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It is no accident that a meal is at the heart of our religious celebration. There is something about the communal nature of a meal which makes us more human. We’re a social animal, and meals are a way of sharing what we have with those we wish to be close to.
All of that came to mind yesterday when, after Saturday’s mission, we had Mrs H over to lunch. She seemed to enjoy the fellowship at chapel, and it was clear from her Bible that it was well-thumbed. She said later that it had been a thoroughly good time. She came back, as it happened with the Pastor, for lunch, so we were able to relax (as he was taking her home afterwards) and enjoy ourselves. It was a thoroughly convivial occasion, and so nice that the loneliness from which she has suffered was dissipated.
It all brought home the atomisation which our society imposes on us. I still live within twenty five miles of where I was born, and I was able to see my old mum every day until she died at the grand old age of eighty eight, twenty five years go. But not one of my children lives within a hundred miles of where I live. When the time comes that Mrs S or myself is called, then whichever of us is left will find themselves pretty much alone. We’re fortunate, we have friends, although as we took stock, fewer than a couple of years ago, as the Grim Reaper makes his way among us. We also have the community of the chapel, and that is something we treasure. But what of those like Mrs H who lose that contact?
As she said, because she’s perfectly healthy, she’s of no interest to the doctors or social services. As it was her later husband who used to drive her to chapel, she’s no way of keeping in proper touch with a community twenty miles away, and he children live in the south. So there she is, alone. She’s not poor – her late husband provided well for her, and all she lacks is what we were able to provide – human contact and company.
It set me to thinking about how many more people like Mrs H there are hereabouts, and about whether Mrs S or myself is headed in the same direction in years to come. So we’ve decided that we’re going to take the area within a five mile radius of our chapel and do some door-knocking. We’ll do it during the day, because we’ll find then only those who are not at work. It seems a good way to make contact with people, not least those like Mrs H who are home alone -but don’t much like it.
We’ll have to see how it goes, but since we’ve a few like myself and Mrs S who are retired and have time on our hands, it should be simple enough. We can’t invite them all chez Sales (though I suppose we could do a rota) but we can invite them all to the fellowship at the chapel. It’ll be the famous tea and biscuits, of course – but it is more than that. It is a sharing of time and space.
I spent most of my ministry knocking on doors and I can vouch for its efficacy and joy. Great to see my chalice. That was given to me by a man who had spent years in prison. I visited him one afternoon, the following Sunday he was at the Eucharist and continued to worship at All Saints Roskear. He gave me the chalice when I left. My Bishop wanted me to go to St Stephen’s Launceston. He died two years ago.
I really loved your chalice, Malcolm. Sometimes objects say more than one thing, and this chalice was one of them; it speaks to me of communion We forget the importance of knocking on doors, and this is why we do our mornings out doors on Saturday. It puts us where people can come to us. We are now doing a campaign within a five mile radius of the chapel to see whether there are others we can help. Already, the foodbank is proving a huge success – but that it should come to this in one of the richest countries in the world.
I shall be remembering you in my prayers Geoffrey. I spend a lot of time hanging around in the local co-op. You’d be surprised the number of people who come up to me for a friendly chat. We don’t always talk about God, but I’m there as the Lord’s representative.
Thank you, Malcolm. Yes, we have found that activity in the local Coop works very well. We’re still a fairly tight-knot community, but what happened at the week end reminded me that we’re not as we used to be. Folk slip through the net, and we must be more vigilant fishers.
It reminds me of a young training chaplain who would visit people in the hospital, the sick and the dying. His secular college or university professor made fun of the comfort he offered ”That is it. You make small talk about their family and things they like?” He felt maybe the professor was right maybe he should talk about other more important things. Over the years he learned that what he was listening to was the subject, the sick and the dying held to be the most important thing in their life, they were talking about the the most important thing they had to offer love. They were talking about who they loved and why and their worries of those who the left would be alright. their death was not that important, those they loved was. This was the theology of love. The idea that love must be an intellectual conversation belongs in the college classroom. If we have souls then we are eternal and therefore love is eternal.
I am the image of God, and I need love, perhaps God made us because he needed someone to love too.
We certainly recognise n ourselves a need for love, and it raises that interesting question of what it means to say we are made in the image of God.