A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life

It must be Pentecost in Dibley!  And indeed it is.

Yesterday's community fun day attracted far less people than usual - only about a hundred I'd guess - but those who came enjoyed themselves playing in the sunshine, munching scones and chatting to friends.  It transpired their was a councilled event in the town centre - a kind of talent fest though dubbed by one person who'd been there before coming to ours 'Carbonberg's Got No Talent'.  The some meagre sporting event also took place occupying afternoon television and managing to keep a lot of people safely in stuffy houses rather than enjoying he wonderdful weather.  It was hard work - a much smaller number of folk involved this year but it was fun.  As I staggered to the chip shop at 8 p.m. to get some tea, I did wonder momentarily what the Holy Spirit did about tea on the day of the first Pentecost - she must have been exhausted after prompting so many people to respond to the apostles! ;-)

Today its our open air service, which I always enjoy.

This year we begin with party poppers (and I going to pinch part of  Jim's haiku as opening liturgy!) and individual birthday cakes (amazing what can be done with cheepy creepy supermarket cakes and a tube of icing).  We will allow various Biblical texts to guide us into some reflections on what it means for us to live as people who are indwelled by God's Holy Spirit - including how we make our election choices this coming Thursday. We will draw faces on balloons (to represent ourselves!) and then blow them up, symbolising our own filling with God's breath of life and will write our prayers on 'flames' to add to a collage of fire.

It should be fun, and I hope it will be authentic too.

Yesterday evening I sat down to start the process of creating a record of the demise of our erstwhile church building.  Demolition continues - and will do for a few weeks yet - but already I have lots of photos, so it seemed good to start putting together the narrative with the images.  All was going well, the document was looking good, complete with images of the building as it was, the various plans for redevelopment, photos of the process to date and accompanying text.  I was making some history for my congregation, recognising the need to combine facts with commentary, aware of my aims, aware of my target audience - it was good.  Then the computer decided not only to refuse to save the latest update to the document, it lost the whole thing.  I know I can type it all up again - and I will revert to my method of alternately saving to hard drive and data stick so that I don't lose the whole thing next time - but my computer very nearly joined the pile of roofing felt, broken glass and timber in the skip next door.

Anyway, here's a recent photo of the back of the premises, now so open you can see the stained glass at the front (inside the large black square hole).  One particularly amusing aspect (for me) is that despite all the stripping and demolishing the pulpit (which I never used) still stands proud!

Whilst chatting to the demolition crew yesterday, I discovered that the stained glass and front doors (massive oak "church" doors) are to be salvaged and sold on, probably into the American market.  The slates have already been salvaged and the roof tiles from the sanctuary will also be kept. Ironically the new bat-house will be built of reclaimed materials so that the three young bats feel at home when/should they return!

I am starting to outline the service for Trinity Sunday - that most unloved and avoided theme within the litrugical year.  Last year I focussed on relational trinity models and my 'divine reel of three leading to a missional grand chain' image.  This year, partly because I had a (semi-serious) request that we sit in a triangle, and partly because D+1 are with us, I have decided to go with something that I thought was more straight forward - until I tried to think of or find Bible texts to go with it!

My flash of inspiration (?) was to build the sermon slot around the words from the Book of Hours (I think)

Glory be to the Father

And to the Son

And to the Holy Spirit

As it was in the beginning

Is now

And shall be forever

So, there would be three shortish reflections around the co-equal, co-eternal Trinity.

In the beginning - Genesis 1 and John 1

Is now - John 14:15 - 22, Matthew 28:16 - 20

Shall be forever.... er..... 2 Corinthians 13:14 sprang to mind but does not have the 'for evermore' we add when we use it as a blessing.  I can't seem to find an obvious trinitarian reference in Revelation.

Anyone care to enlighten me?  I may well cheat and use the 2 Corinthians bit anyway but I'd like something else if possible.

PS The dreaded green hymnbook actually came into its own as it actually has a section of hymns on the theme of Trinity - not something SOF or MP or even BPW seems so hot on!

