Yesterday's morning service was very special for all of us at the Gathering Place.  We were full as ever, with extra seats needed to accommodate family and friends of the baby we were welcoming.  Our choir was back after a month's well earned break and in great voice.

What a joy and privilege it is hold in your arms a young child, made in God's image and likeness, and pray God's blessing on him at the beginning of his life.  What an assurance for the family to have their church stand with them and say 'yes, we'll help you the best we can' in caring for your child.  What a sense of oneness as we 'gently applauded' this little one.

Sharing around the Lord's Table is always special - even for a stubborn memorialist like me!  Imagining how Jesus felt on that night, and uniting our hearts to be together for the days ahead were important for us yesterday.  Did my hands tremble a little as I broke the bread?  Quite probably.  Certainly they did as I lifted the chalice.  It didn't matter, we were together in the remembering and anticipating.

It's quite normal for me to feel tired even a bit drained, after leading worship.  Yesterday I was wrung out.  But in a good way.  As we stood together, singing of God's promises, sharing life in its highs and its lows, there was a sense that this is as good as it gets, that this church in its incredible ethnic and theological diversity is, for me, simply the best place on earth right now.

Among the things the Bible says about love are these:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength

Love you neighbour as you love yourself

Love your enemies

This kind of loving is not a feeling, it's a choice, a conscious undertaking to seek good not evil.  It presumes an important tenet/axiom/principle, that love is stronger than hate.

I have chosen to love my tumour.  I have chosen to name it as mine rather than distance it from myself as 'the tumour.'

I cannot hate it, because it is 'flesh of my flesh.'  I don't like it, and I know it needs to go in due course, but it is my tumour, and I choose to love it.

Language of 'battle' and 'fight' is prevalent in the world I am entering, and I understand why - to see cancer as a foe to be destroyed gives its host a reason to stay strong.  And whilst it is helpful for many people, I am uneasy about such language in relation to my own body.  It is not that my body is a 'thing' that has turned against some inner 'me', I abandoned that kind of dualism long ago.  If I broke my arm I wouldn't see a fracture as an enemy and I wouldn't hate my arm; if I had a mental illness I wouldn't see my mind as an enemy.  The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 speaks of 'treating with special honour' those parts of the body which are less presentable.'   We all assume he means genitals, sphincters and the like, and we're probably correct.  But I am choosing to 'treat with special honour' my tumour, tending it gently until such time as it is ready to leave my body, allowing me to live on without it.

From time to time I may need to be reminded of this, but today I choose to love.