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.