This has been my week - Warrington to Dibley on Sunday, Dibley to Manchester Tuesday, Manchester to Dibley Wednesday, Dibley to Manchester Thursday, Manchester to Dibley Friday.  I have seen an awful lot of the A50 (also the A34, A500 and M1 - the latter because it is faster than the A511).  In between times, I have enjoyed some wonderful papers on theology in relation to sport, poetry, 24/7 news reporting, the novel/film 'Atonement', the significance of Biblical cosmology to hymnody in a post Copernican world, church meeting in the light of relational trinity, girls in the Bible and other things I have already forgotten the titles of!  My own paper was very generously received - depsite my being horrendously nervous!  It was a good time - even allowing for all the travelling associated with funeral arrangements for next week.

I'm not quite sure what you'd call what follows, which is a bit stream of conscious, and is a kind of prayer/poem type thingy. All I do know is I am gateful to God who has allowed and enabled me to do what I have done this week - finding joy and encouragement, offering support and care, being the mad woman from Dibley and a flawed disciple of Christ.

God of the A50

Tarmac, concrete, white lines

Cars, lorries, vans - even a bike

Onwards

Onwards

Derby to Stoke

God of the A50, I travel with you

Race course, prison, JCB

Services, churches, stadium

Onwards

Onwards

Journey of life

God of the A50, travel with me

Now faster, now slower

Roundabouts, lanes

Traffic lights

Filters

Directions and signs

God of the A50, accompanying me

Entry slips, exits slips

Strangely names towns

People whose lives

Momentarily cross mine

God of the A50, travel with them

In joy and in sorrow

Beginning and end

Onwards

Upwards

Outwards

Downwards

Inwards

Earthwards

Heavenwards...

God of the A50, forever, Amen.