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I write this letter the day after the Archdeacon’s Visitation Service which was held at All Saints’ on 17th May. It was a fascinating service with Churchwardens from over 50 parishes (including our own) attending. They listened to the Archdeacon’s charge, (which was a talk covering some of the important things that churchwardens need to ensure are taken forward in their parishes), they then made a public declaration in front of the Diocesan Registrar (who was formally dressed with his gown and wig) and the Archdeacon then ‘admitted’ them as officers of the Bishop. It was a real privilege to have this service at All Saints’ and I have to say that everything that is so good about All Saints’ shone forth. There were beautiful flower arrangements, updated photographs on our notice boards about recent activities and events, Ben and the choir led the music and sang an anthem that was much appreciated by those attending. There were a number of you who came along and helped out with welcoming people as they arrived or helped Lyndon and Ann with the catering. There were so many positive comments from those attending about the friendly and warm welcome, the good food, good music and the sense of God’s love and presence as they came into church. For all of this I want to say ‘thank you’ to all of you. I have been with you now for two and a half years, and throughout this time I have had a sense of us all journeying together as we draw closer to God and engage with the vision that He has for this church both now and into the future. As we journey I am aware of the times when He seems to re-affirm us in our mission and the direction that we are moving in as a church and Christian community, and this Visitation Service for me was one such occasion. By the time this magazine is published and you read this letter we will be just days away from our next Parish Half Day which is on Saturday 5th June (9.30am –12.30pm). These half days have been immensely important, as they have helped us to explore and put shape to the vision that we believe God is giving us for this church. We have a Parish Action Plan which we need to review as much of what we identified needed to be done has now been achieved thanks to your commitment and hard work. However, this doesn’t mean that we can stand still because we are only just beginning to shape the church and our mission for the future, and ensuring that our church has a place and a role in the future as somewhere that represents the presence of God in this community and where people can come to worship and know God is of prime importance for us. God speaks to us in many different ways, such as by putting a thought or idea in our mind, or through specific passages/wise words in the bible. He can and does speak to you, yes you! You might think that you are too insignificant; that you don’t have any ideas or if you do you wouldn’t dare speak about them in case people laughed at you. Please take courage and come and join us at the Parish Day, I too have ideas that are sometimes a bit ‘off the wall’, and it is through sharing them and testing them out that we are able to recognise whether they are things that God wants us to take forward or things that are more my desire than God’s. We are on an exciting journey of discovery and growth, come and journey with us, you will be amazed at what God can and will do. With my love and prayers HOLY BAPTISM 25th April 2010 Evie
Alice, daughter of Rupert and Helen MUSSEN of 2nd May 2010 Alice
Jane, daughter of David and Tina PENDRY of BURIAL OF THE DEAD AND CREMATION 17th March 2010 Alfred BIGGS (aged 81) of Gonville Avenue 20th April 2010 Dennis STRATFORD (aged 70) of Baldwins Lane 21st April 2010 Leonard GARDINER (aged 98) of Croxley House 28th April 2010 Jean DONALD (aged 87) of Dapplemere Nursing Home 5th May 2010 Beryl WHITE (aged 80) of Yorke Road 6th June Trinity 1 13th June Trinity 2 20th June Trinity 3 27th June Trinity 4 Dedication
Festival On Friday, 7th May, Mr. Bob Wright, a volunteer from the Herts. Air Ambulance Service, came along to talk to us about that organisation. He had begun his association with the service 9 years ago with the Essex Air Ambulance, which had been functioning for 11 years, but later he joined the Herts Air Ambulance service. There were then 50 units of the Air Ambulance service in the country. Herts was one of the last counties to have an Air Ambulance, although many groups of people wanted one. Finally, £25,000 was raised to hire an 18 month old helicopter, which was subsequently purchased. The speaker brought along a picture of the machine which was obviously his pride and joy. The service was launched at Stevenage Park in 2008. The ambulance is actually based at an airfield in Essex, as it is too expensive to have it in Herts. It costs £80,000 a month to run the service - £2,000 every time the plane