Greetings to everyone hoping your week has gone well. Looking across the world, things certainly haven’t been going so well have they. We need so many prayers for all that has happened. It is a litany of tragedy. We pray especially for Afghanistan and its people in the light of the withdrawal of the US and UK troops and now being overrun by the Taliban. The pictures of the terrorised people are shocking. It is hard to know what or how to pray for them, especially the women and young girls who are threatened with being forced back into their homes or into unwanted marriages and men and boys being summarily executed. We need to lament as a country for the actions that have led to this. We pray too for Haiti struggling with the after-effects of the earthquake; for the devastating fires in Greece and all countries suffering from floods and loss of homes. The news from Plymouth was truly horrific; it is not surprising the Town is in a state of shock with such unexpected loss of life and injury. There is so much to hold in our prayers and hearts for all who are suffering everywhere and pray that peace and calm may come that enables people to live lives free from fear and harm. The psalmists being very close to God knew how to express their anguish and anger and certainly didn’t mince their words. The relevance of what they say in the the psalms of Lament keep springing to mind; Psalm 59, “Fierce enemies are out there waiting, Lord, though I have not sinned or offended them. I have done nothing wrong, yet they prepare to attack me Wake up! See what is happening and help me!” or Psalm 13, “How long Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me”, “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, LORD my God”. We pray daily for all the suffering people.
 
Love and good wishes – Sally
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
"There is a lot happening around us these days: Afghanistan, a new priest, issues with the Royal family, questions of the competence of our own government let alone the governments in some other countries, issues in Northern Nigeria and generally, fires raging across Southern Europe and western United States, friends who are sick and Covid.  In all of this, we need to ask ourselves who or what is our focus on: is it on these problems and issues or is it on God our Father.
 
Palms 99 reminds us that the Lord, our God, reigns, He is great and exalted, He sits enthroned and so we should bow down and worship.  The psalmist enjoins us the worship at His footstool, why, because He is holy.  It is in worship where we come face to face and are intimate or close to Him.  Could we meditate on this Psalm over the next few weeks and let it infuse our thinking and our focus reorienting it to Him and then we can have a right appreciation of our current situation.
 
As you will have gathered, we are moving full steam ahead to the licensing of Kamran on 14 September.  There is a letter going out from your church wardens later today with arrangements for the licensing service and the first Sunday. "

 

 
YOUR LOVE IS FIERCE | OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO (Israel + UK Collaboration){J...
 https://youtu.be/QVhURAB4Ors
 
Charity Gayle - Endless Praise (Live)
https://youtu.be/xjQfe6OwH64
 

Please join us on Wednesday evening for our time of prayer at 7.30pm. The link is below.
It is so good to come together to pray for the Revd Kamran B, our new incumbent, for his wife & two sons, who will be moving into the vicarage soon.  We pray too for all those issues that are on our minds; to give thanks for the good things we are experiencing and those that concern us and most particularly for the troubled state of the world. Looking forward to seeing you. 
 
 
Please see the zoom link below which is for the Wednesday evening prayer group, and also the link for Sunday.
 
Church Wardens are inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
 
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Christian Aid are holding an online time of prayer for Afghanistan and Haiti, taking place on Thursday of this week between 5 and 5.45pm. This is the link to sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hear-our-prayer-join-us-in-praying-for-afghanistan-and-haiti-tickets-167329532135.  It would be wonderful if friends from GGPC were able to join us: prayers for these two tragic situations will be led by a range of church leaders including the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, Krish Kandiah and Archbishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
 

 

 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (“IPCC”): Christian Aid’s response

 
You will probably have heard about the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (“IPCC”) which was published on Monday of last week. It didn’t pull its punches: time is running out if the world is to avert irreversible climate catastrophe. That sort of wording is not an exaggeration.
 
This is Christian Aid’s response to the report’s conclusions.
Dr Kat Kramer, Christian Aid's climate policy lead, has been following the IPCC talks.  She said: “Science has spoken: urgent climate action is needed to cut emissions rapidly and deeply or the whole world, especially the people on the frontline, will be plunged further into peril and poverty.

“This IPCC report puts carbon dioxide emissions firmly in the firing line, reinforcing the need for net zero emissions. These findings clearly show the need to end the fossil fuel era and to move to a future based on efficiency and renewables, while creating access to energy for those in poorer countries that currently lack it.
 
