Rev. Paul Weir

Minister of Knowle & Totterdown Methodist Churches

Message from the Minister: April 2008

Happy Easter! If it seemed like Christmas was just over, you wouldn’t be far wrong, this was the earliest Easter for many years and was about the earliest it can be. The Easter season continues now for some weeks before we approach Pentecost – the next exciting event on the Christian calendar.

Since our last newsletter, we have now returned from our Church-away weekend away at Lindors and this was a very blessed time together. In the last Tidings, there was an article from Jean Crane about a spiritual experience involving a jigsaw (yes really!). If you didn’t read it, go and find the March issue now and read it. The theme of the weekend was looking at what spirituality is, what it was to be ‘spiritual’ and looking at how we can reflect spiritually. The reason that spirituality is important is that this is the basis of how we operate as Christians.

During my initial training as a minister, I had to develop my understanding of what spirituality was. My then minister challenged me a little bit as I told him something about what I had been doing on my course. I said to him, (thinking I knew all about it now), ‘well, all this spirituality stuff and reflecting is all very well, but, you can’t reflect spiritually on a concrete post or something like that can you’? ‘Well Paul’, he said, ‘cant you?’ looking at me critically! Well I went away to really think about that and yes, I really began to develop my sense of understanding.

On the church away-weekend, I had a very real spiritual experience within 30 mins of arriving at the Forest of Dean Heritage Centre! After coffee I went off in search of a group who had gone out for a walk. I followed what I thought must be the path they had taken. I was mistaken! After about 20 mins or so, I began to think they must have gone a different way, and here I was seemingly miles from anywhere, by myself and not sure where I was going. I realised that the path I was on was actually a signposted one on the ‘Heritage Trail’ so that was okay. The problem was that I was following the path ‘in reverse’! That meant that every now and again, there was a way-post, but I had to walk past it and look back to see where I had come from! From that, I could then understand which path I had to take. It was very uncomfortable to have to follow a path like that, because until I got there, I couldn’t be sure I had taken the right path. I stopped to reflect on that. I had come on this weekend having said to the Lord, I will go with an open mind, and every expectation of having a spiritual encounter in some way. This experience hit me there and then. For me (and I suspect for you as well sometimes) life is a bit like this path I was following. You go forward in life not really knowing quite if it is the right path, but going in pure faith - for many believing that God will not let them down. You might think he has let you down sometimes through some really awful experience that you may have had, but we are still asked to continue the journey to see what happens. It is uncomfortable to move forward, especially when it comes to changes in the church and in life in general, but we move forward with every expectation that we will realise that when we get there God has accompanied us. When we get to a certain stage, we look back and realise that the journey had been way-marked but we hadn’t really seen it! For me this was a very real experience with which I had learnt something.

 As I continued along the path, I came to a large tree that had fallen across the path. How on earth was I to get around this tree? I struggled to find a way forward and lifted myself over the large trunk and branches to squeeze through – just. Well, I thought, isn’t life just like that sometimes as well! How often does our path seemed blocked? And how often do we say, oh well, I cant find a way round this, or its all too difficult, or I cant see the way ahead and then just don’t do anything? Sound familiar?

 Join us for another church weekend away on Palm Sunday next year, in the excellent Lindors for some interesting reflections and a relaxing time.

 Every Blessing for Easter and with every good wish,

 Paul Weir, Minister, Totterdown and Knowle Methodist Churches

                                                                            

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