Month: June 2025

It is often easy to feel sympathy for someone, to recognise that they are in distress and feel sorry for them. Empathy goes beyond this; it is an attempt to (mentally) enter into their world and to share in their pain. It is a relatively recent word, first found in English in 1908 and being a translation of a technical term being used by German psychologists. However the deep sharing of another’s feelings is surely much older. It is perhaps something we need to be careful with; I try to avoid telling people I know how they feel, as it is unlikely that I fully know all the nuances of their feelings. I sometimes worry that it is used as a form of virtue signalling; the person declaring themselves as empathetic really just wants those around them to know what a considerate person they are. But those reservations aside, the ability to use our imagination to try and enter into another person’s broken life can help us understand their situation, even if all we can do is to sit in silence with them. At the heart of the Christian message is that God not only has sympathy, he/she has (uniquely?) real empathy through coming into our world through Jesus, both fully God and fully human. The carol, Once in Royal David’s City, written in 1848, has the lines “And He feeleth for our sadness, And He shareth in our gladness”. Perhaps had it been written a century later, the words would have been slightly different, to make it clear God completely feels and shares both in our sadness and our gladness. There are times when I think I can only worship a God who is truly empathetic with us.

Rev David Poyner

The summer solstice, the longest day, is upon us.  Midsummer Day has always been celebrated; we are holding a concert in Glazeley Church as well a local history exhibition, as part of our festivities to mark 150 years since the church was rebuilt. In pagan times, Midsummer Day had particular significance for those who worshiped a sky or an earth god. Memories of the pagan significance were probably long lost following the conversion of this country to Christianity, but what was remembered was that the day was one to mark with a celebration. 

As far as I know, the Christian calendar is silent about Midsummer’s day; we have no special service. But, by coincidence, the New Testament reading appointed for it is Jesus’s teaching on worry and in this he uses a very appropriate nature image; “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these”. Perhaps that is a sufficient thought for the day.

Rev David Poyner

On Thursday, just as I was on the point of giving up, I went out into my garden at 11pm and there I saw it; the “strawberry moon”, which I had read about on the BBC news website. It is full moon that stays very low in the sky; as such it appears larger than usual and also has a red/orange glow. It is rare, the next time it will happen will be in 20 years time. It was spectacular; when I first glanced it, obscured by a tree, I thought it was an orange street light. Of course, being a vicar, I thought not of strawberries but of the Bible verses which speak of the moon being turned to blood, a sign of coming judgement from God. Now, I know that is not the explanation; the event is a consequence of the orbit of the moon and earth and way reflected light behaves when it is scattered by dust in the earth’s atmosphere. It is not a sign sent by God. And yet, there was something spiritual about the sight; it was beautiful and it was moving. I am tempted to say that where there is beauty, there is also God but God is present alongside us everywhere, including what is dark and ugly. Perhaps it is better to say that beauty, natural or manmade, can point us to God, who is ultimate beauty, the joy of our desiring.

Rev David Poyner

This Sunday, 8^th June, the church celebrates Pentecost, or Whit Sunday to give it its traditional name. It celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit. In Christian belief, Jesus warned his disciples that he would be leaving them as he returned to Heaven, but he would send his spirit/the Holy Spirit/the comforter/advocate, depending on which passage from the Bible you read and how you translate the Greek. And again, depending on which account you read, he himself breathed the spirit on them, or it came as tongues of fire when the disciples were alone in a room in Jerusalem. Either way, the results were dramatic; eleven confused and timorous disciples and accompanying women became inspired witnesses to the teaching of Jesus, accepting persecution and even death for the cause of their risen Lord.

The marks of the Holy Spirit in Christians today are as varied as the New Testament accounts of him/her. Some claim supernatural powers in the name of the Spirit. I do not deny the reality of any persons experience but that is not what I know. Instead I have a different story, one I share with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, but also a Church of England vicar like myself. He spoke of how he flet his heart “strangely warmed within him”. And, in my better moments, at prayer, in or out of church,  simply living my life, I also know that feeling. That is what I call the Holy Spirit.

Rev David Poyner