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Viewpoint from Revd Canon Nick Garrard 21/02/2020
 Revd Canon Nick Garrard
The Rectory, 23 The Street, South Walsham, NR13 6DQ
Nick is Rector of the Rockland Benefice in the Bramerton Group (Bramerton, Rockland St Mary with Hellington, Surlingham, Claxton, Carleton St Peter, and Kirby Bedon with Whitlingham) and Bishop’s Officer for Christian Spirituality through the Creative Arts
as published in the Great Yarmouth Mercury
Recently we moved house for the first time in thirteen years. We left our previous parish with fond farewells and have been warmly welcomed in our new patch, but the physical process of moving has been exhausting. The removal guys were great and couldn’t have been more helpful, even though we gave them a lot of lifting to do. We had done our best, we thought, to get rid of unnecessary stuff beforehand. We made repeat trips to charity shops, the council tip, and an overflowing skip in the front garden. However, we still moved in with 300 boxes. Rather than fill the new Rectory with our old stuff, we have repeated the same clearing cycle as before, this time with a much bigger skip!
 In our defence, we have a large and growing family and when you move a Rectory you’re also relocating a business premises. This means lots of books, mainly. Over our lifetime, Helen and I have acquired quite a library. Some of them are like old friends that you turn to for wisdom, but if you lug them around in cardboard boxes for long enough, the relationship changes. We’ve said goodbye to many old ‘friends’ recently
Moving house is one of the very few times in life we have to handle everything we possess. Like us, you may have found that things that you wanted to keep didn’t matter anymore or that the most precious things aren’t those with the biggest price tag – things that remind us of people we love or special times in life. There’s a lot to learn from this process
 Jesus travelled much more lightly in his ministry – a bag, a stick, changes of clothes, and a cloak. At the end of his earthly life, he left those things behind, just as everything we own will become someone else’s when our life here ends. We brought nothing into the world, and we take nothing out – except love. The love inside us -the love we have given and received, will go with us always. It is a treasure fit for heaven. Jesus said, ‘store up your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy them, and thieves cannot break in and steal them. Your heart will always be where your treasure is’ (Matthew 6.20)
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