This is the name of a book of prayers by Kathy Keay, but it is also the two words that came to mind after yesterday evening's TV viewing.  Scheduling in Scotland is subtley different from England and Wales, so maybe the connection only works for those living in this TV area.

Firstly I watched the programme on BBC2 about people searching for silence, The Big Silence, which happened to include a delightful Glaswegian, so there was some 'home' interest.  As someone who regularly spends many hours in a kind of silence, but who is also (normally) very busy it was interesting to watch these folk seeking space.  I was challenged by the idea of hearing the stars, though hearing a candle flame is in my experience; I'd like to hear the stars singing...

Then I watched The Apprentice on BBC1, full of noise and nonsense and people who (as portrayed) postured and in one case had the audacity to accuse Mancunians of being backwards (OK my interpretation of what he said).  There was a lot of shouting, people talking over each other and not listening, as each sought to show that they were the one to be kept.  The contrast was stark.

And yet silence and shouting need not be opposites - sometimes it is in the silence that our deepest cries find articulation and we are able to shout silently.  The trailer for coming episodes of The Big Silence hints at the way silence opens us to express our shouts as well as maybe finding stillness.

The Elijah story of God in the sound of sheer silence is overworked, but it is notable that the story also includes a lot of shouting too.

Sometimes in the wee small hours, when sleep is evasive, and the drug effects causes thirst or discomfort, I find it is good just to be still in the silence and let the unspoken shouts of my inner most being wing heavenward where they are transformed into singing.

The first triple is triple B... Broadband Behaving Badly, which it has been doing all day today.  If it stays up for three mintues at a time I'm pleased!  No idea what the problem is, just seem to have to keep resetting this and that... maybe its the rain, maybe it's a butterfly in outer Mongolia.  Anyway, it seems to be a little more stable now so I'll blog while I  can!

Sunday coming we are finishing our series on the Bible with a service called 'Bible Inspired Living' a rather grand title for the thoughts I will share, but one that seems fitting as an end to a few weeks that have been fun and challenging.  Three lots of triples I want to hold together, and not sure if that makes it a 'cubic' (for those who think I'm a bit algebraic ;-) ) or what.  Anyway....

Triple 1 - the three persons of the Trinity

Triple 2 - faith, hope and love

Triple 3 - upwards, inwards, outwards

Not quite sure where it'll go yet, but it's fun playing with the ideas.

(And amazingly my broadband conection has stayed up long enough to type this!)

Is the official day of today in at least three contexts I connect with.

On the first Tuesday of each month our local C of S friends have breakfast at 8 a.m. followed by prayers and then a minister's meeting.  I am invited and usually try to get along; recent events mess that up a lot but today I will endeavour to get there for a while before returning home to do a little more flopping.

First Tuesday is also the day Scripture Union set aside as a prayer day, so their email landed in my inbox this morning, full of new ideas and products and with requests for prayer as they seek to bring the Good News to all sorts of poeple.

Then today is also the first meeting of the newly reshuffled Baptist minister's gathering in North Glasgow.  Alas to go to this would be too much today, but these are good guys seeking to serve their churches often in tough settings, and I pray they will find some fellowship and support as they gather.

For me, in my personal three-weekly cycle, first Tuesday is when I wait for the "dimmer switch" to turn up again and my energy levels to pick up.  It is a tad frustrating having to say 'no' to things I'd normally do, or having to leave early, but I know it is for a season and I know I am learning stuff as I go along the way.

More on that some other time, it is almost 8a.m. and my second breakfast beckons...!

PS apologies if there are even more typos than usual, blame it on brain-mush and left-armed vein-pain

Statistics.

Have to be careful when I talk about stats - for many years they were the way I earned my living, or at least the raw data that fed the way I earned my living, and now I have a Stats Prof among my congregation.

The advantage/disadvantage of having worked professionally with stats is knowing how to read them - or at least how to guess what questions to ask about how to read them.  But all that knowledge is a double-edged sword when you become part of the stats rather than a mere observer of them.  It sharpens your 'hermeneutic of suspicion' as to how the data are compiled and how much smoothing of complex multivariate stuff goes on to give some general figures.

I think it struck me most when I read that 'every 11 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with breast cancer,' which is blatantly not true as no clinic is open 24/7 which would be needed for this to be the case.  46,000 a year (give or take) is equivalent to one every eleven minutes, but that's not how it works.  Today roughly 125 women and 1 man will be given this diagnosis - not neatly eleven minutes apart and not evenly spread throughout the nation.  Most will be over 50 and the oldest among them will have other age-related health issues but some will be in their twenties with everything to live for.  126 worlds turned upside down.

And then the are the other stats that arrive regularly - a child dies every 3 seconds in poverty, one every 15 seconds from lack of clean water; a women in the USA is beaten roughly every 15 seconds, and so on and so forth.  Again, not neatly defined, not equally spread, and not tidily 24/7 but whole clumps and communities devastated by disaster.  People in the poorest or most disadvantaged places, people for whom suffering is often normative.  People whose worlds I can never know or really imagine.

There's a point to the averages of course - a child dying every three seconds is something we can imagine, six-ish people an hour receiving a medical diagnosis is conceivable.  But it is all, ultimately, too big for our minds to process - we can only take in so much, can only care beyond the superficial for so many people or causes.  Maybe we don't need more numbers, or even better ways of presenting them, maybe what we need is time and space to think of the real people they represent.  On balance of probability, this afternoon in Glasgow someone will be told she (or he) has breast cancer... on balance whilst I've typed this stuff the equivalent of a whole primary school has died in some part of Africa... these are real people with real stories.  I can't know these people; I can't help them, but I can at least be aware of them.

... I thought it sounded better than 'drugged Monday' and slightly less likely to attract weird comments.  Last post-drug Monday I didn't post and it caused a good deal of anxiety among some of my most loyal and caring readers, so this week I thought I'd better say a quick 'hello.'

Always the danger of the plethoric blogger - do I own it or it me?  As one who refuses to go down the lines of twitter or facebook (I waste too much time on reading blogs already) I guess this is a rod I've made for my own back.  Ironically, just as I link Dave Walker's cartoon blog he gets a bout of blogger's block and has ten days off from posting - it's an occupational hazard.

Anyway, today will be anything but Manic Monday, as I rest after yesterday's great fun but rather tiring morning.  I may begin the mound of Christmas cards I need choose to write to people all over the UK (and some beyond) whose paths have crossed mine and continue to interwine with it to varying degrees.  I like this task - it brings back memories of times shared, good and bad, and reminds me why people I may not have seen in decades remain on my Christmas list.  Inevitably each year there are deletions but there are additions too, all part of the story we write as we wander through life.

So, off to flop a bit and then start the card writing...

Btw, it's a GLORIOUS morning in Glasgow (in joke)