Give thanks

Dear friends,

Come celebrate the Harvest! Whether in person at church, or online in the evening, do take a moment this coming week to thank God for his provision for you and your family. At Checkendon, we’ll be collecting for The Ways and Means Trust, our local mental health charity, and for Water Aid, the global development agency. Frances and Steve, from the Trust, will also be bringing their produce stall for us to enjoy.

The collection point for the Wallingford Food Bank returns to church at the end of this week. Please leave your donations of tins, packets and jars in the lidded box inside the main church door. Please don’t leave any fresh or chilled food, but you can help recipients to eat healthily by donating goods low in sugar, salt, and additives if at all possible. However, treats, such as chocolate, are nevertheless very welcome. Steve Daniels will empty the box weekly. Many thanks to Steve and Mary for hosting the collection while the church was closed.

Worship Services for Sunday 3rd October.

4pm Harvest Festival Service at St John’s Stoke Row, led by Revd Angela Linton.

11am Harvest Festival Service at Checkendon Church, led by Revd Kevin Davies. With a produce stall from Manor Farm.

6.30pm-7pm. Together at Home. A short evening service to join in with at home (via zoom) with Revd Kevin.  636 645 195 and passcode 000162. Everyone welcome, wherever you are.

It is absolutely OK to pass these details onto friends and family, who are very welcome to join us. Other service options can be found on the Langtree Team Ministry Churches website.

You can support Checkendon church and  Stoke Row churches via dedicated and secure online card donation pages. Just click on the link. It is very secure.

The road, untravelled

Sometimes the ironies of the “life we are trying to get back to” beggar belief. We clamour and fight for petrol, in order to go and sit in a log jam of traffic on a road where too many cars clamour and fight for too little space. If it is a really good day, the road will also then be closed, either by protestors, or by the police, or by a workman with a broom. We are told that there is too much Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, which I don’t doubt. It is just that industry now can’t seem to find any. All the lorries have gone to look for it, and now they’ve vanished too. Just not on the bit of road you are on. How quickly the lessons of Covid are being forgotten; reducing car use and ownership would not only reduce our reliance upon fossil fuels, but it would mean more time for us to celebrate life. Increasing home working hours and rights has to be the way to go. I don’t believe anyone is called by God to be stuck on a motorway, whether in a vehicle or by superglue. The 20th Century monk, Thomas Merton, once called them “rivers of violence.”  They are an icon to the illusion of human freedom that the car represents. As Jeremy Clarkson seems to be finding on his Cotswold farm, freedom is not a matter of speed or power, but it is a matter of the spirit, of hard work held in balance with contemplation and gratitude. (John 8:36).

Your Rector                   Kevin Davies