We all met in the bandstand (welcome to Jon’s family who have not been before and Anthony).

After most of us tried ice skating on the frozen puddle we stood together in the sunshine.

Easter Sunday morning views of Riber Castle

This is the day:

When tears are wiped away,

Shattered hearts are mended,

Fears are replaced with joy.

This is the day:

When the Lord rolls away the stone of fear,

Throws off death’s clothes,

Goes ahead of us into God’s future.

This is the day the Lord has made:

Death has no fear for us,

Sin has lost its power over us,

God opens the tombs of our hearts

to full us with life.

This is the day – Easter Day!

Christ is Risen

Hallelujah!

Easter Eggs – Fairtrade of course!

Have a guess how many chocolate Easter eggs are sold each year in the UK.

(Answer, more than 80 million.)

Easter Eggs are an Easter tradition – why?

Christians have been very clever at taking over existing symbols and making them their own. Eggs were used in Pagan times to symbolise new life and fertility in a spring festival. So early Christian missionaries used the symbol of the egg to tell the story of Jesus death and resurrection.

Throughout history there have been lots of different stories that have added eggs into the Gospel stories, but the main Christian symbolism of the egg are as follows:

• The egg represents the stone that was rolled away from the front of the tomb.
• The egg should be empty as it represents the empty tomb.
• The hard shell has to be broken to demonstrate that the power of death was broken through the resurrection of Jesus.
• Eggs represent new life through Jesus. The new life Jesus had when he rose from the dead and the new life that is offered to us when we become Christians.

Eggs were traditionally given up during the fast of Lent – so they are used once again when feasting to celebrate that Jesus had risen.

Chocolate is used today as it is a real luxury and again something some people give up during Lent.

It takes the whole crop from one cocoa tree to make 16 Eggs of this size.

To make The Real Easter Egg one cup of Fairtrade chocolate (125g) is melted to 28 degrees (like a warm bath!). The liquid chocolate is dropped into two half-egg moulds which are pushed together and spun, very fast, for 20 seconds. When the two moulds are separated, the hollow Real Easter Egg is released. So Chocolate eggs are made by melting chocolate and placing it in a mould.

The Jews were expecting a messiah very different from Jesus .

 His life and teaching broke the mould.

He spent time with the poor, needy, sick and socially unacceptable.

Jesus death and resurrection also broke the mould –

smashing the power that sin and death have over us.

We broke the egg and ate some remembering that today we celebrate

Jesus is risen 

Nurtured, cared for, loved

So Jesus died for us and nurtures us through our lives.

Paul gave out the sunflowers, now growing –  with a plant label which read – nurtured, cared for, loved (Seeds having been planted a few weeks ago and they were thriving).

Michele shared a brilliant piece of sand art by Joe Castillo on a youtube clip

                                                                       He is Alive

HAPPY EASTER!

Easter coming…

Spring is in the air …

What’s that Soul Space cancelled because of blizzard conditions?

Snow underfoot actually in the bandstand.

Snow usually stays on the outside of the bandstand. We will have to start a collection so we can purchase some walls – heaven forbid!

Unheard of in the three and a half years we have been meeting and its nearly the end of March.

Have a happy and blessed Easter.

I hope that we won’t be being fooled on April 1st!

The latest questions we pulled out of the hat at HEAD SPACE in the pub were:

• Who was the last person who made you laugh out loud,? What happened?
• What bad habits in other people annoy you the most?
• Who has made a positive difference in your life and why?
• What is so good about celibacy, could you cope with it?
• If you could be someone different for a week, who would you be and why?

and the most spiritual question of all…

• What is the stopping distance of an 860 ton, 1/4 mile long Eurostar travelling at 200 mph?

answers on a post card please !!!

We’re sorry to have to cancel our Easter Soulspace – the snow just makes it so unlikely that many will be able to come and some of us who would be setting up might struggle too! We wish everyone a truly joy-filled Easter and will be in touch about future dates!

Wendy

I received a certificate yesterday in the post saying we are a Fairtrade Church.

Fairtrade Church Certificate

We are pleased on two fronts.

• The work we have done to promote Fairtrade has been recognised.
• We have been recognised for what we are, and that is a church.

Lent is traditionally a time when people sacrifice something either as a penance or as a detoxification from an indulgence. We can also plan to do something that will be more proactive and that will benefit our community, environment, world or mankind in general..

Tear Fund produced a Lent Course in 2012 called The Carbon Fast which we used for some ideas this morning.

“There is a lovely verse in Genesis: “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (3:8)

The story hurries on towards its famous climax. But everyone who has been to a hot country will know the joy of feeling the evening breeze as the day turns, the temperature drops, the light and colour return to the land.

To realise that God too, embraces the cool of the evening is to understand that the earth is created for his pleasure. Its beauty, its variety and all its delights are there for God. And God shared them with us, his creatures, in love.

Herein lays the true character of stewardship, that care for the earth is our sacred task as God’s companions, for his pleasure and for our salvation. Such is the word of the Lord.”

From The Carbon Fast in Hong Kong by The Most Rev. Paul Kwong, Archbishop and Primate of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, also known as Hong Kong Anglican Church.

