Yesterday the instructor who usually takes my exercise class was unwell and had arranged for someone else to cover.  As it happened, I was wearing this tee-shirt:

She read it said, 'so are you a preacher?  It transpired that she and her husband are 'between churches' at the moment and just might come along to the Gathering Place at some point to try us out.  Wow!

This got me thinking... I have met more people outside churchy circles in the last nine months than the last nine years (well more like eleven years but it's not as poetic to write!)

One of the unexpected blessings of the last nine months has been the wonderful people I've met - professionals and patients - and the fascinating conversations I've had.  I have always been open about what I do/am but have never rushed to elaborate.  The genuine interest people have shown is amazing, as are the questions they ask.  From the people who asked about my sense of call, to the secular-Hindu who spoke of being an 'old soul', to the Penty woman who tried to evangelise me (!), to the professionals who understood how my job impacted my 'journey' through treatment...

Don't get me wrong, this doesn't act as an explanation for what happened, or a purpose for it, it is just one of the amazing ways in which hope (see post below) triumphs in adversity if only we have eyes to glimpse it.

PS Looking at this photo taken in March it is amazing how much my hair has thickened up!

This weeks sermon prep has been a disaster!  This good idea of balancing 'hope and fear' has proved difficult to work with and it's been hard find anything useful to say that would last more than two sentences, not because there isn't loads you could say but because I can't make it work.  However, in my reading I found this little sentence in some writing by Jurgen Moltmann:

Enthusiasts and Baptists in the sixteenth century looked for the dawn of the eschaton by actively seeking to transform their oppressive present.

Jurgen Moltmann, entry for Hope in A Dictionary of Christian Theology, London SCM Press, p. 272

You need to appreciate that 'Enthusiasts' were those who saw themsleves as having some sort of special indwelling of God's spirit (I know nothing about them, but maybe they were the Pentecostals of their age?) not just people who were 'keen' or 'eager'.

Sixteenth century Baptists risked persecution, arrest, execution and ridicule to practice their faith.  What Moltmann is saying is, I think, not that they hoped (wanted) life would be better for themselves, though undoubtedly they did, but that they lived the hope (eschatology) they had.  Life must have been incredibly frightening for those early Baptists but their hope shaped their day to day living.

This is a 'now and not yet' theology in which communities of faith can be an anticipation (advance glimpse) of the eschaton as they anticipate (await) its fulfilment.

Ultimately then, it is our hope that sustains through our fear.

But if I said just what I've written it'd be an awfully short sermon!!! 

I hope what I say makes sense and that people glimspe the hope that we try to live and which inspires our living.

A propos of this post I am turning metaphorical liturgical cartwheels as some good news has just reached my ears of a decision by a certain Board of Ministry; still a few steps to go, but HALLELUJAH!  Well done F, we continue to pray for you as the last steps have to be taken.

Still praying for A who sees her board on 17th... if any of them are reading I need more excuses for liturgical acrobatics!

When I first went to Dibley there had been a fairly long standing 'we don't want women ministers it's not right' ethos in the District.  I used to joke that people said that, and God sent my freind D.  They still said it, so God sent J.  Then God sent me.  Then God sent B.  Then God sent O.  And lo, it came to pass that the District near Dibley was muchly blessed.

I wonder if God has now decided to do something similar up here?!  Exciting times!

A year ago at the Baptist Assembly in Plymouth BMS' David Kerrigan received a spontaneous round of applause when he had the courage to name the elephant of human sexuality when he memorably asked 'what is good news for the gay couple' (or was it 'gay community'? Quotes vary).

This year it seems, from what other bloggers are saying that the elephant is now being talked about, along with a whole heap of other inclusion/exclusion issues such as gender, race, age, (dis)ability etc.

David K is again offering important input as this happens, noting that the language of 'inclusion' carries the corollary of 'exclusion' and wondering if 'welcome' is a better word.  More importantly, in my view, he notes that talking isn't enough, it needs action.  If in five years time these topics are still being talked about but nothing at grass roots has changed, then something is wrong.

Read what David has to say here.

... since my surgery.  Can't believe how quickly it has flown by.

According to my physio leaflet, after three months 'all restrictions are lifted' and I can use my 'affected arm' as I wish.

So I thought maybe...

• a part time job with a coal merchant carting round hundredweights of coal
• a beginners class in caber tossing
• an acrobatics class in case I'm ever presented with an empty abbey and several yards of inviting red carpet.

In reality, my arm has a great range of movement and is getting stronger, though still 'pulls' if I exert it and stiffens if it is cold or the ambient environs cool and damp.

Only 8 more nukings to go and I'll be done.  Hurrah!