working the soil

The end of another week. And a mixture again, today, of relaxation and preparation.

Well, that's if you can call a heavy shift of digging in the front garden a dose of relaxation! But I guess what I was doing with the soil was in some ways what I was also doing with my soul.

Turning things over and breaking things down and getting things ready to generate life.

I also watched some rugby - and got myself engrossed in seeing the to-and-fro encounter between Wales and Fiji! But I had to miss the Scotland match (probably not that good for the nerves anyway!) as I was back to the business of working the soil of God's Word. Hard at the preparation once again.

shadows of grief

The service at the crematorium in early afternoon kind of straddled the whole of the day.

It somehow casts its shadow both forward and back. At least it feels like that. It feels like being under a cloud all the day.

I'd done the preparation through the night: which I often prefer to do. It always takes a good few hours to learn from God his word for the occasion and to work up the address. And it's best to have those hours all in a one-er: and I find as well it often works quite well to do it late (last thing) at night. No one's around and there aren't any calls and my mind is quite often in a fairly creative mode.

But because it's late at night, I always like to check it through when morning comes. So the first part of the day today was spent on simply putting final touches to it all. Feeling my way once again right into the heart of the grief. I like to speak from very much 'inside' the grief and pain, instead of being some unaffected, cool-as-ice observer looking on.

And that's the reason why, I guess, there's always such a shadow cast right back across the morning hours before the service is being held.

I try to get on with other things - and to some extent manage to do so. But the shadow of that grief is always there: and makes it hard.

The same as well in the aftermath. I worked some more on the coming Sunday's services. But the 'shadow' was there and that makes it slow and hard.

The service itself saw over a hundred people gathered there. A shame really that it was the smaller 'Cloister' chapel that they'd chosen, since it only seats some 60 or so at most.

Maybe they'd thought there wouldn't be that many there. Though for an active young man of just 41, with a whole range of hobbies and so many folk who'd been touched by his life, it was hardly very likely that the numbers would be small.

Perhaps it was just that his widow preferred it small: sort of wanted to hide away and just be by herself. I don't know. Desperately hard for her. And for them all.

It's hard to tell in a service like that just what is getting through. So many folk with little or no ostensible faith. The 'shadow' of death is somehow all too real when that's the situation.

There seems to be an all-pervasive heaviness, a certain sort of emptiness, which simply echoes round and round the bleak despair and hopelessness attached to all the grief.

And so, as I say, it's hard to know how much gets through. But I've long since learned to leave that to the Lord. He gave the words to say: I'm sure of that. It's up to him just how those words are used.

But I pray there was some comfort and some help.

exodus

One of the big advantages of seeing a person day on day, is that conversation starts to flow quite easily.

Douglas the janny's a case in point.

I was into the school again today. Briefly, over coffee time. And mainly to fix up a meeting with one of the teachers, Chris, about starting an SU group in the school.

But I bumped into Douglas and, the very next thing, he was chatting away about Moses and Egypt and how the Red Sea had been parted. I mean, he just started on about it all!

He'd been watching a programme, he said, which showed that the whole thing was true. Something about there being a huge explosion from a massive big volcano on one of the Greek islands - which resulted in the parting of those waters far away.

So it actually happened, he said. He seemed really quite excited!

Of course, he said, they didn't have a clue back then about these Greek volcanoes or the like and so they simply saw it as an act of God.

And so do I!, I intervened.

It was hard to get a word in even edgeways, he was so much on a roll! And all of this in what's, in truth, a very public place. Right in the reception space, with pupils there and all the secretarial staff at hand.

And there we were, discussing all these miracles and how it can be just the very timing of a thing which makes events a mighty act of God.

That fleeting conversation was itself, I thought, indicative of just that sort of thing. The acts of God today - and every day. His being at work in people's lives and in our daily, routine interacting with them all.

God at work, a sort of exodus again.

That's how it feels for me, at least, these days. An exodus of sorts. The Lord at work to lead me out and on towards a 'better' land - in terms of what it is to follow Jesus Christ and be the sort of minister he calls me to become.

Being in at the school and chatting with Douglas like that (a fleeting five minutes at most), was just another instance of that 'exodus' that's mine.

(Not, I hope, in the sense that I'm on the way out!)

A meeting at night was reflective of the same. It centred on a venture which, in many ways, is all about this 'exodus': this going out of Egypt, the 'land' which is the building-centred, Sunday-centred, worship-service-centred view of 'church' we've been familiar with for donkeys' years - and travelling to a fertile, new 'terrain', a different way of being and doing church.

It's about creating a 'place', a warm, creative, 'credible' environment, at the heart of community life, in the midst of a thoroughfare right in the centre of town, where ... Well, that was the question, I guess.

What is this place meant to be? What are we trying to do? What is the word of the Lord for this place at this time?

An exodus of sorts, though the contours of the land to which we're called by God are not entirely clear as yet. But it helped to be able to talk, to sense in our midst the presence of God himself, and to know that he'll show us the way.

Greek island volcanoes, or acts of God. It doesn't really matter how you think of it! As long as he opens the road and shows us together the way!

It was nearly 10 by the time we were done - and another sort of exodus still beckoned me.

Preparing the words that I'd say at the service tomorrow, the service of thanks for the life of the young man who'd died, who'd taken his life.

Hard. I needed time and space. Alone and in the dark.

I sometimes prefer to take time through the night to prepare for a service like that. So it was late (or early, depending how you see the thing!) before I was done for the day.

