Today it is gloriously sunny in Glasgow.  And apparently it is pouring with rain in South East England.  There, is seems, justice if you wait patiently.  Clear blue skies and soaring temperatures (at least by local standards) and smiling people abroad stravaigin or just going abut their daily lives.

This morning as I was walking to Coffee Club I couldn't help notice that the tress are just beginning to turn from green to gold, green to brown, green to red.  Subtle changes that mark the transition from summer to autumn.  The dew on the ground is just a little heavier, lasts just a little longer.  The morning light is a little less intense, more golden than azure.  It's a change I have noticed annually for a couple of decades, yet it never fails to intrigue and delight me.

Often we - or I - speak of seasons as if they have sharp definitions, the kind that lead to the annual debates over the date of the first day of spring or midsummer.  But that's not right.  One season silently slips away as a new one emerges.  So it is with history, so it is with changes in church life, so it is with life more generally.  There are significant moments, signposts and markers, but on the whole the changes are subtle and progressive until, almost unawares, we find ourselves in a new season.  To every time there is a season... turn, turn, turn: somewhere between the Bible and the song writer there's a profound truth methinks.