Palm Sunday Choral Evensong at St Peter's Balkwell

40 Days of Darkness

At the Holy Biscuit

As part of a programme of events to mark the UN International Year of Light, the Holy Biscuit's spring exhibition is inspired by a short (4 minute) film ‘Return of the Sun’ (on Vimeo here).

This documentary by Glen Milner looks at an Inuit community in Northern Greenland, who spend 40 days of their winter in complete darkness. 

To tie this in with the 40 day season of lent, they have curated an exhibition designed to encourage people to imagine what it would feel like to live in darkness, waiting for the moment when the sun rises for the first time. 

Local artists have been invited to reflect on their personal experiences of how creativity can help us journey through dark places, or bring us out of them.

40 Days in the Dark
will run from
12 March at 6pm to
2 April at 4pm
open to all 
10am to 4pm, 
Tuesday to Saturday
here

 

St Hilda's Annual Report for 2014

This is our Annual report for 2014.

As you will see it's been another busy and sociable year, including the arrival of the new vicar, Paul Bagshaw, and a Confirmation at which 7 people were confirmed as members of the Church of England.

(This does not include the finance report.)

Seeing clearly in Lent

My Ash Wednesday sermon was one sentence:

Lent is a time to see clearly.

(Alright, I padded it a bit, but not much.)

It was suggested by reading a poem by Jean  M. Watt in Janet Morley's book the heart's time: a poem a day for Lent and Easter.

Lent 

Lent is a tree without blossom, without leaf,
Barer than blackthorn in its winter sleep,
All unadorned. Unlike Christmas which decrees
The setting-up, the dressing-up of trees,
lent is a taking down, a stripping bare,
A starkness after all has been withdrawn
Of surplus and superfluous,
Leaving no hiding-place, only an emptiness
Between black branches, a most precious space
Before the leaf, before the time of flowers,
Lest we should see only the leaf, the flower,
lest we should miss the stars.

In the quiet mornings through Lent, and in other ways, this will be a bit of a theme: learning to look for and at Jesus  with clear (or, at least, clearer) eyes.

Note:
Janet Morley's book is available from all good booksellers  (as they used to say).

But on a quick search I was unable to discover much at all about Jean M Watt, though this poem has been appreciated and used by several  others.

Women's World Day of Prayer

Women's World day of Prayer

March 6th 

2.00pm at St George's Church, Cullercoats

and

7.30pm at Cullercoats Methodist Church

Boundary Road

All welcome