Recently I was at a prayer gathering where someone picked upa piece of string and started playing "cats's cradle."  A few deft moves later and she had formed "Jacob's Ladder" a pattern I had learned a s a child (though had to 'not think' to do it correctly).  She commented at her surprise that she growing up in Aberdeen had played the same string games as I had in Northampton.

I wasn't so surprised having moved around a bit and played umpteen variations on the same games in GB companies across England and now Scotland.  Subtlies in words of songs or names given to the catcher in chase games help pinpoint where you are, but it's all much about the same really.  People have done whole PhDs in this field, investigating what it says about something or other.

It got me thinking about how we accpet as 'the same difference' ('same coffee, different pot' 'same meat different gravy') these variations in songs and games but get more twitchy when we go to a church that sings a slightly different song (metaphorically) or the 'game' is subtley different.  What is it that makes 'in and out the/those dusty bluebells/windows' authentically itself and not, say 'the farmer's in his/the den/dell'?  And what really matters?  No new ideas here, people have wrestled with them for centuries.  It just seems that if we accept minor local variations in children's games maybe we ought to be more accepting of cultural/regional/denominational variations in churches.

Computer geekery is not really my thing, though I am confident enough to set up computers, add peripherals and try things out.  But this week I am awarding myself the 'level 1' geekery badge for fixing ... so far so good... the wireless problem on my gleaming laptop.  Using the trusty old steam driven computer with an ethernet-DSL link I'd googled enough to discover that the same problem arose with this make of laptop, this version of the operating system and this broadband supplier.  So which was it?  Finding a wireless hotspot it became clear the problem was in the machine not the modem.  So, eventually having exhausted other options, I hooked it up via ethernet, downloaded a replacement wireless driver (even though auto update told me the one I had was the latest) and hey presto, wireless restored.

All of which seems worthy of elementary geekery - at least in my book.  Hopefully it will stay fixed now.....

This morning I am working from home because it is Coffee Club day (aka Wednesday) and I am going along for the first time in ages; well a few weeks anyway, it only began in January.  Since it's a 20 minute walk one way to church and then a 25-30 min walk to the pub form there, or 15 minute walk another way from here, it's a non-choice really.

Coffee Club is a very informal gathering in a local-ish pub that serves coffee all day long.  It kind of emerged and was kind of a response to one of my sermons (at least according to the person who makes sure it happens).  Simply, anyone who wants to meets in the pub at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning to share a good blether over a cuppa. It is not a 'holy huddle' - meeting in a very public space prevents that - and it has very blurry edges.  On average around 8-12 folk gather, not always the same ones, some of whom would otherwise sit at home with a lonely cup of instant coffee or a tea-bag on a string.

I am enthused by this endeavour, so simple, so effective.  Not everyone likes it, like all churches we have those who look askance when you say the word 'pub' or who baulk at the idea of a meeting sans epilogue.  Maybe I'm biased, actually no maybe, I am biased, but my past experience of the effectiveness of out-of-church befriending over comestibles means I delight in this new expression of gospel living.  The fact that it happens without me and that I can pop along now and then is even better.

So, Gatherers and others visiting this proud city, should you be around on a Wednesday morning feel free to join us for high communion in tea and coffee!  (I should note that once licensing hours begin you can, if it's your wish, also get something stronger, and if you are in no rush to leave they sell inexpensive lunches too...)

I have just finished reading Lucy Winkett's Our Sound is Our Wound, the 2010 Archbishop's Lent Book.  It is an honest and brave exploration of a range of topics through the metaphor of sound.  If anything I found it a 'noisy' book - each chapter full to bursting with ideas, quotations and anecdotes.  For me, with a linear mind, it didn't quite work, and I found it too busy, too buzzy... almost becoming a noise in its own right.  But that quite possibly says more about me than the book - a quick trawl of the Internet suggests others have found it profoundly helpful.

What it did remind me of, though, is the need for occasional stillness, of time to be quiet, of the moments, often late at night, when I swear I do hear the angels singing, if only fleetingly, before consciousness dulls my sensitivity.

Not one for my 'top tips' but definitely readable and accessible.

For Palm Sunday I am planning an extended dramatisation of part of Luke's gospel for our morning worship.  With a cast of around 20 (including a bit of doubling up) arranging a 'run through' is quite important.  The biggest unknown is whether the person allocated to play Jesus will be available - just a minor inconvenience...

Someone pointed out to me that 'Jesus' is studying motor-sport engineering, and is rather preoccupied with F1 at the moment... but also that Jesus seems to do fair bit of 'driving' too.

So to Luke 19:45...

He entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling...

Now a whole new image comes to mind!

Anyway, all things being equal we'll have a good experience of Holy Week when we get there.