Not doing Mothers' Day is something that I've done for the vast majority of my ministry, because it is a date fraught with tensions and potential to cause hurt or offence.

Today our main focus was on the Lazarus resurrection story from John, but we began All Together thinking about the reality that families come in all shapes and sizes - and usually nothing like those in story books!

I used a book called "The Great Big Book of Families", the opening pages of which are shown above... It's a great little book, with lots of interesting, colourful pictures for children to investigate, and lots of ideas for people of all ages to ponder.

The service seemed to go OK, and, in the end, my laptop overcame its desire to 'update' and woke up just in time to share this picture!

This time last week, I was busily creating a visual aid to illustrate the liturgical year for a seminar I was leading on Sunday.  This morning someone shared this photo with me, which made me chuckle.  A liturgical colander.

A the end of another week in which there has been tragedy and sadness aplenty, it's good to have something that brings a little levity, not to deny the reality but to bring a little light relief and to strengthen our resolve within it.

This coming Sunday, I am preaching/reflecting on Lazarus.  it's a story that I have preached upon a fair few times before, and have, at various points reflected on in some depth.  It was quite tempting simply to re-use some of my past work - especially a reflection that I wrote around eight years ago and shared on this blog.  In the end, I felt that wasn't the right thing to do - not because re-using is wrong, but because I wasn't sure if they went where I wanted/felt led to go.

Anyway, I thought I'd revive them here by links to a couple of past blog posts:

The reflection from the prespective of Lazarus in March 2009

A poem I came across in April 2014

Found this picture today when doing some research for Sunday.  Like it very much. Cannot cover every eventuality, but I don't think that's its aim.

We don't mark 'Mother's Day' or 'Mothering Sunday' in any significant way in our church (nor did we in my last) but we do try at least to acknowledge the diversity of authentic relationships and families that we are each a part of, as well as the glorious 'messy community' (to pinch a phrase someone else used) we are together.

I like to think that I am pretty good at the basics of reducing, reusing and recycling, having done so for the majority of my adult life, and having ben proactive in seeking out means of recycling before kerbside began and/or when it still doesn't happen. 

This post is not about that!

In recent weeks my nearly eight year old laptop has been getting slower and slower and slower, to the point where I was seriously thinking I might need to replace it.  And I still might.

I spent a large chunk of my day off on laptop tidying... removing programmes I no longer use, backing up all the files, and then deleting from the laptop those I am very unlikely to look at.  I even discovered that if I could open up the bottom of it and blow out the dust, it might be happier... so with some trepidation I did that.  In doing so, I realised that is has lost two of its little rubber feet so sits flat on the table, with no air able to flow underneath to help cooling, so it's now propped up on a drinks coaster!

I'm not going to claim that it's like new, it's not.  But it is certainly happier, running faster and keeping cooler.

So, for the time being at least, my laptop lives on!  It still has a way to go to match my Lazarus desktop which resurrected after several 'blue screens of death' and graunchy hard drive, to reach the grand old age of twelve before it was replaced.  And, actually, it only finally went off to the recycling centre this week when I finally, six years later, got round to taking out its hard drive!

I also finally said farewell to a 1970s black and white portable TV that has travelled with me for longer than I care to remember... the cost of adapting it for digital would be unwarranted, so off it went to be recycled, along with a 1980s 'crooklock', a laser printer, a defunct barbecue and various other bits of junk.