The Parish Magazine February 2021
Serving the communities of Charvil, Sonning and Sonning Eye continuously since 1869
Serving the communities of Charvil, Sonning and Sonning Eye continuously since 1869
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36 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>February</strong> <strong>2021</strong><br />
HEALTH — 2<br />
from page 35<br />
One of the best ways to improve communication is<br />
to get feedback. When I taught Oxford students we<br />
had to receive anonymous feedback. I was told that<br />
the students had a lecture on how to give feedback<br />
and had to produce feedback on that lecture. I<br />
cannot possibly disclose the results but it is as<br />
ironic as you may think.<br />
If you can, please feedback to anyone who is<br />
explaining things to you; even better question<br />
it. If I cannot answer your question or cannot<br />
communicate it properly then I need to learn and<br />
grow.<br />
I hope my analogy of blueprints to protein<br />
synthesis (production) and the Covid vaccine is<br />
clear. If not I have failed and need feedback. Take<br />
this article as educational mRNA. If we have all<br />
understood my missive, we are all now teachers or<br />
doctors in the Latin sense.<br />
References<br />
Dr Simon Ruffle writes<br />
Our very own Sonning resident and magazine contributor,<br />
Robert Lobley, receiving his Covid vaccine. Simon Ruffle<br />
FEEDBACK<br />
1. https://www.stem.org.uk/<br />
2. https://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-bestqualified-cabinet-since-all-the-other-ones/<br />
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!<br />
Please wait for a call to receive your Covid vaccine.<br />
Please accept your appointment.<br />
Please get vaccinated and allow those muscle cells<br />
in your arm to produce a little bit of magic<br />
— oops, science!<br />
THE ARTS<br />
Forty days and forty nights<br />
By Rev Michael Burgess<br />
This month we enter Lent: 40 days when we follow<br />
Jesus into the wilderness and prepare to celebrate<br />
his Easter victory. In the last century Stanley<br />
Spencer planned 40 paintings, each depicting a day<br />
in the wilderness. He completed nine, one of which is<br />
‘Christ in the Wilderness – Scorpions’ from 1938. It is<br />
currently held in a private collection.<br />
Stanley Spencer lived and worked in Cookham,<br />
Berkshire. Through the everyday life of local people he<br />
tried to glimpse and convey the transcendent. ‘Angels<br />
and dirt’ he called it: the divine seen in the ordinary.<br />
So, in a painting of Christ carrying his cross, Jesus<br />
has the face of the local grocer.<br />
Another villager modelled for this Jesus in the<br />
wilderness: a strong, hefty, broad figure. This is a<br />
great contrast to the Christ of stained-glass windows<br />
who often seems too good to be part of our world.<br />
Here is real life: a large man filling the canvas with<br />
his head, his hands and his feet. This figure of Jesus<br />
comes as a shock: a very human model, ordinary with<br />
nothing handsome or special about him, apart from<br />
his tunic which seems to sprawl and undulate like the<br />
hills around. Here is a Jesus born into this world and<br />
one with it.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are two focal points – the neat, little<br />
scorpion and the massive, unkempt head<br />
contemplating each other. One is life in all its hefty<br />
reality; the other a tiny creature able to squeeze that<br />
life out by one swift flick of its tail.<br />
Jesus is shown in the wilderness pondering the<br />
<strong>The</strong> Society for Storytelling was set up in 1995<br />
to promote the oldest art form in the world —<br />
storytelling.<br />
Storytelling is at the root of every art form: we<br />
think in story form, make sense of our world in<br />
narrative — from something we’ve seen, through<br />
last night’s television, to what family and folk<br />
stories we remember and retell.<br />
Storytelling can be a powerful experience, both<br />
entertaining and moving.<br />
From Biblical times it is the traditional medium<br />
of communication from generation to generation,<br />
a tool for education and therapy.<br />
National Storytelling Week began 20 years ago<br />
to increase public awareness of the art and is held<br />
during the first week of <strong>February</strong> every year. It<br />
coincides with Candlemas, on 2 <strong>February</strong>, when<br />
part of the ancient rituals for this festival included<br />
a blessing on the throat, a prime tool in the store<br />
of nearly all storytellers of every belief and culture.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Society for Storytelling provides advice on<br />
organising and publicising events, and possible<br />
life and ministry that will<br />
countryside into the town<br />
to his death on Good Frida<br />
strength and renewal to e<br />
during his time in the des<br />
follow Jesus, we seek to liv<br />
mean dying to all that sep<br />
He has a calling for each<br />
that calling this Lent, we m<br />
through the 40 days to life<br />
find it a journey that calls u<br />
our God.<br />
Are you sitting comfortab<br />
NATIONAL STORYTELLING WEEK 30 January — 6 Feb<br />
sources for funding inform<br />
Directory of Storytellers, wh<br />
information on over 150 s<br />
the UK.<br />
For more information<br />
Storytelli<br />
https://www.sfs.org.uk/na
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