A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life

Today I was visiting my mother and as we were catching up on news, I said, 'we had a Baptism at church last week.'

Her reply?  'That's nice, what was the baby's name?'

I despair!  Still, it made me laugh, which is no bad thing.

Tonight we had the planning meeting for our Christmas carol outreach service - I know it is incredibly early, but anything organised by committee takes some doing.  We managed to get representatives from two out of three traditions - the usual culprits (M & B but no A) - and had some fun picking carols and thinking how to fill the slots between them (apart from lots of Bible readings which we use each year).  Our theme, stolen from Spurgeon's Childcare, is 'sing like an angel' and we are intending to give everyone an angel themed gift to take away with them as a reminder of the messengers and the message (clever, huh).  This may yet mean making 200 paper angels, but IKEA, Ebay, Poundland and the like will be scoured first.  In between carols and Bible readings will be two sketches, a reflection by Hilary Faith Jones and something from Gervaise Finn, as well as a '5 minute message' by the Methodist minister who is on a three line whip to stay on theme, on time, and in comprehensible English!

So, what will we be singing like angels?

Good Christians all, rejoice (as per BPW)

Angels from the realms of glory

Hark, the herald angels sing

While shepherds watched their flocks

See him lying in a bed of straw

It came upon a midnight clear

Christmas is a time to love (this one to be taught to us as part of the service)

Joy to the world

There are a couple I wouldn't have picked, and a couple I'm really glad we didn't pick, but it nakes for a good, rousing sing and lots of mentions of angels!

All planning done and everyone gone in time for me to watch 'Silent Witness' - fantastic!

On Sunday one of the passages I'm using is 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 which is something of a favourite, guaranteed to cheer me up with its crazy images of talking hands, feet, ears and eyes.  It really lends itself to some wonderful cartoons, but try as I might there are few if any to be 'Googled' though two I found are on this post.  I love the anthropomorphism of body parts - a foot than can presumably see and understand that it is not a hand, can express this verbally and then hop off because it feels useless, an ear that can see the eye can do what it can't (superb irony) and then flap away.  Definitely some real humour here - but humour with a real point to make.  Talking ears, eyes, feet and hands are a ridiculous concept, and in order to imagine them they have to become bodies in their own right, complete with... eyes, mouths, ears and feet.  How ridiculous then that people feel valueless because of what they're not - but we all do.  How crazy that as individuals or as churches we think we can go it alone, don't need anyone else - but we do.

Paul often has a reputation for being a misery guts, but the humour of this passage resonates with my own, and makes me think, which is, after all, what the best humour does.

This blog has now been in existence for three years - which is probably at least 2.5 more than I anticipated.  Looking back over the posts, it is fun to see what has been on my mind at various times and how some themes recur over time.  Since I still enjoy it, and since it is still a place where I feel able to express things, play with ideas and share some of the things that happen in my world, it will continue for the foreseeable future.  Thank you to those who are generous enough to read this stuff and sometimes even comment on it: you are always encouraging and gracious and I value your friendship 'real' or 'virtual.'

So, happy birthday little blog of mine!

No, not literally, metaphorically.  I am suffering from the challenges of trying to please too many people all at once and in the end being left unsure who I am any more!!  It seems that what I write is simultaneously too much like a report and not enough like an essay, is too narrative and too formal, not 'sharp' enough and not 'soft' enough, is too complex and too facile, too detailed and not detailed enough.  I am confused, bemused and now, bruised.  I am sure that all the commenters on stuff I have written in various contexts recently have valid perspectives, but somewhere in all of this I am losing my voice, losing the freedom to say what I want to say how I want to say it, not in the sense of ignoring the requirements of specific audiences, but in being able to be authentically me.  I never was much good at creative writing, though better at poetry than prose, but could produce a decent factual account and deduce inferences from information.  Maybe having a little sister who is fantastically good with words, and will hopefully soon have her first book published, adds to my sense of inferiority?

So, this becomes my safer place to write, where I use my own mish-mash of styles, grammar and vocabulary, can blend bullet points with paragraphs, creativity with commentary, and generally find some freedom of speech.

Verses from a couple of hymns come to mind, which speak to me today:

Take my voice, and let me sing

Ever, only for my King;

Take my lips, and let them be

Filled with messages from thee.

...Take my intellect and use

Every power as thou shalt choose.

Frances Ridley Havergal

Take my talents, takes my skill,

Takes what's yet to be;

Let my life be yours and yet,

Let is still be me

Iona Community

Now I will return to my latest rewriting task, and try to balance the intent behind the comments with it still being my voice that is heard...

Like many of my friends I am an eldest child, and, like many of them, am by nature mainly sensible and responsible.  Also like many of them I have a younger sibling who has a more prodigal nature, is endless rescued by my surviving parent and causes me a mixture of anxiety and irritation.  Compared with many, my younger sibling is not that extreme, but without my mother's unswerving compassion it might be a different story.  Recently I've found myself getting annoyed by the situation, more that it is unfair to her than to me, and last night found myself identifying with the older brother in the Prodigal Son parable.