“So far political will to act has been wildly inadequate. Current national pledges put us on a pathway to a 2.4ºC world, which the IPCC shows would sentence people to more and fiercer heatwaves as well as droughts in some regions. These impacts will be most devastating to the world’s already-vulnerable people.
 
“This report shows that emissions cuts are vital. Despite what the oil and gas giants would try to make us believe, carbon dioxide removal cannot be relied upon: such methods can have adverse effects on both humans and nature such as water availability, food production and biodiversity.

“The good news is that if we do act to cut emissions on the scale and at the speed needed, we can avert more extreme impacts. This is a matter of intergenerational justice.
 
“Poorer countries and people in the global south have high hopes that leaders will take the ambitious action needed. The COP26 summit needs to deliver real progress in pledges to cut emissions and provide financing to vulnerable nations which has been promised but not yet delivered.  Rich nations must also act to provide finance to address the permanent losses and damages suffered by countries which did nothing to cause them.  These catastrophic impacts will grow exponentially in the future unless we achieve net-zero. The package currently on the table is perilously inadequate.
 
“COP26 needs to deliver urgent climate action. If it does so it will also be a source of climate hope for a world in need of it.”
 
Fredrick Njehu, Christian Aid’s Senior Climate Change & Energy Advisor for Africa, said: “The scientists of the IPCC have laid out the sheer scale of the climate crisis and the greater risks we face unless we act urgently. 
 
“We’ve seen in recent weeks heatwaves in North America and floods in India, Europe, China and London.  In Africa we have lived with the destructive nature of the climate emergency.  Whether it was Cyclone Idai, changing rainfall patterns or overbearing heat, Africa has been waiting for the rest of the world to catch up and act on climate change for years.

“The important thing now is that rich world Governments make up for lost time and act quickly to reduce emissions and deliver promised financial support for the vulnerable.”
To see how you can play your part in ensuring a good outcome to COP26, have a look at the climate action sections of Christian Aid’s website here: https://www.christianaid.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/climate-justice-every-moment-matters. 
 
On Sunday 5th September churches across the UK will be holding special services to mark Climate Sunday. GGPC will be one of them. We’ll be celebrating the goodness and beauty of creation, acknowledging what human beings have done to spoil it, and ahead of COP26 praying that all governments, including our own, will take the necessary steps to reverse global heating before it’s too late. Do join us for that.
 

 
This is the prayer, written by a colleague at Christian Aid, that Jenny used in our intercessions on Sunday. The situation in Afghanistan is going from bad to worse, and it’s hard to imagine how life must be for the millions of innocent Afghans who are caught up in the unfolding catastrophe. Let’s continue to pray for a peaceful resolution that ensures their flourishing.
 

O God of mercy and of peace,
We hold before you the peoples of Afghanistan.
Be living bread to those who are hungry each day
Be healing and wholeness to those who have no access to health care amidst the ravages of pandemic
Be their true home to all who have been displaced
Be open arms of loving acceptance to those who fear because of their gender, ethnicity, religious or political views
Be peace to those engaged in armed conflict and those who live within its shadow.
Turn our hearts and minds to your ways of just and gentle peace,
Open our eyes to see you in all acts of compassionate care
Strengthen our hearts to step out in solidarity with your suffering people and
Hold us all in your unfailing love.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who emptied himself of all but love in order to bring life in all its fullness.       Amen

 
 
 

Every Saturday from 8.00- 8.45am I join in a meditative, filmed walk, relayed on Facebook to members of the Nazareth Community to which I belong. It is led by one or other of the clergy from St Martin-in-the-Fields. Each week we visit a different area in-and-around London, often one of the many parks we have or along the Thames, looking at the beauty of the trees, plants, water, and wild-life, which raise the spirits because that’s what natural growth and habitat does. There are times, though, we go to the more built-up inner-city areas such as, Soho or Brick Lane, exploring the streets, their artwork, buildings, designs, graffiti, and history. I love these areas, particularly as they are so well known to me from my childhood, teaming with life, diversity, and decades of rich stories of people’s cultures, creativity, and struggles. I feel the spirit and Godliness in these places just as much as when I am in the countryside. All life is here. God is here.
 
