Welcome to
Haywards Heath United Reformed Church

NEW YEAR, NEW THINGS TO SEE

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Hymn writer Sydney Carter (1915-2004) wrote:

               All the new things that I see,

               you'll be looking at along with me

 

He is imagining God standing alongside us, looking with us at new things. ‘New’ can often mean ‘renewed’ or much improved.

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I’ve been reading The Return of the Grey Partridge. This is about a South Downs farm where there had been some unwise farming practice. Taking back control, the owning Estate decided to revamp the farm so as to balance up economic food production with the restoration of nature, particularly birds such as the Grey Partridge who live at ground level.

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One element of the work concerned hedges, with much replanting and better management of 15 miles of hedge. They decided to cut only one side of the hedges each year, meaning the uncut side could provide winter-time food for berry-eating birds. They also thickened out the lowest parts of the hedges to give winter-time, ground level protection to vulnerable birds.

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All this is completely new to me and perhaps to some of you. As we look and learn in 2026, will God come alongside and look with us, as Sydney Carter imagines God might? 

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Even more, might we want to pray, as an earlier hymn does, God be in my eyes and in my looking?