Malcolm Guite will lead this year's Lent course, focussing on George Herbert's poetry as a way of walking with him and with one another in the steps of Christ. Feb 24th: George Herbert, priest and poet; Mar 3rd: Heaven in Ordinarie: Herbert's way of being in the world; Mar 10th: The Wine Press and the Olive Press: George Herbert on Maundy Thursday; Mar 17th: Redemption: George Herbert on Good Friday; Mar 24th: Easter Wings: George Herbert on Christ's Resurrection and ours.

Rich liturgy, contemporary music, and sermons on difficult issues: on March 9th Malcolm will being a series on the four creatures/evangelists: Mar 9th: Four living creatures (lion); Mar 23rd: Four living creatures (man).

This term the holistic spirituality group will continue to consider weaving the sacred back into every day life, led by Malcolm Guite (Mar 14th and 28th).

Matthew Owen has been appointed St Edward's first 'student pastor'. He would be pleased to hear from any students at St Edward's not already in contact with him.

The churchwardens for the coming year will be elected immediately after the 11.00am service on Sunday April 11th, and will be admitted to office at the Patronal Festival the following Sunday (April 18th). Steve Mastin and Judith Tonry are willing to serve for another year. Nominations must be made in advance of the meeting.

The meeting will be held in Church at 2.30 pm on Saturday 24th April. Ten ordinary members of Chapter will be elected, and may be nominated either in advance or at the meeting.

St Edwards' new House Group in Cambridge meets fornightly at 30 Rustat Road (7.30pm). New members are welcome: for further information contact Stephen Davies.

The LGBT group has an informal meeting on Sundays at 6.30pm to explore issues about sexual orientation from a Christian perspective; for details contact Chris. Student group (alternate Mondays at 7.30pm)

The student group meets in the Lloyd Room in Christ's College, this term focussing on psychology and religion; for details contact Matt. Mar 1st: Is God a projection? (Fraser Watts)

By the time you read this I hope the fields and backs of Cambridge will be alive with new blossoms, all coming at once, in a delayed spring rush, after a severe winter. It may also be that the first stirrings of spring will have awoken in you that immemorial impulse to have a sort-out, a clear up, a new start, to make space and clarity for spring to come and to make room for new growth in your life. The instinct for the seasonal spring clean is a sound one and it doesn't just apply to our domestic clutter. The season of Lent is for many a kind of spiritual spring clean, a setting aside and leaving behind of old habits and false attachments so that we can live and breathe more deeply in the pure air of God's Holy Spirit.

It may be that we are also about to do some spring cleaning as a nation, that it will not just be your house and mine, but also the House of Commons that is about to get a clear out and a much needed spring clean! After the expenses debacle it is tempting to feel blase and cynical about the forthcoming general election, but I think it's a temptation we should resist. I have given up knocking MPs for Lent and am resolved instead to try and get some good ones into the House. Cynicism breeds cynicism, but the Church has a gospel of hope; a belief that everything can be redeemed.

I am very glad that political debate and social concern are alive and well at St. Edwards and that at least of our congregation is standing as a parliamentary candidate. Our congregation covers a wide range of political opinion and affiliation but we have a common conviction that the way we live together as a nation matters and we have a responsibility to participate. If anyone wants clear, unequivocal guidance from the church on what to look for in a parliamentary candidate then take a template from these words of Jesus: 'You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be servant of all.' (Mark 10.42-44)

Who knows; there may be some new and worthwhile blossoms on the banks of the Thames this spring, as well as on the backs of Cambridge.

Every disaster is a revelation. Sudden extremity, deprivation, or fear uncovers for us what is in our own hearts and in the hearts of others. So it is with this latest appalling blow in the long tragedy of Haiti; the hidden layers of who we are have been stripped bare for all to see, and what is revealed is worthy of both praise and lamentation. We are often told that we are a greedy selfish broken society, but within hours of the earthquake being reported, ordinary people in the UK had given millions. So it seems that for many people the fearful self-concern was only a surface, skin deep; underneath still beat the heart of hidden generosity, the compassion and overflowing love which is the image of God in us all.

But if generous hearts were unveiled then so were predatory instincts, deep in individuals and organisations. In Haiti itself crowds of victims scrabbling in the ruins to help their fellow victims were falling prey to gangs of looters and robbers ready to exploit the vulnerable wounded. Likewise hundreds of well motivated individuals who work or volunteer for NGOs; doctors, nurses, firemen, were being flown to the scene of devastation only to find that their efforts were stalled by unseemly squabbles between the very organisations they served; quarrels about who would have precedence, who would be allowed to get there first, control the airport, be in charge. It was a revelation that for some people in a crisis, their own prestige or that of their organisation is more important than any individual suffering.

What has this disaster has unveiled for you? Doubts and agonies about the place of an all-knowing God? Despair about the world? A sudden spring of generosity and a conviction that human love and solidarity are all that matters? Or a bewildering mixture of all these? Whatever has been uncovered, you can bring it all to God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and ask that He will cleanse whatever darkness is exposed and bring to maturity and good fruit those hidden seeds of goodness in you that are surely there.

Chaplain's letter (January)

We are bound to face the New Year with mixed feelings, a combination of hope and anxiety. The world faces many acute problems, including climate change, terrorism, and poverty. We need to keep hope and anxiety together, neither burying our heads in the sand and ignoring problems, nor yielding to despair and abandoning hope. Our major problems are ones that affect every person across the globe, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that our most acute problems raise spiritual and moral issues.

Religion, when it goes wrong, can exacerbate our problems. However, it can also help to solve them. Indeed, it is not clear that any of our major problems can be tackled effectively without taking the spiritual dimension into account. This presents religious people everywhere with a huge chllange, but also an opportunity. As we enter the New Year, let us try, at St Edward's, to contribute to the spiritual leadership that the world so badly needs. (Fraser Watts)