Telling our stories

We like to tread a fine balance here at Bless, between looking to the future, living for today and learning from our past. Telling our stories is a great way of discovering more about each other, looking at the footprint we have made.

Sunrise
By Shirley

As soon as I was asked us to do something to illustrate our own and the church’s spiritual journey I knew what I wanted to do. Since January I’ve felt that both the church and I were coming out of a spiritual night into a bright sunrise. Then, as I thought about it, I realised that our spiritual lives, like our physical ones, are a series of nights and days. Sometimes the nights are because of bereavement, depression or other troubles, but sometimes they are just for rest and recuperation before starting something new for God. Sometimes the light comes in quietly and we hardly realise the dawn has come, but sometimes it comes in a blaze of glory, like this picture.

C.S. Lewis wrote about his conversion and entitled the book “Surprised By Joy”.  I think that could be an alternative title for this picture.

PS Meant to add that God has put his creative passion in me and I love to make, paint, write, act and speak

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St Jennifer's Road Mk 1
By John

St Jennifer’s Road is a ficticous single track branch line out of Southall into the area around Heston and Feltham. It is a small station with a small goods facility, which mainly serves the light industry and market gardens in the area. There is also the usual coal handling facility. It is set in the first half of the 1960s with the phasing out of steam and the early onset of diesels

Rolling stock is an eclectic mixture ranging from auto trains, conventional single coach workings, ex GWR Railcars and single car DMUs. Freight trains are very short, just a couple of wagons and a brake van.

As explained earlier, being set in the first half of the 1960s, British Railways is in a time of great change. Steam is in the last 5 years of operation and the Western Region of British Railways will have ceased almost all steam operation by the end of 1964. Freight is also moving to the roads and many of the coal yards that proliferated stations are also closing. For the staff it is a time of great change, not all of which is welcome. Although a diesel is more responsive to needs, the skill to operate it is much less, and the opportunities will diminish. For others there jobs will cease and not be replaced, or the replacement will not be at the same skill level with the same opportunities. Today most trains do not carry guards as in the time of the layout for example.

The challenge is how to accommodate the change and to ensure that what replaces the old will fulfill in the same way, in terms of opportunities and T&Cs.

It about loss, loss of something that you have had and something that is yearned for but will never, ever arrive. The layout also represents the loss for people of, what had been seen as the career path through engine cleaner to fireman to driver. The skills to drive a diesel are a lot less, and are done by one man rather than a team. This certainly resonates with my life with God at this time, with the changes in my life over the last 10 years. My training in IT is no longer wanted, which resulted in the changes of last year. In addition, there is the fact that as age marches on, many of the hopes are disappearing and the package that is presented is not one I wish to pick up despite the lack of other options.

I have always had an interest in transport and worked in road transport before joining the IT industry. In the same way, model railways have always been part of my interests, and the involvement in the Western Model Railway Society has enabled this layout to be formed. Their help and guidance has been invaluable, and has got me to this point. My reason for joining the club was to enhance my skills and knowledge. It was inspired by a comment that Linda gave some years ago where she encouraged us to become part of community groups. I joined this group and, in the same way that Claire Downing is involved with the Chelsea Ballet and Linda Howes with St John’s Ambulance. Each of us have contact with people outside of God and take Him in. We talk to them on a peer to peer basis, hopefully in a way that is honouring to God, to people who are seeking Him.