A very long time, the day after my ordination in fact, I went into a large branch of a now defunct electrical retailer to order a cooker.  The guy taking my order asked me if it was 'Miss' or 'Mrs' and I said, "Reverend".  His response, without even blinking, was, "is that Miss Reverend or Mrs Reverend?".  It still makes me laugh more than nine years on.

This week I ordered a new heater for the vestry from a well known department store using their 'click and collect' service on the basis that they could deliver it to the supermarket just a couple of minutes walk from the Gathering Place.  Despite some internal hiccups and left hands not knowing what right hands were doing, I finally managed to pick it up this morning, and had to chuckle to myself that the name said R Gorton.  This despite me having given my first name in full in the online form... it appears that they take the data from the card details, and my card has my title and name, so their software decided my first named was Reverend...  what can I say?

Between that and English Heritage insisitng I am a Rev Dr becuase using the abbreviation Revd confused their software I seem to be called almost anything but my actual name. 

Maybe I should just combine them all and be... Miss/Mrs/Ms Rev Dr Reverend Catriona... The again, perhaps not.

This morning's PAYG focused on Luke 5: 12 - 16

Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.’ Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately the leprosy left him. And he ordered him to tell no one. ‘Go’, he said, ‘and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.’ But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.

The thing that struck me - which was not what the guided reflection suggested, was the role of choice in the story. 

The man chose to go to Jesus.  Maybe he was desperate.  Maybe he was hopeful.  Maybe he felt he had nothing left to lose.  Maybe he was angry.  Maybe he was sad. Maybe he was... well I don't know.  But he made a choice to enter the city and seek out a wandering rabbi-thaumaturgist and make his plea, "if you are willing, if you so choose, you can heal me..."

Jesus chose not only to respond, but how to respond.  He could have said no. He could have used this as an occasion for some kind of object lesson on faith or sin or whatever.  He could have sent the man far away to wash in a foreign river.  He could have said or done all manner of things, but he made his choice... I do choose, be clean.  Then he instructs the man to tell no-one, though he is to also get his cure confirmed by those qualified to assess his health and to fulfil the rituals that will restore him to the faith community (bit of a contradiction there Jesus!!).

When word gets out, Jesus is innundated with people wanting to be made well... his choice has consquences, which he maybe anticipated in the command to tell no-one, and so he makes another choice - to withdraw and be with God.  I think it is this last bit that probably spoke to me the most.  How easy it is to be overwhelmed by doing good stuff, Godly stuff that arises out of one particular incident, event or activity.  If I'm honest, I suppose I quite like being in demand, it makes me feel valued and wanted, but my it isn't always the wisest course of action to extend or expand on the one-offs.

I do wonder whether Jesus fully anticipated the impact this healing would have.  Certainly it seems that he found the need to hide away sometimes, in order to re-focus on what God's priorities were (or to put it another way, to pray).  If there is an 'object lesson' in this story (and there doesn't have to be, in general that's poor approach to scripture) then for me it is something about choices and consequences, and permission to back off or hide away in order to re-focus.  Whether I will remember the lesson tomorrow, never mind the next time I find myself in a self-made 'bind' is another thing altogether!!

Some readers will recall I had the hair-brained idea of coming up with fifty things to do in this year of being fifty... well the truth is I just could not think of fifty things that I really wanted to do, and I couldn't see the point of adding loads of things just to make up the numbers.  So here, in no particular order, are the things I have come up with...

• Go to the cinema once a month
• Climb Snowdon
• Climb Scafell
• Have afternoon tea at Betty's Harrogate
• Read a leisure book a month
• Fly a kite on a beach or headland (ht Tim Presswood)
• As a concession to all things girlie, the only one I plan to make, have a professional manicure (I have an event in mind for which this might be appropriate)
• Write and deliver a conference paper at the 'Baptist Doing Theology' conference
• Learn to play, properly, at least one piano work from among the stuff I already have
• Raise funds for a local charity in Glasgow which was founded by The Gathering Place and it's 'mother church'
• Help my kid brother mark his fiftieth next autumn!

The plan is, by writing them down I am more likely to do them, as I have some sort of accountability.

Actually I could make fifty different cupcake designs... ;-)

So today is the first 'normal' day back in the office after the Christmas period.  I have put away the majority of the stuff that has lain on chairs and surfaces in the vestry since I got it out somewhere in Advent.  I have printed off the new set of rotas and stuck it to my wall.  I have sent off a few emails on important or urgent topics... and realised the enormity of the task that lies ahead this year.  Much of it excites and interests me, but it is all demanding stuff, and not everything that is good can be accomplished, there are just not enough hours or people.  So priorities have to be identified... do I just carry on working through the 'to do' list that arose out of a very helpful review of ministry last spring, or do I step back and ask bigger questions, identify key priorities and then choose a smaller number of things to which I devote my energy?  Spelled out like that, it seems crystal clear - the step back, big picture stuff is essential to identifying what the priorities are...; but then because it's my nature, I spot the interlinkages between, say, worship and mission, or pastoral care and strategy, and it all starts to crumble and jumble in my mind.

I suppose if I was a more holy minister, I would be saying that I would begin with a day (or a week or a month) of fasting and praying... except that fasting makes me grumpy (even if I could do with shedding a few pounds!) and I'm not quite sure what or how to pray that would suddenly clarify the complex reality of church life.  I suppose if I were better at the 'Language of Zion' I would be 'waiting upon the LORD' (which often seems to be code for procrstinating or doing nothing) rather than trying to do the meantime active waiting trusting that the LORD is in it somewhere.

So am I downhearted?  No!  I am actually quite energised by the challenge of keeping things ticking over whilst trying to think strategically.  I think I know what I need to do less of, it's just working out how to fit in what I do need to do that's the challenge!

Twelfth Night, the twelfth day of Christmas, whatever you choose to call it... is today.

Last night I packed away all my decorations and took down the cards.  I have to confess that much as I enjoy having them up, I enjoy even more the 'quieter' feel that emerges once I take then down again!

So, today we mark the moment when, according to Matthew, gentiles of a totally 'other' worldview encountered the Christ-child, paradigm-shiftingly significant for the readers of this gospel, even if essentially the fulfillment of ancient expectations.

I'm not about to waste any energy on historicity debates, they are adventures in missing the point whichever side of the argument people take.  Myth, mystery, marvel - all of these and more in a tale so ridiculous it makes Eastenders look plausible.  A tale richly embroidered through time, with, each addition reflecting some insight into the complex hermeneutic that is midrash (or at least that's how it seems to me today!)

Whatever you may be doing today, have a good day.  A Happy Christmas to any readers who follow the Orthodox calendar (and to any on other calendars, it's not long now!)

Whilst looking for images online I found this one, among many, I hope you enjoy it and find something to ponder in it: