February 2013 70p - Warnham Parish Council

The Vicar Writes
Jesus told a parable about seed sown in four different types of soil (Luke 8.4-8). The soil represents four different possible reactions
to the gift of God’s word. On the path are those who are simply not interested in what God has to offer them; they blank him out and
ignore him. Growing in shallow soil are those who are enthusiastic about faith for a short time, but then give up when it gets difficult
or loses its freshness. Growing among thorns are those whose hearts are in the right place, but whose faith gets crowded out by all the
other things they have to do in their lives. And finally, on good soil grow those whose faith is maturing and bringing forth the fruit of a
joyful, Christ-centred life.
If you ask Christians which of the four soils they identify with, very few are so confident as to claim to be the good soil, just as very
few are so defeated as to say they are on the hard path. Nearly all of us see ourselves as one of the middle soils: people who want to
be Christian but for one reason or another never quite live out what we say we want. This should not surprise us: it is the nature of a
human being to waver and be inconsistent. One day we are full of enthusiasm, the next everything seems dull and unappealing. One
month we love going to church and find it the high point of the weekend, the next we are glad of any excuse to stay away. One year we
read the Bible every day, the next it stays unopened on a top shelf. If we rely on our own feelings to drive our faith, we are not likely to
do any better than Peter, who loudly proclaimed his unshakeable loyalty to Jesus, and then later that same evening denied three times
that he had met him.
Much more than we realise, we rely on virtuous habits to keep us going in anything that requires long-term commitment and
stickability. We need to undergird our fitful enthusiasm with system, method, what is sometimes called a Rule of Life.
This year during Lent, we are not holding our usual Lent course. Instead, I am keeping my diary as empty as possible so as to have time
to give to any of you who would like to build such a Rule. You are invited to give up to an hour at some time during the forty days of
Lent for a one-to-one spiritual roadcheck. Where are the areas you need help if you are to grow into the person that God created you
to be? What useful patterns can you build into your daily life which will help you develop dependable virtues and spiritual attitudes?
As each person’s circumstances and spiritual needs are different, so each person’s Rule will be different. If you do ask for a conversation,
the five areas we shall look at will be prayer, reading, sacramental life, accountability and service. The conversation will be led by your
priorities and desires, because any Rule of Life which emerges will only stand a chance of being useful, if it works realistically with the
shape of your life as you actually live it. The hope is that by the end of Lent many of us will have committed ourselves to something
simple, flexible, personal, yet demanding enough to help us grow even when the pressure is on and it would be simpler to drift away
from our Christian commitment.
At the Communion services on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning during Lent, there will be addresses on the five themes,
which should help us to clarify our thoughts and hopes. You don’t have to hear the addresses to get anything out of your personal
conversation, and you don’t have to have a personal conversation to get anything out of the addresses, but they will be designed to shed
light on each other.
Lent starts on Wednesday 13th February. Please phone me or e-mail me to make your appointment, and make this a Lent when you
really do come alive to God.
Christopher Loveless
Glimpses of the Past
Vicar’s trip to Egypt
In the autumn of 1909, Richard Bowcott,
who was 60 and had been Vicar of
Warnham for 27 years, was advised by
his doctor to get away from the damp
atmosphere during the coming winter.
We can only assume that he was suffering
from some form of respiratory disease. He
was fortunate in having private means and
tolerant church authorities which enabled
him and his wife to take an eight month
trip to Egypt. They sailed from London
on 21 October 1909 on the P&O 10,000
ton passenger liner, SS Marmora. The
Marmora, which carried 216 passengers,
was bound for Australia but the Bowcotts
disembarked at Port Said. Having been
built in 1903 the ship was still a new vessel
and most likely extremely comfortable.
On 3 August 1914, after eleven years of
gracious travel around the world, she was
hastily requisitioned by the Admiralty and
converted into an armed merchant cruiser
escorting convoys mostly in the South
Atlantic. On 23 July 1918, she was sunk by
torpedo south of Ireland.
But these horrors were still a long way
off, and probably not anticipated, when
Richard and Sarah Bowcott embarked in
London Docks bound for warmer climes.
Travel in those days was far slower and
less stressful and for the comfortably off,
more agreeable. Not for them the long
wait at Heathrow, the expensive coffee
and lengthy queues, limited luggage and
cramped journey whisking them in a
few hours from early winter to the shock
of sub-tropical warmth. Most likely the
Bowcotts were driven to the station in the
large car of one of the Warnham gentry.
The chauffeur would have found a porter
to transfer their bulky and heavy luggage
to the train taking them to Victoria. There
they would have easily found a another
2
porter who would call a taxi to transfer
them to the dock where their bulky trunks,
marked ‘Not wanted on Voyage’ would
be carefully stowed away and their leather
suitcases delivered to the cabin.
I have no idea whether the Rev Bowcott
was talkative, but he was certainly verbose
on paper and so a series of lengthy and
interesting letters came back to Warnham,
keeping everyone abreast of his travels.
The first arrived in December where, after
a few expressions at his sadness at not
being able to take the whole of Warnham
with him, Richard Bowcott goes on to tell
of a very rough passage across the Bay
of Biscay and then arriving in Gibraltar,
which he describes as a mixture of English
and ‘Foreign’. He was obviously not
very fit as Mrs Bowcott did most of the
sightseeing on her own, both here and in
Marseilles, but he describes the views of
the Rock and the Sierra Nevada as very
splendid. At Marseilles a large number of