I've had a lovely few days away catching up with friends and enjoying a change of scene.  And after that it is lovely to be back home, picking up the reigns and getting on with life.

For those who "do praying" please keep Annie in your prayers just now... her latest blog post says, I suspect,  everything needed through saying very little.  Also, another friend J who is stage 4 and having contradictory reuslts every couple of weeks.  Thank you.

Today I made a decision to stop posting on the bcc forum - I had become increasingly conscious that if I didn't 'make a break' I would keep on finding more and more new threads to contribute to, more and more new people to support and that, whilst laudible, it wouldn't ultimately be healthy or helpful for me.  I have gained a lot from sharing with others, and do hope to continue to see the local lasses in the real world from time to time as well as keeping in email contact with about half a dozen others.  But the reality is that my calling is to serve my church, and I need to ensure that stays at the forefront of what I'm doing and thinking.

So, back to normal tomorrow!  Whatever that means.

Just as the sun has made a reappearance in Glasgow, I'm off and away 'down south' for the weekend... 'up north' for many readers of this stuff.

All quiet on the blogging front

Back next week!

Due at WBQ mid-afternoon...

(Annie if you see this and are up for a meet can you let Chez know and she'll contact me!!!)

This morning someone sent me some links to blog posts on tweeting (creating Twitter posts) during funerals.  My first thought was "well I hope no-one did that on Tuesday" (if they did then no-one much seems to have read their tweets as they don't show up on Google!).  Then I thought, instinctively, "that's just plain wrong" a funeral is not something to be live-reported in little bites... 'now we're singing this hymn'  'the preacher just said that' or whatever.

Tweeting, texting, snapping random photos... my gut says that each and all of these if not appropriate in an act of worship.  The main reason being that I don't see how you can be 'properly' participating if you are busy looking out for the next thing to pass on to someone (I have issues with 'live blogging' for the same reason)

But.... I was quite happy for the funeral service to be recorded and to be made available on line, which meant that someone was sat in a corner operating recording equipment all through it (as indeed they are every Sunday when ordinary services get recorded) and of course once it's online anyone can choose which bits they may choose to listen to or not.

Somehow, although there is a tension, the latter seems different from the former.  The latter is undertaken to enable people who are unable to be present to listen to the service in its entirety, to engage in some measure in the act of worship, not to offer a commentary upon it. 

I think it is motivation that makes the difference.  To enable people to share in something they would otherwise be unable to seems a good motive; to say to the world, "this is where I am and that is what's happening" seems less so.  It is  tricky (twicky) one, and one I guess that arises every time a religious broadcast takes place, but I still think that texting or tweeting or blogging during worship is inappropriate.

Me:

One extremely busy week - loads of what I, on Monday evening, referred to as 'pastoral malarkey' and a fair bit of minister-as-engineer as well as all the usual.  Meeting one of my PAMs later, after Coffee Club.  Enjoyable, fulfilling, exhausting, probably in equal measure.

Glad I have this weekend off - will be heading south to Warrington, catching up with some friends and generally chillin'.

Not much posting happening, but life is pretty good

I posted the other day the well known Julian of Norwich quote which I had heard attributed elsewhere.  Today I recalled to whom it was attributed and, with a little hunting, tracked it down.

The TS Eliot poem 'Little Gidding' Part V borrows the line 'all will be well and all manner of things will be well' and seems worth sharing...

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.