I am working with someone on some ideas emerging from the three Mary and Martha stories that will recognise the fact that, however skewed the balance, there's a bit of each of them in each of us, and that each of them got it more 'right' on one occasion and both did on a third.

As we were chatting, we recognised that we know nothing about these sisters, but that traditionally Martha is viewed as the older, often substantially so, as plain (even ugly) careworn and missing the point whereas Mary is usually young, beautiful and deeply spiritual.  We dared to postulate another idea - that these sisters were twins, and I'd like to say monozygotic (identical) twins, and play with idea that they are, if you like, two sides of one coin.

I know/have known a few sets of monozygotic twins and there does seem to be evidence that one is more extrovert, one more introvert, one more practical one more ponderous and yet, genetically, they are the same.

Martha and Mary probably weren't twins, I'm fairly sure this would have been noted had it been so, but so long as we recognise it is merely a device for our explorations, then I think it's OK.

Not saying anymore, too many readers who may see the fruit of these ideas in due course, but an interesting way to approach the stories which, for those who think there's only one such story, may be found in Luke 10, John 11 and John 12.

Yesterday's hospital consultation went really well - a happy consultant makes for a happy patient.  The surgeon outlined the options I may be offered by the plastics team and used the expression 'part of the package' to describe reconstructive surgery.  The purely therapeutic and the ostensibly cosmetic (including aspects that are purely cosmetic) do not find simple separation, and the psychological as well as the physical aspects are considered.

As I listened carefully to what I was being told, I was struck quite forcibly how some of what they offer as part of this therapeutic package has its origins in the purely cosmetic - enlargement, reduction, nips and tucks.  I fail to understand why someone would put themself in hopsital for a week, plus potnetially a long convalescence, purely to make themself look different, but I find myself grateful for the skills that have been developed and honed in that context.  Those with cash to spare in the illusive quest for the body beautiful as a by-product inspire and inform the work of those who endeavour to help people who are damaged by disease or injury to look reasonably normal.

Sometimes things that are beneficial emerge from things that are seemingly frivolous.  My Dad for many years worked in the motor sport industry, a lowly factory post but never the less one that brought him into a world of hi-tech facilities and cutting edge techniques.  The spin-offs from motor-sport find their way into ordinary vehicles - apparent vanity serving (eventually) wider society.  There are undoubtedly many other examples too.

I'm not suggesting that the wider benefits are an automatic justification of the seemingly vain or frivolous, or that we should simply surrender to the prevailing worldviews on what is to be valued, it is just that it isn't quite so simple to separate the purely practical and useful from the merely vain and fanciful.

All went extremely well with my consultant today, which was great.

I arrived early and bought a sandwich and a cup of tea at the volunteer run tea bar (it's not a WRVS one but it's similar).  In the midst of a very unlovely waiting area, tea is served in china cups and saucers (coffee in pottery ones!) and sandwiches are taken out of their packets, cut into quarters and served on a china plates.

You don't get that in a state of the art place.

My thing of beauty for today - a china cup in a hospital waiting room.

Kind of an odd week ahead...

Today I have an appointment with the surgeon to begin to talk about the when and what of the therapeutic aspects of surgery.  On Friday I meet a plastic surgeon to talk about the more cosmetic aspects.

It all feel rather weird, as surgery is still some months off - hopefully late January - and actually rather unreal.  I'm not really sure how I am meant to feel about it either... I'm partly curious, partly terrified and partly almost excited.  How weird is that?!

Lots to think about, and lots of OPEs to negotiate en route.

The most important part, obviously, is the therapeutic surgery, and until that is undertaken any plastics options remain provisional... there will be an element of unknowing right up until the process is done.  I am OK with that, at least intellectually. 

It is the plastics aspect that seems to demand more attention in my thinking, not least as the odd person has felt very free to tell me precisely why it should not happen!

To be told on the same day as my diagnosis that simultaneous reconstructive surgery ought to be possible felt like a gift of grace... that despite all I would still look 'normal' at the end of this.  Of course that raises questions about 'normal' and 'self esteem' and their relationship, but in that moment it was a ray of hope.

I don't think my self-esteem depends on my appearance not just because I'm not a 'girlie girl' but because I am generally 'OK' with myself as I am.  If they can't reconstruct that's OK, disappointing, but not a reason to think less of myself.  So is it mere vanity?  I don't think so.  Not everyone I know agrees.

The Bible tells us we are made in the image and likeness of God... and we tend to equate that with the body beautiful, ever youthful, fully functional.  Which is a shame because Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, carries the scars of a brutal beating, thorns piercing his face, nails through his wrists and ankles, a sword plunged into his chest.  A surgically altered Catriona will still bear God's image - with or without the cosmetic aspects.

The deeper I ponder, the more I am sure that the God who made me wants the very best for me - which in this case includes the possibility of plastic surgery.  Whether the surgery leaves me an "unwilling Amazon" or looking relatively 'normal' won't alter how God sees me, won't alter who I really am.  What matters in the meantime is that I listen carefully to the professionals and follow the path that I judge right for me whilst being gracious to those who cannot, or will not, understand.

Way back when, in the days when I was learning to be a minister, all our academic modules had weird and wonderful course codes, each of which related to a 'thread' that attempted in ordinary everyday English to describe what it was.  So, for example, systematics and dogmatics came under the heading of "Handling Christian Traditions" HCT, pastoral theology was "Believing, Caring and Social Responsibility" BSCR, Biblical studies was "Jewish and Christian Documents" JCD and so on.  Apologetics. along with a few bits of philosophy and, I think, the interfaith stuff, came under the heading of "Speaking About Faith" SAF.  All of which is long way of getting to the point that yesterday evening our focus was apologetics, based on a chapter from Alastair McGrath's book Mere Theology.

We ably were led in three short reflections and three short small-group exercises that helped us think afresh about theology and apologetics in plain language - this was what William Barclay (don't think a Sassenach is entitled to use the more affectionate "Willie" as my friends here do) might have called "theology for the plain man" or perhaps "ordinary theology" (Jeff Astley) or the "let's do" brand of theology (Laurie Green).

The one that stuck out for me was the middle one and a story about Adrian Plass who it seems as teenagers was something of a smart alec who liked nothing better than engaging in taunting the priest who ran the local youth club.  Week by week he would ask the priest questions about God; week by week given answers, Plass would argue and ridicule; week by week the priest was gracious... until one day he snapped and responded by saying of Jesus, "I love him, I just do."  Speaking of faith isn't about having the right answers, isn't about understanding, isn't even about being certain, it's about our own experience of the mystery and wonder of that faith.

We thought briefly about the old practice (less rare up here it has to said) of testimony sharing, and how you could end up feeling pretty pathetic if you hadn't been saved from a life of debauchery but had simply drifted into faith in the same way you'd drifted from infancy to childhood and beyond.  At various times in various churches (and other contexts) I have led or shared exercises where people are invited to chart their faith story, and when I've done so I've always stressed that it doesn't end at the 'decision' or in the baptistery.  The God "moments" are not just big things, they can be tiny.  I think one happened last night when I heard about the priest pushed to breaking point who said "I just do, alright."  Too often I have tended to pussy foot around in debates either avoiding conflict or trying to defend something I can't do adequately.  To be freed to say "I just do" believe, not to have to explain why or how, and that that is good enough is incredibly liberating.  Probably wouldn't earn you a very good mark in SAF3c (or whatever it was) but God would be fine with it.