It struck me at some point early today that I had chosen an outfit that comprised assorted personally symbolic items!  So a quick selfie and explanation...

The green suit, bought way back when I was getting my 'handshake' at the BUGB Assembly in Cardiff... and which I also chose to wear when I was 'handshaked' into the BUS.

The horizontally striped top I bought last spring when all my various bits and bobs of surgery were over and the stripes would sit horizontal after two years of lop-sidedness

The brooch, the newest addition, a gift to self from New Zealand, a Maori koru symbol for 'new life' and 'new beginnings' made of beautiful paua abalone.

A totally non-significant day personal calendar wise, and maybe that's a good thing, and kind of special in a non-significant way!

I love that comment in Revelation about there being silence in heaven for half an hour... all the alleluias cease, no flying winged creatures, no angels passing on messages - just - silence.

This morning I introduced our Lent series of services built around encounters between Jesus and A N Other in the gospel of John.  Essentially I've extended the lectionary gospel narratives a bit and omitted the OT and Epistle.  The plan is that I lead a 10 minute reflection on the passage, we sing a song or chant, have ten minutes of silence (with some optional resources to help anyone who finds them helpful) and then the song or chant again.

I was a little bit nervous about introducing it, and was overwhelmed by how well it was received... a few people who rarely express opinions sought me out to say thank you.

It's all much 'bigger' than that, though, and every week the way God's Spirit works in, through and despite us strikes me afresh. 

The all agey bit was a story 'I Love You because You're You' a delightful account of a mother fox who loves her child when they are good, bad, happy, sad, shy, bold, angry, stubborn etc.  I ended up saying that God loves everyone just like that.  "Even the guys who don't know?" asked a three year old - yes, even the guys who don't know.  Wow!

The intercessions were utterly stunning in their depth and courage - prayer for baddies as well as goodies, for those who know and name Christ and those who don't... the perfect match for the child's observation.  Wow!

Setting up this morning was fraught - the church projector kept misbehaving and shutting down.  I cadged a lift home to pick up mine, which then failed to work because the bulb had gone phut.  Thankfully we got the church projector to work (who knows what was up with it - the old unplug, replug trick!) and all went well (aside from me having the wrong version of the chorus of one of the hymns).

Silence in church for ten minutes - today and each Sunday of Lent:  I think that will make the vibrancy and noise of Palm Sunday all the more intense, and I hope it will prove overall a positive experience for those who participate.

... Eliminate the negative

A bit of reflection and self-examination never goes amiss and, whatever the outward appearance of my bloggerel, I am conscious of becoming increasingly grumpy and negative.  It may be my age or my hormones, it's quite likely to be yet another side effect of my drugs, but I don't like it and I don't want to be it!

So I am hauling myself up by my metaphorical boot straps and choosing to be positive.

All of which means if/when I descend into negativity, grumpiness or moaniness you are allowed to take me task.

This week my blog link for Lent is to two posts by Andy Goodliff, who I am really pleased to see is blogging again quite regularly after a bit of a break.  He, too, has been reading the Archbish's Lent book, and his reflections offer a more positive counter to mine!

See here and here

So the web is 25 years old - which might help explain why I've spent half the morning trying to resolve apparent bugs on the church computer that meant it refused to connect to most websites that weren't bookmarked (no I hadn't altered my settings)... I finally fixed it with the old 'switch it off and switch it on again' routine for the router.  It might be faster and more whizzy than back then, kilostream and megastream datalinks, dial up mdems (though a few evidently still have this) laughably antiquated, but some things stay the same.

I have been with my ISP for 15 years or thereabouts, since I first went online at home, never having changed and having had very few problems along the way ... the smaller, unknown ISPs do seem less problematic than the big names... even if the big names own almost all the small names nowadays.

Happy birthday WWW... you've come a long way in quarter of a century.