I first encountered this idea when I was in Manchester, as a kind of response to the self-obsessed, self-deluded prayers of the the 'please God let the sun shine for our barbecue' variety and the cringe-inducing comments of the 'our holiday plane was over-booked but God got us on so that we could have all of our lovely foreign holiday rather than getting there a day late' (preusmably God did not smile on the folk who didn't get in the plane...).  Our Lady of the Parking Place will, in exchange for the requisite number of novenas (whatever they are), grant you a vacant parking space even when the car park is evidently full.  Today she smiled on me, albeit on my third circuit of the block, and my car is now safely and legally parked close to the church.  Which is as well as I need to transport some heavy items back to my flat.

All this reminded me of the time I was industry and shared a free access photocopier with around 200 others.  This necessitated understanding how to load paper, clear jams etc and of course the relevant liturgies and rituals required by the great god Xerox.  Aside from 'work you stupid machine' chanted regularly, it was generally accepted that sacrificing chickens could help...  How many, and how, I know not, but evidently it was effective.

And then there was the grill at the church commnuity centre where I worked part time in my first year of ministerial training, along with a URC student.  It was decidedly tempremental and often needed a good thump to make it work.  Or, as my colleague regularly said, "I'll try a URC blessing and if that doesn't work Catriona will give it Baptist one...'

So now you are all suitably worried at the bizarre rites practised by those elevated to the heights of ordained ministry.  But I'm still pleased I got a parking space today...

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!