On BBC Radio 2 'Good Morning Sunday', this morning, a poem composed by an unnamed three and a half year old Hebridean girl, on overhearing her home-schooled brother working on a WWI cententary poem project....

Wait, wait, wait,
Fight, fight, fight,
Die.

I didn't see the BBC programme in which this story was shared, but I do know the ministers of this courageous, radical, prophetic congregation in London.  Marriage Law in England & Wales differs from that in Scotland, the BUGB and the BUS have made different responses to the legislation, so that what is possible in London would not be possible in Glasgow.  To be clear, as a minister accredited by the Baptist Union of Scotland, I accept their discipline on this, as on all matters of faith and practice.

You may or may not be comfortable with the idea of churches conducting equal marriage, or even of its existence, I simply invite you to watch this short video and enjoy the joy of others...

https://www.facebook.com/BBCMusic/videos/1959905554282228/

Over the last year, since we've been meeting at the hotel, we have had an assortment of 'lecterns' and none.  There was a very rickety wrap around one; there was a metal one; there was the time I used my music stand (and never saw it again!) and the time I borrowed someone else's spare music stand; there were the times when the projector stand was offered as a lectern, and the (several) weeks when there was nothing.  Now the hotel has got a beautiful, heavy, wooden lectern, ideal for conferences, but which creates a huge barrier for preaching (strange how quickly we've got accustomed to less obvious lecterns).  On Sunday we talked about the posibiltiy of choosing a perspex lectern when we furnish our new premises.

So when I saw this, it made me smile.  I think we've covered most over the last year. Of course, if your pastor is a she... :-)

Enjoy

It's now more than three years since my first peer support relationship began, and since then I have supported quite a few women confronted by a diagnosis of breast cancer.  Whilst some calls are 'one off' to answer specific queries, other support relationships can last several months until people are, in the phrase I tend to use, 'ready to fly away'.

Today my most recent 'fledgling' flew the nest.  Like all my 'ladies' I am proud of her, how she has faced challenges and fears, developed strategies, rebuilt her life and prepared herself to live life fully, albeit differently from what she had imagined.

Fledging, the development of feather from fluffy down, is not risk free, and I am always aware of the vulnerability of those I am trusted to support.  Sometimes it's a little bit like the mother hen, sheltering them under the organisational wing, sometimes it's a bit like the mother eagle, pushing them gently to try their wings, then swooping down to catch them if needed.

And then it happens, the day when they are ready to fly away... they stretch their wings, have a few warm-up flaps and off they go, to places I cannot follow.  And that moment is bittersweet, beautiful and blessed.

It's a genuine privilege to journey with women during such a traumatic times, and a real sense of completion when the day comes to let them go.

I am sure I learn as much, if not more, from these women, as they do from me, and it really is a source of great blessing.

This morning we began a month of services focusing on homelessness.  As part of that, I shared a poem written by one of my nephews that included the phrase, 'Daffodils kept me warm.' The Wordsworth poem, read or recollected, as he slept rough during a period of homelessness a decade ago.

Not physical warmth, no book or recollection can do that - but it can dispel the awareness of the cold.  I was reminded of an occasion as a teenager walking home on a very cold night, and deliberately 'thinking warm thoughts'... fire, hot chocolate, jacket potato, woolly hat... It certainly took my mind off the coldness, and the journey felt quicker.

Not physical warmth, but humanity - a reminder that, whatever circumstances suggest, I am still human, still have worth and am entitled to enjoy the pleasure of poetry.  For me it's more likely to something overtly spiritual, a Bible story recalled, a hymn or song uttered quietly in the night.  We all of us need something lovely or beautiful to give us hope, to remind us we are human, to reassure us we matter.

Home is not just a place, not just people, it is a state of being that enriches life.

My nephew has done amazingly well.  He is settled, has a family and a good job.  I am glad.  And I am grateful for what he has taught me about homelessness and human worth.