Letter to the Parish. July 2026
In the Church’s Calender we are in Ordinary time. Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany quickly led in to Lent and Easter which then moved on to Pentecost – and then breathe. Time to get on with planning for the future, see what changes should be looked at, review the last 12 months as a united benefice based around Tavistock.
But sometimes things aren’t particularly ‘ordinary’. Life events are no respecter of time, wealth, age, gender, or any other category. Things happen.
I often use verses from Ecclesiastes 3 at funerals – it is well known and talks about a time for every matter under heaven. ‘Time to be born, a time to die; a time to laugh, a time to cry; a time to throw away and a time to gather together’. Most life events are covered, and it gives a reassurance that you are not being picked out for random events by some puppeteer God who loves to pull our string. Sometimes things happen.
But I am not fatalistic. The God of the bible is fully engaged in world events, right down to knowing how many hairs are on your head (and how many will fall out with your treatment), not in some statistical analysis way but with a loving heart and full involvement. This tension between random things happening (good and bad) and a God who loves us is quite a difficult one.
God is not the cause of events because in love God has given us free will and we have run the world long enough for things to come back and affect us. But neither is God distant with a ‘they have made their bed now lie in it’ attitude. Rather God is with us and wants to walk with us, share in the good times and the bad, hear our prayers and praises and rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
Sometimes I think I would prefer a slot machine God, pay in your good deeds and withdraw your savings when times are bad, but in reality I don’t think I will ever earn enough points for that system to work. So it is back to living in the love of God, knowing that the happenings of life are also in God’s hands and that God will walk with me through it all.
Nick
Team Vicar