Dear Friends,

I have just returned from the most productive morning I’ve had for a long time. I was part of the working party that have started to clear the ground for the remembrance garden at Capel Church. A massive thank you to everyone who came and helped, particularly Norman, David, Doug, Liz, Viv, Steffi, Andy, Eric, Joy, Leigh and Mandy, with your help we have made a considerable difference to the area, most of the brambles are gone and long forgotten graves cleaned of their ivy. In amongst the brambles was a lovely display of snowdrops which we have preserved and there are primroses to come. For those who are worried about wildlife we did check the area but found no evidence of early nesting birds, hedgehogs, or even rabbits. Do go and look if you have time.

The next stage will be to draw up a plan of how we would like the area to look eventually, we will display this in church for everyone to see, in the meantime the area will be kept under control to stop the brambles taking over again and the rubble that we discovered will be removed.

Thankfully the weather this morning was fine and calm, all remnants of storm Eunice seemed to have disappeared – I do hope you were all safe and without too much damage. Our neighbour had a couple of trees down, one across the Horsham Road which blocked off the Northern entrance to the village for a couple of hours, but it was cleared very quickly and our gate needs some repair work, but we seem to have escaped any major damage and I hope your experience was the same.

Tomorrow we have the following services:
9.30am Matins Ockley
10.30am Family Communion Capel

There are two funerals in Ockley this coming week, Judith Edwards on Wednesday and Tim Pryke. Tim’s funeral is family only – there will be a Thanksgiving service later in the year.

March is fast approaching so here are a few events coming up in the next couple of weeks:
26 February: Capel market 9-12
Supper club at the Crown – booking required.
5 March: WI Jumble Sale Capel Memorial hall
Ockley Society Quiz from 7pm – Ockley Village Hall 07860 473 239 to book a place
8 March: Quiz night at the Crown – a really friendly evening with a lovely supper and a fun quiz.
12 March: Clive Carroll in Concert at Capel Church 8pm book your tickets at www.capelboxoffice.co.uk <www.capelboxoffice.co.uk/>

Do let me know if there are other village events you would like to publicise on these emails.

Photo of the week this week is from a lovely walk in Norbury park a week ago when the weather felt much more spring like!

I wish you a calm and peaceful week.

With love and prayers

Debbie von Bergen
debbievonbergen@icloud.com
07774 784008

Readings-20.02.22.pdf

weekly-sheet-22.02.20.pdf

So this month begins on a strong note with Ash Wednesday. The day before is of course one of my most favourite days – Shrove Tuesday – or Pancake Day! Oh dear I am hoping to stick to my diet for the next six weeks before Easter and here I am already anticipating pancakes…. anyway I digress, back to Ash Wednesday!

Ashes are an ancient sign of penitence which became the custom from the middle ages as a way of marking the beginning of Lent. By way of preparation by the clergy it involves burning palm crosses from last year and mixing the ash with oil. Have you ever tried frying last year’s palm crosses in a frying pan?! A rather mucky business to be honest! Luckily these days you can buy ready made ash.

This custom of ‘ashing’ is not something I knew about until I attended a church that practiced it but now I know it I actually rather like it! Yes it can look a bit like you haven’t washed your face with a dirty grey mark on your forehead. Yet it is the sign of the cross marked in ash along with the immortal words ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’. It indeed acts as a symbol of our mortality and as a sign that we intend to move away from those things we know are not good for us and to begin again. Another fresh start! Something that has always rather put me off Lent is the rather austere practices that have been associated with these six weeks of preparation before Easter. I’m not good at austere! One of which is the habit a lot of people seem to have of choosing to give up chocolate or similar treat during this time. As I said I hope to use the time as a bit of personal discipline I know, but on my diet you can eat treats! I have said it before I know but I like to think of Lent as not so much giving things up, well not good things anyway, but of doing something different particularly in a giving way that I don’t normally do. A sort of adding something to my life during Lent which will bring life in the fullest sense.

Later on this month we will be filing our churches with Spring flowers as we celebrate Mothering Sunday so I hope you may join us at one of our services that day. Posies of flowers are given to all and left in our porches for you to pass on to someone you know who might appreciate it. So I wish you a good Lent and please do join us on Ash Wednesday at 11 o clock in St John the Baptist if you care to join us in a meaningful start to the season. Study wise you may like to join an online course run by St Peter’s Newdigate on the subject of unanswered prayer (details below). Each session stands alone and will cover some of life’s most difficult questions. Please see details below.

As always my love and prayers
Revd Liz

Dear Friends,

I hope some of you have managed to enjoy the lovely sunshine in the last couple of days, the snowdrops are fully out now – such a delight these harbingers of spring. In fact our photo of the week this week is a lovely shot taken by Mike Reeves at Wisley showing their snowdrops mixed with winter aconites – a magical display.

This weeks services are as follows:
9.30am Holy Communion CW St Margaret’s
10.30am Cafe church St John’s
As before for cafe church we will be serving refreshments but please stay seated and we will bring them to you.

If you are fighting the February blues, why not head to a gospel workshop. St Mary Magdalene church at South Holmwood is hosting a series of Gospel music workshops under the expert guidance of Tunde. The first workshop is on Sunday 20 February at 4:00pm. A poster is attached.

