My last day at William Parker was not in July but at the end of August. Not only contractually but emotionally too.  It took part of two days to move my thirty years accumulation of resources (stuff!) and to evacuate the chapel vestry/office.  No more will I sit at my desk looking along the path that leads to the upper school, tend God’s Garden with its memorial trees, or prepare the chapel for Eucharist. No more Commems to plan, no more Prayer Spaces, Remembrance ceremonies, chapel exhibitions, Hot Chocolate Club…..  My ‘Collective Worships’ were finished two years ago, but a chaplaincy has been maintained beyond that sad termination. I have given my best for my best years. I have done it for the boys and I have done it for the Lord.

There is much for which I am so grateful to God.

1. The Lord’s providence in bringing to an end this chapter. For years I have needed to do less. I have not been able to determine which of three major commitments should be concluded. I have always said that I would need to be forced to give up something. That is what has happened: I have been made redundant.  I have prayed for guidance and this is it.  Now I can concentrate on church and early education and know that it is the will of God.
2. The gospel ministry to so may young men and staff too. I have always justified my time spent in secondary school by saying that if you want to win the young you must go where they are. Apart from individual encounters, for most of the thirty years, I have addressed more than 1000 students at least once a week. Time and again in the town I meet men, not all so very young, who greet me and tell me which talk they remember especially and what they learnt through my work at the school.  Among them are pastors, missionaries and youth workers.  What a privileged role and access to the young I have had.  There are so many past students who I do not know about today and eternity will reveal the usefulness of these year.
3. The personal development and learning I have experienced over these years. In particular, through people and projects at William Parker I have come to my present determinedly Christ/cross centred piety.  Interpreting Old and New Testaments in the light of the cross, centring worship on the Word in Scripture and in Sacrament as well, I have discovered in the course of fulfilling the work of a school chaplain.

Anyway, that was the last day and it’s meditation.  Today is the first day of what comes next.  And whatever comes next, let it be for Christ.