As I posted yesterday, during the morning service we gave away 70 knitted angels to be passed on friends/neighbours with love.  The remainign thirty went off on a journey into the ubknown.

Here is one that flew into Waitrose (with permission from the store) and waited among the multi-bags of crisps.  I wonder if s/he has found a nice new home; I hope so. I feel pretty sure that the 'right' thirty people will be blessed by these little angels, sent out with love into a world in need of a little bit of joy.

A couple of stories of our angels...

I had a message from someone who had been contacted via Facebook by someoen who had found one, and been cheered up by it.

One of our tiny tots was dropped home by grandparents after the service to discover the tree had been at up at home - but lacked an angel... what joy for them to be able to pop their angel on the tree, sharing the love of our church, and through that, the love of God.

God is good - we know that, but sometimes it's nice to be reminded.

So many people we ran out of chairs! So much fun as we sang and laughed and listened and responded.

The angels have flown - 70 to friends and neighbours, 30 left in cafés and shops for people to find.

I've had a good day - I hope others did too.

If you happen to be in the Byres Road area of Glasgow this afternoon, look out for one of these, and if you find it, please take the angel home #XmasAngels . One hundred knitted angels taking flight, with thanks to the anmazing Team Angels, C, J, M (and me).

Advance Posted - I'll be on trains most of Saturday.

I wanted some images of angels that weren't white or definitely female, so using a search engine I typed in 'black angel, male' and this rather lovely image popped up (as did some that probably would have taken me to dodgy websites had I clicked on them - seemingly innocent searches can turn up surprising results).

When I lived in Manchester, I was told that the, by then redundant and turned into offices, church next door (I lived in an old parsonage) had once been adorned by white (alabaster? marble?) angels, but when the congregation became increasingly West Indian, they had been painted black.  I don't know if it was true - i am sure it had some credence - but it's an interesting thought... Just because the invading Romans seemingly thought that indigenous people in the south of Britain, with fair hair and blue eyes, were angels, and so named the place England (or so I was told in primary school) does not make angels white, or fair haired, or blue eyed.

Deep, dark eyes, curly black hair, broad features in chocolate brown skin... a different portrayal of an angel, one that makes much more sense to African and Carribean people... one that challenges stereotypes of 'white good, black bad' and so on.

If we could choose an angel 'like us' what would they look like?  What form might an angel take that would cause us shock or surprise?

Back to real time posting tomorrow, hopefully. Until then, may angels watch over us all, and keep us in peace.

Groups in our church seem to have alliterative names, and in emails etc. are often abbreviated to their initials.

This afternoon two groups shared a lovely, lively time of fellowship involving copious amounts of tasty festive food followed by a cornucopia of Christmas carols.

CC is composed of church folk, who enjoy a good blether over a cuppa on a Wedesday morning. FF is a very long-standing, in different guises, out-reach group, welcoming whoever happens along on a Friday afternoon. Joined together, it was a very joyful occasion.

For me, there was something quite heavenly about this afternoon's gathering, which was very loud, and slightly chaotic, if only because everyone sat round a table with no 'top' or 'bottom' sharing food and mugs of tea foreshadows the eschatalogical banquet.

This evening I am in 'proud minister' mode.