A week in the life of Saint James’ and its Vicar!
Monday 24 September
And so to an evening meeting of St James’ PCC (Parochial Church Council). We met to pray, think and talk about the ministry and mission of St James’, as Vicar and PCC members are charged to do. Our agenda ranged from finance and governance through to worship, outreach and pastoral care, via Harvest Festival (Sunday 7 October), All Age Worship, music, KYCKYN (Know Your Church Know Your Neighbourhood), Place of Welcome and Clayton Health Event Community Day. We covered a lot of spiritual and local ground, and were reminded how much there is happening between now and Christmas, and into the new year - if we need to be reminded, that is! We are excited by the many opportunities that we have to make known the love of God. And, as Jesus put it in the Gospel reading in our Eucharist before the meeting, ‘No one after lighting a lamp hides it under a jar, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light’ (Luke 8:16). In other words, Christ calls us to live out the love of God in such a way that it shines like light and illuminates the Kingdom of God in our midst as we serve Christ in each other. No small calling, then.
Tuesday 25 September
This last Tuesday of September brought Harvest Festival at the hospital where I work as Chaplain. Over the preceding weeks we’d collected tinned food, dried food, cereal, UHT milk, and so on, to donate to the Stoke on Trent Foodbank. And we’d invited one of the managers of the Foodbank to come to speak to us about the work of the Foodbank and the difference which it makes in peoples’ lives and the difference our Harvest gift would make. The manager who came shared with us some statistics from the analysis that she and the team have been doing as we head through Autumn and approach Winter. During the first two weeks of September this year they have seen a 39% increase in use of the Foodbank in comparison with the first two weeks of September last year. And between April and September this year they have seen a 27% increase in use compared with the same period last year. They think that the increase is probably due to the DWP’s introduction of Universal Credit over the Summer. A point that hit home for me is that if the increased use continues, and donations to the Foodbank don’t increase, then the warehouse will possibly run out of food by February next year, the last weeks of Winter.
Wednesday 26 September
Back in the Parish and I walked to a funeral visit over on Westbury Park. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon and I wanted the time and space that walking creates to think about the family that I was about to meet, to prepare with them for the funeral of their loved one. As I walked along the A519, Clayton Road, I felt the rumble of articulated lorries and heavy goods vehicles go through my body and couldn’t help but smell, and breathe in, the diesel fumes from the constant flow of traffic, including cars and SUVs. I had to wait for what seemed like an eternity for the pedestrian traffic lights to halt the flow of traffic to allow me to cross, to reach Westbury Park and make my way around the estate to the home where we were meeting. The experience of walking to the visit left me wondering how walkable our community is, and what that means for community, for people making meaningful connections with each other, and reaching local services in other parts of the community. I also thought about the environmental impact of the constant flow of traffic and the pall of fumes. As I walked back from the visit, young people were making their way home along Clayton Road from Clayton Hall Academy. How do they experience our community, with its busy roads and heavy traffic? How does walking to and from school along Clayton Road affect those who have asthma?
Thursday 27 September
Thursday 27 brought the Community Health Event Day to St James’ Church Hall, which members of the Newcastle South Locality Action Partnership (LAP) had been preparing for, for weeks. Partners arrived from 8.45am and together we set up the Hall, filling it with welcoming faces and information and resources, ranging from health and independent living to finance and loan sharks, and included support for carers. The Worshipful Mayor of Newcastle under Lyme, Councillor Gill Heesom, opened the day at 10am, and a group of students from Clayton Hall Academy brought it to a close for us with an excellent presentation about the litter-pick that they’d done during the morning – collecting 11 sacks of litter in just one area of our community – and their hopes and aspirations for the environment which we share as members of the different generations which make up our local community and wider society. The day flew by in a whirl of conversations and networking, the making of new connections for partners and for members of the community who came to the Event. And it was helped along by a plentiful supply of tea and coffee, cake and biscuits, and delicious soup and bread rolls! The day was an example of the resources and resourcefulness that we do have in our community, and the real and positive difference that we can make when we come together across the generations around shared goals.
Friday 28 September
The end of the week found me preparing a paper to present to clinicians at the hospital where I work, entitled ‘Spirituality and Well Being: Working with the Whole Person’, as part of the hospital’s CPD (Continuing Professional Development Programme). The experience of physical and mental illness can profoundly challenge and change our sense of self as our abilities and capacities are changed and as our place within society is changed. For those with a mental illness such as dementia, the challenge and change is enormous because memory, where our sense of self across time is held, is eroded by neural degeneration, and because society values highly reason and intellect, autonomy and independence, and so positions negatively those whose cognitive ability and rational intellect are impaired. The paper, I hope, will form the beginning of a conversation with clinicians around the place of spirituality, understood in the broadest and most holistic sense, in the practices through which we care for patients.
Saturday 29 September
The Sabbath day, and I spent the day reflecting on the many meetings and events and conversations that the week had held, and preparing for worship the following day, Sunday 30 September. I was struck by the many ways in which we are seeking to shine like light and illuminate the Kingdom of God in our midst; through spiritual activities such as Tea and Chat and Jimmy’s Ark and social activities such as our walking group and music night, all of which bring people together in faith and fellowship; through collecting produce for St James’ Harvest Festival to support the ASHA project which works with refugees, and a local women’s refuge; and through our new initiative Place of Welcome. St James’ Place of Welcome is part of a national Places of Welcome network which seeks to ensure that within each community there is a place where all people are welcome. Our own Place of Welcome offers tea and coffee, cake and biscuits, a listening ear, friendship and laughter, topical discussion and information about our community.
And, as I reflected and prepared for Sunday, I couldn’t help but smile as I remembered what my brother had said when I was first ordained more than eighteen years ago. My brother had joked and said that I should ask for Sunday as my day off. He said that Vicars only work on a Sunday and so if I asked for Sunday as my day off I would have the perfect job …! Of course, my brother knew that from the beginning I was working Monday to Saturday alongside the people of the parish where I served at that time – as well as Sunday!
© 2018 Julia Babb