FRIENDS 

 

It only seems 2 minutes since Karen and I were packing boxes at our old house and thinking about moving with the prospect of settling in over a long hot summer!!!  Well we have at least moved, but what happened to the summer?

 

Moving house is a difficult experience and not to be advised unless all else fails.  The older we get, the worse it gets.  What seemed easy when we were younger now becomes a real problem.  I am not just talking about physically moving, it is the same with life. Suddenly you look round and realise that you have spent your life collecting things you don’t really need.

 

I am ashamed to admit that I personally made at least 20 trips to the tip.  Karen made the astute point that having once made a “cull” of things to throw out at our old address, we then did the same thing at the new one.   We go through life collecting things in case “they might come in useful”, then we go to car boot sales to exchange useless junk with other people.

 

What makes us so reluctant to trim down the things we have to what we really need?  I am not just speaking about boot sales, I am also speaking about the church.

 

September is a time, not for a Spring clean, but for a “starting again”.  I am always amazed how much the church year echoes the education year.  As we return to a fresh church year, we all have to make the determined stance to look again at the things which we have collected in our lives, in our churches, in our traditions and ask “is this useful?”  We have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but neither can we continue to do things just because we have always done them a certain way.  At my induction, the Moderator spoke eloquently about the need for moving on, he referred to the Children of Israel wandering in the desert following the pillars of cloud and fire – moving on when they moved on.  “It is time to move the tent” he said, but how and where to?  Please read the article inside headed “Vision Day”, to find out how you can have your say about when and where we move on to.

 

God Bless,        Alan Poolton