Month: September 2024

This weekend sees the Ride and Stride, the main fund-raising event for the Shropshire Historic Churches Trust, that provides grants for the repair of the old churches and chapels within the county; we get no money for this from the state or the diocese. Some see our old churches as a barrier to mission; we spend energy preserving stone and mortar that would be better spent proclaiming the Gospel. I disagree; we underestimate the power of God to work through a sacred space to our peril, to our folly. This is an extract from the poem “Little Gidding” by T.S. Elliot, as he reacts to the ancient church and shrine at Little Gidding in Cambridgeshire, a place hallowed by devotion.

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

Rev David Poyner

Some may know of the magazine, “The Big Issue”. It was launched over 25 years ago as a way of helping the homeless. The people who sell the magazine are usually homeless, or at least living in hostels. They buy the magazine for £2 and sell it for £4, so this gives them a small income. They effectively have their own income. I pass through Snow Hill Station on my way to work, where there is often a vendor. If I have time, I will usually buy a magazine and over the years I’ve come to know some of the vendors. Earlier this week, I had a few minutes to chat to the current vendor. He was telling me of his experiences. His best customers were often the ones who seemed to have the lowest paid jobs; the more affluent tended just to walk past him. He said this had also been his experience when living rough; the street-dwellers usually looked after each other and some were very generous with what little money they had.

I have no idea if the vendor has any religious faith, but his story struck a cord with me. Two thousand years ago, Jesus, visiting the temple, observed people donating money for its upkeep. The rich apparently gave large amounts, but in reality it was just small change for them. A poor widow gave a single coin, but that was all she had. Jesus’s words still seem to apply: “I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood”

Rev David Poyner