Yesterday, it being my 'Day off', or 'Rest Day', I took a properly long walk for the first time since restrictions were increased on Boxing Day - all within the city boundary, all on my own, and, apart from buying a takeaway coffee and a muffin, no interaction with anyone.   What a strange 'normal' we now inhabit!

In Pollok Park, I happened across this memorial, which will be officially unveiled today:

I love the simplicity of the design, at what will become a remembrance garden (I have to assume there will be some planting done today, as the reported cost is not insignificant.  'Sponsored' by the Herald newspaper and funded by donations, it is a place to pause to reflect and remember, a place to seek healing and hope.

When we entered lockdown a year ago - initially for just a few weeks - we had no idea what the future would hold.  However well or badly any government or nation has done in controlling the pandemic, the reality is that most people, in most places, have done all that was asked of them, to the best of their ability.  Had that not been the case, things would have been even worse than they undoubtedly have been.  That the numbers are coming down, that vaccine uptake is high, all this is due to people doing their little bit.  For that, I am very grateful.

This evening, along with countless others, I will light a candle and pause to remember and reflect.

And in time to come, when the memorial is settled and established, I will visit it again, to be reminded of the year we have all been through.

God who journeys with us,

In darkness and light,

Over moutains and through valleys,

As we pause to look back,

Help us also to look around, aware of those we have travelled with

And then to look forward, to where you are leading us in hope and love

Amen

This morning was out 52nd Zurch - Zoom Church - and we took time to reflect on the past year, mostly privately, in conversation with some verses of scripture from the RCL readings for Lent 4 this year.

We could never have imagined a year ago that we would still be meeting virtually, and that, for us at least, the prospect of 'in person church' is still some way off.

Music, images, songs, prayers, meditation and a few words... if was, as someone said, 'a different kind of service' without a sermon type thing.

There are sermons and prayers, but they will be forgotten

There is music and singing, but it will cease,

What remains is greater than all these - what remains is love.

I didn't say that in the service, it came to me now as I'm typing, but 52 weeks on, love certainly remains.

These were the parting words of my breast surgeon as he discharged me this morning at the end of ten years post-surgery follow-up.

The team who have looked after me so well, for so long, are pretty amazing.  It's not every surgeon who would recognise one of their patients out of context, or even wave at them across the waiting room, but this one has done so.  It's not every team that would give you as much time as you need at every appointment, but this team do.  It's not every team that tell you that discharge is not a closed door, but instead that you need the contact numbers to come straight to them if you have any concerns going forward. 

The parting words told me what I'd always known, that I was in the 'poor prognosis' group, that this day might not have come, and that it was indeed so great to have arrived here.

I could not have asked for, or even paid for, better care, and it was all free at the point of delivery.  The NHS is a wonderful thing, and today, once again, I am reminded just how wonderful.

On Tuesday I was doubly grateful to the NHS, as in the afternoon I had a mammogram and in the early evening my first Covid vaccination.

The vaccination centre was a really positive experience, with friendly, helpful staff to show the way, adminster the vaccine and see that you got out again!

A few hours after being jabbed, the side effects began to kick in, a sure sign that my immune system is doing exactly what it's meant to do and producing antibodies.

In gratitude, I twinned my vaccine, through one of many online appeals, to help ensure that people in other lands have access to the vaccine too. At an upper donation level of £30 for two doses, it's clear the vaccine isn't exactly expensive.

Still a bit below par two days on, but so well worth it, not just for me, but for all with whom I will come into contact in the months ahead.

Yesterday afternoon, I joined around 400 people online to attend the funeral of a mutual friend, whom most of us, myself included, had only ever known online, through social media. Dr Bex Lewis described herself as a 'digital disciple' and was already part of 'virtual communities' long before the pandemic forced the rest of the world to play catch-up.  Although less developed or sophisticated, I have for around a decade enjoyed online friendships with people I have not met in 'real life' (a phrase Bex objected to, arguing that all life is real).

Today we held our 51st Zurch (Zoom Church) service - or 'virtual church' as we more formally refer to it.  It was a joint service which I co-led with friends from a Baptist church in an island community off the West Coast of Scotland.  And it was very real.  Multi-voiced, multi-cultural and richly authentic (if I say so myself) it was wonderful... And something that would have been impossible to do 'in the flesh'.  I really hope that, as 'in person' or 'embodied' church becomes possible again, we will see that as a part of 'Zurch' not a replacement for it.  Today we had readers in different UN defined nations, and shared communion across the Atlantic Ocean - this is church, this is Zurch, and I don't want to lose it!

Another word that emerged only this week in an online meeting of Baptist ministers was 'e-ssociating' - electronic/online associating.  Baptists so love to talk about how we 'associate', that we are interconnected even though autonomous, but in practice it doesn't always work that well.  Geographical groupings and theological groupings have their place, but are often, in the end, institutionalised  and lose their essential, relational heart.  During lockdown, e-groups have emerged that transcend geogpraphy and even aspects of theology, as intentionality, diversity and mutuality become new drivers.  I hope that this, too, continues, not at the expense of 'embodied' 'local' association, but as well as.

As we near a full year online, and start to ponder what the much anticipated 'beyond' might look like, I really hope that e-ssociated Zurch might be part of it!