                                                                                            
 
The aim of these walks is to be aware that, wherever we are, we recognize and discover “God in the Ordinary”. That, in these teaming, rushed places the Holy Spirit is dancing, maybe un-noticed, un-recognized or taken for granted in our hurry, but never-the-less is there in the midst of us.  We are so often naturally preoccupied with shopping, meeting friends, going to work, school or keeping an appointment, catching a bus or train, that it is easy to forget that God is present in our local busy, bustling places. We may not notice because we are doing all those things, we depend upon to help maintain our lives, keep us fed, healthy or get us to work so we can earn. How much are we really aware of them? What do we actually see? As one of my granddaughters often says to me, “Grandma you look but don’t see” and she is usually quite right.
 
                                                                              
 
Pondering on this I wondered perhaps it would be good, one day, for us to do a neighborhood meditative prayer-walk, together or individually, in Golders Green so we could stop, pause, pray and see our familiar places with new eyes and value them, spotting signs of God in those things around us; the  transport, shops, roads we use, the houses we pass, the unexpected shapes, colours, designs, language-signs we go by that maybe we hadn’t really noticed before, all available to us, that if we didn’t have them would make life that much more difficult.
                            
                                            
 
We can be aware of the present-day differences, the signs of the times that weren’t there years ago or not even thought of. 
                              
                                                        
 
or, pausing, recognise the history and diversity of our area; seeing that we are as much part of it as those who have lived, shopped, and worked before us and have left their influence on it as we have now. 
                                                 
                                                                   

In his book, “The City is My Monastery”, Richard Carter says, while in our neighbourhood we can:
 
“See the people you pass, the stories in their faces
The Fragments of conversation you catch
The relationships of those walking together
The pain of some you pass like a cry of longing in your own heart
Or the intimacy and the laughter
The colour and the youth and age
Their differing heights and breadths
See the person.
Notice the beauty of this diversity
The depth richness and mystery of our humanity
The beauty and uniqueness of each face
Let this humanity be your prayer
The understandable and the incomprehensible
Each and every person made in the image of God
Each person known by the Creator
Each person loved by the Creator
Be filled with compassion
Look upon creation with the eyes of a loving father or mother
Let this walking be your offering
Let this walking be your prayer”

 
All this is for us, where we live, where we belong.  Which pictures familiar to you would you include?
Many thanks to Jenny and my son, Simon, who took the photographs.
 

 

 
Margaret is now home from hospital and with a care package. She was feeling a little unwell when I spoke to her, but I hope she makes a good recovery now she is back in her familiar surroundings. She knows we are all thinking or her, wishing her well and sending prayers.
 
Afi has been discharged from hospital and is now home feeling much better. Rose says thanks to everyone for your prayers.
 

 
Our Prayers

We continue to pray for all those in our community who are unwell and maybe struggling in different ways. We think and pray for you all frequently and look forward to a time when we can all be with each other and take part in the services together.
 
 

 

You may wish to join in worship during this time through television and radio.
Check online, in the Radio Times and elsewhere for details:
Songs of Praise BBC 1, Sunday afternoon, variable times
Sunday Worship BBC Radio 4, Sunday, 8.10am Choral Evensong BBC
Radio 3, Wednesday Daily Service
BBC Radio 4 (Longwave only), weekdays, 9.45am
Big Sunday Service Premier Christian Radio, Sunday, 7am, 8am, 10am Easter Sunday Eucharist A service is usually broadcast on the BBC on Easter morning
Free 24 hour telephone church service 0800 804 8044
Online resources Church of England Daily Prayer https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-service-dailyprayer
https://mailchi.mp/b9d86a4acdc7/coming-up-from-st-pauls-cathedral-1274047?e=377e26b1db St Paul’s Cathedral have a number of resources available for us to use.
Church of England Online Resources during this time https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronaviruscovid-19-liturgy-and-prayer-resources
Go On-line to " ps://www.achurchnearyou.com", put in Area or post code and find a local church that broadcasts Worship.
Prayers from Christian Aid https://www.christianaid.org.uk/pray/churches/coronavirus-prayers
https://pray-as-you-go.org/ Pray as you Go (a short service each day in the Jesuit Tradition)
LICC have some great resources on their website https://www.licc.org.uk/
Especially on Covid-19 https://www.licc.org.uk/ourresources/prayer-journeys/presence-pressure-purpose/