So we named our ecumencial carol service event, and so it was.

It was hard work, and some people pushed my (and other's) patience close to its limits, but it was grrrreat.

We had just under 90 booked in for tea - mainly seniors citizens but also those taking part in the service.  We grid-locked the street with the coach dropping off about 40 seniors we had rounded up from three sheltered complexes and I, dressed in red and wearing a santa hat had to apologise to the drivers who were stranded until it moved - I think seeing Mother Claus (or a renegade from Butlins) defused any irritation!  So, we all settled down for a lovely feast, complete with crackers.

The service went really well - Methodists supplying a music group and actors, Anglicans the building and a choir and Baptists all the catering plus the service sheets and PowerPoint; we had readers from all three churches.  Based on the number of left over lightbulbs after we had given one to each person present, we had 130 in the congregation.  Not bad when the combined membership of the three churches is about 80, and quite a lot of our folk were missing.

Back into the hall for mulled Schloer, freshly brewed coffee, hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows ('cos a certain Baptist minister likes that) and mince pies before clearing up and heading home exhausted.

I feel that God smiled (even if the divine fingers had to be inserted in the divine ears when the choir sang) and everyone agreed that it had been a cracking start to Christmas.

Today I was visiting my kid sister and her tribe.  After a run in with my seven year old nephew (who has never before met anyone who could out-stare or out-stubborn him when he refuses to cooperate) he decided to treat me to his worst possible insult: -

" You're just like a chicken, no a turkey."

Gobble gobble!

Today's first aid course was excellent but I had to laugh when the tutor was talking about lititgation and the fact that in the UK you cannot be sued for the consequences of first aid unless it can be shown that you were (sic) negligible.  So, be sure you are big and bold in your bandaging, and you will be fine, not fined!

No, I have not got my title muddled up, I think there is a light of unknowing - of realising what it is I don't know, or don't understand, that is constructive.

I am now technically ~8 weeks into my "Professional Doctorate in Practical Theology" but despite the best efforts of teachers and supervisors have yet to make much progress.  In the last week or so, my unknowing has coalesed (however that word is spelled) into some sort of knowing - I now know what it is I don't know or understand that would enable me to get going with any degree of confidence that I was on the right track.  Hurrah!

Way back when I started to learn theology one of my then tutors told us not to worry about big, grand sounding words, we'd soon grasp them and it would be the little words like 'sin' or 'God' that would cause us to wonder as we began to realise the enormity of the concepts to which they referred.  He was right, but as time has passed I have discovered that it is not just the theological words that matter but the grammar and punctuation that trips me up!

I once wrote a shortish piece on 'Credo in Ecclesiam' vs 'Credo ecclesiam' (Kung and Barth) which hinged on the import of the 'in.'  I have even pondered on one occasion the placing of the comma in the Isaiah 'voice of one crying in the desert.'

So now, here I am wondering what the university actually understand by "Professional Doctorate in Practical Theology" with the key question being over the word 'in.'  Am I meant to be undertaking an exercise in the study of the disicpline called 'practical theology' i.e. that it is the subject of my research?  Or I am meant to be conducting a piece of academic research employing the skills of practical theology in a new application?  I thought it was the latter but now I am not so sure!  At least I now am a little clearer what it is I do not know, and have begun tentatively to pose the question to those who may be able to help me.  I think I have a light of unknowing - but that still leaves me with an enormous task to turn that into a cloud of knowing!

Back in the days when I was a relatively normal 'person in a pew', I used to wonder what ministers did apart from writing services and visiting sick people!  At one stage when I was reflecting with my mentor I commented that I still don't know what ministers do - I know what I do, but whether or not that is what ministers in general do, I have not a clue!

Whilst I was in my first year of training I realised that it is a role that requires the ability to 'flip' from mood to mood, siutation to situation, often with minimal notice - the day I realised this I'd spent the morning working in the kitchen of a drop in for people with learning disabilities, run straight to a funeral and then joined some people celebrating a big zero birthday.  It is a job of contrasts - and this week has already seen a lot with more still to come...!

Monday morning I wrote the service for a 40 year's marriage thanksgiving and renewal of wedding vows service then met with two 70-somethings to talk through the plans for their marriage service due to to take place in January.  Then it was off on a 15 mile jaunt to look at chairs for our less mobile members - and two trips to bring them back to Dibley manse where they will sit for 4 weeks until we are back at school.

Yesterday after some admin, I raced into town to bank my stipend (so that there was enough in the bank to cover the cost of the chairs which I'd had to lay out as we bought them on Ebay) and to get the props for the carol service.  Then it was back home for lunch time prayers before a trek to the far side of Leicester to see three people in hospital, one of whom is 'very poorly', and then back to the joys of the Girls' Brigade Christmas play.

Today after producing a poster for the Anglican church hosting the carol event and putting it up for them, a flying visit to Manchetser University Library to return a book that had been recalled before I'd even opened it, before joining my old colleagues for their Christmas Lunch (that's not work of course, even though I still sometimes act as father confessor to one or two of them...).  I was particularly struck by the contrast bewteen trolling round my old stamping grounds in Hulme and Knutsford respectively.  I parked outside a heavily armoured pentecostal church in a side street in Hulme to go to the library - all the car parks were full or had mega queues - and passed people of many ethnic and religious groups on my way to the library; in Knutsford I parked on 'bottom street' car park - miraculously finding a space straight away - before joining a group of predominantly white professionals (though not all) in a restaurant for some very pretty but not very large portions of food at high prices, where my old boss told me about his wife's new jaguar!  Two very different worlds, but two I value greatly as part of my experience (even if I only ever got paid enough to buy a metro once every 10-12 years!).

Tomorrow I have a first aid course all day and a deacons meeting in the evening.  Friday is allegedly free - but who knows?  Saturday the wedding vows renewal and a concert, Sunday the carol event...  Then start over again on Monday!

Yup, seven years from the realisation that this job was one of immense contrasts, nothing has changed.  Seeing my old colleagues was good and I have to confess to sometimes missing the 'concrete' aspects of the job I used to do, but it could never in a lifetime match this one for variety which is, after all, the spice of life.