I have a couple of bookcases in my living room, as do many other people.  Most of the books it has to be said are rarely taken out and opened, yet they continue to have some sort of importance, as visitors always take time to see just what is there.

Yesterday I had some visitors round and they did the usual looking task.  One of my guests noted one shelf and even took out a volume to show to another guest.  So which are these important books:

They were my engineering text books, a relic from my past life, a set of books I've owned since the early eighties and occasionally open to remind myself that once I actually knew this stuff!

My guest was thrilled to discover that I had studied engineering and marvelled that I was old enough to have been an engineer for 15 years before training for ministry, surely I was only in my thirties...  Like many others I've met over the years, this guest saw my 'past life' as a positive, something that contributed to, rather than detracted from, my ministry.  Every now and then people complain that there aren't enough life-long ministers, but the truth is Gods call comes when it comes and will weave all we are and have been into the ministry to which we are called.  In my case I am fairly certain my background industry serves me well as the minister of decreptic buldings and doomed roofs!

Way back, at the end of my period as a probationary minister one of the Regional Team had to meet my deacons to discuss my suitability for transfer onto the fully accredited list of BUGB.  It was a rather surreal evening as we held Deacons' meetings in the manse, so when he arrived I had to go and sit in my study whilst my performance was discussed in my living room.  Later, as I was seeing him out, this senior minister confessed that he'd spent the entire conversation thinking 'ooh, I've got those engineering books in my house too.'

Of course we need lots of theology stuff (almost all of mine is at church these days) but sometimes it is the 'normal' (relatively, not sure how 'normal' a text on theory of thermonculear fusion is!) that makes the connections that allows real conversations to take place.

A quick search of Amazon showed that, to my amazement, thirty years on, the same core texts, albeit updated in some cases, are used in the education of students in engineering.  Massey, Rogers & Mayhew, Stroud.... ahh happy memories!

A couple of links to make you laugh... and think....

ASBO Jesus here and Burton Dassett here

Enjoy!

When did 'worship service' become 'congregational meeting'?  I ask simply because I've seen a lot of references to 'congregational meetings' recently that sound remarkably like 'worship services'. 

Isn't a congregational meeting that thing where you hear the finance report, debate the colour of the new crockery or, if you are really fortunate, talk about mission and vision and stuff?  Whilst I would, and do, assert that the 'congregational meeting' is in and of itself part of the worship life of the church, it is not the same as the thing we do for an hour (or however long) every week.

It is a glorious morning in Glasgow - lovely blue sky and sunshine making the buildings glow; it is a day when it feels good to be alive.  But what is 'beautiful'?  Here are three photos from my living room window (focus a little sus in some of them, the lens drive on my camera got damaged when it toppled onto a hard surface recently):

Across the roof-tops to distant hills (the Campsie fells), always 'magical' as depending on weather conditions the hills can completely vanish one day or you can see every fold quite clearly another.

Towards the road junction where different areas of Glasgow allegedly meet.  The end of my development of 'yuppy' flats, the garage where my car was serviced, a residential care home and some high rise flats.  The diversity and cheek-by-jowl nature is, for me beautiful in its own distinctive way.

The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre - a place where I have spent many hours and have many more to spend.  Not a pretty building but it has an inner beauty maybe?

Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder.  But if we have eyes to see it, I suspect there is always some beauty to be seen.

G.A. = Guardian Angel.  Not entirely sure if I think I have one, though there is some kind of Biblical justification for the notion that children have them, and we are all children of God.

Anyway, before you panic, I am assuming it is the job of the G.A. to keep a tally of the hairs on my head, a task which since last September had been far more onerous than usual.  Whilst the score never reached zero, it did get pretty low (unless you're a pedant and assume s/he ocunts follicles in which case there has been no work at all; but the ancients didn't know about follicles so I reckon it's visible hairs that count...). 

Since today is exactly 8 weeks since the last dose of chemo, and since my hair has been regrowing roughly 10 weeks (I first noticed evidence of growth on my birthday - a fantastic unexpected present!) I am guessing the angel is working hard now at adding rather than subtracting.

Just for your amusement is one of today's close range self-photos where there quite clearly is hair...