Our lunch club is three years old today - not to the date but to the relevant Wednesday of the month.  At our first lunch we had 24 folk and went to a pub, subsidised the meal from church funds and took a lot of flack from some church members.  Today we had 69 people in a garden centre restaurant, a subsidy from social services for meals and transport, shared news of a forthcoming organ recital and opened bookings for our Christmas Dinner.

We've come a long way in three years. Around a hundred people have been to our lunches, we've been to the seaside, to garden centres, to craft centres and to places of culture.  We have even managed to get most members to at least one church service along the way (bribing with food works wonders!).

God has been good to us, and we are pleased to continue reaching out in love and friendship to people who are lonely or isolated.

Last Sunday I preached on the call of Moses (Exodus 3 and 4, long readings for a Sunday!) and noted that God became very angry when Moses said "oh but I can't..." I came away challenged to consider my own tendency to self-deprecation (is that a Christian thing?  A girl thing?) and felt as if God was saying "thou shalt not run thyself down" (God, it seems, does still sometimes speak KJV English!).  So I'm trying ... (very, oops. done it again).

But then today I was re-reading Matthew 16:24 - 28 and the call to 'deny self' and, even as I type the words of one of the epistles (it's good enough for Paul and Jesus to say 'it is written', so it's good enough for me...) 'consider others better than yourself', have forced me to ponder a little more deeply.

This is what I think - have thought for ages, even if I'm not too good at the practice of it - we should have an honest view of ourselves, recognising that we have worth in Gods eyes, that we are indeed 'fearfully and wonderfully made.'  We should rejoice in what we are good at, but never become vain or arrogant.  We should be honest about what we are not good at, never pretending we better than we are.  We should have a good sense of self-worth, not consider ourselves miserable worms, but never become self-obsessed.

Churches, for some reason, seem to be places where this healthy balance is especially hard to find.  Some of us find ourselves constantly criticised and put-down, even when we have worked hard and done our best.  Some of us - probably very few - find that everything we do is celebrated as wonderful even when it isn't.  There is a balance to be struck, and Christian niceness and Ecclesiastical negative-critical comments are not it.

So, I will try harder not to run myself down, to receive and absorb the compliments I receive and not to be squashed by careless negatives. At the same time, I will continue to affirm and encourage others - whilst trying not to fall into the trap of failing to acknowledge that which is not good for what it is.

I think this means finally conceding I'm a competent theologian and half-decent minister as well as a mighty fine risk assessor!

I have just taken delivery of this book which looks really interesting, relevant to what I am researching, and in that delightful way of all my past endeavours to research anything, looks as if someone else has already done what I want to do!  There is a link between independence of thought and novelty/originality I have yet to fully understand, but I think it is, generally, OK to discover as new something others have already found, if only because it gives the discoverer a greater sense of ownership of the ideas.  Well, that was my reasoning when I realised that Fibernacci had already discovered the numerical sequence I found/invented as an 8-year old!

Essays in the book include:

Between "Romance" and "True History": Historical Narrative and Truth Telling in a Postmodern Age (Shirley A Mullen)

History in Search of Meaning: The Conference on Faith and History (D G Hart)

Whose Story, Which Story?  Memory and Identity among Baptists in the South ( Bill J Leonard)

Decoding Conflicted History: Religion and Historiography in Northern Ireland (Ronald A Wells)

Doing Justice to History: Using Narratvie Frames Responsibly (G Marcille Frederick)

I think I will enjoy reading this book, even if I keep saying 'drat, I thought I thought of that.'  At least if I do, I'll know I'm not totally off the wall! Even if it turns out I'm ten years behind the times...

History and the Christian Historian ed. Ronald A Wells, Cambridge, Eerdmans, 1998

Yesterday when I got back home after the funeral, I discovered that one of the wheel trims from my car was missing.  This is annoying, and because it looks odd, and I don't like odd, I will be on the look out for a replacement.  But what I really don't get is 'why'?  Why, oh why, does someone want a scuffed Citroen Saxo wheel trim?  There are some odd people out there, that's all I can deduce!

Of course, had they nicked all four, it would match and I'd be annoyed but not unbalanced!!

Familiar words: "I can do all things through [God] who strengthens me"

This morning I headed for to D+2 to set up everything for the funeral, and all was fine.  Indeed all was fine until people started to arrive half an hour before the service and I started to offer hugs to weeping people; then it suddenly all felt difficult and I wondered, would I get through.  Mere professionalism isn't always enough. As the minutes ticked by and service time approached, I paused to think of the many, many people I knew were praying with and for me.  As the hearse drew up I felt calm, in control and assured that all would be well.  And it was.

Yesterday I preached on the call of Moses, and reflected on Moses' denial of his own natural, God-given abilities, and God's anger at Moses' arrogance/self-deprecation (whichever it was).  I commented that God only calls us to things we can do, and that usually our natural abilities connect with that.  Perhaps I was, as are all the finest sermons, preaching to myself?

All I know is that in some way - mystery in its true expression - God took away the anxiety and replaced it with peace, authority and compassion just when it was needed.  And for that I am truly thankful.