Month: June 2025

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