Today I nipped into a supermarket near the Gathering Place to buy strawberries and cream (and alternatives) for our student picnic for tomorrow lunchtime. I handed my cotton bag to the young man at the till for him to pack my boxes of strawberries (is 2kilos enough? I hope so!) and tubs of cream and observed 'it's a bit like the Krypton Factor isn't it.' He looked bemused, so I said, I guess that's before your time... Oh dear, I was a mere 14 years old when it began in the ninteeen seventies. No wonder a lad in his late teens or early twenties didn't know what it was. Still now I have strawberries and two out of the three cream/substitutes I was after... will have to go to the Supermarket nearest home for the vegan alternative as those near church doesn't seem to sell it.
A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life - Page 720
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Not So Young!
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More Normality
I am typing this post sitting at my (well, the church's) shiny new computer in my office/vestry. I spent yesterday afternoon doing the basic set-up stuff and now have a nearly up-to-date machine (why is it they preload computers with software that needed updating about a year ago?!).
Better than the new machine, lovely as it is, is the normality it brings with it: a restoration of the separation of home and work that has, for good reason, been missing these last few months. I have to retrain myself not to feel obliged to answer church-related emails when I'm at home and not to start planning the next sermon series when I'm surfing the web for fun.
Small things please small minds, but it was lovely to stroll in to work for a 9 o'clock start (late by my standards!) in glorious sunshine. Great to chat to the guys in the coffee shop. Great to chat to the people who have just moved into one of our office spaces. Great to be .... NORMAL!
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An Ecclesiology for Grown-ups?
A little teaser for Sunday's service.
As I have been preparing the sermon it struck me that Baptist ecclesiology, properly understood, is very grown-up.
It says to the local church, you have the wherewithall to discern the mind of Christ and the responsibility to seek it.
It says, you don't need us to tell you, you are capable of working it out for yourselves.
It says Christians don't always agree on everything and that's alright.
It says, being church is hard work that will demand your energy and emotions.
But it also says, we will stand by you in your explorations, in your mistakes as well as your successes, when we agree and when we don't, because we covenant to walk together, with God, wherever we are led.
(I also note the complication of ministers being under the dicipline of the union in a way churches are not, but that's another issue!)
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Ascension Day
Salvador Dali, Ascension
Ascension Day.
Not a day many proddy nonconformists mark.
Today there will be, if tradition prevails, a Churches Together Communion service for Ascension in Dibley.
This time last year I had it in mind to do something for Ascension this time around. Events overtook that. Maybe next year...
Anyway, I have already been sent Ascension Day greetings today... and this is mine to you!
"When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. (Luke 24:50-53 NIV)
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Where You Do Not Want To Go.
Last Sunday's evening worship used this phrase, from the end of John's gospel, as its title. The guts of the input was a summary of the story of one German pastor who was imprisoned by the Russians at the end of World War II and forced to go 'where he did not want to go.' It was an interesting account of a steadfast, simple faith, that survived despite incredible hardship.
Someone will take you by the hand and lead you where you do not want to go... these words, spoken to Peter on the lakeside by Jesus formed part of a reading I used in Sunday morning worship last September. At the time I was very struck by them, as I was about to go where I did not want to go, at least in a metaphorical sense.
I can honestly say I have never questioned why I had to have cancer, or even why it happened when it did (though I did feel the timing was naff) and I was never angry with God or questioned God's love or existence. I had to go where I did not want to go, so I might as well get on with it.
Looking back, and beginning to reflect, this unchosen, unwanted, journey has brought me and others to a new place, and given us opportunity to gain insights we might not otherwise have discovered.
I have learned to let other people help me - not an easy lesson for someone who has spent her entire life being independent and self-sufficient. Sometimes to retain our independence we need to be a little bit dependent.
I think my church has gained confidence in its ability to support a minister during a time of trial. Churches can easily have their corporate confidence knocked, and sometimes adversity, handled well, enables them to gain new, or renewed, confidence.
I think I have learned a whole heap of empathy - with those who look different, with those who have no hair, with those who are forbidden to eat certain things, with those who are forbidden to do certain things, with those who face an uncertain future. I don't think I really needed quite so many lessons in empathy all at once but now I've had them, I think I am a better equipped pastor. (That doesn't mean I think anyone else ought to experience any of them)
I think I have learned to be kinder to myself. I have always been a worrier, have always tended to beat myself up over the things I failed to do, or messed up, or whatever. That hasn't changed, but I think I let it get to me a little less than before... Well, I hope so, anyway. I hope I might have learned to say 'no' a bit more, and to make more time for myself.
I have found I am less tolerant of bigotry, of grudge-bearing, of finger-pointing, of bitterness, of scape-goating and so on. I don't think I've been guilty of them to any extent myself, but I have tended to let it go in others... Now I think I'm more likely to speak my mind (be warned!)
In a few areas of life, and on a few issues, I've stopped wrestling the head and heart and, atypcially, let my heart decide.
I have met many amazing people who have inspired me... kangaroo girl, J and Mrs J, and relatives of terminally ill people, to name but a few. Without this unchosen, unwanted journey, I wouldn't have known them.
I have had many wonderful conversations with people - about theodicy, about healing, about euthanasia, about my call to ministry - conversations I would never have had in the cosy confines of Christian leadership.
When you are old(er) someone will take you by the hand and lead you where you do not want to go...
I am technically (medically) young and that has its own significance in terms of the journey taken and its likely future direction, but I have been dragged onto a path I did not wish to follow. Of course I'd rather it hadn't happened, I'm not Pollyanna, but given that it did, I have no regrets. By accepting that I had to go this way, and by making the most of the opportunities it gave me, I feel I am now a more whole person, if a more broken and vulnerable person, than before.
In all things God works for the good of those who love Him.... even on the unchosen path that takes you where you don't want to go.... and I AM is with us always, to the end of the age (Romans, John, Matthew).