A Letter From Dawn Jenkins, Reader Of The Parish

It’s this time of year that Keats’s “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” seems to be best at home. We’ve had a few cool early mornings in September but the sun still had some warmth to it as we celebrated our Harvest Festival and Harvest lunch and thanked God for His goodness. It was wonderful that so many of you joined us at the Church to join in the celebrations. It seemed to me that as we sang those old favourite hymns “We plough the fields and scatter” and “Come, ye thankful people come” that we have a lot to be thankful for. The harvest around our villages had been safely gathered in, thanks to “the breezes and the sunshine and soft refreshing rain” Even more to be thankful that no one was hurt in the field fire. It was wonderful how the village Face book page kept us all up to date with the event. The dark scar on our landscape, is now slowly giving way to new growth as green shoots appear.

Autumn is a season I love, the bright red rosehips in our hedges, and the wonderful rich shiny browns of the conkers as they tumble to the ground, and if you are up early enough there is that haze which hovers just above the ground before the sun warms it away. Ok, it may be a bit of a romantic view but it means we’ve come full circle and I think this year in our Church it is just that. For the past year we have been without a vicar to lead us forward. As a team we have tried to keep everything running smoothly and we have been very appreciative of all the visiting clergy who have taken our Services, but this month our new vicar Stephen starts! He and his wife are in the process of moving into the Vicarage, in Whitwell. The Licensing Service takes place on Monday 28th October at 7.30pm at All Saints Church, St Paul’s Walden. Everyone is welcome to attend so do please come along.

It seems an appropriate time for Stephen to start as we move forward into November, not only to remember All Saints Patronal Festival and those fallen in our wars, but to then start together the exciting journey through Advent as we await the Christ Child’s birth at Christmas. Fresh starts all-round, “for every thing there is a season”, it says in the book of Ecclesiastes Ch 3. Let’s shrug off that winter chill for a little longer and feel blessed.

Every blessing
Dawn