From the Registers

Funerals.  

7th August. Kirby Knowle. Mary Smith, 85, late of Upsall and widow of Sidney Smith who was an agricultural contractor. A local lass whose family farmed at Atlay Fields, from where the three sisters ran a bakery.

8th August. Felixkirk. Kenneth Luery, 80. He and Monica, his wife, moved into Thirsk a year ago and Kenneth was a regular collector for various charities, which gave a local initiative to continued support for them.

We also report the death of Bjorn Berg, late of Nether Silton, unexpectedly from cancer. A great supporter of the village during his time there, and sometime landlord of The Gold Cup. Our best wishes and sympathy to Beryl, now in Tenerife, and Helen and her family who still live in Nether Silton.

To learn, liberate, judge and decide are aspects of the national being. Cogito, ergo sum if you like. Is the Bible sufficient authority on human nature today? Ecclesiastes has comments on time that are well known readings at funerals. Power seems to rest with God as omnipotent - yet the Cross suggests the opposite for it is found in weakness. Power, money, sex and time - the four subjects of the Doctrine Commission's report "Being Human" - are all components of our everyday life and experience. We wax and wane, suffer and exult, in the throes of all of them. Jesus' parables often turn money upside down: "Render to Caesar"; a penny a day or an hour for a vineyard worker is perhaps better seen as a living wage for everyone at the end of the day, whatever their contribution: the talent buried could have been invested so it grew and no doubt the owner would have rather risked a loss instead of someone doing nothing. On sex, don't lie with your donkey: ritual purity for a woman ensured lovemaking happened during the fertile period of her cycle. Is this sufficient for life today?

In the '60s, when faced with Honest to God, Pierre Teillard de Chardin, and Freud and Jung in equal doses, I found more common sense and insight into human nature in the Bible. However, it must be said that you needed to have an interest in faith and an ongoing relationship with God if the Bible was to have any meaning. Dr Martin Kitchen remarks, of the Commission's report, that "Jesus, the beginning and the end in time (Genesis 1/Proverbs 8/Revelation 21v.6, 22v.13) is the eternal among us who offers to buy back what we lose, whether that loss be the result of what is done to us or of what we have done. True wisdom is found in learning to live in the light of that".

Power is a fact of life and we are challenged to use it well or live with it easily. Power over other people, from benefaction to blackmail, is within the control and exercise of each one of us daily. The ideal of church giving is as a Thank You, not as a weapon to withhold in order to bend others to one's will (how often is a diocese held to ransom by a wealthy parish that does not like certain goings on?). To look again at the parable of the vineyard owner we see that often money and power are not linked, to say nothing of everyday phrases about our own spending power or the buying power of the pound against the euro.

Without Wisdom none of these aspects - nor the learning, liberating, judging and deciding - can be exercised properly to the benefit of others. Therein lies the nub of the matter. "The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom." Life, as taught by Jesus, is to make us wiser about and better at "loving our neighbour as oneself". If, in serving others, we serve God then Wisdom is found and execised in the doing of that. Yes, these things are inter-dependent. How we serve a spouse in marriage, for example, is very much how we balance, co-ordinate and inter-relate the aspects the Report has taken. From the covenant of marriage it is but a small step to apply them to the covenant of our relationship with God through Christ and vice-versa. "O Lord in thy light may we see light" Psalm 36v.9 is very much a comment on finding, and exercising from then on, the right spirit.

May our Harvest be such!

PS A further comment on "Being Human"
This new report out from the House of Bishops looks at issues around the human personality: Power, Sex, Time and Money. So far The Church Times has only printed an extract on the comments on Sex! It reads more like a manual from Post Ordination Training for junior clergy on marriage preparation - this does not auger well for the rest.

The magazine of the parishes of Boltby, Borrowby, Cowesby, Felixkirk, Kepwick, Kirby Knowle, Knayton, Leake and "The Siltons". Also circulated in Upsall C.P., Thirlby C.P. and Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe.
The Vicar in charge is Rev.Toddy Hoare,
at The Vicarage, Moor Road, Knayton, THIRSK, YO7 4AZ Telephone: 01845 537277. 

The magazine of the parishes of Boltby, Borrowby, Cowesby, Felixkirk, Kepwick, Kirby Knowle, Knayton, Leake & "The Siltons". Also circulated in Upsall, Thirlby & Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe.
The Vicar in charge is Rev.Toddy Hoare,
The Vicarage, Moor Road, Knayton, THIRSK, YO7 4AZ Tel: 01845 537277
Contributions always welcome, deadline 2nd Monday in the month
Editor Curtiss Cottage, South Kilvington, Thirsk 01845 522739