In a little over a week's time I have been invited to attend a service where my new Anglican colleague will be 'collated and installed.'  Does that amount to 'sorting her out' then 'plugging her in'?  Glad we just get inducted!

Last night I was bemoaning the number of requests I've been getting to conduct funerals - I *could* have been (am not) doing four this week.  I said to the person, 'I wish all these people would stop dying.'

Her reply? 'Well, have a word with your boss then!'

Hmmm.

Next Wednesday I will be conducting a funeral for one of the local Baptist lay-preachers. Nothing especially odd about that, except that he was 101 years old and only last year conducted his own wife's funeral!

This man was born the same year as one of my grandmothers, and I have to try to think into her story to try to connect with his.

I am promised a full church (D+1) and a congregation where I'll almost undoubtedly be the youngest by a couple of decades.  It is certainly a strange mixture of privilege and challenge, and I am grateful for various press cuttings and copies of family writings to inform the eulogy.

One thing I've learned from this experience is the odd blend of help and hindrance that letters stating requirements for funerals are!  This person had left a letter dictating that an early morning private cremation should be followed by an afternoon celebration service - including exact times and venues!  It is not possible to meet these exacting requirements (for logistical reasons) and the real pastoral needs of surviving relative who will have travelled considerable distances to attend have to trump what was stated.  So, after a fairly traditional service, I will accompany the coffin to the crematorium, freeing the relatives to meet and mingle with those who knew, so much better than they, this old lay preacher.  Maybe I'm odd, but whilst my theology says what I'm accompanying is a dead body, my heart won't let me let him go to this last 'appointment' alone - the commendation words will be spoken in church, echoed at the crematorium, and I will, in faith, commit the mortal remains to the elements in 'sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life in Christ our Lord.'

And then, of which I think he'd approve, I will dash off to lunch club to play 'Father Christmas' (mother?  elf?) to our wrinklies.

I have recently been given a sum of money in my capacity as 'Baptist 'Vicar' of Dibley' (as distinct from to me as a person, even though the reality is that it is mine to use as I see fit, no questions asked).  I'd like to use some of it to purchase some Biblical commentaries to augment my woefully inadequate library.  The tempation is to opt for buying several from one of the popular series, so that I could get a little closer to the aim of one day having a commentary on every book of the Bible (beyond the couple of one volume things I already have).  I already have three or four commentaries on each of the gospels, so am not really looking for these.  But, if you could recommend one, reasonably priced (up to about £25) commentary that's fairly middle of the road theologically and suitable for use by preacher with a smattering of Greek vocabulary and no Hebrew, what might it be?  I'm after the kind that cover a single book of the Bible or at most a small inter-related set.  I'd rather buy less, better, commentaries than a 'bumper fun book of the Bible.'

This morning I was at a  funeral, supporting one of my church members whose mother-in-law died a week a go.  Because I was there in my official capacity I was 'vicared up.'  What I hadn't anticipated was people's ignorance of ecclesiastical issues...

I arrived at the church and met a piper who was there to play a lament as the family entered the church (the deceased originated in Ayrshire and had held fast to her roots).  He asked me if I knew what was happening, and I explained it wasn't my church, so I was sorry, I couldn't help him.

I walked around the building looking for an entrance and met someone else who said, 'can you tell me where to go in.'  Same explanation.

Having got inside a third person came and asked me if I had the key for the toilets which were, evidently, locked.  Once more I explained that this wasn't my church, so I couldn't help.

You might be thinking this is all my own fault for looking like a 'vicar' when it's not a funeral I'm taking - but the crazy part is that this was a Roman Catholic church.

So, you may now all address me as Mother Catriona, if it helps... or not.

Not having been at a funeral Mass since my RC placement days, I'd forgotten the jack-in-the-box way that priests appear and disappear from the side door of the church, and was struck by how 'wrong' it felt that there was no one to greet the mourners as they arrived and lead them into church (excepting the undertakers of course).  The coffin had been brought in the night before (RC tradition in some places) and if seemed really weird to watch everything going on around it as people arrived.

Managing to speak to my church member fleetingly after the service before I dashed back for lunch time prayers, she said she was glad I was there to sing - as hardly anyone else did!

I struggle with requiem masses whereby the mourners are excluded from communion because they don't 'tick the boxes' whilst total strangers file past them to receive.  I struggled with the noise of a woman loudly telling her rosary before the service began - not because I have a problem with telling rosaries (in principal I don't, even if I wouldn't say the 'hail Mary's') but because it felt a bit of a 'show.'  Above all it made me think once more about the funerals I take and how they might 'feel' to non-Baptists, never mind non-Christians.

The priest seemed a kindly and caring man, and I'm sure he offered the very best he could.  When I conduct my first RC funeral mass it will be very different!!! ;-)

Now I just have to handle some very naughty undertakers who have committed me to take a funeral without even consulting me to see if I'm free.  It is only pastoral sensitivity that means I'm going to do it - I don't see why the families should suffer - but it's not on.