Church News Volume 7, Issue 3 (April 2006)

Dear friends,

Spring seems to be on its way. As I write this letter, looking out of my window, I can see the snowdrops and daffodils in the Vicarage garden, buds starting to show on the trees and yes the grass is growing and will need the first cut of the lawns soon!

Despite a cold winter, (we have missed out on most of the snow that other areas of the country have had this year), we have had little rainfall. Water tables are low as are reservoirs which supply us with water. Hosepipe bans are going to be the norm for many areas of the country this summer we are being warned.

How much we take water for granted that when we turn on the taps it will be there for us to drink, cook with, wash in, clean our cars, bikes, dogs, and water our gardens, etc.

Water is life. .. Drought is death.

In our western world of technology and invention, of consumer based wealth and luxuries, we have forgotten the importance of water and how essential this is to life. It is a basic requirementonly realised when we have to ration it and we cannot water our gardens or clean our cars, inconvenient when the pipes are shut down for works to be done or a leek at home to be mended.

But for many people in the world the search for water, clean water, is a daily struggle and dominates their existence. In many places there is water in abundance, but clean, drinkable water, is scarce.

If our water supply is cut off for some reason then we can go to the shop and buy it in bottles from some famous spring or other (at extortionate price!) but there is no danger of us going thirsty for long.

There is no such luxury for many people in our world today. They have no water, clean or otherwise, no bottles to buy in the shops even if they could afford the prices. So they die of thirst, or of disease from dirty water.

It is a sad state of affairs that we make headlines of the fact that many of us are going to be inconvenienced this summer by a hosepipe ban, that we will not be able to keep our grass green, or our cars clean.yet at this very moment many hundreds of thousands of people are dying because there is no clean water whatsoever for them to drink.

I suggest that in the grand scale of things a hosepipe ban is an inconvenience at worst for us. If only as much effort was made to complain about the plight of the poor of our world as is made to complain about our own conditions, maybe our leaders would listen and do something more to help.

We are a fallen human race, far short of the image God intended us for us. Holy Week and Easter show us how much He forgives us and loves us, despite our failings.

Following the ways of Jesus, the ways of God, the ways of love, could make a difference to the world in which we live.

Loving God and our neighbours as ourselves, is the only way in which people will make a difference to the suffering we find in the world, brought about through the inequality between the people of all nations.

Lets not moan about the water but rather give thanks for what we have, and do what we can to help those who have little.

HAPPY EASTER!

Revd Ian M. Finn

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