Anyone who ever visits the Ship of Fools website will be au fait with the idea of Mystery Worshippers - people who go 'undercover' to worship at other churches and then write reports on what they experience.  Whilst delightfully tongue in cheek, these reports are also very insightful and do get used by people thinking of visiting the churches concerned (hard to believe it is more than four years now since I read the one on the Gathering Place).

This summer, as part of my sabbatical, I have identified a number of Glasgow Baptist churches I want to visit, kind of incognito (many of the ministers should know who I am, but otherwise I am generally only a name they prayed for when I was undergoing cnacer treatment and have probably forgotten about).  So before I head off this morning, I guess I ought to think up some questions - or topics -I want to think about!

• There has to be something about welcome - what is said, how it is said and how it feels.
• Something about how easy or difficult it is to know what is going on - when to stand/sit, what to do, etc.
• Something about the liturgical process - do we gather, praise, confess, listen, intercede, scatter, etc.
• Something purely practical, logistical - space to sit and put my stuff, comfort of seat, can I see and hear, can I understand
• Do I actually feel I have been in worship?  Not 'was it warm and fuzzy' or 'still and relaxing' or 'vibrant and energising' but 'did I in some way, however tiny, sense I was in the presence of God'?
• And maybe a few flippant things - such as how does the coffee and cake compare with ours?!  And maybe the Ship of Fools 'what felt like heaven' and 'what felt like the other place'!!

Report Numero Uno will be made later today... see if you can guess where I've been!

Today, as it is the first Saturday of my sabbatical, I took myself out for lunch, to a nearby pizzeria I have been meaning to visit for a long time now.  It was ridiculously quiet in there (i.e. just me and four staff until just before I left when two couples arrived) but the service was good and the food tasty.

I opted for the "Andy Murray Pizza" - well you have to, don't you?  A thin base topped with Scottish cheddar (should really be Dunlop, but I'll let them off), haggis, sliced tatties, wild mushrooms and fresh rosemary.  Carbs on carbs... yup, only in Glasgow.  It was tasty and a bit of fun.

I have bene "not watching" most of Andy Murray's games, as it seems he plays better when I don't watch.  I know he does not know whether or not I am watching, but chaos theory just might mean it makes a difference... and I wouldn't want to be blamed for him losing!

It has been a very lazy week 1 of my sabbatical, and to be honest I will be glad next week to start to focus on the things I have chosen to explore... visits to Stirling and Bath in prospect.

Today I have just been checking service times for the Baptist churches in Glasgow I plan to visit during my sabbatical.  I has been quite salutary - in some websites I had to drill down to the thrid or fourth level before I found this information.   Some churches don't have websites, which makes it increasingly difficult to find out this information, short of phoning them up - something I can do only because I have access to the BUS Directory - and frankly I don't intend to.  Some churches have very whizzy websites with so much stuff it is bewildering and hard to know where to look for what you want.

So, church websites 1:10

Tell people WHO you are WHERE you are and WHEN your services are... the rest can be added later.

It's not rocket science!  If I were new to the area and looking for a church I would probably give up looking pretty quickly if something as basic as 'Sunday Service Times' wasn't on the front page or at least clearly signposted from it at one level down.

So I checked our website - the information is all there, and most is easily findable... but we could make the service time information more prominent (i.e. part of the 'permanent' rather than 'current month' text).  If sabbaticalling is supposed to make me step back and reflect or to look at things afresh, then this week this has been the thing to keep in mind.

It's been odd basically trying to slow down with no actual objectives to achieve - and I'm not sure I've used the time the best I could have done - and to be honest I will happy next week to begin some more focussed sabbatical work, with a sermon to write and two church visits in prospect.

Today has seen the news that Bernadette Nolan died of secondary breast cancer... news that had been inevitable for some time now, but is no less sad in consequence.  At 52 years of age she was still 'young' in the cancer world, and diagnosed just a few months before I was, her story, as told publicly via women's magazines, was one I found helpful as I began my own treatment 'journey'.  I am lucky, fortunate, blessed, whatever the word is, enough that, as far as anyone knows, I am still NED, that my surgeon when he saw me in February decided he could reduce the frequency of my check-ups to annual, but, for me anyway, there is always a lingering shadow cast by the crab who has no favourites.

In case any one wonders, my cancer was different from Bernadette Nolan's - hers was HER2+, mine was HER2-; mine was ER+, PR+, hers I have no idea.  I say this partly because it isn't always obvious the breast cancer is the collective name for a whole range of horrible diseases, and that actually, by luck I got the 'least bad' version albeit in the 'most bad' primary form. 

Over the last three years (or just under) I realise that I have got to know something like a hundred other women with breast cancer, to a lesser or great degree, many of whom I now count as friends, and too many of whom have had their lives stolen by this cruel disease.  Were any demonstration needed that cancer has no favourites, that it is remarkably egalitarian (or equally indiscriminate) these people are it... aged from their twenties to their nineties, career girls and young mums to grandmothers, dinner ladies to doctors, Asian and British, Christians, agnostics and atheists, wealthy and living on benefits, healthy and with numerous underlying health conditions... 

This crab has no favourites, and the 'risk factors' don't seem to count for much, it simply sneaks up and grabs whomsoever it wills in its pincers.

One of the most influential theology books I ever read was called Our God Has No Favourites and was an exploration of Eucharistic practice which deny this truth.  I am glad that God has no favourites, glad that it grieves God as much whoever it is who falls prey to the crab's clutches.   I am glad, obviously, that so far my story is a good one, a hopeful, hipe-filled one, but I am also glad that God is not a capricious deity who will favour my attempted piety over another's authentic agnosticism.

Today I will pray for the Nolans, whose grief must be lived in the glare of the media, and for those who slip away unobserved in a busy hospital ward with a nurse for company.  I will pray for the researchers and doctors, for hospices and support organisations.  And I will pray for the 125 people in the UK who, today, discover that they, too are part of this club no one wants to join.

RIP Berndatte Nolan, and everyone else who has, this day, entered eternity

This year I have been growing some tomato plants on my kitchen window sill.  They have grown very tall, produced loads and loads of leaves and, despite producing lots of flowers had, until now, shown no sign of any fruit.  Today I noticed that beween the three plants I have five baby tomatoes growing!

It is considerably more than a decade since I last grew tomatoes, and last time I had a really bumper harvest, so much so that I ended up making green tomato chutney in the autumn (yum).  This year, it is looking like I might get just enough for a tasty snack, though the growing has been fun.

It was a very pleasant surprise to spot the baby toms today... I just need to make very sure they get fed and watered from now until they are ready to gobble up! (No pressure cat-sitters!!)

Thank you God, for small things...