This week I need to concentrate on working with the results of my research questionnaire.  This morning I have spent a good three hours doing that, albeit with a half hour break after the first two in order to make, spill and mop up a mug of tea!  Note to self, large mugs full of tea, cluttered desks and the search for a pencil sharpener (failed) do not go together all that well.

My questionnaire was quite long and it was mostly qualitative - in hindsight that may not have been so clever for many reasons:

• anyone suffering from fatigue or going through intense treatment would struggle to get through it (unfortunately the £200 version of the software didn't allow partial responses to be saved and revisited - bah)
• tick boxes are much, much quicker to collate and interpret, and would possibly have given answers that more directly the questions I thought I was asking - as it is I find that the answer to what I menat in, say, question 7 is actually given at question 15, or vice versa.
• Exporting the results to suitable software to do any electronic searching, whilst possible, is not ideal - I seem to spend a lot of time reformatting the results to make them legible/usable.
• A lot of time is needed to correct typos, not because I feel a need to but (a) because if it is ever published and I have quoted someone I don't want them to feel embarrassed if they recognise themselves and (b) someone left a comment about my own typos and gramamtical errors, maybe tongue in cheek, but I found it hurtful and lacking empathy.
• I'm sure there are others but I forgot them - that's not me being flippant, it's something that remains true: I still find, after all this time that ideas fall out of my head before I can write them down; that as I reach the point in the sentence where I need to put the 'good word' I have forgotten it and can't find it; that my brain may be 90% recovered but the 10% that's addled was actually rather useful.

At the moment I am undertaking a largely mechanistic approach, bringing into dialogue snippets from my own experience with the questionnaire replies.  It is proving interesting and lots and lots of thoughts, ideas  and questions are finding their way onto one of the few pieces of paper that escaped the tea-deluge (poor old BPW got drowned (baptised in tea?)for the second time since I bought it back in 1999).  I am sure there are more creative and more interesting things that could/should/will be done, but for now it's a case of plodding on... well as much as I can when Holly decides to lend her assistance to the procedings:

I have a soft spot for small churches, tiny churches even, and I knew when I set off this morning to visit one ouf our 'daughter' churches that she is always small and today may be tiny.  So tiny in fact that my presence accounted for 11% the congregatinn.  Still, substantially above the smallest I've been in which was three...

There is nowhere to hide in a tiny congregation, and as three of the people there know me, no point trying to be incognito.  My tendency to 'sing out' did mean that no-one else could be heard, and I was  kindly complimented my singing.

Worship was gentle and unhurried, with songs and hymns I have known for a very long time, and the majority of which have strong (positive) associations, not least my Baptism-cum-Ordination hymn.  Gathered in the hall (?) that lies between the front door and the sanctuary, we still rattled around a bit, but there was a nice atmosphere.

The opening prayers were carefully and thoughtfully constructed and, for me, the high point of the service.  The sermon was a thoughtful exposition of Mark 8: 27 - 38, though I am not sure the excursus to explore the subtleties of 'confession' versus 'profession' was entirely successful (sorry!).  Etymology suggests that con-fession is 'acknowledged - with' and pro-fession is 'acknowledged - forth'... I think if I'd wanted to play with these words I'd probably have looked at the 'con' as corporate and the 'pro' as personal, and to be honest I'm not sure I'd have gone that way at all.  Nonetheless, there was good stuff to ponder, notably the paralleling of the immediately preceding story of the blind man whose sight was restored in stages (people looking like trees walking about) with Peter's declaration of Jesus' messianic identity closely followed by his equally strong rebuke.  That Peter had a decidedly blurred image of what a messiah might be, that needed to be further developed, was a valuable thread to explore, and to relate to our own ongoing disicpleship.  What do we envisage when we say 'Jesus is Messiah' and how much is that actually an walking tree rather than the real thing?

Being the second youngest person present (by a not insubstantial number of years!) took me back.  These are good, faithful people, whose hearts are in the right place but, I fear, have become tired and disillusioned over the years.  As we drank tea and were offered a good selection of biscuits and cake, I chatted to the three people who moved from their seats - which happened to be the three I already knew.  The others took their tea back to their places (maybe they needed to sit down, that's fine) and chatted to those they already knew. I honestly don't think they meant to be unfriendly, indeed they may have been intimidated by this loud-singing she-preacher, but it would have been hard for a real stranger to feel much of a welcome had this been their experience.

