

Beloved in Christ

We celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany on Sunday, although the actual feast day was on Monday 6^thJanuary.   I have been thinking of that epic journey through this frosted season, specially whilst trudging through my first northern hemisphere winter.

I have decided to share the great poem read by its poet, T S Eliot, so that you can enjoy his own voice.  https://youtu.be/BCVnuEWXQcg

T. S. Eliot reads “Journey of the Magi”Check out my Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/bob_toomey.A rare recording taken from a live interview T. S. Eliot did for the BBC, broadcast during World …youtu.be

Now, we too journey to gift the Christ-child with ourselves. As Pope Francis says, may we be attentive, untiring and courageous specially during this extended lockdown: it has been a hard, long and uncomfortable journey, with great expectations, calling us to use our endurance, patience, wisdom and knowledge to get us there.  (Did you know that on the 21 December 2000 Saturn and Jupiter aligned, giving the brightest star seen for 800 years, and before that, perhaps reaching back to the time of Christ!) It is time to be led by faith, which is proven attestation to it becoming proven fact!

We found friends, co-journey-ers, weary travellers and even those who did not have our own interests at heart; we had to deal with the demons of our minds, which tugged us, lured us away from our direct calling to see the Incarnation of God!  We would also have met the maniacal leaders like the Herods of our time, playing friend, protector, leader, but in truth, a deadly enemy.

We were all trusting that lockdown would ease up, and we re-discovered different joy – a small parcel gift of hours which could be spent with family, and as we went to church, to nativity scenes, carols, baubles and lights –  and met our dear friends.

Now like the Magi, we find that lockdown has made our journey back ever-wearying, endless featureless and bleak, to be honest, just like the Magi, whose return home made them world-weary and cynical.

However, as much as we have to endure, remember and refresh ourselves, we too know that our lives will be changed forever, set in the memory of 2020 Covid.

Yet, dear friends, we have a lifetime of Christmas memories to cherish, a stable and co-operative community, the love and support of each other, so we shall become more and more positive and active in our love of Christ and in our reaching out to each other.

That is my prayer: will you join me? We give thanks for this and so much more, and yearn to re-unite as soon as the time is right.

READINGS FOR SUNDAY ARE:

Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephes. 3:1-12

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

Matthew 2: 1-12

Please see the attached invitation to join the new group in, ’JOIN THE CONVERSATION’.  It is on this TUESDAY, the 12^th at 7pm till 8pm, on Zoom. Would you please email wassap or message or phone me to say whether you will be able to come or not.  It is a big step in faith and Zoom will connect our multi- denominational engagement.  The topic, HOW DOES GOD GUIDE US? is enticing, isn’t it? I really urge you to commit yourself to this.

Next Wednesday, the 20^th, our weekly Zoom chats resume.  We will start on the project by reading the gospel of Mark, as in this Church Year B we will be studying this first gospel.  It is short and seminal: only 14 chapters, so it will only take a few weeks. All you need is your own favourite translation, and be willing to take a turn in reading! I will re-send the link next week.

Our bishop has asked me to formally notify you of the nation-wide closure of places of worship until our Advisory Committee gives us the go-ahead. Our thinking, closing after Christmas day, was right, and we as vestries will talk further as we receive guidance.

We are planning the New Year, and have some weeks before Lent starts on the 17^th February.  Then the journey through Covid will surely ease as well.

I hope to be chatting to each of you on the phone soon.

God bless, stay at home safely, trustfully and courageously

—
Revd Katharine Ann Barrable M Ed., M Th.

Cell 07552503859

Grace and Peace be with you

Beloved in Christ

Peace and Grace! May those qualities permeate our life, and comfort us this year! Perhaps, too, a sense of gratitude, thanking God for being our foundation and aspiration, for giving us meaning and purpose. May you fully grow in the likeness of Christ, being fed to be joyful, contented and active people in the kingdom.

Our church might be closed, but we are open, and now more than ever, WE are the church in the world, spreading that nurture and nature of Christ, from our little actions of kindness and consideration, to coming out of our shells to interact with others in new ways.

We have always been adaptable, the secret of our species, and now ever more so. How have you had to adapt?

The beginning of the year is one for reflection. As our neighbourhood dismantles their Christmas lights and decorations, and as we do too, we clear up and pack away.  What are you able to pack away, store and have access to in a year’s time? What have you outgrown in your thoughts, lifestyle, and spiritual journey?   Perhaps more importantly, what space have you made to accommodate the new, what have you polished up, what have you dusted down for use?  Some of what we have is functional, but some aesthetic, made to enhance our vision and view.  What can Christ use some of each for? What do you look forward to, what is your newness?  Jesus is growing, and so are we! In what ways?  How will we be presented in the temple of God?  Who are the strange visitors who are on the way to visiting us… what gifts do they bring YOU, as you are now in January 2021?

READINGS FOR THE DAY ARE

Sirach 24: 1-12: a beautiful passage to us, the ones chosen of God, and whose tent God inhabits, in this neck of the woods!

Eph. 1:3-14 (My favourite verses!) God has created YOU (AND EACH PERSON AROUND  YOU) to be born at this precise time, for God’s purposes in creation. What a gift to have this life, this moment in God, and to look at what we are doing with God’s gifts!

Psalm 147: 13-21

John 1: 1-18.  We have used this reading at least three times in the past month, and I’d recommend that you try reading it in different translations.  It will speak to you personally about Christ of eternity, past present and future!

Let’s allow our worship to be full of sacred curiosity, and let us give extra time to reading of the Word, and prayer.

