Rare, political post coming up!

The whole B-word debacle rumbles on, and illustrates time and again that making decisions by 'simple majority' is never simple.  In the last few years two referrenda have shown that seeking 50.0000000000000001% is not a good basis for decision making.

In church we know that. I've never been part of a church decision of any importance that was made on anything less than "two thirds plus one" and usually much higher, at 75% or 90%.

Back in 2003, I failed to be called to a church by 2 votes.  They would have called on 75%, I got 72%.  It hurt. It hurt like crazy and all these years later I still feel sad when I remember it.  But this much I can say - it was a clear decision, properly made, and able to be supported by the whole church.

Also back in 2003, I was called to a church by 2 votes.  They would also call on 75%, I think I got 78%. It was an honest vote - I knew not everyone was convinced of the call, and one abstained on the in grounds they hadn't heard me preach.  This much I can say - it was a clear decision, properly made, and one that everyone could get behind.

In 2009, I needed to secure 90% for a call to my present pastorate.  There was a 'backstop' that if the vote was close either way, a second confirmatory vote would be held, allowing people to support or not, as they felt led, the call.  The actual vote was 98% so the second vote wasn't taken. It felt good - a ringing affirmation of the call I felt.  Once again, it was a clear decision, made properly, and everyone could get being it.

I wish that politicians would learn from the churches... I wish that they would/could slow down and take the time to really listen to each other (perhaps asking them to listen to God is a step too far!)... And I wish they would set the bar sufficiently high that only those issues where there was a real degree of support could be passed.

If the EU Referendum had needed even 66.7%, then both sides would have had to work far harder to make their case.  Had it needed the 75% or even 90% level that churches would demand for decisions of such import, I somehow doubt it would ever have happened - and that would, in my view, have been a good thing.

Now we have an exhausted, and probably quite ill, Prime Minister, who has pursued to the n'th degree something that she didn't even want. Whatever my views, she has worked incredibly hard (as have the folk in the EU) and done her best. Parliament is in disarray, money has been squandered and people left wondering just what on earth is going to happen. It makes me very sad indeed.

So, I am grateful for the practices of the churches, to take time, to pray, to ponder (and maybe even to procrastinate sometimes!) and then to set a bar high enough that the work done before a vote is taken is sufficient to give good confidence in that decision.

A great hashtag being used by women who are ordained as Anglican priests to mark the 25th anniversary of the change that allowed their ordination (in the C of E). The idea is that the term 'women priest' should be ditched after all this time...

What a journey has been travelled in those 25 years! Women are now serving as bishops, and around half of Anglican clergy are women.

So I'm having my own hashtag #JustaBaptistMinister100

We still speak of 'women ministers' or worse, 'lady ministers' a century after we began.  I concede that sometimes it's useful to refer to 'women ministers' or, slightly better, 'women who are ministers' but I dream of the day when the distinction is as ridiculous as saying 'woman oncologist' (there are still 'lady doctor' references, sadly) or 'women cleaner'.

Rejoicing with Anglican sisters who rejoice, weeping with those of all traditions who weep because they are excluded from exercising their call based on the absence of a Y-chromosome (or other specious grounds)

It's now just over two months since Epiphany, and yesterday, opening a drawer, a happened across the star on which I wrote my three promise to myself.

"I promise to take my days off - or lieus days" - I knew this would be a demanding one, and it is.  Life doesn't work that way, and I have fallen way short already.  This is purely MY responsibility, no-one else's, no-one has coerced me or asked me to work on Mondays, its just that sometimes the right thing to do isn't the legalsitic one, and sometimes, like buses, things arrive all at once.

"I promise not to apologise for being me" - I'm doing better on that one, I think.  It's hard to undo fifty-plus years of apologising for existing. I still over analyse and over-reflect, but I am learning to stop myself and step away from the negativity.

"I will shine by sharing my joy" - Tricky to measure!  I try to focus on positives anf to smile more often.  And having been taught the 'Peter Pan' self-motiviation exercise last week, am hoping to get better yet.

So, two out of three going OK, one needing work - I reckon that's a good start, and that awareness wil help me do better yet. 

Day 6 - keys; Day 7 - safes.

These two items (fortunately) go well together for the purposes of reflecting.

Keys, a technology dating back at least 6000 years, evidently were a big thing among Romans - often fashioned as a ring (so not easy to lose if worn), they were a status symbol in and of themselves. "Look I have a key, I have stuff worth locking up."  Safes, not always just the ugly, functional, lead-lined boxes we may think of, but intricately carved items of furniture say the same thing - I have stuff so valuable I hide it away where it can't get lost or stolen (or used or enjoyed, for that matter).

Peter being told by Jesus he has been given the 'keys to the Kingdom' - the wherewithal to enable himself and others to enter; Jesus telling people that where their treasure is, there their hearts are also...

The thought that resonated with me as I read these two chapters was that often our deepest treaures are in our hearts - our memories. But even those can be lost or destroyed by the effects of age or disease.  perhaps it is good to take them out and enjoy them rather than to hide them away.  Certainly there is evidence that photos, music, stories, smells and foods all have the ability to evoke memories in people with quite advanced dementia - keys to unlock the safe of the heart allowing, if only fleetingly, the treasure to be enjoyed once more.

Show us, loving God, the treasures we should keep and those we should let go. Unlock our hearts and minds that we may be open to recieve new gifts to treasure in a new season. Keep us safe, not hidden away fearing taint or failure, but freed to be the people you make us to be.  Amen.

Today's object is a mirror, and a reflection (no pun intended, but hey...) on the famous 1 Corinthians 13 passage that alludes to (in KJV speak) seeing 'through a glass darkly.'

Apparently, and this was new to me, by the time Paul was writing glass mirrors were just starting to emerge - they weren't great but they were an improvement on the burnished bronze mirrors that had been in use until then. Looking into a mirror and seeing a dim reflection, a blurry likeness - a long way from the clear images we are used to today.  I quite liked his concept of the mirror 'growing up' from the polished metal to the dim lead-backed glass of the early midlde Eastern mirrors to the array of mirrors we enjoy today (he doesn't get as far as the mirror Apps on phones - maybe they didn't exists when he wrote the book) 

One phrase struck me as I read the reflection, that when we look into a mirror what we see is 'a sinner, made in the image of God, in need of redemption.' (p26).  That tension of divine image-bearing and human fallibility is one that I often find myself pondering.

Most people have a strange relationship with mirrors, or at least with their reflections - we look into a mirror to adjust our hair, do our makeup, check our teeth for stray spinach, or to decide if this item of clothing actually looks OK.  But as the pun shows, reflection is also about thinking, a call to look deeper not necessarily into the mirror itself, but into our own hearts and minds.

Of course, before I head out to church this morning, there'll be a last glance in the mirror, just to make sure I am presentable!!