Welcome to St Mary's the Virgin 

The Bishop came to see us last week. It was part of the diocesan initiative of ‘Parish Conversations’, put in place by Bishop Christopher whereby every parish in the diocese would be visited by himself or the parish’s area bishop with a ‘plus one’ from Trinity House. The plan is not so much that each parish gets to see their bishop (and meet one of the professionals whose parish collections go to support), but that the visitors get to meet and understand the parishes they support and lead.

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Conversation is therefore a good word to describe what was planned and did happen. Until the seventeenth century to converse meant to live together, coming from the Latin con (=together) and versae (=turn) – literally to “turn in together”. This developed into meaning to be relaxed with one another and from there to talking. Converse meaning opposite comes from different etymological roots, but also hints at what occurs in the best conversations – even opposite views are allowed and listened to. The best conversations are those where we turn to a subject with someone, confident we will be talking about the same thing and that we will listen and be listened to. Bishop Alastair’s conversations were with many and varied representatives of our parish, from the boiler fund committee to the PCC and others between, please do have your own conversations with them to hear how these went. What though, if it had not been the bishop visiting, but God? What would you want the parish reps to tell him?