And It will never be the same again. Allelulia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
And It will never be the same again. Allelulia!

On the Second Sunday of Easter, the 5th after Lockdown, resurrection thoughts were in my mind as enjoyed my 1 hour's exercise around Norfolk's green lanes


In field and hedgerow spring is bursting out all over. There are blue skies, a cool breeze and bright sunlight. Turning things over, as I pace the miles with half an ear on bird song and an eye scanning verges for spring flowers and sky for newly arrived migratory birds, I remember another spring day and another walk.

I was walking in a very different agricultural landscape with the same blue sky, cool breeze and spring bursting out all over. I was in Southern Cyprus with a landscape and agriculture that shares much with Galilee. I can't say where or when exactly the penny dropped during that walk but this picture captures it all for me.


After that walk, I understood so much more. The Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Allegory of the Vine  particularly.
Like an Old Testament prophet I wished I had kept my mouth shut. Not many people wanted to engage with the uncomfortable suggestion that the Church in Norfolk required comprehensive pruning if it was to thrive.

 Up until the lockdown my bit of the vineyard, seemed to be making a good fist of resisting change. Many rural parishes, unable to pay parish share with yearly data on a relentless downward trajectory, still manage to frustrate any attempts to change anything! And the dear old C of E has few levers it can pull to enforce change. But now a Disrupter in the guise of a Corona virus has come upon us.

 It may wake the world up to the bigger crises of Global Warming and Species Extinction, but in the meantime, if we are wise, we let it sort out the C of E. "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15.2)
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
And It will never be the same again. Allelulia!

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