A lovely weekend, glorious weather, great company, tasty food... altogether good fun.  Just a shame my visitors took the sun back south with them!  At least the rain means the reservoirs stay full.

Our guest preacher once again delivered.  In that way that defied explanation or comprehension, she had chosen to preach on Psalm 23 and Romans 8, and the love of God from which nothing can separate us, not even death or disaster, in a week when a loved friend of the church had died suddenly.  She will be a real blessing to the church with the wisdom to call her.

I am now, slowly, starting to crank myself back into gear for my return to work at Easter.  My spare room is full of props for Easter Sunday worship (the arrival of Home Bargains at the nearby retail park means a new source of ideal tat!  Am I the only minister who mourns the passing of Woollies in this respect?).  I am really, really looking forward to being back 'where I belong' and what better day to be there than Resurrection Day?

I woke up this morning realising that I had not come up with service titles for the first month back, indeed I had not even given more than the most cursory thought to it.  Fortunately a few ideas gelled and I now have a set of suitably vague titles!!  Will we be the only city church marking Rogation Sunday I wonder?!

Today is, for the second week of asking, my 'last day of freedom' before radiotherapy.  If they don't start it this week, or if they mess me about, they will see that I can get cross.  Last week in conversation with a very old friend, who has once or twice seen me angry, I said that I had been practising my scowls... something which will evidently scare anyone!  Stepping stones, here I come.

Another Baptist Times obituary notice for someone whose path has crossed mine.

Another Baptist minister who has, in some way, encouraged me in my own ministry.

Chris was the father of my nextdoor neighbour when I lived in Manchester, and also by one of those quirks of two small worlds that intersect, the brother of the client of a former colleague of mine in industry.  I didn't know Chris well, but he was a thoughtful man, good humoured and clearly very proud of his children and grandchildren. 

I think he probably thought I was a bit odd (no affirmatives please!) but he was kind and generous in his conversations with me.  A long time ago now, but I still remember him giving me a lift to and from Baptist Assembly (the English one) in Blackpool when I was a student.

Chris worked hard and loved generously; it is sad that his retirement was cut short by illness.

Thoughts especially with C, A, J & I at this time.

Go now to your rest, good and faithful servant, rest in peace.

No posting for a couple of days as I have visitors coming from Dibley for the weekend.  It will be great to see them and hope they remember to bring the sun (it's currently only shining in three out of four UK countries).

This Sunday is Passion Sunday (well it is for Proddies) when we recall how Jesus 'turned his face towards Jerusalem.'  I am always struck by the poignancy of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19) and how much he must have loved the place and the people.  He had quite probably been there every year of his life at Passover time, or certainly at key points in his life.  He must have known the city well, had favourite places to shop, to eat, to sit and chat.  He must have known the Temple well, its riches and its rags, its worship and its hypocricy.  And he loved it dearly.

I wonder how much we love the places we live in, and the people among whom we live out our discipleship?  Does our love for them - people, places - ever move us to tears?

I am often asked what I think of Glasgow and always reply 'I love it.'  I do.  I am a city girl at heart I guess, and the diversity, complexity and energy of the city delight me.  And I love Dibley too, with all its unique, if sometimes exasperating (sorry folks) features, its gritty determination, its lovely rural landscapes, its sense of 'istory (ironically they don't, as a rule, do H's), its ability to love even this incomer ('you have to live here three generations to be accepted').  Loving isn't blind, and that's why it can provoke strong reactions - such as Jesus weeping.

Let us, in our imaginations, find a high spot near our villages/towns/cities and look at them in love... what emotions does that provoke?  How about we do it for our churches too?

Well, hopefully that's it!  I have just written the two abstracts (academic and lay) needed for my MPhil submission and sent the final draft to my supervisors.  Tomorrow I will send my 'notification of submission' to the university and then it's just a case of waiting until the permitted date to 'publish and be damned'.

I am clearly amused and impressed by small things these days and, as they used to say in the first company I worked for, 'never mind the quality, feel the width'.  I am secretly pleased that my bibliography runs to six pages (single spaced) as that looks long enough for a submission at this level.  I am also secretly pleased to have nearly 400 footnotes (mostly references)- that makes it seem far cleverer than it is.  And of course I am blatantly happy that I have several diagrams running throughout the submission, demonstrating that you can take the girl out of engineering, but you can't take engineering out of the girl.

Quite pleased that the university is now sufficiently 'green' to allow double sided submission.

Mildly miffed that I'll now submit too late to graduate with my friend who is awaiting her PhD viva just now, but glad that it'll soon be completed anyway.

At 43k words of main text and footnotes (53k overall) it is the size of a modest paperback - I just hope the powers that be are happy with it.

Yesterday's IBRA notes were around the far too familiar story of Zaccheus but here were a couple of useful pointers between the two sets of notes.

Zaccheus was a wealthy man yet he accepted Jesus' self invitation to his home and allowed this rag-tag crew to dine in his rather posh abode.  The questions was posed, how willing would we be to allow slightly grubby itinerants into our houses?

Zaccheus gave away vast quantities of money, at least on this one occasion.  The question was posed, how willing would those of us who have money be to give it away?  How much are we investing for a more comfortable future for ourselves (beyond prudent pension provision) in a world where many are in need?  tricky question to ask in the wealthy West End of Glasgow where most people are pretty comfortably off.

There is nothing to suggest that Zaccheus either stopped being a chief tax-collector or moved to a smaller, more modest house, let along left everything to follow Jesus, but he certainly learned to see his material wealth in a very different way.

An interesting tale to set alongside that of the woman in the Temple who gave 'all she had to live on'.  Presumably Zaccheus was still giving from his plenty?  Maybe he could serve as a 'type' (for those into such language) for middle class professionals today?