simple, bare necessities

A lot of the day yesterday was spent working through Mum's 'things'.

My sisters are both up here this week, and I'm on holiday, so it made good sense to take the time to deal with all these matters while we could. A lot easier - and a lot more fun - doing it all together.

It's really been remarkably starightforward. Partly because my older sister is brilliant at that sort of thing. But partly, too, because my Mum didn't really have that much. Her affairs were pretty simple.

Being in the flat and sorting through her 'things' impressed upon my heart again the fact that none of these are things we can take with us when we die.

'Stuff' doesn't travel well. In fact it doesn't travel at all across the border to eternity.

And that very simple, basic fact of life struck home again quite powerfully. Simplicity has a lot of things going for it!

And not just when we die. Though there, not least, we do a massive favour to our relatives by living with a clear and kind simplicity. But while we live as well, it's not just those around us but ourselves as well we do the massive favour to.

I remember reading, a long, long time ago now, the journals of Jim Eliot, the missionary martyr of a previous generation: and I remember being struck by one of the quotes I read -

"God deliver me from the dread asbestos of other things."

I echo the prayer. Simplicity's the future. And I need to learn to make it also present in my life.

'The Road'

Yesterday I read a book. (Which explains there being no entry here!)

That's not all I did, certainly: I was at the shops, doing some washing, out in the garden, writing some letters, catching up on a whole load of different things.

But I read a book. One of the pleasures of having a break or holiday. You can do that sort of thing.

Read a book. As in the whole of a book. In one sitting.

It was called The Road. 300 and something pages. And in some ways pretty depressing stuff. About the end of the world.

It's a book in the mould of The Odyssey (from a long time back) or Cold Mountain (more recently). A journey. A father and son journeying south. For what? They couldn't really say. To where? Again, they couldn't really say.

Just journeying south. In something that is half-way house between despair and hope.

In some ways it's a pretty graphic picture of the outlook and perspective of the way our generation views the world.

I hadn't read twenty pages of the book (it's an easy read) before I was asking myself, where on earth is this going? And yet I was rapidly gripped. Enthralled. And kept on travelling on with these two nameless characters, the father and the son (interesting in itself!).

But that perhaps is the point. Where are we going? What is it all about? Why don't we just give up in rank despair concluding that there isn't any point in going on?

I guess because some deep and basic instinct keeps insisting that there's more to life than merely our survival. And down the generations as we keep on with this journey in the face of all the odds, maybe it will prove to be worthwhile.

Relationships. Love. Community. The good guys and the bad guys. God and life.

In the mixed-up, messed-up world in which we live our lives today, I guess it isn't easy to discern what life is all about and what its meaning is. Or even if there is such point and purpose.

The Road. And Jesus called himself the Way. It's a journey. No mistake.

We don't have all the answers. But we keep on journeying south. With him. The Son.

Moses' mother

The folk next door have just had their lives turned upside down. A baby. Their first. The revolution has begun!

Malcolm and I were chatting today. I was outside, working away at the laurel hedge. Cutting it back: reducing its height by a foot or so. I've begun to feel it's like a wall; a dark, imposing wall which makes it seem quite dark.

Anyway, I was out there at the hedge and Malcolm came over to chat. He was about to go out in the car, since their baby was bawling away like he wasn't all that happy. I mean I could hear him from where I was, so he must have been making a noise. I think Malcolm was glad to get out of the house!

I get on well with Malcolm, even though it's not in truth that often that we get to chat.

He works from home, so I asked him how the whole thing there was working what with baby being around. That got us onto the subject of work, of course, and so he started quizzing me about my work. The hours I keep. The sort of situations I can fihd myself involved in day by day.

'I suppose it's not a job,' he said at last. 'It must be more a way of life.' Which I guess is true. At least, I never really think of it as work. I'm doing the thing for which I feel I'm made. And that never feels like work.

Well, not like a job, at any rate. I mean, I think I'd happily do the things I do without being paid for it at all. If I got the sack, for instance, I think I'd still keep doing the very things I'm doing here and now.

It's a bit like being the mother of Moses, someone once observed. Some minister, I think. You have to know a bit of the Bible, obviously, to make that sort of clever observation.

Doing the thing that's closest to your heart - and getting paid for doing it!

(It's a slightly complicated story, the mother of Moses one. But it's well worth reading and thinking about, because it shows how good God is. I think he often works things out in life like that. He's just amazingly good. And all because he loves us. I can't ever get over that!)

Well that was how the chat with neighbour Malcolm reached its end. And I thought again what a wonderfully privileged guy I am. What a wonderful life I lead.

Sometimes I think I need a day off just to get things into that perspective once again!

preaching to myself

I was meeting a guy today from way down south.

(Actually he comes from what's still the north of England - even after the way they've managed to re-draw the map: but it feels like way down south from where we are up here!)

I haven't really met him all that much throughout my life. And when I do it's mainly pretty fleeting. But good. We kind of pick up pretty easily, whether it's two months down the line or twenty years since last we'd seen each other.

Those sort of friends are great to have. Not that I know him that well.

He's a long-time follower of Jesus. And honest with it. I'm not saying followers of Jesus aren't usually honest, but a lot of the time I sense they somehow feel they have to put on a bit of a show. Like, yeah, things are going great. When actually they're not. That sort of thing.

