‘A heart-felt moment’
Dear Friends,
Happy Easter and a warm welcome to Monday’s Chaplaincy Companionship email. The 40 days of unremitting Easter Joy has begun, so I hope you find something wonderful to do in each and every one of them!
If you missed yesterday’s Easter Service, you can click this link to see and hear St Salvator’s Chapel Choir, directed by Claire Innes Hopkins with trumpet(s) by Bede Williams, performing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah:
Now we are all coming down off our chocolate Easter Egg sugar rush, the semester continues, and we get back to the new normal of trying to work from home. Please be assured that Donald and I are here to listen and support you through these final few weeks. We are available for a phone conversation or a team meeting. All are welcome to use the Chaplaincy and we are here to support any member of staff or student, regardless of religion, creed, denomination or philosophy of life.
Evening Prayer
Evening Prayer continues every day at 5pm and would love it if you could join me. If you want someone or some situation included in the prayers, please do not hesitate to email me [email protected].
I have a notebook on my desk that is filling up with the litany of names and places, worries and concerns from all over the world. Every day I pray those names and voice those concerns before God. Please let me know if there is someone or something in your life that needs prayer right now and I will add you to my precious prayer list.
This week our evening prayers come from The Iona Community (If you would like a copy of the prayer please email, [email protected]). Prayers are used in various forms at the Abbey on the island of Iona and in many retreat centers all over the world. My own retreat center is The Bield in Perth where Morning and Evening Prayer is said every day and night using the Iona Worship material and Eugene Peterson’s The Message version of the Bible. Therefore, I have used that translation for the lectionary readings and attached the prayers to be said on Monday to Thursday this week.
The Iona Community’s style of worship reflects their commitment to the belief that worship is all that we are and all that we do, both inside and outside the church, with no division into the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’.
The material the Iona Community uses for its services draws on many traditions, including the Celtic, and aims to help us to be fully present to God, who is fully present to us. Each year thousands of visitors usually make their way to Iona and many are changed by their time on this small Hebridean island which has been a powerful spiritual force over the centuries.
In 2004, I took seven students from St Mary’s College of Divinity on a pilgrimage to Iona and it was a life changing experience for all of us. Even if the students did spend a lot of time praying about my driving of the minibus! If you have ever wondered about making a pilgrimage to one of this planet’s ‘Thin Places’, then please do consider Iona when life returns to normal.
And lastly from your Crafty (Assistant) Chaplain…
A Heart-Felt Moment…
Crafters are always looking for the next big challenge. For me within the action of making and doing, mending and creating, God is always present. It is always a joy to discover new ways both to increase crafting knowledge and to bring God into the crafting equation.
Felting is fast becoming the next ‘big’ adventure in the crafting world. For knitters and crocheters, felting feels like a natural progression and is a great addition to crafting skills. From simply using the wool to make an item, crafters apply stress to evolve the wool into another medium. This medium is one that can be used to create amazing items beyond the constraints of knit one, pearl one.
Once you understand what is involved in making felt, it is easy to see how theological resonances abound. When you apply stress to a medium, be it human or wool, it changes fundamentally. But don’t take my word for it. Here is a meditation for a Taizé Service, written by Sarah-Jane Bennison who went on a How to Make Felt event:
‘Recently I learnt to make felt. First take soft, fleecy, combed wool and spread it carefully over a towel. More soft, fleecy wool is spread with the fibers at right angles and more again, laid carefully on top. Next cover the wool with net and splash very hot soapy water over it and rub it so that the wool is soaked.
At first, I did this very carefully, trying not to disturb the fibers, but I soon discovered that the process worked better the harder you rubbed. This had to go on until the fibers were matted together and had begun to shrink. Then the felt, which now miraculously held together, could be turned over and treated to a similar roughness on the other side. This took longer than you might imagine.
Next you had to take the piece of felt and plunge it into very hot, then very cold water over and over again. Finally, the felt was screwed up, wrung out and then thrown violently against the wall for as long as you had the energy to do it.
The finished article was strong, tight, flexible and a third smaller than the size it was to start with. But it has a soft fleecy surface.
I thought that the process was a little like the refiner’s fire in the reading from Isaiah.
So if you feel that through your life you have been pushed and rubbed, squashed and squeezed, shrunk and shriveled, boiled and frozen, chucked around; life has refined you, made you into something beautiful and precious in the sight of God. Made you into a person who He can trust to do His will. What a privilege!’
When I was a Curate, I discovered that every summer one of my Crafters made felt slippers with her granddaughters. As her granddaughters grew, my friend kept the slippers as a record of, not only how tiny their feet were, but of that precious time they spent together creating something unique and special.
Felting, is seems, is synonymous with life and all that God throws at us. If you fancy trying something that takes strength and daring, why not give Felting a go? If nothing else, it will relieve a lot of tension! Perhaps though, through the felting process you will reconnect with God, understand a little bit more about His creative process and help put your own life’s experiences of being metaphorically soaped, screwed up, wrung out and even thrown against the odd wall, all in perspective.
Be blessed, be a blessing and Happy Crafting!
Samantha