'Good Catriona she went out

On 20th December

Checked the snow that lay about

Wasn't deep enough to close church'

Among the 'things they never taught me at college' is that the decision to close the church because of snow lies, ultimately, with the minister.  For most people in most churches that means, 'are the roads so treacherous or the car park so slippery that it would be too dangerous for people to get to church?'  Here it means, 'is the snow loading on the roof such that our insurance is void.'  Setting aside that we aren't quite sure if it 50mm or 100mm that triggers this decision, and setting aside that I'd have thought the density/compaction of said snow would be a factor, and setting aside that actually we couldn't physically get up there to check the depth defintively without risky life and limb in all manner of other ways, it was with some relief that as I walked through the park, ending up looking like an abominable snow-woman, that I could see quite clearly that the snow was quite definitely thin (< 5mm), soft and mushy (not compacted).  So barring a sudden blizzard during the time we are at worship - which we won't see because we'll be inside with the doors closed - we wont be 'calling it' any time soon.  Oh, and regarding the massive blizzard during the service - I reckon I'd argue 'time at risk' and dazzle the insurers with phrases like 'ten thousand year return period' if worst came to worst.  Which it won't.

'Therefore Gatherers all be sure

As you come to worship

That your Rev is on the case

And the roof's not bro-o-ken!'

Joking aside, keeping our folk safe is a real responsibility, whether it is icy paths, freezing meeting rooms or wonky steps.  I'm glad that folk here take seriously the conditions of insurance rather than saying (as I have heard elsewhere) "oh, God will never let that happen."

Now I must do some proper work before worship!!

Over at Hopeful Imagination, Lucy a minister who is just under half my age (if I am right I 'double' her next year!) posted a wonderful reflection that 'showed' me a delightful image of Jesus as a toddler in a pushchair smiling and reaching out a hand towards me.  This image has stayed with me, I can almost hear him gurgling with gleeful toddler laughter as he reaches out in that open-handed way toddlers do to embrace a world that excites them.

Then a moment when I was very humbled by one of the people I mentioned yesterday who gave me a Christmas card with a jolly robin singing in the snow.  It was almost as if Christ said to me, "you might struggle to see me, but I see you, and, in this frail, wizzened hand and this wobbly writing I reach out to you."

In the soft, warm, pudginess of a little child's hand, in the dried, cold, thinness of an old man's hand, Christ reaches across time and space to reach us all.

The Baptist world is small.  The nuclear industry world is small.  When two small worlds intersect, as these two do remarkably often, I meet people who know people I know.  Some people thought that moving to Glasgow was a long way from people I know... but they failed to allow for the smallness of the worlds I inhabit, that we all inhabit. Without resorting to the blatantly obvious 'people I know who my church also know' because they are well-known figures in Bappy-land, here are some of the connections that exist...

• Someone in church who works with someone I used to work with, albeit briefly, albeit a long time ago
• Someone in church who is, technically, an alumna of the same London college as me, because his medical school merged with my college
• Someone in church whose son used to work for said college, and who knew/knows someone who taught me fluid mechanics and thermodynamics all those years ago
• Someone in church who knows the father of one of my friends because they used to work together for a Christian radio organisation
• Someone in church whose father is a retired Baptist minister who once preached with a view at Dibley (I don't know who declined whom!) and held pastorates in EMBA at churches now served by friends or former colleagues of mine
• Someone who went to university in Leicester and attended a church where I once, pre-Dibley, preached 'with a squint'
• Someone in the coffee shop opposite the church who comes from a village just a few miles from Dibley and who, over Christmas will be down there while I'm up here

Every now and then here, as formerly at Dibley, people ask me when I'm going home.  This grates a bit, though I know it is kindly meant, because no one would ask such a thing of a married minister.  Home is where your heart is, and my heart is here, in this place to which God has brought me, among these people whose lives already intersect with my own in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.  The world is a small place, and the Christian/Baptist world even smaller.  The interconnectedness, which so delighted one of my former tutors (Brian Howden) whose former church secretary had been one of the engineers who worked for me, is part of what makes us who we are - the Body of Christ.

Oh, and if you are a reader who can give me a few more 'Brian-like' connections I'd love to know them.

By the wonders of advance posting, I am here today even before I wake!

Matthew 25 with its 'whatever you did (or failed to do) for the least of these, you did (or failed to do) for me' is one of the most significant influences on my understanding of ministry.  Trying to see Christ in others, to do for them as I would wish to do for Christ is not always easy.

How do we see, as God sees...

• The person with mental health issues who invades our personal space and insists on touching us
• The dogmatic fundamentalist who aggressivley tells us we are wrong, and who picks squabbles with anyone who challenges her
• The frail old man who smells of stale urine and whose speech is slurred
• The person with learning disabilities who sprays us with crumbs as he speaks with a mouth full of half chewed bread
• The 'aggressive' beggar who sits on the pavement and asks for money
• The feuding neighbours who shout loud and long over perceived offence

How do we spot Jesus, word made flesh, in our village/town/city?

How do others spot Christ in us?

How are we the unlovely person whom God loved so much he sent his only son?

Much to ponder, I feel.