My Dear Friends,

This will be my last letter as your Vicar and it’s very hard to know what to say because words will be inadequate. Untimely endings can leave us with a sense of unfinished business, disappointment or insecurity and with painful feelings of sorrow and regret. We cannot be immune from these experiences because it is what makes us real people but these words from a New Zealand form of Night Prayer come to mind: “What has been done has been done. What has not been done has not been done. Let it be.”

So what do I want to leave you with as we come to a parting of the ways? Of course, Barbara and I would have loved to have more than six years here but in the end what really matters for any of us is not longevity or achievement but relationships and we feel privileged to have travelled this part of our journey with you. Our sadness is that it is unlikely that we shall ever be able to respond individually to all the letters, cards and gestures of kindness that we have received as we move on. Our new address will be [...], Ben Rhydding, [...] and we hope that the move will be able to go ahead on the 3rd October. It is an unavoidably chaotic time so it has been wonderfully providential that the Marie Curie Centre has given us a safe and comfortable haven from which I have enjoyed directing proceedings!

John Robinson, who as Bishop of Woolwich ordained me 34 years ago, once shocked people at a funeral by saying that God was to be found in cancer as much as in the sunset. He later had to stand the test of that firmly held belief himself and live its reality. Christians, above all, he said, should be able to bear reality and show others how to bear it. If not, what on earth can we say about the cross, which is the central reality of our faith. If God is God then he has to be one of whom we can say without hesitation “if I go down to hell thou art there also”.

Barbara and I have shared a long, fulfilling and varied ministry. It was natural, at first, to think that this was being cut short but now we feel that perhaps everything else has been a preparation for the most purposeful stage of all. So these past months, we have tried to share ‘our truth’ with you insofar as we have understood it. But there is another side to all this which, for some people, may need spelling out. God does not send or intend bad things to happen nor randomly act to kill or cure, for God’s nature is not diabolical. The fact that I have not been cured and that I will soon die is not a sign of any inadequacy or failure on anyone’s part. Neither do I feel as if I have been engaged in a ‘battle’ so I would not like to be thought of as a warrior!

For the sake of my successor, remember us sparingly. We have dug some earth and sown some seeds – the harvest is always in other hands. Remember more that you are people of God, members of the priesthood of all believers, continually re-discovering the essence of gospel living, set down in the baptismal covenant and expressed through a process of faith-journeying. What you call that process does not matter. What matters is that you do it – that you form people in the faith, allow the Eucharist to constantly re-form you as the body of Christ and that you live your resurrection faith wherever you are in the world. Keep in your sights the scriptural vision of the Church, rooted in simplicity, in households that break bread together and trust in the change-making power of the Holy Spirit. Welcome, nurture and inspire young people. With their energy and passions they bring springtime to the Church. Above all, live the little bit of the gospel that you have grasped and you will receive grace unlimited. And finally….

• Old men ought to be explorers
• Here or there does not matter
• We must be still and still moving
• Into another intensity
• For a further union, a deeper communion….
• In my end is my beginning.
• (from East Coker – T.S. Eliot)

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

David.