***

We might have all been wishing we were walking in a garden in the cool of the evening of a hot day instead of a freezing cold morning, but the whole earth “the variety and all its delights are there for God.”

We are privileged to be in the park which contains a lovely garden.Imagine you are walking with Jesus, seeing what he is seeing, enjoying what he is enjoying, delighting in the variety of what we have around us and thinking of the life that is waiting to burst forth in spring.

As you walk round have a “conversation” – and reflect on how God might want you to care for his earth.

Some ideas that might help from www.greenchristian.org.uk

Using your LOAF:

LOCAL : Do you consider sourcing locally produced goods?

ORGANIC : Could you consider buying organic goods or gardening more organically?

ANIMAL FRIENDLY : Do you consider the way animals are treated in when you are shopping?

FAIRTRADE : Could you buy more Fairtrade products?

*

And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

In a few moments of silence

Let’s ask God that our actions may help us to walk more in step with Him so that we may be a blessing to our global neighbours and the rest of creation.

Sharing bread and wine.

What do we bring to Christ’s table?

We bring bread,

made by many people’s work,

from an unjust world

where some have plenty

and most go hungry.

At this table all are fed,

And no-one is turned away.

Thanks be to God.

Take the bread.

What do we bring to Christ’s table?

We bring wine,

made by many people’s work,

from an unjust world

where some have leisure

and most struggle to survive.

At this table all share the cup

of pain and celebration,

and no-one is denied.

Thanks be to God.

Take the wine.

This bread and wine shall be for us the body and blood of Christ!

Our witness against hunger,

Our cry against injustice,

And our hope for a world

Where God is fully known

And everyone is fed and loved.

Thanks be to God.

Blessing.

In a world of excess and waste,

Lord, help us bring care and respect.

In a world of inequality,

Lord, help us bring your justice.

In a world of selfishness,

Lord, help us to be generous.

In a world of greed,

Lord, help us to be contented. Amen.

Had a good evening last night discussing how we might update our website and give a truer impression of Soulspace with Phil- a-million-monkeys-Smith. Thanks Phil for your patience and wisdom and advice – we may yet get ourselves geared up for facebook!

Prayer was centred around a new feature – a wooden cross based on the one at St Non’s, St David’s Pembs which has featured on a couple of pilgrimage days for some of us. It was made by Jonathon Hemingray, based in Derby – do look at his stuff on www.jonathonhemingray.co.uk – he’s fantastic!

We used our Celtic evening prayer, holding stones representing those we were holding in prayer and making time for silence too. We had stones with our initials around the cross with candles too and later divvied up our usual ‘Secret Santa’ style prayer partners for Lent: we all pray for someone in the group though we don’t know who is praying for us.

Good to see Colin back in the country and catch up on some of his and Michele’s adventures. Thanks everyone for a lovely evening x

We were greeted this morning in the bandstand with two mystery bundles.

So what what was that all about then?

Paul talked about recently having seen the film Les Miserables – the over riding message that he got from the film was “Redemption”

Whatever we are really like, however dark and polluted we are there is a chance to be made clean.

He illustrated this beautifully by stirring up some disgusting water (one of the mystery bundles uncovered) taken from his drain. Saying no-one really knows what goes on inside us. We all thought Paul was going to give us some juicy confessions as he stirred up the disgusting liquid and talked about himself. 

Then he revealed the other bundle – a container of clear, pure liquid. Illustrating that we are made clean through what Jesus has done for us.

As we shared the bread and wine some wine was spilled which beautifully served to show the symbolism of the cleansing redemptive blood of Jesus.

Polluted water, wine spilled and crystal clear water

Hollywood may have had its success with Eat Pray Love, but I reckon Lent got there first with its emphasis on Fast Pray Give! Today in rain, rather than snow, we began to prepare for Lent so that Ash Wednesday doesn’t take us by surprise. We all had a sheet to take away, with the following captions:

Fast – from my usual habits.

Ask God to inspire you to know what would be good to give up and/or to take up…

This Lent I will fast by….

Pray – more.

Consider what you might do differently / better this Lent. Where and when and how will you pray differently?

This Lent I will pray more by….

Give– whenever you can – of time, money, thoughtfulness…

Will your fasting mean unspent money?

Who / what will you donate it to?

Ask God to open your imagination and your eyes to see opportunities to give to others – family, friends, colleagues, strangers… Make it a personal challenge to out-do your usual efforts to be generous / to find at least one thing to do in service of others in each of the next 40 days!

This Lent I will aim to give….

Our time of worship focussed on the pretzel – something devised by monks reflecting the common prayer position from the early 600s of folding your arms over each other on your chest and putting your hands on your shoulders. Additionally, the three holes in a pretzel are said to represent the Holy Trinity.

We adopted this prayer position as we reflected upon what things needed to be addressed, rectified and forgiven over these next 40-or-so days. The pretzels became our bread in sharing bread and wine.

Liturgies we’ve used before framed our prayers – and despite the damp and cold, something special was shared – not least in blessing one another for the coming season, when, please God, we might all be moved on in our journey with Christ.