But this guy's very honest that way. He admits the sort of struggles that he has. Quite openly. The sort of guy who makes it OK for you to say you're struggling too.

Anyway, he was saying he'd been on sabbatical. Time out. Two and half months in fact. Not doing much, but mainly trying to listen to the Lord.

It wasn't a sort of late-life mid-life crisis or anything quite like that. But he's reaching the stage (like me, I guess, since we're much the same in age) when the time he's got left begins to look a bit tight.

So he wanted to get the Lord's take on his future. And took ten long weeks to listen.

I was interested in what he'd heard from the Lord. Partly because it felt like he'd done the listening for me as well! That what he'd heard was what I too was needing now to hear.

The first thing that he'd heard the Lord assuring him was that the next years of his life would be 'greater rather than lesser'. I think he was kind of worried that his best days now were past and that the rest of his life would be like the DJ slowly 'fading out' the music of his ministry. Like the impact and significance he had would just get less and less.

And God had told him, Not at all! It'll be bigger and better and greater by far. It felt good to hear him say that!

But the Lord had also spoken on the subject of priorities. Like he should concentrate on the things he was good at and, well, kind of made for. Instead of trying to do too much or doing things that were not in the end of the day really 'him'.

You see, he's great when it comes to ideas. And good at turning all these great ideas into things that help the church.

So he starts off simply setting up these 'projects'. I mean he's good at that. Very good.

But then the projects just take over. He ends up spending half his life managing these projects. Running them and doing all the publicity and writing fresh material and thinking up all sorts of things to keep the whole thing fresh and fine and always on the move.

I told him straight to drop it. I didn't really mean to be direct like that. It just came out. But I was glad that it did. And I think he was too.

"You're going to die," I said, "and be known only for your projects." I think he saw what I was getting at. So since I had the floor, I finished off. "And those projects are not really what I think you're all about. What God means and made you to be."

Well, I thought I'd said enough by then. So I shut up.

But he wanted to hear more. "OK," he said. "Tell me, then: what do you think I'm made for?"

So I did. As best as I was able.

I said that he was great in coming up with fresh ideas.

I said that he was wonderful with people: he puts people at their ease. It's a great gift he has.

And he's good at explaining what the good news is about. He's good with words. Spoken and on paper.

"You should concentrate on doing that," I said. Do the things you're best at. Not the things you can do, or are even good at doing. The things you do the best.

It felt like I was preaching to myself!

questions

I've just begun to notice a disturbing trend. Bit bit bit I'm moving down the school!

I started the year with the Primary 5s. And then there was a session with the Primary 4s. Today I was in with the Primary 3s. I think it's called 'regressing' - or something like that!

And the younger they get, the harder the questions they throw!

I was in, as I say, with the Primary 3s today. Another sort of loosely structured 'Questiontime' with me as the panel of five. Which doesn't leave a lot of room to hide!

First question up (in cricketing-speak, I think it's called a 'loosener'), first question up was a cracker - Is God a Christian or a Moslem? Some loosener! More like a full-blown 'yorker'! I felt like doing a runner there and then! If that was just an easy one to warm me up and get me in the mood, well ... I mean, how much harder were they going to get?!

Thankfully not much.

Though the questions were pretty probing. In fact it crossed my mind that this is what appraisals must be like! And probably the Inquisition!

What do you do with your time when there aren't any services on? Do you like your work? How often do you pray? That sort of thing. I mean, nothing too personal!

Do I like my work? Of course I do. And I told them exactly why.

What does it feel like being a Christian? Just great, I said. Exciting and fun. Full of adventure and full of surprises. And just being with Jesus, all of the time, it's got to be great.

How often do I pray? I never stop. I told them what prayer is and how it's just like you would want to chat non-stop with someone who's your friend.

Who do I work with? Well, loads of different people every day. But most of all, I said, I work alongside Jesus all the time. And try to do the sort of things that Jesus did.

Like going into the school and tossing around the questions children have!

I was ready for a coffee, I have to say, by the time I was finally done. But they seemed to enjoy my being there.

Doing the sort of things that Jesus did. And therefore does as well. That remains the challenge for me day by day. And always that means people.

In among the people. At the school, in their homes, wherever they may be.

I can't be with them all. I realise that. But I can be with some. I don't have any 'targets' that I set or anything like that. That's not the way that Jesus treated people one small bit. I simply try and listen to his voice and hear what he is saying and then go where he directs.

And at the end of the day, after both an afternoon and evening on those lines, it was back to the questions again.

I'd called on one of the Fellowship Groups which is leading the service on Sunday night. We chatted it through and got things clear. And then I simply said it's always good to listen to the question Jesus asked - what do you want me to do?

I try and face that question in relation to each service and each message I prepare. What do I want him to do?

And for Sunday night, not least, I think perhaps above all else I want him so to work through all that's said and done, that each one there will see the very glory of almighty God.

A big ask! But he's a big God and he likes to do the big thing.

Roll on Sunday!

small falls of snow

Well, I did my bit as a makeshift 'wise man from the east' when I went round to the school today. Bearing my gifts.

A slightly minty Terry's chocolate orange for the office staff and another of the same for the janny. A way of saying thank you to them all. And giving them a nice surprise to start the day.