is called out. There is no government funding or Lottery money available, but the service runs its own lottery, which contributes 46% of the running costs; this income is then supplemented by donations from businesses and the general public. The pilot, an ex-RAF pilot, is the only full-time paid member of the crew. The paramedics and doctors who work for the service, although employed by the N.H.S., are all volunteers working in their spare time. There is a crew of three and the plane can reach any part of the county within 15 minutes; all the services work together, going to whatever area they are required; they can only be called out by the Ambulance service. The helicopters can land anywhere - motorways, bridle paths, golf courses – it is hoped eventually to have landing facilities at nearly all hospitals. When called out, they have what is known as ' the 60 minute run ' - 15 minutes to reach the patient, 15 minutes to stabilise the patient, 15 minutes to reach the nearest hospital and 15 minutes to the operating theatre. After each call out the machine has to be thoroughly cleansed and disinfected. It is serviced monthly; during this time the Essex or Beds. Service covers any emergencies. The speaker then gave some examples of when the Service had been used. A man lit a bonfire in his garden; the fire then spread . It was put out, but the anxiety caused his wife to have a heart attack. The Air Ambulance was called and she was transported to a hospital in 10 minutes. In another instance, a man was out walking his dog when he had a fall a long way from the road. Fortunately he had a mobile phone and was able to get help and be transported to hospital. We had a very instructive talk and were given an interesting insight into the work of a very valuable service. Notices:
Today the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, issued his finalised guidelines on prosecution in cases of assisted suicide. They have been eagerly awaited and will now be pored over. The new guidance will not be enough for many who want assisted suicide to be legalised. For them such a law ought to be a human right and enshrine an individual’s freedom to choose how they end their life. The problem is that the dictum ”my life, my choice, my death” does not just affect those who wish to exercise choice in the matter and manner of their dying. It impacts all of us and changes what might be called “the moral ecology”. Additional freedom for the few in being helped to commit suicide places an obligation on others – and indeed on society in general. As the Archbishop of Canterbury observed in a recent address, to move in this direction upsets the balance of freedoms in society and exposes the most vulnerable to greater risks. The Prime Minister affirmed this in a newspaper article on Wednesday. In his guidelines, Starmer refers to the motivation of compassion as a significant factor in deciding whether prosecution was in the public interest. Wrestling over the demands of compassion has always and rightly been close to the heart of the debate over assisted suicide. It is a crucial virtue for any society. But there have been worrying signs, especially in the recent and tragic court cases surrounding the Gilderdale and Inglis families, of a widespread view that compassion is a card which trumps any other consideration. In this climate, fuelled by the media, people can be persuaded to feel that the only compassionate response to a request to assist a suicide is to accede. This could place huge pressure on family members who want to comfort and support a terminally ill relative but not through assisted suicide. They may find themselves buckling under this and living with the moral and emotional consequences. I believe we will hear of this before too long in relation to cases that have moved out of the media spotlight. There are parallels here with what happened in Northern Ireland when Gordon Wilson forgave the paramilitaries who had murdered his daughter at Enniskillen. Even though Senator Wilson had never intended this, other grieving families found themselves resenting him – feeling under a media-influenced obligation to say they had done the same. Forgiveness and compassion are both precious expressions of our humanity, we must be wary of how they can be manipulated through media coverage. As well as compassion, the issue of control has been very much to the fore and we should not miss this. It is hardly surprising that those who have been the most passionate advocates of controlling their death are those who seem largely to have been in control of their lives. Dying brings all of us to a point where we do not have the final word and that calls us back to our humanity in a profound way. There is a world of difference between a society which helps people to die well through excellence in nursing and palliative care, and one which embraces assisted suicide or euthanasia. Burden