The Parish Magazine March 2021

the parish noticeboard — 2
On reflection . . .
Solomon and a higher
purpose than ourselves
By Elizabeth Spiers
I read that Solomon was probably having a mid-life
crisis when he wrote Ecclesiastes. That the king who
had everything was completely fed up with it all. He
had more money than you can imagine — worldly fame,
power and God-given wisdom but he also shouldered
great responsibility for the welfare of a nation. And he
had to keep a close eye on would-be enemies.
Somewhere along the way, he lost sight of God and in order
to relieve the sheer boredom and weight of it all, he tried to
find satisfaction in a whole lot of things you might not expect
a man so completely blessed by God to try including heavy
drinking, massive building projects and women.
Difficult problems often come together in life — the loss
of a job, divorce, serious illness. I think all of us can identify
with that. It’s stressful. And it’s very tempting to blame God
or do what Solomon did and try and find consolation in other
things. When it happened to me, I decided that God had failed
in his care of me and for a long time I tried to ignore him.
GOD GROUNDS US
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Instead of taking it all to God, seeking his help and
his peace, I blamed and rejected him. But in the end, it all
became meaningless for me too. Outside of God, I found no
point to life at all. I kept going, but without purpose.
This may have been how Solomon felt. He had seen good
things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good
people. He had seen the good die young, the criminal get off
scot-free and there just didn’t seem to be any point to it. It
was meaningless he repeatedly said.
But after all this, Solomon couldn’t find any point to life
without God either. He concluded that it was better to obey
God’s word because God will judge everything we have done,
whether good or bad.
God grounds us. When we live with and for him, we do
things for reasons bigger than ourselves. We have a purpose
higher than ourselves. And for me, like Solomon, it makes all
the difference.
From the desk
of the editor
editor@theparishmagazine.co.uk
Making a contribution
The Parish Magazine - March 2021 9
This month we begin a new series of short articles called
'On Reflection' (see left) by Elizabeth Spiers. As part of my
role as vice chairman of the Association of Church Editors
(ACE) I produce a monthly newsletter for the members which
enables the more experienced ACE editors to help those with
less experience to develop their magazines, and we all share
ideas about content.
The 'On Reflection' series of articles arrived on my desk as
a result of this sharing of content ideas, and I hope you will
find them interesting and helpful. The author is not a church
magazine editor — she started writing them to fill some
time during the first Covid-19 lockdown and her church
magazine began publishing them. Having read some I feel
they are well worth sharing. I hope you agree.
AN INVITATION
One of the positive things of lockdown has been that
people such as Elizabeth have had the time to explore some
of their talents and interests that they were previously too
busy to do. In The Parish Magazine, of course, we have already
published the results of several local residents having the
time to pursue their interests during lockdown whether it be
writing poetry, helping wild life, painting, family history and
so on. If you have something that lockdown has enabled you
to give some time to and would like to share the results, then
let me know, I will be pleased to help by publishing it in this
magazine.
Should you take up this invitation, please note that, like
everything that appears in this magazine, I maintain the
right to edit every contribution and I can never guarantee
that there will be space to use it.
I am often asked by contributors about the number of
words an article should have. My answer is for you to write
everything you want to say and don't worry about the length,
I will always edit it to fit the available space!
The most important thing to remember about any
contribution to The Parish Magazine is the deadline which
is the same for every issue — 12.00 noon on the sixth day
of the month before the publication date. For example, the
deadline for the April issue is 6 March.
The 12.oo noon deadline is precisely what it says because
I plan to complete the layout of each issue a couple of hours
later. This is so a team of proof readers can start work and we
can meet the printer's deadline.
Good quality, high resolution images are always welcome
as long as you have parental permission if children are
involved. Images must meet the legal copyright regulations,
especially if they have been downloaded from the internet.
Finally, if you are contributing an item, it is always
advisable to let me know in advance so that I can save space
for you. Happy writing!