A real joy, I think that's how I'd describe the GB anniversary weekend.  The Saturday reunion was great fun - although quite a few people I'd have loved to have caught up with weren't there - with  a lovely buffet supper and superb display of photos and memorabilia going back to 1934 (when it was Girls' Life Brigade of course).  We spotted several photos of my sister but none of me, though I did have my name recorded in various places.  Most people we knew were instantly recognisable and the cries of 'you haven't changed a bit' rang out loud and long.

Today we were incredibly grateful for warm sunshine for the parade.  Due to a late change of plans, which meant the leader due to 'fall in' and lead the parade was moved to the colour party and I was given the task - honour, privilege - of doing this.  The years rolled back as I mustered my best parade ground voice and for the first time ever headed up a GB parade!  I was amazed how many people- a lot older then me - said 'thank you' when we got to the church commenting that it was forty years since they'd last paraded and how much fun to do it now.  The service itself had a lovely feel to it - and ended up decidedly ecumenical!  The service was held at the URC to which the company is affiliated and District chaplain, Revd Dr Jennifer Smith, a wonderful American-born Methodist minister, drew everyone into worship with energy and grace.  My reading added a further dimension of ecumenism (though confused a few folk who assumed I must be a URC minister with that heritage).

The main thrust of the service was the way that the 'amen' of public worship is the link between past, present and future: amen isn't a word, it's a worldview, a mindset, a commitment to live what we pray, to be what we say, to do what we claim.  With two of the original girls present, one now aged 85 and quite frail (and who taught us intricate club swinging routines and complex skipping steps) and some little five-year old Explorers who might be there in another 75 years time, as well as some fifty or so old girls in between, something of the interconnectedness and continuity of gopsel as shared through GB was evident.

We closed with GLB/GB vesper Captain Divine (sung to Finlandia).  I loved it when I learned it and I still love it.  Indeed, I commented to my sister that if she outlives me, I want it sung at my funeral when the day comes:

Captain Divine!  Our work is now complete

And, ere we part, we gather at Thy feet,

To give our labours and ourselves to Thee

Without reserve, Thy cause to serve;

O Captain, hear us as we pledge to be

True to our creed, in thought and deed

I doubt anyone much sings it in the UK in 2009 (though many overseas companies still do) which is a shame, because it expresses a level of commitment to which so many in Brigade surely aspire.

Recognising that to the pure all is pure, this from today's BUGB news esweep reminded me of a classic church blooper...

Two years after having one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Georgia is enjoying something of a baby boom, following an intervention from the country's most senior cleric.

The classic blooper runs something like this:

The Little Mothers group meets on Mondays at 2:30.  Those wishing to become little mothers please see the vicar after the service

Sorry BUGB

Last night's Lent meeting was led by one of the Anglican lay readers and was week four of Christ and the Chocolaterie.  We were asked to split into small groups and talk about how we felt about contact with other faiths and other ideologies.  It was fascinating to see the total terror on the faces of some people at even being asked to discuss this in abstract.  It wasn't just the fear of difference but the unthinking terror of the very possibility that one might do so that struck me.  In our small group one person went very red and began to fidget but could not articulate why they felt uncomfortable or uneasy about engaging with people of another worldview.  I can understand and appreciate fear of taint or of being prosyletised; I share the Biblically based concerns over prohibitions on certain practices, but this was, so far as I could tell, unthinking terror.

One person in my small group - a wonderful retied Methodist minister - shared that at an interfaith meeting in Loughborough he'd met one of our local GPs (mine as it happened) who turns out to belong to druidic movement.  'So,' said one of the others turning to me with a glare, 'how do you feel about her now?' As far as I am concerned, she's my GP and so long as she does her job that's fine.

We moved on to talking about other groups in society and how people react to them.  Travellers were mentioned which raised the usual anti-comments and my coments over NIMBY-ism in respect to provision of sites for them earned me more glowers.  I also dared to raise the topic of migrant workers as we now have some in this little corner of the world which probalby concluded my heresy for the night!

Talking to the perosn who had clearly been the most terrified, I offered to lend her my Lion handbook of world religions (don't tell John Parry I own this, he'd kill me!) assuring them it was a nice, safe evangelical perspective.  Still I hit a brick wall - why would I even want to know, was the reply.

It made me realise how far my own thinking has moved over time, how large the gap is between me and some of these folk (I've always been interested to read about other faith traditions) and how narrow-minded and terrified are some parts of the Christian church.  If, as we claim, Christ is Lord and has defeated all that is false, what scares us so much?

One more Lent study to go - it has on the whole been good and I hope people have gained from it.

The next few days will bring a break from routine - and a couple of days are technically 'off' but a bit of a bus drivers holiday if truth be told.

