Even typing this out, I mentally sigh, relax, put down my case and look forward in happy anticipation to the next few days. My last visit to Sheldon was my last '12,000-mile Service' (for the person in ministry, not their car!) which is Sheldon's flagship programme - various workshops - if you want them; one-to-one counselling - if you want it; unobtrusive care and the wonderful surroundings of Sheldon to quiet and to heal. I had come dreading my forthcoming retirement and also with a foreboding feeling which I now recognise as a presentiment of my husband's grave illness a few weeks later ...
The autumn night was windy and rough, but when I drew back the curtains in the morning, there beyond the rain blurred windows was a full-blown rainbow shining over the hills! There is a double resource at Sheldon - the community and its associates, and the physical buildings of Sheldon, they are surrounded by its peaceful acres of fields and woodland. Sheldon is miles from anywhere, in the Teign Valley. It has its own flock of (rare) sheep grazing in the steep-set fields, kitchen gardens full of fruit and veg, the nature reserve wood with its well kept paths and woodpeckers drumming by day and owls hooting by night. The buildings centre on a 15th Century farmhouse - a working farm till 1967 - all thatched, and the restoration and new buildings are all wonderfully in keeping with the old. My favourite remains the original chapel - for then every farm had its own chapel - the former dedication is lost so that it has been simply named the chapel of Christ of Servant. It is small, thickset with bulging white painted walls, a dense silence, and a decided chill in winter, a proportionate plain-ness and one small window of red glass that gleams into the gloom like a piece of Turkish delight ...
The community is a lay community. You never think how hard they are working, how intensely religious they are - the hard work, the faith, and the intensity all lie hidden under a laid back exterior.
There is nothing threatening, nothing overly churchy here. So everyone is welcome. Sheldon's raison d'etre may be people in ministry, and they have built the very delightful Linhay Lodges as a retreat for people in ministry who have been overcome by stress or disaster and 'want out'... But apart from the 12,000-mile Service events there is much for people who are not in formal ministry. I have been to three wonderfully good retreats - 'They do silence so well', said a priestly expert - and of course there is Enneagram! One can become boring on the subject of Enneagram. But I know Sister Patricia will bear me out that Enneagrams are really worthwhile! Actually life-changing, say I ! The Sheldon ethos - empathy, a certain light-heartedness, wholesome appreciation of life's goodness, a genuine love, nothing soppy - for everyone who comes there ... People who come to Sheldon looking frazzled, ghastly, on the edge of a mental breakdown often go away with renewed hope and energy.
That Sheldon is there is a comfort. I don't have to go there - though I hope I will go there again one day. I don't have to ring them up - though I did once in a time of crisis. They flash upon the inward eye, Wordsworth style, and I see again the little tree at the top of the steep hill - the seat in somebody's memory inscribed: 'All good fun' - the Turkish delight red window - the dear faces of the community ... It's a God-given place. |
