Church column: 'This time will pass - but the positive effects will last'

Revd. Alison Iliffe, is Team Vicar in the Harborough Anglican Team with responsibility for the Parish of the Transfiguration, Little Bowden, St Hugh, Northampton Road and St Nicholas, Little Bowden. As part of a weekly column by the churches in Market Harborough, here is her contribution.

Someone asked me this week: “What are you doing with your time now that you don’t have two churches to run?”. Like many, I am not on furlough, and am doing my pastoral work and enabling worship very differently. But I’ve realised that we can notice more when things are different and so much of what was normal for us has been stripped away.

Some people have noticed how they still have skills that were lost in the busyness of life, such as cooking; creating birthday cards; gardening; knitting. Others have noticed that those things they have put off “until I have time” still aren’t being done, and that perhaps it doesn’t matter!

Those who are able to get outside have noticed the spring flowers; the beauty of clear skies; the rainbows; the quiet. It’s an important discovery; perhaps one to hold on to.

I’ve noticed especially how people are coming together, whilst staying physically apart. In some of the precious telephone conversations I have had with those within and beyond my churches, people are sharing more about themselves and their families; they are helping their neighbours or their neighbours are helping them.

I’ve noticed too how people are really listening when others speak, and sensing when they need a word of encouragement or prayer, or when a referral would be helpful to one of the different organisations and systems which our amazing town has pulled together.

Yet I also notice there is often an underlying angst and fear in this time of waiting. When or how will it end? How will we continue to manage? There’s a real concern for frontline medical and care staff and other providers, and for those members of our families we can’t visit and hug.

As we approach Easter, Christians across our town and the world will be celebrating very differently this year, in common with those in countries where they are persecuted and forced to worship and pray alone.

On that first Easter, after Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday, his disciples were also fearful and anxious; this wasn’t what they had expected to happen. Jesus was after all their hope for things to be different, and so they locked themselves away, put themselves into isolation. What they didn’t know was that this time would pass and they would have hope again for the future, the joy of Easter morning would come. As will the end of this pandemic.

My prayer is that in noticing and doing fresh things, the effects will last and that we will continue to show our love and care for others, with hope ourselves for what will be.

Revd. Alison Iliffe, is Team Vicar in the Harborough Anglican Team with responsibility for the Parish of the Transfiguration, Little Bowden, St Hugh, Northampton Road and St Nicholas, Little Bowden.