Last Thursday's Church Meeting included sorting our arrangements for services over the holiday period when the school is closed.  Because of how Christmas falls, and because of other complexities, it means we will be out of school for three consecutive Sundays, and January isn't a whole let better!

We began with Sunday 23rd December- would people be around (only about half of them) and would they like to join with another church or do something of our own?  Were we really justified in paying out to hire a room for a dozen people?  Options were listed - join with D+1., join with Meths, join with Anglicans, meet in my house, meet in someone else's house...  next thing I know, we've agreed to join the Methodists in the morning and come to me in the evening for tea and a short service - so now I have an extra servcie to be at (the Meth's one) in a manic week.  How'd that happen?!

December 30th - I am off - and it's almost a 'wasted' free Sunday because they aren't going to hold a service.  This has been practice since we closed the building because it is one Sunday I always take off - along with 99% of ministers I suspect.  I know that about half of my folk will go to one of D+1, D+2 or the Meths; a few will go Penty, the rest will take the day off.  I'm glad as many as half want to go somewhere; I'm also glad we are seen as people who make arrangements for our folk over this period.  As for me, I shall be asleep!

Janaury 6th - we will be at D+6 to farewell one of their ministers and then at D+1 for a joint service - unless we can persuade them that it's too much to do 3 p.m. and 6 p.m in which case only the former.

January 13th we have our own service - which will probably be Covenant - something I think is important.

January 20th I preach at WPCU joint service for Churches Together at Meth's building  I think.

Janaury 27th is World Leprosy Day - and we hope to have raised enough to buy a house in India.

Yeek! That's a twelfth of the way through 2008 without drawing breathe!  How'd that happen too?!

Feeling dizzy yet?  I sure am!!

This morning as I was getting ready to go to the GB church for parade, I realised I had lost my poppy so dashed to the convenience shop to get one, only to discover they'd sold out.  A man queuing to pay for his paper looked at me and said 'are you on parade?' and when I replied in the affirmative said 'I've got one in the car, you can have it.'

He didn't know me from Eve,and I was touched by this act of kindness to a stranger.  Maybe something of what this day is meant to achieve happened?

A little late for this year, but I came across some great resources on the Baptist Peace Fellowship website including this bidding prayer that captures some of the ambiguity of the day...

A BIDDING PRAYER

aware of the voices clamouring to be heard on Remembrance Day:

those who demand that gratitude be shown to those who have made the supreme sacrifice and given lives for sovereign and country

those to whom this is irrelevant past history

those who wish to remember and expect others to do so

those to who, today is but a re-opening of wounds and a delay in healing

those who glory in war and those who loathe it

those who see war as a cruel necessity and those who see it as an evil in which no-one should participate

deliver us all from an insensitive polarising of attitudes.

Remembrance

Allowing the Past to inform the Present and shape the Future

In humble gratitude

We recall those whose lives paid for our freedoms

In honest regret

We recall how our freedoms enslave and oppress others

With hopeful hearts

We anticipate the coming of peace

"My peace I leave - not the peace of the world"

"Father, forgive them, them don't know what they are doing"

Come now, O Prince of Peace, reconcile your people 

Our lunch club has an oldest member who is 102 - well old enough to me my grandmother, and technically old enough to be the grandmother of our youngest member who is in her early 60's.  Spending time with 60 or more older folk once a month is good for me - I have to slow down to snail's pace, except with one 94 year old who, with her wheels, walks almost as quickly as I do - and I learn so much from them about how to grow old both well and badly!  From other posts, you will know the ones that I warm too are often the socially awkward and humanly unlovely, but they are all special.

I was sent this kitch email by a friend which seems to me to sum up some of what I have learned from these older folk; enjoy...

OLD AGE

Old Age, I decided, is a gift. 
 
I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be.  Oh, not my body!  I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt.  And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror, but I don't agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly.  As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio.  I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.  
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.  
Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60&70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.

They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful.  But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I  eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken.   How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car?  But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion.  A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.  So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.  

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think.  I don't  question myself anymore.  I've even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I  like being old. It has set me free.  I like the person I have become.  I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.  And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)