Yesterday we joined with our local Methodists for a joint service.  As I looked around the 'sanctuary' I spotted a familiar sight - a print of the Salvador Dali Christ of St John of the Cross, which belongs to Glasgow City Council and is to be found at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery (expect when it's off on tour).

A painting I've known for half a century, and loved since I first clapped eyes on it.  It was a nice memory-stirring moment to see it on the wall of a church in Crewe (I didn't read the plaque underneath so have no idea who donated it or why).

Doing a little lightweight research for the conference paper I am due to write!

It's always so weird seeing my name in history books.

More research to do next week... grateful the other book I need to read is in the Vicar School library as it's prohibitively expensive just to check a few pages. 

Yesterday one of our members led us in a service for Homelessness Sunday.  As part of this, we were invited to think about the foods we enjoy and to add our thanksgiving prayers for them to a table set in front of the Communion Table.  The suggestions were delightful - from 'sweet treats to cheer us up' to 'runny fried eggs with chips for dipping'.  Perhaps it was the time of year that influenced our choices of comfort food, but it was good to realise how very blessed we are.

We were told about street homelessness data and reminded how the local authority in our area responds to those in need.  And we shared communion, our beautifully prepared table immediately behind our visual prayer. 

I rather like to think that Jesus would have enjoyed egg and chips washed down with a mug of tea in a soup kitchen.  And I am reminded of this painting by Iain Campbell called 'Our Last Supper' whose 'models' are homeless and vulnerably housed men supported by Glasgow City Mission...

Fifteen years ago today, I was officially inducted to the Gathering Place in the Baptist Union of Scotland, an historic appointment that still leaves me somewhat bemused, because I really am nothing special, and there are women who were chaplains or associates already in post by then. I was just the one who, somehow or other, God thought might do an okay job in this specific role... and I guess, on balance, I did.  This isn't false modesty, it's just that it's all just a bit weird to be history in your own lifetime, and knowing that there were things you could have done better, or more, or less, or different....

Anyway... photo me with Rev Andrew Rollinson who, at the time, headed up the Ministry work of the BUS, and who is one of the good guys.  

Today I am working my way through a raft of documents about risk assessment, which means checking at least two Baptist websites, and then reverting to the place I trust best for this stuff - the Health and Safety Executive (though I should declare an interest in that I used to teach their stuff in a past life; and to be fair both websites signpost there).

I like that my 'old tricks' are still useful quarter of a century later... just need to bite my metaphorical tongue hard at some of the quasi quantitative stuff that is (at least sometimes) used unquestioningly by people not qualified to make that judgement... a good qualitative risk assessment wins every day of the week imo. 

(And if this all sounds like gobbledegook, I rest my case!)