is another word we increasingly use: the burden of an ageing population, the burden of those suffering from dementia, the burden of care, the financial burden. It is very dangerous for a society when the old and infirm are largely viewed as a burden. Perhaps this is the flip side of our obsession with youthfulness and a preoccupation with a person’s economic contribution to society. Sir Michael Parkinson has recently drawn our attention to the ways in which we are treating – or rather mistreating – those who are no longer able to care for themselves. Up to half a million people are believed to suffer from “elder abuse” at the hands of carers or relatives. How we have regard for the elderly and infirm is a good barometer for our humanity and the wellbeing of society. We must recognise that those who would bear the greatest burden from changing the law on assisted suicide are going to be the most vulnerable. I believe this debate offers us a much needed opportunity to reassess our attitudes and direction as a society . Helping someone to end their life may be described as the humane thing to do but it strikes at something which is deeply human. People from all religious faiths and none recognise there is something hugely significant about the end of a person’s life – it is a sacred moment. Those involved in palliative care are especially conscious of this and not knowing when a person might die is a vital facet. Although it may look otherwise the arguments around assisted suicide are about two different trajectories for our society and that is why passion is running high. I cannot remember an issue that has so united the bishops of the Church of England – not a group famed for their unanimity! I hope this may paradoxically be a sign that this is not all about “religion” but the nature of our humanity and what sort of society we want to be part of. A position paper from the church of England said this: “Suffering may be met with compassion, commitment to high quality services and effective medication; meeting it by assisted suicide or through voluntary euthanasia, however well intentioned is merely removing it in the crudest way possible.” I very much hope that Keir Starmer’s guidelines will be recognised as providing the nuance and discretion needed for our social and moral wellbeing and steer us away from the road to legalising assisted suicide. If we want to build a society which majors on compassion and care, which supports those who are dying or fearful of growing infirm and a burden, there are far better roads for us to travel. <Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited 2010 We acknowledge with thanks permission to use this article from the Rt. Rev Lee Rayfield. Licence to print was received from The Guardian as follows: Permission is granted to All Saints’ Church for reproduction of the article ‘Let’s not take the path of assisted dying’ (entire article, Lee Rayfield, 25th February 2010) Effective date of the Licence 18th May 2010. About the author (from Sally and Charles Parry) “The Rt. Rev. Lee Rayfield, Bishop of Swindon, is frequently called upon to be a spokesperson for the Church of England on medical ethics. He knows this area well because for many years he and his family lived in Rickmansworth and he was an active lay member of Christ Church, Chorleywood. He went from there to theological college to train for ordination and is well known to Sally and Charles Parry. They were working with him in the Parish of Furze Platt, Maidenhead where he was vicar immediately before becoming Bishop of Swindon in 2005.”
In this book, the well known BBC correspondent describes her own investigations into the plight of people who have been abandoned soon after birth and who have no knowledge of who they are or where they came from. She looked into the history of how such foundlings have been treated in the past and how they were cared for (or not) by foundling hospitals and other civic institutions. Towards the end she tells us how in many states of the USA laws have been passed to allow a mother who cannot cope to give up her child, no questions asked. In this country this is not the case and abandonment remains a criminal offence. As an adopted child herself,
Kate Adie brings a personal interest and energy to her investigations,
which bring to light much of what had been well hidden. Be
ready for some tears as you read some of the heart rending stories
of courage and fortitude. June, of course is the month of the summer solstice, the month of the Sun. Sol + stice come from two Latin words meaning ‘sun’ and ‘to stand still’. As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky. The Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, and the Southern Hemisphere celebrates in December. While the Druids worship at Stonehenge and elsewhere, here some Christian alternatives that honour the Creator rather then the created.
