One of the biggest challenges of the current era seems to be that a whole range of familiar experiences have disappeared from our lives and I am finding it challenging and exciting as dormant memories are reawakened. This little chapel in the village of Conistone in upper Wharefedale has been important to me for almost forty years. The old Methodist Chapel closed, I believe somewhere around the late seventies and the decision was made, that rather than selling it for somebody to convert it into a house, possibly a second home, the West Yorkshire District would convert it into a Youth Hostel. I remember taking a small group of teenagers up for the weekend in the early eighties and we spent a delightful weekend painting the place, I regret that nobody told us that it was a good idea to seal breeze blocks before applying emulsion paint, the long wall looked brilliant as we tuck up in our sleeping bags and slept on the floor. The following morning it was grey again! We were horrified and spent the following day re painting it.
We have spent family holidays there for around the last twenty years and when we moved as a family to East Anglia, those holidays became particularly important to us as we spent time with family members we only saw once in a while. The interesting thing was that we didn’t have a television during the holidays and small children very quickly became teenagers. Mobile phone signals were appalling and I have seen people climb right to the top of the fell behind to make telephone calls and the internet was totally inaccessible, it sounds like a foretaste of heaven today. We lived in community and sharing a bedroom with another nine people, no matter how friendly they are, you suddenly identify the snorers and find it spooky listening to those who talk in their sleep. They have been good times and whilst the building is an important part of the whole experience and the location is perfect it you like fell walking, because you are in the heart of some of the best fell walks in the country (in my opinion) but the main thing that I have missed is the company. A small team of loyal people have kept the hostel going for years, and I personally owe a huge debt of gratitude to them and as they have decided to stand down, I am equally delighted that a new team of volunteers have decided to keep the Hostel going for in the future.
Today is Aldergate Sunday, which possibly won’t mean a lot to most folk. On Saturday 24th May 1738 John Wesley, the founder of Methodism went to a Moravian Church meeting in Aldergate Street in London, right at the southern most tip of what is now the A1. It was during the meeting as Martin Luthor’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans was being read, that John Wesley found his heart “strangely warmed” I love this idea of the heart being warmed and it caused me to think about times when I have had that feeling of the warming of the heart. As I look at this little chapel nestled in a small village in the Dales, my heart warms, in part because of the building, in part, because of the memories, but more than anything else because of the people associated with the place.
Who are the people that warm your heart? What are the experiences you’ve had where you have felt your heart being warmed? Where are your special places? Please don’t simply appreciate them, thank God for them, because they are some of his most precious gifts to us.