St Mary's Church, Dymock

Reports

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It's traditional in the season of Lent to prepare for the joy of Easter by submitting yourself to a period of discipline. Some give up something they like, chocolate or alcohol are common, others attend a study course of some sort to grow their faith and understanding of Christian teaching. This year our study course was home produced by our Rector, Rev'd Tony Lomas and looked at the story "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, as well as one or two bits of Lewis' life from the film 'Shadowlands'. There was a choice - we met either in Redmarley Village Hall on Monday afternoons or Dymock Village Hall on Wednesday evenings for the 6 weeks of Lent. (Return to top)

The story is about four children who are evacuated from London for their safety during the Second World War to a large mansion in the country owned by an eccentric man who has a wardrobe in an upstairs attic that acts as a portal to a parallel land called Narnia, which is populated by animals that can talk and behave much like humans. (Return to top)

The story reflects many of the aspects of Christian teaching of loving and caring for others and what goes wrong when we don't do that (an evil witch takes over and makes everyone's life misery). The principle character is a lion who seems to give his life to pay for the misdeeds (sin) of one of the children but who comes back to life again as Jesus did. After watching an excerpt from the story, we had a discussion among ourselves to relate the principles to our life today. (Return to top)

On any 5th Sunday in the month (ie: 4 times a year) the members of our 9 churches meet together in just one of the churches, and that happened this month on the Sunday before Easter known as 'Palm Sunday, from the time when Jesus entered into the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey and was greeted by the crowds waving palm fronds cut off from nearby trees and shouting 'Hosanna' as a greeting. (Return to top)

In memory of that event, and as is our usual custom, many of us met at the nearby Ann Cam village school and processed to the church for the morning Service behind a donkey kindly loaned to us by Mr Charles Martell and called 'Hote' ('Donkey Hote' - a play on words from the famous novel Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes). (Return to top)

The donkey led the large congregation into the church, but withdrew before the Service began in order to avoid any unfortunate mishaps! (Return to top)

Our Family Service this month was moved from the second to the third Sunday to accommodate a celebration of Mothering Sunday - today more commonly called 'Mothers Day'. The Service followed our usual 'All-Age' format for adults and young people, but the sermon focused on what a mother does by asking the young people to find several pairs of different ladies' shoes place around the church and guess what type of activity a mother would be doing in those types of shoe - trainers, flat shoes, slippers, court shoes, etc, and give thanks for all they do for us.(Return to top)

Towards the end of the Service, pots of polyanthus plants were blessed and given out to the many mums present by their children to remind us of the way Medieval and Victorian children would pick wild-flowers on the way home from their first job as a servant to visit their mother on 'Mothering Sunday' (click here for more details). (Return to top)

Following our Men's Breakfast this January, when our guest was Iman Hassan from one of the mosques in Gloucester city, this month we paid a return visit to his mosque; consequently we weren't able to have breakfast, as there wasn't time to fit it in. We were made very welcome - on arrival we all took off our shoes and put them on a rack just inside he door as is the custom (the building is fully carpeted throughout with under floor heating), and were taken into the main worship space where Hassan kindly provided chairs for us to sit on instead of the floor, which they usually use! (Return to top)

The large and modern building is built on the site of several houses in one of the old Victorian streets of Gloucester, which they managed to do by gradually buying up several adjacent houses over time as they came on the market. They have a modern IT system with a flat screen TV on the wall which shows the time for prayers, as that various a couple of minutes each day with the time of daybreak. There are two identical worship areas, one on the ground floor and one on the 1st floor, they usually fill both floors with up to 1,000 male worshipers at the same time for the main 'Friday Prayers' Service - men slip-in in their lunch-break to ensure they can attend on a Friday. The Iman stands at the front of the ground floor area, by the niche which marks the direction of Mecca, and uses a microphone which is relaid throughout the mosque as well as automatically into the homes of the 1,000 members who live around the mosque. (Return to top)

Adjacent to the worship area on the ground floor is a tiled 'lavatorium' with rows of taps where worshippers can ritually wash themselves before going into worship, although we were told many now do that at home before they come. On the floor above the lavatorium was a second large area with the original carpet from the mosque before it was extended (to respect the gift of past members who had given it) and where they hold the 'Medrasa' (daily teaching classes for all boys and girls from 3-16 years old) and where they had laid-out an exhibition of Qur'an books for us in many different languages, together with an exhibition of their work in local schools and the complete funeral service they provide from washing the body, counselling, and burial in the earmarked space for Muslims of a nearby cemetery. They don't currently cater for women in their worship but hope to extend their service to include them soon, but they do provide some social activities which they've learnt and copied from local Christians! (Return to top)