In some ways, we can be overwhelmed by the excess of online resources, and all those others send us. We can get lost in pursuit of services, so many of which are livestreamed.  Our Diocese continues to record beautiful and inspiring ones on www. Episcopal church of Scotland, there at the touch of your finger! By the way the Church of Scotland in Tayport and Newport have services online too).  If I can help you to find these or any others you might be interested in, just let me know! Also, if you have sourced some interesting links, do share them!

Let us share our experience, and open up a little to each other – beyond the cursory, I’m fine!’  Let’s pick up the phone and speak to each other, as much for the other as for our own needs.  Thus we can carry on building community in new ways, and comfort one another!

Let us propose a toast to this year! Cheers!

Blessings in all you do.

Kathy

07552 503 859
—
Revd Katharine Ann Barrable M Ed., M Th.

Grace and Peace be with you

Beloved in Christ. have no idea of the level of celebrations with which you are familiar in Tayport and Newport. I can however picture you safely in your homes, most of which I have visited, full of deep joy and expectation. Next year we will be up to resuming those traditions together!I do remember years of dancing and rushing to the callbox at midnight to phone parents and family, who had only stayed up to hear from me, otherwise would have been fast asleep. Thereafter it was firstfooting and crazy rituals of a very Scottish family into which I had married.  My side, the Davisons, were much more demure about  such boisterous celebrations!  That is, always, in the heatwave of South Africa!I am happy to be here with you, walking the streets, admiring the wondrous lights, with Dundee glittering behind the dark velvet Tay.  Have you seen the magnificence of the full moon tonight? I have never seen it haloed by a rainbow of colours. There are many surprises to anticipate, and I am excited about those too! Looking at a string of Christmas lights in the sitting room, I am reminded at the points of light that each of you shine in the dark. I pray that your connections to the Source, God, will keep that brightness, and string us together from tomorrow on, through a dazzling 2021!Let’s also pray for those who are not feeling so good, including the Tayport Beat family, who mourn Kay, who died on Christmas day. Also, please, pray for Revd Norman Allkins, my rector in South Africa, who has tested positive for Covid (I am increasingly frightened when this pandemic swirls close to me and mine, you and yours.) Let us be vigilant in our safety, steady in our faith, and prayerful for others.In the coming year we, together, will string more little lights together to shine brightly in our churches and communities and in whatever wonderful graces await us. I fully expect God to show us more wonder, brightness and dispelling of the darkness which so many of us have experienced this past year.Let us open the year with a positive prayerful and pleasant attitude.God bless.  Peace and GraceKathyKathy
–
Revd Katharine Ann Barrable M Ed., M Th.

Cell 07552503859

Grace and Peace be with you

Beloved in Christ

John 1: verse 14: ‘The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood.’ (The Message. Eugene Petersen)
Welcome Christ! Our neighbourhood has been talking about your arrival.  We are glad you are moving in to live with us.  We welcome you and will look after you, and share our concerns and lives with you!  
Tonight’s midnight mass at St Margaret’s, and tomorrow’s Christmas service at St Mary’s, both at 11, will be special and poignant.  We will bless our traditional nativity scenes and re-member this picture, this year, different and personal, as Christ comes to share our lives as they are. It remains for us to colour in the picture that is right outside our house! We pray for every one of you and your families this Christmas.  Live in the Light, brighter than the gloom of our winter, and the general gloom that Covid restrictions impose on us. 
To this end, St Margaret’s and St Mary’s churches will be closed from after the Christmas service on Friday in Newport, until the 24th January.  Hard as the decision has been, we need to be sensible and pragmatic.  As much as we take care of ourselves, we should take care of each other.  One of the Vestry members sums it up for us: ‘We feel that given Government advice about the new strain of Covid which is apparently much more contagious and the elderly congregation, it would be wise to close after Christmas day, and then reconsider, dependent on Government advice at that time.  All the omens seem to indicate we might well be in another full lockdown by then anyway. This action not only safeguards the congregation but also the visiting organists.’
There is a lot we can follow online: the Episcopal church’s Sunday and weekday services.Various other interesting podcasts and radio programmes are available.  If you have a special one, please share it with us, so we can all enjoy it together. David Smith offers, ‘This is a link to the best Christmas music that has come my way this year.From Victoria BC, Canada. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9aFPWy6j6eI‘I offer you ,’ Candles in the dark. Faith, Hope and Love in the Pandemic’ by Rowan Williams. It is very readable, in the form of a diary, and unearths some pressing personal and human issues.  You will hear echoes of it in my thoughts in the next few weeks!<image.png>

On Tuesday 14 January our new ‘JOIN THE CONVERSATION’ ecumenical Zoom series starts.  I will be notifying  you of the link and the topic.
On Wednesday 13 January, our weekly  Zoom meeting resumes.  I will re-send the link.  We will do a continuous reading of Mark’s gospel.  All you need to do is bring your version of choice, and we will take turns to read.  It will take a few weeks.
Much as all this technology might be a nuisance to get the hang of, I cannot urgently implore you to set yourself up to join in with us.  It is hugely rewarding to feed our faith, see each other and chat, and get together with any friends near or far who join us: it is an open invitation.
This applies to our groups and to Vestries.  Yes, it is a far second to meeting face to face, but we have to adapt and make ourselves available to others who need US, in ways we might not even admit that we need them! It is a way of sharing ourselves, making ourselves available to others who need us! Readings for Midnight mass are: 

Isaiah 52: 7-10

Hebrews 1: 1-4

John 1: 1-14Readings for Christmas day are

Isaiah 62: 6-12

Psalm 97

Titus 4: 4-7

Luke 2: 1-20
As always, I ask you to call or email me should any need arise, practical, physical, spiritual or mental. We live in the same neighbourhood and we love one another, the mark of a Christian!
God bless

Kathy Barrable07552 503859