I had to leave the janny's at his door since he was nowhere to be seen. But the office staff were glad of what they called a little treat. It maybe isn't much. But giving thanks in ways like that - I think it counts for much.

Little things, that prove to be quite big.

I was in for the school assembly. And though I wasn't speaking, nonetheless before the thing began I had the chance to chat again with pupils from the P4 classes who had given me that book on making soup. Another round of thanks. Reminding them I still had not forgotten what they'd done.

Little things again. But big in terms of how God's kingdom works.

The midweek lunchtime service is a little thing like that. Not long. Not huge in terms of numbers that attend. 30 rather than 300. That sort of size.

But it means a lot and counts for much among the people who are there. Most of them, I guess, no more than just a crowd of 'little' people in the blinkered estimation of the world. Elderly, frail and people on the margins in the main.

But big in the heart of God.

Like Ruth and Boaz, the people at whom we're looking these days through the course of the lunchtime services. Little in terms of background, both of them. The one a foreigner, the other the son of a harlot. Hardly promising starts in life.

But big in the heart of God.

So it's been a day of 'little things' I guess. Though one of the little tasks I had to do involved me going across to the other side of town to do a bit of lifting once again. 16 solid boxes of the booklets that we use in teaching Christian basics to our folk.

Coming Alive! and Staying Alive! and Forever Alive! With the publisher ceasing to trade they were ready to give us the rest of the books that they had at some crazily discounted price.

It didn't feel like these were 'little things' by the time that I was done! But I suppose that's all they are. Each book's not long or large. They would not really register at all on any sort of Richter scale of literary works of art.

But somehow in the purposes of God they nonetheless can prove to be quite big. Who knows?

I read tonight late on about glaciers. How they are the most powerful force the world has ever seen. And how they're formed, by one small fall of snow upon another over time. And how as the snow gets deeper so the weight compresses, ice is formed, and then yet further falls of snow which turns again to ice.

And so on, over years. "Nothing happens for a long time, but when the glacier is sixty four feet thick it starts to move, and once it starts nothing can stop it."

I found the picture striking. One small fall of snow upon another over time. Little things.

I found it very striking. Exciting even. For the writer concluded, "I tell myself that little things matter. ... Keep it up for a lifetime or two or three, and then one day - it must - the ice will begin to slide."

jazz

My life is pretty varied, that's for sure.

Despite normality returning. 'Normal' for me is anything but routine: it's far from being a neatly planned out thing and always most predictable.

No days are ever the same. And how I maybe think that things will run is rarely how they actually do. Rarely, did I say? More like probably never!

So today's been pretty normal. It started OK, with my making the soup. Though even that is rarely either 'normal' or predictable.

I don't use any recipes. I don't believe that soups are really meant to be that sort of thing: I think that if cooking's conceived as equivalent to music, then soups are the platform for jazz.

There are some basic rules, of course. But mostly you're free to improvise. As the mood takes you (and, to some extent, of course, as the items for sale in the shops allow).

I like to think the way I live the whole of life is pretty much like jazz. Some basic rules, and a basic tune, but improvising all the time, pouring into every day that personalised interpretation of the score that God has given us in Christ.

The 'jazz' today took over fairly rapidly. I found myself doing lifting jobs, removing from the Hall the set of staging they'd been using there last night: taking it down, packing it into the cars and taking it round to the school to whom the stuff belongs.

Hardly your average 'cleric', all neat-and-tidy, shirt-and-collar sitting at an academic desk and pondering oh so piously the text of holy Scripture in the Greek. This was more the sleeves-rolled-up, dusty, dirty, sweat-inducing graft of helping out.

The sort of thing that Jesus did.

And it took me among the people again. Over to the school. And it crossed my mind when over there while speaking with the 'janny' and the secretarial staff that a nice little gift for each of them would give them all a little boost and, more than that, a very nice surprise. I'll do that tomorrow, I think.

Today had to do with another gift. Again, not what I'd planned.

Well, I'd planned the gift and taken steps to see about acquiring it. It was just I hadn't planned on heading off to the shops today to pick it up.

We wanted to give a kind of 'musical' memorial to the place we have for the coffees and lunches each day - and to the people who work there, too, of course! In memory of my Mum, for whom the place was very much a genuine oasis in these latter years of life.

So we'd figured that a music centre would be good. And I'd got the experts here to go and do the recce and determine what equipment would be best.

They'd acted pretty speedily! And so I got a call to say that what they'd chosen had been put aside and I should go and pay for it and pick it up and then they'd start this evening to install it here on site.

So in I went to the shop and picked it up and waited at the counter as they sorted out the bill. There were two of them there behind the little counter in the shop. I could see that one was rather puzzled and the other had a worried sort of smile across his face.

They were about to give me the thing for nothing! On the basis that their flashy, new computer was informing them the payment had been made. I'd gone in to buy a gift - and here they were about to give the gift to me for absolutely free!

(We're talking here some quite big bucks!)

I understood the nature of that worried smile across the poor man's face. Should he trust his hi-tech, new computer? Or should he trust his instinct? Or should he trust his customer who stood there (with a smile on my face now as well!) insisting that the payment would be made.

He thanked me for my honesty. I smiled at my naivety. We laughed at how a simple straight transaction can become so very complicated in our modern, hi-tech world.

The shop was about to donate me this gift. And I was insisting on paying!

