St Andrews, All Saints & Christ Church newsletter

Parish newsletter for Northwold, Wretton, Stoke Ferry & Whittington

The Parishes of St. Andrew, Northwold; All Saints, Wretton with Stoke Ferry;

and Christ Church, Whittington.

For more details contact me, Keith MacLeod at West Barn, Whindrove Farm, West Dereham (07766 766 137) (email: keith.macleod@virgin.net)

Diary for September 2003

Sunday 31st August (11th Sunday after Trinity)

11.00am All Age Worship at Christ Church

Sunday 7th September (12th after Trinity)

9.30am Service of the Word at Christ Church

11.00am Holy Communion at St Andrew's

Sunday 14th September (13th after Trinity)

9.30am Service of the Word at All Saints

11.00am Matins at St Andrews

Sunday 21st September (14th after Trinity)

8.00am Holy Communion at St Andrews

9.30am Harvest Festival, including

Communion by Extension at All Saints

Sunday 28th September (15th after Trinity)

9.30am Holy Communion at All Saints

11.00 am Harvest Festival at St Andrews

followed by Harvest Lunch

Sunday School - All Welcome

There is a Sunday School during the main Sunday services at St. Andrew's Church, Northwold (except for Sunday's with All Age Worship). This is open to any school age child living in the villages of Northwold, Wretton, Stoke Ferry, Whittington and Brookville. If you are not able to stay with your child please drop them off by 10.50 and collect them by 12.15.

Rotas for Church cleaning and flowers

September Christ Church: Mrs Achurch and Mrs Allen All Saints': Mrs E Russell and Mrs P Willis

October Christ Church: Mrs I Eves and Mrs J Ducklin All Saints': Mrs E Russell and Mrs P Willis

We have heard a lot about the dissensions in the Anglican Church in the UK, in the USA, in Nigeria, in . . .! I thought a couple of stories about commitment to your self and to others might not come amiss.

Ex-President Jimmy Carter at one time applied to sail on a nuclear submarine and he was interviewed by the then head of the US Nuclear Navy - Admiral Hyman Rickover. This is Carter's recollection of that interview.

I had applied for the Nuclear Submarine Program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job. It was the first time I met Admiral Rickover, and we sat in a large room by ourselves for more than two hours, and he let me choose any subjects I wished to discuss. Very carefully, I chose those about which I knew most at the time - current events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics, electronics, gunnery - and he began to ask me a series of questions of increasing difficulty. In each instance, he soon proved that I knew relatively little about the subject I had chosen.

He always looked right into my eyes, and he never smiled. I was saturated with cold sweat.

Finally, he asked a question and I thought I could redeem myself. He said, "How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?" Since I had completed my Sophomore year at Georgia Tech before entering Annapolis as a Pleb, I had done very well and I swelled my chest with pride and answered, "Sir, I stood fifty-ninth in a class of 820!" I sat back to wait for the congratulations - which never came. Instead the question: "Did you do your best?" I started to say, "Yes, sir," but I remembered the times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy and so forth. I was just human. I finally gulped and said, "No, sir, I didn't always do my best."

He finally looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked me one final question, which I have never been able to forget - or to answer. He said, "Why not?" I sat there for a while, shaken, and then slowly left the room.

What about this recollection, by a victim of the Holocaust - Pastor Niemoller?

"First they came for the communists

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a trade unionist.

Next they came for the Catholics

and I did not speak out -

because I was not a Catholic.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left

to speak out for me"

Paul expresses it, very concisely, in his letter to the Christians of Rome - For none of us lives to himself, and no ones dies to himself. (Rom 14.7)

Before we condemn or criticise, we need to look at ourselves and ask what we have done. It is difficult to see a way forward other than by following Jesus' invitation to his disciples on how to live. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

(John 13.34)

Keith MacLeod

Reader