Dear Friends,
In the orange and green general toolbox on the garage shelf there is a blue Stanley cross-head screwdriver. I got it from the local hardware store not long after we bought our first house and since then it’s been used to fix new doors throughout that house, put up countless bits of DIY furniture and fix here and there bits on our cars more times than I can remember.
It was St. Benedict who likened the faith lived out in his monastic community as a workshop with tools which are lent to us by Christ, to be returned on the Last Day, when we receive our wages. The life of faith being one in which we learn to ‘handle’ things, like the habit of getting on with the work assigned to us, of not passing on blame and of avoiding gossiping. All reassuringly ordinary stuff, in which the habits of community living become as comfortable to us as a well-worn tool in the toolbox or a broken-in set of shoes.
The church calendar reminds us that with the final flourish or Pentecost, the Easter season is over for another year, and as we change our altar frontals and pulpit falls to green, we embark on the long period of (so-called) ordinary time.
St Benedict reminds us that there is much to do and give thanks for in the ordinary. And for him, that took a lifetime to discover. How about us.
Love and best wishes,
Rev’d Ian Hepburn, Team Rector
Turton Moorland Team
