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An offering for ascension day from our archdeacon Justine Allain Chapman.Dandelion clock.

When was the last time you picked a dandelion clock and blew it til you had nothing left but the stem? If you count how many of your puffs it takes you can tell what time it is, apparently.

The bold yellow flowers are disappearing, they’ve gone to seed and the wind will blow the rest away til we are left with the flat green leaves of the plant, a weed, which we trample on as we walk. I wonder whether that is what has happened to me and my plans. I wonder if that is what has happened to the churches? Once confident and noticed, now almost invisible and to be cast aside.

On the day of the Ascension what the disciples want Jesus to tell them is: Is it the time when you will restore the Kingdom to Israel? We might ask if it is time to restore - normal life, church life?

And Jesus tells them - it is not for you to know the times, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses. (Acts 1:6-7).

The dandelion’s power lies in so many seeds, apparently insignificant, light enough to be carried off by the breeze, visible enough to children walking by who want to play the clock game. The wind and human intervention together trusts to the breath and the wind and enable the seeds to find a place to be fruitful, to settle and again be bright and bold.

So join me today in finding a dandelion clock and trust its seeds as well as yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit, that wind which is unpredictable, but makes us fruitful and able to witness boldly to the love of God for us all. ... See MoreSee Less

Thank you to whoever posted this on the All Saints Moulton site - well worth a share. ... See MoreSee Less

Someone's been having a nibble..... ... See MoreSee Less

**12.04.20 - Easter Reflection by Rosamund Seal**

**Huge apologies - I have tried two or three times to record this and post it here but my phone is struggling with it. **

**But here at the end of another extraordinary week is my offering. Praying for you all and the opportunity to worship alongside you all one day soon.**

As that extraordinarily powerful image, produced by a Polish Jesuit priest which I posted here yesterday, showed, we are living, in these current times, in a very long Holy Week, we feel overwhelmed by it, we watch the numbers creep up daily as more people die, we hear about the heroic sacrifices made by those who work for the NHS and other key workers, we do not know how it is all going to end, we feel powerless to do anything about what is happening and we are fearful for the future, many of us feeling like bystanders as others suffer and others provide the care – we are moved to tears by the images we see on our screens and the stories we hear and the emotions we are trying to cope with ourselves - we simply have to get through it as best we can, and pray and hope.

Today, Easter day, we are supposed to be celebrating the resurrection, and if we were all in church we would be singing and shouting Alleluia at numerous points in the service with a few party poppers thrown in. However, I am always struck by the fact that there are no Alleluias, I repeat, no Alleluias, in the Gospel accounts of the resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection was a fearful and frightening experience for those first disciples. They did not understand what had happened or how they should respond.

The accounts in each of the 4 gospels of what happened on that first Easter morning have some surprising differences but in each of them what we see first is a deep, deep sadness, fear, grief and disbelief. And later on in the evening the disciples gather together in the upper room with the doors locked for fear of the Jews.

Take it from me – that first Easter day was not all joy and alleluias. It was scary. Where had his body gone? what would happen now? who would they follow? would the Jews come after them as they had come after Jesus? had the last three years of their lives with Jesus just been wasted - a mirage; an amazing, confusing and inspiring time which had just come to nothing? What would the future hold? How would they stay together? What had been the point of it all?

The Alleluias, you see, come much later in the Acts of the apostles and the letters of Paul. They come much later, when the significance of the resurrection has begun to be understood, when hope was beginning to be restored and there seems to be the possibility of a future for their new-found faith.

When this current crisis ends, whenever that may be, we will all, like those first disciples be exhausted, relieved it is over; but exhausted and wrung out and grieving all those that we have lost and wondering what it was all about and how on earth we can repair our economy in healthy ways and get everyone back to work.

We need to start thinking now, about what a resurrection from this experience will look like, how we can redeem it, so that the horror and the loss and the privations have not been in vain.

Will we re-evaluate our priorities? Will we continue to maintain the huge groundswell of neighbourliness and community support that has become such a feature of these times? Will we realise what really matters to us? Will we spend more time with those we love? Will we eat & drink less, waste less and live more gently and economically in this world? Will we value those who care for others and serve us, more than we do the rich, famous and powerful? Will we be good news for the poor and oppressed wherever they may live in the world?

On Easter Day the church tells the world that Jesus is risen, that all is not over, that death has not won, that hatred can never win, that love can triumph over evil, that, to use the great words of Paul in his letter to the Romans – ‘*That neither death, not life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.’*

For now, at Easter 2020, while we are still living in Holy Week, that is probably all we can hang on to, but we know we have a resurrected Christ and because of that we know that what will truly make God’s heart sing is if, when we come out of all of this, we find the resurrection that God wills for us and begin to live life differently, to live life more closely to our calling as people of God.

With every blessing for a Holy Easter today, and as you prepare your hearts and minds for the day when this begins to be over. ... See MoreSee Less