Been a very busy couple of days doing loads of pastoral stuff... and a meeting.  Tomorrow have more pastoral stuff (bumped from today) and some service prep to do.

It was good, just before it went dark to pause long enough to look out of the window and enjoy the colours of the trees... red maple, yellow who knows what...

what is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stop and stare...

hopefully things will quieten down just a tad tomorrow...!

I decided to adapt the OWW resource a little bit and instead of writing prayers on post-it notes we wrote them on strips of plastic cut from 'bags for life' and wove them using looms made of cardboard boxes and gift ribbon.  One stays with each of the two churches - until such time as we're bored of them and (recycling) bin them!

Each woven prayer unique and beautiful, intertwining our petitions and prayers for the world of which we are a tiny part

Yesterday I attended a kind of masterclass thingy on preaching... some top class speakers but an abyssmal turn-out meant two workshops were cancelled, including the one I wanted to attend (wish they'd done a straw poll to see which were most popular and dropped the two least rather than two people simply dropping themselves, c'est la vie).

One of the sessions invited us to reflect on what we think preaching is - it's aim and purposes - as well as its style and content.  A useful reminder, if pretty basic stuff.

Today I split our sermon slot into three bits, each a reflection in its own right arising from questions Jesus was asked in the days leading up to his execution... on taxes, on resurrection and on the Law.  We used some objects which people could take away, some images and quite a few words, spoken and sung.  It seemed to go OK.

This evening I'm actively not preaching, I'm reflecting on One World Week and using some interactive stuff as a prayer/response.

What is preaching?  I guess for me it is 'breaking the Word' as we use words to seek after the WORD.  It is open-minded, open-hearted, somehow playful engagement with ancient texts whose dynamism and vitality can inform, transform and re-from faith and life in the here and now.  It is always partial, always provisional, always of necessity a bit tentative.

I've had some fun this week and again today... and I hope it has had some resonance for others too.

Been a busy week, and a good one, so I don't feel too guilty sloping off this afternoon to visit a friend over in the east.  Especially since this could be the last opportunity to do so, and we have 'big stuff' to discuss.

Last night I baked pink cupcakes for her... she loves pink, I don't, but we both love cake

We will laugh, and we'll talk, and we may well weep.  And I will reassure her, as I reassure myself, that 'it'll be alright', that hope and love are stronger than dread and despair; that even if I have no idea what heaven looks like, it will be safe and pain free.  That 'all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well'

We both find it funny that we found a profound connection, being so utterly different in many ways and yet so alike in others.

I am privileged to have L as a friend, and when she leaves us, as leave she must, I will miss her.  But when the day comes, I will let her go, knowing that for her, as for me, it'll be alright.

God bless you L xxx

Really fun Bible study looking at the Book of Judith today.  Lots of exploration around women in scripture and how they are portrayed... so Deborah and Jael, Ruth and Naomi, Esther and Herodias, each of whose stories has some resonances with that of Judith.

Issues around flirtation and seduction (have you read these stories!?); questions about whether murder can ever be justified; the discovery of a prayer aksing God to propser someone in a fabric of lies... we had lots of fun and some good conversations.

We found the reflection interesting and enjoyable, but concluded that whilst we wouldn't totally reject it, Judith would not go on our 'top' metaphorical shelf where we put our extended canon!