We didn't quite have a stand-off over it. But it might have come to that. Because I didn't want to give a gift that cost me nothing.

It gave me an insight into the heart of God again. His gift to us is always free. And he insists on paying. That way of life, I guess, is bound to be like jazz.

'dental' care...

Jesus wasn't a dentist. Nothing like.

Not that I have anything against dentists as such. My dentist is a very pleasant guy. And, what's more, he actually lives in the parish.

So, at least in theory, I suppose I have a sort of pastoral responsibility for him. We get on fine - thankfully - and I think (from memory, though it needs to be a long memory) he was once at a service of worship. A Christmas Eve service if I recollect aright.

But most of the time the 'ministry' is the other way: his exercising his dental care for me.

Today gave him another opportunity for that sort of ministry.

He was tending to the needs of a family when I came in, taking them one by one. A mother and her two young daughters.

And not long after I'd arrived he came into the waiting room laughing his head off. A slightly ominous sign, I felt. Dentists don't usually do that. Or, if they do, you get the sense they've maybe gone just a little bit 'trigger'-happy.

'Pliers'-happy is possibly more to the point. He'd just extracted one of the daughter's teeth, it transpired. And here he was, chuckling away and finding the whole thing hugely amusing!

I mean, that's a worrying start to another Monday morning, I must confess.

I thought about rapidly making some lame excuse for leaving there and then. Another pressing engagement which I was likely now to miss. Something like that.

But since we'd just been chatting about the ninth of God's commands last night (effectively, Don't lie) at the meeting we have for pupils in S4-S6, I thought I should try and practice what I preached.

Be brave. That sort of thing. Or at least be semi-responsible: and not tell lies.

So I stayed. Prepared to face the worst the dentist might decide to do.

Lying back on the dentist's chair, your mouth kept widely open, there's not a lot to do but think.

And it crossed my mind that most folk maybe view the Christian minister in much the way they also see the dentist. Which, of course, is by and large as little as possible!

I mean, we recognise that, at least from time to time, we actually need to see the dentist. We don't particularly like it, but it's probably good we go.

There's a kind of spiritual 'plaque' that bit by bit builds up in all our lives. And needs to be removed. And so we go and sit uncomfortably in that ecclesiastical version of the 'dentist's chair' (commonly called a 'pew').

And, again, it's pretty much a one-way sort of traffic that goes on. It simply happens to us and there's not a chance to speak. The dentist, of course, as I said at the start, he's a very pleasant man: jovial, smiling, and really very kind (all at a bit of a price, though).

But once I'm there and sitting in that seat, any sort of traffic that there is, it's very much one-way. He gets to speak and I'm his captive audience.

And it crossed my mind how frighteningly reminiscent that all is of being 'in church'.

Probably good for you. And the guy's very nice and all that. But it's hardly from choice that we (most of us) go - and it's not with an eagerness, relish or joy!

That's why I say that Jesus was hardly a dentist!

He puts a smile on our lips, for sure. He cleans up our act, removes all the 'plaque' of our foul-smelling sin, and equips us to speak in a way that's convincing and clear.

But he's not your average dentist, anything like.

For one thing we don't go to him. He comes to us. And then again he doesn't kind of throw us to the ground and then address a monologue in our direction to which there's not a hope of our addressing a reply.

He comes to us and sits with us and chats with us. Becomes a friend. And as a friend he kind of sits in the chair for us as well as with us. It's painless. Free. Exhilerating stuff.

The diametric opposite of what the dentist's like. And what the church is often like as well. And maybe, too, what I myself am often too much like.

I mean, they get good pay, these dentists do: and I've nothing against them really. But, please, I don't want to be a dentist in the way I live my life.

I want to be like Jesus.

final preparation

Saturday's when the time gets short and getting things all ready for tomorrow is the order of the day.

So it maybe seems odd that I take the day off! But the bulk of the work's all been done through the week and there's a lot to be said for the way that I use the day.

Outside, inside, sitting, standing; all sorts of different mainly little tasks. Mainly 'therapeutic' in a way as well. Cooking meals and cleaning dishes; digging soil and trimming hedges; reading, shopping, walking, dozing.

It's basically sort of 'switching off'. Not doing the things I usually do. And giving my mind and my heart a little bit of breathing space to stand back and reflect on all the Lord's been trying to say to us throughout these past few days.

Then coming back at night to get it all in focus once again. And do my final preparation.

And let the Lord so feed his word right into every fibre of my being that when I come to speak to folk tomorrow I'm speaking with a passion and conviction and a sense of what that word has meant to me.

I have to have felt the thing first. That's the point.

So the challenge of a Saturday, above all else, is simply this - to get that word from God right into my lifeblood and soul. Till I can hardly wait for the Sunday to come!

time and space

There are days when I simply sort of take time out.

Not doing nothing, I should add. Anything but. No, it's more a case of my ensuring that I'm not being just so busy that I don't have time to listen in to God.

It's his word, after all, the people want to hear. Not mine. I mean, not even I really want to hear my word. So I have to take the time to hear just what God's saying. That takes time and space and simply being alone. With him, of course.

This week I've needed that as much as ever, there's been that much going on. So many different tasks to be attended to, so much in the way of running around.

