I am beginning to wonder if Hyndland railway station is the centre of the known universe!  Five minute's walk from my front door, so the natural start point for my longer journeys. It seems anywhere I might want to get to by train I can do from here, although because of timing issues I have booked some tickets from Glasgow Central instead which will mean taking the 44N bus at odd hours of the day and night.  In which case maybe my house is the centre of the universe as within a minute I can get to the bus stop that will start my journey to anywhere?

Whatever, the reality, I have just booked my train tickets to take me to Birmingham for the BUGB Women in Ministry (WIM) day.  It ought to be called VIK day according to at least one of my friends, where VIK means 'vicars in knickers,' a name we gave to a short-lived group I was part of in Leicestershire.  Whatever the name and wherever the centre of universe might really be, both the location of Hyndland railway station and the WIM/VIK day 'good things' in my world.

Sometimes every seems to post which book they're reading for Lent, this year hardly anyone is.  So, just to buck the trend, and even though Lent is half over and I've read less than half of the book... I am reading Lucy Winkett's Our Sound is our Wound which is proving an interesting exploration around sound and noise and woundedness.  I can't honestly say I've really got nito it yet, but it is refreshingly different to read.  And for collectors of miscellaneous connections, I have never spoken to Lucy in my life, but we did once both stand at the end of Downing Street with Dawn French shouting 'make poverty history' along with a couple of hundred other women ministers.

By contrast, last night I was in the Mitchell theatre in Glasgow enjoying a couple of speakers in the Aye Write book festival.  The first, 36 Proofs of the Existence of God by Rebecca Godstein is a new-atheism meets religious-yearning novel that sounds fascinating and is a fictionalised exploration of philosophical topics by a 'new atheist' with devout Jewish roots.  Possibly a (more sophisticated?) parallel to some of Brain McLaren's 'new kind of Christian ' stuff, but I wouldn't know without reading it.  Certainly a similar premise of fiction to explore complex topics.

The second, a book on the Scottish Reformation by Harry Reid, facilitated by Richard Holloway, was very entertaining if far less focused, but left me wondering if the English Reformation (beyond Anglicanism) was really so different (albeit quite probably more bloody), the dangers of state churches being seen as normative and even the assumption that English history is actually anywhere as near uniform as sometimes portrayed?  And all this because I grew up in the 'cradle' of English protestant non-conformity.

Anyway, it was fun, it made me think and I met new people in new places, so it was a good evening.

Yesterday I was in a conversation with someone who once did a training placement at The Gathering Place.  "Of course," he said, " you have to wear a dog collar there... and robes..."

He was suitably astounded when I told him that on Sunday not only did I not wear any of the above (nor do I any Sunday) but that I wore trousers and a tee-shirt with a fairtrade slogan emblazoned on the front.  I also didn't tell him I said 'Bog off' in my sermon - an allusion to the B.O.G.O.F. offers in supermarkets etc.  Between that and saying 'F in L' (the course in theology I did as part of my training) at a recent church meeting I think I have demonstrated that the ministers of today are even worse than the youff.

The cheery voice of the radio presenter announced that 'it's 6:30 and it's broad daylight' in London maybe, not yet on Glasgow.  As I drew back the curtains it was getting light but the orange glow of streetlights below indicated that broad daylight it certainly was not.

My kitchen is an incredibly light and airy room, south-ish facing and commanding an impressive view across the river (which you can't see) to higher ground beyond.  Looking out I can see chimney tops and trees, trains and twinkling lights (at night) and a vast, open sky over-arching it all.  As I watched the colours change from purplish-grey through gold to pale blue, daylight came to the city; the streetlights went out, a train swished past, someone cycled along the street below and morning came.

The living room faces north-ish and if you look in the correct direction you can still see snow capping the fells north of the city, just, it seems, beyond the stark tower of the local hospital.  City planes (trees!) aplenty and a whole diversity of chimney stacks potentially give a Mary-Poppins-esque feel to the vista.

For six year I overlooked a field, a recreation ground and then open countryside (actually it was trees masking the cemetery before the open countryside), a view of which I never tired, though by the time I moved the view had been lost to the new houses rising from the ashes of the old chapel.  It was no less and no more lovely than my city-scape, a view which I enjoy studying each morning as I rise.  It may surprise some people that I find it quieter here than in my former home - the steady swish of traffic fades more readily into background than the heavy rumble and wall-shaking vibrations of lorries short-cutting through a side street in the wee small hours!  And I can't honestly say I miss being woken by yowling animals afflicted by spring fever!

The country has its beauty and so does the city.  It isn't about 'better' or 'worse' but about difference.  God may not have 'created' cities but allowed us so to do.  The sunrise over the rooftops is not like that over the sea or hills, but its every bit as lovely, and it makes me glad!

No, it's not one of my infamous typos, it's what one of our children understands us to have been talking about today at church. We marked the end of Fairtrade Fortnight with a service focusing on this complex issue - and recognising the interplay of this with other aspects of more ethical shopping choices.

In the 'All Together' slot we first asked the children who had received varying amounts of money (from 1p to £10) in one of the stewardship services how they'd used that money. The reports were very creative... Two sisters had put theirs (5p and 10p) into a Marie Curie charity box; one little boy had put his (1p) in his money box, another had bought four things (though what I could not decipher nor could his Mum!); the recipient of the £10 had bought a book with part of it and given the rest to out local Museum and Art Gallery at Kelvingrove. Fantastic! We moved onto thinking about choices (which fitted quite well with what Sunday School were doing anyway) and the children were invited to come and have a look at a range of items laid out on the table to see what they had in common.  Spotting the logo a little voice piped 'they're all fairy traded.'

What a lovely image that conjures up - tiny winged creatures flitting around the world gathering goods to sell to us in fairy trade shops.  Only good fairies of course, who would ensure that the people who made the items were well treated - especially if they were house elfs.

As the children left for Sunday school they were invited to choose a fairy-trade chocolate bar to take away with them, and there was some left for those adults who were not abstaining for lent.

Next week we are thinking about children and the church, and the Sunday School will be sharing with us some thoughts on what they like best, dislike most and would love to change about church.  With such wonderful children as we have, it promises to be good...