But I got what I'd say all prepared and typed up. And I've sensed through these hours that the words that I'll speak will become for this family a word from the Lord to their hearts.

An exodus again. A dark, traumatic night of dreadful death. And yet, perhaps, a new beginning, too.

And deep within it all, in ways that we will doubtless never grasp, an act of God.

knowing my way around

The lady at reception asked a rather probing question. Do you know your way around?

I was up over lunch at the Church of Scotland offices. Sort of moral support for one of our folk who's been called by the Lord to the 'ministry of Word and Sacrament'.

The lady at the desk was pleasant as could be. She certainly didn't mean to be probing at all. She was just doing her job.

And more or less assuming, since I'd told her who I was, that I would know the place.

I had to confess that, no, I didn't really know the place at all. Which I think rather shook her!

And (as an illustration, on a deeper plane, of where I'm at) it sort of shook me, too. Realising that I didn't really know my way around this church so well these days. Not feeling quite as much at home as maybe once I did.

The question that the lady there politely asked contrasted with another probing question that I faced today as well.

This time from the 'janny' at the primary school.

It's been a week 'choc-ful' of schools. I'm along at the Royal High (the secondary school) each morning this week, first thing: speaking at the year-group assemblies which they hold from time to time. It involves a fair amount of concentrated preparation since it's morning after morning: and it's different each time, of course.

But I'm glad of the chance to be there and given the chance to speak.

Today, though, it was one swift chase to get from there along the road to make it to the upper school assembly at the primary school in time. When that was done, I was leaving the school when the janitor passed on the street.

See you next week! he said (he's a friendly guy!).

Next week? I said. I'm back in less than an hour! (being Wednesday, it was the next in the series of lessons I have with the P5 classes).

I think he was taken aback just a bit. Understandably, I suppose.

Are you wanting my job, or something? he asked with a laugh.

And it crossed my mind later on that I knew my way around this place, this context for my doing and being 'church' - I knew my way around this place far better than I knew the actual church's offices up town.

Obviously, in some ways. But it served as a picture of the change in stress and emphasis that the Lord has been slowly effecting.

This is where it happens. Here in the village, here at the school. The constant intersecting of my life with those of people here throughout the whole community.

It's here that I feel most at home. When I'm out on the streets and in people's homes, engaging with folk relationally.

Like the P5 classes I had again today. This was the last time that I'd be in with them meanwhile (next week they're along with us here in our halls). The topic to be covered was 'the sacraments'.

What a great time we all had! I took them through both baptism and communion and we fairly had some fun! I think they got the picture, too, and gained a better understanding of just what it's all about.

Then at the end, I said it was like Jesus with his friends, how he wanted to leave them a way of remembering him.

I explained how it was not the last supper today, but the last class that I would have with them in school meanwhile. How I'd really enjoyed these times and hoped that they had, too.

And how I wanted to give them a way of remembering the things that they'd learned. So I'd got something for them. For each of the classes.

I gave each class a plant and asked them what they'd need to do. Water it! they cried as one.

Exactly. We'd thought about water a lot when working on what baptism meant.

So I simply said that every time they watered the plants I'd like them to remember me and what it was I'd taught them these last weeks.

The life God gives. The love he shows. The person and event.

It's not so much the janny's job I want. It's more the chance to be among the children as he is each day: it's that I so enjoy. It's that I really want.

And it's there, far more than in the corridors of any sort of institutional church, it's there I feel I know my way around.

friends

Do I have any friends at the church?

That was one of the questions asked of me today when I was in with the P4 classes this afternoon.

It was a question and answer session. Part of the course they were doing on the Christian faith. And in finding out about ministers, vicars, priests, or any other name you care to choose and use, they thought it would be good to quiz a real live example.

Find out what a minister is (a servant - of God and people) and does (how long have you got?).

And what it's like (great!). And when did I decide that I'd become a minister (I didn't: it was God who made the call). And what I like best about being a minister (the chance to be involved with people, old and young alike) - and least (meetings which are a waste of time). And what's my favourite wedding (my son's!). And a whole load more of brilliant and imaginative questions.

It was great. An hour simply flew by. I love such times. The children are just so full of enquiry and want to know it all.

But the question which stuck in my mind was the one about my having friends. As if my being a 'minister' might somehow preclude me from being friends with folk.

So I tried to correct such notions as that by stressing how from the start the thing is simply all about our being friends. Being friends with Jesus. And then, as such, enjoying being friends with one another.

That's what it's all about, I said. So, yes, I have loads of friends at the church - because that's just what we are.

From there I went to the crematorium to conduct a service of thanksgiving for the life of an older .. well, 'friend' I should say (in the light of all the above!).

Except there weren't that many friends assembled there at all. In fact, there weren't that many folk full stop. Nine of us in all, I think. Some friends in Christ. And some who'd offered friendship to her in the care that they extended through her latter years.

It's sad when that's the case. Not how it's meant to be at all.

Relationships. That's Jesus' prime concern. It's there that he invested all his energies and time.

I'm slowly learning that. Trying to make time and give time to people.

Tonight's been the same. People. Not least the family of the man who'd died. His wife and children: his parents and brother: his mother- and father-in-law. All of them there. I hadn't met the man who'd died - nor any of his family.

That's always hard. Especially when the man was still so young. Only 41. And especially when he'd taken his own life. What can you say or do?

Nothing. Nothing, I guess, except extend somehow the arms of Jesus' friendship to a family in their grief. Sit with them and grieve with them and share somehow the burden of their pain and loss.

All so very different. The man was a brother and son, a husband and father, and son-in-law, too. Each of them there caught up in a grief that was shared but was strangely uniquely their own.

I often think at times like that it's not at all 'the minister' they want. The minister's just like all the futile paperwork that's got to be filled in: another hoop to go through in the drawing of that line beneath a person's life.

It's surely more a friend they need. But how to be a friend like that when as I ring the bell I'm just a total stranger to them all?

I think that's a part of what made this guy Jesus distinctive, attractive and loved. He approached a total stranger and at once could be their friend. Astonishing really.

But the way I'd like to learn to live myself.

So it was good to be able to end the evening with the couple who've now become friends: the couple whom I'm meeting week by week to chat through what it is to follow Jesus Christ.

A great time with them once again: having a laugh and learning a lot. Do I have friends? Of course I do! Loads of them. And I'm gaining more and more of them all the time!

anything but sorted!

It's strange how often the tone for the week is set by the Lord from the start.

I was thinking ahead to Sunday coming, giving some thought to the message God's meaning to speak. And I was struck by the fact that the church at Corinth was comprised of a whole load of folk whose lives were all messed up no end.

Sometimes I think the trouble with the church today is that the folk all seem so very prim and proper. As though we've got the whole big 'life' thing sorted out.

When, of course, the truth is far from that. Except we hide it well and don't let people see.

End result? We live a kind of double life. The up-front life which all the public see: and the dark and shady 'under'-side which maybe only God alone discerns.

No wonder those who're struggling to make much of life begin to feel there's no way they'd belong among a people quite like that - all smooth and smiles and "everything's-just-fine".

But, in fact, we're not like that at all, we followers of Christ. We're pretty much un-sorted, too, if truth be told (which is surely what it's meant to be!).

So why pretend it's otherwise? Why this huge big cover-up?

I guess because we've largely missed the essence of being followers of Christ. 'Church' is a dusty, dirty building site - and not some classy show-house.

We're all, at best, a bunch of mixed-up learners who've discovered that there's someone there who sees we're not no-hopers and who takes us on as present-day disciples: at best, we're a work in progress. Nothing more.

There was someone in today who's just like that. A lovely girl, with much to give: but like the rest of us, she struggles too and hasn't got it sorted.

Sometimes (as with her) the church itself and the way the church's message is set forth - that only makes things worse! It has for her.

Which is worrying. Or it should be. It's worried me enough (because I've seen the same too often now) to make me stop and think through once again just what the message is and what it really means to be the church today.

People think that I must have it sorted! What a joke!

I read in the summer a book that was called The Ragamuffin Gospel. And I thought to myself, yes, that's me. That's us all. A mixed-up, messed-up crowd of ragamuffin folk - who're simply starting to find that this guy Jesus makes a powerful difference and is slowly changing our lives.

No way have I got it sorted myself! Today just proves the point.

I've been rushed off my feet this last long while. I haven't got those rhythms of a spell of work and then a time of rest - I haven't got that sorted one small bit! And today I've been haring around all over the place again.

Tonight's been one more instance of precisely that.

The Guild were starting up: so there I was, happily so, I have to say, but with a lot of things to do: the bread and wine to be produced, the newly installed sound system to be checked and prepared for its use, my Mum to collect and bring over for the meeting (the folk who usually give her a lift were unable so to do - it was one of those nights!).

But, then, there was a meeting going on in the main worship building as well: people from all over Scotland: a big event. And the speakers there were looking for sound and wanting to use our video projection facilities. So I was rushing back and forth between these different venues, doing my kind of 'roadie' stuff, to get things up and running for them all.

And the car park was filling up and so there was the challenge of creating space and helping people find a space and calming all the anxious, stressed participants attending these two meetings here tonight.

Talk about multi-tasking! And I love the buzz! But I thought it gives a pretty graphic picture of the way I often end up living life. Rushing at the rate of knots with little time to pause and to reflect.

I know, I know. Practise what you preach, you say. But that's the point. I'm no more sorted, fixed or finished than the rest of us who've found in this guy Jesus Christ the one to sort us out.

I'm bit-by-bit, and pretty slowly, getting there. But that's about as far as it has got.

I'm very slowly learning to say a simple, 'No'. I'm very slowly learning to ensure there is the space each day, each week, each month, to leave off all the busy-ness and simply to reflect.

Sure, it's not a thing I can always help. I got a call today about a man in his early 40s who died a few days back. There are visits to be made, a service to be prayed about and carefully prepared. On top of everything else I'd planned.

Such things I can't do much about. And some weeks, I suppose, are just like that. Jesus had such weeks as well.

And so, somehow, he sees me through! That's the most amazing thing. He somehow sees me through and gets me there.

wedding 'bells'!

Every wedding's different!

And some more so than others. Like today's. We started the service eventually a mere 72 minutes later than originally planned - a new record for me!

I don't mean I was that late! In fact I was there about an hour before the thing was due to start. I mean simply that hitherto the longest time I've had to wait for a bride to arrive was bang on the hour mark.

Bride's prerogative, and all that sort of thing. Though this, I would say, was stretching the sense of any such bridal 'prerogative'!

The photographer said, That'll teach you! She'd been along on Thursday night for the usual pre-wedding rehearsal. And I'd told them then, all jokingly, that if they wanted to beat my record, then an hour was the time to beat. I did add that if they planned on that it would be helpful to have some notice!

Well, I did get some notice, to be perfectly fair. Not long after 2pm.