There was a time when the Baptist Times used to find the most tortuous connections between the stories they told and Baptist life - you know the kind of thing Mr X lived nextdoor to Mrs Y who just happened to have bought her pedigree dog from the same breeder as the former president of the Baptist Union.  So here's one that I spotted today... courtesy of Sainsbury's 140th birthday magazine supplement:

During World War II "the East Grinstead store was so badly bombed it traded temporarily from the local Baptist church" (Sainsbury's Magazine, Souvenir Supplement, third page).  So that explains why so many Baptist ministers shop at Sainsbury's!!!  (Whether or not this was a BUGB church I cannot tell but, hey, it never seemed to worry the BT...)

Whilst in there today I picked up a pack of Fry's Chocolate Cream bars for one of my ninety somethings who recalls the days when she used to buy them from vending machines on the railway station in Dibley (well the adjacent town anyway) when she went to Leicester with her husband to watch the races.  Ironic that having had a Stephenson built railway Mr Beeching stole it from us.

Pastoral care, nostalgia and weird Baptist connections - not a bad afternoon's work!

The demolition crew dismantling our former chapel building are a friendly bunch and very graciously allow me on site pretty much whenever I want to in order to photograph the process.  Although due to my holiday I missed the "window" to get inside the shell and take pictures, there is still plenty to see despite the larger machinery having arrived on site to demolish what 134 years ago was a brand new Baptist day school backing onto a brand new church.  In the photo the school part is now almost gone leaving a big hole into the former sanctuary.  The vestry, complete with its evil 1950's wall paper is still (at the time of the photo) extant and just behind the arm of the digger.

This afternoon I was visiting one of my ninety-somethings who has recently been in hospital and she was recalling how her grandfather had remembered the 'old' (wooden) chapel that stood on our grave yard and had attended the Baptist school when it was a shiny new - presumably state of the art - place.

This picture - downloaded from the web where it had been uploaded from some archives held my my folk - shows what school looked like in 1913 - hard to imagine how they fitted so many children in such a small space as it was, but they clearly did.  Hard, too, to imagine that in this photo are parents of some of my older people.  Seemingly, before free education exisited,  people paid 1d a week for reading and 1d a week for writing (no record of what they were charged for arithmetic!) so it was hardly a cheap option for miners with large families.  Running costs were subsidised by an annual 'Sermons' Sunday.

The advent of free state education meant the Baptist school closed fairly soon after the opening of this shiny new building... and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

This week is final preparations for our annual Pentecost Party - something we began four years ago and which now seems fairly well established as a Churches Together outreach.  In the next day or two I must dig out my face paints, the giant jenga and various other outdoor games in readiness for Saturday's community fun day part of it.  I must also purchase birthday candles and balloons for the Sunday open air service - that and prepare a series of short reflections including how being "spirit-filled Christians" will impact our voting in the upcoming elections!  (I have to say I was pleased when Last Sunday's intercessions touched on this thorny topic!).

I do enjoy this weekend - it is hard work for sure, but it is always rewarding.  There is something special about seeing people enjoying a free lo-tech afternoon of fun and games, and of hoping like crazy that Sunday will be dry for the outdoor service!

Of course, Pentecost this weekend means Trinity the one afterwards - which sees D+1 join with us and an Easter-tide promise to be kept to arrange the chairs in a triangle!  Hey ho.

Whilst walking the West Highland Way we passed through a place called Tyndrum.  It is almost a bend in the road, though has a fairly new municipal cemetry with exactly one grave stone to date!  Significant is that it consists of three shops - a little general store, a place called The Green Welly Stop and another called the Real Food Cafe.  The last of these was where we ate one evening, and it intrigued me more than somewhat - essentially it is an ethical chip shop serving the usual range of deep fried fare but with a conscience.  All the hot drinks are fairly traded, the disposables from sustainable sources, the fish, potatoes, meat etc. locally and/or organically sourced.  They offer gluten free batter for those who need it.  Central to the cafe are two high, communal eating tables where diners sit together to enjoy their repast.  Fresh water is freely available in jugs filled at a nearby butler sink.

