This week most of my Baptist blogger friends, being mostly in BUGB churches, are getting ready to head to Blackpool for the annual jamboree that is Baptist Assembly (in England).  This year I can't be there as I have to be here, partly in order to be nuked and partly because even if the nuking had been over with it would have been too much, too soon.  I will miss Assembly, being one of those odd people who loves it, but it is right to be here instead, and not just for personal, medical reasons.

One of my best loved Gatherers, who happens to be one of my predecessors, is very ill in hospital, and I want to be close enough to visit him and to spend time with his family who are also part of our church.  It is a privilege to be allowed into anyone's life when they are so vulnerable; it is a special privilege when that person is a loved and respected former minister.

This Sunday we have an infant blessing for a child who is almost three, a little older than the average.  A celebration that has been postponed more than once due to adverse circumstances.  This Sunday it will finally go ahead, even though not everyone the parents would love to share the event can make it.   It will be our second infant blessing since my diagnosis last August, and pretty neatly helps to 'book end' the treatment.  It has a feel of something 'right' about it at a personal and community level as well as being a delight to share with the family.  And no, before you ask, I won't be mentioning the 'book end' effect in the service; it's not about me.

So, whilst I'd love to be heading to Blackpool to be inspired and infuriated, to meet up with other bloggers and old friends, I know beyond any doubt that I am in the right place being here in Glasgow.  I may get around to making a bingo card for those heading to the sea-side (I keep wanting to say south then realise it's north for most of them!) with BUGB cliches to check off, but if not I'm sure they can make their own.

Oh, and if they sing that song think of me and smile!

Next year I'll be back...

I was chatting briefly to one of the radiotherapists this morning after being nuked - you have as long as it takes you to dress yourself in the nuking chamber whilst they clean down the 'couch' for the next patient (no gowns as they'd constitute low level radioactive waste even if they have no impact on the nuking itself).

She was asking me what I was doing the rest of the day - home, change, work - and what that involved (they all know I'm a minister).

It happens that this one is Asian (I'd guess first generation given her accent) and in her own words 'not religious'.  She asked me what I thought about Eastern views on 'life after life' commenting that she felt she had an 'old soul' and had several lives still ahead of her.  Whilst I cannot share her views on reincarnation (and said so) there was a common ground in believing that this life is not all there is. 

When I was studying theology, and we learned about world faiths, the emphasis was heavily on dialogue - meeting points, learning with and from one another without denying or watering down differences.

I am fascinated by this woman's sense that she has an 'old soul', which is probably as strong for her as my sense that 'we pass this way but once'.  Yet for each of us, with very different worldviews, was the sense that we make the most of the now with a hope (theological meaning) for the not yet.  Amazing what you can discuss in two minutes!

I'm not absolutely sure what 'normal' is meant to look like - there was the 'old normal' which was, as one might term it B.C. (before cancer), and the 'new normal' which has been the case these past few months, with daily posts on anything or nothing to demonstrate that I am still OK, D.T. (during treatment), perhaps?!  So now, as I move on to a 'new, new normal' in what I hope becomes perpeutual N.E.D. (no evidence of disease, official designation) it feels like it is time this blog began to move along too.

For the time being at least, it will continue to carry its links to cancer websites - I cannot turn back time and not be a '1 in 3' or a '1 in 8' (or a '1 in 5' of a '1 in 5' of a '1 in 8' or whatever it actually works out as), so normal has to include some ongoing recognition of that.  There will also continue to be some posts relating directly to the zapping (No 10 of 25 this morning) and ongoing treatement/followup.  But inevitably, and rightly, the emphasis will shift.

Over the last few weeks I have often found myself thinking 'well, what on earth can I write about today' as life has been very quiet, and the routine walk to the nuking chamber doesn't make very entertaining reading.  Just by way of mild amusement, this morning the muzak was 'I Want to Break Free' followed by 'Life is a Roller Coaster.'  Being fixed to a device that wouldn't look out of place in a medieval torture chamber, the former had a nice irony; the latter is a reflection of reality and, spookily, a reference I was contemplating using in this Sunday's sermon.

So, what will 'normal service' look like?  Possibly less posts - that is, there may be days when I don't post as I have nothing to say, and there may be periods of blog-silence other than for holidays.  A lot more about church life, more bits of half-baked theology or things that amuse me.  And, in time, some more overtly reflective stuff about this whole long distance walk up a mountainn, through a forest, across a river, and how it has impacted my thinking, being, faithing (if there is such a word) and so on.

It's great to be back at work - trying to be good and take things slowly - and normal service is being resumed, as much as possible.

I have just booked some tickets for my train journeys to attend the BUGB WiM day.  It is slightly complicated by the fact that I am staying overnight at either end of the event with different people (my first foray out of Glasgow and its immediate environs in more than 8 months!) so I needed two distinct journeys.  I dutifully typed my stations into the ticket booking site and up popped prices... £92 odd one way and £105 odd the other.  Scandalous, I thought (even if church, not me is paying) so I looked at how the journeys broke down, based on the changes (and the fact that the tickets prices wouldn't allow me to switch trains  anyway).  Simply by taking the same journeys in distinct chunks, picking the trains I'd have to change to along the way, and making part of it a return journey composed of two singles at a price lower than they would have been separately (don't ask me, I don't get it either!) I have managed to 'save' around £70.  That is plain old fashioned nuts - it's not as if I'm trying anything clever like the thing where you don't even get off the train, I'm just paying for each chunk on its own.

So here's the thing... where does that extra £70 go?  Hmmmm.

Anyway, hopefully it'll earn me a few Treasurer brownie points...

Yesterday evening most of the regulars gathered at the local C of S for our shared service.  It was a very imaginatively enacted Stations of the Resurrection - a lesser known and lesser practised meditation to complement the better known and more overtly Roman Stations of the Cross.

It was done simply but beautifully, and was an embodied journey through stories of the resurrection across the gospels.  At some points we sang, but mostly we listened and imagined...

• The church garden: Mark 16: 1 - 8
• The church steps (it is a very fine, porticoed entrance with lots of steps and tall columns): Matthew 28:11 - 15
• The sanctuary, around the table, where we shared bread and wine: Luke 24: 13 - 27 then, after a hymn, 28 - 35
• An upper room, with the door closed: John 20: 19 - 25
• A hall, arranged with blue cloth and sea-washed pebbles, where we ate bread and fish: John 21: 1 - 14
• A connecting room, close to the exit of the building: John 21: 15 - 19

By no means every church has the facilities to create the spaces that we experienced, yet most could find spaces and places to create a hint of the various scenes.

It was a special end to a special day.  Thank you D and all at Duke's Boot Church (naff masking but I can't think of anything better just now)

Today, having been zapped I propose to zzzzzzzz - or at least blob - after a full and fulfilling weekend.