Trees.

On my Bank Holiday visit to the Hay Book Festival as I wandered between cups of tea I encountered two interesting stalls. There was the Burnt Sugar Company, selling very naughty but nice things made from Fair Trade Sugar, very good. Then the Woodland Trust, interested in trees, actually ancient trees and giving them a hug and then mapping them! Well I have long thought that the value of large old houses had not only to do  with the architecture or the stories of the people who have lived in them, interesting as all that may be, but what you find in their grounds – trees with space to grow. Anyway you can imaging my excitement when exploring the Highbury Park between King’s Heath and Moseley when I found myself hugging an ancient oak tree – three adult spans in circumference(all the way round). Creation is amazing when you stop and stare.

Sometime ago a friend invited me to think about the story of the oak in contrast to the elm, in considering different approaches to life, not quite the Venus and Mars thing but… Well the contrast, which my friend suggested had to do with when life is distressed, whatever that may mean. The elm apparently just dies, has no way of dealing with the disease, whereas the oak has this ability to embrace the disease and grow around it and draw strength from the growing. Well it made me think! Human beings and their stories are quite amazing. We remember folk who just amaze us by they way they take hold of life and live it anyway, against the odds.

So all of this brought me to preaching in a spot where in time past itinerant preachers came to speak. A dead elm and a young oak mark the spot and some say that John Wesley preached there. The pulpit tree at Kinwalsey was the stop where three parishes meet, a convenient place if the preacher is not welcome in one of the parishes. In those days an itinerant was viewed as good public entertainment, and would draw a crowd from all around(no football etc to compete with. So that set me thinking about my itinerant preaching, in which I find myself welcomed and loved in the many different places of worship across our amazing District. Most of the churches preaching today in Britain is directed at the gathered people of God, who profess faith and are seeking to be sustained in that life. In this context I am always encouraged when the responses at the door afterwards include ‘you gave us something to think about’. So that leaves the question when and how do we find moments of encounter with those beyond the gathered congregation? Sometimes they come to us, weddings, baptisms, funerals, parade services, we need to use such moments carefully, not just the preacher but the whole congregation. Then they come to use our buildings, and we share stories, which some are beginning to celebrate. Then there are those who carrying their faith find encounter in their daily life and dare to tell of the faith that sustains them.

Seem to have come some way from hugging a tree, but …

Hope those who are fortunate enough to holiday find some trees and some people to hug, appropriately of course. Celebration of life in all its fullness.

O I went to hear Jeff Halper speak about his new book ‘An Israeli in Palestine’, and I was not disappointed.

Yours in love,

Bill Anderson.

                       
Nan Haigh presented with thank you for her service to Birmingham
Churches Together by Elizabeth Welsh Moderator of the West Midlands Region
of the United Reform Church

Bishop David invites us in for food, Bishop David will be our guest at September Synod.

An interesting visitor to No36!
                       

Bill at Queen's with members of this years Selly Oak Centre for mission Studies