Well, it was tea actually, but it doesn't make for such a snappy title!

Today the mysterious 'A' and I met in the real world for the first time.  Alice and her husband are up in Scotland visiting relies and looking at possible houses ahead of their move up here for her to train at SBC with BUGB.

We met at a place called Cup which is near the Gathering Place and is a great 'treat' place as they sell a vast range of cupcakes (though the gingerbread one which I really want to try seems always to be 'off').

It was good to hear something of her story, good to find another female engineer (and in her case pilot) who was called to ordained ministry and great that God is bringing more 'girls' this way...

Alice is also a blogger, but of a different kind - she has a photo blog here which is worth a look see.

HT to Sue for linking us up after she and Alice met at Baptist Assembly.

I know this is as nothing to anyone else, but when I got up this morning and glanced in the mirror I saw that my hair was tousled.  It is still very short - the longest strands being about an inch and most less than that - but is now long enough to get 'mussed' overnight. 

I never thought the day would come when I'd be pleased to wake up with tousled hair!!!

You know that feeling when you've been back at work for about 2 hours after a week's holiday... all the usual stuff is there in all its diversity and you find the holiday already receding into distant memory...?  Well that's kind of how it feels for me just now.

After four months off work and having been back a month, it seems as if life is pretty much 'business as usual'.

Yesterday the church celebrated my 'end of treatment' with celebration cake (ASDA 40 serving party tray bakes - excellent value) which was lovely of them.

And already I seem to be busy doing all the things that ministers do...

• Preparing services, and planning preaching themes
• Visiting or phoning sick people or speaking to their relatives (and boy do we have our share of those just now!)
• Addressing the niggles and concerns that arise on a day to day basis
• Dreaming about what we might do/be next

Remind, was I off for four months?  Did I really spend nine months undergoing serious medical treatment? Already it is starting to feel like a long time ago

It's good to be back - even the bits that worry, annoy or bewilder me!

No, I have not totally lost the plot and arrived at harvest ridiculously early, we are marking Rogation Sunday today at the Gathering Place.  Traditionalists will know, of course, that Monday to Wednesday of this week are the Rogation Days, when in days of yore whole communities would go out in the fields not to plough or sow - that had already been done - but to pray for God's blessing on the harvest.  They had done what they could, now they had to trust God.  Think of the teeny parable in Mark4: 26 - 29, it relates.

As well as asking (rogare) God to bless the harvest, traditions emerged of Beating the Bounds - walking the perimeter of the parish, stopping at landmarks and reminding themselves of their limits.  Essentially, if you stayed in the parish you were safe, this was home, these were your people who would look out for, and look after, you in time of need.  Boundaries are good, but they can become barriers, so we will also be using John 4, Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, to ponder that too.

Yes, we will sing of ploughing fields and scattering good seed just for the sheer mischief of it, but also because it isn't really a harvest hymn: snow in winter, warmth, breezes, sunshine... It is, for sure, a rural hymn (there is a contemproary Brian Wren version which I've elected not to use) but people seem to love it and if we sing it now I can pick something else come autumn...!

Plus of course we are only a fortnight from Pentecost which was the 'first fruits' or 'spring harvest' of the ancient Israelites, so not so far askew really...

An interesting conversation arose this morning at my exercise class.  One of the members who professes atheism, and knows I'm a Baptist minister, asked me 'didn't you feel a bit pee-ed off with God when you got cancer?  After all you don't drink, you don't smoke, you're not overweight [I wish!] and you live a good life.'  She seemed intrigued when I answered, truthfully, that no, I wasn't.  Just then another member of the class arrived, who is also a practising Christian and she was asked the same thing.  She answered that she felt you had a choice to go under or to 'praise God through the storm' and in any case she wasn't worried because she knew her ultimate destination.  Just two possible reactions from people who profess a Christian faith.

It then got a bit silly - each person was asked as they arrived 'are you a bl**dy Christian too?'  Most said, yes, they were.  A couple are practising Catholics, one was C of S, another said that while she didn't go to church and hadn't been christened she did believe.  Our atheist was relieved when our one Asian member arrived as she wouldn't be 'another bl**dy Christian'.

There was a lot of good-natured banter and some open talk about baptism (cue Catriona explaining about serious dunking) as well as some thought about what kind of God, what it was reasonable for Christians to expect in return for their loyalty, and the mystery of suffering.

At the end of the class we had some muffins to celebrate the end of my treatment (delayed because several people including the regular instructor were away last week) and a cup of tea or coffee and a chat that extended to include some of the members talking about their views on some of the complimentary therapies they had been offered.

I think one of the things that I like about this class is the openness and genuineness of the women who partake.  Our cancer experiences are as unique as we are, but there is a common bond born out of them.  Those who were picked up on screening are genuinely grateful not to have experienced the 'delights' some of us others have shared.  Everyone rejoices when someone has good news - a clear mammogram, a successful scan, the end of a phase of treatment - and I suspect everyone would mourn should there be bad news.

Next Sunday (i.e. a week tomorrow) the rest of the group are walking the Race for Life together.  One of them has been out buying black tutus for the others, someone else is on the look out for fluffy pink headdresses; still another will arrive with Mars bars.  There is something healthily intentional about this group - there is shared experience, shared anxiety, shared joy.  Most of the women have some kind of faith, and those who don't may tease the rest of us, but only in a generous-spirited way.

So, I'm happy to be  a bl**dy Christian, happy to explain why I'm not mad at God about the past year, happy to be part of this little intentional community that meets on a Saturday morning in an upper room for ritual music and movement culminating in tea and biscuits.