This week I am in awe of Angela who trained herself up to run a 6k race to raise money for research into prostate cancer and completed her run in 44 minutes.  Running is not something I can do - my ankles will not stand it and, since I was redesigned, even trotting across roads necessitates clinging to parts of my anatomy!!  What I can do, and love to do is walk.

As I have mentioned just a few times before, in September I am walking the Shine Glasgow half marathon to raise money for research into breast cancer (look there's a little button on the top right of my blog where you can sponsor me if you haven't yet done so!).  I have now decided it is high time my training moved on from general fitness and walking to a more focussed approach. 

Usually at this time of year I would be walking around 5 miles every evening as training for a long distance footpath.  When I hill walk with a big pack (or at least that should say 'hill walked with a big pack', I'm not allowed big packs anymore) I can average around 2.5 miles an hour including time for navigation and stops - that's deemed a good pace for hill walking.  By contrast, when I walk to work (mostly uphill!) my speed is more like 3 miles an hour without any real effort.  At peak fitness I can do about 4 miles an hour sustained ovr 2-3 hours.

For the Shine walk you had to guesstimate how long it would take, so I went for the longest slot (4-5 hours).  At peak fitness I reckon I could have aimed for 3.5 hours, but know I'm not going to be at that pace by September, plus I am walking with three other people who might not want to go at that speed.

So, my aim is to get to a little over 3 mph which would give me a target time of 4.25-4.5 hours.

Just need to up the walking a bit now, aiming to build speed not just stamina.  OK then - left, right, left, right...

Combine hot weather and endless hot flushes and my brain is turning to mush once more.  So this is a bit of a mish mash of stuff.

This week Richard Madeley is sitting in for Chris Evans on Radio 2.  I don't mind this, though I prefer Chris and his gang any day.  However, today there was a 'text in' on "my worst ever birthday" that made me want to take a few people by the shoulders and give them a good shaking!  For the most part the bad birthdays were things like 'didn't get what I wanted' or 'had to organise my own party' or 'saw my dress in a charity shop' (that was Judy's worst ever birthday apparently).  For goodness sake, people, grow up!  If you have no more to worry about than that, then be grateful.

Contrast today's PAYG which focused on the well loved words of Jesus, 'come to me all you who are heavy laden...'  I recalled preaching on this some three years back, when my then church was having a very tough time.  Jesus does not promise us a burden free existence; a beach holiday was the analogy that PAYG used to describe what is not offered.  What Jesus promises is a non-chaffing yoke and a light burden, one that is within our capability to carry.  If that's so, then some people I know must be very strong to carry the burdens they do as being 'light'.  And yet... my new thought for today... I have often marvelled at how, when two people each take a handle of heavy shopping bag neither finds it especially heavy.  Maybe a better contemporary illustration isn't either an ox yoke or a milk-maid's yoke (which I have heard people say Jesus meant!!!) but a shopping bag:

'Let me take one handle of your shopping bag,' says Jesus, 'and the load won't feel so heavy, your hands won't be rubbed red raw, and you'll have someone to chat to as you travel along'

If it is your birthday or a big day, I hope it's a good one for you.

If you are carrying heavy loads, I hope you find someone to take a handle and lighten them a little.

If you are having a really tough time, I pray that somehow God will come alongside you and give you peace, rest and hope.

Now, back to trying to compose a sermonette for Sunday!

Today I received by email the BUS mailing to ministers and the one from the Ministers' Wives' Fellowship to 'pass on as appropriate'.  As, strangely enough, I don't have a minister's wife to pass it on to, I thought I'd share with you all the humour bit of the offering, text abbreviations for those of a certain age:

ATD - at the doctor.
BFF - best friend fell.
BTW - bring the wheelchair.
BYOT - bring your own teeth.
FWIW -forgot where I was.
GGPBL - gotta go, pacemaker battery low.
GHA - got heartburn again.
IMHO - is my hearing aid on?
LMDO -laughing my dentures out.
OMMR - on my massage recliner.
ROFLACGU - rolling on floor laughing and can't get up.
TTYL -talk to you louder!

Not sure if Connexion has a 'funny' slot but this would surely go down well with their folk (ministers' spouses) too.

I had a text from my bestest minister friend this morning, saying that she was in Manchester, the sun was shining and she was just about to collect her doctoral robes for her graduation.  The text was to thank me for support along the way... you know, the nothing we all just do kind of stuff.  I was chuffed to know that today is her celebration day... and perversely amused to realise that even if I'd submitted my MPhil thesis in time to graduate with her I couldn't have attended, as today was my last oncology appointment - a different kind of graduation.

It was a bit weird sitting in the waiting room knowing this was my last appointment when other people were there for the first time.  Looking around, there was the person with a gaunt face dreading what would be said to her.  Another woman clutched in one hand the fact sheet for her chemo regime and, with her friend, rehearsed the questions she wanted to ask (wise).  Three more, mid-treatment compared side effects (not sure how that made the newbies feel).  Yet another, with a gorgeous headscarf covering her sparse hair, sat quietly reading.  And me, at the end, waiting to 'graduate.'

A quick appointment with a bright young registrar (the never there consultant was never there!) whose comments answered a question I'd never quite formulated right at the start of the whole process, and then answered the two I had for her.  And that was it, out into the sunshine, passing the brave and the anxious, the resigned and the angry, the therapeutic and maybe the palliative. the beginners and the enders on my way.

Felt kind of weird - part of me was happy but part of me was all too aware of friends who will never be able to be graduate from oncology - some with bc, some with other cancers - or from the clinics that manage their many and varied chronic conditions.

My bestest friend and I send each other metaphorical dandelions and thistledown, up and down the country, our sign of God's spirit at work, blowing where she will, dancing and disturbing.  I hope that today some of that thistledown and some of those dandelion seeds landed on people who need hope and encouragement.

Congratulations Revd Dr D, and every blessing on those sitting in outpatient clinics waiting and wondering...

Week 3 of our series 'stories Jesus told' has the loose anchor 'about animals'.  In the end I went for two nearly identical parables - Luke's lost sheep and Matthew's straying sheep.  After we've done some stuff 'all together' we will be taking a look at one of them (not saying which just yet, though I have decided) in its broader, textual context and wondering a little about why it is located here and if so how we should read it.

The importance of context.  Rocket science it isn't.  Original it's not.  But a useful reminder and some groundwork for stuff coming later this year, I hope it will be.