When I arrived at the church, deliberately close to start time, the solid front door was pulled almost closed; indeed, a casual on-looker would have assumed it was closed.  Pulling it open, I was greeted by a friendly door steward and shown in to the room, he then went to find me both a Bible and a hymnbook.  At the end, most people chose to leave by the back door - slipping through the sanctuary and away.  I left via the main door, which was pulled closed behind me, just as it had been when I arrived.  One of the things that has struck me with the two Glasgow-based visits has been the closing, even locking, of doors, and the leaving by alternative routes that only insiders know about.  I will need to give spome more thought to this, but physically closed outside/storm doors do send an undesirable, and unintended message, I fear.

More positively, this church, like ours and like the other Glasgow church I visited, serve tea into the room in which people are gathered - there is no need to 'find' the hall or 'follow the crowd' (who never actually are a crowd) to get your refreshments, so you can't get lost or feel embarrassed  if you don't know the system.

It takes a very real call to serve a tiny congregation, a very deep commitment to put to the work week by week and refuse to be disillusioned or disappointed to the extent you give up.  I admire the young minister of this congregation, and his willingness to walk with them.  Our little daughter is vulnerable and, preversely, older in some ways they we are, but you always love your children... May God bless you, minister and congregation as you continue to witness to Christ, and may God give you renewed energy to fulfil your calling.

I know this may well be read by the minister of the church, and I hope it does not read too negatively, I enjoyed worshipping with you, was given something to mull over and felt welcome.  These visits as an 'outisder' allow me to spot thingss I wouldn't notice in my own church, and so give me lots of 'food for thought'.

For any Gatherers reading - so far we still win the 'coffee and cakes' stakes!!

... will oft gang awry, or somesuch.

The grand plan for today, as the church I plan to vist is only a few minutes walk away and has its service at 12:00 (complicated back story), was to wander down to the coffee shop in the retail park, indulge in coffee and pastry and read the Sunday papers... the kid of thing 'normal' people might do.  Alas I woke up to torrential rain, so the thought of going out has become less attractive... I will go to worship there, but unless the weather picks up will spend the morning at home enjoying the cooler ambient temperature the rain brings.

In the meantime, you might enjoy this HT Steve Holmes... which leaves me wondering what might my 'rock song' be, and why...

Today ended up being a chill-out day... lolling around with a novel... can't recall when I last did that.  It was lovely!

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson was recommended by a friend.  Reading it pretty much in one sitting it was easy to keep track of what was what.  Some interesting ideas, creatively explored... hints of process theology mixed in with reincarnation and some (seemingly) original thought.  As some one who periodically has 'deja vue' moments, I found it was an interesting approach to this phenomenon.

I think I now have three unread novels left on my kindle, so will be up for more recommendations any time soon..

Today as part of my research thinking I decided to read through my 'offline private journal' which charts my cancer story in a way that includes things unsuitable for public consumption (such as lots of photos) - at ~45,000 words, it is not a quick read.  It's interesting to note that for the most part it is factual, at least after I'd got over the initial shock, but that it does chart quite honestly the times of greatest fear and some survival stats I'd forgotten about (being slightly worse than the ones that live in my head!).  It also notes the desire to undertake the research I'm now doing.

I then decided to copy the relevant blog posts since my diagnosis into a Word file so that I could re-read and electronically access them more easily.  Perhaps I should say, I started to do that - as it is painstaking work sifting through the archives and copying the posts in (roughly) chronological sequence.  So far I have copied six months worth (the most prolific period I think) and it runs to around 25,000 words.  It was quite interesting to note peaks and troughs in posting along the way.  To be fair, once I get to the end of the 'active treatment' dates the blog posts will thin out dramatically, and I will depend more on the private journal, but I expect that, between blog and journal, I have scribbled (typed) more than 100,000 words related to that part of my life.  That's pretty verbose!

As far as the research itself is going, tomorrow I will close the survey, but in the responses I have received there is plenty of good material with which to work, and I can see a fairly substantial (for which read 'lots of words') paper or two emerging.