The bride had been caught in a fire alarm along at the Carlton Hotel, where she and her folk had been staying. And of course when that happens, well, you have to get out and they all had to wait 'til the fire brigade came and checked the place out. And, then she had to get dressed. As in kitted out in her bridal dress. Which is hardly the quickest routine!

Given that this was the hotel in town where the reception was due to be held, I hoped (for their sakes) that it wasn't a fire in the kitchens which had triggered the whole escapade!

It makes for lasting memories - that's for sure. And surely that's the way it's meant to be.

Wedding's don't always go quite the way they're planned to go. So I took my cue from the story that John told about the wedding where things didn't go to plan. How Jesus had been present there and how the line his mother took was very much the line we're all to take.

Do whatever he tells you. Words of lasting wisdom from a mother's lips.

It wasn't what I'd planned to say. But then the service as a whole had somehow changed.

Not just because the start had been delayed and timings were thus tighter in a way: but more because the bride herself seemed either very much affected by events, or simply overcome by all her nerves. It was hard to say. I just was aware that things were not as planned. In any sense.

Sometimes it's like that. The need to adjust. To do some pretty major thinking on the spot.

The wedding at Cana's a good case in point. And its lessons are simple and clear: for weddings and everything else.

Make sure that Jesus is there. And then just go ahead and do whatever he tells you. It's a kind of scary, but exciting way to live my life!

connections

We're having a whole new sound system installed at the moment.

In the hall and also in the building that we use for our acts of common worship (I'm loath to call it 'church' - mainly because it's not! So I figure I'd better get out of the habit of calling it that. Leading from the front and all that!).

Anyway, these guys have been around today. I'm getting to know them really pretty well. We've had them here enough across the years.

So one way and another, between the cups of coffee and the need for double checking as to what we really wanted and just how the thing would work, my day's been somewhat stop and start. A bit of preparation then a bit of touching base with these three men.

Two of them I've met before. This time they had another man, another Jim (the guy in charge is also Jim). This Jim (the 'new' one) - he's involved back through in Ayrshire in a local baptist church.

We got chatting away about this and that and it seems that he knows a couple of folk from the fellowship here.

It felt good to be drawing those lines and making connections like that.

And the more I reflected on their being about today, the more it seemed that far from being a tiresome interruption to the solid preparation which I'd planned to do, their presence was itself somehow a sort of sign from God. A kind of symbol or a signpost, a real-life, all-parts-working visual aid.

As if the Lord was teaching me a lesson by directing me to what these men are doing in their daily work.

Connections. That's what they do in their working life.

They make the connections. Their craft is a privilege to watch. I mean, if you saw all the cables and all of the jacks and all of the sockets there are .. well, unless you knew your stuff, you'd have a fit. Or blow a fuse. Or something, anyway!

These guys are good at their work. Making connections.

Connecting the sounds at their source and feeding them on to wherever they're meant to be heard. A pretty graphic picture of the work I'm called to do.

Like the Lord was simply saying to me once again - work at making connections. And make the connections work.

There was someone in, on Tuesday I think, who was saying exactly the same. Connections, she said: that's the word which rumbles round her head these days.

And she's right. Connecting a people with Christ. Connecting those people with people around them as well.

It's back where I started, the theme which has been there all week. The absolute priority of God-infused relationships.

I have to really concentrate my energies on building those relational environments where genuine connections can be made.

let's do death!

"So let's do death next week!"

An interesting line from the P5 teacher when I looked by the school at coffee time again today. Let's do death. I mean...!!

We were chatting through the teaching there's already been these past three weeks (she said she'd learned a lot herself!) and trying to think ahead to what I'd do next week. Mainly because I thought, the way she'd planned the thing, there was really far too much to try and cover in a 'one-er' next time round.

Baptism, communion, marriage and death. We'll not do it all, I said. Something would have to give. So we'll talk about marriage another time, since the sacraments lead on quite nicely to death. In a manner of speaking!

"So let's do death!"

An interesting line. And one that I've thought on all day. Because it is the way that Jesus lived: and it's how he calls us all to follow him in life.

Doing death. And always in the knowledge that we serve a God of resurrecting power. A God who takes those 'deaths' we 'do' and out of them brings new, abundant life.

It was strange how those words have echoed on throughout the day. As if while at the school God gave those words to me as something of a 'marker' for the day ahead.

A couple of very different folk were in to see me through the day: one in the morning, once I was back from the school; and one in the afternoon.

Both at some length; both facing not quite a crisis, but something of a turning point - a hard, perplexing struggle in their circumstances. And they each in their own different context were struggling to know what to do.

"Let's do death!"

Strange how that line has come back to me all through the day! Because, in effect, that's just what the Lord seemed to say, in pointing the two of them forward and onward to all that his future will hold.

And I have to heed the word myself, of course. I, too, will have to 'do death' in the days that lie ahead. I'm not that sure just what it will entail. Except there'll somehow be a fresh release of resurrecting power.

the best days of my life..

Being in at the Primary School for the bulk of the morning made the day seem somewhat short!

But I've been glad again of the chance to be in at the school and the time with the children is always great! I love it.

I was in at the P1-3 Assembly first of all. A case of simply being there, with the chance for casual conversation with just one or two before the thing began. But it's good to be there and see the children at that age so eager and ready to learn.

Like sponges they are. How altogether vital, then, to saturate their minds and hearts with all that's good and true. I don't mind this investment of my time at all.

