March 2021

10 Buckden Roundabout March 2021 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: 7th March School Lane, Buckden Primary School (pupils, teachers and teaching assistants, governors, vol- unteers, midday supervisors, all support staff) 14th March Scouts, Cubs and Beavers, Guides, Brownies and Rainbows, Playgroup and Day Nursery, Buck- den out of Schools Scheme, Buckden Towers Youth Retreat Centre 21st March Mayfield, Springfield Close, The Osiers, Stirtloe 28th March Vineyard Way, Burberry Road, Swan End, Lark End, The Library and its librarians Thought for the Month Although it would be perfectly possible to report on the plethora of goings on in our local churches this month, the current highlight being our joint Lent Groups which are well underway, for me it rings a little hollow. Many of us have rightly patted ourselves on the back for having made a step change in our embracing of social media and there is absolutely no doubt of the benefits we have ex- perienced with using Zoom. Many church meetings are more efficient as well as now being more accessible, es- pecially during the winter months. Zoom worship has enabled far flung families and friends to worship, study and pray together in ways that would have been unimag- inable this time last year and the range of times available for worship has attracted many people who either can ’ t or prefer not to attend Sunday worship each week. But we are also painfully aware of the limitations, especially for those, whether due to age or economics, cannot par- ticipate in life online. Away from church life, the wide spread changes may in the future be the start of people actually really living where they are working once again with all that might bring for a reengagement with local community life. As the impact of Covid becomes clearer and perhaps more obviously long term, I wonder whether we are really able to grasp the need exposed by the pandemic for other fundamental changes in the way we live. The renewed sense of value of our NHS and public services is clear but less so perhaps, our interdependency on each other both here and abroad and how a world which strips away nat- ural resources at the expense of the poorest is funda- mentally unstable and unsustainable. Brave talk about how we are managing through this crisis feels thin if we underestimate just how fundamental and critical such issues are for what is now the foreseeable future. I am reminded of Daniel – less of being in the Lion ’ s Den and more being on his knees as it dawns on him in chap- ter 9 that he and his captive people are actually complicit in the systems which are oppressing them - an epiphany, as he sees see things as they really are. Because that ’ s what Covid surely brings to us – a real understanding and appreciation of what ’ s really important and what really matters and how each of us contributes to systems which hold back or oppress others. In our Lent groups, in prep- aration for Holy Week and the celebration of the risen Christ, we are invited to focus on what really matters and to relinquish things of no import or which encumber. In light of the unsustainability of society if we fail to face up to our reality, such consideration is something people of all faiths and none will be doing over the weeks and months ahead whether in a spiritual context or not. In Buckden, one year on from the start of the lockdowns, but still with its strong sense of community supported in no small way by the efforts of all those involved with pro- ducing Roundabout, perhaps we can all be extra mindful of those marginalised by a lack of access to technology and, as restrictions eventually ease, how we might to- gether make changes to our own day to day lives re- flecting what really matters and what ’ s really important in our world today. Revd Sue Baker - Maher Minister at Buckden Methodist Church