I'm not saying that it's not been good, or that the things that I've been doing have been largely wasted time. Not at all. It's just that sometimes being so very busy is itself a sort of smart, sub-conscious therapy we use to try and shield our hearts from what we fear the silence and the slowness might then bring.

Like if we live our lives at such a pace perhaps the pain will never catch us up. Maybe there's something of that in the speed of our living these days. (Or maybe not!)

Today, though, it's the time and space I've needed, to be able to sit down alone and simply hear what God is saying to us all. And that's been good. I need a day like this.

the chains of routine tasks

It's funny the things that stick in the mind.

Like I often remember the old Erskine ferry (it may have been the Renfrew ferry, one of the two at any rate!). The way the cars drove on and then the ferry took us out across the river Clyde towards the other side. And then out in the middle the current took hold of the boat and dragged it sometimes way down river from the point we knew we should be disembarking.

But, of course, there were chains beneath the water and the nearer that we approached the other side, the more the chains kicked in and hauled us back to where the landing ramp was set.

As a child it always seemed like some strange sort of magic. And in some ways, even now, the memory of it all retains that lovely, magic aura which is integral to just so much of life as viewed through children's wondering eyes.

I was thinking of that again today. The ferry. And those strong, secure but always unseen chains which kept the boat from simply drifting in the currents way down stream.

The chains of our normal routines in some ways serve a function that's in truth quite like those chains the Erskine ferry used to have. Because there is a river that needs to be crossed when someone so dear passes on.

Those chains of our normal routines are the things, I'm now aware, which keep us from being swept away downstream when travelling bit by bit across the rivers of our grief. For the currents of such grief are often strong.

And crossing to the other side and getting on with life is far from being an easy task. We're really at the mercy of a potent flow of sorrow and of sadness which can surely most times otherwise quite knock us right off course.

Those unseen chains of all the basic routines of our 'normal' lives are just the thing we need, I guess, to drag us to the other side and where we need to be.

Today's been a bit like that again. The 'routine' tasks involved for me in planning and preparing for the services again as Sunday starts to loom: the 'routine' tasks of calling by on different homes and seeing a range of very different people for all sorts of different reasons.

These 'routine' tasks, they kind of subtly, slowly serve to drag me gently back on course and back to where I'm meant to be when landing on the other side.

There's something in the book of psalms about the Lord, in just that way, bringing us safely to our desired haven.

Often in the imagery we use, the 'river' is a picture for our death: the final, potent river that we have to cross. But it isn't the only great river there is for us all to be crossed. Grief is a river just like that as well.

But whatever the river, and however strong the currents in that river prove to be, the Lord has set those chains in place which bring us safely over to the place we need to be.

So I thank God once again today for the chains of all those routine, often fairly humdrum, little tasks my daily work involves. They keep me, even in the midst of flowing grief, they keep me right on track.

the fresh air of normality

Bit by bit the harsh and sore reality of death sets in.

Bit by bit the people who've been present, and who by their very presence formed a warm protective cushion round our tender hearts, drift off and leave us to ourselves. And rightly so.

The starkness of a loved one being no longer there is something that we slowly must engage. That telling 'void' cannot be long avoided.

And so, as each day passes by, normality returns.

Except it's not normality at all! The routines of our daily lives are taken up again. And bit by bit the comfort of a crowd of friends and family all at hand is eased away.

The strip of padded sticking plaster requires to be removed. The wound needs air. The fresh air of normality returns.

Today's been one more step back to normality. A meeting with the lawyer while the four of us were still all there. A little bit of catching up on various different sequels to the service here on Monday at midday. And, once again, goodbyes.

My brother and his daughter heading back again to Zambia. These past few days (not even one whole week) a sudden 'blip' of richly blessed reunion in the pattern of his being away to which we've only just got used.

Hard to see them go and say goodbye. Again. The very saying 'goodbye' itself another painful echo of that deeper, yet more painful sort of parting that these past days have involved.

And my sisters, too, will be heading off tomorrow. And the sense of isolation and of being here on my own to grieve my Mum will then, I guess, be thoroughly complete.

The service back on Monday was the high point when the healing touch of God himself was manifestly evidenced in all our lives. But healing needs not just the soft, protective gauze of moments such as that. It needs, as well, fresh air.

Normality.

Tomorrow that kicks in big time.

a final act of gratitude

It was way too late (and I was far too tired) by the time the day was done to even think about an entry here last night.

But the day was good and a fitting sort of closure to the life that Mum had lived.

And closure it certainly was. Funerals spell finality. They draw a very final line. Which is good, but hard.

Yesterday was just that combination. Very hard, in lots of ways. But very good as well. Very good. A wonderful day, from all sorts of different ponts of view. Uplifting, engrossing, inspiring, amusing. A comfort and strength in reflection and praise.

People. Loads of people. Special people. People representing in their own unconscious ways the whole extensive spectrum of Mum's life. A kind of huge, expanded version of that television programme from a by-gone age - 'This is your life'.

Except she wasn't there herself. And of course we felt that often keenly through the day. And yet, throughout, the sorrow of the present grief we feel was buttressed and sustained by both our gratitude for all that's been and with that, too, our hope for all that's yet to be.

Upheld in that way, it sometimes seemed our feet had little chance of ever really resting on the ground of all our present grief and pain. Such days will surely come.

