Given the proximity of Pentecost it seemed a good word to use... it just means 'gifts' or 'graces', nothing weird and wonderful, but what today offered.
The gift of space - two long-ish train rides gave me time to read a whole book (not one I "should" have been reading cos I inadvertently left them at church) and part of another.
The gift of a beautiful book that gave me those all important 'what, you too' moments as I read it. Renita Weems is a black American Pentecostal-cum-Methodist minister married to a Baptists whose vocation is as a Biblical scholar and a mother (not necessarily in that order). Listening for God is an incredibly honest book about coming to terms with the challenges of being a Christian and a Theologian, of learning to live with a faith based not on 'feelings' or obvious answers to prayer, even of the struggles to maintain a prayer life at all when God is seemingly silent. Published by Touchstone in 2000, this seems like it ought to be mandatory reading for all NAM-type ministers, giving them freedom to be real if only with themselves and with God. Thanks Jim for the recommendation.
The second book seemed less lovely to read, perhaps I was tired by then, but still worthwhile, with its affirmation of busyness as OK for Christians. You don't have to be contemplative if you aren't... sounds obvious but people need to be reminded. Here is another woman minister-cum-theologian, British, mother, married to a minister, being honest about the struggles of ministerial self-care. Busy Christian Living by Emma Ineson (Continuum 2007) endeavours not to be a 'how to' book and not to present the sorted answers of someone who's found the path of success but an invitation to share the journey. Not quite sure it entirely succeeds, but still very honest and quite useful.
Is it that women are a little less fearful of this kind of self-disclosure? Don't know.
The gift of friendship as I met with women mainly from BUGB and a few from BUW (I think; Wales anyway). The input was solid and practical, the worship creative and gentle, but it was the relational that seemed to be most valuable. Of the 250 women ministers invited around 25 attended. Maybe only 10% find it valuable (I suspect its nearer 25% as relatively few go every year) but it's good to know it's there. I made a few new contacts which may prove useful, who are 'only' in Lancashire.
The gift of perspective even as we met, over in Prague a whole range of European (Baptist?) women ministers were donig something similar. We hard of one minister who had travelled from the Mongolian border in order that she could meet with other women at the five day event. It put the four to five hours from Glasgow into perspective; it put everyone's sense of challenge or isolation or whatever in to perspective. It also reminded us that God is calling women to service all over the globe.
The gift of hope not something I feel in short supply of, but some may well have done. Being reassured that there are people to turn to, that the Union(s) is (are) supportive (and talking to each other!), that the so-called kairos moment might finally be nearing (if of course that is theologically feasible; exercise to reader) and that even if God is sometimes silent, yet God's still 'speaks.'
So, a good day all in all. Train arrived earlier than I thought so I can get to bed at a relatively sane hour... just as well as I now need the gift of sleep!
(And the time is now right on this blog platform, being ~ 22:40)