From the Revd. Hugh Trenchard, Vicar.

Dear Parishioners,

It seems almost unbelievable that we are already a month into the New Year. I must admit that I am fed up by the constant call in all forms of advertising to 'de-tox' for the New Year. I am not aware that I was 'toxed' in the first place, and I don't want 84 new ways to diet jumping off the newspaper straight on to my breakfast plate.
Neither do I need the ramblings of some Mystic Peg, Meg or Russ purporting to provide me with mv very own guiding star which will, if I navigate through, or preferably around, Venus, Mars and the Moon, lead me through the forthcoming months.

It is the same very year - a 'New Year for a new you'. We are got-at even before we've had a chance to think, and instructed in the latest fashion, colour, fabric and look to which we should aspire. Not just our rooms or houses, but our very bodies are in need of a complete makeover. All this as if we are all so dull and have nothing of worth inside each one of us.

Our dear politicians are equally uninspiring - doom and gloom abound. It is almost as if, as the lights of Christmas went out, so did any thought of continuing the celebration that darkness in all its forms has been overcome and nothing must divert us from that reality. So many times you hear the joyous carols of Christmas choked by the 'Tiredness Carol', the strains of which lament:

'All that preparation, all that hectic fuss,
Thank God it is all over, we know we ate too much.'
(Lines which can be sung to part of the tune to Onward Christian Soldiers)

Christmas gives us a name to call God by - Jesus Christ; Epiphany, through its gifts, shows just what God is like - faithful, persistent and prepared to suffer for and alongside us. We live in a world which requires us to keep the celebration going. To refuse to be dismal and depressed no matter what horrors and sorrows we encounter. We are to be lights in a dark world. A world in which our God walked, and in which He walks today. He is a God who will never give up on us even when we seem to have given up on ourselves.

So if you have already broken any resolutions you may have made for the New Year, don't worry about it and give up. Start again, don't be defeated by ttie mood, be persistent for you and for a real life. God wants each of His children and He will never give up.

With every good wish for the New Year,

Hugh Trenchard

Vicar