Yesterday I was in a conversation with someone who once did a training placement at The Gathering Place.  "Of course," he said, " you have to wear a dog collar there... and robes..."

He was suitably astounded when I told him that on Sunday not only did I not wear any of the above (nor do I any Sunday) but that I wore trousers and a tee-shirt with a fairtrade slogan emblazoned on the front.  I also didn't tell him I said 'Bog off' in my sermon - an allusion to the B.O.G.O.F. offers in supermarkets etc.  Between that and saying 'F in L' (the course in theology I did as part of my training) at a recent church meeting I think I have demonstrated that the ministers of today are even worse than the youff.

The cheery voice of the radio presenter announced that 'it's 6:30 and it's broad daylight' in London maybe, not yet on Glasgow.  As I drew back the curtains it was getting light but the orange glow of streetlights below indicated that broad daylight it certainly was not.

My kitchen is an incredibly light and airy room, south-ish facing and commanding an impressive view across the river (which you can't see) to higher ground beyond.  Looking out I can see chimney tops and trees, trains and twinkling lights (at night) and a vast, open sky over-arching it all.  As I watched the colours change from purplish-grey through gold to pale blue, daylight came to the city; the streetlights went out, a train swished past, someone cycled along the street below and morning came.

The living room faces north-ish and if you look in the correct direction you can still see snow capping the fells north of the city, just, it seems, beyond the stark tower of the local hospital.  City planes (trees!) aplenty and a whole diversity of chimney stacks potentially give a Mary-Poppins-esque feel to the vista.

For six year I overlooked a field, a recreation ground and then open countryside (actually it was trees masking the cemetery before the open countryside), a view of which I never tired, though by the time I moved the view had been lost to the new houses rising from the ashes of the old chapel.  It was no less and no more lovely than my city-scape, a view which I enjoy studying each morning as I rise.  It may surprise some people that I find it quieter here than in my former home - the steady swish of traffic fades more readily into background than the heavy rumble and wall-shaking vibrations of lorries short-cutting through a side street in the wee small hours!  And I can't honestly say I miss being woken by yowling animals afflicted by spring fever!

The country has its beauty and so does the city.  It isn't about 'better' or 'worse' but about difference.  God may not have 'created' cities but allowed us so to do.  The sunrise over the rooftops is not like that over the sea or hills, but its every bit as lovely, and it makes me glad!

No, it's not one of my infamous typos, it's what one of our children understands us to have been talking about today at church. We marked the end of Fairtrade Fortnight with a service focusing on this complex issue - and recognising the interplay of this with other aspects of more ethical shopping choices.

In the 'All Together' slot we first asked the children who had received varying amounts of money (from 1p to £10) in one of the stewardship services how they'd used that money. The reports were very creative... Two sisters had put theirs (5p and 10p) into a Marie Curie charity box; one little boy had put his (1p) in his money box, another had bought four things (though what I could not decipher nor could his Mum!); the recipient of the £10 had bought a book with part of it and given the rest to out local Museum and Art Gallery at Kelvingrove. Fantastic! We moved onto thinking about choices (which fitted quite well with what Sunday School were doing anyway) and the children were invited to come and have a look at a range of items laid out on the table to see what they had in common.  Spotting the logo a little voice piped 'they're all fairy traded.'

What a lovely image that conjures up - tiny winged creatures flitting around the world gathering goods to sell to us in fairy trade shops.  Only good fairies of course, who would ensure that the people who made the items were well treated - especially if they were house elfs.

As the children left for Sunday school they were invited to choose a fairy-trade chocolate bar to take away with them, and there was some left for those adults who were not abstaining for lent.

Next week we are thinking about children and the church, and the Sunday School will be sharing with us some thoughts on what they like best, dislike most and would love to change about church.  With such wonderful children as we have, it promises to be good...

... word limits.  A perennial.  If it needs ten words, use ten, if it merits 1000, use 1000.  The necessary evil of word limits of university submissions drives me nuts, especially when they claim they want something with depth to it.  I've always used up my 10% margin, and where permitted the option of appendices and attachments.  Now trying to write a journal of theological reflection online in under 500 words a go is proving a challenge and a half - not helped by having been trained to write them at ~2k words a go!  Ah well, precis skills to be honed before final submission methinks.

Today I've been doing my homework for my mentoring course and reading part of the set text, The Potter's Rib, Brian A Williams, pub. Routledge, 2005.  The set chapter, one of the longest in the book (of course!) at around sixty pages, talks about the pastor as mentor - a key theme of the course.  We were asked to identify and consider the images offered by the writer and to come prepared to discuss these on Monday.

I guess there are two dominant images, the titular 'potter's rib' (a device used by potters to assist them in forming the clay) and the midwife.  It seemed to me there were a whole host of other metaphors and models, some explicit, some implicit, including, roughly in the order they arise...

• friend
• host
• companion
• accompanier
• eyes
• liberator
• encourager
• ears
• creator of space
• confessor
• mouth/voice
• conversation partner
• poet
• helper
• midwife
• paraclete/advocate
• model/pattern/example/'type'
• artist
• dance partner
• bearer of gladness

Obviously each of these embraces aspects of the dominant metaphors, but they seem to add other ideas too.  As I was mulling them over, and finding myself once more recollecting the 1 Corinthinns 12 body image and the need for diversity in unity, I doodled a 'mini-mentor' based on some of these ideas.  (Just before anyone assumes she's standing in a missionary-sized cooking pot, she isn't, it's a clay pot being formed... obviously)

She is a she because most midwives are women.  She has enormous eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet to reflect the attributes, not because she's a wolf in grandma's clothing.   She's smiling because she's glad.  Hopefully the dove, pencil and music notes are self evident.