So today it's back to reality after a week of catch-up rest days and then a 24 hour prayer retreat in Pilochry.

I was anxious about the retreat, bothered that it would loud and triumphalist and everything that winds me up about Baptist life.  I was anxious that there would be scary blokes who objected to women in ministry.  I feared it would be tough going.  For once my fears proved groundless.  I had a lovely time with fourteen gracious, gentle, funny, kind, affirming men, as we listened for God speaking through one another, through scripture, through silence, through prayer.  I came home feeling relaxed and refreshed (at least until the next round of emails and computer software glitches!!).  it was probably the best experience of Scottish Baptist life I have had, so huge thanks to those who invited me and who organised it, especially C, who is just such a lovely guy.

Today it's back to admin, back to the privilege of speaking to people in all of life's variety, back to preparing for Sunday worship - and the delight of a guest preacher of some repute!  And the mundane things like an eye test, and printing out rotas, and trying to sort this flippin' computer (did not realise that the default factory setting is such that it does NOT automatically create restore points, which would have solved my problems in minutes, grr.  Fixed that now, so next time...)

The retreat was meant to be about listening for God - and I think I did hear, sense, God saying something to me - nothing earth shattering, nothing I did not already know, but something I knew I needed to be reminded of.  And that was good.

So then, choosing hymns or fixing windows live mail... hmm!

UPDATE - hymns picked; live mail fixed... Oh happy day!

The death of the UK's first (and so far, only) woman Prime Minister has caused a flurry media activity, from the carefully honed (and undoubtedly written ages ago and kept in readiness) to the knee-jerk, from gracious and measured to vitriolic and offensive.

If I'm honest, I have mixed feelings about her, and about what she did.  Some I don't think was wise, but some was clearly necessary; some I totally disagreed with, some seemed justified.

But I suppose what it is that strikes me is the challenge of being first, the first, the one that people look at to see what such a creature might be, or do or say.  The person who is entrusted with a task in which she might fail or succeed - and will most probably do a bit of both.  The person who will disappoint, and be disappointed by, those who elect/call her.  The person onto whom so much hope is projected - and so much suspicion.

This morning I am off to Pitlochry to spend twenty four hours on retreat in a male dominated group.  I am that oddity, that first woman, that inevitable heretic, the one whose every move, every word just might be taken and twisted to prove some point, either way.  Those I will be retreating with are good, honest, earnest, Bible-believing, less-heretical-than-me men.  Most of them are gracious and welcoming.  But there will be those who blank me... being first, the first, has its price.

I have no desire to be like Mrs Thatcher.  Whilst I can do stubborn and bolshy, I don't think I am anywhere near her league.  In any case, I am not trying to steer a nation, I am seeking to serve a church.  I am not elected by people, I am, in so far as I know my heart, called of God.  No-one is going to devote 36 pages of newsprint to recalling my life (phew!) the most I will get is a line on a PowerPoint at Baptist Assembly if by then it still happens.

My Dad, born a few months before his political hero, but pre-deceasing her by more than two decades, used to say one should never speak ill of the dead.  Whatever we thought of Baroness Thatcher, she was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and she was the first female prime minister of the nation I know as home.  Today she will be mourned by those who genuinely loved her.  And she was a first - one of a small portion of society who, chosen or otherwise, must create their own path, for there is none to follow... 

May she rest peacefully, in the grace of God.

I had a lovely weekend away, and am now looking forward to a short retreat in Pitlochry tomorrow and Wednesday.

This weekend I stayed in the Travelodge In Northampton town centre, as I have many times before.  I decided to flick through the TV/radio channels to see what was there and discovered it has BBC1 (London) and, even more bizarrely BBC Radio Nan Gaidheal (the Gaelic language station)... Via the latter I did listen to an English language BBC Radio Scotland programme... but all very odd, not least as none of radio 1, 2 or 4 was working.

Just as curious, in its way, was the fact that for the first time EVER someone in Northampton queried my Bank of Scotland note (to be fair, her colleague looked non-plussed thst she had not recognised it for what it was, and the poor woman was so mortified when I said "well that's a first" in my bestest English accent that I wound up apologising)

A very relaxing couple of days, read most of two books, and feel quite refreshed.

