A family member had an old black AA road atlas. I moved house once, and she looked up my new home.
“It’s not a very big place, is it?” she said. I was confused, as I had moved to a sizeable community.
It turns out this atlas dated from the mid-1950s. Since then, a tiny village of a few houses and a church had grown to half a town, with thousands of inhabitants.
Just 59 years after William arrived on our shores, the church of All Saints began taking shape in Steep. Life then was very different. The small population mostly worked on the land.
That was 900 years ago, in the year 1125. Through time, people of our area experienced troubles and joys, famine, plagues, conflicts and celebration.
On past maps of Steep you can see how the community changes, with schools being founded and housing built and rebuilt. But the church despite numerous additions over the years, remains a constant, a symbol God is always with us and Christ’s love will never fade.
Perhaps our map of God sometimes gets a bit stuck - too small, too limited, a bit like the old atlas.
After all, there is always more of God’s love for us to experience for ourselves, and to express, and to share. It’s fascinating to explore the past, but I wonder what God has for us, for you, in the future?
I hope our church communities will keep growing and developing in the next 900 years, and our spiritual lives will continue flourishing.
Always looking for ways to know God more deeply, and expressing God’s limitless love-in-action in our hamlets, villages, towns and cities.
Canon Susie Collingride