From there it was on to the P7 pupils to speak about the 'saints'. Well, Scottish ones at any rate. They figured I was an expert (the teachers did), though where they got that notion from I really couldn't tell!

I started by asking the children's thoughts when told they'd be studying saints. Boring was the essence of their varied replies. Predictable, I guess.

So I started off by stressing that these guys, the so-called 'saints' - the last thing that you'd say about these guys was that they were boring!

I told them the story of Columba. Mainly because I'm a fan of the man. I think I'd have liked the guy.

I got quite worked up, which is no bad thing. And I think they sort of sensed that too. I could see them start when I said that the first ever mention of the Loch Ness monster was in the Life of Columba! All of a sudden they were all ears.

Same when I told them Columba had been at Bannockburn when the Scots under Bruce defied the odds and sent proud Edward's army homeward to think again.

Columba at Bannockburn?!? Well, his relics were, or some of them, preserved in the famous brecbennoch. I explained that to them, too.

And I think they began to see the sort of influence a man like this could have. I hope so.

I told them about the way he lived his life, the way he served his Lord, the way he sought to bring to people everywhere a better life by far than that they'd known before. I get fired up even thinking about it now!

Then after the break it was on to Primary 5. Week 3 with them, so I'm getting to know them well. What a lovely crowd they are. And what a chance to teach them what it's all about.

Today it was some 'key concepts' I was to teach them. Now I don't choose these, these are what the syllabus requires. But given that the four 'key concepts' I was asked to teach were gospel, miracle, parable and sacrament, you can see I was hardly about to object!

Talk about an open door!

And every time I walk through one such open door, it seems that other doors appear. Over coffee the P4 teachers came up and asked if I would come in to their classes, too, and tell them what I did. They were finding out what ministers did. So why not check the whole thing out with the genuine article.

Well, I was more than happy to agree to this - though I did make it clear I was hardly your average minister. I mean there are ministers and ministers. And I'm not that sure I'm actually any of them!

So that's next week. I told the Head I thought I'd better bring my own mug in and thereby sort of take up formal residence, I'm in the school that much!

miracles and anagrams

Another exciting day!

Exciting pure and simple because of the awareness of the Lord being at work and of my being somehow caught up in it all. Some days that's just clear as daylight and I think, what a privilege: wonderful. Literally!

I've been praying this past while very particularly that the Lord would start doing the miraculous among us. Evidently so: markedly and remarkably so, as it were. So that people sit up and take notice. And so that it's not something we read about as happening just way back then, or there in other places: but here and now.

It's good news we're meant to proclaim. Not good history. Things that God is doing today as well as what he once was pleased to do. It's always seemed strange to think that we could even try to proclaim good news if we constantly had to qualify it all by saying, of course he doesn't do that sort of thing these days.

That's kind of like our talking about this great and stunning fireworks display, and then admitting we've actually only got a set of damp squibs ourselves.

So I've been praying hard along these lines in recent days. Sure that this is what the Lord is keen to do: and only waits for us to be really open to it all.

(It's scary, after all: we lose control when God is given that sort of free rein).

Anyway, over these last three days four different people have testified to how the Lord has simply worked a miracle in their (or their friend's) lives! Quite remarkable, and thrilling beyond words.

I realised right away when these folk spoke that this was very much God's answer to that prayer. I think I'd kind of thought (or hoped, more like!) that I would be involved (it makes it more impressive, after all, if I'm the one through whom he works like that!).

But miracles are his to do. And I don't mind how he does it or through whom!

(You can see why I find myself excited!).

On top of that today, though, a large part of my time's been spent in speaking with a couple of folk and talking through their present situation under God.

Both friends. I work at that. I aim to be a friend to folk, instead of just their pastor. I figure that's how it's meant to be. What Jesus was.

Both very different, of course. But both had wanted to talk, to toss around their present situation and what it was the Lord was somehow saying to them through it all.

I act like a kind of filter, I suppose. A sounding board. It sometimes seems, as well, a bit like being as Joseph was, an interpreter of dreams. Except it's not dreams as such!

They feed me all the data and under God I try and help interpret it for them. Make sense of what's going on.

It's humbling and scary and awesome and thrilling and .. well, they're often just times when the Lord is so very much there. And we're both as we talk so very much conscious of that.

God the great Creator bringing order once again from all the hopeless chaos of the many different factors in their lives. God casting light upon their lives in quite the most amazing and remarkable of ways.

It's very much another mighty moving of the Spirit of almighty God. Thrilling to see and to share. For it's simply this - he speaks. It's like they hear his very voice.

Almost like some stunning spiritual anagram. All the different letters (comprised by all the circumstances which they're conscious of), but jumbled in their busy minds and lives. And the role that I have is to take those jumbled 'letters', the many varied factors which are coming into play, and figure out the word that God is speaking to their hearts.

The morning was like that, with a lovely young woman whom I've known for ever so long. The afternoon in many ways a replica of that as well, in working through a second time the issues that 'appraisal' at her place of work is in these days affording to this other friend.

How long I was with them I haven't a clue. Time became irrelevant. God was simply there. At work. Speaking to their hearts. Directing and leading them on.

And it leaves me thinking what a massive privilege it is to follow Jesus Christ! Humbling, thrilling: and I wouldn't ever miss it for the world!

relationship with God

Last night I got a text towards the end of the regular weekly meeting for the S4-S6 students.

This was Robin, a fine young man who grew up in the church and now, in his mid twenties, is through in the west. Except last night he was back through here, at the home of his Mum and Dad. Could I call round to the house, he wanted to speak to me.

