This phrase was on the candles we used on Wednesday evening.  It is part of John 1:5 in the Message paraphrase.  I thought of it again this morning as I read the news that some of the trapped Chilean miners are showing signs of depression.  I'm not surprised they are.  I can think of nothing worse than being trapped for months on end with no guarantee of rescue being successful.  I've known and worked with a few people with depression and it is a nasty disease.  Yes, a disease.  It eats up self-worth and destroys hope, engulfing its victim in darkness.  Now imagine experiencing that in physcial darkness and with the very real possibility that the light at the end of the tunnel will be blocked out... Ugh. It makes me shiver.

It is easy to be voyeurs for five minutes and then move on with our lives as new headlines grab out attention but for these 33 men it is real and ever present.  I cannot imagine how they feel but I do feel strongly moved to pray for them, and for their families anxiously waiting, hoping, longing.

One of the Taize songs we used on Wednesday is a voice of hope for all in dark places - physically trapped in mines, emotionally trapped in depression, metaphorically trapped in poverty, fear or isolation...

Within our darkest night, you kindle a fire that never dies away, never dies away.

Within our darkest night, you kindle a fire that never dies away, never dies away...

(c) Presses de Taize

Maybe it's a promsie you need.  Maybe you know someone who needs it.  Either way, please share it.

Tomorrow's morning service is all about birds... sparrows, doves, hens, chickens and eagles.  It will proobably be a bit marmitified but I've enjoyed preparing it.

Tomorrow's evening servcie is a favourite hymns evening - a baker's dozen to be precise.  Shuffling them into a sensible order was a challenge because they are all lovely, each rich in theolgoy and spirituality and as diverse as those who have chosen them.  We have one in Welsh (with English subtitles), one by Kendrick, one by Wren, one written on our patch a few years ago, one that dates back to St Francis.

Lots of flitting about then, lots of nightingales and crows singing praises to God.  I hope it's a good day for all involved.

I am pleased for David & Smanatha Cameron that their little girl arrived safely.  The early morning news on Radio 2 announcing this fact said that they hope to give her a name "with a Cornish flavour."  The first thought that went through my mind was.... Vanilla.  Followd swiftly by 'Mivvy' 'Tiggy Oggy' or 'Pasty'.

In recent months I have had cause to make good use of Travelodges, the low price motel type places where you can, if you get it right, book a family room for £19.  I quite like them.  Sure, they are all pretty much identical, but you get a large room with a proper sized bathroom (or wet-room in the newer ones) decent TV reception and a little workspace.  There is wifi available - unless like me you opt for mobile broadband, and I have to say O2 is proving very good so far.  They are always clean and the staff are always helpful.  Just one thing that always puzzles me is when I buy their 'breakfast bag' the croissant is always squished - a Catriona word that means utterly squashed.  An 'i' is thinner than an 'a'.  Why don't they pack them so that the croissant is on the top, maybe in a protective cardboard sleeve?  They taste the same squished and unsquished but they don't look great flat!

Last night's Glasgow Baptist Prayer Gathering was very well attended and even if not everything went quite as I'd imagined or hoped most people from other churches seemed to have found it a broadly positive experience.  I had tried to reflect the model I'd experienced at the last one (my first) whilst being true to who and what we are and I am.

One thing left me puzzled, and that was just how loud some of these people were.  Our pianist was playing beautiful music as people arrived, music totally drowned out by loud voices.  And at the end the very moment we spoke the final 'amen' a cacophony of voices began chattering without any pause for private prayer or contemplation.  Never, ever before had I experienced the latter before.  In almost every church I've been to (and that's a lot) after the final 'amen' everyone sits down quietly.  Some people pray on for a few moments.  Some people quietly collect their thoughts and their belongings.   Some slip away quietly to make the tea or to retrieve children from Sunday School.

At the start of the service I read Psalm 46 with its injunction to 'shut up and focus on the one who is I AM' (crude paraphrase).  Part of me wonders if that fell on some deaf ears.  Part of me feels that's judgemental.

There were some high spots... the flickering tealights representing the Baptist churches in Glasgow and showing the obvious gaps in our mission (the poor and tricky east side of the city)... the singing of the Taize chant 'within out darkest night' with only the light of our votive candles to see by... the near stillness as I led intercession for a broken world.  My highpoint was singing in the dark, standing, as it happened, right at the back, watching the flames defying the gloom and sensing that this is how God's presence is experienced in our weary, sin-sick yet beloved and beautiful world.

I love all kinds of worship.  I can do loud, hand-clappy, hand-wavy.  I can do total silence.  I can do all points in between.  I just can't do with an inability to take 'just a moment' of silence and stillness, just 'a goodly number of seconds' as Ang put it to remind ourselves just what this is really about.