Rosemary Lain-P

We have a new book coming out next month: I Wasn’t Expecting That is heart-touching spiritual memoir written by Rosemary Lain-Priestley and featuring a foreword by Paula Gooder. ‘This is a book for anyone who knows fear and doubt and who wants to embrace life but is unsure how to begin.  In short, it is a book for every honest human.’ ~ Revd Rachel Mann I Wasn’t Expecting That is Available for preorder from dltwritingforyou.com/product…

Online comment: Safeguarding crisis should not be seen in isolation There are wider, structural problems in the Church of England that need addressing, writes @bishopSarahM churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2…

Just a glimpse of today’s indescribable joy

*Exciting news!* The Revd Dr Catherine Okoronkwo has been appointed by His Majesty the King as our new Residentiary Canon and Steward. Catherine will join us from @bristoldiocese, and will be installed in September. Find out more: ow.ly/6SuG50S8o7U

Practices include Breath Prayer, Dwelling in the Word, Community Examen, Shared Silence, Dwelling in Creation, Listening Groups, and Prayer Journeying. You can download the set of practices here mailchi.mp/075b15c51ccf/4vpc… or @dioceseoflondon churches can request a hard copy. 🧵2/2

Maundy: A Holy Week Reflection by @mlmpennington The first time I washed somebody else’s feet was when my daughter was born. She arrived on the third day: a long labour followed by the terrifying whirlwind of new parenthood. Everything felt utterly unlike what had gone before. Anything I thought I knew seemed inadequate when faced with a tiny, helpless baby. Washing her impossibly small feet, I was mainly just worried I would break her. Two weeks after the birth, we were in hospital again and those same feet were being given a score. By coincidence it was Maundy Thursday 2022, and hands more confident than my own were assessing the angle of her heels, the creases of her soles, the rigidity of her movement. This was the start of a process of intensive physiotherapy that would correct the alignment of those perfect little feet. She was born with bilateral talipes, but now walks, runs, and dances – all because of the skill and professionalism of a wonderful NHS team, which we experienced as love. Now, of course I see love bursting through every element of those early weeks, often in ways I was too overwhelmed to understand at the time. The reassuring care of the NHS always felt like a warm embrace, but my own worry and exhaustion seemed like an intrusion on what should have been a cosier time; my own loving care for her passed through the muddying waters of anxiety. All of it was love – the worry even more than the foot washing – just in forms I’d never experienced before. I think the disciples must sometimes have felt similarly as they encountered Jesus for the first time. All that talk of loving your enemies. The challenge of that first Maundy Thursday, as he washed their feet (to their heated objections) and commanded them to do the same. And then more intensely, as they processed his death, resurrection, and ascension. The Gospels are full of stories of misunderstanding, of drawing a blank, of pushing new love away. Only in the light of what came next did his first followers have the perspective to interpret what had gone before. But in the end, they too discovered that it had all been love – so much so that a Gospel writer could reflect back on that first, uncomfortable footwashing and say with confidence: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

Really proud to have a connection with @Autism. I’ve learned as much from raising my son as I have from anything else that’s ever happened in life. Not to mention him raising me. It’s not always easy, but wouldn’t have it any other way. Neurodiversity. Different, not less. #AutismAwareness

The Revd Katherine Hedderly, @KHedderly Vicar of All Hallows by the Tower, has today been announced as the next Archdeacon of Charing Cross. london.anglican.org/articles…