Day one - Beginning again

The town I live in is a small market town in South Warwickshire. Despite its backwater feel there was ripple of excitement around town last week. Contractors arrived to begin the process of fitting electrical charge points in the town car park. I wondered when this would happen, with all the strides being made to stop petrol and diesel car production by the 2030’s. As a Church looking to strengthen its Eco Church credentials I was heartened by this development.

In contrast, I was a bit taken aback by the news that the first new deep coalmine in the UK for 30 years received planning permission in a project that will extract 2.7m tonnes of coal per year. According to estimates, the coalmine would reportedly emit 8m tonnes of carbon annually, contradicting the UK’s pledge to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Isn’t that life? So often we take one tentative step forward and two strides back.

I enjoy reading the books of A J Cronin, and in his novel, The Keys of the Kingdom, Father Chisholm is a missionary priest who has worked almost all of his life in China against overwhelming odds. There is a passage in which he gives a clue to his remarkable courage and hope. He is talking to a friend, a farmer who is wringing his hands and bitterly complaining because his garden has been completely washed out by a seasonal flood. “My plantings are all lost,” he cries. And Father Chisholm replies quietly, “But that’s life my friend, to begin again when everything is lost.”

Today we begin the season of Lent. For some this is a season of beginning again. We are very mindful of the times we are living in, of the 100,000+ people who have lost their lives to Covid-19 in this country, of the struggles that people are undergoing physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. And we call on all people to have courage and hope, especially those who feel that everything is lost.

A frequent focus of Ash Wednesday is Psalm 51, and the plaintive cry of the Psalmist: “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.” I love this prayer of St Ambrose which has echoes of that Psalm. May it be an encouragement to us today as we begin our Lenten journey:

O Lord, who has mercy on all,

take away from me my sins,

and mercifully kindle in me

the fire of your Holy Spirit.

Take away from me the heart of stone,

and give me a heart of flesh,

a heart to love and adore you,

a heart to delight in you,

to follow and enjoy you, for Christ’s sake, Amen

— St. Ambrose of Milan (AD 339-397)

Neil Chappell