The Village Pastor
God gives seasons for gladness of heart it says over the stage in the Village Center. As Summer gives way to Fall, and soon Fall to Winter, the rhythm of nature’s seasons and the seasons of Village life indeed make our hearts glad.
My first call as a pastor was at Holden in 1976. It is a remarkable thing to return into this office in this Village. The community is new - new every busload as Holden goes - and the times are different. But the rhythms of season and work and worship and life remain as the patterns that sustain and support us together in God’s grace.
It is wonderful to walk through the Village and say hello here, ask a question there, meet a companion on the way, learn about the day’s work. And the wonder of it is contained in our nightly gathering around worship. In proclamation and prayer, in song and silence, the strength of community is manifest in this simple, daily routine of Vespers. Looking around the assembly in Koinonia as so many sing Vespers ‘86 (Holden Evening Prayer) from memory brings its own wonder. And I am in awe of the quiet compassion of the staff as they gather around a dear friend or a new sister or brother in Christ at the corner bowls of Prayer around the Cross.
Ronald Blythe is a historian, writer, and lay reader in the Church of England. He has two books chronicling daily life in the village of Wormingford, Essex, England. His writing describes well the experience at Holden of the day-to-day wonder of Village life and worship.
I am moved by our small worshiping congregation, by the privacy of their public prayer, and by the impossibility of my ever knowing what is going on as they kneel, sit, stand, sing, say, dream. In service terms, worship is that ultimate reverence which a community and an individual has to reactivate week after week. It must be familiar, even commonplace, and yet at the same time elevated and inspired. ‘Wonder is the basis of worship,’ said Carlyle. Wonder is unlikely to fill the entire act of worship, but I notice it creeping in here and there. ... Church-going nowadays can be a traditional or pop concert sans worship. Yet who can prove its absence? No one - least of all myself as I kneel, sit, stand, sing, say, dream ... . One cannot always tell when something wonderful is going on.
-Ronald Blythe, The Word from Wormingford, p.168.
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