July 2023

8 Buckden Roundabout July 2023 Church News Weekly Prayer Roster Each week during the year the Churches, in their prayers, remember the residents of particular streets in the village, those who work in the parish and village organisations. Those to be remembered this month are: 2nd July Penda Court, Danes Way, Jute Crescent, Saxon Way 9th July Clubs and societies, their leaders and members, volunteers, and the team that produces and distributes the Buckden Roundabout 16th July Cranfield Way, Cranfield Close, Weir Close, Smith Drive, Lucks Lane, Morris Close 23rd July Buckden Surgery: the doctors, nurses, receptionists, pharmacists, health visitors and midwives; those we know who are in hospital, the elderly, disabled and housebound 30th July Farming communities, Taylor ’ s Lane (West), Hardwick Lane, the residents and staff of Hardwick Dene, Great North Road, Brampton Road, Perry Road, Buckden Wood Thought for the Month Prompted by a recent remark of my mum ’ s, about gardening, I ’ ve reflected on God ’ s calling. Vocation “.. comes from the heart of God, but it goes through the heart of the mother ” Pope St Pius X Through the heart of the mother, is definitely true in my case. “ What are you growing? Veggies? ” mum asks, then says “ I ’ m not growing anything, just older. ” Not growing vegetables or flowers, but growing older says my proverbially green - fingered mum. Like my grandparents were, she ’ s always been a gardener. So many of my childhood mem- ories are of being in the garden with mum. Any time I taste purple sprouting broccoli I am instantly taken back to around 1977 and eating the same, in the garden. Mum had just picked it and as we ate it we watched and listened to the starlings. Mum said “ starlings me darling ”. As this was the seventies I am sure she was borrowing sentiment, if not actually quoting, from Pam Ayres. The first line of the poem I think mum had in mind is also the title, you can find it easily enough online*, here ’ s the first verse: We're starlings, the misses, meself and the boys, We don't go round hopin', we walks. We don't go in for this singing all day, And twittering about, we just squawks. A single parent of two, my father died in 1975, mum worked hard and has always been the kind of dependable, loving, en- couraging, quite straightforward person it is impossible for me to thank enough. Not that I always saw this! I remember some- time in my teens I made mum so cross about something (don't be fooled into thinking it was an isolated incident) that she went out for a couple of hours. "Where did you go?" I asked later, assuming wrongly she had walked around the fields, down the droves, the edge - of - the - fen landscape I love and was home. "Church". Thank God, as he listens to anxieties and frustration, I later realised. You did not choose me but I choose you (John 15:16) I have a number of people who I thank God for. For ensuring that through their words and actions years ago, I was ready to hear God's voice when he called me. Mum's example over so many years humbles me now. She has served her parish church for years and years, in one way or another all her life, from a child in the choir of St Mary and St Michael's, Mistley, in the Chelmsford Diocese, onwards. For years in Suffolk and Norfolk where my father was a primary headteacher and then since the early 70s of St James', Lode, in the Ely Diocese, after they moved to a little village about six or seven miles north of Cambridge. Ever supportive of the vicar, she was a churchwarden and PCC member, a devout and prayerful woman. And, when I upset her, she would walk over the fields from Longmeadow to Lode, shut the church door behind her and...I thank God that through her, I am a priest. With love, Fr David. Priest in charge of St Mary's, Buckden, with All Saints', the Offords. * https://community.rspb.org.uk/chat/f/poetry - corner/46316/ we - re - starlings - the - misses - meself - and - the - boys