Between now and this time next week, I have undertaken to prepare some material for a house-group on "Constructing a Sermon/Reflection'... I have plenty of ideas, and plenty of notes (somewhere) from the endless repetitions of workshops/courses I've done down the years, but it seemed good to go back to some books... so I've set myself the challenge of reading at least part of each of these - plus another one I recalled after I'd taken the photo - and then producing something fresh, interesting and helpful.

And in between times, to write this Sunday's sermon!!

This morning I'm researching liturgies to adapt for a gravestone dedication service that I'll be doing tomorrow.  We chose the date purely by convenience - but of course tomorrow is All Saints Day, the day after All Souls.  Which is remarkably apposite. Hmm.

I am loving both the Jewish and Roman Catholic liturgies I'm reading through, as well as some other websites that talk of annual, community ceremonies among Roman Catholics in Ireland.

Our purpose is largely pastoral - someone with no surviving relatives, and for whom, along with the other members of her family buried there, we arranged for a new headstone to be made.

Not your everyday Baptist kind of a thing, certainly not one they teach you at 'vicar school', but nonetheless one that feels right, and the timing of which generates a gentle 'hmm'!