After preaching on the Trinity annually for at least a decade, I needed a change!  The thought of yet another Trinity sermon filled me with dread, so it really wasn't a goer (just how many ways can one explain the unexplainable and avoid the worst heresies at the same time?).

Instead I opted for two pairs of metaphors found in the Old Testament and briefly reflected on each.

So we began with the inanimate "rock and refuge" and the concept of God as a passive presence, offering shelter and security provided we choose to come inside.

Then we looked at God as "midwife and mother" with the mind-blowing idea that we are conceived in/by God who also brings us to birth kepeing us safe.

Lastly we noted some similarities - of safety, protection, security, ever-presence - which led to Jesus' image of the hen with her chicks - or the picture I'd found of the swan with her cygnets.

It seemed to go OK, and I had some encouraging feedback.  This evening I will listen to someone else tackle Trinity :)

Sophie and Sasha - a delightful pair of kitties who bring a lot of smiles, laughs and joy into my life.

As you can see, Sophie is wearing the dreaded vetinary lampshade... after weeks of less drastic measures, oodles of drugs and potions, her sore side is still sore.  Despite this she remains remarkably cheerful, sunbathing when the weather allows, snoozing in chairs and now and then coming to see the hu-being for nuzzles and snuggles.

Sasha remains full of beans and loves nothing more than hurtling at full speed around the house.  At night she is known to settle down on the hu-being's hip and sleep there - thus pinning the hu-being on her side for hours on end!

Today all the house plants were moved to church in the latest attempt to remove potential allergens... thus far the cause of Sophie's sore side remains a mystery.

Like Holly before them, these girlies have quite an online fan-club, so it felt about time for another photo... even if it happens to have me in the corner!!

It's not just me/us that have been shifting around this week.  Just down the road at Western Infirmary Glasgow the last emergency ambulances have been and gone as the A&E closed at 8 a.m. this morning.

At 9 a.m. the new West Glasgow Minor Injuries Unit (MIU) opened and will operate a twelve hour 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. service for roughly sixteen weeks.

In October, the MIU and all outpatient services will decamp to what is currently the children's hospital at Yorkhill (when it will have closed and moved to the new Royal Hopsital for Sick Children).

Then at some point in 2016, the MIU and outpatient services will join with some of the surgical (and medical?) services at what is currently Gartnaval General Hospital.

That sounds like a horrendous cycle of packing, unpacking, disorientating, reorientating and so forth.

My thoughts and prayers are with all the hospital staff managing that transition.

You can read more here

It has taken five people and three part days but now it's done!

The vestry is now in what was the lounge (photo of it above)

The former vestry is now a meeting room:

Currently the landing between the rooms is hidden under foldy boxes, bags, stuff to be chucked out and stuff to be taken home, so still some work to do, but not today!

Massive thanks to J, M, N and N for all your help - I could not have done it without you.

In the days when I was in industry, office moves seemed to happen every couple of years.  Some management restructure or other would mean that it evidently made sense for us to move to another building where more or fewer desks could be grouped together in appropriate proximity to some other team (that may, or may not, make any sense!).

I'd pretty much forgotten about all of that until today, when I've been making arrangements to move the vestry/office across the landing to another room at church.  Quite a lot of logistics (such as moving the phone line, packing and unpacking) as well as the practicality of moving furniture around.

And the realisation that the view from my window will change!  Window seats were always coveted in my industry days.  It was pretty much a status symbol to have a window (along with either a wooden desk or a swivel chair!!)  After nearly six years of looking out on to the street, I will have a vista of rooftops.  Which might make for more more work getting done as it will be considerably less distracting.

In case you are wondering, we are not re-structuring at church it is just a practical solution to some ongoing factors relating to the present office space.  In a week or two it will all seem perfectly normal again I'm sure.