On a recent visit to my home and family, we took a trip to the prestigious ‘Alnwick Garden’ set in the grounds of Alnwick Castle - a place of great significance to me as a child, it was a real pleasure to experience it afresh, to savour with the Garden and Cascade, and my six year old granddaughter who was delighted to visit ‘Harry Potter’s School’, buy a broomstick, but sadly hasn’t as yet learned to fly. Harry Potter is the fantasy of today, however, it was the remnants of another age which spoke to me again as they did in childhood.

On the battlements of Alnwick Castle, one of our few battle-scarred authentic fighting castles, there are larger-than-life stone statues, portraying soldiers, visible at a great distance, added to fool the marauding Scots that the Castle was better defended than it really was. At a distance they still do their job. Arriving by car or coach off the bypass they look like visitors admiring the view.

It’s when you get close to the walls that you see they are statues, and when you are up close you see that they are old, out of date and out of scale, being built to be seen at a distance and not up close.

These strange remnants of another age sadly spoke to me of The Church in this age of Harry Potter, trying so hard to give the illusion of ‘manning’ the battlements when in reality there is only a small fighting force, keeping not so much the marauding enemy out, as keeping the castle masonry fit for when huge misfortune, last experience here in the Second World War, forces me, women and children back to the safety of Mother Church.

Perhaps this is unnecessarily harsh but more and more my experience is of small beleaguered congregations with only one or two larger-than-life characters willing to put their heads above the parapet, fooling many, at a distance, that we are fully manned and in good working order, when, and you have only to come close at times for Funerals, Weddings and Baptisms to see how, in reality, dangerously thin on the ground for the most part we really are.

The message is two fold and in both directions. To the congregations, we have to stop being siege castles, giving the wrong impressions of our fighting force, we have to throw open the portcullis - lower the drawbridge - accept, as Alnwick has, that the Scots (and English) want to see God at work in creation, not on the battlefield and offer the beauty of our faith in ways that all, regardless of age, can understand and feel at home with.

At the same time, those who see our Churches as only places of refuge in a dangerous world, you need to put away outdated, very sixties dare I say, way of relating to us and cross the threshold - see that because we are small in number there is plenty of room for all.

The irony of the popularity of Harry Potter, with its tale of good and evil being filmed at Alnwick makes me smile, the battles to preserve Alnwick Castle are now being fought very successfully at the cash registers and turnstiles of their ‘new’ award winning garden. The story of Jesus of Nazareth and his fight against evil is being told day by day right here in your Churches and it is important that we should join forces in the fight in this age against the same forces of good and evil which are still battling away under different guises than the pitched battles of our history, but still there to be seen in how we interact one with the other for example.

Those old stone statues on Alnwick Castle’s battlements were an amazing insight into our past but an uncomfortable reminder of what is really going on in our Parishes and congregations at this moment. Do think about how we can all change things for the better in reality not just in fiction.

To begin with here are three simple suggestions for strengthening the power of good here in our villages.

Firstly, a position is on offer for a Verger. That means preparing the Church and welcoming people at Funerals and Weddings, for both Churches. With a small remuneration.

Secondly, we would welcome help in putting together our Action Plan for Coltishall Graveyard which you heard about last month.

Thirdly, if some active retired Parishioners could form a Rota, Horstead Church could be open on a more regular basis, welcoming the many, often disappointed visitors.

Please ask for more details of any of the above or share any suggestions for other initiatives with us.

Lorna