I feel I need to preface this by saying that the NHS is essentially full of great people, but I do feel that over the last few weeks my path specifically has been crossed by many angels - bringers of grace and hope - in the shape of doctors, technicians and nurses.  Today I met the chemotherpay nurse who will oversee my treatments, a lovely young woman who I discovered is a Roman Catholic with a little boy of four.  Combining attention to detail, clinical skill and a friendly personality, she rapidly put me at ease and made the whole process remarkably easy.  Praise God for people like D.

In the treatment area are ranks of coloured lights at ceiling level which change colour from purple to red to orange & yellow to green and so on.  They are evidently meant to be calming.  For me they served as a reminder of the busy thoroughfare that is central Leicester where illuminated poles follow the same colour sequence at the same speed.... weird!

And a fox.  Leaving the hospital to walk home (feeling remarkably like a fraud that I could do this quite happily) I spotted a fox running across my path.  Unabashed, it selected a comfy spot in the flower border, turned round dog-like and settled down to sit in the sun, enjoying the adulation of its audience.  Beautiful and mysterious, the urban fox bringing joy to delight my soul.

Yesterday's Bible Study in Esther centred on the well-known and well-loved verse 'for such a time as this' and followed the idea of being a person in the right place at the right time, specifically to speak out for a persecuted (or oppressed or marginalised) group.  We had some interesting conversations.

But how about the right place for the right person?  Was it for such a time as this that God brought/led/called/sent me to Glasgow?  Not just for what I can do/be but for what I need?  To be a mere 10 minute walk from one of the most advanced cancer hospitals in Europe, to have in my congregation an internationally respected oncologist and at least two retired nurses with experience in caring for people with cancer... Like the Esther story it's not that this is the only way God could have managed this (Mordecai essentially said to Esther that if she don't act something else would come from heaven, i.e. God would find another way), nor is it that somehow God had it all pre-planned, just that somehow this is part of the rightness of fit for this person in this place at this time.  Not sure I quite have the right theological language or framework to work this out, but perhaps I'll stick with Mordecai's provisionality as recorded in scripture, that maybe it was for such a time as this...

A long, long time ago we had a corporate team-building day thingy which took the form of 'It's a Knockout'.  My team, named by my staff 'Catriona and the Slaves' came a very creditable fourth and of course the organisers played the above song every time they mentioned us.  That has zippo to do with my thoughts, but reflects the general mush of my brain at the moment.

Today has felt like walking on sunshine - the first day since my diagnosis when I have not felt scared.  I went for a picnic in the park, and when no one was around to see went into the hall at church and spun myself round til I was dizzy, in the way a child does, just for the joy of being alive.

I don't think I'd ever really known proper fear until the last few weeks.  There are plenty of things I'm afraid of, notably edges of train platforms, live electrics and drowning (hopefully not all at once) but these risks remain readily avoidable.  The last few weeks have seen real fear: the 'what if' of waiting for test results, the overactive imagination that overules commonsense and deduces that 2+2 = 38.

It's not that anything suddenly changed, except that now I have the information (all bar the original definitely good) and I no longer fear what I do not know.  That doesn't mean I won't get scared again, it just means for now I am not.

All of which made me wonder how life must be for those who live in permanent fear.  Never able to sleep properly, never able to relax, never able to spin round til they are dizzy for the fun of it.

There are too many twee little Christian ditties about Jesus taking our fears away, and they deny the reality of his own agonised hours in Gethsemane and at Calvary.  On Sunday we will be singing the golden oldie 'Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness' which contains these two lines...

"... mornings of joy give for evenings of tearfulness

trust for our trembling and hope for our fear"

This seems neither to deny the reality of fear nor to suggest it is easily evaporated, rather it speaks of hope despite, in or through it.

Tomorrow I begin a metaphorical uphill climb that will last until the end of December, assuming I manage to keep on schedule, with half a dozen stiles or gates or bends (I'm not sure which they are yet) along the way. I may well get scared again.  For now, though, I enjoy the gift of this day, walk on the sunshine, dance in my own living room (at least metaphorically) and give thanks to God for the beauty of this pause on my 'long distance footpath'

Today's BUGB e-news sweep reports the Papal visit to Scotland, identifying this as BUS 'territory' before noting that the Gen. Sec. of BUGB will be there in an official capacity.

Now I'm glad that Baptists are there... just that BUGB has to do it in BUS land makes me sigh.  Why, oh why, won't BUS join in ecumenism officially?  And why, oh why, can't the Fellowship of British Baptists be represented by the BUS Gen Sec. rather than BUGB?  So now we re-enforce the assumed 'norm' of BUGB for the whole UK and the ecumenical-stupidity of the BUS.  Sigh and double sigh.

To be fair, I don't know for certain that BUS aren't represented - but why would BUGB be if they were?

I love both Unions greatly, being part of each simultaneously, a more entertaining quirk of my church's identity, and each is being very good to me at the moment, I just wish this kind of niggly stuff didn't exist.

Evidently some bloke is coming to town today to hold an open air Mass in one of the parks.  As we understand it, he may be granted an audience with one of my peeps who is attending in an official, work-related capacity.

Others of us will be gathering in a warm room to share a Bible study on Esther and munch cupakes.  High Communion indeed.

I genuinely hope those who go to see the Pope are blessed by the event in Bellahouston Park; I know we will be blessed as we gather for study and prayer.

Oh, and while I'm at it, 10/10 to Revd Vincent Nichols for his warm and spirited defence of British diversity in the face of the gaffe by a vatican official whose name I can't be bothered to check.  I know many wonderful Catholics and enjoyed working with an RC priest in Salford whilst training and for them, I do hope the events of the next couple of days are a true delight.