It's the fourth Sunday of Lent, the 'day off' from fasting for some, the Lenten match for Gaudete in Advent, the day for brightness amidst the reflection.  We begin to glimpse what lies ahead of us, and start the path towards Passion Sunday next week (I know, RC keep Passion Sunday on Palm Sunday) recalling how Jesus 'turned his face to Jerusalem.'

In many churches it is an unashamed mummy-fest, in others it is a celebration of family (for which read 'middle class western nuclear family').  We will be centring our thoughts on 'children and church' a more holistic, community focus I hope, but none-the-less affirming the role of carers.  So, no posies for the 'ladies' or even button holes all round, as I once did at my old church.  Instead we have Michel Quoist's wonderful poem/prayer 'I like Youngers'

I Like Youngsters

From Michel Quoist Prayers of Life, published by Gill and Macmillan 1963

They brought children for him to touch; and the disciples scolded them for it. But when Jesus saw this he was indignant, and said to them, Let the children come to me; do not try to stop them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it. (Mark 10, 13-15)

God says: I like youngsters. I want people to be like them. I don't like old people unless they are still children. I want only children in my kingdom; this has been decreed from the beginning of time.

Youngsters - twisted, humped, wrinkled, white-bearded - all kinds of youngsters, but youngsters.

There is no changing it, it has been decided, there is room for no one else. I like little children because my likeness has not yet been dulled in them. They have not botched my likeness, they are new, pure, without a blot, without a smear.

So, when I gently lean over them, I recognise myself in them. I like them because they are still growing, they are still improving. They are on the road. They are on their way.

But with grown ups, there is nothing to expect anymore. They will no longer grow up. They will no longer improve. They have come to a full stop.

It is disastrous. Grown ups think they have arrived.

I like youngsters because they are still struggling, because they are still sinning. Not because they sin - if you understand me - but because they know that they sin, and they say so, and they try not to sin anymore.

But I don't like grown-ups, they never harm anyone, they have nothing to reproach themselves for. I can't forgive them, I have nothing to forgive. It is a pity, because it's not true.

But above all, I like youngsters because of the look in their eyes. In their eyes I can read their age.

In my heaven, there will only be 5 year old eyes, for I know of nothing more beautiful than the pure eyes of a child. It is not surprising, for I live in children, and it is I who look out through their eyes.

When pure eyes meet yours, it is I who smile at you through the flesh. But, on the other hand, I know of nothing sadder than the lifeless eyes in the face of a child.

The windows are open but the house is empty. Two eyes are there but no light. And, saddened, I stand at the door, and wait in the cold and knock. I am eager to get in. And he, the child is alone. He fattens, he hardens, he dries up, he gets old. Poor old fellow!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Open, all of you, little old men!
It is I, your God, the Eternal, risen from the dead, coming to bring back to life the child in you.
Hurry! Now is the time. I am ready to give you again the beautiful face of a child....

For I love youngsters, and I want everyone to be like them.

Whatever you're up to, Laetere!

Today is the 'grand manse warming party' so I am up early to give the hoover a workout and hide the worst of my untidiness ready for (hopefully) lots of visitors this afternoon. It has been fun choosing food and baking a few buns (that is small sponge cakes like cupcakes, 'buns' seems to be one of those words with umpteen interpretations) which now await icing etc. Thanks to the generosity of someone at church my crockery store has doubled overnight so no shortages there.

This morning I'm half kicking myself that I left at church the book that contains a 'house blessing' liturgy, which it would have been nice to incorporate at some point. (I guess I could google one but it wouldn't feel the same). Never mind, it can be done some other time, when I do remember to bring the book home, or I can improvise.  More important is that the house is a blessing, a place of welcome, a place of safety, a place of laughter, a place of joy, place to relax and a place to grow.  That's really my prayer for this house - one that can be spoken at the threshold but is only made in the living - even if there is dust on the shelves and clutter in the hall!

