Today began on the early side with the joyous news of a new baby born to Chucks and Adanna Iwuagwu. Chucks is the curate at St Mary’s and it was lovely to hear him talking about his new son with such joy.
The babe is called Christian Ezeibe and is believed to be looking forward to meeting the whole congregation.
It got me to wondering when the last time we had a baby born to a clergy household here in St Mary’s.
It must be a while.
Kelvin – Not sure of the dates however the two candidates are Fred and Anne Tomlinson when Fred was Cruate, or to Provost Grant and Katrina.
I remember once in another diocese trying to argue that we should give up on the church having vast rectories for clergy to live in which are hard to heat and hard to live up to. I was trying to say that we needed a more flexible system that would ensure that people were able to live in homes appropriate to their situation.
I was met by a vociferous argument that we needed to keep all those houses because of clergy families needing them.
And how many clergy in this diocese are having children, I thundered.
The answer, I think, was one.
I think you have to have a baby in the family who you cannot pick up and cuddle just because you want to to realise how much of a joy it is to be able to do it – unless of course you are the parents of the cuddle-able one, when holding your child in your arms is bliss enough to fill the whole world. Blessings on little Christian.