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Viewpoint from Revd Canon Simon Ward 01/01/2021
Rev Canon Simon Ward
Team Rector, Great Yarmouth Team Ministry and Rural Dean
There’s lots of recipe books in the Rectory. Maybe you have a good stash of them too. Inevitably there are the recipes which are well thumbed, tried, tested, and trusted and those you look at and just enjoy the pictures. Last year, someone gave us a different recipe book called “The Christmas Chronicles” by Nigel Slater
 It’s more than just a recipe book. Nigel Slater lines up a host of seasonal recipes accompanied meditations and reflections on why we cook and why we do the things we do with food. It carries you through from November to 2nd February, marked in the church calendar as Candlemas. I love his style and his ability to rejoice over little things such as how he gets up early on a winter morning to write and wears the same old tatty jumper and inevitably lights a candle before he commences. I love that Nigel Slater seems to know how to enjoy and revel in the routines of the kitchen and dining table. His direction for what to prepare on New Years Day is a seeded loaf, reminiscent of the kind often served in Scandinavia. If you’re wondering what to do on this day, you could do worse than try and bake something
 All of us have our own routines and rituals. The Christmas to New Year season is a time when we are frequently most aware of these although many of these will have been subject to change and amendment this year. It’s not always a bad thing to be challenged to do differently or to have the routines updated, although difficult for some
Routines and rituals are important to us. They are central to our expression of faith in church and the whole year is built around the unfolding of God’s message to humankind, revealed through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The year turns and the story is told again. The routines and rituals of faith help bring God into our lives, whatever these may be. It may be regular times of prayer; giving thanks for food before we eat; taking time to be still; taking times to give thanks to God; making space in our lives for church
Whatever recipe you follow this year, I hope you find time and space to add in the things which nourish and sustain us spiritually as well as physically
also published in the Great Yarmouth Mercury
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