Letter to the Parish. September 2026
September marks the beginning of a new year for many people. The end of summer, new school term, university calling, perhaps the start of a first job or apprenticeship. For me it is about planning the next cycle in the church calendar – Harvest, Remembrance, Advent, Christmas, and Lent is so early next year there is hardly any break (Ash Wednesday February 10th, with Easter on March 28th).
New beginnings are important. If things have been difficult it is good to deal with them and then draw a line (burying things and hope they go away is entirely different and not healthy). Moving to a new school is a chance to reinvent yourself; new job new me. But what if we have no big changes, can we still start again?
A hymn written by John Keble (a long time ago) began with this verse:
New ev'ry morning is the love
our waking and uprising prove;
through sleep and darkness safely brought,
restored to life and pow'r and thought.
It might literally be the dawn of the next day but equally the start of a new way of being, the end of an era (through sad events or good) which you positively grasp and cause to be. The love Keble is writing about is the love of God for each one of us; the one with whom we can start again each day.
The thought of sleep as an image of death and waking as rebirth has been around since Greek mythology and is featured in other faiths; it is a profound thought that not just at the start of a new term, or new job, or the birth of a new baby, but everyday we are born again, the past part of us and yet gone; the new day full of potential and yet we life in this moment.
I’m getting all philosophical with what started as thoughts to bring us into the autumn season, but perhaps we should grasp the newness of each day, each term and empowered by God’s sustaining love live each day re born.
Nick
Team Vicar