But yesterday, as all such days are meant, I think, to be - yesterday was little short of heaven here on earth. At least, a sort of glimpse of that: a tiny little foretaste. To whet our spirit's appetite and make us long for more.

There was a great and lovely gathering of a host of different people, as I say, from all the farthest corners of Mum's life. Some fifty five close relatives (at least), converging on this little village church where Mum had spent her final years: and by their very number, quite apart from all the warmth and open pleasure in their meeting once again, laying stress upon the value and the blessing of that family life which Mum had held so dear.

What comfort there is in these seasons of grief in the visible, tangible sense that such numbers impart that we aren't, and will not be, alone.

What comfort as well in the praise of the Lord and the sense that such praise always brings that our God is both present and always so able to save.

The singing at the brief committal service which began this day of parting was inspiring from the start. A loud and lusty singing of the great Welsh tune Cym Rhonnda with the rich and graphic verses of the well-known hymn 'Guide me O thou great Jehovah'. Enough to bowl you over in itself.

And the singing at the service of thanksgiving later on was just as strong and just as fully steeped in all the thrilling sense of God's own gracious presence in our midst. Our sadness was entirely overshadowed by the overwhelming consciousness of God himself among us in such grace and love and power.

Such times as that are humbling, tingling, absolutely wonderful. It's hard to feel sad, despite all the sorrow that's there. And I don't believe that any of us did. Not then. Though the day will come when we do. It always does. And needs to.

As for me, I was so very much aware of what a privilege it is to lead this people's worship in remembrance of the life my Mum had lived and with such gratitude to God for all she's been. It's hard to think of any greater privilege that that. To offer up to God like that a lifetime's worth of gratitude for all that has been wrought through her who gave me birth.

My prayer was this above all else, that all that would be said and done should be a fitting testament to all that God had been to her and wrought through her and given to us all. Of all the funeral tributes that I've made I prayed that this might be the best.

My final act of gratitude to her. A fitting final sacrifice of praise to God himself to close her life. And to help us all move on, both stronger and more earnest in the living of our lives for him.

(To listen to the service of thanksgiving go to http://www.dmpc.org.uk/Downloads/index.php)

God's kind providences

For six weeks after my father died, some twenty three years ago, no one died.

At least, not in the parish I was serving back then. Neither before nor since, in my time as a parish minister, have I ever had such a lengthy run of 'empty' weeks, without a single funeral service to conduct.

It was strange. Very strange.

It felt at the time as if the Lord was very gently shielding me from what was always going to be a difficult thing to do. Like he wisely, kindly, simply gave me space to mourn my father's death.

I was very grateful to him. Still am.

The Lord is good that way. Well, he's good every way, of course! But little things like that are really pretty special and they mean a lot.

It sort of let me know, in a very personal way, that he actually cares for me - and cares so much that the smallest little detail of my life is given the attention of the great eternal God.

Amazing really when you think about it!

In a strange sort of way it's been much the same this week as well. Very different, of course, because this time round I'll be myself conducting the service of thanksgiving.

Which was not the case with my Dad. Back then I knew most clearly from the Lord that I should have no part at all in leading any aspect of the service that was held. With my Mum it's very different. I'm pastor of her church, for one thing. But more than that, a few years back the Lord made it crystal clear to me that I was to take her funeral.

And today I was conducting a service of thanksgiving for another family person. A lady much the same age as my Mum.

And a lady, moreover, who died about two weeks back. I cannot think of when I've ever had that sort of gap between a person's death and then their funeral. And I'm still not all that sure just why there's been that gap in this particular case.

Strange, again.

As if the Lord himself somehow postponed the funeral service till today so that I could have a sort of 'trial run' before I take the services for Mum on Monday of next week.

It was hard, I have to say: but a help. I think I almost needed that. And so, with really quite a striking sort of providence, the Lord himself provided that.

I was glad I'd prepared it yesterday, though. For the bulk of the morning today was spent with my sisters and brother as we worked on the service for Mum.

Again, a bit like yesterday, it was almost like living two parallel lives. In a strange sort of way it helps me understand a wee bit more just what it must be like for God himself.

The God who serves as father and as pastor to the world he made. And yet the God who's very much a part of it as well. The God who comforts others yet is greived and pained himself.

the energy of grief

There's always a lot to do in the days between a death and subsequent funeral.

Which is probably just as well.

Grief creates its own distinctive energy, an emotional force which acts as a sort of shield around our souls to guard us from the impact of that asteroid-like debris which a million different memories has formed.

We keep going. Perhaps because it's too hard and sore to stop.

But there are things to do! A load of little routine, formal tasks which soak up all that energy and channel that strange mixture of our gratitude and grief down avenues which somehow help us honour still, beyond the day of death, a person whom we loved so much.

Today's had its share of those tasks. Registering the death. Arranging flowers (I mean, not literally doing some flower arranging, but making sure that flowers will be there to beautify and brighten Monday's worship). Speaking with the organist. Sorting out the details of the lunch we'll hope to have for those who come to share in Monday's service of thanksgiving.

That sort of thing. It has its own inherent therapy, I guess.

All kinds of everything remind us of her (to change the words of the song).

And doing these little tasks provides recurring contexts where the memories are rehearsed: and doing them with each other serves to draw out from the bonds of family ties the God-imparted 'nectar' of both comfort and of strength.

