Yesterday our new midweek Bible study group met for the first time.  We were a disaparate group - in age, theology, nationality - but it seemed to gel.  We are using the Nick Fawcett guide Women of Faith: What They Can Teach Us and the first study was on Ruth, the voice of an outsider.  Our conversations seemed natural and flowed quite well.  We ended with tea/coffee and Waitrose cupcakes - it seemed fitting to mark our first meeting with a special treat.  One person was surprised we were ending with cakes - but seemed reassured when I told her I'm sure Jesus would have had cupcakes if they'd had such things in his day.

I think people enjoyed the afternoon together.  Someone suggested we take it in turn to bring the cakes.  Someone else was inspired to go home and read the rest of Ruth.  Someone else was free to admit aloud that there are bits of the Bible she doesn't understand.  Everyone shared something of herself.  We are not a 'women's' Bible study group but yesterday we were all women meeting to share and to listen and to pray.  That was good.

A while back I said I'd post a list of the books we were using to recource our upcoming Theological Reflection group looking at the complex issue of assisted dying.  There are two in favour and two against.  I'm glad I read those in favour, even though I disagree with their conclusions, because they forced me to examine other perspectives.  It is amazing how often it is useful to engage with views we disagree with, allowing ourselves to be open to what they say rtaher than dismissing them out of hand.  So, in case you would find them useful, here are the four books...

A Time to Live: The Case Against Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, George Pitcher, Oxford, Monarch Books 2010 (against, obviously)

Dying with Dignity: A Personal Plea for Responsibility, Hans Kung and Walter Jens, New York Continuum, 1998 (A bit out of date now; in favour)

Is there a Christian Case for Assisted Dying, Paul Badham, London, SPCK, 2009 (in favour)

Euthanasia: A Christian Perspective, Church of Scotland Board of Social Responsibility, Edinburgh, St Andrew Press, 1997 (against)

Sometimes at lunch time I take my sandwiches to the Botanic Gardens and watch the world go by.  It is a great place for people watching and all of life is there - children squealing with delight, the laboured footsteps of old age, students planning parties and occasionally canoodling couples (from which of course the ministerial gaze is averted).  There are also birds and animals.

Today I watched a little grey squirrel doing what squirrels do at this time of year.  It was searching for nuts to bury and scampering around the grass in the sunshine.  Then it ran up a tree before coming back to see if I had anything interesting for it to eat - my crisps were evidently not appealing and off it scuttled.  The significant thing was that little squirrel had lost most of its tail.  Whether by accident or mutation or disease I have no idea, but rather than a bushy balance aid it had a little stubby runt of a tail.  The way it had adapted - still able to run up the trees apace - was clearly evident.

I wondered how many people noticed the squirrel, and of those how many that it was different.  This part of Glasgow is teeming with 'different' in every sense of the word.  Sometimes it's good to be reminded of that.

Here in Glasgow we are finally enjoying some gorgeous weather, and as the first hints of autumn play around the leaves of the trees, I find myself delighting in the beauty of creation and calling to mind these words from Philippians 4:8

Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.

The Message paraphrase

How easy it is to slip into whinge and whine mode, focussing on things negative.  How easy to take for granted or not even notice all the natural beauty and goodness and loveliness that surrounds us because we are preoccupied by other things.  I like this injunction to look for the good rather than the bad, the lovely not the ugly, the hopefilled not the hatefilled and so on.  And it's a challenge, for sure.

So, it's a challenge I've decided to accept and make my own; that each day I will consciously look for a thing of beauty and loveliness.  It might be the toothless smile of an old man out fetching his paper, it might be the way the sunlight plays on the trees, it might be the feel of the breeze playing on my skin, or the indulgence of an extra latte, who knows.  But I am excited to accept the challenge and learn more of the wonder of God's creativity through it.

At last night's Songs of Praise we sang a lovely Welsh (funeral) hymn.  Alas, the English translation didn't scan (I'd failed to check) so we ended up with a trio by our three Weslsh speakers.  And it was a delight to hear Welsh voices singing as only Welsh voices can.  Here's the final verse...

  O fryniau Caersalem ceir gweled       

  Holl daith yr anialwch i gyd,       

  Pryd hyn y daw troeon yr yrfa       

  Yn felys i lanw ein bryd;       

  Cawn edrych ar stormydd ac ofnau       

  Ac angau dychrynllyd a'r bedd,       

  A ninnau'n ddihangol o'u cyrraedd  
     
  Yn nofio mewn cariad a hedd.     

       
   From the hills of Jerusalem can be seen       

   The entire journey all through the desert,       

   This time come turns of the course       

   Sweetly to fill our mind;       

   We can look at the storms and fears       

   And horrendous death and the grave,       

   And we have escaped from their reach       

   Swimming in love and peace.