The Vicar's Wife

I’ve not written here for a long time. Life intruded into my writing – it’s been a challenging year (or four) here in our messy parish in all sorts of different ways. Mess has a way of occupying my head, crowding out coherent thought and motivation.

But an online friend announced yesterday that she was going to be doing #lentowrimo – a take on the #Nanowrimo hashtag, where people try and write a novel in a month in November. My friend has suggested writing non-fiction every day apart from Sundays in Lent.

So here is a post that has long lain in my drafts folder. About our parish. About something I love about this place. A reminder to dwell on the gifts that the Lord has brought and not on the struggles of life and ministry. A tiny reminder that God hates nothing that he has made and that he brings us mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Our parish smells of bread and spices. Like, seriously smells. Strongly. Often on a morning dog walk, if the wind is in the right direction, I’ll inhale strong scents of rising dough or of star anise. The other week spices flavoured our worship on Sunday morning in church, so pungent was the aroma.

The mundane reason is that this is because of two local factories – Allied Bakeries, making Kingsmill bread amongst others, and East End foods where spices are milled.

But I have found that the bread and spices lead me to thoughts of the aroma that brings life:

The bread that was broken for our salvation. Our mess exchanged for his perfection.

Daily bread. All that we need. All that we pray for. For today. For life. For the ministry. For the mess.

The bread of life. Bringing power and joy into lives. Sustaining and building.

Spices for the tomb. Fragrant and sweet. The smell of grace. Still carried by the women. For the tomb is empty.

A parish that smells of bread and spices: one where the brokenness of the cross and the beauty of the resurrection are in the very air we breathe.

Vicarage bread: a bit messier than Kingsmill