I know them all well, and it's always a joy to call by: so I rushed on round once the meeting was done and, here, the guy had just gone and got himself engaged. He was there with his girl - sorry (there's a change of status now!) his fiance.

Although they'd only just arrived and broken the news to the family, well, there was already a bit of a party going on (if you knew the family, you'd understand!). And no wonder! She's a lovely girl and .. well, what more do you need in order to celebrate?!

I was thrilled to bits - and all the more when they asked if I'd be the one to marry them! Right chuffed I was.

What was really striking, though, was learning that the very night he'd gone and bought the ring (a solitaire diamond - see, I did look closely!), his mother had woken in the middle of the night with one clear thought - Robin's engaged! I mean really clear.

She knew (before she actually knew, if you get the drift!)

Then today the mother of another friend died. She was up in her nineties (her mother, that is) and a lovely, firm believer in the Lord (her daughter is too) - so she was ready to leave this life and wanted only to be able somehow to live on to the end in her own little home on the western isles. (I mean you would, too, if this was the sort of view you had!)

Her daughter's been there the last few weeks - and that, not least, ensured that her mother's desire was fulfilled.

A very striking instance of an honouring of the fifth of the commandments of the Lord. Honour your father and mother. Well, she's done just that this last long while in regard to her mother up north. A lovely thing to see. And very humbling, too.

It's plainly important to God himself since it's the first commandment with a promise attached.

But again she knew.

That's why she stayed up there, away from her husband and home. She simply knew, with a clarity within her heart, that these were her mother's last days. The Lord let her know.

He does that. He lets his people know what he's about to do.

So a marriage, then a death. And in the afternoon, I was off to see another friend among God's people here, to talk with her about, effectively, her work. Marriage, death, and our working lives. The whole spectrum of life.

It's time for her 'appraisal'. And because, as friends, we've had the chance in months gone by to talk through what it means for her to serve the Lord within the context of her daily work, she said it would be good to have the chance to think through what she might be saying when she meets with her employers face to face.

(She has quite a senior post herself and therefore has at least some small potential to be influencing the way the place is run).

It was good to spend the time with her (and because it was unfinished, I'll be back again tomorrow for part 2!) and talk the whole thing through. But what, again, was striking in it all was simply this - she'd heard God speaking very plainly to her heart on Sunday morning as she listened to the message that I brought.

Like a bolt, it was, she said. Right between the eyes. That clear, that strong, that personal and plain. She knew just what she had to do - and did so straightaway: she came and asked if I would work it through with her. Because the Lord had told her to.

A consistent pattern through all of these? Definitely.

Three major areas of life. Marriage or relationships: death and bereavement: vocation and our daily work.

And in each area, in three very different ways, the Lord revealing to his people in advance what is to be.

A clear, specific dream. A slowly growing burden on the heart. A message as his word is being preached.

The sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plans to his servants the prophets. I didn't make that up! It's there in Scripture (Amos.3.7). That's how God works and acts. And how he relates to his people.

I was pondering the Scriptures this morning again. Thinking ahead to this coming Sunday morning. Thinking about just how believers are described.

And finding this, that God "has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." That's the heart of it all. He's called us into 'fellowship'.

It's a relationship. As simple as that. And basic to that relationship is simply this - he loves to share his heart. So he 'speaks' with us: lets us in on all that's going on: prepares us for the things we'll have to face: directs our paths and helps to orchestrate our sometimes muddled lives.

Amazing when you think of it!

And all he wants by way of our response is that we learn ourselves to share our hearts with him. (I think we get the better side of the deal!)

All that tied in pretty well with where I'm at with the couple who I see each week to talk things through about the Lord. We've been thinking about this relationship with the Lord and how he 'speaks'.

Last week had been helpful, since they'd found first-hand just how the Lord can kind of 'speak'. So we talked tonight about reading the Bible.

Not so much about the reason why - though we touched on that because they could see that plainly Jesus had a balance in his life whereby he took 'time out' and found the time and space to 'listen in' to all his Father had to say.

And they could see that when this Jesus said, 'Follow me', he largely meant just that - you want to live a life like mine? Well, see the pattern in my life? Adopt that pattern yourself. Simple.

So we talked about reading the Bible, we talked about learning to pray. We talked about relationship: how the Lord reveals his heart and how, in prayer, we simply share our hearts with him.

We talked about the way the Lord is always asking questions, and what those questions are. How he starts off by asking 'Where are you?' How it's good to let him know. How he sometimes asks, 'What do you want me to do for you?' (an amazing question!): and how it's good to let him know just what it is exactly that we'd really wish he'd do.

Pour out your hearts to the Lord, said the song-writer, David, long ago. Because that's what the Lord does with you.

Relationship with God. It is just the most wonderful thing!

And I think this couple are starting to see it, starting to try it and starting to find that it's something they wouldn't wish ever to miss!

digging deep

When the weather's fine (and it wasn't too bad today), Saturdays give me the chance to be out for a bit in the garden. There are always things to do!

I've been working away, just bit by bit, in the patch of ground at the front. The north-facing bit, which started as turf (I'm reluctant to say it was ever a lawn!) and then became a breeding ground for a few hundred generations of dandelions - which was fine when we had a tortoise since the beast seemed to love them [the fact that it died is nothing to do with that diet, I hasten to add!].

Latterly even the dandelions seemed to give up in the face of the creeping carpet of moss.

