The Rector writes...

Caring for each other

The Middle East crisis displays in the most extreme fashion the problems that follow when individuals live for themselves and not for others.  Central to our faith lies the requirement to love one’s neighbour: arguing that this is our purpose for being here!  To love a person means to have an earnest desire for their welfare - it has little to do with the current obsession with sex.

To love a person is to make sure that they have all the means which enable them to make the journey of life equipped in every way to meet the challenges that will face them.  This principal, which stems from the idea that we are all pilgrims on a journey, has been around for quite a few years but it is having a hard time catching on.

Our purpose in this village - each one of us - is to make sure that all those that live here receive the care that is necessary to complete their life's journey.  This is even more necessary today, because modern society is changing the relationships between adults and children.  There was a time when parents and children lived in a close family which, as a unit, looked after them.  The idea of 'my child' defining the areas of responsibility.

But now, with so many marriages reassembled, that pattern has gone.  Care and responsibility for children has devolved to a whole circle of people, and sometimes to none.

Perhaps the general idea of loving our neighbour now has come to a moment in time where we should recognise every child who enters our space as 'my child' and a fellow pilgrim.  After all, in the days to come, one of them is going to live in 'my' house, have 'my' job, and posses the rest of the things I value.

The children and young people in our street need now, more than ever, to be seen as our children, for whom every adult has a responsibility.