Not the liquorice variety, though I discovered recently that Sainbury's own label ones are free of paprika, so safe for me to eat. Just been a week of all sorts of stuff, of varying degrees of interest to anyone.

Not the greatest start to the week as the ludicrous run of days took its toll on my no-longer-25-year-old body and I ended up sleeping for nearly 24 hours from Easter Sunday and then developed a manky cold.  This cartoon was doing the rounds, so it wasn't just me...

There was interesting news from my old Baptist College regarding the appointment of their new co-principals here.  Rev Dr Clare McBeath was a year above me at college, and lived next door to me for three years in an old rectory on the Moss Side/Hulme border.  As she was someone who had to cross Hadrian's Wall in the southerly direction in order to train for ministry, it is a doubly special appointment.  Glen is a proper Yorkshireman in whom there is no guile.

In common with thousands of others, I signed an e-petition dismissed as a 'stunt' asking Ian Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week.  However, there is another one running that cannot be simply ignored here.  It is probably quite telling that this one is growing less rapidly than the other one, so if you agree he should put his (lack of) money (for one week) where his mouth is, perhaps you should sign it?

I've been saddened at the reactions to the conviction of the couple who started a house fire in Derby which killed their children.  Not sad that they face long jail sentences, they committed a crime, with tragic conseqeucnes, and must pay the price.  I am sad at the baying for blood by people who can't know the circumstances that shaped these people, sad at the ridiculous links being made between benefits and unusual lifestyles.  Lots of people have benefits - including many ministers, so does that mean everyone on benefits is automatically 'religious'... I rest my case!

Then there was my own moment of guilt and shame... Holly being a very long-haried cat who hates being brushed is prone to matted fur, which has to be snipped out.  This usually ends badly, with me being scratched and her hiding.  Yesterday it ended badly with her being snipped and needing to go to the vet for stitches... oh the guilt!  oh the shame!  I was half expecting the vet to be on the phone to the RSPCA oops Scottish SPCA as soon as I arrived.  Instead she was lovely and said "don't worry, we see this all the time".  Really?  So poor Holly has been patched up and subjected by a very nurse to a VERY severe haircut (I said trim all over...) to the extent that for now she is a short-haired B&W cat.  Still very gorgeous, and with kitten soft fur, but not happy with me or the vet!  Evidently it took the very nurse fifteen minutes to catch her and get her into her basket to come home last night!

Let's just say if you saw my left hand, Holly has exacted reasonable revenge!

So now it's a small matter of getting organsied to go off to vist family tomorrow - a post Easter treat... I'll try not to spread too many gemrs on the train as I travel!!

I'll come clean... this is advance posted.  Between losing an hour's sleep, needing to be at church bright and early for the breakfast service and then working through until it's all done, posting "on the day" is one thing too much to fit in.

Christ is Risen - Love Wins!

I wish all readers a very blessed Easter, filled with resurrection hope and indefatigable joy. 

As Easter Sunday is Day 19 of 19 "on" I will be catching up some "days off" in the week ahead... so won't be posting unless something really catches my imagination.

A hymn for Easter Sunday, not one I'll be using, but one of which I am rather fond...

Christ is alive! Let Christians sing.
The cross stands empty to the sky.
Let streets and homes with praises ring.
Love, drowned in death, shall never die.

Christ is alive! No longer bound
to distant years in Palestine,
but saving, healing, here and now,
and touching every place and time.

In every insult, rift and war,
where colour, scorn or wealth divide,
Christ suffers still, yet loves the more,
and lives, where even hope has died.

Women and men, in age and youth,
can feel the Spirit, hear the call,
and find the way, the life, the truth,
revealed in Jesus, freed for all.

Christ is alive, and comes to bring
good news to this and every age,
till earth and sky and ocean ring
with joy, with justice, love and praise.

Brian Wren (born 1936) © 1969, 1995 Stainer & Bell Ltd