The end result was that that little patch of ground had slowly fallen into a largely lifeless state of horticultural disrepair.

I'm trying to avoid using the word 'mess', but I may as well admit it here and now. Not because of a lack of good intention nor a lack of real endeavour on my part. But, well, as I said before, 'garden' really had to be done a different way.

And I've been thinking again today how apt and very graphic this all is as a picture of the church throughout our land. It has that kind of 'tired' and dull and damp and sort of 'mossy' feel about it half the time - and that despite the well-intentioned efforts over many, many years.

There's a need for a long overdue renewal these days.

Just like that patch of garden at the front.

So that's what I'm doing. It's quite a size of ground and so it'll take a bit of time. But I've got a sort of 'vision' for it now (the garden, I mean - although I have that sort of vision for the church as well!) and I've started doing the digging since I'm going to change the shape of things and make of it the sort of little garden that's appealing to the eye, a garden that is full of life and colour and of variety throughout.

And at the same time, doesn't kill me in the effort of maintaining it!

You can see the obvious parallels! And you can see why my mind is always making these comparisons when I'm out there doing the work!

Last week I put down some Feed & Weed sort of stuff. The sort of thing which has a lovely picture of beautiful green lawns on the front and leads me to think that mine will be the same.

The bits that I want to keep in grass (or see being turned from moss to grass) I treated last weekend. But one week on ... oh, dear, what a mess! I mean it has all the appeal of a building site now. Worse than ever!

However, I've done this before and it came all right in the end. And anyway, I'm an optimist and I'm stubborn, and I've learned to live in hope. So I'm sticking with it and working round it.

And one day, it'll all be pretty good. The garden I've envisioned which demands a second look.

The way I want the church to be as well. Turning eyes. Raising questions. Meeting Christ.

But I guess, sometimes when you start to move towards that end, just like my little patch of garden out the front, it goes from bad to worse, from all that dull, uninteresting moss to dreadful dust and dirt.

I live in hope! And press on with the work. And one day, yes, one day there'll be something here which once again will turn the eyes of everyone around!

reflection

Most of the day's been spent in preparing the message for Sunday morning's worship service.

It's been good to have the chance to kind of 'draw aside' a bit, reflect on all that has been going on, relate that to the Scripture God has laid upon my heart, and hear through all of that just what it is he's saying to us all.

I found it quite striking in this connection that I should receive an e-mail today which spoke about the balance in the life of one of the saints of old, the balance between relationships (being out there with and among the people) and solitude (being away from the crowds and alone with God).

Time for involvement: and time for reflection, too. That was a feature of their lives. And, of course, it was a feature of the life of Jesus himself.

Today was more of the solitude bit for me.

Not entirely, mind, by any means! Dale, the man who serves as 'beadle' at the church, he asked if I would go and get some fuel for the lawnmower here: today's his grass-cutting day. So we went along, he and I, to fill up his container with some petrol from the pumps.

I almost got into trouble for that! I didn't read the notice at the pumps, which says these days you have to show containers to the person at the shop before you even start to fill them up.

This is all the sequel to the Glasgow Airport 'bombing' (well, the attempt at that): any person buying fuel like that is seen to be, potentially at least, a bomber in disguise. I smiled at the thought. I figured that I'd need to take a bit of care just where I joked about my maybe being an arsonist!

And, yes, there was a bit of time as well being spent today on 'managing' the fires I'd accidentally started through the week: fires that have been burning on, albeit now they're pretty much 'contained'. A call or two to try and take the matter on in ways that will advance the work of God.

But even when a fire has been contained, it leaves behind terrain that has been blackened. Things are not the same. I'm aware of that. Not the same for any of those involved. And I feel that for myself as well. It leaves me feeling 'scunnered' with a mindset which seems sometimes like a wholly different planet from the mindset and the outlook and the freed-up, holy living of the Lord.

And I know which planet I'd rather be on!

kindling fires of faith

It's been a day when little bursts of time have seen some major things going on.

A fifteen minute visit to the school achieved a lot again today, for instance.

I took the chance to take the P5 teacher a neatly packaged set of answers to the exercise I'd done with all the children yesterday. I figured coffee time was best and sure enough it proved to be a fruitful time again!

I had another teacher ask me if I'd do a bit for his P7 class. A different theme this time - they were studying 'saints' he said and would I maybe help. I'll happily jump at any such request, and so I'll wait and see just what transpires from that.

It gives another chance for more of this involvement with the children which provides the sort of context where I'm more than just a name and face and get to be a person that they know. And knowing me, I hope they come to recognise and know the Lord himself as well.

It was good, too, to fix a time at the start of next week to be seeing the teacher who's keen to develop an SU group in the school.

And, of course, I had the chance to chat as well with the P5 teacher herself. And the Head. And a couple of other members of staff as well. The talking's always good. For bit by bit they open up and touch on matters other than the superficial stuff which only casual contact brings.

I've been following through as well the 'fire' I accidentally started. I have to say I don't know whether to be stoking this fire or trying to put it out!

It seems so small and petty a thing, I think the Lord must laugh out loud at how ridiculous the rules by which his church is run become.

The 'fire' itself is hardly dying down. According to the rules I can't baptise the children of a couple who are members of Christ's church, despite the fact they worship with us here and find themselves increasingly and happily involved meanwhile - because their names are on a congregation's roll elsewhere.

Rolls and rules ... but what about relationships as well?

I sometimes think no wonder people leave 'the church' and say, Just give me Christ. I often feel the same!

