Dear Friends,

 

What do you do when you want to get away from it all? What's your best way of switching off and relaxing?

I don't know what I'd do without my nightly hot bath (even if it is sometimes at 1am, after I've switched off the computer at last), when all the preoccupations of the day melt away in Radox warmth....

 

We all need to switch off at regular intervals, to take time to stand back and reflect on the way our lives are going, our worries and concerns, our hopes and plans for the future. Sometimes we refer to these periods of

'time out' as a 'retreat', meaning that we are giving ourselves an opportunity to withdraw from the busyness of everyday life in order to take stock and draw on our inner resources. At the end of term – the end of their time at Wraxall school – the Year 6 children who were leaving us this year came over to church for a 'retreat day', when they had a few quiet hours to reflect on the past few years, and face up to the challenge of the changes that lie ahead of them. 

 

Many people find going on a retreat an invaluable experience. Sometimes it's just a day away in a quiet place, sometimes it may be a weekend or longer, in a specifically religious setting, such as a Christian community, even a convent or monastery, or simply in a retreat centre designed to offer peace and quiet.

We live such busy, pressurised lives, that it's not surprising that many people crave stillness. The poet T.S.Eliot wrote of being at 'the still point of the turning world'; many of us, however, feel as though we're hanging on for dear life to the outside edge of the carousel, getting ever more dizzy with the speed of it all.

 

The month of August, is, thank God, the time in the year when life does slow down, for a while at least. There are fewer meetings, there isn't the frantic rush on the roads in the mornings with families struggling to get children to school on time, days are lazy and the living is easy. The words of that lovely, familiar hymn come to mind:

 

            'Drop thy still dews of quietness, till all our strivings cease;

            take from our souls the strain and stress,

            and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace....'

 

I hope to have time, in August, to restore a little order to my life by having a great clear-out of my tiny study

(a great pile of new, sturdy box files is waiting to be filled with all my newly sorted papers) and then I shall be able to sit calmly, at peace in my orderly little world.

 

But in the end, I know that real peace and stillness come from within, and that wherever we went, if we didn't have an inner source of peace to tap into, we wouldn't find what we were looking for even in the most beautiful and tranquil of surroundings. The trouble is that we don't make time in the rest of the year to turn aside to that stillness and make it our own.  For example, every week we have a quiet service of Holy Communion in our lovely Charlton Chapel in church, at 10 o'clock on a Thursday morning. It's very simple, and only lasts about half an hour, and is an oasis of calm in the middle of the weekly whirl for those who come – but very few in the parish make use of this small 'retreat opportunity'. Similarly, the Julian group, which meets monthly, also in the Charlton Chapel, on a Monday afternoon (see parish diary for dates) also provides a precious brief time of retreat from the rush.

 

Perhaps if we set aside more 'quiet times' during the rest of the year, we wouldn't all be in such dire need of 'time out' in August. Think about it – when you have a moment.

 

 

With love,

Rosey

 

 

                        WAITING

 

                        Moments of great calm,

                        Kneeling before an altar

                        of wood in a stone church

                        In summer, waiting for God

                        To speak; the air a staircase

                        For silence; the sun's light

                        Ringing me, as though I acted

                        A great role. And the audiences

                        Still; all that close throng

                        Of spirits waiting, as I,

                        For the message.

                                        Prompt me, God;

                        But not yet. When I speak,

                        Though it be you who speak

                        Through me, something is lost.

                        The meaning is in the waiting.