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Rector's Letter April 2006 Dear Friends, The water pressure is way down; the photocopier is refusing to accept card for the Easter cards; the water is off; the dog's been sick; I've mislaid yet another vital piece of paper… why, oh why is life so frustrating? I'm going to scream and scream until I'm sick – like the dog (or Violet-Elizabeth Bott!). Maybe that's why she was sick – who knows? It's true that it’s the little things that get one down or lift one up. Our lives are made up of the immediate – keeping the big picture in view is not easy. As David remarked when I was bemoaning the fact that I wanted to wash my hair – “Just think of the people in Darfur.” That's a very sobering thought, but infuriatingly superior on his part. It's a very debilitating emotion, frustration. When a two-year-old throws a massive tantrum, we're inclined to say it's because they're frustrated and can't express their frustration in any other way than kicking the door in. As adults we can verbalise our frustrations, but if we're honest, there's a two-year-old in all of us just desperate to give the door a good kicking. The snow last Sunday could have been another frustration. I expect it was to many, but we had a reasonable congregation and a sense of adventure and, dare I say, superiority amongst those of us who had ploughed through a foot of snow on foot to get there. Okay, I didn't have far to plough, but I did have to send David ahead so that I could walk in his footsteps, like the page with Good King Wenceslas, to prevent the snow going over the top of my boots. Snow, frustration – this is supposed to be an Easter message! Easter is the battle between good and evil writ large. As we approach Good Friday, we feel the weight of the world's evil gathering. This is not minor frustration but hatred, murder, torture, despair, death and pain on a grand scale. On Easter Day we see good triumph; evil might win battle after battle, but the final victory is God's. Some of us might well be called to fight on a world scale, but for most of us, the fight for good is to be waged in the everyday, in the major and minor frustrations and opportunities of daily life. We have the victory in Christ. Have a very happy Easter. Janice |