The story of The Real Food cafe us told in panels on the wall - how a failing Little Chef restaurant was bought up and redeveloped as the fulfilment of a dream of a couple; how the dream was captured by those they employed and how when one of the owners died suddenly the dream was sustained by those who shared it.  Maybe there's a parable in there somewhere?

I certainly enjoyed my pie and chips washed down with lashings of tea and followed with a chunk of  homemade flapjack.  Should I be up that way again I imagine I'll stop by because there's something intrinsically yet intangibly good about ethical fast food!

There is, so I discovered, a doggerel song sung by Kenneth McKellar, which extols the virtues of the West Highland Way.  The song may be far from great poetry, but the walk traverses some magnificent and diverse countryside as it winds it way from Milngavie (or Kelvingrove if you do the southern extension first) to Fort William.

Someone hearing I was about to attempt this walk wished me well on my 'Long Walk Through the Midges' and despite various assurances that May in Scotland is dry and midge free, I got wet and bitten in equal measure!  It was a great time out from routine: time to "not think", time to "not do."  It was good to walk with a friend I have seen little of for some time and who knows that part of Scotland reasonably well, having moved there a couple of years back to be nearer her parents.

Navigationally, it was the easiest walk I've ever done - wide paths and good way-marking throughout made it impossible to get lost and the diversity of walkers from many nations ensured some entertaining conversations and we enjoyed nicknaming the various walkers we met, overtook, were overtaken by, and then overtook once more.

I could spend a lot of time listing visual highlights - the acres of bluebells, Loch Lomond in the sunlight, Ben Nevis almost clear (just a whisper of cloud grazing the summit) meandering rivers or brooding clouds over Rannoch Moor - but to do so would need greater poetry than I possess.

Lots of great moments, lots of stunning scenery, way too much to eat - and now lots of socks to wash!  Overall a great week away and a much needed rest.

Because I'm on holiday next week I am trying to prepare the sermon for when I return.  I have now realised I misread the week number as per the lectionary (not that anyone will know) so have been working with 1 John 5:1 - 6 and John 15: 9-17 and intending to do some explorations about love, noting that in 1 John believers are children of God and in John 15 friends of Jesus.  After three abortive attempts I had lunch, and realised part of my struggle was that 1 John 4:7-20 kept sneaking into my mind.

So here's the conundrum.

1 John 4:7 - Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

So far so good.

1 John 5:1 - Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who who loves the father loves his child as well.

So which is it?  Is it our love that makes us children of God?  Or is it our faith?  Or is it the wrong question? (undoubtedly!)

I think I'm going to add the 1 John 4 passage to our set of readings - though I'm not sure my task will be any less of a struggle - and maybe try to tease out some of the implications of the conundrum:

1 John 4: 20 - If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars.  For any of us who do not love a brother or sister whom we have seen, cannot love God, whom we have not seen

Faith is as faith does... which after all is my central Bible verse in paraphrase!

Last night I was at a school Governor's meeting where we were discussing information relating to the appointment of a new head teacher.  When we got to essential attributes, I observed that churches always seem to want the Archangel Gabriel for their new minister.  One of the staff governors commented that many of the teachers had responded to that by saying they wanted Johnny Depp.  Since I was taking the minutes, I recorded "Archangel Gabriel meets Johnny Depp" (now I may be a getting old but Johnny Depp isn't my hunk of choice!  How about Sean Connery, Martin Shaw, Trevor Eve... ).

I was intrigued by the assumption that a head teacher will be male, in much the same way that most churches assume ministers will be male.  How would people define their ideal female head teacher?  Virgin Mary meets ... (insert name)?  Or their ideal female minister?  Virgin Mary meets Geraldine Grainger perhaps?!  What d'you think?