Well I wasn't expecting to see this news reported!   Whatever I may think of his views or his papacy, it is a wise man who knows when to call it a day, and I respect Pope Benedict XVI for having the courage so to do.  I also think it is rather fitting that this elderly theologian can spend the last part of his life out of the spotlight pursuing those matters that energise him.  We pray for him, for his successor, and for the Roman Catholic Communion in this time of change.

On a less serious note:

Yesterday someone posted a question on Facebook asking Christians what made them lose joy and hope.  I thought it was an interesting question, pondered briefly and then replied that, based on how I understand them, I have never lost either.  Indeed, I would say that it is actually joy and hope, along with other 'Spiritual fruitiness' that is what remains, and sustains me, in the very dark places that other people were identifying as those which caused them to lose joy or hope.  Perhaps, as I hinted in my reply, it is what we mean by 'hope' and 'joy' that informs how it is affected by circumstance.

JOY

It's a pair of stories I have told many times before, here and elsewhere, about knowing what joy is, but they bear a further telling, because they illustrate so well what I mean.  Each arose from all age services looking at the 'fruit of the Spirit' one from a child of around five, the other from a woman in her sixties...

Little girl jumping up and down on the spot says "it's when you just can't stop yourself from jumping for joy"

Grandmother who had just buried her (third) infant grandchild in the same week as a young couple in the church had given birth to a healthy baby, "joy means I can be happy for A&B even though my heart is breaking for C&D"

This is joy, not some fluffy emotion, not fleeting happiness, but indefatigable, irrepressible, refusal to be overcome... the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

HOPE

Again I think there is a need to explain what we mean by hope - and what we don't.  The word is used so glibly (and I am as guilty as any) that it applies to anything we wish for... I hope it doesn't rain, I hope to see you next week, I hope the film is good...  But that is as far from Christian hope as you can wish for.  Another story...

The little Baptist worship book called Patterns and Prayer includes a couple of suggested liturgies for infant blessings.  In one of the forms are words to the effect that this is done in the hope that the child will, in due course, come to faith and express that in baptism.  Evidently the publishing house queried the word 'hope' seeing it as too wishy-washy, too passive, too lacking in something or other they felt should be there.  The writers stood their ground; hope carries with it a sense of expectation, an acceptance of activity, a certain something that, whatever happens the promise will come good.

Whenever I try to define hope, I end up at Hebrews 11 and the great catalogue of 'faithful' people.  Hope is, I feel, very like and very allied to, faith.  Even though I walk through a valley as dark as death, yet I have hope.

I have a good life, a mostly happy and fulfilling life, but by heck it has had - and will continue to have - some dark places, frightening places, anxious places, lonely places.  There are times when I am anything but happy, times when all my dream lie in tatters at my feet, but I do believe that joy and hope survive - and it is the fact that they do, they they are not defined or constrained by circumstance, that means whatever ever happens I can cling on, if only by my finger tips, and keep on keeping on.

Sometimes things seem to happen all at once.  A lot of my friends and my church folk are facing enormous challenges and frightening times.  For the most part they remain resilient and strong - well on the outside anyway, even though they ache and break inwards.  I pray, with all the faith I can muster, that joy and hope, peace and love will be theirs.

As the final verse of the old hymn "I thank three Lord of rlife" puts it:

I thank thee, Lord, for hope:
What yet shall be I may not know;
the unseen days will changes bring,
but through them all hope's star shall glow,
and I shall have my song to sing.

James W Butcher (1857-1937)

This morning I came in to church, switched on the computer and got the dreaded blue screen - something I have not seen in many years, and only then when I knew I had done a hard reboot after some poor, old machine had frozen.  This PC is not yet two years old, how could this be?

One hard reboot and a system restore later and all was well - well almost.  Now the virus software decided not to work... so, once the backup (which is taking forever, nearly 3 hours so far) finishes I will reboot it, and if that fails to fix the virus software, evidently have to install and reinstall it.  Grr, grr, grr!

Whether the cause is a Windows update or a Norton update, I don't know (had something similar, though not quite as bad, on my laptop a year or so back) but it has meant a disproportionate amount of time being my own IT department and not doing the things I planned to do.  And I think I need to sit here until the backup completes, which at the present rate of progress....

The best laid plans of mice and men, and all that jazz.

I often say to people, that if anyone had told me three years ago that one of the highlights of church life would be Thursday Afternoon Bible Study I'd probably have said "I don't think so".  I enjoy Bible Study groups, but would not usually rate them as among the 'bestest' bits of church life.

At the moment we are using the, now almost a decade old, BMS Discover Your Shape in Mission, and are having some great discussions.  Today it was third study, based on part of the book of Job, and questions of suffering.

Then it was tea and cake and chatter - it was very wide-ranging, someone told a joke speically for me:

Why did the chicken cross the moebius strip?

To get to the same side

Well I liked it.  Then I shared one I heard (bit sexist, sorry)

If a man says somewthign stupid and no-one hears, is he still wrong?

(Yes, according to one of my hearers)

Then we had a foray into Zen proverbs (trees falling in forests, one hand clapping), which totally bewildered one person, I had to make a moebius strip to demonstrate the joke, and we even touched on the humour of Adam Hills The Last Leg.

We had some real fun, lots of laughs, but we also shared some quite profound moments, stories of suffering, of people who have inspired us, and along the way recalled a whole range of hymns that have sustained us in difficult times.

Thanks ladies, and one gent, for another lovely afternoon.

Some friends of mine are running or walking the Race for Life in Glasgow in May.  All of them have been treated for breast cancer, and some are just coming to the end of 'active treatment' now.  This year I am taking a break from cancer fundraising, instead choosing a local charity to support, and helping someone else fundraise for an exhcange trip to Malawi.  However, if you would like to sponsor the group, then the link is here

Go GABBies and FABBies!