Speaking of music, please put Saturday 12 March in your diaries as the wonderful Clive Carroll will be in concert at Capel Church from 8pm. “Probably the best and most original acoustic guitarist/composer in Britain” – so, not to be missed. Tickets are £13 and can be purchased from Capel box office: www.capelboxoffice.co.uk <www.capelboxoffice.co.uk/>

I do hope you have a wonderful week and look forward to seeing some of you tomorrow.

With love and prayers

Debbie von Bergen
debbievonbergen@icloud.com
07774 784008

Readings-13.02.22.pdf

weekly-sheet-22.02.13.pdf

Dear Friends,

I hope you’ve all had a good week, our decluttering has been continuing apace. This week we tackled the dreaded ‘back garage’ that depository of all things useful, but not sure when. It had 25 years of old paint pots, offcuts of wood, garden implements etc etc, now all gone. We really are nearly ready to contact the estate agents!

Besom’s also visited this week and took some crockery, glasses, saucepans, stools etc. For those who don’t know, Besom’s are a charity (a branch of which is based in Dorking) which take good condition furniture and household items to help furnish homes for those who have been re-housed and have nothing. It’s a wonderful charity as it matches our old but good possessions with those that really need them, so it’s a win win scenario where everyone benefits. Do think of them if you have household items that you no longer need. Their phone number is: 07765 598854

This weeks services are as follows:
9.30am Matins Ockley
10.30am Family Communion Capel
At Capel we will be serving coffee after the service, but please stay in your seats and we will bring the drinks to you.

The weekly sheet contains details of this years Lent course, which will be online and run from St Peters Newdigate and will discuss the topic of prayer, specifically unanswered prayer. A poster is attached.

I’m sure most of you have seen them but the new copy of InSpire is in our churches now, do take one for a friend if you already have your copy.

Suzanne Cole and I had our first meeting about the Vicarage Fete this week, which are very much looking forward to having once more on 25 June. We will in due course be asking for all sorts of things, but for now I wonder if you would keep an eye out for suitable baskets and boxes that we can use to make into hampers. They were so successful at the Christmas Fair that we thought we would do the same again.

This weeks photo is a lovely atmospheric shot of the pond at Friday Street early last weekend taken by the friends who were staying with us.

With love and prayers

Debbie von Bergen
debbievonbergen@icloud.com
07774 784008

Readings-6.02.22.pdf

weekly-sheet-22.02.06.pdf

Lent-Course-2022-copy.pdf

Spring cleaning – love it or loathe it?! As I write this to you on a late January morning – one of those sometimes rare sunny beautiful winter mornings, the sun pouring in through the windows exposes all that post Christmas dust! I’m in the mood to clean – opening windows and doors to let the fresh air and light in – what a treat! Well this lovely month of February we begin the month celebrating Candlemas Day. Candlemas is a traditional Christmas Festival that remembers when Mary and Joseph take the infant Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to be presented to God where he is recognised as the one who will bring salvation to the whole world, yet there will be suffering along the way… You will recall that we hold our Christingle service the Sunday before. There was lots about that in my letter last month. In pre- Christian times this day was also known as the Feast of Lights and celebrated the increase strength of the life giving sun as winter gave way to spring. In fact this ancient festival marks the midpoint of winter, halfway between the shortest day and the spring equinox! This so called Festival of Lights is the reason we have decided to keep the nativity scene on the vicarage lawn for what might seem a long time! I hope you have enjoyed the display and thanks again as ever to Christina Curtis for her creativity and assistance in bringing the holy family back to the vicarage along with a new addition – the donkey. It has been wonderful for us to see the joy and awe that many have expressed through their stopping to explore, photograph and generally interact with. Mind you, there was a bit too much interaction when the baby Jesus disappeared! What a mystery! The plot thickened with the discovery of an empty beer bottle nearby….. sadly he has never been returned. However in true resurrection style we have a new baby Jesus installed, firmly strapped in his crib this time!!

So February begins with discovering what Jesus means to the whole world and as the month continues with what we call ‘Sundays before Lent’ we prepare ourselves for Lent itself in four weeks time. Lent is the time when we have the chance to think how we might respond to Jesus, the Christ, and to the needs of the world. Perhaps do a bit of Spring cleaning (!) In our hearts and minds, get back to those basics and ‘ground’ ourselves as we welcome all the wonderful new growth of creation around us.

Looking much further forward, we are very much looking forward to being able to invite you all back to the vicarage for the annual Vicarage Fete, raising money for our local schools. It will take place Saturday 25th June and we already have all sorts of exciting ideas for it. It looks as if we will have a busy year with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at the beginning of June as well as all the usual village occasions and events. What pleasure to be able to mix again freely but sensibly we hope! As part of those village celebrations we will be holding special commemorative services in the parish. It also happens to be Pentecost Sunday but much more about that later!

So as winter continues keep looking for those signs of Spring around us, that lovely Spring cleaning metaphorically and physically is always there and who knows, maybe we will discover things we may have lost and now re-found. A time to get back to basics physically and spiritually?

Blessings and love
Liz