Sometimes a blog is useful just as a space to dump stuff that is unprocessed or even trivial but is 'better out than in.'

It's been an odd week.  So far I driven about 450 miles, I have about another 250 tomorrow.  I have seen a lot of motorway, burned a lot of diesel and listened to a fair amount of Radio2 and Classic FM.  I have seen lots of people, some I know well, some I met for the first time, and have talked about all manner of things to do with church life and ministry.  At the time of typing I have just concluded a deacons' meeting that was blooming hard work.  As I closed the door and banged my head (gently) against the wall, I reflected that I'd almost prefer a 'bad' deacons meeting to a turgid one.  Sorry lovely deacon-type people, I know you are all tired and stressed and probably would rather have stayed home with a bottle of wine than signed umpteen legal documents and talked about all the things that are struggling due to lack of personnel.

The thing that has troubled me most today was the man who was killed in a queue in Sainsbury's.  I can't quite get my head around how two families went out to do their shopping, and now all their lives are irrevocably changed.  Clearly neither of them went out to pick a fight, and neither went out to kill or be killed.  Now one man lies in a mortuary and the other has been arrested for his killing.  I have a mental image of orange plastic carrier bags, dented tins, broken glass and spilled milk strewn across a shop floor as some kind of grotesque marker of what happened.  I find myself needing to pray for both families.  And I am left with an unanswerable question of how someone can go out to do their food shop and end up killing someone else.  This man's life, too, is in tatters, his dreams destroyed, his future redefined.  It's one of those situations that drives you to the psalms in search of words to express the questions to which you know you will not find answers.

I still haven't started on my essay re-write - it's scheduled to start on Saturday, so I hope for a good productive day.  So still not much posting for a while longer.  Whilst I can honestly say I haven't exactly missed posting, it is also good to know that this channel is here should I need somewhere to dump stuff.  It has also been good over the last few days to put faces to few more of you loyal readers and connect up a few more of the dots in this weird family of Baptists!

My Dad used to say of people who spoke twaddle that they 'opened their mouths and their bellies rumbled.'

I have a feeling I have been rumbling quite a lot recently, mainly because I'm totally whacked and more than a little brain dead.  So, I'm going to take a break from posting for a while until I have a bit more energy AND more importantly have a fit for purpose essay to submit at the end of June.

I don't think I'll manage to quite as sporadic as some of my 'betters' (if not elders!) in posting but I feel a bit of 'me time' doing not a lot is of greater important at the moment than the fun and insights I get from blogging.

So, for a little while their will be less rumbling from this corner of blogland!

Today I needed diesel for my car and it was 130.9p a litre.  Ouch.  Evidently we have the dearest fuel in Leicestershire.  I pity those who get paid around minimum wage and still have to travel to work by car and those who live in remote areas where filling stations have no competition to limit the prices.

FHB - family hold back - a phrase I first encountered in the North West but which I am led to believe originates from the West Midlands.  The BSS is our next outreach event - The Big Summer Sing, a songs of praise style invitation service to be followed by a 'strawberry tea'.  I'm not entirely sure what the latter is, since the butties seem to be the same as for any other tea; the defining quality seems to be the dish of strawberries and evaporated milk that follows.

Yesterday I was chivvying up our lunch club folk to pick their hymns as I had only one request - for 'Abide with Me'; perennially popular, guaranteed to flood the place with tears and inevitably linked to funerals.  By the time I left I had 17 hymns and songs - far too many for one service.  So, what to do?  In the end I decided to go with the FHB approach, and start with those chosen by non-church people and then add in one or two chosen by church folk who don't normally pick hymns.  In the end I have eight, plus a recording of 'You raise me up' (is that a hymn?) for the BSS.  Then the Sunday afterwards we will have 'BSS-2: family favourites' using the songs and hymns requested by church folk.  Not sure we'll have strawberries two weeks running, but maybe I can persuade someone to make us some scones or cakes for family tea?

A nice problem to have - and we will quietly lose 'Abide with Me' from the running order, as those who asked for it subsequently put in a further request...

Every now and then a minister will, tongue in cheek, cite 1 Timothy 7:!7 which, in the KJV, so it must be right (!), says, 'Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine' as the reason by he or she (usually he, it has to be said) ought to be paid more or given more time off.  It is certainly the case that when I talk to people outside church they are often shocked to discover what ministers are paid.  I'm not complaining, I knew what I was getting into, and compared to some in this country, never mind overseas, I am comfortably off.  But this text came back to mind last night at our churches together meeting, at which I was the only minister present, and the chairperson said to my people 'I hope you're paying her well, she's worth two.'  Well, I guess compared to the experience of our Methodists who get one fifth of a minister, maybe I am.

And then I got thinking about why most ministers are so bad at receiving compliments and why, on the whole, we are so bad at showing our appreciation for/to them.  This week has felt very strange because the compliments have been flooding in - well there've been about half a dozen anyway - but all of them have come from outside my own fellowship.  So why is that?  Why is it easier to say something encouraging to those outside our churches (or families) than those inside?  Is there a sense of taken-for-grantedness that means we no longer see how blessed we are?  Is it because it is easier to see the failings of those we know better?  Or is it that we see ourselves as the employers of these people and that you just don't thank people for doing what they're paid to do?  (Though my experience in industry was that I did get thanked for doing what I was paid to do...) 

So, where does this leave me?  I think I have to learn to be better at accepting praise when it comes, and some of it this week has been quite amazing.  And I think that we as churches need to learn to be a little more open in expressing our appreciation of those whose work is to labour among us 'especially preaching and teaching'.  Perhaps if we could manage two compliments to every one criticism, our ministers (and others) would all feel more valued.

As an aside, this week I heard that having a 'A' level in Maths should boost your earning potential by an average of 10% over a lfietime.  Since I have one - and some degree level maths as well - maybe I can claim to deserve 2.2 times the honour?!