My good friend Diane has just passed her PhD so big congratulations are in order.

She was exploring a new way of looking at ageing and older people in our churches and the central thread is that 'old is beautiful'.  Challenging the myth of the body perfect and the quest for perpetual youth, she has become a champion for the older people in her church, and more widely for older people in all churches.  I wouldn't claim to understand half of what she's written, it's far too clever for me, but I am thrilled that she has passed and that her unique and precious contribution to Baptist (and wider Christian) life is recognised.

My post title echoes the Adrian Snell work of 1993 which explored issues around a child born with disability, a work which I recall as being quite significant in making me think through how we define beauty and worth, success and fulfilment.  Since then I have beocme aware of theologies of, and emerging from, disability.

My own experiences over the last few months have embodied questions and explorations of beauty, of worth, of meaning - something none of us ever thinks will happen to us.  Apart from discovering I actually looked good with no hair (not that I intend to repeat the experiment!) I learned first hand what it was to be stared at or avoided because I looked 'different'.  I have learned to love my scars, to embrace the brokenness and to understand more fully that beauty has little to do with physical perfection and everything to do with inner perception.  I think I am a little more appreciative of what I am able to do, a little more gentle in my expectations of myself, and far more conscious of the finitude and frailty of human life.  The flip side is I am less tolerant of trivia made large, grudge-bearing and feuding.  Life is beautiful and precious, not to be wasted in bitterness and ugly attitudes or actions.

I am contemplating calling myself Robyn for the next few weeks due to the effect the radiation is already having on part of my anatomy, but even in that thought is, I guess, a humour that accepts and embraces the changes that are occuring.

Learning to love ourselves, as we are, in our imperfections, that's part of what Diane is about in her ministry, and I rejoice that she is a Revd Dr.

One of the joys of Christian disicpleship has to be the diversity of opinion that exists among people who are all on what is, to use contemporary parlance, the same spiritual path.  Whilst there are core things that unite (though what they are and how they are understood is pretty diverse too) there is much where people of goodwill and in good conscience disagree wildly.  The ability to live with this diversity is part of what I love about the Gathering Place where all manner of views coexist without too many fall outs and without a wishy-washy laissez faire atmosphere.

Thus it is that this Saturday one friend of mine will be (presumably) inside Faslane as a naval chaplain, another minister and friend of the The Gathering Place (I know him, but not well enough to use the term 'friend') will be be outside it protesting.  Their views on things nuclear, their views on defence, their views on what it means to be a disciple of Christ will overlap and diverge many times but I have no doubt that each is called of God and is sincere and devout in his own discipleship.  I probably sit somewhere between the two, retaining a view in favour of the peaceful uses of atomic energy (and wishing people would stop confusing human error/arrogance with technological frailty) andhaving worked in defence (albeit primarily in terms of civilian worker and public safety). 

I recall at college meeting someone who had been at Greenham Common protesting when I was inside 'that place in Berkshire' trying to get the MoD to design a facility to meet safety standards.  This came up in the context of feminist theology, where she was waxing lyrical about the power of women tying bits of wool to barbed wire fences and I recalled the struggles of being taken seriously as a woman engineer in a male dominated world.

So, how do such tensions become creative rather than destructive?  My minister-friends and I hold disparate views on many things but endeavour to listen to, and learn from, one another.  Of course we all think we are right, but we try to do do graciously.  Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail.  Hopefully as 'iron sharpens iron' (as the Good Book says, somewhere) in the sharing, disagreeing debating, questioning and so forth we each grow and become more thoughtful and mature disciples of Christ.

Where will I be on Saturday?  In Glasgow listening to the findings of the Poverty Truth Commission.

God bless you both, A and S as you serve in the ways you believe you are called.

A couple of options for people who'd like something to connect with for Holy Week...

The Passion Experience is an email/text journey through Holy Week in 'real time' (so turn your phone off or at least to silent during Sunday morning's services!).  Last year we were one of the pilot churches, this year it has gone 'global' with BUGB HMF funding it.  You have to register but it's free and you don't get bothered by endless emails after its over.

Journeying Through Easter is a Northumbria Community podcast series for Holy Week and can be accessed via the BUGB website.

Ideally, of course, we'd all get along to some real live services, but for busy people, people who have to work, people who have lots on their plates, these are valuable alternatives.  For those who can get along, they are useful extras.

One for all who have had enough before it begins, and especially the republicans among my readers... here

Round 3 with Rowan Williams tidying the Abbey is just the best!  It is so bad it's good.

Yeah!  Finally off the shore and onto the first stepping stone.

Kind of amusing as this was called the 'pre-verification scan'.  Nice tautology in the name methinks.

Very pleasant staff and not too long a wait.  I was glad to see that they take safety seriously and check who you are umpteen times on your way to the nuking chamber.  The last stage was a photo - face only - so that when I go back they can double check I am me and not someone pretending to be me, or someone who just happens to have the same name and DOB as me.  I guess with some names and ages it wouldn't be so impossible for there to be two of them.  Quite why anyone would choose to be irradiated like this is beyond me but hey...

So, more felt tip pen marks over the tattoos and in a few other places and no beauty products, not even deodorant, for five weeks... just as well this isn't a scented blog!  Baby soap at the ready along with with gentle clothing for when the skin gets sore, and lots of bottled water.

Tomorrow then, the first real zaps - three lots of about a minute each - and I leave the shore behind and head towards open water.