When I saw the oncologist last week, I mentioned the relentless hot flushes and asked if there was anything that might alleviate them.  Having already tried taking my drugs at various times of day, with no benefit, her last remaining non-drug option was to try splitting the dose.  Not wanting to be mid-experiment yesterday, I opted to wait until today to start this.  The idea is to take half a tablet at breakfast time and half at tea time.  That's all fine until you see a Tamoxifen tablet!  They are small, they are fiddly, they have a nice 'line' across them but snap in two they won't.  So it was a knife and some reasonable pressure to get my 'half a dose' to go with my weetabix!

Now, I am fortunate.  I am fairly dextrous.  The mild chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy I got in my non-dominant hand has long gone.  But not everyone is so fortunate.  Some people just would not be able to break the thing in half, let alone pick up the spare bit to put back in the packet for later.

Whether it will work in reducing the side effects only time will tell.  These little pills come in packs of thirty, and I've just started a new pack, so I will continue the experiment until I need a new prescription and, if it hasn't made a substantial difference, will talk to my GP then.  If nothing else by then I will be a deft pill cutter!

I think that's really what Brueggemann's scheme is about.  He is honest about its limitations, that a different person might assign them, even within his headings, to different places, but it is a useful model to work with. 

Anyway here's what I think it boils down to:

• psalms for when life is chugging along, confident songs that express the reliability and dependability of God, of creation and the life-giving aspects of Torah.  Psalms that teach truths and express trust.
• psalms for when life is *expletive deleted*, songs that express rage, fear, despair, confusion, bewilderment.  Psalms that lament the disorder that exists despite what we believe about God
• psalms of reflection on the complexity of life.  Psalms that hold together the realities of the struggles with the faith in which the writer lives.  Psalms written some time 'after the event' when the raw emotion of pain, loss, anger, etc. has passed, when events have run their course and a 'new normal' has been achieved and a different understanding of chugging along has been established

Whether or not you agree with Brueggemann or my interpretation of his model, it seems there is a basic principle that runs through it all; whatever the 'weather' or 'season', sing about it to God.  Athenticity - my buzz word of the moment!

Today I am working on my last reflective service based around Brueggemann's take on the psalms.  The psalms of reorientation (or 'new orientation' in strict Brueggemann langauge, and to be fair there's a subtle difference in meaning) which are the group of psalms which express a 'transformed faith' in the light of real life experiences.  Now, Brueggemann makes no claims that his classifiaction is definitive or even necessarily correct, but it has been a helpful framework to work with. 

What intrigued me was a comment he makes in his discussion of the last group of psalms where he draws on the work of another scholar who makes a distinction between 'songs' which are personal and 'hymns' which are communal... songs use 'I' language and hymns use 'we' langauge.  This is a very different way of distinguishing between the two from what I've come across elsewhere.  More typically people say that hymns 'tell a story' or at least have a progression of ideas verse to verse, whereas songs express a single idea.  I have to confess my own way of sneaking things into services that people might be reluctant to sing is to call them 'songs' whatever they are (so Iona or Taize stuff in a SoF church and vice versa or MP in a 'Green Book ' church).

Irrespective of what they are called, we will be singing a variety of stuff on Sunday evening from a number of different 'stables' as we endeavour to re-orient ourselves towards God in a world where life contrives to dis-orientate us.  Unusually I'll give you the running order:

I watch the sunrise (3 hanky weepy)

The Lord is King (golden oldie) (can't find a you tube version of it being sung - check your oldest hymnbook!!)

Let us break bread together (world church)

Sing of the Lord's goodness (kinda 70's feel)

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!