If this is too mean or unfunnyplease assume it's a side effect of low dose sedatives to overcome sleep deprivation and then you might feel more forgiving.

It seems to me there is a certain similarity bewteen the averge small Baptist church and the breast clinics I am starting to frequent - each seems to consist predominantly of women compared with whom I, at 47, am young.  That appeals to my perverse sense of humour.

As the nurse was explaining to me all sorts of stuff yesterday she said that there is one drug cocktail they may elect to use at some point which can cause nail loss, but that this can be prevented by wearing nail varnish, the darker the better.  This caused much amusement as we imagined me  as the Goth Baptist minister with black painted fingernails.  I appreciate that a hijab could/would be mis-understood, but part of me thinks hijab (with a nice text embroidered on it obviously), black nails and an above the knee skirt (a Dibley in-joke) would be quite fun.

On Sunday our choir led us in John Rutter's 'Look at the World' an item chosen by the parents of the baby we welcomed.  This morning after yesterday's rain, Glasgow is refreshed and lovely, bathed in morning sunshine, and hte song came to mind once more.

I found this clip on YouTube with it being sung by a small choir in Edinburgh.  The sound is great but watch the guy in the red sweatshirt, his whole stance and approach is quite funny!

This is a thinking aloud post, well one of those that is especially so.

Many years ago I had a college tutor who was in her late fifties and nearing retirement.  She dreamed of returning to Africa, a continent where she had worked in her youth and where her heart still lay, if truth be told.  About a year before this plan could find expression, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  It seemed to me, and to those who knew her, unfair - this was to be her time after decades in the service of others and now it was to be denied. Never once did she complain or express a sense that this was unjust; she simply continued to be herself gracious, generous and much-loved.

A few years back one of my Dibley flock was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and showed similar quiet acceptance of her lot, never blaming life or God for came what her way.  Other people told me it was unfair and I concurred; even speaking of the sense of injustice at her funeral, but she never wavered (at least that I saw) in her response.

Now I find myself accepting without questioning that this has happened in my life.  Not in a naive way, not pretending this is some test of my faith or resolve (a naff God that would be), not denying my fear of the unknown or my desire and hope for good recovery.  But, like others before me, I can't name this as unfair.  And that's not so clever really, because I am surrounded by loving people who do name it as unjust, not for themselves and not for the church but for me.  Which makes life tricky, because pastorally they need to space to name it as they experience it, and I mustn't make them feel inadequate or guilty in their truth, a truth which in other circumstances I would share.

Maybe it is a matter of finding a way of holding together acceptance and injustice so that each is named, heard and affirmed without trivialising or demeaning either.  I'm not sure how to do that, but I'm willing to learn.

As someone who spent many years in the Methodist expression of Christianity, I have a deep love of the traditional Methodist covenant prayer:

'I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.'

A lot of people baulk at the line 'put me to suffering' because they read it with C21 eyes and equate suffering with pain, forgetting that it actually refers to what might be termed 'permitting'.... as in 'suffer little children to come unto me'.  So the prayer is actually along the lines of  'let me do or let me done unto'

For Little Miss Independent (aka me) this is a tough line to mean, though mean it I do.  In the next year or so I am going to have to learn what it means to 'be put to permitting.'  At the moment I am inundated with offers of help and support, so much so I can't take it all in; it is incredibly humbling.  At the same time the slightly crazy (in my view) offers are starting, well intentioned and generous to a fault, but maybe not too well considered.  There's a challenge in this somewhere - to permit people to care for me, to care with me, but not to take me over; to be gracious and generous to those who care so much and to see beyond the expression to the intent.

And so, most gracious God, the covenant made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven....

It is raining in Glasgow this morning.  Tapping at my laptop whilst waiting to take my car literally next door for its MOT I can hear the swish of cars passing by.  Often when it rains I recall a little song we sang in primary school:

Glad that I live am I,

That the sky is blue;

Glad for the country lane

And the fall of dew.

After the sun the rain,

After the rain the sun:

This is the way of life

Till the work is done.

All that we need to do,

Be we low or high,

is to see that we grow

Nearer the sky.

I know nothing more about this song's authorship or origin and I'm too lazy to check right now.  It's clearly Victorian and, like All Things bright and Beautiful seems to accept as part of the divine order a near caste system no longer recognised.

After the sun the rain, after the rain the sun... each is needful in the cycle of life.  We tend to like sun and mutter about rain, but each is essential.  On Sunday evening our thoughts were guided to think of the cycles of life and of our need for pause within the busyness.  Rhythms and routines, predictable and variable... life in its fullness.

As it happens I quite like rain, and once my car has been dropped next door I will walk through it to begin what, for now anyway, is a typical Tuesday.