Today is the start of Christian Aid week and so our morning worship connected with the material and theme for this year.  We used a couple of the DVD clips including the reflection with the wonderful singing 'Sing, sing like you've never sung, sing of the joy to come.'

One slight cheat was to plagiarise Anne Wilkinson-Hayes' BUGB Assembly use of Wind in the Willows (which had excited Millie Mole when she found there was a mole in the story) as a way in to thinking about how important water is. Beyond that it was largely my own thoughts linking Ezekiel's deepening, widening river; Revelation's river of life and Jesus' living water.

Revelation is a dream, a vision, a goal, the 'joy to come.'

Last weekend, Anne invited people to jump into the river of mission - which seems to suggest she was starting a mile down Ezekiel's river when she began. Ankle deep paddling, knee deep sloshing, waist deep wading and full flood swimming are all possible - where we are and what we do will vary.  Where are we now?

Jesus was thirsty, Christ is living water.  If the church is 'the body of Christ' how are we living water?  If the church consists of people who thirst - for justice, for spiritual refreshment, how do we drink of Christ?  If we meet Jesus in others, what does he need from us?

After the service and lunch was our church meeting during which lots of good things happened...

• we voted to register as a fairtrade church
• we agreed some experiments in all age worship, me going in to Sunday school and a whole church 'learning and worshipping' plan
• we learned about SOLAS 2010, a Scottish Christian arts festival, partnering with Greenbelt and Christian Aid, which we are invited to support too.

Coming home there was some sad news concerning one of our folk, and yet the words of the song speak into that too: the Revelation promise is now real, the joy has come, our sister, a runner, a hopsital DJ, a stalwart of friendship meetings, is safe home... sing, sing like you've never sung, sing of the joy to come.  JM RIP.

Life in all its fullness - endings and beginnings, old and new, grafting and pruning, reapoign and sowing - sing of the joy to come.

Finally I have reduced my reflective paper to within the word limit - indeed, I am even 43 words inside it.  Miracle of miracles.  Time for minor celebrations.

So, how was this done?  Not by shaprening arguments or choosing clever words but by radically editting from a 'journal' (personal variety) format to an essay with footnotes & references and by excising whole chunks of material.  It is now around 40% shorter than it began.

Whilst I completely understand why the academy needs word counts, personal reflective journals don't fit such a mandate... especially for waffle merchants like me.  There is something 'not right' that it has taken at least twice as long to edit the entries down to size as it did to write them in the first place.  I am far from convinced that the 60 plus hours this exercise has involved is justified for half of the submission for an undergraduate module.  This probably says far more about me than about the expectations of the course.

So, now 'all' that paper needs is for me to tidy up its referencing (hurrah for Endnote!) and then I can write the second, even shorter, essay...

Sometimes I think it must be nice to be a minimalist...

Mulling over bits from BUGB-BMS Assembly and recalling talking to someone who asked how things were going at my new church.

I commented that it was fun - a response deemed 'strange' by the questioner's spouse.

Strange that church would be fun?

Strange that a minister might find church fun?

I asked what would be a better answer - good, maybe, or going well.  They weren't sure, just thought 'fun' was odd.

Ah well, if a church that is fun is strange then I'm happy to be part of something strange.

One of the things that we were invited to do at the Assembly was fill in our church name on a card and swap it with someone we didn't know, committing to pray for one another's churches.  Our swap is to here a church that sounds very different from us.  It is good to pray for them, and know they are praying for us.  Meanwhile God is chortling so much as almost fall from the comfy cloud that forms a seat, being so amused by the Spirit's working and teasing of the church.

So, the votes have been cast.  For the umpteenth successive election I have voted for someone who was not elected, but at least I got to vote, which is perhaps as, if not more, important.  I'm not sure what to make of the events in some English cities where people were turned away after allegedly queuing for 'hours.'  It is easy to blame the returning officers, and maybe they did make errors of judgement.  At the same time if people chose to arrive at 21:30 then they knew, surely, there was some element of risk involved?

I'm always fascinated to watch the Sunderland dash.  Clearly a compact set of constituencies and a committed infrastructure set on a fast turn around.  Must be nice for the candidates to be away by midnight.  And how times have changed that we no longer have to wait for daylight to count in Northern Ireland or a week for ballot boxes to arrive from the outermost islands.

So, as the clearing up happens, as candidates fall into an exhausted sleep, as party leaders head to London to decide 'what next', we have a parliament in which no one has an overall majority.  Might people just begin to work together for the common good rather than squabbling?  Might we discover that a 'balanced' (nicer word than 'hung') parliament can be strong and effective?  Or will we be back at the polls in a few months to do it all again?  Only time will tell.

There is a temptation to see this as 'job done' and revert to life as usual, but actually the challenge is to continue to engage with the issues and be interested in the life of this nation.  My younger brother used to say that democracy was the freedom to choose our dictators.  Perhaps we need to grasp that, whilst we get the government we choose (within the constraints of the process we use), we don't then abdicate responsibility for influencing what it does.

(A topic worthy of theolgical debate... Arminian Calvinism perhaps?!!)

Anyway, more seriously.  Our service last night went really well, and thanks are due to one of my C of S colleagues for organising it.  Just half an hour long, with a couple of Bible readings (Micah 6:8 and Mark 12: 28-31) and short reflections, some prayers and hymns.  The pause we needed but might not otherwise have made time for.  The place to seek God amidst the pressures of earth.

One hymn we sang was this one (though verse 2 was omitted for some unknown reason - maybe just to fit the page, maybe it was a little too specific or pointed? ):-

1. Lord, we ask for wisdom, guidance.

Lead us in this nation’s hour,

when those bidding for election

tell us how they’ll use their powers.

As we read each manifesto

show, where best, your Kingdom flowers.

2. Favour those whose goal is service,

all whose aim is toil, not ease;

leaders moved by courage, goodness,

spurning false expenses, sleaze.

Save us from all spin, deception.

Lead us now to righteousness.

3. Look upon us, Lord, in kindness.

Pardon those who trust in wealth.

Many live in fear of losing

money, homes, employment, health.

Through recession’s shadow, lead us;

in your rod and staff, our faith.

4. In each passing generation

you seek justice, mercy, grace;

care for poor and broken-hearted,

care for all who have no place.

Let the homeless and the stranger

find in us Christ’s warm embrace.

5. All the earth and all its people,

all its seas and all its lands;

all belong to you, O Father,

all our hopes are in your hands.

As we go to cast our ballot

Tune our ears to heaven’s demands.

Words by Louis Kinsey © Jocky Music 2010 (can be found here HT CofS Craig)

Some wise words were spoken in the service, acknowledging that we won't all vote the same way, that many factors will infleunce our decisions, but that we trust, somehow that despite our finitude and partiality God is working.

So, that's it, I've cast my vote and normal service resumes.  It is intriguing working in a key marginal (maybe 'the' key marginal for Scotland) and living in a seat deemed so safe no-one has canvassed my vote (though the Communist was handing our leaflets at the gate of the 'polling place' (four polling stations in one building)).  I don't intend to stay up for the result but by tomorrow it'll be over and the reality will begin.