Dear Prime Time members,
Welcome to your first Prime Time email of 2021! The year hasn’t started exactly as we hoped has it? (Although possibly exactly as we feared…) There’s not been a great deal of sunshine in evidence this week to help lift the mood, so we’re having to get our proverbial ‘little rays of sunshine’ wherever we can find them. Every one of us will have different things that have the ability to make our hearts sing and even if only temporarily, these things allow us to cast aside our worries and experience a little bit of joy. It may be hearing a favourite piece of music being played on the radio, perhaps a sighting of a new bird on your bird feeder or maybe certain smells make your heart swell. At this time of year it won’t be freshly cut grass, but for me – the smell of wood smoke transports me back to a happy place and the winters of my childhood, with my Dad toasting crumpets on the open fire in our sitting room using a particularly long-handled toasting fork! Due to the current popularity of wood burning stoves, wood smoke is a common smell once more around Godalming during winter-time; so I tend to get flashbacks of charred crumpets quite frequently at the moment!
It’s often those small, seemingly inconsequential things that raise a smile – no matter how fleeting. It could be a newspaper headline that contains a particularly clever play on words; you may not remember it for long – but just in that moment when it caught your eye, you thought ‘Oh, that’s good!’ But even if it doesn’t stick in your mind for long , it’s effect on your mood, your spirit, can last for a lot longer.
Personally, I’ve found that these ‘little rays of sunshine’ can really help me to get through the difficult days and if we’re honest – we’re probably all experiencing more than the odd one or two of those at the moment; especially when it’s cold, overcast and damp and there really isn’t any other option but to stay indoors. So, what’s made me smile today? An email actually; and not a personal one at that. It was a marketing one, from a retailer of frozen foods that has a shop in Godalming. Like Prime Time, this company has been sending out regular emails since the start of the pandemic and they often contain quirky little bits of trivia or astonishing undertakings that just somehow appeal to me. I’m a bit of a trivia magpie and I store up and collect such gems (as anyone who took part in the recent Prime Time Christmas Quiz will no doubt concur – I have a disproportionate amount of slightly random information tucked up both sleeves ready to wheel out at the slightest of opportunities!)
The headline on the aforementioned email I received today was a play on words based on a line from a song; a song which was quite an anthem for my generation when we were in our early twenties. The song lyric ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again’ had been changed to ‘We get Lock Down, but we get up again’ which immediately grabbed my attention; making me smile for the sheer clever-ness and pertinence of it as well as briefly transporting me back to our time living in Brighton in the late 1990s when the original song was released. But the real gem in that email was at the end where it contained a link to a video, the content of which ties in perfectly with the topic I had intended to share with you all in today’s email. But as if that wasn’t enough, what really made me smile was that had I not been running somewhat late today and had I sent the weekly email out at the usual time in the late afternoon, the marketing email would have arrived in my inbox after I had sent out the Prime Time email and therefore I would not have been able to include it as an added bonus to share with you and that would have been such a shame as it really is a bit like the cherry on the cake that finishes everything off. When coincidences like this occur, it really does strengthen my belief that there is a higher entity controlling the course of things. It will come as no surprise to you that for me, that ‘entity’ is God and such coincidences (even seemingly trivial ones regarding the arrival of an email) bring me comfort and reassurance that even though I cannot know how a particular situation will end, I can place my trust in God to make things right because He has shown me even in the minutiae of my life that He is with me putting things in the right order and, therefore that ultimately, things happen for a reason.
So, I expect you’re wondering now what the theme of this week’s email was always going to be… ‘Joy, Hope, Peace and Love’. If you tuned in, either on the radio or television last week to the annual New Year’s Day Concert from Vienna, these words will no doubt be familiar to you. The conductor, Riccardo Muti, spoke about music being more than entertainment and that for musicians it is more than a profession, it is a mission; a mission to make society better through music. He went on to say that ‘musicians have in their weaponry, flowers; not things that kill. We bring joy, hope, peace, and love’ and he concluded that this is the ‘message of music’. Whilst in no way was this a religious occasion or an event rooted in Christian theology, it struck me how strongly these four words are reflected in the Bible. ‘Joy’, ‘Peace’ and ‘Love’ are three of the nine Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5, verse 22) whilst ‘Hope’ is what we gained through Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection.
God’s word flows through everyday life without many of us really realising it and part of its enduring strength is its timelessness and continued relevance. It’s use in our everyday parlance demonstrates how we carry God’s word with us without us really even being aware of it and this alone gives me hope for the future.
My initial thought was to discuss each of the four words at this point, but on reflection – I think my letter to you might begin to read more like a theological essay, so you’ll probably be relieved to know that I’ve had a rethink! Encouraged by the gem relating to ‘Joy’ that fell into my inbox at the eleventh hour this afternoon, I have challenged myself to try and find something equally as relevant for each of the remaining three words used by Riccardo Muti during his New Year’s day speech and I will share my discoveries with you over the next three weeks.
Today I’m kicking us off with ‘Joy’, having been nudged in this direction by the discovery of the very appropriate video that came my way earlier today. It also seems very timely though as we have just had Christmas, which albeit a very different experience this year – is traditionally a season associated with joy. The line so familiar to us from many a school Nativity Play has the chief angel utter the immortal words: ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy’ which is of course a reference to the fact that the promised Saviour has been born. True Christian joy, is knowing Jesus as our own, personal Saviour – being a beneficiary of His saving work, and receiving through Him the forgiveness of our sins and the consequent peace with God and sure hope of eternal life.
But joy like many things in life is a very subjective experience and we each will have different triggers for this sensation. Aside from biblical definitions, the dictionary definition of ‘joy’ is: ‘a feeling of pleasure or happiness’. Although both the weather and the news updates have been gloomy this week, I pray that in spite of all the difficulties we are currently experiencing, you are still able to experience moments of joy, those personal ‘little rays of sunshine’ I referred to earlier.
And if those rays of sunshine are in short supply, hopefully you’ll find one here in this link:
Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’, performed as you’ve never seen it before in the streets of Sabadell in Spain. Surprising, soulful and joyous.
May the coming week provide us all with unexpected moments of joy to sustain us. And remember “we get Lock Down, but we get up again’ and collectively together, we will.
‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him’ – Romans 15:13
Until next Friday,
Penny x
Penny Naylor
Primetime Befriending Co-ordinator
Busbridge & Hambledon Church Office
Phone: 01483 421267
Website: www.bhcgodalming.org
(Day off Monday)