no wasted journeys

It's been a wasted journey, I'm afraid.

Those were the words they used at the school when I went in first thing to find the assembly was cancelled.

Given the rain was chucking it down and I'd come all that way on foot (not that it's more than a five minute walk) - and would have to return in like manner - I could see what they meant.

Except it didn't really feel like a wasted journey at all. Some good fresh air and exercise. A chance to pop into the P5 class and see the children there. The people that I passed and spoke to on the journey there and back. Hardly a wasted journey.

I don't like to think that any journey's 'wasted' in the providence of God. Perhaps because I'm conscious that it is indeed a 'journey' that I'm on these days.

That 'Abram-esque' adventure where I do not really know just where it all will end. Just that I'm travelling. Going out from where I've been for long enough. Exploring new terrain. Going right on off the map.

But in thinking back, it seems as if my day has been a series of some rather different journeys.

The journey to school at the start of the day. And another small brick being set in place in the building of relationships.

Then later on a journey to the crematorium for the funeral of the man who'd died last week. The 'big man', Charlie. The massive Hearts and Monarchs fan.

It was different, the funeral service, I'm bound to say. Not quite the usual sort of format and not quite the sort of content that I'd normally expect. Music from the Hearts CD, with the singing of the songs the fans there sing. (We did have a couple of hymns as well!).

But I really quite enjoyed the time, if that's the word to use. 'Enjoyed' because there was for me the joy of God's own presence in it all. Like Jesus at the wedding there in Cana long ago. It was like he pitched up here as well.

I didn't wear the robes I usually do. That was, I think, symbolic in its way. I took off all the 'clothing' of religion. Like Jesus did.

I tried to get beside these folk and understand their grief. To share their joys and sorrows, to relate to their emotions and engage with all their feelings at this time. And yet to bring God's message to them all. As a friend, on a level with them. And not some distant, other-worldly piety which would leave them feeling cold.

I enjoyed the challenge and was conscious of the privilege it is to journey, just like Jesus did - journey to, and enter then, the world in which the people here now live.

Not a wasted journey. Not at all.

But I wondered, too, about the life this man had lived. How possible it always is to make of life a dreadful, wasted journey. To end up going nowhere in our lives. To miss the point. To lose the plot and wander off and miss the One who is himself 'the way'.

And live a life that is in fact, when all is said and done, another wasted journey. I tried to get that across to the folk. I felt it pretty strongly.

From there I had a journey to the hospital.

Ian, a friend and fellow leader here, was ill. He's struggled for a good few months with failing health. He's always bright and always such a tonic when you see the man. But his breathing's been bad and it's not been an easy time for him. Or for his devoted family as well, of course.

He was back into hospital through last week and I'd seen him then. But today he had taken a turn for the worse. I got a call from his wife (in a roundabout way) so went in and was there at his side.

I wasn't there long as his daughters came in soon after - his wife was already there. They needed time together as a family. Ian's always been such a wonderful family man and all of them adore him through and through. Understandably.

The nurses then shifted him through to a single room and so there were some moments when I had the chance to be with them all.

They were all upset, of course. I prayed with them all as they waited there that the Lord would give them the grace and the strength to make these last sore hours of his life a very special time. (I mean 'sore' for them, especially: Ian was really not distressed at all).

Mother Theresa always used to say the ministry she had in being there for and with the people whom she served on passing from this earthly life was very much akin to what a midwife does in bringing someone into this strange world.

There are few greater privileges given to folk than 'birthing' a person from this world to the next. So we prayed for the grace to fulfil that role. And we prayed that Ian's son would make it in time (he had to travel down from Aberdeen).

Not a wasted journey. Not for Ian's son. Not for myself. Not for any single one of them at all.

I wasn't there long at that time. But I was glad to have been there then.

I called back later on. Another journey, back through the maze of the hospital wards. Ian had died a half hour back or so.

Our prayers were well and truly answered though. His son had made it in time. They were all of them there at his side when he died. And they'd made those final moments of Ian's life a very special, hallowed time indeed. Full of the presence of God.

And, yes, it brought it all back home to me, the way my Mum had died as well. It felt like we were all in it together. Like all the saints, we all belong to one big, lasting family. Who journey on together to a better world.

So we stayed there and we chatted quite a while. With laughter and tears and sorrow and joy. We spoke about the man he was, the life he lived, the love he showed. We read from a Psalm and we thanked the Lord and we asked for grace.

And we knew, above all else, the way that Ian had lived his life, it was no wasted journey.

Not at all.

He'd found the way, he'd journeyed well. And he'd reached his destination.

It was humbling and thrilling to see it and share it and know it.