What a great time I had in the evening, though! These were the fires of faith being stoked tonight as I had time again with the couple I see on an almost weekly basis in their home.

We've been talking a lot about how God speaks and how relationship with Christ can be a thing experienced by us. And bit by bit each week we seem to move a little further down the road. Which is great. I love the chat with them and I never know just where the time will lead.

Tonight as we sat and chatted round their table with a mug of coffee to hand, it was as if the Lord just gave me a Scripture passage and said, study this passage tonight. And so we did.

I suggested to them, You want to hear God speaking? Well, we'll turn to his word and listen in and maybe you'll hear his voice.

It was a remarkable evening. Because I think they heard his voice! Speaking with them, to them, about their situation. Directly, powerfully, and ever so clearly.

It was the kind of spine-tingling, goose-pimple, scary but I-wouldn't-miss-this-for-the-world type of thing. I think they just heard his voice. As we read and thought through the Scripture.

Like the Lord was saying to them as we read the story there - It's your story. You're in this story, too.

I thought about it afterwards. I've met with them now for a good many weeks: and, yes, we have good and illuminating chat: we toss around just who this person Jesus is and why we can be sure and what it means and where it leads and how he can be known. And it's good. Helpful.

But in two brief hours tonight, exposure to the Bible brought walls of their perplexity and doubt come tumbling down. I think they found it exciting, inspiring, almost like a major revelation and a massive revolution in their hearts. One short evening and a person's perspective can somehow be changed for good!

I guess that's how it is with Jesus Christ. 30 years of patient, silent, next-to-nothing living in a distant, northern town: and then the world is changed in 3 short years.

He did it way back then - and hasn't lost that touch!

It is just like a fire. You huff and puff and blow and blow and work to get it going. And then, in a single instant, the thing erupts in flame. The fires of faith, kindled and lit by the flash of fire from the Spirit of God himself.

Awesome!

confessions of an arsonist

Talk about fighting fires (well, I was on Monday!) - I've ended up causing fires myself!

That'll teach me.

A fire needs both fuel and flame. Forgetfulness on my part created the flame: a church of rules and regulations created the fuel. It doesn't take much to start a fire - I can vouch for that!

We have a couple who worship with us these days and share in our life as a people here, but whose names are on the roll of another congregation elsewhere in the city.

(In fact, I think we have quite a lot of people like that, but since we're never that bothered ourselves about formal things like 'rolls' of members, since that suggests that some are 'in' and the rest are 'out', we never really think about it much at all).

This couple have been with us now for a good long while - and there are good and obvious reasons why they've made that choice. But, as I say, their names are on a roll elsewhere, so technically, yes, they're members not where they are at present but where they used to be.

Which must seem odd to God, I think. But then probably a lot about the way we go about our life seems pretty odd to him!

Odd or not, that's their situation. And that sort of thing is just like so much dried out tinderwood. Fuel. Waiting for a spark of flame.

I obliged. Not intentionally at all, but through a trait I share in common with quite a lot of folk. It's called forgetfulness.

I'd forgotten to do what I'd said I'd do and I'd thereby failed to 'clear' a pastoral matter relating to this couple (who are now, in terms of their relationships, with us), with this other congregation (where they used to be and where, at least in terms of rules and rolls, their names still are).

Forgetfulness like that becomes a flame when there's fuel around: and, as I say, a fire is easily started! I just did it!

Who said 'church' wasn't complicated?!

So the day began with a fair old bit of calling different folk and sending off an e-mail here and there and writing most apologetic letters to the persons most affected by it all.

And most of the time, I have to confess, not really knowing whether to laugh or cry. Is this the way it's really meant to be?

Anyway, my time along at the school was a welcome relief! And not that complicated either, this week. I had them doing an exercise which I think they quite enjoyed: pretending to be librarians and trying to figure out where different books in the library called the bible each belonged.

At the end they were asking if I spoke Greek. So I told them I could, at least to get by in reading the Book - and I could also get by in Greece itself today. The first words you had to learn, I was telling them all, whatever the language you're aiming to speak - those words are simply I come from Scotland.

(Especially today when at night we'd go and beat France in Paris at football! Yesss!)

So they learned how to say I come from Scotland in modern Greek: and a wee boy came up and said that the first words that his Dad had learned in Spanish were ... all the swear words!

It's fun being there (the school, I mean - though I guess Spain's probaly quite fun as well)! And entirely unpredictable.

But by doing the course like this I can pop in to the school and see the teachers again - give them a sheet to let them know the answers to the exercise, for one thing (since I don't think they had much of a clue). But, more importantly, retain the contact, build the relationships. That sort of thing.

Lighting fires of a rather different sort, I suppose! Warming hearts with friendship, enthusing folk to see there's something worth exploring here.

Those sorts of fires were being lit at night as well. The climate change chat room gives the chance to get back to the bible once again and see how it applies to how we live today.

We had some fairly radical thoughts again! And who knows what may well result?!

The bible itself is surely like a flame: the Spirit of God, too. A blazing flame. And hungry hearts like ours are just the sort of fuel that flames like that embrace and turn to fire.

Later on, I called by on the couple at the heart of all the heat I'd caused by my forgetfulness (the ones that are actually here but nominally elsewhere): it was good to chat things through - and kind of striking, too, to see how fired up they themselves can be.

I'm not sure what I've set ablaze today! I'm maybe, almost accidentally, a kind of arsonist!

Perhaps I should take that line when I'm at the barber's next. What do you do? I'm an arsonist: I go around lighting fires!