This has been my week - Warrington to Dibley on Sunday, Dibley to Manchester Tuesday, Manchester to Dibley Wednesday, Dibley to Manchester Thursday, Manchester to Dibley Friday.  I have seen an awful lot of the A50 (also the A34, A500 and M1 - the latter because it is faster than the A511).  In between times, I have enjoyed some wonderful papers on theology in relation to sport, poetry, 24/7 news reporting, the novel/film 'Atonement', the significance of Biblical cosmology to hymnody in a post Copernican world, church meeting in the light of relational trinity, girls in the Bible and other things I have already forgotten the titles of!  My own paper was very generously received - depsite my being horrendously nervous!  It was a good time - even allowing for all the travelling associated with funeral arrangements for next week.

I'm not quite sure what you'd call what follows, which is a bit stream of conscious, and is a kind of prayer/poem type thingy. All I do know is I am gateful to God who has allowed and enabled me to do what I have done this week - finding joy and encouragement, offering support and care, being the mad woman from Dibley and a flawed disciple of Christ.

God of the A50

Tarmac, concrete, white lines

Cars, lorries, vans - even a bike

Onwards

Onwards

Derby to Stoke

God of the A50, I travel with you

Race course, prison, JCB

Services, churches, stadium

Onwards

Onwards

Journey of life

God of the A50, travel with me

Now faster, now slower

Roundabouts, lanes

Traffic lights

Filters

Directions and signs

God of the A50, accompanying me

Entry slips, exits slips

Strangely names towns

People whose lives

Momentarily cross mine

God of the A50, travel with them

In joy and in sorrow

Beginning and end

Onwards

Upwards

Outwards

Downwards

Inwards

Earthwards

Heavenwards...

God of the A50, forever, Amen.

Back north tomorrow to resume my 'leave' after two days of urgent pastoral and administrative work (why do solicitors charge us so much when they can't read the instructions that say I'm away for 3 weeks and please would they send the stuff to someone else instead?!  Now I've spent half a day sorting out the stuff they needed and getting it posted; grrrr).  However, two of my lovely folk just took me out for tea on the basis my fridge would be empty, so that was a real treat.

Anyway, tomorrow I will be enoying the company of other Bappies doing theology, about which you can find out more here.  I just wish that the one paper I think I really like the sound of wasn't running at the same time as mine...., ah well.

Many thanks to Julie and Angela who "nominated" me for this award!  Please conisder yourselves awarded it in return - but then it all gets a bit circular, so I'll conjure up another seven to nominate 'officially'!!

For the nominees here are the rules:
1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

So, my seven nominations, are, in no particular order (drum beat at approximately human heartbeat speed, pause of around 20 seconds, camera pans across faces of anxious bloggers trying to smile while their eyes assume the gaze of a rabbit about to mown down by a juggernaut.....)

ASBO Jesus

Wonder and Wondering

Living Wittly

A Sideways Glance

Sean the Baptist

Lama's Log

RevJev

I'm trying to decide whether this thing is all a bit incestuous or narcissistic or both (all of these blogs are listed in my sidebars...) but it's a bit of fun on a dull Bank Holiday Monday when I am unexpectedly back at work!! Now I just need to leave those seven comments....

Offa's Dyke - fantastic!  Twelve day's hard slog up hill and down dale but amazing views and some real laughter along the way.  Will say more when I'm back from leave -and my sprained ankle is better (did it on day 2, the doctor said 'take painkillers and see how you go...).  But here just to prove I did it, is a picture of me at Prestatyn yesterday afternoon!

I am still on leave - honestly, I am not here, this blog is still hibernating for another week.  But I need to note this down.

7:15 a.m. yesterday, I am at a B&B in the middle of nowhere in Wales, a phone call to let me know one of my congregation - one of the younger ones - had 'a few days' to live.  I intended to drive down after my guest preach in Warrington today to say farewell to her.

7:15 a.m. today, I am at a friend's house, another call to let me know she had died less than an hour earlier.

10:30a.m. today I am leading the guest service which includes these words of Jesus from Luke 9:60 "let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."  It is hard, very hard - but that's the whole point of the sermon: discipleship costs, and costs dearly.  My task was to preach on disicpleship... only then could I drive south to be pastoral.

3p.m. I stand before a weeping congregation and lead them in prayer giving thanks for our sister-in-Christ and seeking God's strength and comfort for her family, before handing over to the visiting preacher.

4p.m. I leave the family home, having shared memories and smiles, having prayed with husband, children, parents.

Sometimes we seek signs of God's calling, sometimes we wonder if we are still in tune with God's will - today I felt acutely what it means to deny self, take up a cross and follow, wherever he leads.

The LORD gives and the LORD takes way - blessed be the name of the LORD.

JM RIP. 

Thanks J & J (and others) for practical and prayerful support over the last 24 hours.