The first year I consciously 'did' Lent I was 15.  I gave up sugar in tea/coffee (no small undertaking in a family where everyone else had two teaspoons of sugar in everything).  Over the following years the abstentions grew and grew - no sweets, no chocolate, no puddings, no sugar at all, no caffeine.  Each year I collected the money I would/might have spent on these and donated it to charity - SCIAFs 'wee box' idea is not exactly new, though it's a good one.

Yesterday's weekly shop included a pack of dark chocolate digestive biscuits, made by a firm based in Leicestershire as it happens.  So each day I can have just one chocolate digestive (that will be a challenge once the pack is open) as I ponder my many blessings and the temptations that we in the affluent west are so readily seduced by.  I don't think the cost of a pack of biscuits is going to make a good donation to anything, so I will, belatedly, join in with others across Bappy-land doing the Christian Aid 'Count Your Blessings' scheme.

It struck my in an idle moment that I've 'done Lent' for as many years as tradition tells us Jesus lived, so maybe I am entitled to a year off for good behaviour?!

An earthquake in New Zealand, a country already shocked and rocked by a recent mining disaster. 

An earthquake in Japan along with widespread tsunami warnings.

A reminder that humanity will never subdue - as in control - the earth.

A reminder of the frailty and vulnerability of life as people going about their daily lives either have them extinguished in a moment or slowly ebbed away from mortal wounds or impossibility of rescue.

Reading Angela's blog post of Psalm 46 I found myself pondering also 1 Kings 19.  At first sight/hearing the two may not seem to connect, not least as in the 1 Kings passage the LORD is notably absent from the earthquake, wind and fire but is detected in 'the sound of sheer silence' (NRSV).  On (brief) reflection I think perhaps they don't disagree but have different emphases.

Psalm 46, in the crude Catriona translation says " even though the world is in turmoil and earthquakes, wind and fire disturb you" ... "shut up, stop what you're doing and listen... I AM still God and I AM still in charge" 

It isn't that God abandons us to the consequences of the earthquakes, wind and fire, I am sure God is very present within them, it is that God is sometimes silently present.  Maybe we'd like God to say 'desist' to the storm, like Jesus did on Lake Gennesaret, but most likely God says, silently, "I AM here, I AM with you, it hurts me too..."

"Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, oh still small voice of calm."

Let's pray for people affected by these latest human tragedies that they will not feel abandoned (by the world as well as God) and for ourselves that our responses will bring lasting transformation and not be mere, soul salving rhetoric.

Not a lot to say today - spent half the morning shivering in a cubicle at the hopsital waiting for various people to do various things to me.  Not entirely sure why the waiting room is at sauna temperature and the treatment area rather chilly but there it is.  All is well and everyone was happy with what they saw/did/whatever.

Lots of mildly medical contradictions though...

(1) when I left hospital a month ago... 'keep your arm moving and especially bending and straightening it' whilst 'resting it on a cushion untill the swelling goes down'

(2) in caring for my scars... 'massage them with E45 (or moisturiser) regularly' whilst 'keeping them covered with tape' (the taping is meant to continue for three months to assist in making flatter, smoother scars)

(3) on managing the seroma in my back whilst caring for my reconstruction... 'wear something with lycra to provide pressure on the seroma site' whilst 'avoiding pressure on the reconstruction'  (anyone come across a lycra half-garment?!)

So, today I was injected with what my consultant termed a 'magic injection' which is meant to stop the seroma (which had just been drained) recurring, saw a physio who was as bewildered as I as to the cause for concern over my arm movement five weeks post surgery (she was impressed by my climbing the wall!) and a consultant who was very happy with how my scars are healing.  So, onto mega-stretching arm exercises, needing to find a husband to massage the muscles whilst I stretch them (! that's extrapolated from what the physio said...) and hoping my flatter back stays flatter.

Meantime my hair continues to grow back steadily and I have the cutest little eyelashes you ever did see beneath my gently regrowing Healy-brows (just maybe they'll be a little more ladylike now?!).  All is going well and all medics are happy... a good job jobbed!

Last week my Bible notes took a fairly close look at Matthew 6.  What struck me most, and which never seemed to evoke comment, was the frequent use of the word 'reward,' at least in the translation I was using.  In each little set of cautions the general gist is 'don't do it where people will see it to get an earthly reward but do it privately and God will reward you.'  This left me wondering about the whole concept of doing things to get a reward anyway... surely we ought to give alms, say, because it's the right thing to do not because people or God will give us a medal (or however we understand the reward).

Checking an online interlinear, the Greek is evidently more subtle... the public displays earn "misthon" whilst the private approaches lead to divine "apodosei".  Alas my Greek isn't good enough to discern the difference, all my Greek books are at church, and the www isn't helping much.  Anyone out there able to give me a hint as to the significance (or otherwise) of the choice of words and their better translations?

Still doesn't help me with the reward aspect as a potential motivation for doing the right thing, not yet what the reward might be understood to be, but it may move my thinking along just a little bit.

This is post number 2000.  Maybe I should say something auspcious or profound or both.  Not sure what though, so I'll ramble as ever.

I am pretty amazed to have written 2000 posts in the last five and a half years, give or take.  A lot has happened in that time and it is often intriguing for me to read back and see how both the blog and I have changed along the way.  I still enjoy the rambling, reflecting and sharing of rubbish (words which appeared in my original subtitle) and people still seem to like reading my everyday adventures (the current subtitle).  I still enjoy my lattes, though nowadays more often in cafes than foodcourts.

No doubt this little blog will shift direction again soon, as the cancer journey becomes less all pervading... at the moment it is along a flat path beween the forest and the 'one more river to cross' that I have finally named the radiotherapy phase.  As this will consist of 25 zappings spread over roughly six weeks (royal weddings foul up the schedule, major Christian festivals don't!  Discuss.) I am adopting a metaphor of stepping stones - lots of little steps, with occasional short pauses.  So April/May for that bit.

Hopefully I will continue to find things to share about church life, faith and theology as well as a fair smattering of twaddle.

Many thanks for reading whatever proportion of 2000 posts it has been!  Here's to the next lot...