Curate Conundrums

Working at St Peter Mancroft can often be a challenge, in a good way. Our Parish is tiny, there are fewer than four hundred people living in it, so our parishoners are the transient people that pass through the bustling centre of Norwich. It’s almost like an island, standing still while the ocean of people and things move around it, but there it sits, open, inviting. One of the things with being an island though, is that boats will come, often these boats are filled with well to do tourists, camera snapping people, having a look round. There are spiritual pilgrims, who come in to pray, to sit and to think. Then there are other people with very complex needs, some who are extremely troubled or mentally ill, others who are going through a really tough time in their lives, and they cling to our Island for refuge from a storm. Here are two stories, that happened this week. Story One. Monday Evening, after the church was shut, choir rehearsals going on, twilight. A l...

There are times in our lives when separation is needed. Separation though sometimes painful is often a time of great growth. Cast your minds back to when you first left home, if indeed you have left home yet. Or if you haven’t think of a time when you were away from your parents for an extended period of time for the first time. Did it fill you with exhilaration or dread? Was it a wonderful occasion or a time of  immense sadness for you? I’ll never forget when I left home for the first time. My Dad turned up and we packed the car up with all the things I’d need. The journey from the small Norfolk village I grew up in, to Sheffield was a long one. Initially I was excited, I couldn’t wait to start my independent life, and I enthusiastically loaded the car up, almost bouncing along, like Super Mario. Until, the moment of separation, the moment when it was time to leave, and suddenly the emotions welled up inside me. This was the end of one way of living, the end of my ...