So it's Ash Wednesday and we are in Lent.  This year it crept up on me unobserved and I have made no preparations either for 'taking on' or 'giving up'... no Lent book to read, no going without caffiene or sugar or cocoa (or more typically all the above).  Do I feel guilty?  No!  I have spent a large part of the last several months living with enforced abstentions and practices, and still have some for a while to come yet... the last thing I need is extra ones.

This year Lent will be different from those I have known in the past, and maybe that is abstention enough?

Instead I hope that this Lent can in some way be a time of mental, spiritual and physical preparation for my return to work at Easter.

For explanation of acronym see here

Having had visitors the last few days meant I got help with the jigsaw project, meaning that it was completed earlier than otherwise.  My piece sorting system amused one of them who has never seen anything like it but they soon became accustomed to it!!

Here's the end result...

Definitely more social an exercise than watching TV!

Thank you AE, my concentration skills are now near normal again.  And my guests are dreaming of 'mosaic, blue, lug-ends' or 'cat, hole-ends'.  Mind you they did present me with another jigsaw before they left...!

So said one of our children today when he saw me after the service, stopping abruptly in his tracks as he raced round the room after the service.  Delightedly he showed me the worksheet he'd completed in Sunday school.  It was a special moment.

Pity our poor visiting preacher though.  His theme was around surprises and he asked the children if they could guess what animal he'd seen in his garden this week.  Presumably he expected responses such as 'cat', 'hedgehog' or 'fox.'  One of our tinies who is just finding his voice called out in a loud voice 'crocodile.'  Everyone laughed - except the preacher who said words to the effect of 'how did you know that?' as he proceded to show us the carved wooden crocodile paper knife that had found its way from his study to his garden.  Guess who had the surprise...

All good fun - and made me long all the more to 'be back' properly... only a few weeks to go now

Back to church again today - it is so unbelievably good to be back among these people whom I love and who love me.  Kind of odd to sit in the 'pews' rather than be up front, especially during the Communion, but a good kind of odd I think.

Last Sunday I sat in the 'Snug' today I sat in the 'central block', over the coming weeks I will sit 'behind the choir' and 'near the door' to see what they feel like.  And to see what church looks like from those perspectives.  I don't mean just physically, I mean from the perspectives of the people who choose to sit in those areas of the Gathering Place.

Long ago, when I had a traditional church building with fixed seating, I used to go in early on a Sunday and sit in different people's places.  The purpose was (at least) two-fold.  I would think of the person who sat in that chair/pew (we had both!) and what was happening n their world, so far as I knew; so it became a way of focussing prayer.  I could also see church from their place, physcially certainly, but also arising from the thinking I'd already done... if this is happening for so-and-so then how might church feel/look today?

Usually when I am preaching at the Gathering Place I go on fairly early and sometimes have enough time before anyone arrives to do a similar exercise.  It is also useful sometimes to try to imagine how it all feels to a visitor - practically, emptionally, spiritually.  What 'givens' might confuse visitors?  What do we take for granted?

A useful exercise for any of us to do now and then whether or not we preach.  Just trying to view church from someone else's perspective makes us all a little more gracious!

This week's BT announces that Revd Graham Sparkes is to leave Didcot to become the President of the Partnership for Theological Education Comma Manchester (OK, so really that's Partnership for Theological Education, Manchester.  My erstwhile College Principle was always very keen to stress the comma...).  This is good news for the Partnership but will be a big loss for BUGB HQ where Graham has ably headed up Faith & Unity for many years.

The current President of PTEM (PTE,M?) is one David Gooodbourne, who is retiring and may wend his way back north... he has Gathery links so who knows...

So, all change.  let's pray these are good changes for all involved.