For most of my life water has played an important part.  Like everyone else I began life floating in the waters of my mother's womb.  My formative years were spent by the North Sea, at Seaham - the Hamlet by the Sea.  My first Curacy was spent at Boston by the Wash which is daily fed by its four great rivers - the Witham, the Nene, the Welland and the Great Ouse.  The thought of flooding is never far away from the minds of those who live in the Fens.  My first incumbency was spent in Cumbria near to the English Lakeland.  Now, on a day off I love to visit Aldeburgh for an invigorating dip in the sea.  So Sea, Rivers and Lakes hold many memories for me.

The human story also has its tides and floods.  What strange forces wax and wane to influence the spiritual vagaries of human culture.  In the conflict between good and evil, the outcome flows this way and that.  Each new phase brings its gains and losses - advances and retreats.  The danger is that the community of faith can and, at present, has been marginalized.  Matthew Arnold's poem Dover Beach has often been used to illustrate this:- "The Sea of Faith retreats and all the poet now hears is "IT'S MELANCOLY, LONG WITH-DRAWING ROAR"!

Yet unlikely though it may seem at present, the tide CAN and WILL be turned.  So how can we regain our nerve and present the fact that God is "at the centre" of all things?  Well, first, our own faith must be rekindled.  Sadly, many of our religious ideas and doctrines and practices have ceased to have a common currency.  For the majority - they no longer capture attention - fire the imagination - or bring the world to life.  In this, the Third Christian millennium - we must make it our ambition to catch the attention of the whole community - fire its imagination and provoke its thirst for the living waters of spiritual reality.

Where better to start to search for the living waters of spiritual reality than in our own church building - for God is there too - at the centre of EVERYTHING - bringing the building wonderfully to life - if only we had the imaginative power to recognise His presence.  As soon as we enter the church we encounter the FONT.  Font means FOUNTAIN, and it represents the River Jordan.  Every time we enter the church and see the Font - our hearts and minds should be LIT-UP by the memory that we once crossed that river, and now live in the Promised Land, where HEAVEN comes to EARTH.

As Christians we should do all in our power to seek to extend Christís Kingdom - a Kingdom of unity, peace, love and joy.  Christ himself was baptised by John the Baptist (or, as one modern translation of the Bible describes him - "John the Dipper") in the River Jordan.  When Jesus came up out of the waters the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon him and God the Fatherís voice was heard from heaven affirming the ministry of his divine Son.  That special watery moment marked the beginning of Christís ministry.  What a joy what a privilege it is to share in that ministry and seek to extend his kingdom in this place in all that we do, and say and are.
 
 

With Summer Blessings,
 

FATHER DAVID