Liphook Community Magazine - Autumn 2015

Churches of Liphook
L I P H O O K C H R I S T I A N S W E L C O M E Y O U T O T H E I R S E R V I C E S
Christian Aid Week
Well done Liphook, once again! We raised £5,407.63 in total during Christian
Aid Week. The house-to-house collections totalled £4,242.84; the
Sainsbury’s collection was £110.61; the Coffee Morning raised £886.60.
It was a magnificent effort all round. This money will be spent by our church
partners to help the very poorest people in the world, regardless of their
faith or background.
Our contributions do make a difference!
Thank you to all who gave their time and money to achieve this.
Brenda Halsey - Village Organiser
“I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my
trousers rolled”
These immortal words from ‘The
lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock’ by T. S.
Elliot floated into my mind when I began
to reflect on this piece for the Magazine.
As a fellow, Ancient of Days observed to
me recently “growing old is no joke!” I
heartily concurred!
Horizons contract, variations in temperature
become more noticeable, old
friends die off. One of my favourite
relaxations is walking in the countryside,
Catholic Church
but I keep recalling the walks I used to be
able to do... and so on. Loneliness is a
growing feature of life, time can hang
heavy.
How easy it is to allow such negative
thoughts to dominate. And yet, how
much I have to thank God for! The
marbles still seem to be functioning (at
least the “Telegraph” Saturday General
Knowledge Crossword would seem to
indicate this!) How lucky I am to live in
such a beautiful part of our countryside,
in some comfort. I have to take myself to
task at times.
Most of us are adept enough about
asking God for things, but we all too
easily forget the other aspect of prayer.
Thanksgiving. It is very salutary to pause
and reflect at some length on all I have to
be thankful for, all of which is God’s free
gift to me. Petition has its place in this
thanksgiving : petition that the Lord who
has brought me so far will lead me on
trustingly and peaceful to await the final
encounter with Him.
Excellent advice! Now all I have to do is
follow it!
Father Cyril Murtagh
INSIDE THE FISH!
The story of Jonah and the “whale” is
familiar to most of us. God sends Jonah
to Nineveh but he takes a boat to Tarshish
(Spain) instead; he is thrown overboard
and God provides a “great fish” to swallow
Jonah. After three days the fish threw him
up on dry land. Apart from the sequel in
Nineveh our children’s versions tend to
forget the middle bit - what he did for
three days inside the fish.
Jonah prayed. That’s probably not
surprising but what is more unexpected is
the content of his prayer. It was not a
14
Methodist Church
prayer asking God to get him out of
there if at all possible or even simply
acknowledging how wrong and disobedient
he’d been and asking for a quick death.
Jonah’s prayer acknowledges his
terrible situation: overwhelmed by the
sea, taken down to the depths, completely
engulfed and cut off from God. It could be
an expression of being psychologically
overwhelmed.
But Jonah’s prayer is punctuated by
hope: “yet I will look again towards your
holy Temple”; “But you . . . brought my
life up from the pit”; - remember this is
from inside the fish, from the depths of
despair where life could not get any worse
- “But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
will sacrifice to you. I will say, Salvation
comes from the Lord.”
The sign of Jonah is not just three days
in a whale paralleled with three days in a
tomb. The sign of Jonah is one of hope -
not a vain optimism that perhaps it might
all turn out OK but a sure and certain
faith that in God’s economy nothing is
wasted and his purposes are good.
David Muskett