I first encountered this idea when I was in Manchester, as a kind of response to the self-obsessed, self-deluded prayers of the the 'please God let the sun shine for our barbecue' variety and the cringe-inducing comments of the 'our holiday plane was over-booked but God got us on so that we could have all of our lovely foreign holiday rather than getting there a day late' (preusmably God did not smile on the folk who didn't get in the plane...).  Our Lady of the Parking Place will, in exchange for the requisite number of novenas (whatever they are), grant you a vacant parking space even when the car park is evidently full.  Today she smiled on me, albeit on my third circuit of the block, and my car is now safely and legally parked close to the church.  Which is as well as I need to transport some heavy items back to my flat.

All this reminded me of the time I was industry and shared a free access photocopier with around 200 others.  This necessitated understanding how to load paper, clear jams etc and of course the relevant liturgies and rituals required by the great god Xerox.  Aside from 'work you stupid machine' chanted regularly, it was generally accepted that sacrificing chickens could help...  How many, and how, I know not, but evidently it was effective.

And then there was the grill at the church commnuity centre where I worked part time in my first year of ministerial training, along with a URC student.  It was decidedly tempremental and often needed a good thump to make it work.  Or, as my colleague regularly said, "I'll try a URC blessing and if that doesn't work Catriona will give it Baptist one...'

So now you are all suitably worried at the bizarre rites practised by those elevated to the heights of ordained ministry.  But I'm still pleased I got a parking space today...

I am beginning to wonder if Hyndland railway station is the centre of the known universe!  Five minute's walk from my front door, so the natural start point for my longer journeys. It seems anywhere I might want to get to by train I can do from here, although because of timing issues I have booked some tickets from Glasgow Central instead which will mean taking the 44N bus at odd hours of the day and night.  In which case maybe my house is the centre of the universe as within a minute I can get to the bus stop that will start my journey to anywhere?

Whatever, the reality, I have just booked my train tickets to take me to Birmingham for the BUGB Women in Ministry (WIM) day.  It ought to be called VIK day according to at least one of my friends, where VIK means 'vicars in knickers,' a name we gave to a short-lived group I was part of in Leicestershire.  Whatever the name and wherever the centre of universe might really be, both the location of Hyndland railway station and the WIM/VIK day 'good things' in my world.

Sometimes every seems to post which book they're reading for Lent, this year hardly anyone is.  So, just to buck the trend, and even though Lent is half over and I've read less than half of the book... I am reading Lucy Winkett's Our Sound is our Wound which is proving an interesting exploration around sound and noise and woundedness.  I can't honestly say I've really got nito it yet, but it is refreshingly different to read.  And for collectors of miscellaneous connections, I have never spoken to Lucy in my life, but we did once both stand at the end of Downing Street with Dawn French shouting 'make poverty history' along with a couple of hundred other women ministers.

By contrast, last night I was in the Mitchell theatre in Glasgow enjoying a couple of speakers in the Aye Write book festival.  The first, 36 Proofs of the Existence of God by Rebecca Godstein is a new-atheism meets religious-yearning novel that sounds fascinating and is a fictionalised exploration of philosophical topics by a 'new atheist' with devout Jewish roots.  Possibly a (more sophisticated?) parallel to some of Brain McLaren's 'new kind of Christian ' stuff, but I wouldn't know without reading it.  Certainly a similar premise of fiction to explore complex topics.

The second, a book on the Scottish Reformation by Harry Reid, facilitated by Richard Holloway, was very entertaining if far less focused, but left me wondering if the English Reformation (beyond Anglicanism) was really so different (albeit quite probably more bloody), the dangers of state churches being seen as normative and even the assumption that English history is actually anywhere as near uniform as sometimes portrayed?  And all this because I grew up in the 'cradle' of English protestant non-conformity.

Anyway, it was fun, it made me think and I met new people in new places, so it was a good evening.