On Monday, sat in a first class carriage of a Virgin pendolino, enjoying free wifi (seems to work better on the west side of the train!) and a very tasty salad all for £20 less than a standard class ticket, I wrote this post on social media.  It could have made it into my sermon but it didn't, so now I'll put it here (with a few edits at the end) 

Three and a half years (or thereabouts) ago I promised myself never ever to wish time away because I was delayed in traffic or had a gap between trains. It was never again 'time to kill' but 'time to savour' it has been a liberating and transforming choice.

Various bits of news about various friends this weeks has reminded me of the fraglity of life and I have repledged myself to savour every moment.

So today I've enjoyed people watching at two railway stations (three more to go) drunk coffee and tea, am enjoying free wifi on my cheapy creepy first class ticket (hence the multiple changes) have eaten a lovely free butternut squash salad, some cripss and a banana and now a free pepsi to boot! Have chatted to shop staff, given some loose change to Help for Heroes, smiled at strangers and done a few puzzles!

The scenery is beautiful, the train is whizzing along at a pleasant flush-friendly cool temperature and life is good
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Life in its fullness isn't life free of trouble, but it is life savoured... this will be my sermon theme on Sunday.

Special hugs to [friends initials] and anyone else who needs one today

Part of the 'meaning' I 'take' or 'make' from that dark time is the good and liberating things that arose in my attitudes and actions.

I have an odd 'problem' this week - I could say my sermon in very few sentences and I'm struggling with the padding!  Option (a) is a lot of personal stuff but that doesn't feel like what I want to do.  Option (b) is some exegetical stuff which just feels dull.  Option (c) is a short sermon with a few bits 'n' bobs to make it take more then five minutes!!  I am leaning towards Option (c) and hoping no-one asks for their money back!  I think it'll work, and in the end it'll probably be around average length cos that's the way of things... but for once it's taken some work to make it more rather than less.

I've a feeling there's a lesson in there somewhere!

Apparently that's what today is!  I'm not quite sure what that menas liturgically - and that fount of all dodgy knowledge wikipedia left me slightly confused, but that name made me smile, if slightly wryly.

Joseph the worker is evidently also the husband of Mary the Mother of Christ, not some other random saint of the same name.  It is interesting that he is designated 'the worker' which is a a very earthy description.

'May Day' is also International Workers' Day - so I guess that's the non-religious equivalent of the same thing.

So maybe it's a good day to remember all who work, and all who would love to work, and all who can no longer work, or never could work

Not planning on dancing around any Maypoles today nor flying any red flags nor anything else much different from usual - but lots of work to do!  Today I give thanks for work to do and health to do it.

Well, I can only speak for myself but it was a great Sunday today... church full, several visitors, the joy of faces not seen so often for good reason, great music, thoughtful prayers and that palpable but inexplicable sense that this is good moment.

Today two former popes representing very different parts of the RC church were canonised in a service conducted by two living popes who also differ greatly.  It was a profound and beautiful moment in the history of the church, in my opinion anyway, prophetically saying that saint-hood crosses all the silly human-made divides and is not remotely connected to 'perfection'.

All this fitted perfectly with my carefully prepared, but partly abandoned in the light of the above, sermon on Mary, Peter and Thomas - three very human, very imperfect disicples who are each called 'saints', and with the trajectory that we are all 'saints in the making'.

Now I am sitting on a train with wobbly wifi (though it is better on the 'west' side where I am sitting this time than it was when I was on the 'east' side!) feeling tired and happy... it has been a good weekend and I am, among all ministers, truly blessed.

It is five years ago this weekend since I first set foot in the Gathering Place... and what a lot has happened since then!

Five years since, on the Sunday morning a greeting steward, now long since promoted to glory, heard I'd come up from Leicestershire, and said, as only she could "Leicester Shire.... that's a long way to come  to preach".  It makes me smile just to recall that!  Thus began an adventure we have shared that has seen highs and lows, in which I've made mistakes and in which I've seen others blossom and grow, and we are still together.  I love my church, our church, and five years on, I am proud to be part of it.

This morning we made a very important decision about the next steps in our journey together - and it was unanimous.  It's hard to explain how much that means, or how much work lay behind it, but it was so good and it seemed fitting to be this five year anniversary point of 'meeting' if not of 'coventanting' (that's in October)

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us... and today my heart sings!

As one person was heard to observe as the result was announced "praise the Lord!"