But life goes on as well, of course. And rightly so.

And so I've found that I've been almost juggling different lives today. The life of a son. And the life of a pastor, too.

So while the girls went off (my sisters, I mean!) to attend to things at the Bank, I went round to the school to Primary 4.

They'd sent me a book, along with their letters of thanks, to say how much they had appreciated my going round a week or two ago to answer all their questions on what my life involves.

The Soup Bible. That was the name of the book. A beautiful book it is, as well. All suitably inscribed with thanks.

I found it very touching that they'd thought to give me that. So I wanted to give my thanks and I'd written a card and took it round and had the chance to say to them in person what it meant to have that token of their thanks.

Maybe I'm becoming in their minds the soup pastor! Not inappropriate - I think I have, like most of us, that dreadful inbuilt bias which often seems to land me in the soup!

The hardest thing today, though, was preparing for another funeral service which is taking place tomorrow. Grief is a fiercely possessive thing!

You'd think it would be easy, since there's grief already there within my heart, to feel my way right into all the grief this other family know. Which is what I always try to do. Since God himself does that.

But it doesn't seem to work like that! And I think it's because of the huge 'possessive' nature of all grief.

I managed to prepare the service, though, and was pleased to have that done. That leaves me free to give more concentrated thought to what the service for my Mum is going to be.

I need both time and space for that! And it's those that I'm trying to create. Which isn't proving easy!

holy ground

The long line of days when there's been no entry here tells its own story.

Like the long flat line on the hospital screen which gently draws a final line beneath a person's life, the lack of entries here has been occasioned by the steady downward line of Mum's declining health and then, at midday yesterday, her peaceful, sacred death.

(That wasn't a miss-print, by the way! It was holy ground on which we all stood, and not a frightening experience at all).

The bulk of my life has been spent at the side of her bed these past few days. And I wouldn't have chosen to be anywhere else at all. Her dieing, and her death itself, was marked throughout by just so many tokens of the gracious hand of God upon us all.

And I mean that. Just so many, constant tokens of his hand upon our lives. It's actually that, far more than any sorrow there might be, it's that, the sheer, persistent, overwhelming goodness of the Lord I find the hardest thing to cope with in it all!

Does that sound strange? I think our hearts can cope with pain and sorrow - however hard and sore such things can be - far better than they cope with that huge, eternal, ever so extravagantly tender love of God. My heart is simply just not big enough to cope with and contain the vastness of such wild and warm and winsome love from God.

If my heart is broken at all, it's not by the shattering blows from outwith of that grief at the death of my Mum; but rather from within, through being stretched beyond its bursting point by the personal, perfect, always so particular love and care of God the great Creator for the likes of such as me.

These last few days we've simply been beside her. And with her through these days we've known, in ways that go beyond all words - we've known the Lord himself being there beside us too.

It was, in truth, a privilege.

That thin, flat line which separates eternity from time is very much the line on which we stood. And on that fragile threshold it was given us to see, to catch some small and fleeting glimpse of God in all the glory of his love and grace and power in Jesus Christ.

Awe before the bright, effulgent majesty of God is what we knew. Our feet have surely stood on holy ground.

needing repair

When I was in at the hospital the other day (it must have been the first day Mum was in), I saw a sign on a bed across the floor.

It said simply, 'Needing repair - do not use'.

Which was interesting. Given that there was someone in the bed!

Though it crossed my mind that the sign was maybe referring not to the bed but to the person in the bed! Possible, I suppose. But unlikely!

I figured the bed was having to be used simply because of the pressure there was for care. Not ideal, to have to use a bed that's needing repair. But then we don't really live in an ideal world and sometimes that's just what you have to do.

From time to time we feel like that ourselves. Needing repair - but nonetheless continuing much as ever. Necessity demands it in a far from ideal world.

Saturdays, for me, perhaps reflect at least a hint of just that truth.

We, each of us, we do need that repair. A busy, full, demanding week will take its toll. The one day off the Bible urges on us all has that in mind. We need the rest, a chance to be restored, refreshed, renewed.

We need time out. Repair.

And yet it doesn't always work out quite like that! I guess I had a bit of that today.

The prayer and then the breakfast at the halls to start the day was something of the sort.

But mostly it was more of the same that the last few days have held. Up at the hospital through the afterrnoon to be with Mum. Then down at the halls at night to do some preparation for a Sunday which has come round rather fast!

I smiled at the thought of the sign on the bed. A picture of myself. Needing repair - but nonetheless still fit for use. At least I hope I am!

angel

When I was in at the hospital through the afternoon to be beside my Mum, I got talking to a man from the Philippines.

I presumed he was a nurse from what he did, but because I'm not familiar with the nuances of the way they dress I didn't get it right. He was something less than a nurse, a nursing auxiliary or something like that.

In another life, he's actually a professor at the university, teaching US and Asian history. But now he's here, along with his wife, he's settled for a rather different job.

His name was Angel (pronounced 'Ang-hel', the Hispanic way, he said). And he's a Christian: and his name means 'messenger' (he didn't tell me that - I just happen to know that!).

It crossed my mind that that's a great name to have, so very much appropriate for those who follow Christ. Messengers.

Our lives and our words bring a message to those that we meet. That's what I'm called to do. Each day. Wherever I am. Whatever I do.

