In the bleak mid-winter … St Wilfrid’s Centre carries on
Last Sunday after we all had an extra hour in bed we should all be able to start the week refreshed and optimistic about the months ahead and the build up to Christmas. Very few people, however, look forward to the darker nights and the cold months, especially those who are already struggling and in need of extra support.
This week, having received the news about Sheffield moving into the ‘very high’ Tier 3 Covid response, it feels even more than ever, that what we have to all face is a bleak winter with questions over who we will not be able to see, how people will manage and what Christmas will seem like. This may feel so much worse for us in the middle of a pandemic but for some people, every year they feel their isolation heightened or mental health decline due to the demands of ‘forced fun’ and seasonal cheer that can challenge all of us.
It is at times like this, when so many people fear what lies ahead and the world around us seems to be getting darker, that we should not only focus on the simplicity of meaning found in the words of the carol but also remember that spring will come. In the same way that ‘a stable-place sufficed’, that a stable and hay found in a bleak midwinter’s night is enough for the baby Jesus, so the donated clothes and food parcels, the donations, the words of support, the thoughts and the gestures, the friendship and the warmth that we can show each other and that so many of you have shown St Wilfrid’s throughout the years is enough. It is enough but it also needs to be recognised as the power of the human spirit that is stronger than a pandemic and brighter than the darkness we can feel. The carol doesn’t make a big thing of Christmas cheer and celebrations but instead focuses on the simplest, truest and in many ways priceless gift of all, love. Which is why even when the winter feels bleak, when restrictions and people’s sense of fear and often loss increase, we have to hold on to the real value of the simplest truths. The pain of losing someone or suffering hardship is real but by holding onto the simplest truth, by demonstrating our love and our generosity through helping those in need, through practical demonstration of that love, we are able to focus on those times throughout our lives when we too have felt loved, have felt wanted, have felt part of something and not excluded and know the truth that the simplest things ‘sufficed’. That is why, even though the challenges of staying open will get greater and the demand may increase, we will do everything we can to try to keep St Wilfrid’s Centre open and providing the valuable services it does to those in need. We know that without your support, we would never have been able to do this and again we remain very grateful for the thoughts, words and donations we receive every day.
These simple truths were made real on the recent Bishop’s Walk when the generosity and support of those we met and those who have donated was made clear. I also hope that this year’s St Wilfrid’s Christmas card provides the same message. When we were deciding what to do this year, I felt as the new Head of Centre I should offer to have a go at painting something. When I looked through archived photographs, I came across one that I really felt summed up the feeling of security and warmth that the Centre generates, looking out onto a bleak midwinter beyond. I tried to capture that sense and have used the painting in this year’s design, ‘Looking out from the warmth of St Wilfrid’s.’ With your continued support and the friendship we can all show to those in need, it is a stable-place (in the other sense of the word stable) that will definitely suffice this year.
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