Home weekend away - photos

Really enjoyed the Home weekend away in Madely, Herefordshire this weekend just gone.
It was our first one for a few years. We got very lucky with the weather - the forecast was for rain and cloud but instead we had much sun. result!
Anyway - here are a couple of photos - the first of Night Prayer in the crypt on the first night when we were joined by some of the locals which was great. and the second I took as I was setting up our outdoor eucharist on Sunday morning.
In between we visited Hay-on-Wye and sampled some of the local cider bringing some back with us to enjoy around the campfire later that evening when we shared readings (I read some Wendell Berry poems).
Anyway, there are more photos on our site (www.home-online.org) if you are interested.
Big thanks to Simon - our host - and Sarah who sorted all the food.

Home weekend away

Looking forward to the Home weekend away beginning tomorrow up in rural Herefordshire.

We're staying with our friend Simon Lockett who is the vicar of Madely and has what must be one of the finest vicarages in the whole of the land (think Jane Austen). Some of us are camping in his garden and a few select people (i.e. those with very young children - yes we're playing the baby card!) are staying indoors.

Should be a fine weekend of cider drinking, telling stories round the campfire (everyone has been asked to bring something to read to the rest of us and an object that tells us something about them), night prayer in the church crypt...you get the idea!

thoughts on florida

So it seems that Florida is the new Toronto. I am not really in the loop on these sorts of things these days so I have only heard about it relatively recently.
I am trying to be respectful and adopt a 'Gamaliel' stance on it i.e. if it is God then nothing will stand in the way of it...if it isn't it will come to nothing. Others think we have a responsibility to form an opinion and make a judgement. (I enjoyed reading Mark Berry's thoughts here).

The one thought of my own I do have though comes from thinking about the Florida thing (that's what I want to call it if you don't mind) in relation to the ministry of Christ in the gospels.

It seems to me that the whole of Christ's ministry was predicated upon the idea that you didn't need to go to the temple in Jerusalem to encounter God. Christ was himself the new temple and in fact the kingdom of God is around you, close at hand, within you in fact. This idea got him in to a lot of trouble as we know.

So I'm left scratching my head as to why we should therefore be jumping on the first plane to Florida because there is 'more of God' over there (I know I'm caricaturing the mentality but I think it breaks down to something like this). Isn't this the kind of idea that the Christ spent the whole of his ministry deconstructing?

Woops - did I just go and get an opinion?! have you got one you'd care to share dear reader?