Roger Scoones' Monthly Dialogue
Rev Roger Scoones
Rev Roger Scoones is Rector of St Mary's Parish Church, Stockport and is a well known figure in the local community.
Autumn at St Mary's 2009
It’s the beginning of Autumn, the season of change and movement. “A
season of mellow fruitfulness”. Tradition states that on the last day of
August Methodist Ministers throughout the land move on, as one, from one
Chapel to another – as it has always been. This is not so in the Church
of England, where movement of the Clergy from Parish to Parish seem
random and haphazard. Sometimes one is aware, one must say honestly, of
a great Episcopal hand moving the Clergy around his Diocese discreetly
but very definitely; quietly but with a certain degree of celebration,
from time to time. Speaking personally, I’m not sure when it would be
the right time for me to move on from this Parish to the next, but I
trust that the Divine Hand will at least coincide with the
aforementioned Episcopal one!
Which picture is evoked for me very attractively in the skies above my
garden at this time of year. Living close to Manchester airport, one is
treated to a regular display of arrivals and departures of aircraft,
adorned in a variety of company colours, shapes and sizes. For the most
part they are silent giants, gliding into land or effortlessly reaching
for the skies and foreign climes. I look up and wish them well as they
arrive and depart. In a lower dimension in the sky, but ever so
beautifully, silently and spectacularly in their aeronautical acrobatics
pass over the flights (surely not flocks) of our delightful seasonal
friends, the swallows, swifts and martins. It has been widely reported
that we are seeing a dramatic reduction in numbers of our summer
visitors, owing to climate change (yet another victim!) It’s true to say
that certainly there have been fewer sightings of swallows high above my
garden this year than previously. However, my attention and imagination
was caught in this autumnal day by the sight of a few martins passing
over together, obviously forging their way ever onwards, as their
instinct carries them to South Africa, where they will find a climate
more to their liking than our damp and dark winter days. It was moving
to see them, and simply to wonder how many thousands of miles they must
travel, and over what an extraordinary variety of terrain they would
pass (including my own little garden in the centre of a Cheshire town)
before they reach their final destination.
The Church’s life is in many ways akin to this seasonal picture of
movement and change, since the Church is in essence people, and people
inevitably move on, and even if they don’t move they change, and grow
old, and leave us according to the natural course of life!
St Mary’s is no different in this respect from any other Church
congregation. There are a few who will never move, and there are those
who will never stay long, but like the swallows and martins will join us
for a season, and then fly on to another Church, another season, where
their needs may be better met. And there will be those who come and rest
for a short time, and like it so much that they will stay for as long as
this season of their lives continues, maybe till the end. But, who knows
when that will be? Until then I will be preaching the Gospel and praying
that it will bear fruit in due season. This season has been fruitful,
and I’ve seen enough swallows and martins to think that next year we
will see them again, and to safely assume that the jet planes will
continue to fly in and out of Manchester with a load of weary
travellers.
My own garden gives me work to do, and hope for the future – just like
St Mary’s in the Marketplace in Autumn.
Rev. Roger Scoones
Rector of St Mary’s
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