Begins today in Dumferline.  Lots of Scots gathering to worship, learn think and share.  Some good speakers and some interesting sessions, one of which involves one of my folk in a discussion/debate session on civil liberties, "go B".  I am sorry I won't get to hear Stuart Blythe, Parush Parashev or David Kerrigan nor to catch up with many of the folk who are kind enough to call by here from time to time.  I will be thinking of them all and praying that through the familiar and the loud they will be able to discern the still, small voice that speaks of new and surprising things.

Have a great time one and all.

Not long now until Advent, and for those of us who thrive on advance planning (my Worship Planning Team and me) everything is already in hand unitl the end of 2010; in fact because we are forced to book a few months of stand-ins, we are well on the way as far as April 2011...!

This morning I am meeting with someone to plan out evening worship for Advent Sunday.  I know stir up Sunday is the one before Advent Sunday, and I know it's all a bit of nonsense really, but I am hoping that Christmas puddings will find their way in to what we do that day.

I always enjoy Advent with its sense of anticipation and the challenge of restoring the magic and mystery for adults jaded by umpteen decades of the same old same old.  Being forced to step back a bit this year, to trim it back to basics, isn't easy but it does make me ask myself what really matters.  What is it that stirs us up again to live out our faith in a world of brokenness? The BCP collect prayer for stir up Sunday says

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I hope that as we meet this morning to plan our act of worship we will find the stirrings of God's Spirit, enabling us to help others prepare themselves for the journey of Advent.

This Sunday we are looking at the Bible and how we read it - a selection of short reflections on reading in and out of context, and as I've posted before 'loadsa Bible.'

Without giving away too much, neither confetti nor doilies are very useful, though each is attractive in its own way.

So, here's a bit of homework for anyone so inclined, Gatherer or not.

If you are a regular user of the Bible, what schemes or methods do you use?  What gets kept and what gets omitted?  For example, if you are a lectionary preacher - a good practice - have you ever sat down to determine which passages are omitted and wondered why?  Or if you us SU material, have you ever wondered how they choose what is 'in' and 'out' of their syllabus?  Or if you do the 'Bible in a year' have you wondered why those passages in that order?  Any or all of these is/are good models, but they all make choices on what is used or not.

Maybe you could have a look at some obscure bit of Leviticus or one of the 'minor' prophets or even one the neat little lectionary excisions and ponder why it was included in the Bible and why we now ignore it.  I recall one of our college tutors doing an experimental service using a variety of texts linked to the expulsion of bodily fluids (I've bowdlerised that for the more delicate reader!) which certainly gave us all pause for thought.

What would you excise and why?  What would you keep and why?

Recently a friend chastised me for saying in an email that I had to see the vampires, on the basis that phlebotomists don't drink the blood they collect (well, not in front of the patients anyway).  So I had to chuckle to myself when this morning the phlebotomist got out a tourniquet that looked like this:

This is just a bit of nonsense really.

This week I have shifted to using E45 shampoo and shower cream, both labelled pH balanced, hypoallergenic and fragrance free.  They are kind to my scalp and my skin, though my eyes don't like them very much.  Ah well, it's all a balancing act.  Care for my skin and put up with itchy eyes for an hour or two.

I'm just not convinced about the "unscented".

The shampoo has a smell reminiscent of the footbaths you used to get at swimming pools in the 1970s - some sort of antiseptic-meets-chlorine kind of smell.  No wonder my eyes don't like it!

The shower cream looks and smells like Copydex glue, even has a similar consistency but thankfully does not stick!

All of which make ablutions a bit of nostalgia trip as the smells evoke aspects of my childhood.  All I need is a few wax crayons, some boiled cabbage and San Izal loo roll and I'll be back to the various primary schools I attended all those years ago.

It intrigues me how smells get associated with certain places and times, how the merest hint of a fragrance can evoke a whole raft of memories, good or bad.  For me, lilies are known as 'Crem Flowers' because they are so often (and for good historical reasons) used for funerals and the smell takes me to the various crematoria I have worked in.  By contrast the smell of lamb cooking reminds me of my grandparents home.  And so it goes on.

All of which serves as a reminder that although I like using scented things in worship from time to time I have to be a bit careful what I choose as I have no way of knowing what effect the chosen scents may have.