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Viewpoint from Rev Richard Washington 22/11/2024
 Rev Richard Washington
Team Vicar, Great Yarmouth Team Ministry
One of the things my faith teaches me is to look at the place I live in with “eyes of abundance”. What do I mean by that? Well, the tendency nowadays is to look at the world with “eyes of scarcity”. This means we are always seeing what is lacking, what we don’t have and what is wrong. But if we look with eyes of abundance, we look instead at all we do have - all that we can build on, grow, and multiply
This idea comes from a story in the Bible, when Jesus is confronted with a large, hungry crowd of 5000 people in the wilderness. It turns out that all he has to feed them with are five loaves and two fish. A hopeless situation if you look with eyes of scarcity! Yet Jesus looks with eyes of abundance at this small amount of food and somehow enough is found for everyone to eat!
 I am new here in Great Yarmouth. One of the tendencies I have noticed is that people often look with eyes of scarcity at our town. People talk of what has been lost, what we can’t do, and what problems there are
Now, of course, we have to be realistic and recognise the challenges that face us. But we need to try to curtail this tendency to look with eyes of scarcity and look instead with eyes of abundance. We need to see the many positive and richly abundant resources, people, ideas and opportunities this town has
Nowhere is this more obvious than in our young people!
A couple weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be invited by to tour the wonderful Priory School in our town centre. I was really struck by the eyes of abundance with which staff and pupils view themselves as a community of learning. They don’t deny the challenges they have, but they see every challenge as an opportunity. Most importantly, every child is treated as a sacred individual whose beautiful promise can and will be nurtured to flourish and to serve
The Priory School is an abundant well of positive energy which we can all draw on. It refuses to look with eyes of scarcity, and sees everything with eyes of abundance. As a town we should do the same. If we do, we will not fail
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