A Note from Fr. Will

Advent is upon us. For a season when we think of ourselves as waiting and biding our time, there are many things happening and developing here at Christ Church. Our Annual Meeting took place on the First Sunday in Advent. We were able to elect our new members of the Vestry, Susan Brooks, Karla Fowkes, and Jennifer McKinney, to help lead the parish in the years to come. The meeting also served as a helpful time for us to check in with each other as a parish family. Speaking with folks during and after the meeting, I was struck by the very real sense of hope we have for the year ahead despite our worries and anxieties about just what that year will hold.

The practice of hope in a difficult and unknown time also came up on the feast of Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637) on the first of December. Ferrar was a friend of George Herbert, courtier, and member of Parliament who was on an upward trajectory. He left the ladder of success behind to retreat with his family to the village of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire. At Little Gidding, he and his family restored the local church, tended to the local people, and committed themselves to regular worship. The family worshipped daily according to the Book of Common Prayer and recited the entire Psalter each day. The little community, with Ferrar ordained a deacon but without a priest, exerted a great power and influence on the church and the larger spiritual world. Ferrar and his family found an anchor in a hope in the spiritual life as they recited the Psalter and cared for the poor. Those may seem like small things, but they were what God called Ferrar to do and those small things made a great difference. T.S. Eliot testified to the continued power of Ferrar’s prayer in his poem ‘Little Gidding’ writing

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

Prayer led Ferrar to Little Gidding just as that prayer drew Eliot there in his own time. What power will our prayer have here? What difference will turning our minds and hearts to God make in the days and months to come?

–Fr. Will