This photo is almost ten years ago - which is decidedly scary!  It was taken at the last GB Camp (though they're now called residentials apparently) that I led in 1999 when we went to Scarborough.  Don't you just love the traffic warden outfit!

I have been looking back at various GB photos because this weekend I will be in Northampton for the 75th anniversary of the company my sister and I belonged to as girls.  Both of us trained as leaders but whilst she escaped I seem to be a lifer having now done all but 28 years as an adult leader (various ranks at various times, including the now defunct 'Commandant' which used to raise titters among my work colleagues for same strange reason!!) and still going strong.

So, after the EMBA Association half-day on Saturday, I will driving south for a social-evening gathering of 'old girls' where I hope to meet up with various retired leaders as well as my peers.  I'm led to believe one or two drop by here occasionally, so maybe I'll see you there?

Sunday afternoon is a special thanksgiving service and parade - meeting outside the house where we used to live and marching behind the BB band to the church.  All very nostalgic!  And judging from the church's website nothing much has changed physically in the chapel since I left there in 1981 to go to university, though the list of services and activities is VERY different.  I have the privilege of reading in the service and it will be a happy honour, remembering an important stage in my own faith story and why I still remain committed to this organisation so many years later.

After that, Monday is the EMBA's quiet day for ministers led by BU president Revd Dr John Weaver.  I will be travelling with a good friend (of ten years) from nearby D+6 where she is a specialist minister for older people.  I am looking forward to a good chat there and back, some space to be still and receive, and some renwed energy for the next relentless round of services and pastoral needs.

I'm not sure it exactly counts as a rest, but it will be a change and I am looking forward to it.

Last night at Girls' Brigade we started to move towards Easter with a fun evening of different activities which the girls moved around until they'd all done all of them.  So we had a table of puzzles and word searches, a table with colouring, a table of craft with funky foam and a table of cutting out.  All things our girls enjoy.  But before we began we talked through the tag end of Lent to see if we could work out the calendar of Sundays and other special days between us.  Quite entertaining really.

So I asked what last Sunday was and then what next Sunday is.  Up went the hands 'Easter Sunday' (good try but not yet) 'Palm Sunday (closer but still not yet) 'Father's day' (unfortunately that one isn't for ages yet, it's in June)... It begins with a 'P'... 'It is Palm Sunday then!'  (honestly it's not).  So I explained that it was called Passion Sunday (unless you're a Catholic, which some of our girls are, who call Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday...) the day when Jesus began his last journey towards Jerusalem.

Then we moved on to Palm Sunday.  What happened then?  Another flurry of hands and those frustrating waves and squeaks that mean 'me, me ask me' (which like all mean adults I ignore).  'It was a day when Jesus walked into Jerusalem with a donkey and all the women put their coats on the ground and the children had those, um, like branches, yeah, branches' (excellent answer, well done).  Wave, wave, squeak: 'no it weren't.  He, like sent two of them to get a donkey what had never been rode before and all the people shouted and waved branches' (yes, very good, that's mostly what "Jane" said isn't it, so you're both right really).

Now, what other special days come before Easter Sunday?  There's one that begins with 'M'... Mau.... 'Monday?'  It does sound a bit like Monday doesn't it.  Maundy Thursday.  So we talked about the Queen and Maundy money and rich/powerful people serving poor/powerless people because Jesus has washed his friends' feet and told them to do the same sort of thing.

After Thursday comes... 'Good Friday' and we mentioned the cross and that sadness - thankfully no one asked why it was called 'Good'

Then comes 'Easter Sunday?'  (no, not quite, there's a day in between) ... Saturday?  What happened on Saturday?  Puzzled looks.  A waiting day - some people call it Holy Saturday some say Easter Saturday but it's a day we have to wait between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

So what comes next?  Every hand goes up, eager faces longing to answer... 'Jesus comed alive again' (is that right?  All round the table are earnest nods)  A few hands remain up 'and we get Easter eggs,' 'and I eat one bite a day of mine,' 'and I get ten Easter eggs,' 'and I get ten hundred' (yes, it's a happy day isn't it and so good to celebrate).

Will they remember any of what we said?  Who knows.  Did I have fun?  Yes.  I love the awful grammar and muddled tenses (though often highly logical) of small children.  I love the 'Jesus comed alive again' response, as if this was the most natural thing in the world for him to do.  And I even don't mind the elision of Easter and chocolate if it means they see it as a day of celebration.  I of course will buy myself one Fairtrade Easter egg which will do well to survive much past lunch time on Easter Sunday, and look forward to being surprised again by what this season brings.

Now - time to check on the soup for my Lent prayers, average age about 80, and a different kind of fun and fellowship...