I started to think of all that my day had involved. I'd been at the school (the secondary school) first thing. A 5th and 6th year assembly. A chance to say a brief few words to all these teenage pupils.

A message. It made sense, my being a messenger.

From there I went on to call on a couple whose mother had died. The funeral's not till next week, but it was good to be with them, to let them chat on about all that this lady had been.

I must have been there for close on an hour, a lot of the time just listening to what they were saying and how they were feeling and why the man's mother had plainly made such a big impact on him and his brother and all of their children as well.

A message? Well, I suppose there was a simple message that I brought. A message of a God who cares: a God who sits and listens to the stories of our lives and to the whispers of our hearts: a God who will remember all the details of our individual needs.

A message such as that is only brought by sitting there - not speaking all the time. But nonetheless, there's still a message there.

The afternoon was mostly in the hospital. My Mum's not well at all. A lot of the time she simply drifted in and out of sleep - or that strange land half-way between a wakefulness and sleep.

So there wasn't a lot of chatting going on. It was more a case of simply being there for those moments when she opened up her eyes and looked around. I guess it's reassuring when the first thing that you see is something most familiar.

Peace is what I give you, Jesus said. I want to do the same. To give my Mum some peace amidst so much that is confusing and distressing at this time. 'Angel', again. A messenger.

Having seen her in the afternoon, I worked at night: and arriving here at the Halls I met a girl from primary 5, out with a friend on roller blades. We got chatting. She's the one who started pitching up on Sunday mornings and who really so enjoys it all.

She'd loved the P5 classes that I'd led. So I asked her if she'd like to read the passage from the Bible at the service this coming Sunday. (The person I'd hoped would do it had not been able). She was thrilled to be asked, over the moon!

'Angel', again! A messenger of grace. A bit like the angel appearing to Mary. Well, in some ways! A message of significance. This girl was being told she's significant. And I won't forget the look on her face when that fact hit home! Wow!

But the night wasn't done. I was up at the hospital once again late on. My Mum was far from well. I was glad I'd gone. My sister and I were able to be there as they tried a procedure which is always both sore and distressing. Without success, which only made it worse.

'Angels', again. You're not alone. The message that we, all of us, always need to hear.

you got a friend

Jesus had it right.

(I mean, of course he did, but sometimes one more little aspect of the way he lived hits home with freshness and with power).

Although he was their teacher, they were not his pupils but his friends. That's how he viewed them. That was the relationship he sought. You are my friends.

He enjoyed being with them and was glad of their presence, support and their sharing in his work. They did the kingdom thing together. On the level with one another. As friends.

He had it right (as I said at the start!).

It's good to be surrounded by your friends. That's what I'm trying to say, I guess. Folk here have been great today. We simply pull together here and root for one another.

They're my friends. And it's great being on the receiving end of all of that. Understanding, concerned, helpful, supportive and kind. Setting me free to be up at the hospital more and there with my Mum for some time.

Of course, it's been a lovely sort of providence of God as well that my sister's been up from Wales this week: she was there at the hospital today from about midday - right on through to the sort of 'closing time' at night (about 10pm).

My Mum will have been so grateful for that. The presence at her side of one she knows - providing a sort of anchor of familiarity amidst the churning seas of so much that is uncertain and unclear.

Though I walk through the valley of deep darkness I will not be afraid, for you are with me. I know he said that "you are my friends", but more important still is simply this - he is our friend. There for us always in our time of need.

I think my sister's presence in the ward is a sort of sacrament of God's own constant friendship, love and care. Embodying the presence of our risen Lord. That sort of thing.

In some ways that's exactly what we're called to be as followers of Jesus Christ. People who simply bring his presence and his friendship into every place we go. People who embody him. Jesus, in flesh and blood today.

In a sense, I suppose, that's all I ever seek to do and be.

That very thought had crossed my mind when in at the school today. I wasn't there long. The usual Thursday sort of thing. Over coffee. Brief. Spontaneous. Unstructured.

A chance to chat with whoever's free. A chance to simply be there. A presence. The presence of Jesus, his friendship and care.

Idle chat, the bulk of the time. Light-hearted, relaxed and mostly fairly fleeting. A word with the teachers, the briefest encounter with Douglas the janitor there, a simple touching base with the two hard-working secretaries on entry and departure (I have to sign in and out each time I'm there!).

Friendship again. Often expressed in the little things.

I had to laugh in the late afternoon when I was up at the hospital seeing my Mum. I was chatting away to the lady in the adjoining bed and in the course of all the chat she asked what I did, and was I a school teacher! I said, Yes, I do that sometimes, too!

Half-kidding, of course!

(I asked her why she thought I was a school teacher and she it was because I sounded intelligent! And, here, I thought she was in hospital for a gall bladder problem!).

But it did cross my mind that there simply isn't any one thing that I do. And most of what I do is really bound up with mainly being a friend. That's what I do when I teach in the school. Jesus was their teacher, but the pupils were his friends.

That's what I do whatever I'm at. Because that's what Jesus did. And does.

I had a great long chat today with a guy, now up in years, who's doing just that as well. Using all his expertise and strength to help address the poverty so many face in a country far from here. Practical help. Putting people on their feet.

Being their friend. It was challenging hearing his story. Exciting, too. And who knows how that story may continue in the days to come - and how it might involve us here as well.