As I pondered this, and decided that the older brother was justified in being miffed, even if ungracious, I began to think about other older siblings in the gospels and decided we get a pretty bad press.  It is generally assumed that Martha was the older sister and/or oldest sibling, and she is more remembered for her grumbling at Mary's perceived laziness than for her recognition of Jesus as Christ.  In another short parable, the first (older?) son says he'll do what his father requires and then doesn't whilst the second (younger?) son says he won't and does.  You'd kind of hope that Jesus, being an eldest, would have been a bit kinder to/about us - and maybe his treatment of Martha reflects an understanding of her role - but on the whole we don't come out of it looking too great.

So, the upshot is that I'll endeavour to be a little kinder in my attitudes to my sibling, accept more generously that my mother does something Godly and try not to sulk when I feel like the grumpy older brother!

This is fun!  HT Maggi Dawn

You can't earn salvation, but urns can save the day when you have a very leaky baptistry to contend with!

I arrived at D+2 this morning to discover much frenetic filling of the baptistry going on, saucepans of water being heated on the cooker in a desperate effort to get warm-enough, deep-enough water in time for their service, as it leaks so much that overnight it had emptied...  It succeeded, but the thought of doing the same between lunch and our service really did not appeal, so I rang someone from church to see if they could locate and deliver our urn - which they did, along with one from our local Methodists!  Ten gallons of almost boiling water, along with the three baptistry heaters, meant we had water at a pleasant temperature and a good depth, so all was well.

It was a great service, with over 50 people in attendance, despite a fair few of our folk being absent for one reason or another (I guess broken hips are a good excuse...) including family and friends, a few people's spouses who came out for this special event,  and around a dozen or so from D+2 who knew our candidate because she'd attended their Alpha course (though this was not a factor that appeared in her testimony).

The new hymn by Martin Leckebucsh went really well and was enjoyed by those who commented on it.  I discovered even more folk who'd known him at school, as the husband of D+2's minister was in the year above him at shcool...  Hopefully the hymn will get itself published soon so that other congregations can have a great Baptismal hymn to sing.

From there it was off to take an evening service for a congregation of eight at a church to which everyone drives some distance - which made preaching on Hebrews 10 and not giving up meeting seem all the more poignant.  Given that five minutes after the service ended the door had been locked and everyone had gone home I wondered how much fellowship these folk actually share.  Still, they are faithful and obviously value meeting together - even if they sang 'Forth in Thy Name, O Lord I Go' to the dirge that is Old Hundredth because they didn't know the set tune.

And now, finally, I can sit down and enjoy a cup of tea, and reflect on a day well spent.

Been a mad week!  Lots of driving, lots of hospital visits, lots to do and not enough hours in which to do it.

Finally I think we're getting there with preparations for tomorrow's baptismal service.  All the heaters have been collected and delivered, the 'dry run' walk through has been completed successfully, gifts bought, certificates arrived from BUGB store, leaflets printed and collated, and my share of the tea now prepared!

Giftwise, in the end I went for a book token from church, as that's what they sell at the Leicester shop formerly known as SPCK, Christian Resource Centre, and then decided to personalise a white towel, sort of copying what a friend of mine did for me many years back:

Not a great photo - the only digital camera I have is on my phone.  The butterflies were already on it, and seemed quite a good image - new life, resurrection kind of thing.  So I added the occasion and date.

I will be using one or other of my white 'gift ' towels (my friend did me a second one for my ordination) so that will make it a bit special for me too!

I have since been busy making cauldrons of soup for the post service tea - a variation on this pumpkin soup recipe (without the chillies, to which I am allergic, and which is scrummy: I tried some of it) and some leek and potato, using up some frozen leeks one of my congregation gave me some months back.

Having purchased fresh coconuts I was left with loads of the stuff to use up, so made some coconut barfi (pretty much like coconut ice really) and coated it with dark chocolate - beats Bounty bars any day!  If you used fairtrade coconuts (which Sainsbury's sell, others may too) and Fairtrade chocolate you could possibly offset your ethical concerns over Carnation's makers.

Both services are ready and printed, I just have to buy some bread for communion (because it isn't communion week) and then all is ready.  Phew!

I have to write two sermons for Sunday - one for our Baptism service and one (on the same passages, cos I'm lazy) for a guest preach two hours later (on renewed commitment).  So far I've done all the good minister stuff of reading commentaries, thinking and (even!) praying and am getting nowhere fast.  I have some ideas, but nothing is cohering.  If all else fails I'll have to blag something around my paired ideas -

• ordinary and special
• human and divine
• individual and corporate
• completion and continuation

Nothing special about the water itself - but a special moment for those involved.

A human choice (discuss!) in response to a divine command/call/invitation

An individual moment in a corporate/communal life; a communal responsibility and commitment

The completion of a stage of a journey - and the start of the next bit

Nothing original or special about these ideas but hopefully they will turn into something soon - please!