A Canticle for Brother Sun
Praised be You,
My Lord, in all Your creatures, St. Francis
of Assissi <Parish Pump THANKS: Thank
you to Miriam and the congregation for their enquiries, prayers
and cards of good wishes in my recent illness. I am feeling
better but rather weak. Thank you very much for all the help
that you have given me. USED STAMPS are being collected by Martin Harris to raise funds for the R.N.L.I. Any such stamps my be left in the box at the back of the Church. Martin would like to thank everyone for donating used stamps and there is a letter from the Life Boat charity at the back of the church. CHRISTIAN AID WEEK, 9th –15th May. Many thanks to everybody who collected money this year especially those who stepped in at the last minute when two people were ill and unable to collect. The All Saints’ collectors raised a total of £1453-46. The bedding plant stall on Wednesday 12th May brought further funds Thank you to those who donated cakes for the stall. CROXLEY REVELS on Saturday 19th June. We will be repeating our very popular lucky dip and hook-a-duck stall and would be grateful of more help this year, as we hope to have more activities. If you can help for an hour or so please contact Lyndon Palmer on 01923 720856 PARISH BARBECUE will be on Sunday 27th June at 12.30pm in the church garden. Tickets £7.50 for adults, £5 for Senior Citizens and children. CROXLEY GREAT BARN: Tour dates are as follows, 29th May, 26th June. 3lst July, 28th August, 25th September and 30th October. Tours commence at 11am and last about an hour. Join at Caravan Lane, Rickmansworth High Street (east end) at 10.30am, then a 10-15 minute walk. Dates for your diary in July 2010:
“My song is love unknown, my
saviour’s love to me, How amazing that God created us that we might delight in his friendship! How incredible that the holy one who made and controls the universe, made us like himself (in his image) and invites us to enjoy knowing him. Intimacy with God: In his love he gave us free will, so that we could choose to love him. But we wanted our own way which created a chasm between us. But God was not fazed! He reached out to us in Jesus who entered fully into our human predicament and died on the cross to pay for our sins and restore to us the lost intimacy. God calls those who respond as his ‘treasured possessions’. In Jesus God became human: We see in Jesus the most truly human person who ever lived. As such he is interested in our every aspect of our humanness including our every day toil and delights. These he uses to shape within us a holy life as we allow him so to do. As the people of Jesus’ time discovered Jesus’ profound humanness; they also began to recognise his deity. God’s holiness was shattering and penetrating as Jesus confronted people as they were. Learning from God’s creation: As we delight in the delicate flower, ponder the stars and the power of earthquakes we encounter God’s handiwork. Added to this in art, science, technology etc, we are privileged to ‘think his thoughts after him’ as since God’s governance of creation is orderly, laws can be formulated to describe his rule. But this does help us to know him intimately. What the Bible tells us: As we ponder the scriptures we can meet God, enjoy him and know his heart. This can help us fulfil the longings we have to know him better. What we see in Jesus: Notice the way he knew the scripture and used it time after time in temptation, in answering his critics and teaching his followers. It was his guide book to reality, truth and love. His mind was saturated with it. The way he quotes it suggests that he soaked in it, meditated on it and memorised it. There are many references in the life of Jesus where we see him making time to be alone to hear from his father because he saw it as vital. He tells us he ‘can do nothing of himself: he can only do what he sees his father doing’. Time spent with God: To read the Bible and pray; to put aside the distractions of the day – not easy – and focus on God to listen to him brings great blessing. We get a greater understanding of his willingness to be involved in our lives, to know his will and therefore be confident in what we do, not merely being hopeful about our own good ideas. God longs to communicate with us: He is looking for people who love him for himself not only for what he does. Who are the people in the Bible who inspire us? Are they not those who know God well? Scriptures to look up? Psalm
1 v1–3, Jeremiah 9 v23–24, Matthew 6 v6, John 5 v19–20, James
2 v23. Dust if you
must, but wouldn't it be better Dust if you
must, but there's not much time, Dust if you
must, but the world's out there Dust if you
must, but bear in mind, <Passed to us by Norma Stone A good likeness
1st prize £25 - Jea
Spencer Acknowledgement MAGAZINE EDITORIAL TEAM MAGAZINE DISTRIBUTOR
Please contact the Church Office for further details 01923 772109. All Saints' Church, The Green, Croxley
Green, Rickmansworth,
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Revd.
Miriam writes: