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  • Aaaaaaargh! Not Again

    This email arrived this morning:

    "Dear Sister, this is a reminder to invite you to our meeting for Pastors' Wives on Saturday 29th October, 7-9pm at *****. If you are a Pastor, please would you kindly pass this onto your wife. For the purposes of catering, it would be helpful to have a rough idea of numbers, therefore, please reply to this e-mail to let us know if you are planning on coming along."
    Ok, so
    1. I am not a pastor's wife
    2. I am a pastor but I don't have a wife
    3. If I was a pastor with a wife, I'd be struck off
    4. If I was a pastor who wanted a wife, I'd be viewed with suspicion
    5. I am a pastor who has no desire for a wife or a husband; I like being single thanks all the same
    It annoys me because it assumes
    1. All pastors are male
    2. All male pastors have wives
    Neither of these is true.
    I couldn't attend anyway because I will already be at Baptist Assembly (Scotland) - far more my kind of thing!
    I am glad that for those who want it, there are pastors' wives events (NB this is not, so far as I can tell, a Baptist event), I'm glad there are pastors' spice events and networks but this 'sister' is not about to attend any of them.
    I ranted about this last year, as I recall, and nothing has changed, so rant again I will!

  • Mostly Armless

    Been a bit of an odd week - lots to do but nothing of note to report back on.

    This morning I saw the physio for the second appointment to treat my De Quervains tenosynovitis... I kind of like the incredibly long name which translates as 'inflamed sheath around the tendon that stops it moving properly'.  Suffice to say, a week of being splinted has made no difference at all, so this morning it was on to therapeutic ultrasound - two minutes of said process which is meant to aggravate the injury enough to make the body heal it up, or some such similar thing!  Anyway, I remain mostly 'armless' for the foreseeable future.

    By contrast, I spent yesterday afternoon doing one of the most privileged things a minister can do - sitting at the bedside of someone who is very ill and nearing the end of life, so in a hospice.  Reading well-loved psalms and hymns, holding his hand, signing him with the cross and then praying with/for him... no other walk of life offers such privilege.  Pastoral care takes many forms, but just sitting in the silence and sharing the waiting seems both to acknowledge our powerlessness and our faithful hope beyond this life.

    Today I am intending to do some reading ahead of my next preaching series.  This has the advantage of not needing functional hands, beyond turning over the pages!