LETTER FROM THE VICAR

July and August are the months of high Summer when the year tips over into its second half. Usually it is a time for holidays, relaxation and hopefully some much needed personal space. And so Summer can be an opportunity to uncover our constant need for recreation: using the word in its best meaning of renewal.

The longing to be made new runs deep within us and is a primary motivation for both worship and prayer. But, if we face the truth, worship and prayer often become frayed at the edges because too often they are crowded into a weekly timetable which is overloaded with other concerns and priorities. Perhaps summertime can provide time, space and renewed energy to do some thoughtful sifting and sorting out.

One glorious summer day, a few years ago, I went to Mells in Somerset to visit the place where the famous poet Siegfried Sassoon is buried. Those familiar with Sassoon will remember how in conversation he usually veered from one extreme to another. He could be virtually tongue-tied with unfinished sentences hanging in the air and such stilted hesitation that no one really understood what he was saying. On other occasions he could be so talkative that no one else could get a word in edgeways! Doctor Rivers, who nursed him after he was invalided out during the war, said of him, “he had a penchant for monologue rather than dialogue”.

The phrase stuck with me. Sometimes it is something similar which frustrates our worship and our prayers. Either we stumble and mutter to little consequence or we say far too much and finish up getting nowhere. During the long days of summer, it might be worth sitting quietly for a while to ask ourselves which happens more frequently to us, especially in prayer - monologue or dialogue? Certainly for worship and prayer to be fulfilling and satisfying we have to train ourselves to move away from monologue and into a deeper and deeper appreciation of dialogue. It can be hard discipline when a daily hazard for every Christian is to settle for talking to ourselves instead of waiting on God and the perennial temptation for the Church is to become self obsessed instead of being open to the movement of the Spirit.