Today I ventured into the West End as I desperately needed a hair-cut - the shaggy sheepdog look is not good!  So, suitably tidied up now (see photo!) at least for a while.

Because the hairdresser is so close to church, I chose a route carefully to avoid passing it - but still manged to see no less than four people from church (of whom two saw me as I happened to follow them into a coffee shop).  All of which goes to prove that cities are just overgrown villages.

A nice day chilling and catching up with a friend in the afternoon.  Gentle weekend in prospect too.

I tried to think of a clever title for this post - and failed.  I had a good time at the St Mungo musuem followed by a lovely wander in the necropolis in the rain!!

There is a delightful temporary exhibition of photographs from Birmingham (which can be viewed on line here) which I enjoyed perusing.  Whilst some of the images almost seem to suggest a byegone age (look at the wall paper!) there is an endearing ordinariness about them, and they offer a happy insight into mutli-racial, multi-faith Britain at a time when we hear too much about what is ugly and sad.

In the first floor exhibition area are two beautiful paintings.  One is Ahmed Moustafa's The Attributes of Divine Perfection (here) the other a Peter Howson crucifixion (here).  Both repaid time spent with them, and the crucifixion (or is it a resurrection - even the artist is unsure!) could be viewed from different levels, which was a bonus.

Wandering the necropolis, I was struck as ever by the mix of pretension and piety, the mawkish and maudlin... here the great and good (allegedly) are buried or have huge memorials towering over the city.  And here too, right against the fence next to the brewery, hidden under a tree, is a small memorial stone that says 'Baby, 1900'.  Here are recorded the names of powerful men and their 'relicts' (widows) and the tragedy of a couple whose five children who died, one at 11 the same day as her year old brother and three more within a year of their birth, before the father died in his forties... and who knows what happened to the mother, not listed.  Enormous stone edifices and crumbling ornate mcok temples with scrub-trees growing from their rooves (roofs? when did the spelling change to the latter), and black marble hearts of more recent times via a somewhat bizarre memorial to the grand masters of a masonic lodge (were there really five unrelated men in this grave?).  Longevity and infant mortality, tragedy and attempts at imortality.  And somewhere in the midst of it all the mildly ridiculous, but somehow utterly appropriate, stone angel holding a plastic flower (here).

No great (or small) pearls of wisdom, just the bizarre blend of beauty and banality that characterise relgious art and artefacts.

August 1st - which means I am now starting the second month of my sabbatical - it is sure as anything running away very quickly!

In terms of what I planned to do in this first month I have:

• visited two churches to find out about their ministry-and-mission in urban contexts
• visited two churches to attend worship as a 'normal' person (OK, 'normal' is debateable...)
• got about half way through looking at the results of my empirical research - this is less than I had hoped to achieve by now, but it has been richer than I anticipated
• visited some friends

I have also read four or five novels, which has been a wonderful extravagance, and which I think is also helping me strengthen my 'concentration muscles' which are still pretty weak and flabby.

In terms of 'work done' I have failed to achieve as much as I had planned, but I think I have gained more than I hoped for. 

Today's PAYG was based on the Exodus account of how God's presence was symbolised by cloud and fire and in relation to the tabernacle (or 'God's gazebo' as my mind decided to label it).  One of the questions was about how we hear/see/discern God... which for me includes the 'shove in the back', the 'I can do no other' and 'the things that make you go hmm...'  The last twenty four hours have been a bit full of the last of these, not least the arrival of an email as I was typing this stuff advertising a theolgoy conference in New Zealand next February, entitled "Symposium on Theology, Spirituality and Cancer", and a suggestion that I might want to attend or even submit... hmmm... not sure it would be feasible, but it sounds amazing...  maybe I do have something to contribute to this field?  Much mulling needed!

Today I am going to take a day out from thinking hard about anything and pay a visit to the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life in town, a place I have visited many times, but which I enjoy.  If the rain holds off, I will also have a lovely wander in the Glasgow necropolis with its fascinating memorials.

As month two begins, I am aware that I still have a lot of slowing down to do, but at the same time, I am getting better at living in the moment and going with the flow.  I think that's positive!!

Today I have done nothing I planned to do, but feel that I have, after all, achieved more than I hoped for (even in sabbaticals, the interruptions can be the most meaningful, it seems).

All of which reminded me of this prayer:

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.

I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health, that I might do greater things.

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy.

I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for but got everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am, among all people, most richly blessed.

I am getting back into the swing of starting my day with PAYG... how easy it is to let 'spiritual disciplines' slide, especially in an age of instant everyhting.  Anyhow, today's passage was part of Philippians 3, including Paul's assertion that:

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him (Phil 3:8b NRSV)

Oh dear, sorry Paul, I cannot regard all things as rubbish, not even if I restrict that to the material, and absolutely not if I allow the more abstract things that delight...

Thank you, God, for Pauline rubbish:

For the warm, soft fur of pussy-cat cuddles

The sunlight playing on the chimney stacks of Victorian houses

The summer breeze tousling hair and tickling skin

The soaring crescendo of birdsong, and pop-song, and symphonic works

Thank you, God, for Pauline rubbish

For the laughter of a shared ridiclous experience

The 'aha' moments of new knowledge or insight

The heartaching privilege of sharing others' pain

The gentle silence of contentment

Thank you, God, for Pauline rubbish

Your outrageously geneous gifts of grace

Physical

Emotional

Spiritual

Better is one day lived in a Pauline rubbish dump, than a thousand elsewhere.