Dear Sisters and Brothers,
I write this on the day that GCSE results come out. The first thing is to congratulate students for the results they have received at “A” Level and GCSE level. And to remind them that their value is not counted on the number of passes or attainment in their courses but in their dignity as those made in the image and likeness of God. We are not our “scores”. Some readers will have the added level of anxiety over how grandchildren have progressed, whether in exam years or just simply in their studies. Frustratingly the thing we all long to do with our loved ones, to hug and kiss, is currently forbidden. This is so hard.
Congratulations, too, to teachers and parents who have striven, over these past months, to help students in whatever way you have longed to. For those of us for whom this has not been a personal concern, simply asking our friends how things are, showing interest, is one way we can offer support.
September brings memories of a new academic year – with all the excitement or anxiety that has meant over the years. One of the things that excited me was the opportunity to engage with a new subject. In those first classes, I was a blank sheet. I wanted to learn something new. I was open to be inspired and thrilled with whatever was thrown at us. Inevitably the enthusiasm wore off as homework, complexity and new demands on my brain made me less engaged. One of the ways of describing this experience is “hitting the wall”, reaching that point in your life that you have run out of energy.
Back in March we probably all thought that by September, life would have returned to normal. It hasn’t. Schools, hopefully, are going back but students have missed critical time and education will be hugely demanding on them, their parents and their teachers. Church has returned and it hasn’t. We are open but our behaviours are circumscribed by social distancing. Music is creeping back but presently hymn singing is forbidden. Refreshments, face to face meetings, group activities await permission. Church is not what it once was. It all feels a bit like “hitting the wall”.
Where is God when we “hit the wall”? Jesus Christ is, as Hebrews reminds us, the same yesterday, today and forever. Our task as Christians, is to seek him. Some find it easy to think of God when things are going well. Others find the divine presence in their sorrow and pain. Finding God when things are dull, boring and repetitive, can be a trickier task. Part of the discipline of daily prayer is about putting ourselves in the Lord’s presence, whatever else is going on around us. Keble, the Victorian poet and priest, reminds us that we can locate God in the “trivial round, the common task”, that is, in the ordinary things with which we fill our lives. God is in the washing up, the driving to work, the cleaning of our homes, if we would but look.
When we “hit the wall”, when we run out of our own steam, we learn to rely less on our own energy and learn to draw on God’s Holy Spirit. This is not magic. There is no formula for this – other than learning to wait, in stillness, on God. Look through the psalms. You see this idea scattered across them. There is only so much we can do. When we reach that point that we realise that we can do no more, when we “hit the wall”, that is the point when God can begin to do things with and for us.
I end this letter with the final part of Isaiah 40. It seems to me that Isaiah knew what it meant to “hit the wall”, to run out of imagination and energy and ideas and purpose. Read these words as a gift to you, whether you are bouncy with anticipation of a “new term” or whether you feel yourself going under with the weight of all that is happening to you or whether you are simply our of puff.
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
With love and prayers,
Julian
Rector