Today's PAYG focused on Jeremiah at the house of the potter, a singularly beautiful image of Israel as the lump of clay that the potter gently caresses into shape... but despite the best efforts of the potter the clay distorts and the pot is spoiled.  What should the potter do?  Throw the clay away and start again with a new lump?  Cut some of it off?  Add some more to it?  No.  The potter squishes it up and tries again, and what emerges is beautiful and purposeful - even if not perhaps what the potter first had in mind.

Many things struck me as I listened to this, oh so familiar, passage...

The omnipresence of the potter in whose hands the clay is held - whatever happens to the clay, it is always held by the potter; the potter is intimately involved in every aspect of the process, and it is within the potter's hands, under the potter's touch, that the pot distorts and fails... hmmm.

The determination of the potter - if the pot goes awry the potter tries again.  Just because the imagined vase or jug or cup does not emerge does not render the project a failure.  Maybe, after all, this lump of clay contains instead a bowl or a lamp or a platter...

The squishing by the potter - ulp.  We (I) don't like to think of God squishing us, perhaps because squishing is equated with crushing, as something destructive.  Perhaps I need to imagine this as the potter folding in the sides of the bowl, incorporating the experiences of the clay into its very being and then reforming it to produce something lovely that would not otherwise have been possible?

The gentleness and patience of the potter.  Shaping clay is not a brutal process, it's a gentle one, more akin to caressing than kneading, embracing than pushing.  I found this little video that illustrates this brilliantly:

If you watched the video, did you notice the frailty and vulnerability of the finished pot?  It is easily damaged even in the hands of the skilled potter, only once it has dried out or been fired does it become solid - but even them it remains fragile and easily broken.

In 2 Corinthians we read of treasure in vessels of clay, often understood as being the cheap, disposable first century equivalent of a paper cup.  But what if we hold the two images together?  What if the treasure is in the clay jar, and the clay jar is the carefully worked and reworked clay of our lives, held in the tender, nail-scarred hands of the divine potter...?

Just a thought.

This Sunday evening we are due to have an urban prayer walk, a kind of street labyrinth.  Yesterday in glorious sunshine I walked the route, found some foci and wrote my liturgy.  Today it has been raining all day, so I set out cover plan B, which is the virtual version.  I had meant to walk the route taking photos of the foci, which we could then use as prompts for prayer.  Then I remembered that my camera has a video function and that I had a spare SD card just waiting to be used.  So I walked and filmed - a slightly surreal experience not least as I tried hard to avoid capturing pictures of children.  However, although Hollywood has nothing to fear, and some of it is a bit jerky, for a very first try it's not too bad.  It'll certainly do as a Plan B if Plan A is rained off...

Today it is exactly a year since Holly took up her appointment as manse moggy.  During that time she has charmed yoiung and old alike, and has made some progress in training this human (though I still resolutely forbid her access to my bedroom).  It is hard to imagine there was a time before Holly, with her huge eyes, motorbike purr and crazy antics.  At the moment I am not her favourite human, I have been dematting her (which translates as cutting off the dreadlocks) but on the whole we get on really well and she is always fun to have around.

Here she is watching her favourite Olympic sport of dressage:

And here engaging in feline rhythmic gymnastics (with red spot and floor apparatus)

Happy Anniversary Holly - and your official (pet insurance date of birth) birthday will be marked in September.

Next Sunday I am preaching on one of the more brutal, shocking and disturbing stories in the New Testament - the demise of John the Baptist.  Having looked at a couple of commentaries I have some ideas forming, but still a long way to go, not least to get anywhere near the advertised sermon title!

I have a vague - very vague - recollection of a painting depicting the dance with her depicted not as a nubile seductress but as an innocent child (arguably a more legitimate reading of the text) but I cannot seem to find it, despite looking in such books as I have.  Can anyone help please?  Google is just returning seductresses!!

Yesterday Great Britain won a medal for men's gymnastics, something that had not happened for the greater part of a century.  As Matt Baker continually reminded us, the last time the men had achieved anything like this the event included rope climbing and drill.  He also spoke of his own experiences as a young man who was ridiculed for doing gymnastics, widely perceived as a girlie activity.

For almost a century, then, in gym clubs across the UK, boys have trained and practised and struggled to achieve the best they could, even though Olympic competition was never going to happen, even though winning was a forlorn hope.  Quietly they plugged away; generations of male gymnasts we have never heard of because they never won any accolade.  And now, all that work finds it fulfilment, as this generation of young men finally achieve the impossible dream.  Yes, they were amazing to watch, and yes they utterly deserve the medals, but it's only possible because in the 1930s and 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s and 80 and 90s people kept on keeping on, determined that gymnastics was worthwhile, rather than giving up in despair.  I know this isn't the only sport where this is the case, but it serves as an exemplar.

And I can't help but feel there's a lesson for the church in there somewhere.