Dear Friends,

Yesterday a 'For Sale' board went up outside the Rectory.  Since no-one ever passes this way, this would be news to you (though our sharp-sighted neighbour Dan Parsons, whose eyes have served him well for over a hundred years, was quick to spot the sign, and was straightaway on to churchwarden Eileen to ask what was happening!) The reason is that the property department of the Diocese had listened to our complaint that the rectory at 8 School View was really very inconveniently situated, difficult to find, and a long way from the church – and just before Christmas they asked us to go and look at another house which had just come on to the market, at 41 Vowles Close. We thought it would be much more suitable house to be a rectory, far easier to find, and so did the diocese. An offer was made and accepted, and so we are to move, from the last house on the Elms to the first,  before the end of next month. Meanwhile, we have to live in a state of enforced tidiness, while prospective purchasers trail around 8 School View, to the accompaniment of an enthusiastic estate agent's sales patter. (I wonder if the lucky purchasers will call their new home 'The Old Rectory'?)

 

'Anything we can do to make the house more 'saleable'?', I asked the agent. 'Well, you have got rather a lot of things around' she replied; perhaps as you're moving anyway, you could pack them away and store them in the garage?' ('You haven't seen the inside of our garage', I thought – the contents of my daughter's travels in India and South Korea, my son's progressive crazes for various electronic games, my husband's amazing assortment of d.i.y equipment (of the 'you never know when I might need it' variety) as well as all kinds of horticultural equipment – you'd think we were candidates for Chelsea! And then of course, there may be just a few bits and pieces of mine – craft materials, catering gear, and so on. Where does it all come from? I can't imagine. When Tim was away for a few days last summer, I hired a skip, and by the time he came back there was a large empty space in the middle of the garage – but it's all come back.

 

This evening I watched a programme ('Slumming it') about life in the slums of Mumbai (the shanty town next to the main runway of the airport, which so shocked me when I visited it on my previous trip to India. The programme told the sad story of how the residents make a 'living'  in the 'recycling industry' by foraging for food and other items which they can sell, from the many rubbish heaps around. It is a dangerous, filthy and inhuman way of existence, and the presenter, Kevin McCloud,

admitted at the end that he had thought the whole experience, as he lived among the people of the Mumbai slums, would be thoroughly depressing. In fact, the opposite was true: as his stay in Mumbai came to an end, he expressed astonishment that people who lived in such poverty,with so little, could be so joyful and welcoming. It seems that those slum-dwellers had learned something about what was of real importance and what was not.

 

As I write this, we are all thinking of the many people in Haiti who a few days ago lost all that they had in the devastating earthquake. I hope that our response, as a parish,  to the emergency appeal will be a generous one. A reporter on the news this evening described seeing a naked woman receiving treatment for a head injury. What must it be like to emerge from such a disaster with literally nothing? 'Naked came I into this world, and naked shall I return', said Job as his world collapsed in ruins around him; or as the Good News Bible puts it: 'I was born with nothing and I will die with nothing.' (Perhaps that thought should challenge us as we think of our giving to the church, or to charity....)

 

 I have certainly been thinking hard about all the things that I own, but don't need. Perhaps a new start in a new house will be a time to try, consciously, to live more simply with less unnecessary clutter around. I wonder...Perhaps inside me there is a minimalist trying to get out. Anyway, we thought we might have a garage sale – Sat. 13th Feb., 10 – 12; your last chance to visit 8 School View.  Then you can have some of our clutter!

 

With love,

Rosey